.:DataWhat?:.

"Mousewife to Momshell" is a pretty great line...

2012-01-17T19:58:00.009-05:00

I have opinions about music.

So the first time I heard Van Halen's new single "Tattoo" was on WRIF and Drew and Mike were talking over the top of it, so I couldn't hear any of the lyrics. I remember thinking that from between the DJ bro-talk of "Cooter & The Bear In The Morning" it sounded a lot like Van Halen.

Big toms, lots of cymbal SHOOOSHing, a hammery guitar EVH solo, some DLR vocal goosestepping...sounded just about right.

Then I made the mistake of watching the video which was just awful.

Total amateur hour.

I know it *could* be said that they were harkening back to the old days of low budgets and the fellas just goofin' and riffin', but it (and the YouTube video "ticker announcement" that was the intro of 3 songs from 1984 with recycled footage for 3 minutes) proved one clear thing to me:

YOU NEED A MARKETING DEPARTMENT

Radiohead probably doesn't, Bjork seems to get by just fine, even The Darkness seems to be getting by on their own ego sweat and cocksure hilarity. But if you're going to record the album in your own studio and make your own chunky teenaged kid the bass player, you may not be making all the best decisions in the "Consumer Facing" department.

So then today I watched the other fan-made video that Dave passed around:

and it really changed my opinion of the tune.

While the DLR lyric about tattoos is really sub-par, the verses about coal tattoos and the "crazy stuff we'd never say" being poetry in ink started to make sense (Diamond Dave-sense anyway) so the pretty pichers of gurls in a Van Halen video turned the tide a bit for me.

At one point Dave drops down to a semi-sultry/creepy uncle spoken word part that ain't too far off from other stuff he's done (I'm looking at you "I reach down/Between my legs and/Ease the seat back" which was semi-creepy 28 years ago), but ultimately the song really sounds like Van Halen, so I came to the following conclusion:

"Tattoo" is occupying some kind of alternate-dimension space between "Panama" and "Yankee Rose"

"Panama" has the same goofy Diamond Dave-whispered "poetry" ("We're runnin' a little bit hot tonight" vs. "Best believe that needle hurt you") and the barked, party-time harmony-deprived chorus ("Panama! Panama-Aw!" vs. "Tattoo! Tattoo!")

Holy fuckballs, do yourself a favor and re-watch this video compared to the official "Tattoo" video
and see which one seems like it is from a boring outdated era.

"Yankee Rose" is a similarly cornball patri-erotic (see what I did there?) anthem with stunt guitar fireworks and blue-collar aesthetic.

So the song itself (while not spectacular) is not really the problem. The real issue is how it was handled.

Van Halen re-forming with David Lee Roth should be bigger news than Kim Kardashian's failed wedding or where Ryan Gosling was during the Golden Globes. I have read more online about Lana Del Ray's semi-mediocre SNL performance than I have about this album and concert tour. If this announcement was given the proper spin and goosing, and if the video was filmed/edited by somebody else besides a high-school AV Club treasurer, I think the single might have had more impact and more people (besides the folks like me who have an RSS feed for the Van Halen News Desk) would be excited about this.

So the bottom line is thus:

I am a sucker for a good video and marketing can really sway my opinion about a product. If you do it on your own and you do it wrong, you end up really missing the boat.
The leadoff single for the new album underwhelms a bit, but I've always been a bit more "Drop Dead Legs"/"Somebody Get Me a Doctor" guy anyway, so I'm not too worried about finding good songs on the album.
I really really miss Michael Anthony
Keep in mind DLR brought one of those "Wheooooo!" wacky whistles to the "Runnin' With the Devil" recording sessions. Let's not pretend like we're talking about Truffaut or Goddard or anything.
I think that if a band like Free Energy or Limozeen recorded a song like this, hipsters would totally be spilling their PBR over it, but if it is Van Halen who records a fun and decent rock song, folks are excited to find immediate fault with it (as opposed to just partying down with a jamburger).
I have tickets for the show at the Palace which is the second night of the tour so the odds are pretty low that Diamond Dave will have said something really stupid to Ed and totally gotten the tour cancelled by that point.

Bottom line:

Know it... Live it.... Love it.

2011: Mr. Nerd's Wild Ride

2011-12-15T20:17:00.006-05:00

Best Junk from 2011:

This and This:

They are secretly superheroes whose powers are awesomeness and hilarity.

New(ish) Job: I changed roles at work this year.
In the words of Jim James from My Morning Jacket: "It matters to me/Took a long time to get here/If it would have been easy/I would not have cared"

Looney Tunes
I got borderline obsessive about collecting Looney Tunes episodes this year. I think it is important for Hank to see those original Merrie Melodies cartoons in their original form. Robin Hood Daffy, Duck Amuck, Transylvania 6-5000 ... Chuck Jones, Robert McKimson, Friz Freleng and Mel Blanc should all have their faces on Mount Rushmore.

PJ and got to hear Aretha Franklin sing the National Anthem at a Tigers playoff game this fall.
She fucking killed it. YouTubez here

I got to witness all of the Moving Pictures album performed at the Rush: Time Machine concert from a beery suite with a bunch of my pals at a Toledo hockey arena for Dave Below's 40th birthday.
It was everything I was hoping for. The universal dream.

This gif:

Best joke from BrianSleeper:
"The joke’s on Luke. That can is empty. There’s no way Carrie Fisher ever gave a full beer away."

I went to a restaurant called China Poblano in the Cosmopolitan Casino in Las Vegas and it was likely the best meal I had all year.
It is a mix of Chinese and Mexican food where you can get little plates of all kinds of delicious crazy food taking the best of these two cuisines and jamming them together: Duck Tongue Taco with pork rinds! Chinese steamed bbq pork buns! Oaxacan Chocolate Terra Cotta Warriors! Kerpow! (that last one is an exclamation and not a Sino-Mex dish).

Also: They played a terrific soundtrack at the new Cosmopolitan Casino: All funky Motown, bossa nova, deep kitch-pop cuts and Black Keys b-sides. I felt like I was in a Soderberg version of a Tarantino soundtrack from a novel by Elmore Leonard.

Spent a magical night with the re-united Fluoride Program at the Lager House.
Their comeback show was 100% what they wanted it to be and it was amazing. Everything in its right place.

I feel like I spent more time Upstate Dreaming this year and I really locked into it.
A terrific trip with Mr. Eric Kelly to Raleigh Del Norte in the UP was everything I had hoped, and a family camping trip in the shadow of the Mighty Mac confirmed it: Call me Yooperman! Also I Saw an Eagle on the 4th of July! Pure Michigan.

I got an iPad
To paraphrase what Dan Trenz enthused when he got his: "It is the 2011 we were promised."

This photo of Ann Arbor by Dustin Williams:

More sizes available here:

Incredibly enough we were interviewed on NPR about Baby Blankets. Recording of the interview here:
The interviewer was doing research on those white blankets with blue and pink stripes that hospitals wrap babies in. She stumbled across this post that I wrote on BabyRoadies about those incredible blankets, and apparently this makes me a respected authority on the subject.

They opened a Five Guys Burgers & Fries in our town.
So long hippy bookstore! Helloooooo big greasy cheeseburgers!

Got to see My Morning Jacket in concert outdoors at Meadowbrook with Neko Case and Kelly Hogan opening up.
They did a cover of "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around." Terrific company and a great time.

There are these great story CDs by Greathall that really got Hank introduced to King Arthur, Greek Myths, Famous Astronomers, Robin Hood and American Tall Tales.
A must for road trips.

Hank's first season of T-ball:

Wookiee Wizards FTW!!!

I had a blast playing the candy version of Russian Roulette (is that non-PC now?) with BeanBoozled Jelly Bellies.
Two participants each bite into identical-looking Jelly Belly candies. Is the black one Licorice or Skunk Spray? Is the blue one Berry or Toothpaste? Is the red one Strawberry Jam or Caterpillar Flavor? Silliness abounds!

We got a magical box called a Roku which streams Netflix, HuluPlus, Amazon, Crackle and other sources of "over the top" programming (as we say in the biz) right into your TV machine.
Simple enough for Hank to watch 754 episodes of The X-Men Animated Series all on his own.

A great little bar called Woodruff's opened up in Depot Town in Ypsi.
I've been closely following the activities of one Andy Garris since the summer of 2004 when he revitalized the Alley Bar on my street. He moved into the Elbow Room and did great things there until the man shut it down. Then he moved into The Savoy and did great things there until the man shut it down. Now he's whipped Woodruff's into a great little indie bar with the help of some area stalwarts. an of the year, in my liver's opinion.

I spent some time up North in a cabin in the woods for a lost weekend of beer in cans and loud music.
It was kinda like Weekend at Bernies except all of us were limp and unresponsive.

"Faaaack, Pal"
Mark's boss "Funkee"
"Cooter & the Bear in the morning"
The Doogie Howser theme
The piano coda to Layla
The fact that somebody bought a pineapple for some reason
Noodle jumping
Derek's terrific headlamp ("This was the best thing from the weekend! Everybody loved it!")
Covering that Band of Horses song with Steve Motrinc on lead lead vocals.
Brian's "West Virginia Whiskey Sour"
Cancer Dog.
Gravy 'Batin'
Sack Blabbath
"Knuckles & The Moose"
midget in vegas
air raid siren at 12:05 friday night
Brandon Inge's home run
"even when I win, I lose."

Spent a lot of energy and time and money having our front porch rebuilt this year.
Can't wait for next spring when we can use it.

Teh Intarwebs

Meh.ro is a site that I know nothing about but taps into my hilarity bone consistently.
Lurk and Awe!

This video of a drunk baby:

"You don't know me..."

The concept of Kickstarter.
Particularly it's ability to get new albums by Timothy Monger and Jim Roll made (or underway). Micro-Patronage: Huzzah!

There is a well-represented local blog called Damn Arbor which does a great job of local issues, food reviews, insta-news, campus what-not and funny observations.
Their list of Bars That Don't Suck is a good place to start.

The 2011 TLC lineup:

Oddly, 'Little People, Tricky Fridge' and 'Uterus Cannon' keep conflicting on my DVR

Get Stoked: Rad-Dudes.com brought nuthin' but photos of the raddest dudes around.
Sista site RadBabes.com is only worth looking at if you like 80s chicks aerobicizing in spandex, Wanda Jackson and David Lee Roth drinking with Material Girl-era Madonna.

This video went through my head during a very painful website launch this year:

Spotify became available to the US. It is like the faucet of music. I actually paid for a subscription.
Also this statement from their website: "To help us compile this information, we’ve called on the magnificent All Music Guide - the most comprehensive music reference source on the planet. They’re as nuts about music as we are."

Grantland
More for the Klosterman than the Simmons, but it is all quality writing.

Bad Lipreads like this Herman Cain one

Hooo boy. "Women got extra-fatal lady shimmer of no maximum strength" = Larfs.

DamnYouAutoCorrect made me whiz myself with larfs.
The ones where the autocorrects just keep autocorrecting are the best ones. Extortion. No...Axe Murder. Dammit Exfoliate. NO! EXAMPLE!

The fact that a movie called Terror at Blood Fart Lake exists.
Sadly it was not directed by Bill Zebub who has some spectacularly-titled films like "Jesus Christ, Serial Rapist" and "Antfarm Dickhole" on his SAG card.

This gif:

It's in the puddin'

Recordings:

This Spotify Playlist has my best tunes from 2011.
Spotify is like a faucet of music that you just turn on

Nothing is Wrong by Dawes
This record spun around my turntable more than any other in 2011. Just really pure, honest songwriting and solid messages. Plus a harmony or three.

D by White Denim
Kind of a mix between Buffalo Springfield, Tortoise, and Yes. Rootsy but jammy but smart but spacey. Some people will think that sounds like a terrible idea. I would usually be one of them, but I dig it.

The New Britton Sound by Timothy Monger
Local hero writes great songs, records them and then puts them onto playable media. Film at 11.

The King is Dead by The Decemberists
Thank you Peter Buck for steering their ship into the heartland. More blather from me on this topic here

Circuital by My Morning Jacket
This hit me just right this year. So much to dig into. Jammy, rockin, soulful. Everything except Black Metal.

God Willin' and the Creek Don't Rise by Ray LaMontagne
His VH1 Storytellers where he covered "Out on the Weekend" by Neil Young was inspired. More blather from me on this topic here

Andrew Leahey & the Homestead by Andrew Leahey
I have to be honest about this one...I work(ed) with Andrew this year and y'know how sometimes when you work with somebody and they say "Hey I just made an album" and you go "Oh great, now I gotta pretend to like this" but honest to Gram this record sounds really terrific. Great songs well recorded in a 1930s movie theater and some solid songwriting. This is the album I've been hoping for years that Ryan Adams would put out. Listen here:

Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes
Beardy beardy sing song beautiful.

Hot Sauce Committee, Part 2 by Beastie Boys
Another solid release. "Don't Play No Game that I Can't Win" was my Jam this summer.

The Harrow & the Harvest by Gillian Welch
Thrum thrum hollar twang. Glad to see Gillian and David Rawlings stripping it back down to basics.

Again, This Spotify Playlist has my fave picks from these albums plus a few more from Eisley, Laura Marling, Richard Buckner, Release the Sunbird and maybe more.

Televizzle:

Louie.
I really got into Louis CK this year, and his show is a brutal and hilarious and one of those shows that media historians will be talking about in 50 years. And anytime Ricky Gervais is on it is beyond gold: Example

Mad Men
I can't actually remember if there were any new episodes this year, but this show is still two of my faves.

30 Rock
Still the funny. Saw lots of reruns this year. Season 5 recap.

The Detroit Tigers played a lot of Baseball on my TV this year.
Bless You Boys.

The Cinema:

The Tree of Life
The front runner for my favorite movie of the year. While it didn't make a lot of sense as a direct narrative, the imagery was amazing and it really seemed to capture some of the internal struggle of being a father and being a son.

Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part 2
Well done, everyone involved. One of the rare experiences where the films are close to as enjoyable as the books.

Tron Legacy
Zoom! Laser bikes! Overwrought dialog and fake Zen Buddhism. Exactly what I was hoping for.

The Trip
Worth it for the Michael Caine bit alone.

American: The Bill Hicks Story
A longtime Hicks fan, I was a bit nervous as to how this animatic-style documentary would work, but it was actually not as distracting as I thought it would be.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
My nerdish obsession on the comedy kept going this year, and the Joan Rivers doc really showed me what an obsessive nutjob she is. Bravo.

Exit Through the Gift Shop
Artsy (but not so much with the fartsy)

All of the other junk I watched:
Rango
Rio
Cars 2
Gnomeo & Juliet
Midnight in Paris
Cedar Rapids

Book Learnin':

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Man oh man, this was a fun read. Well-written, strategy-filled (although pretty dark for younger readers). I was tempted to list the trailer as one of my favorite movies of the year because I watched it about a hundred times.

Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
This continues to be a bit of a tough slog but very worthwhile. A billion great characters with wild-ass names and a million sub-plots to keep straight, but it's all starting to click together. I think one of the things that I really like is that Martin is not afraid to kill off one of his main characters in a heartbeat...

somebody posted this alternate title which I think is very appropriate:

The Real Animal House by Chris Miller
A blast to read. Music played such a big role in the book that I (of course) created a Spotify playlist of all of the songs mentioned favorably in there.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Despite the fact that this was a story of two sisters growing up in the 1930s/40s in a small Canadian town as told by a creaking octogenarian, Margaret Atwood's sentences are an incredible thing to behold and this kept my interest with its sheer lyrical beauty.

Bossypants by Tina Fey
I'm sure the other people around me on the plane thought I was an insane person because I was laughing so loud.

Life by Keith Richards
Good lord, how is this man still breathing?

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
Soul crushing and beautiful all crammed into 3,000 pages.

The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke
This sci-fi yarn digs into how humanity could (will?) react when everything can be peeped upon through wormholes, etc. No crime, no espionage, rampant teenaged sex on park benches... this book has it all.

The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
A whip-smart sci-fi murder mystery from 1953. If you have watched Blade Runner as obsessively as I have, you will dig this book.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
Another sci-fi classic. It is amazing that the concepts can remain so fresh even as we are chuckling at their ray guns and automated computational machines.

Bad Juju

Uncle Rolley
My Uncle Rolley pulled his RV to that great campground in the sky this year. Always quick with his toolbox and a bit of fatherly advice, he called every man in the family "Son" and really meant it. He is sorely missed.

City Flats hotel
My darling bride and I took a mini-vacation to the very hep City Flats Hotel here in Michigan. We had some great times and some fine dining until this cocksure assholish bartender overserved me on Gin Martinis which ended up for a very rough night (and not nearly as romantic as I had hoped) as well as a pretty ugly morning after. That is why I am never drinking again.

Google+
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!1!!" - Mark Zuckerberg

Missing a Mud Hens game
So here goes. For Hank's last week before he started Kindergarten, PJ and I planned a whole week of awesome activities. Waterparks, arcades, playdates, The Lego Store ...and it was to culminate in us seeing the last Toledo Mud Hens game of the season. So we roll into town at about 4:30 on Sunday to drop by Tony Packo's for a hot dog (with the boy dressed in his new birthday Mud Hens t-shirt, me in my new birthday Mud Hens hat) only to find Toledo to be a ghost town and PLENTY of seating at Tony Packo's.

We had opted for a Sunday game instead of our original Saturday plan, and as it turns out I got the time wrong: It was a 1PM game and I thought it was going to be a 6PM game.

I was beyond crushed. We had talked about the game for weeks -- the boy's last adventure before he was thrust into the public school system and I bungled it by not looking closely at the time on the ticket. AND IT WAS THE LAST GAME OF THE 2011 SEASON! No Do-Overs! How fucking poetic was that? Shee-it. What a heel.

Skunks
My dog finally got sprayed by an Old West Side skunk which meant that I was awake at one in the morning using the dog and cans of tomato juice to re-create the final scene of Carrie. Her muzzle still stinks when she gets wet.

Bert Jansch and Charlie Louvin died.
A sad year for lonesome music.

Borders Books closed down

Henry started crying when we told him Borders will be closing.
He kept asking "*ALL* of the books will be gone?"

In Hot Water
Our hot water heater crapped out and in the midst of replacing it, the "technician" broke off a pipe and water went everywhere. Guitars got wet, it was an unpleasant scene.

Spent some sad days in my funeral suit this year.
It doesn't get easier.

The music industry is not making anything better.
"I was driving a forklift in a warehouse for a while. Before that I was holding a road sign for Con Ed in while they were working on the power lines in the Upstate. January in the Catskills with snow banks and dead deer next to me. I worked for the census last year." - Richard Buckner, one of my favorite singer/songwriters.

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Thanks Innernets and those involved with my life.

April 2011 Album of the Month

2011-05-05T20:03:00.001-04:00

Ray LaMontagne "God Willin' & The Creek Don't Rise"

Listen for free here on Grooveshark

I'd heard Ray LaMontagne's previous albums and liked them. He's got a throaty and gruff "old soul" voice that reminds a lot of folks of Van Morrison or the guy from Gomez. I actually heard a song from this album on the radio in my car and did one of those things where you find an old receipt and scrounge a pen and try to write down as many of the lyrics as you can without crashing.

His previous albums sounded a bit like solo efforts, but it seems like now he's settled in with a real band. Lots of good pedal steel, occasional banjo and shuffle beats. The whole thing has a real "Harvest" feel like the Neil Young album, with a couple songs that make you think "Hey, is this 'Old Man?' No? Oh, Ok. You sure? Hmmp. I still like it though."

The standout track is definitely "Beg, Steal or Borrow" but the positive but retrospective "Old Before Your Time" and the slowed-to-a-crawl "Like Rock & Roll Radio" are also stand-out front porch sittin' songs.

An excerpt from the AllRovi.com Review:
LaMontagne helmed the session at his home studio and it is mostly a loose, laid-back affair with a couple of exceptions. The Pariah Dogs -- bassist Jennifer Condos, guitarists Eric Heywood and Greg Leisz, and drummer Jay Bellerose -- have recorded and/or toured with him previously. The opener, "Repo Man," is the album's wild card. Introduced by a popping upright bassline, it's a gritty funk number that's totally out of place with the rest of what's here. Bellerose plays tight breaks, the guitars roil and coil, and LaMontagne's protagonist indicts a former lover, spitting out lyrics in a grainy, swaggering growl. The album changes direction abruptly on "New York Is Killing Me." It's a sad country song whose title reveals a longing for somewhere else as Leisz's pedal steel guitar twins with LaMontagne's world-weary voice. The title track is a love letter from a cattle driver to his beloved back at home. Bellerose's deeply tuned snare and tom-toms are balanced by two pedal steels underscoring the otherworldly loneliness in the grain of LaMontagne's voice. "Beg Steal or Borrow" is a midtempo shuffle that exhorts a younger man to just go; to fulfill his dreams at any cost. Two broken love songs -- "Are We Really Through" and "This Love Is Over" -- seem to echo the sentiments in "Repo Man," albeit far more gently. Both are skeletal and moody; the latter touches on the soul balladry LaMontagne's known for, but with a jazzy touch in the guitars. It's the best cut here. "Old Before Your Time" is the brother to "Beg Steal or Borrow": it reveals the consequences -- perhaps to the man in the mirror -- if the admonitions in the previous tune are not adhered to. - Thom Jurek

Maybe buy it at Amazon MP3 or maybe on the iTunes?

Drunk Babies!!!1!

2011-04-12T19:21:00.002-04:00

I want an entire channel of this show:

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New My Morning Jacket single "Circuital" is streaming here and available to download from their site here:
Jammburger.

::

A terrific time lapse video of my hometown Ann Arbor.

Ann Arbor from Seth McCubbin on Vimeo.

I have no idea how they got some of those shots.

::

AccessMainComputerFile.net is a terrific compilation of completely impossible computer screens and interfaces from movies.
See also "Zoom In And Enhance"

::

Thanks DamnArbor.com
Thanks David

Record Scratch. What?

2011-04-05T20:08:00.001-04:00

This incredible video is a fake elevator pitch for a Fax app store (a.k.a "Fap Store"):

While the concept is outrageous, I have seen professional presentations with much lower production value.

So full of buzzwords that you'll want to punch the next guy in Dockers you see.

::

This guy says:
I LIKE GOING ONTO MY FRIENDS FACEBOOK PAGE, TAKING PHOTOS OF HIM, CHANGING HIS FACE SLIGHTLY THEN PUTTING THEM BACK UP ON FACEBOOK. HE DOESN'T LIKE ME DOING THIS.
Oh man...this is like one of those "Find the difference in these two pictures" games but when you figure it out it makes you laugh.

::

This kid ain't gonna pee-pee the bed tonight.

My guess is that Gandalf put a spell on her.

::

::

From Neatorama: Some would argue that the best part of the TV series Police Squad! was the end credits, in which the common freeze-frame method was parodied. This video has the ending credits to all six episodes, including the one with the chimpanzee who didn’t know how to hold a freeze-frame.

::

"welllll, looks like we've got ourselves a reader."

::

Thanks Waxy.org
Thanks Steve

March 2011 Album of the Month

2011-03-20T10:54:00.003-04:00

Eisley "The Valley"

Listen for free here on Grooveshark

Some folks may remember that a million years ago I used to have a CD Of The Month club where I would let folks know the album that most struck my fancy that month. I've started that up again.

I have a real soft spot for vocal harmony, and doubly so when it comes from siblings. The Beach Boys, The Dinning Sisters, the Louvin Brothers, Great Lakes Myth Society, The Mills Brothers...all of their close harmonies weave together and take a seat right in my soul. Alt-Pop act Eisley (consisting of three sisters, a brother and a cousin) fit into this niche nicely, adding in some youthful innocence and a wide-eyed earnestness that can only come from being weirdly religious or home-schooled.

On their 2011 album "The Valley" the DuPree family dig into some darker territories, stemming from some relatively public break-ups (two of the sisters were either married or engaged to indie rockers and the dissolution of these relationships fuel a lot of the themes on the album). Still, the album never feels maudlin or depressing. The songs have more of a growling punch behind the sweetness than they've had before, which makes them feel more mature and less teen-cute than their previous releases. Like they're growing up or something.

keeping with my theme of bands in fields near trees from last month

The standout track is definitely "Smarter" which slowly burns with its tock-tock rhythms, growling guitars and a chorus that sounds like the Heavens are raining down on your ears.

AllRovi.com Review:
Written in the wake of several failed relationships -- a broken engagement for the eldest Eisley sibling, a divorce for the middle sister, and a split with Warner Bros. Records -- Eisley's third album features some unexpected dark moments. Much of the aggression comes from Sherri DuPree, whose marriage to New Found Glory's Chad Gilbert came to an abrupt halt after ten months. On Eisley's 2005 debut, she sang ballads about star-crossed lovers and enchanted forests, but Sherri ditches the storybook romance during The Valley, whose sobering song titles -- "Sad," "I Wish," "Ambulance" -- paint the picture of a girl's broken heart. The Valley isn't necessarily a gloomy album, though; most of the anger is funneled into Chauntelle DuPree's guitar riffs, whose rawness is balanced by the girls' sweet, dreamy harmonies. Co-vocalist Stacy helps even the tables, too, taking the mike during some of the album's brightest moments and offsetting her sister's pinched, emo-influenced voice with a womanly alto. Barely a teenage at the beginning of Eisley's career, she's steadily become the group's creative centerpiece, and it's appropriate that The Valley both begins and ends with her songs. But the best part about The Valley is the emotional spectrum it covers, from the Veruca Salt-ish sneer of "Sad" to the lush title track, where harmonies and strings swell in parallel motion. There's a happy ending, too: Sherri remarried two years after her divorce, followed in 2010 by Stacy, Chauntelle, and drummer/brother Weston. - Andrew Leahey

Are they old enough to drink coffee?

Maybe buy it at Amazon MP3 or maybe on the iTunes?

Outer Space Tallboy

2011-03-18T22:15:00.005-04:00

How is it possible that I have not seen this gif before?

Best joke from BrianSleeper:
"The joke’s on Luke. That can is empty. There’s no way Carrie Fisher ever gave a full beer away."

::

Thanks David
Thanks Zach

Excelsior!

2011-03-12T17:02:00.003-05:00

embiggen

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Speaking of Stan The Man, here's a terrific Vanity Fair interview with Stan Lee:

Q: Are you going to be one of those guys who doesn’t quit until they find you dead in your office, face down in a pool of ink, surrounded by storyboards?

A: I don’t intend to die.

::

This Local Natives acoustic concert at NPR's offices was quite nice.

It also inspired this angry diatribe:

I don’t like anything about this. Not one thing.

This reminds me of the crap I hear played by street musicians and then quietly think to myself “man, this is as far as that crap is gonna take them,” and then pretend I had no change in my pockets.

Their arrangements are more like chaotic chanting than anything pleasant to hear.

I realize this is acoustic, but even so for having so many musicians, they all suck at playing them. Watch them play their instruments. Hell, I play better than they do.

I know there’s only so much you can do with one drum, but the repetition in the drumming style is brutal.

They look like a bunch of band dudes that spent every Friday in the dorm growing facial hair.

Don’t know what’s thicker. That dudes mustache or his eye brows.
Nice to know that Oates’ and Yanni’s mustache has found a home.

Based on that Neville-esque ‘noma on his neck, this band will be shopping for a new lead singer by next fall.

The guy on the right is like a fat girl waiting to happen.

Wearing that shirt is embarrassing enough, but to then roll the sleeves?
Everyone knows this (‘specially the fat ones), if you’re doughy, don’t roll your t-shirt sleeves.

The guy in the beard is by far the most annoying. He’s TERRIBLE at singing, yet he seems to sing the loudest.
This is why drummer shouldn’t sing (see Don Henley).

People at work were coming into my cube to see if I was alright when the third song was playing.

Jean vest? Jesus Christ.

::

Let the Wookie Win

::

Thanks GeeksAreSexy
Thanks GoldenFiddle
Thanks Derek

Winning.

2011-03-01T19:44:00.002-05:00

Oh my.

Charlie Sheen has become the perfect celebrity in my opinion.
I don't really care about him. He was good that one time:

But two decades, an awful sitcom, and a fat paycheck later, something within him has snapped...

visit LiveTheSheenDream.com

...or possibly elevated him to an accelerated life form.

His maniacal mentality makes me firmly believe he is operating at a higher level of functionality than the rest of us.

visit Cats Quote Charlie Sheen

He is bulletproof and indestructible.

visit SheenFamilyCircus.com

He has re-appropriated our language and made it his own.

visit this NY Mag Glossary

He is not Bi-Polar, he is Bi-Winning.

And his constant use of the phrase "Winning" is the ultimate punctuation to a statement.
You say something completely batshit-insane which aggrandizes yourself in a superhuman way.
And then you inform your interviewer (which is everybody listening) that you are "Winning."

visit Charlie Sheen Quotes as New Yorker Cartoons

Remember this moment folks.
History is unfolding before our eyes.

visit LiveTheSheenDream.com

He will clearly be dead or Christian soon, and we will be sad.
So cherish this moment while we can.

Remember us Winning.

Thanks David
Thanks Grambo
Thanks Tom

February 2011 Album of the Month

2011-02-20T21:57:00.002-05:00

The Decemberists "The King is Dead"

Listen for free here on Grooveshark

Some folks may remember that a million years ago I used to have a CD Of The Month club where I would let folks know the album that most struck my fancy that month. Maybe I'll start that up again.

I've liked the Decemberists ever since stumbling upon their 2005 album Picaresque but some folks complained about the preciousness of the lyrics and the fey/maudlin maritime themes (coming from some dudes that have clearly never spent a winter on an Alaskan crab boat). 'The King Is Dead' changes a lot of that by teaming up with Americana sweethearts Gillian Welch & David Rawlings and R.E.M.'s Peter Buck.

As I was remarking to a buddy, on this album "They're making songs with more focus on the song and less focus on their thesaurus or old scrimshaw carvings"

Favorite tracks include "Calamity Song" which could've been one of the B-Sides from "Out of Time" like "Texarkana" or "Near Wild Heaven," and the song "Rise to Me" partly because of the Neil Young "Harvest"-era pedal steel, harmonica & harmonies, and partly because it uses the name Henry in the lyrics of the song.

AllMusic.com Review:
The Decemberists' fifth, full-length studio outing finds the Portland, OR-based indie rock collective exploring a region that has thus far eluded them. Raised on a steady diet of Morrissey, Robyn Hitchcock, Shirley Collins, and Fairport Convention, The King Is Dead represents frontman Colin Meloy's first foray into the musical traditions of his homeland, or more specifically, it proves that he really, really likes R.E.M. “Calamity Song,” which is one of three tracks to feature guitar work from Peter Buck, threatens to break into “Pretty Persuasion” or "So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)" at any moment, and first single “Down by the River” flirts with “The One I Love” hard enough to take it on a long weekend, though Meloy has stated that the track “started out as more of a paean to R.E.M. than I think any of us really wanted it to.” David Rawlings and Gillian Welch also join the party on a number of tracks, lending their instantly recognizable voices to two of the album’s finest moments, the Wildflowers-era, Tom Petty-inspired “Don’t Carry It All” and the lovely, Paul Simon-esque “June Hymn” -- Meloy and Welch, the former a Montana-born Anglophile and the latter a California girl with a fetish for dust bowl Appalachia -- harmonize nicely, canceling out each other’s vocal affectations. It’s by far the clearest and most commercial collection of tunes the band has amassed to date, but it’s also the least interesting. It may sound like a cross between Camper Van Beethoven's Key Lime Pie and R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People, but none of the tracks have the gravitas or potential staying power of a song like “Sweethearts” (CVP) or “Find the River” (R.E.M.). That said, it’s a refreshing change from the usual compilation of bibliophile, sea shanty/murder ballad, and while the Led Zeppelin III-style rural overhauling may isolate fans who prefer the serpentine, progressive art rock of albums like The Crane Wife and Hazards of Love, it opens up a whole new continent for the band to explore. - James Christopher Monger

Maybe buy it at Amazon MP3 or maybe on the iTunes?

Main Titles

2011-02-04T17:01:00.005-05:00

I've been thinking a bit about my favorite music moments in movies. There are the ones where the film uses a terrific well-known tune to perfect effect, and others where you don't really know the song, but its placement in the film shoehorns the tune into your life somehow.

::

Nico's "These Days" in The Royal Tenenbaums

Pretty much anything Wes Anderson does with music I am a fan of, but this in particular really struck me.
There is an eternity of a pause when Margot steps off of the bus before the music starts,
and then the line of ship captains walking in unison behind Richie...just terrific.

::

The Who's "A Quick One While He's Away" in Rushmore

The brash Clang Clang of the initial guitars, the chanted "Cello Cello Cello Cello" (since the band couldn't find/afford actual cellos for that part),
the refrain of "You are forgiven" as these two characters do the horrible things to each other.

::

The Troggs doing "A Girl Like You" in Flirting

Such a great blast of a song, as these romance-starved teenaged kids are staring across the room at each other.

::

Harry Nilson doing "Everybody's Talkin'" in Midnight Cowboy

Apparently John Barry tasked Bob Dylan to write a song for this movie and they were just using "Everybody's Talkin'"
as the temp track during filming and editing. Dylan evenually wrote "Lay Lady Lay" for the movie's opening titles
but this one fit so much better they kept it. I'm glad they did.

::

"Barking at the Moon" by Jenny Lewis from "Bolt"

From a super cute and underrated kid's movie, this tune accompanies a great cross-country travel scene.
When I heard it I instantly recognized the voice but couldn't place it until later.

::

The Chords doing "Sh-Boom" from Cars

One of my long-time fave Doo-Wop songs gets the Pixar treatment in Cars. Just perfect (as all Pixar movies are).
I love to look at the reflections of the neon as the cars roll past.

::

Main Titles Music from the Motion Picture "Blade Runner" by Vangelis
Also here

The weird heavy industrial stomp of the percussion, the twinkling Asian-influenced strings...this is one weird and beautiful movie score.
I think I may like this sequence just because it indicates to me that I will be watching Blade Runner for the next 2 hours.

::

"The End" by The Doors in Apocalypse Now

A bit clichéd perhaps...I watched the shit out of this movie in college
but the starkness of the opening guitar runs and those helicopters dropping napalm always sticks with me.

::

Aside from The Cars performing "Moving in Stereo" in Fast Times at Ridgemont High...what have I missed?

Followed by: "Uterus Cannon"

2011-02-01T21:15:00.000-05:00

This is Dolph Lundgren performing "A Little Less Conversation" in concert.

I think the phrase "And then you wouldn't believe what he did next" gets thrown around a lot.

There must be a word in Swedish that means that, but they only use it once per decade.

::

There is some strange new programming coming out of TLC (The "Learning" Channel) these days:

::

Also, it should be noted that I am very much enjoying the new Decemberists album.
Much more rootsy and Americana-y (Thanks Peter Buck and Gillian Welch).
They're making songs with more focus on the song and less focus on their Thesaurus or old scrimshaw carvings.
This will get some airplay from me on hot, still days this summer.

::

Bill Ward from Black Sabbath and Tracy Morgan as long-lost twin brothers?

Anybody else seeing this connection? Is this thing on?

::

I looked into the trap, ~~Ray~~ Ackbar.

::

Also a big fan of BluntCard.com

When you care enough to post a snarky card to someone's Facebook wall.

::

That's not a moon...

...it's a delightful and whimsical summer snack!

::

Thanks Bob
Thanks Keith
Thanks David

Phather Physics

2011-01-25T20:35:00.004-05:00

FourLoko's rejected FDA Label as interpreted by Bob Odenkirk:

Warning: The ingredients of this drink have been found to cause men and women to become huge assholes. In laboratory and non-laboratory tests, the combination of alcohol, caffeine, taurine, and guarana, combined with the stunted intellect of the type of person who wants to drink something that tastes this shitty out of such a garish, dipshit-looking can as this, have been proven to exacerbate and enlarge the asshole-related behaviors of the drinker. Asshole behavior can be described as: Being loud and loutish, grabbing women, punching your friends in the dick and laughing about it, wanting to drive when you clearly shouldn’t drive, throwing shit in the street, laughing in-between vomit spews, joining a fraternity, being in a fraternity, sledding after midnight, punching a brick wall, staring at the bouncer menacingly, pissing around the toilet, drinking more of this shitty beverage, laughing loudly at unfunny things, wanting to play Guitar-Hero and then getting mad at Guitar-Hero, paying homeless people to dance, throwing shit out of dorm windows, pissing wherever you happen to be standing, watching David Hasselhoff’s drunk “burger” video on YouTube and laughing about it, laughing at unfunny things, playing “pranks”, considering getting a tattoo of Bam Margera, getting a tattoo of Bam Margera, knowing who Bam Margera is, drinking even more of this shitty-ass-grimy-tasting sewer-water, considering joining a rugby team, etc. In laboratory tests, mice who were fed this drink became little mouse assholes. They pushed other mice off the running wheel and laughed mouse-laughs, then vomited and started little mouse-fraternities. Pregnant women who drink this may also have a marked increase in the probability of having a little asshole baby, although tests have not ascertained whether this is due to the asshole qualities of the drink or the assholes who probably got the woman pregnant. Could be both. Simply put, whether you are an asshole when you begin drinking this or simply a douche-bag, if you drink enough of it, you will definitely qualify as a huge asshole.

::

I just picked up Sam Cooke - Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964 and there is this terrific little hidden track where an interviewer asks Sam to define Soul in 8 bars.

He does it:

::

These folks set up this Rube Goldberg-esque series of challenges for their backyard squirrel,
adding a new piece each time the squirrel got wise.

An alternate version from Carling Black Label:

Yet another (this one with the U2 Mission Impossible theme):

::

An incredible lake blob jump:

Amazing Blob Jump Launch - Watch more Funny Videos

From an expert in sledding/wipeout video execution:

"The last frame says it all, the look on her face of sheer fear, about to cry, probably breaking up with her drunk boyfriend who talked her into it, knowing she's probably got a log in her pants she has to walk up the beach with. The curbside aliens up there who are downloading all our information and studying us are learning a lot from this one.

And yet, ILM could use this video to study gravity, momentum, and the body's physics through air.

Like Justin said, the way she's writhing around to find some sort of equilibrium while Phather Physics keeps her in this beautiful constant rotation that could pass a Cirque audition (if she could land square on some bald-strongman-in-ancient-speedo's head)"

::

What did the five fingers say to the guitar player? SLAP!

(My favorite part is the noise that the guitar makes after the singer's collateral-damage slap hits it and it rings off into infinity.)

::

Thanks Steve
Thanks Mark
Thanks David
Thanks Bob

First Mate...get it?

2011-01-21T20:47:00.000-05:00

Ahoy mateys! If you be lookin' for a good larf, I recommend sailing the seas of Sea Captain Date, the dating service for real-live boat captains.

Some of my faves:

::

Drunk History about ~~Richard Dreyfuss~~ Frederick Douglass:

::

Jerry Effing Stiller

::

Thanks Steve
Thanks Mark

Ronald McLincoln

2011-01-16T15:01:00.000-05:00

Oh lordy: DamnYouAutoCorrect.com is a site where people can send in screenshots of uncomfortable conversations caused by the Autocorrect feature on phones:

::

These cool ninjas strapped a video camera to the end of a broadsword and swung it around for a while.
It then proceeded to blow my goddamned mind.

::

Not only do I love everything about Bill Murray but I especially love that he showed up to hang out and do karaoke with a bunch of strangers.
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understandin' whooooa-oh

::

::

The always-hilarious Steve Martin shows royalty checks for 3 cents He's gotten from his record company.
People say the music business is suffering, but it's NOT.

::

Some pretty incredible photoshop art taking historical photos and shooping modern things in there.
Yoda as a WWII general is pretty cool, so is Ronald McLincoln.

::

::

I think the show Alf would have been funnier if he used the term "hard-on" and repeatedly said the "N-Word" during the actual show.
Actually creepier is the footage of when he was overtly hitting on the 14-year-old daughter from that show.

::

Footage of little kids trying to figure out what a Game Boy and an LP are for.

(Here's a hint: they are wrong)

::

Crazy-ass Sideways cafe in NYC.
What is even crazy-asser: many people do not notice that the whole decor of the joint is on its side.

::

Amazing: Conan O'Brian and Hunter S. Thompson drinking hard liquor and shooting huge guns.
"The safety guy just said 'Move your whisky before shooting the gun'"

::

It's in the puddin'

::

Thanks Goody
Thanks David
Thanks Steve
Thanks Whatevs.org

2010: The Year We Make Contact Paper

2010-12-26T21:17:00.012-05:00

Best Junk from 2010:

The boy:

No pacifier, no naps, big boy bed, attending overnights, really into Legos.
Everything is working out as I have foreseen.

PJ:

Drinking coffee in the mornings, and occasionally enjoying red wine (in the evenings).

This year she found someone's iPhone and (out of the goodness of her heart)
used her super sleuth powers to find the owner. The grateful owner of the phone was the manager
of a hip downtown clothing store who let her pick out an item of her choice from the shop.

Excellent at her job, a quick wit and a loving mother.
We'll stop there, but I could go on.

Saw the Avett Brothers do a free show at Borders and it was a really good time.
"I am a breathing time machine/I'll take you all for a ride."

Armando Galarraga pitched a perfect game.
He did. You know it.

There is a really terrific mini-golf course up North in Glen Arbor that is rustic, clever and amazing.
A nice, interesting multi-level course in the trees around the river and cats on the course. A 4-year old's dream.

This gif of The Hulk:

Hank had a great time playing baseball in Ypsi this summer.
"Play Ball!"

My friend Robert Rasmussen started playing some really inspired Hit Parade Pop from the '40s and '50s under the name The Starlights.
It is amazing to hear and fun to see for a number of reasons.

I drove to a place called Disneyworld where I drank real beers in fake Germany, went to the Haunted Mansion with a fearless boy who then battled against Darth Vader (and won).
The Force was strong with this one.

I really liked watching Adam Everett and Will Rhymes play for the Tigers this year.
Neither of them really were great players (Everett kinda stunk up the joint) but they both seemed to have a real love of the game which goes a million miles for me.

I finally saw My Morning Jacket at the Greek Theater in L.A. with my old Tower Records pal Mary Parkis.
It was the first time I ever heard the song "Wonderful" which is now one of my faves.

We introduced Hank to Star Wars this year. It is going swimmingly.
We've only watched Star Wars and Empire so far (plus some Clone Wars stuff he's stumbled across). We're taking it really slowly.

I finally traveled to other countries besides Canada: Germany (twice), Japan, Korea and The Netherlands.
Traveling for work is difficult for me, but I have to say that Amsterdam was an amazing place that I look forward to visiting again.

This photo of Bill Bonds:

I really like Katy Perry.
Certainly not her music, since I can honestly say I don't think I've ever heard her sing a note. Ferreals.

Michigan bars and restaurants went Smoke Free this year.
I can go out and not need to leave my clothes in the hobo burn bin on my way home! Yay!

I had a life-changing sandwich from here which was a little deli in Amsterdam.
It was cheese, some kind of ham, butter and bread. Holy shit. I don't know what made it so good but it was like liquid gold being poured into my soul.

I finally picked up a much-needed GPS unit (a TomTom XL 340-S Live if you're curious) and it does everything I need it to.
The "Lane Assist" feature is worth its weight in gold for oft-lost nitwits like myself.

Bulleit Bourbon and Maker's 46 both spent some time on my liver this year.
The brownest of the browns.

I went on a business trip where I visited the headquarters of Apple, Google and Facebook in the same 48 hours.
I called it "Mr. Nerd's Wild Ride"

I started baking my own bread this year.
I'm still not really satisfied with the outcome, but I love the process.

Some baby girls were borned (and some boys).
Natalie, Sabine, (Oliver, Rhodes).

I spent some time up North in a cabin in the woods for a lost weekend of beer in cans and loud music. It was kinda like Weekend at Bernies except all of us were limp and unresponsive.
"You're about 20 minutes out"
"The bass bridge broke. We think it was because of the humanidiot"
Summerteeth
Unavailable rope swing
"Somebody Get Me a Doctor"
Polynesian Red-Haired Kid
Melodica jams
"Surprise Buttsecks"
"Sea of Broners"
"Yacht Rock"
That mini-keg of Newcastle down on the beach.
All of those bees in the clover next to the beach.
Brian's Hat
"It involved being wet, I'll tell you that."
Showing up to check out.

Say yes to Michigan

Teh Intarwebs

FRESH POTS! tells a sad manic tale of Dave Grohl who really really loves coffee.
Shouting "FRESH POTS!" at the tops of our lungs has become a catchphrase both at home and at work.

The Selvedge Yard is a site that blows my mind. The guy picks a topic and then finds a bunch of great photos around that topic. It's like This American Life but with pictures and fashion and rock and roll land hot rods.
I tried to emulate his style in a couple of posts this year and found out it was a lot of hard work.

Badass Digest should be in everyone's "quick links" bookmark file or RSS reader. Sci-Fi movies, babes, nerdy junk, comic books, beer. Y'know, if you're into that stuff.

MarriedToTheSea.com takes awful clip art and weird Victorian woodcuts and puts goofy sayings on them.
But...y'know...funny

Stuff No One Told Me is a site by a guy who does single-panel cartoons about the stuff he's figuring out. It's a little bit like Ziggy (if Ziggy didn't make me want to kill people).
This one sticks with me.

Selleck Waterfall Sandwich
We were all already thinking it...

White Whine lists things that white people complain about.
Like this: "uuugh. The Fullbright application does not provide enough space for all of my academic honors received."

I've really been enjoying Marc Maron's WTF Podcast.
He really gets into the science of comedy and gets some comedians to really talk about what is going on in their heads.

Recordings:

This Grooveshark Playlist has my best tunes from 2010.
You can just play them all for free without giving anybody your credit card number or even your e-mail address.

Weathervanes by Freelance Whales
Far and away my favorite album of the year. Perfectly crafted weird sweet indie pop. I listened to it one billion times and look forward to the next time I hear it.

Sigh No More by Mumford & Sons
Somewhere between a dim London pub and the stages that U2 toured on before The Unforgettable Fire lies this album. Brash with fire and pathos. Really beautiful and pint-worthy.

Contra by Vampire Weekend
Not as revolutionary as their first album but a handful of solid jams are on there.

Heaven is Whenever by the Hold Steady
"There was that whole weird thing with the horses"

The Big To-Do by Drive-By Truckers
"'Which one is the birthday boy?' she said, 'I ain't got all night.'"

Stuck on Nothing by Free Energy
The album gets a bit samey, but the sunny Boston-eque lead-off single was my jam of the summer.

American Slang by Gaslight Anthem
Take equal parts Springsteen, Clash and Social Distortion. Shake well and pour into an old beer can.

I Speak Because I Can by Laura Marling
This album reminds me of side 2 of Led Zeppelin III or if Nick Drake did a summer internship with Joni Mitchell. Folky and acerbic, very mist-soaked and peat-mossy.

Infinite Arms by Band of Horses
This one was really a grower. Eventually the song "Older" ran through my head constantly.

Permalight by Rogue Wave
Still sweet and well-constructed, just like all other Rogue Wave albums.

Gorilla Manor by Local Natives
My cool boss turned me on to these guys. Indie smarts like Metric or Band of Horses, Hints of 80s smart pop (almost Men at Work or Talk Talk), Anthemic fist-pumping choruses and Sonic noodliness ("Kid-A"-era Radiohead)...something for everyone.

This year I noticed that Alex Avila's walk-on music is "I Got Mine" by The Black Keys.

I got uncomfortably fascinated by Cee-Lo's "Fuck You"

Also, Some of my favorite music has started showing up in commercials on TV:
Matt Pond PA shilling Starbucks
Hem shilling Liberty Mutual
Feelance Whales shill Twitter
The Ghost of Nick Drake would certainly use AT&T just like in this commercial.

Televizzle:

According to Tivo, my favorite shows are Scooby-Doo, Marvel Super Hero Squad and Yo Gabba Gabba. This is pretty much right.
I also watched a very few other shows.

Mad Men
Wonderfully depressing and crushingly beautiful each week.

30 Rock
Still the funny.

Tosh.0
OK, so every night PJ and I take turns putting the boy to bed. The other person usually puts away a thousand Legos or Playmobil knights/pirates and whatever else is roaming around the living room. Usually I will put on the Letterman from last night (if the musical guest was good) or Tosh.0. For those who are not aware, it is pretty much the same thing as Web Junk 20 with Patrice O'Neal that used to be on VH1. It is pretty much just a half-hour of funny YouTube videos hosted by a frat boy who makes fun of them. Quite possibly the perfect background ha-ha for putting away Legos.

The lady who lives in my house really likes Fringe & Castle, both of which I have watched occasionally and enjoyed.
Both seem like quality entertainment.

Lost occupied my eyeballs.
To be honest, I can't really really remember what happened in those last episodes. I remember a church and being vaguely disappointed and/or disinterested.

The Detroit Tigers played a lot of Baseball on my TV this year.
Bless You Boys.

The Cinema:

Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him?)
I think I can say this was my favorite movie of the year. It has everything. After watching it, I thought it was a really great *movie* (not just a documentary). There was a troubled childhood, an absent father, a gifted artist, quick success, questionable career choices, partying with the Beatles and Keith Moon, repeating the mistakes of his own childhood as a father, the meet cute in a candy store, a love story, reconciliation with his estranged-ish son, a sad ending...Just a great story which just happened to be true (and have a killer soundtrack).

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Streamed this on The Netflix. I have no idea why Hollyweird is re-making this movie with *celebrities* since they already got it right.

Toy Story 3
Saw it with The Boy. The whole "Mr. Tortilla Head" scene was Rickles comedy gold.

Date Night
Just as funny: These outtake clips from some lady named Oprah's show.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Big fan of the book, thought this was pretty good.

The Time Traveler's Wife
Big fan of the book, thought this was pretty good.

Youth in Revolt
I know that street! That's not a bakery in real life! Why is that a cafe?!?!?1 This was filmed in Ann Arbor! I live there! In that same town!!!1! etc.

All of the other shit I watched:
Big Fan - sad
How to Train Your Dragon - meh
Clash of the Titans - bluh
The A-Team - chuckled
The Karate Will Smith's Kid - meh
Cyrus - oof
Salt - blurgh
Tangled - cute
Grown-Ups - I always laugh at David Spade movies because he reminds me so much of Paul Kahlenberg when we worked at the record store.
The Other Guys - oof
Burn After Reading - disappointing
Terminator: Salvation - disappointing
Night at the Museum 2 - big fan of Amy Adams' pants in that movie.
Sherlock Holmes - disappointing
Knight and Day - yurrrgh
Whip It - In the credits: "Derby Track Technician - Spencer Milton" That's my brother, motherscratchers. Don't make no mistake
District 9 - ok
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - fuuuuuck when will this thing end?
2012 - exactly what I hoped for
Inglourious Basterds - disappointing
Angels & Demons - fine
The Hangover - hyar

Book Learnin':

Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
Beyond fun. Recommended for anybody who likes history or braaaains.

The Girl Who had a Dragon Tattoo or Played With Fire and then Kicked The Hornet's Nest by that Swedish guy
Along the lines of a Michael Crichton or a Dan Brown. Entertaining.

Her Fearful Symmetry by the lady who wrote Time Traveler's Wife
Addams' Family-style mysterious and spooky.

JPod by Douglas Coupland
Hit some right notes.

The Gone Away World by Nick Harkaway
Elaborate post-apocalypse sci-fi. Mad Max meets the Magnificent Seven plus Fight Club. Y'know, like that.

The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter
Wormholes and Time Travel. My kinda thing.

Bad Juju

This year our 15-year old gross cat Galaga passed on into the catnip field in the sky.
He was old and gross and forgot how to care for hisself, but he was still a sweet little kitty.

Ernie Harwell & Sparky Anderson are playing catch in outer space.
Outer space is where you go when you die. Say hi to our cat, guys.

I put on my funeral suit too many times this year.
Dislike button.

I went on a business trip to Asia that put me on 10 airplanes in 6 days or something redonkulous like that.
As we were flying into O'Hare on the way back after being on the plane for 13 hours, it was so windy we had to swoop in and make a couple attempts at landing. The only way I kept myself from not vomiting or weeping was by imagining my shoes and socks were off and I was pinching green grass with my toes. I have no idea where this image came from but it soothed me and made me not die.

My washing machine died right before I needed to leave town for a week, my garage door opener and then my garage door crapped out, I needed some work done on my siding and then I needed a new roof.
Home Improvement 2010.

Alex Chilton Died
I am certainly not the world's first, biggest or [anything] Big Star fan, but I am truly sorry that Alex Chilton died.

On my business trip in Korea I was a bit jetlagged. I went with several of my co-workers to a customer meeting to visit with the largest consumer electronics manufacturer in Korea, but first we stopped for lunch. The place was a bit crowded with businessmen, and one large table was occupied by only two gentlemen. They had been drinking and were very jolly, and when the waitress asked them to move to a smaller table so we could be seated, they obliged. So we sat down, ate good lunch and then realized we were running a bit late so we grabbed our jackets and left. When we got to the customer's offices, we had to offer up any laptops, phones, and devices to be monitored so we wouldn't steal any corporate secrets. I was looking through my pockets when to my surprise I found an address book. When I looked inside, all of the info was written in Korean. I slowly looked down and realized I was wearing two different suit jackets. My regular suit jacket, and then a second blue jacket with large gold buttons on it.

I cannot express in words the confusion one feels when they look down and see that they are wearing two sportcoats, and the one on the outside is one you've never seen before. As I was looking down it was exactly like a movie scene where the foreground zooms closer and the background recedes away as everything slows down and my voice says "Whhhooooaaaahhh....whooooose jjaaaaaccckkkkeeettt iiizzzz thhhiiiiisss????" in molasses slo-mo.

It took a while for me to figure it out, but what had happened is that when the gentlemen at the restaurant had moved seats for us to sit down, one of them had left his jacket on the chair. When we got up in our rush to get to our meeting, I reached around to the chair behind me and grabbed the jacket that was there, slipping it on over my own without noticing. One of our guys who spoke Korean had to confirm with the restaurant (the guy was pretty pissed off that I stole his jacket) and we had to drive the jacket back over asap. I can only take solace in the fact that this was a learning experience and that if I ever wake up to find myself on another planet or I've grown a third arm from my forehead, I have had the training to deal with the surprise.

Remember when Michael Scott from The Office did this? Same thing.

The record books say Armando Galaraga didn't pitch a perfect game.
I know, right?

The Demise of ManCorp.
If you never been, you wouldn't understand. If you had been there, It lives on forever.

::

Thanks Innernets and those involved with my life.

Cleanin' Up

2010-12-20T21:12:00.000-05:00

Workin' on my Best/Worst of 2010 list.
See you later.

::

Thanks Steve

alamo, chapeau, renault.

2010-12-14T20:20:00.001-05:00

An incredible image of The Majestic Theater in Detroit in 1909.

Do yourself a favor and check out the hi-res version.

::

I've been chuckling at Wistream which is a curated feed of comedian twitter tweet twoots. Some examples:

kyle_kinane
I guess when a restaurant's sign is made from cut-up magazine pages taped to the wall, the diarrhea is redundant.

avery_edison
I must finally be using Photoshop right because it keeps crashing.

jeff_sawyer
The weather outside is frightful, the writers in here quite spiteful, but since we've no place to go, alamo, chapeau, renault.

kristen_carney
The only time I do lunges is when someone drops an earring and I'm obliged to pretend to look

hank_thompson
If you drink the juice at the bottom of a cole slaw container and nobody is there to see it, does it still make a sound? The answer is yes.

danforth_france
Last line from my movie pitch: "And then, over the hill, there are unicorns as far as the eye can see. CREDITS."

::

The Map of Metal fukking rulez:

Fully explorable with playlists of each genre.

::

You may remember a billion years ago when MTV was playing videos, but now you have to go to this site called YesYesYall.org to see the cutting edge videos
Plus: Occasional bewbs.

::

10 Mind-Blowing Easter Eggs hidden in Famous Albums.
I remember finding the secret booklet in "Kid A" and I was all like "Whoa"

::

"I can eat two wieners" - Pee Wee Herman on The Gong Show in 1976.

::

Nerdy: Inside the Netflix shipping hub:
I have to admit that the organized calisthenics reminded me of Mr. Burns trying to get the Nuclear Power Plant workers to exercise:

"Raise your right huck, aerate.
Raise you left huck, aerate.
I want to see more Teddy Roosevelts and less Franklin Roosevelts!

::

Thanks David
Thanks Waxy.org
Thanks Steve

Santa's Stuck In Rehab, Yeah He Ain't Gonna Show

2010-12-07T20:19:00.005-05:00

Xmas '10

My pal Brian got it into his brain to write a couple of solid holiday songs and record them for our ears.

He calls the band "Television City" and so far it seems to be mostly him writing and playing guitars, and then calling in a bunch of favors from friends who will gladly spend an afternoon in the studio making music.

On "313 Santa" you will hear Steve Bekkala: drums & bells; Dave Feeny: piano & organ; Kristin Von Bernthal: harmony vocals; Brian Raleigh: vocals, guitar & bass

On "The Night Johnny Thunders Saved Christmas" you will hear Steve Bekkala: drums; Kristin Von Bernthal: harmony vocals; Garret Bielaniec: lead & rhythm guitar; Zac Johnson: harmony vocals & handclaps; Eric Kelly: harmony vocals; Kevin Krzyzanski: bass; Dave Feeny: Piano; Brian Raleigh: vocals & guitars

::

The Goog can now translate into beatbox (if you take a bunch of nonsense syllables and translate them from German into German).
So watch the fuck out, Biz Markie

::

This is an amazing video done all in the typography of the lyrics.
Lots of great brand fonts and logos to tie into the context of the words.
Warning: The tune is happy but the subject matter is a bit of a downer

::

"Best Albums Of 2010" lists are popping up, but this one from Flavorwire tells you how you should interpret/stereotype peoples' top picks:

Vampire Weekend, Contra
That one frat dude who’s always trying to get his brothers to come out to a show with him.

MGMT, Congratulations
People who get the joke five minutes later, once you’ve moved on to a new topic.

M.I.A., Maya
People who won’t stop telling you shit you already know about WikiLeaks.

Kings of Leon, Come Around Sundown
Guys who have always wanted to wear a leather jacket but somehow can’t summon the chutzpah to buy one.

The Black Keys, Brothers
Whiskey drinkers.

Deerhunter, Halcyon Digest
Record store clerks who try to give you unwanted recommendations.

etc

::

This poster laying out where the Mad Men characters would be in a D&D game made me chuckle:

::

A buddy of mine sent me this photo of a celebrity and while I instantly recognized something about the guy, couldn't place it.
There is a certain truthiness about his eyes.

::

No reason.

::

Overheard at Greenfield Village Museum gift shop this weekend:

Mom strollering a little girl with no pants on - "Do you sell pants here?"
Clerk - "No we do not."
Mom [after being deep in thought] - "Hmmm...do you have a Lost & Found?"

I had a couple of questions:
1) What happened to make it so that the little girl's current pants were un-usable?
1a) I don't actually want to know the answer to this one.
2) How likely is it that there will be a "lost" pair of pants in the lost and found?
3) Would any of those pairs of pants fit me? If so, I have a new strategery about getting new pants.

::

Oh Velma...
::

Thanks David
Thanks Waxy.org
Thanks Goody
Thanks Rob
Thanks Kevin

Snark and Awe

2010-11-30T20:15:00.003-05:00

An honest question:
Is this comedy?

I laugh and laugh because I can't tell if this is a serious thing
or some completely bizarre and droll comedy bit.

Is it a training video for facilities managers?

The guy is a good juggler, but his delivery and sense of timing are just incredible.
Not like funny comedy ha ha incredible,
but more along the lines of Michael Scott from The Office doing a PSA.

I need your help.
Is this comedy? Or am I drunk again?
I'm getting a bit Zapruder with this one...back and to the left.

::

Xmas approacheth! Behold these Sketchy Santas.
Creepy factor on some of these = 1,000

::

Speaking of being drunk on Christmas, My pal BrianSleeeper pulled together a yuletide plea for St. Nick to visit Detroit in his new song "313 Santa".
Special appearances by Dave Feeny and Kristin Von Bernthal, in case you didn't buy the program at the door.

::

::

I am a big sucker for isolated music tracks and these isolated tracks from The Stones' "Gimme Shelter" do not disappoint.
I always LOVED that Merry Clayton backup where she's sooo into it that her voice cracks on the "Murder" line and somebody (Mick?) goes "Whoo!" in the background. They left that in the final version too.

::

A Frenchman walks into a bar with a parrot on his shoulder.
The bartender asks, "Where did you get that?"
The parrot replies, "In France, where there are millions of them!"

::

For all your dude holiday needs, I recommendThe Badass Gift Guide featuring everything from a $27 two-foot-long gummy worm to a $35,000 30th Anniversary Authentic Pac-Man Arcade Cocktail Table.
An apropriate level of Snark and Awe is associated with every item.

::

X-mas lights are up.

::

Thanks David
Thanks Waxy.org
Thanks Goody
Thanks Derek
Thanks Brian

R2 Where Are You?

2010-11-16T17:09:00.002-05:00

Remember the awesome Nickleback vs Chicken mashup?
This one makes me laugh almost as hard:


YouTube Doubler

Click both play buttons at the same time

::

9eyes is a terrific Tumbleblog of found images from the Google Streetview cameras.
Mostly prostitutes and zoos.

::

I am a sucker for horrible DVD bootleg covers, but some of these take the cake.
Remember when Arnold Schwarzenegger was in Star Wars? And they said it was "Science Fiction Perform Distinctive?" Or remember Tom Cruise in 'Pepe Likes Tacos'?

::

One of the most overused phrases in cinema is "You look like shit"...a million of which are captured here:

See also:
"Zoom in and Enhance"
"We've Got Company!"

::
'Member that time that Biz Markie was singing "Just a Friend" with The Roots and Jeff Goldblum showed up to play the piano?
Jeff Goldblum is watching you poop.

::

Bill Bonds and Strohs:
Two things that made Detroit great in the '70s.

::

I am currently blarging at the newly opened Wolverine State Brewing Company Taproom. It is hidden behind Big George's Appliance Mart on Stadium and features a big open industrial room where they have beer and free wi-fi. There are currently 27 dudes in here and one lady bartender.
This could become a regular hangout.

::

I can't tell if this would make me early or late, but I am pretty into this Time Traveler's Calendar:

Slideshow here:

::

A terrific bit of the "comedy" is Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon performing an epic Michael Caine-off.
"Let me finish"

::

Black Milk Clothing has these snappy Artoo swimsuits for sale.

Larger image here

::

Thanks David
Thanks Waxy.org

Tuesday Night Blogging Club

2010-11-09T20:31:00.004-05:00

Docking Bay 94:

Apparently Dubai is totally the place for photoshooping Star Wars ships and droids into actual locations.

::

Do you want to see a video of David Lee Roth doing all of the big scissor kicks evar?
(I obviously already know the answer to this.)

Want to know what kind of kooky shit people are saying while buying comics at their local comic book store?

[While buying a particularly busty $120 Catwoman doll...]

The site Our Valued Customers can give it to you in excruciating detail.

::

BallDroppings sounds like a brutal medical condition but is actually a fun game that may in fact consume hours of your life...
...y'know, arranging your balls.

::

A terrific live "Mash Up" of the theme from Mad Men with Nat King Cole's "Nature Boy"
(which some may only know from the movie "Moulin Rouge").

::

I don't really go in for the golf, but this guy lays it out in a way that any of us could understand.
If any of us were Stephen Hawking

::

This tune by Danni Harrison (with Joseph Arthur and Ben Harper in a band called Fistful of Mercy)
sounds like one of the songs John and Paul would have tried their damnedest to keep off of "Let It Be"

A serious rocker.
Everybody keep Jeff Lynne away from this shizz.

::

So long, Sparky

Say hi to Ernie for me

::

This exists

::

Thanks Goody
Thanks David
Thanks Steve

Dear Blog

2010-10-05T14:16:00.002-04:00

Dear Blog,
It's not you, it's me.
...And Facebook, really.

I'm sorry, but they just make it so easy: When I want to tell people about a kooky link I found, I just paste in the URL and all of the sudden it is formatted and available to the world. No hand-coded HTML or posting an image to Flickr and then trying to link back to it without violating their increasing terms-of-use policies.

This doesn't mean I have given up on you, Blogger interface. You are still probably good for something...kinda like Magazines: Long-form pieces with hard-hitting, in-depth analysis work well, but short blasts of information? That's what the modern internets are for.

I'll try to check back on you soon and see if I can't think of something interesting to say.

Sincerely,
.:DataWhat?:.

Simply Golden

2010-06-10T20:42:00.002-04:00

Oh my gracious:

This "between takes" clip of the Golden Girls telling dirty jokes to eachother made me laugh like orey Amsterdam after a Harvey Wallbanger. My favorite aspect is that that Rue won't tell the one she heard from Conrad Bain (who was the dad from Diff'rent Strokes) because it is too dirty.
She needs to be drunk to tell it.

::

If I cared at all about Soccer or the World Cup, I would probably somehow like this commercial even more:

As it is, I have to settle for enjoying Daft Punk, Snoop Dogg, Noel Gallagher and Ian Brown in the Mos Eisley Cantina.

::

Quite possibly the first instance of "That's What She Said" on film:

("As the girl said to the soldier" is the 1929 version of the now-famous retort.)

Thanks PJ
Thanks Jackie

I Am A Breathing Time Machine

2010-05-21T21:26:00.004-04:00

In March, the bros and I skipped lunch and headed down to Store 1 to see The Avett Brothers do their thang at the Downtown Borders.

You have to sit through some Martin Bandyke/Facebook goofballiness, but the show is a jam.

I Am Trying To Break Your Sexy M.F.er

2010-05-10T21:28:00.003-04:00

A terrific old-school Sam Cooke-Inspired soul version of Wilco's "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" performed by JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound

I really like the use of Jay Bennett's shimmery keyboard thing and BrianSleeper pointed out the "I'm goin' away where you won't look for me" bit of Theologians interpolated into the bridge. That's not just from a different song, friends: That's from a whole different album. I'd bet these guys are real live Wilco fans.

::

Also awesome, this footage the first appearance of Prince and The Revolution ever performing live is pretty chill-inducing. It's not like when YOUR band first appeared live and you did a cover of Glen Campbell's "Rhinestone Cowboy" and the bass player had all of the chords written out in longhand on the floor...this is your first live show where you premiere a 13 minute version of "Purple Rain" to a completely breathless crowd.

[THIS IS WHERE THE EMBEDDED VIDEO WOULD GO IF I COULD
FIND IT BUT I CAN'T SO YOU NEED TO CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE]

The 1983 concert took place at First Avenue in Minneapolis. A year later when the club was featured in Purple Rain (the movie), the venue would be changed forever. In 1983 however, it was perfect for hosting a newly minted Prince & The Revolution. Prince had been performing with some of the band members for a while, but the show was the debut of guitarist Wendy Melvoin who would continue with the band until their dissolution in 1986.

But back on track – the 1983 show (August 3rd, to be more exact) was the first public live performance of Prince & The Revolution. The concert was a benefit for the Minnesota Dance Theater Company. It was also the first time the band would perform several of what would become their signature tracks, most importantly Purple Rain.

Everyone knows the song. Play the first few chords and you’ll have everyone around you singing along. But in 1983 that wasn’t the case. Instead you had a capacity crowd silenced by the song’s first performance. This is one of only a handful of bootlegs of this track that does not have the crowd going nuts; instead they listen to the song and literally see history in the making. Obviously they can’t sing along, the song is new. So instead they listen; Seeing Prince at his absolute rawest in a tiny club with bad sound, sweating his ass off for the Minnesota Dance Theater Company. And melting off faces with one of his best guitar solos.

This live show made up the basis for several Purple Rain tracks, including the title track, I Would Die 4 U and Baby I’m A Star. Prince’s vocals are spot on with how you know them – because they were recorded from a mobile truck outside of First Avenue. Add in a few overdubs and there you have it, one of the best selling albums of the 80s.

Regardless of how you view Prince now, back then one thing was clear – his name was Prince, his favorite color was purple, and he was a bad motherfucker.

::

This is a picture of Scarlett Johansson

She is very attractive

::

Thanks Brian
Thanks GoldenFiddler

Q & A

2010-05-01T12:38:00.002-04:00

Stolen from Laszlo Thoth

Fun With Secret Questions & Answers

My new bank, Ally Bank, configures a security question and answer for customer service calls. In addition to your SSN, date of birth, and mother's maiden name they also ask you the question you specify and wait for the answer you've provided. This is good, because many standard questions are guessable in a way that user-defined questions may not be.

A real live human operator always asks the question and waits for a real live answer. This measure has the potential to not just improve my account security but add entertainment value as well:

Q: Do you know why I think you're so sexy?
A: Probably because you're totally in love with me.

Q: Need any weed? Grass? Kind bud? Shrooms?
A: No thanks hippie, I'd just like to do some banking.

Q: The Penis shoots Seeds, and makes new Life to poison the Earth with a plague of men.
A: Go forth, and kill. Zardoz has spoken.

Q: What the hell is your fucking problem, sir?
A: This is completely inappropriate and I'd like to speak to your supervisor.

Q: I've been embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from my employer, and I don't care who knows it.
A: It's a good thing they're recording this call, because I'm going to have to report you.

Q: Are you really who you say you are?
A: No, I am a Russian identity thief.

Q: For the remainder of this conversation, "How can I help you today?" actually means "Would you like to buy some mescaline?" Do you understand?
A: I understand completely.

Fart Blanket

2010-04-30T20:34:00.000-04:00

This is a real thing that is real:

::

Some new jams:

Band is "Freelance Whales" and the album is 'Weathervanes'

Do not listen if you don't like Fleet Foxes making out with The Postal Service in a used instruments pawnshop/defunct Radio Shack while the Beach Boys' "Wild Honey" LP plays on a turntable in the background.

Also: Band is "Free Energy" and album is 'Stuck on Nothing'

Sounds like Fountains of Wayne borrowed John Oates' mustache and then re-recorded Boston's first album.

Bonus: super-cute video with the aforementioned awesome mustache

::

This drunk guy is trying REALLY hard to get his flip-flop on.

(in this case “getting his flip-flop on” has nothing to do with sex or dancing,
he really just can’t get his sandal on his foot.)

::

What's that? Christina Hendricks is the Sexiest Woman alive?
Some of us knew this years ago when she fake married Captain Tightpants.

::

ICP now hawking Glade Plug-ins:

"Its all around you and you don't even know it."

::

New Hold Steady album is streaming at NPR.
Didn't grab me at first but I was also sober and at work. I'll try it again under proper laboratory conditions.

::

Thanks Brian
Thanks Waxy.org
Thanks Jamnes

Rock and Roll means well but it can't help tellin' young boys lies

2010-04-15T21:01:00.002-04:00

Record Store Day is this weekend.

What does this mean for me? Well I'll tell you again. One of my earliest pre-teen memories was going to a record store that was the Wazoo Annex which was on State Street in Ann Arbor across from Lane Hall (above what is now BW3 but was once In Flight and the Cat's Meow and a bunch of other crazy shit) with my dad.

We were looking for Black Sabbath's Paranoid on vinyl (not 8-Track which was the other option at the time). It had a pink circular sticker on it that said "3-" and I remember taking it home, pulling the LP out of the sleeve, and queuing up Iron Man for the first time.

This was the first Record Store experience that my mental database remembers and I never want that possibility to be denied to other grumpy white kids.

If you are looking for a good spot, I recommend Underground Sounds in Ann Arbor right next to Afternoon Delight...Liberty and whatever that is...across from the Post Office. I worked for the owner, Matt Bradish, (christ) 17 years ago at That Total Age records in Ypsilanti. He's still going and his store is better than ever.

I'm likely going to pick up:

Vampire Weekend - "Contra"
Massive Attack - "Heligoland"
Mumford & Sons - "Sigh No More"
The Hold Steady - "Heaven Is Whenever" (This comes out in May, but figured I'd add it to the wish list)
Black Keys - "Attack & Release"
Rogue Wave - "Permalight"
Drive-By Truckers - "The Big To-Do"
Laura Marling - "I Speak Because I Can"
matt pond pa - "The Dark Leaves"

and then whatever else catches my eye.

I get a whole lot of music that streams into my face free of charge due to the career choices I've made, the availability of the internets and the friends I have. When I drop $40, $80, $100 at a real honest-to-golly record store once every 6 months, I never have buyer's remorse. I always feel like I am supporting the machine that I still want to pay into.

I'm not lining the coffers of the fat-cats at the record labels or the glitzy A&R men, I feel like I'm supporting a community service...the old-school record store that we remember running off to after school with our allowance money.

whatever I can do to make it so my son has the same opportunity (to buy MP3s or plug the input directly into the medulla oblongata...I don't fucking care)...to go down to Matt's store and buy some hip-hop/AvantGrime/BlackDeathMetal record that I'll hate. That's what I want.

Cool stuff that will be available:

Monsters of Folk - Double LP set on clear blue vinyl (2,000 available)

Wilco - Kicking Television deluxe package vinyl reissue box set with 4 LPs, 8 extra tracks, and extra CD (1,000 available)

TV On The Radio - vinyl reissue of Dear Science with bonus Hot Chip remix plus MP3 download.

Soundgarden - reissue of 1987 debut single "Hunted Down" b/w "Nothing to Say", on orange translucent vinyl

Superchunk - "Misfits and Mistakes" b/w "Misfits and Mistakes" (Meatwad Version) Originally released in 2007 in extremely limited quantity, "Misfits and Mistakes" is the first and only picture disc we have ever produced. Recorded for Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters, "Misfits and Mistakes" is performed by Superchunk and covered on side B by Meatwad himself! Each 7-inch picture disc arrives in stores autographed by all four members of Superchunk and is available at a special price exclusively for Record Store Day!

ARCTIC MONKEYS – MY PROPELLER 10”
BLACK KEYS – TIGHTEN UP 12”
BUILT TO SPILL – WATER SLEEPERS 7”
COSTELLO, ELVIS – LIVE AT HOLLYWOOD HIGH 7”
DA – EXCLAMATION POINT LP
DEVO – DUTY NOW FOR THE FUTURE LP
DEVO – DUTY NOW FOR THE FUTURE CD
DOORS – PEOPLE ARE STRANGE 7”
DRIVE BY TRUCKERS –YOUR WOMAN IS A LIVING THING 7”
ERICKSON, ROKY & OKKERVIL RIVER – TRUE LOVE CAST OUT ALL EVIL LP
FANFARLO – YOU ARE ONE OF THE FEW OUTSIDE 7”
FLAMING LIPS – DARK SIDE OF THE MOON LP
FLOGGING MOLLY – DEVIL’S DANCE FLOOR 7”
FOUR TET – SING 12”
GAINSBOURG, CHARLOTTE – HEAVEN CAN WAIT 7”
JAPANDROIDS – POST-NOTHING LP white vinyl
JENNINGS, SHOOTER – DON’T FEED THE ANIMALS CD
KUTI, FELA – FELA FELA FEL 10”
JAPANDROIDS – ARTS & CZARS 7”
MAGNETIC FIELDS – 69 LOVE SONGS 10” box set
MASTODON – BLOOD MOUNTAIN LP colored vinyl
MASTODON – BLOOD MOUNTAIN LP deluxe on 45rpm vinyl
MUSE – EXOGENESIS 12”
OF MONTREAL – BACK TO SCHOOL 7”
PHOENIX – FENCES 12”
RAMONES – MANIA LP
RODRIGUEZ – INNER CITY BLUES 7”
SEA WOLF – GET TO THE RIVER BEFORE IT RUNS TOO LOW 10”
SOFT PACK – SOFT PACK 7” box set of the entire album
SONIC YOUTH – HITS ARE FOR SQUARES LP
STRUMMER, JOE – GLOBAL A-GO-GO LP
STRUMMER, JOE – STREETCORE LP
TEGAN & SARA – AOL SESSIONS 7”
TV ON THE RADIO – DEAR SCIENCE LP
WAITS, TOM – MULE VARIATIONS LP 180 gram limited edition
WHITE RABBITS / ANTLERS – SPLIT 7”
WILCO – KICKING TELEVISION LP box set
YEAH YEAH YEAHS / SKELETONS – SPLIT 7”
YOUNG, NEIL – HEART OF GOLD 7”

Underground Sounds (Ann Arbor)

255 E Liberty St
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 327-9239
www.myspace.com/undergroundsoundsmi

::

Thanks Matt

The 5 Facets: The Gear. The Threads. The Performance. The Groove. The Vocal

2010-04-13T20:23:00.002-04:00

Also entertaining: His YouTube Comments:

"Dude, are you writing comments? to yourself using different accounts, and then replying to your own comments?"

::

Some fun photos and quotes from the new Entertainment Weekly about filming Empire:

"Eric Idle had just returned from Tunisia, where Monty Python were shooting Life of Brian. And he bought over what I believe he called 'Tunisian Table-Cleaner', which was a beverage. Well, Harrison came over and The Rolling Stones came over, and I think we stayed up most of the night. So when we arrived at Cloud City, we were very happy." - Carrie Fisher

::

Chester

::

The Name Of The Year 2010 brackets are available now.

Who will win?
Dirk Cool or Nojay Nimpson?
Roy Spancake or Dr. Speedy Nutz?
Magnum Rolle or Gregor Schwinghammer Jr.?
Charity Beaver or Lolita Respectnothing?

Previous winners:

2009 Juvyline Cubangbang (NOTY High Committee)
2009 Barkevious Mingo (The People)
2008 Destiny Frankenstein (NOTY High Committee)
2008 Spaceman Africa (The People)
2007 Vanilla Dong
2006 Princess Nocandy
2005 Tanqueray Beavers
2004 Jerome Fruithandler
2003 Jew Don Boney Jr.
2002 Miracle Wanzo
2001 Tokyo Sexwale
2000 Nimrod Weiselfish
1999 Licentious Beastie (INVALIDATED 2006; Runner-up: Dick Surprise)
1998 L.A. St. Louis
1997 Courage Shabalala
1996 Honka Monka
1995 Ballots missing
1994 Mummenschontz Bitterbeetle (INVALIDATED 2006; Runner-up: Scientific Mapp)
1993 Crescent Dragonwagon
1992 Excellent Raymond
1992 Assumption Bulltron (Name of the Decade)
1991 Doby Chrotchtangle
1990 Otis Overcash
1989 Magnus Pelkowski
1985 Godfrey Sithole
1983 Hector Camacho

::

Inge = T1000

::

The Hold Steady have a couple new tunes on some website called MySpace and will be Performing on Letterman and Colbert in upcoming weeks.
The Hold Steady will perform on The Late Show with David Letterman on Friday, April 30, and sit down for an interview as well as perform on The Colbert Report Thursday, May 14. The band will play songs from their new album Heaven Is Whenever, out May 4 on Vagrant Records.

::

Thanks David
Thanks Steve
Thanks Gorilla
Thanks Andy

Dumb Blonde

2010-04-10T20:18:00.003-04:00

Some photos of Dolly Parton

In 1978 girls panties with “Edward” written on them in marker meant something very different.

2010-03-26T22:02:00.001-04:00

There is this terrific site called The Selvedge Yard whose job it is to find awesome old photos and show them to you.

This is a shot from Biker Week in Daytona in the Mid-'70s and may need to be a Porchsleeper single at some point:

Big ups to Flickr user Futternut

Related:

(nice shirt there Dakota)

::

Some Old Floyd shows popped up on this thread.
Point me at the Sky and let me fly.

::

This twerpy hearththrob duplicated himself and sings a medley of TV shows with some nice harmonies:

::

A really fun Van Halen story and photos from a guy who hung with them in 1978 when he was 15.
"I was so excited. Edward Van Halen was my world. He was just a kid, 22 maybe. I was 15 but I felt like I was 12. He scratched an autograph in the back of the bit, put some teeth mark in it, and then I asked, ‘How do you play the intro to “I’m The One”?’ He played in on the V. Mike and I were fucking amazed. I asked him, “Am I doing this right?” And I played the solo to “On Fire”. He told me to hold on, opened up his Haleburton metal suitcase. We noticed he had girls panties with “Edward” written on them in marker & pulled out a Danelectro neck & guitar body & a screwdriver. He put the guitar together then and there & strung it up."

::

Hey everybody!

::

Thanks Goody
Thanks David
Thanks PJ

Nick Drake

2010-03-19T23:09:00.022-04:00

Some cool photos of Nick Drake:

Photo by Flickr user Jef Aerosol

Photo by Flickr user jenn l.

Photo by Flickr user oddsock

Photo by KindaMuzik.com

Photo by Flickr user tone777

::

Thanks The Big Picture
Thanks The Selvedge Yard

What Alex Chilton Means To Me

2010-03-17T21:49:00.004-04:00

I am certainly not the world's first, biggest or [anything] Big Star fan, but I am truly sorry that Alex Chilton has died.

"The Letter" by The Box Tops
(which Alex Chilton sang when he was 16 goddamn years old)

The Letter - The Box Tops

"Cry Like a Baby" by The Box Tops
(You heard it on oldies station in your Mom's car)

Cry Like A Baby - The Box Tops

"September Gurls" covered by The Bangles
(You stole the "Different Light" tape from your sister's boom box because you wanted to learn
the dance to "Walk Like an Egyptian" bit you ended up liking this song the best but didn't know why)

September Gurls - The Bangles

"In the Street" by Big Star
(This is the song you like from the beginning of "That '70s Show")

In The Street - Big Star

"Alex Chilton" by The Replacements
(I'm in love/With that Song/I'm in love/What's that song?")

Alex Chilton - The Replacement...

"Thirteen" by Big Star
(You heard this on a Maxell 90 minute High Bias Cassette mix tape I made for you)

Thirteen - Big Star

Fresh Pots!!

2010-03-15T17:11:00.003-04:00

Dave Grohl has a serious jones for coffee, as is detailed in this 2 minute behind-the-beans documentary.

Let it be know that "Fresh Pots!" will make it into my vocabulary startiiiiiiiinnng NOW.

::

Thanks David

Facing the (Free) Music

2010-03-13T11:03:00.002-05:00

A couple of interesting articles about the current state of digital music on "On The Media" from NPR. (Transcripts and free MP3 downloads).

The dawn of Napster and the current digital market talking about Napster, the RIAA, Rhapsody, Spotify, Imeem, iTunes, with Tim Quirk [Too Much Joy/Rhapsody] and Eliot Van Buskirk [Wired] among others.

Two decades of Sampling talking with Girl Talk, Hank Shocklee and Duke Law professor James Boyle.

Live music costs and Ticketmaster consolidation talking about the Stones touring in 1975 compared to bands today.

What do "Charts" mean today? talking with Greg Kot, a guy from Idolator.com and a guy from Billboard. Ok Go and new promotions come into conversation. Also, an interesting concept about "Songs Per Band:"

ERIC GARLAND: One of the things that we've looked at for a number of years is something that we call “songs per fan.” How many songs from this artist is the average fan interested in? You know, an artist like the Dave Matthews Band, if someone is interested in one song, they are likely interested in more than five songs. I chose that example because that’s a very elite club. You know, I would put the Beatles in that company.

But let me put the question to you, if you look at the top of the airplay charts, the top of the sales charts, how many songs, on average, do you think people are interested in from those artists? Remember that the number can't fall below one, right? It’s about 1.1.

and

How artists are making money today talking with Amanda Palmer [Dresden Dolls/$19K richer thanks to Twitter].

Creepy Russian Singer Shreds

2010-03-12T08:02:00.002-05:00

You may have seen this weird Russian singer "Trololo" clip before, and you may have seen those Shred videos, but you've never seen them in the same room, yes?

Angry Rooster Confronts Nickelback

2010-03-11T20:33:00.000-05:00

I may not have posted this before but this video of a rooster being mad at Nickelback makes me laugh until my eyes make tears of laughing hilarity.
That rooster fucking hates Nickelback.

::
Terrific Song:

::

This showed up on Craigslist recently:

Mar 1, 2010 ... Porch Sleeper - m4w - 26 (Cuyahoga Falls) ... Your neighbor ordered pizza Thursday but I saw you were asleep on your enclosed porch when I got there. I got off an hour after that and went back. you were still asleep. I squatted down and watched you for an hour and a half, your dog came out and barked at me and made me run away when he woke you up.

If you felt the connection too what color was my hoodie? If you cant remember sleep on your porch tonight, I come by every night to check.

::

All staples

::

Some old India Green jamz
From back in the day.

::

Have you been to Zombo.com?
You will be welcomed, and you can do anything.

::

New Band of Horses album cover.

I hope the album is half this good.

::

Did you hear about BeaArthurMountainsPizza?
They totally ripped off SelleckWaterfallSandwich

::

::

Thanks David
Thanks Steve
Thanks Justin
Thanks Kelly

Mood-Based Playlists

2010-03-06T11:45:00.000-05:00

StereoMood

StereoMood pulls from publicly available curated MP3 sites like Aurgasm, Pitchfork, Acquarium Drunkard, Gorilla vs. Bear and other sites too cool to follow, then their staff profiles them by moods and activities.

It's a pretty straightforward concept: You identify the mood (Sleepy, Spooky, Cool, Mad) or activity (Sunday Morning, It's Raining, Spring Cleaning) and push a button, it'll stream a radio station just for you.

::

PlaylistNow.fm

PlaylistNow is a bit sketchier in that if you put in "I am tired" or "I am relaxing" it tries to find other playlists people have created that have that keyword in the title. So if you type in "I am way too drunk" it finds some stuff that matches those categories (based on some kind of similarity they've concocted).

::

I guess the issue I have with both of these solutions is that there doesn't seem to be any way to refine your lists. If my "Solitude" playlist comes back with all Contemporary Hip Hop and Disco tunes, there doesn't seem to be a way to filter out categories I might hate (or even focus on categories I might like), but at worst it is like a radio station that doesn't have commercials and *kinda* focuses on the mood or activity you might be interested in.

How Do I Discover and Acquire Music?

2010-02-28T20:10:00.004-05:00

Over some brews a couple months ago, we were discussing how to find new music, and it started me to thinking.

I listen to a lot of stuff casually (Pandora, casual CD listening/borrowing, Grooveshark, Last.FM, Spotify), but when I really like something I end up purchasing or acquiring it for myself forever.

In 2009, there were pretty much three ways I discovered new music:

Just over 1/3 of my music purchases are bands I already know I like and want the new album
(new Neko Case, new Hold Steady, etc)

1/3 are Things I read about online or just hear somewhere and want to explore.
(Online streaming radio? A TV commercial? Actual radio?)

1/3 are things that I hear recommended from friends
either by them talking about it (facebook, blog posts) or them specifically saying "You should check this out."

The interesting thing about the third one (people mentioning or recommending music) is that I noticed it would multiply by how many times I heard it mentioned. I might read "So and So is checking out the new Blitzen Trapper album on Facebook." Then later that day I would read a review of the album (which would multiply my original idea by 2), then somebody else would mention them in a conversation (x3) then finally I would check them out.

You see a billion band names every week, but it is this rapid series of connections (especially coming from people I trust) that really sparks my interest and pushes me to seek the music out.

I look at my 2009 Purchases/Acquisitions:

STUFF BY ARTISTS I ALREADY LIKE:
Andrew Bird "Noble Beast"
(Already Like him)
[Bought at Underground Sounds]
Beastie Boys "Paul's Boutique [Reissue]"
(Already Like 'em)
[Bought at Underground Sounds]
The Hard Lessons - "Arms Forest"
(Already Like 'em)
[Free Download from their site]
The Hard Lessons "B and G sides"
(Already Like 'em)
[Bought at Underground Sounds]
Drive By Truckers "Fine Print"
(Already Like 'em)
[Steve had a copy I borrowed]
Beatles Box
(Already Like 'em)
[Bought at Underground Sounds]
My Morning Jacket "It Still Moves"
(Recommended by Derek years ago, didn't get it then. Now I like 'em)
[Bought at Underground Sounds]
Dntel "Dumb Luck"
(Already like 'em)
[Bought at Underground Sounds]
Silversun Pickups "Swoon"
(Already Like 'em)
[Bought at Underground Sounds]
Great Lakes Myth Society "She's Come Home to Steal Her Rainbows" single
(Already Like 'em)
[Bought at Underground Sounds]
Jenny Lewis "Acid Tongue"
(Already like her. This album stinks in my opinion. If I had previewed it, I wouldn't have bought it)
[Bought at Underground Sounds]
Pearl Jam "Ten [Legacy Edition]"
(Already Like 'em. Read good things about this remaster)
[Bought at Underground Sounds]
Neko Case "Middle Cyclone"
(Already Like her)
[Bought it somewhere]
Johnny Hartman "Just You, Just me"
(Already like him)
[Bought at Amoeba Records]
Amy Winehouse "Frank"
(Already like her)
[Bought it somewhere]

STUFF I DISCOVERED SOMEHOW ON MY OWN:
Tinted Windows
(Already like the dudes involved. Heard the song online. Loved it. Bought the record)
[Bought it somewhere]
Henchmen "Three Times Infinity"
(Heard it on the god damned real life radio)
[Bought at Underground Sounds]
Jenny Lewis "Barking at the Moon" single
(Heard it on the movie "Bolt")
[Swiped from innernets]
Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson "Break Up"
(Already like Pete Yorn's music and already like Sco-Jo's everything else. Heard the song online. Loved it. Bought the record)
[Bought at B&N]
The XX "The XX"
(Heard about it online from Tim Sendra/AllMusic Blog)
[Bought at Underground Sounds]
Yim Yames (MMJ) "Tribute to (George Harrison)"
(already Like him.)
[Amazon had it for 99 cents]
Emitt Rhodes "The Emitt Rhodes Recordings 1969-1973"
(Heard about it online from Tim Sendra/AllMusic Blog)
[Borrowed]
Blitzen Trapper "Furr"
(Read things online, thought I would like them)
[Bought at Underground Sounds]

STUFF RECOMMENDED DIRECTLY TO ME:
Bullion "Pet Sounds in the key of Dee"
(recommended by Dan Trenz)
[Swiped from innernets]
Monsters of Folk "Monsters of Folk"
(Knew I'd like it, Steve had a copy I borrowed)
[Borrowed]
M. Ward - "Hold Time"
(recommended by Derek)
[AmazonMP3]
Phoenix - "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix"
(somebody I knew I'd like, it took my sister telling me I'd like it to make me buy it)
[AmazonMP3]
The Avett Brothers - "I and Love and You"
(recommended by Brian)
[AmazonMP3]
The Airborne Toxic Event "The Airborne Toxic Event"
(Recommended by my sister, saw them on Letterman, love the album)
[Bought at Underground Sounds]

It is split sorta even, but with the stuff I have a strong sense I'll like (or at least want in my collection) coming out on top.

The interesting thing is that even with the massive chunk of change that was the Beatles boxed set, I still spent the majority of my money on things by bands that I already knew I liked.

This tells me that there would be a real value (to the record labels and music rights holders) in a good method of alerting me when something I already like is available for sale.

Who knows what I missed and would've plunked down money for if I had only been alerted in some way.

That Killed 'im

2010-02-27T10:41:00.003-05:00

What with the new DVR technology and all, I totally miss out on 30 second comedy:

Pretty funny commercials that teach us we should not jump to conclusions.

Yngwie Sports Bra Ninjas

2010-02-25T12:27:00.003-05:00

I somehow missed this video for one of my fave 2009 tunes.

Despite the fact that it has Scarlett Johansson in it, I like it.

::

How to Put On a Sports Bra via McSweeny's.
9. Cross your arms in front of your face, grasp the bottom of the sports bra and begin tugging it down to your chest. This process should take 2-25 minutes and can be streamlined by the removal of one of your arms (advanced yoga practitioners only).

::

::

Great new album called "Sigh No More" by UK motherfolkers Mumford & Sons.
Reminds me of The Avett Brothers and Airborne Toxic Event with a good 7 pints of British ale thrown onstage.

::

'Member how you wanted that Yngwie J. Malmstein Cigar Humidor?

'member?

::

Thanks Dadid
Thanks Justin
Thanks Steve

Back to the old-school posts

2010-02-24T19:36:00.001-05:00

This is making the rounds:

Quite probably the worst song ever.

From the Tubesteak gallery:

at the start I thought this was all the same guy -- using his Bar mitzvah gift iMac/iMovie bluescreen plugins to make him play all instruments. This is absolutely genius.

Once it's at the end, click back to the 20 second mark to see how much the tempo increased throughout.

Then again, this is only one of the many critiques that one could make to this fine work.

I'm crying.

The lead singer looks like Ben Stiller's nephew. (the ears and walking gate when we strolls in concern.) Genius
The moving train shot and the kid who accidents into the frame at the right. Genius.
The lead guitarist alone in the elevator, getting his best "John Mayer Feelin' It" Body Language on. Genius.

CheeseHenge at 2:14. Double genius.
The end of the bridge with the vocal hold before the re-entry - is that a dotted dotted dotted dotted 8th note rest? or a single tacit bar of 27/8?. Genius. I thought only Chick Corea could bend time like that!

and so they don't get sued by the Big Labels - the blurred logo on the bass player's upper right pec t-shirt.

This is the best.

It’s hard to watch. And the kick line??? WTF???

Here's the endless guitar solo:

::

A great collection of Hi-res photos of classic theaters.
Classy

::

This sequence of photos of Hillary Duff getting engaged is too good not to share.
Well disengage and get back to work,

::

A great glimpse into Winter Olympics shenanigans.
In February 2006, I was sitting next to Bode Miller and five scantily clad women in a nightclub in the Italian Alps. The winter Olympics were starting the next day, and Bode clearly didn't care. He was far more focused on the perfectly manicured girls on either side of him, and a large tray of vodka and Redbull. The girls - among them a Playboy Playmate, Miss Budweiser, and Miss International Hooters - were equally unconcerned with the Olympics. The competitive event they were participating in - trying to sleep with Bode - was far more ruthless and interesting.

Earlier I had walked past their table wearing a Def Leppard concert T-shirt. "Is that a Def Leppard T-Shirt?!?" one of the girls shouted to me. I nodded. "I fucking LOVE Def Leppard!" she screamed. Then she stood up, gave me a high five, and started twisting her hips and screaming the lyrics to "Pour Some Sugar on Me." One of the other girls, clearly upset by the amount of attention the first girl began to generate, stood up and marched across the dance floor. She flirted her way into the DJ booth, convinced the DJ to stop the music, and got on the mic: "This next song," she announced to a dance floor full of Italians wondering why the music had suddenly stopped, "is going out to Bode Fucking Miller! You fucking rock, you Sexy Motherfucker!"

An hour later both of the girls were alone and pouting. Bode had just left with another. He would return to the club several hours later - bare-chested but wearing a U.S. Ski Team jacket - and leave with yet another girl. The 2006 Winter Olympics had officially begun.

::

This professor lays the smackdown on a kid who shows up late for class.
Nice verbal parrying.

::

I am a leaf with a funny t-shirt.

::

Thanks Kevin
Thanks David
Thanks Steve

Mario Brother

2010-02-04T22:41:00.001-05:00

::

Thanks Lee

One Big Hollandaise

2010-01-13T19:34:00.001-05:00

My Morning Jacket on YouTube
4:23 into it.
Very into it.

Two-Thousand and Fine

2009-12-29T15:37:00.009-05:00

Best Junk from 2009:

Hank

PJ

Mancorp©
Just like Fight Club, only you can't talk about it.

Cleveland Rocks
Spent a perfect weekend in Cleveland with some bros. The Mexican food. The Christmas Story House. The Five o'Clock. The greasy breakfasts. Brendan's hangover cocktail. The ambulance outside of the Thai place. Much needed.

Makers Mark & Zacapa 23 Rum.
Not mixed together! Jesus, you freaks. What's wrong with you? Although...No. Nevermind.

Tivo HD
Two cable cards, no waiting. Although embarassingly 90% of the shows on there are Disney Playhouse shows. In HD though. So we've got that going for us.

Organic cotton t-shirts
I am sensitive and worth it.

The Dodge Challenger SRT
As you know, I don't go in much for cars, but this return to '70s muscle really caught my eye.

The Blue Tractor
They have this little frosty refridgerated shelf at the bar where you can put your can of Blatz and keep it cool. Real cool.

I sat next to Rob Reiner at lunch.
"I'll have what he's having"

My new Blackberry
Work gave me a Blackberry Pearl to replace my clunky 8703e. Night and day I tell you. I actually like this one.

Went to the Kalahari Waterpark with the fam.
Good times.

We went to Slows and then a Tigers game on our anniversary.
Quite possibly the perfect afternoon.

Seeing Kinky Friedman's imaginary loft in NYC.

I was a big fan of the Canadian Club "Damn Right Your Dad Drank It" ads this year.
I also like these just as much.

Gabe, Rex, and Owen
Kids in America. Whoa-oh

Playing Beatles Rock Band outdoors at Dan's house.
My buddy set up a projector in his backyard and a bunch of us played Beatles Rock Band and then watched Wet Hot American Summer like a for real Drive In movie.

The Kodak zi8 hi-def pocket camera
Cheaper and better than the Flip camera. Now capturing my son's pores one at a time.

Fidrych
Some of my favorite musicians are in this band. And Brian Raleigh as well.

Playing banjo in the studio.
Thanks, Jer

Going to see Old Timey Baseball at Greenfield Village with The Tobeys.
Huzzah!

Teh Intarwebs

Facebook.
There. I said it. I like Facebook. Anybody else out there? The thing I really like about it is that I can keep up to date on my friends activities so that when we see each other face-to-face we can skip the "So what have you been up to?" phase of the conversation and just hang out.

Grooveshark
This website more than any other gets my vote for most useful online music site this year. I blathered on about it here at nauseating length.

Random hilarity from TextsFromLastNight.com, FMyLife.com, SorryIMissedYourParty.com, and ShitMyDadSays.

MeatCards
and really just the Frazetta contest they held.
And really just the one photo.

This Louis CK clip on Conan is something I keep coming back to.
He really nails a lot of points about how impatient we are with technology.
It is 4 minutes. You can spend 4 minutes.

An interview with Time Magazine about the clip here.

Happy in Paraguay
A guy makes up stuff it looks like the Star Treks are saying

Kiss re-dubbed
Fit your Pants! Nobody's got Shampoo.

Kittens Inspired By Kittens

David After Dentist

Billy Mays Kaboom Redub.

Put Some Cheese on It

Drunkest Guy Ever Goes for More Beer

Fishing Show Bloopers

Recordings:

This Grooveshark Playlist has my best tunes from 2009.
You can just play them all for free without giving anybody your credit card number or even your e-mail address.

Neko Case - "Middle Cyclone"

Chilling, Brawny and Bleeding
The bad news is that this is only a pretty average Neko Case album, making it only really really really good (as opposed to really really really really good like her other albums). "Magpie to the Morning" is an incredible 3 minutes of music, plus she covers a Harry Nilsson tune which gets me right in the heartstrings. Listen/Hear.

Tinted Windows - "Tinted Windows"

The bands that you loved were just haircuts and jackets
The band has just the right blend of cute/ugly members, walls of distorted guitars, plenty of treble, teenaged love songs (granted, written by men in their late thirties), sweetly disposable pop tunes and hooks for a million miles. Plus, having an actual member of Cheap Trick can't hurt. Listen/Hear.

Bullion - "Pet Sounds in the Key of Dee"

Remixed, Re-thought and Stitched Back Together
Bullion took some Beach Boys master tapes and some J Dilla beats and tied them all together in a manner above and beyond most basement mash-ups. Listen/Hear

The XX - "The XX"

Crisp, Cool and New Wave in a Way that is not Ashamed to be New Wave.
These kids have some Cure records and some New Order records. No, wait. They don't have the records, they just have the MP3s. Listen/Hear

My Morning Jacket - "It Still Moves"

Neil Young in a Corn Silo with plenty of LSD and Pink Floyd and Lynyrd Skynyrd Records.
I came at this album a bit sideways. Several years after it was releassed, I fell in love with MMJ's more recent albums and then backtracked to this one. Standout Track: "I Will Sing You Songs" which Henry says sounds like the airport during the vocal harmony sections. That is a compliment. He likes the airport. Listen/Hear

Andrew Bird - "Noble Beast"

Whistley, Warm and The Soundtrack to the Middle School Crush on Your Lab Partner
Andrew Bird has gone from being the guy who played violin on Squirrel Nut Zippers albums to be a terrific off-kilter songwriter and a fine vocalist. Nice work, buddy. Listen/Hear

Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson - "Break Up"

Dreamy, Fuzzy and Sleep-Addled
While I was no fan of her album of Tom Waits recordings, the Pete Yornieness of this album really helps her out a bunch, making a decent long EP of cute retro-feeling love/unlove songs. "Relator" is the standout track. Listen/Hear

Emitt Rhodes - "The Emitt Rhodes Recordings 1969-1973"

Smiling, Piano and Nilsson Haunting
My prior Emitt Rhodes exposure was "Lullabye" on the Royal Tennenbaums soundtrack: A sweet love song which is repeated in myriad variations with different twists on this 2 disc boxed set. Listen/Hear

Phoenix - "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix"

Bright, Boisterous and French (not that you would know it)
These guys first showed up for me on the "Lost In Translation" soundtrack. I knew I would dig 'em, just never dug deep. Thanks to my Sister calling me out of the blue to tell me to tune in, I am hooked. Listen/Hear

the Avett Brothers - "I and Love and You"

Rusty, Rustic and Rusted
Ok fuckers. How have I never heard of these guys before Brian Raleigh wordlessly put them into his top 2009 playlist? I'm disappointed in all of you who knew about these guys and didn't even think I might be innerested. Serious. Listen/Hear

The Airborne Toxic Event - "The Airborne Toxic Event"

Brash, Urgent and Sodden
Although this came out in 2007, it took a Letterman appearance and a phone call from my Sister to clue me in. The lyrics to "Sometime Around Midnight" makes me wish I was underage again. Listen/Hear

The Beatles - "Stereo Boxed Set"

"Guitar Groups are on the Way Out"
This boxed set spent a lot of time in the REM Sleep of my mind over the past 15+ years. Thanks guys. Sounds good.

Televizzle:

Spent a lot of summer afternoons watching Tigers games on the porch.

I put the sound on the speakers out there and then watch through my front window. Occasionally with a beer.

The IT Crowd
Totally fun BBC show about IT nerds working in the basement of an office building. Start here and then here.
Apparently there was going to be an American version on NBC in 2007 but it didn't make it. That may be for the best.

Mythbusters
Even though they replaced Kari Byron with somebody while she was squeezing out her baby, it is still some of the best 35 science-related minutes on TV.

Mad Men
So many shows end their seasons with a cliffhanger where something terrible is going to happen. Mad Men decided to end their season where something spectacular could happen. Shut the door, have a seat. Yes, thank you I will.

30 Rock
Oh lord, the one where Liz had the discount Lasik eye surgery and then cried out of her mouth? [at about 18 minutes in]. Man that's good TV.

Dollhouse
Sigh. Yet another Joss Whedon series that started mediocre, got really interesting and then got yanked from the air. Plus, I thought that Miracle Laurie was a babe.

Classic Albums on VH1
I am addicted to the 'Classic Albums' series on VH-1. Cream's "Disraeli Gears?" OK. Maiden's "Number of the Beast?" Wouldn't miss it. Jay-Z's "Reasonable Doubt?" Try me. "Who's Next?" Should be mandatory before graduation in high schools across the country. Film a fat old white guy on the far side of a mixing board and you have my attention for a thousand hours. Interview David Fricke = The same result.

The Cinema:

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Up

Watchmen

Star Trek

It Might Get Loud
Jack White is a weirdo, but when he gets into the room with Jimmy Page (and The Edge to some degree) you can see the eager fanboy within just itching to get out.

Book Learnin':

A Dirty Job and Fool by Christopher Moore.
I will read anything by this man. Witty, clever and fantastic in every sense of the word.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Somebody described this to me as "Harry Potter for grown ups" and I could have kept reading it for a thousand more pages.

The Prisoner of Vandam Street by Kinky Friedman
This was mostly fun because I read it in New York where I was in an office a half-block from Vandam Street.

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
I don't really go in for mysteries or Stalinist Russia, but this one had some nifty turns.

Bad Juju

Jay Bennett of Wilco died. As did Blossom Dearie, Dom Deluise, Mark Fidrych and Mary Travers.
Also to a less impactful extent: Michael Jackson.

Getting sick on vacation.
We went to Hilton Head on vacation and I got sick to the point where I was really trying to have fun but I was not actually having fun. Then Hank puked in the rental car, Penny did not want to fly back and then I totally fucked up Mother's Day. I would like for the last half of that week to be stricken from the record.

Through no real fault of my own I got lost on the New Jersey transit system.
Not real helpful, those TV monitors that say that they're going to Newark Airport but then don't actually go there at random times in the day.

Imeem got bought by MySpace, rendering any of my former links to songs in blog posts dead.
This page has a sad example of what I am talking about.

My Scrobbles are all messed up:

Somehow the Last.FM scrobbling on my iPod is all goofed up.
This is one of the WhiteWhineiest things I have to complain about.
Sorry

I really feel as though DataWhat was lacking in content and actual posts this year. My bad. You can blame Facebook.
In fact, I didn't post at all in October. This is quite a precipitous drop from when I would post every day and ask guest bloggers to fill in when I went on vacation.

Twitter
Sorry bros, I tried it, but it just isn't doing it for me.

Crabcore:

::

Thanks Innernets and those involved with my life.

Uh, I'm Just a Dolphin Ma'am

2009-11-24T21:53:00.004-05:00

So I'd like to talk to you for a second about Grooveshark

While it is by no means perfect, I find myself going back to it repeatedly as my go-to source for listening to music.

In essence, it has 8 out of every 10 songs I want to hear, full on-demand audio, with no fee, and you don't even have to put in a fake username or password. No signup, no nuthin'...just look for songs and then listen to them.

My big issues in the past with online music services have been requiring listeners to log in, cruddy audio (usually from YouTube videos), lack of catalog, or no on-demand listening (like with Pandora when you want to hear "In My Room" you might hear it 17th on your "Zac's In My Room Station").

Grooveshark seems to dodge many of these (except maybe the catalog issue).

I've read a lot about Owl City.
Oh here it is.

Why are the British so apeshit about Kings of Leon
Ah, This is why

Remember that jam "Afternoon Delight" that was in Anchorman?
No, not the original version, the actual one from the movie with Ron Burgundy and Michael Scott from The Office singing? Yeah that one.

Y'know who was funny? Bill Hicks. Oh, here's a bunch of his stuff.

Mmmmm...John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman

Aw man. I wanna hear that album by The XX but it's out in my car. Oh, here it is.

I really liked that Emmet Rhodes song on The Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack, I wonder if he recorded anything else. Oh good.

Bloggas be talkin' about The Mighty Boosh, Maybe I'll check 'em out.

A friend was asking me about Shoegaze music. Here you go Blair.

'Member that JAM from college called Deeper Shade of Soul? Holy shit! Urban Dance Squad made more than one song!

That reminds me of "Wash Your Face in My Sink" by the Dream Warriors and "The Deee-Lite Theme" and "Grey Cell Green" by Ned's Atomic Dustbin and The Soupdragons' cover of "I'm Free" whoa...I wasn't expecting that tangent

They've also got a Radio function that works pretty well.

From a Richard Buckner song I got a station of Lucinda Williams, Townes Van Zandt, Songs: Ohia, Uncle Tupelo and Wilco.

My Morning Jacket radio was Will Oldham, Ryan Adams, Wilco, Flaming Lips, Radiohead, and Mercury Rev.

Jazz Saxophonist Johnny Griffin brought back Art Blakey, Cannonball Adderley, Jimmy Heath, Blue Mitchell, Red Garland and Joe Henderson.

Paul McCartney radio was The Beatles, George Harrison, Oasis, The Zombies, The Animals and John Lennon

New Order = Depeche Mode, OMD, The Cure, The Psychedelic Furs, Radiohead and Joy Division.

Van Halen prompted David Lee Roth, Ozzy, ZZ Top, AC/DC. Deep Purple, Aerosmith and somebody called Fear Zero which I had never heard of but that tune fit in just fine.

Sloan radio is Fountains of Wayne, Thrush Hermit, Apples in Stereo, Teenage Fanclub and Eric's Trip.

You can skip as many songs as you like, jump to any song in the list, and Favorite/Dislike any of the songs, or "Flag" them if they are inappropriate or just don't fit:

This is good stuff and I hope they're using it to their full advantage.

The business model is...interesting. Apparently (and I am not a lawyer, or sober at this point) you as the user upload your music collection to them, then anybody can listen to it. Grooveshark monitors the plays and pays the rights holder whatever is owed. If somebody chooses to download the song you uploaded, they pay 99 cents, Grooveshark pays the rights holder for the sale, takes a cut for themselves and then YOU as the uploader also get a cut of the profit.

There may be some shenanigans here, but record label EMI bought into their scheme and maybe the other majors will follow.

So I encourage you to scope it out. It's totally free and doesn't require anything from you.

Or: do whatever you'd like. Y'know. Free country and all that.

::

Swears always make me laugh

2009-09-19T14:57:00.000-04:00

Shit My Dad Says
This guy writes down the craaaazy shit his dad says.

::

E-mail From an Asshole
This guy replies to classified ads with unexpected results!

::

Thanks Innernets

Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream

2009-09-07T19:04:00.011-04:00

First of all, let me describe the anticipation.

Lordamighty, I've been begging for them to remaster the Beatles albums I think since the day I bought them on CD. They sound so flat and tinny, even compared to the other discs that were coming out in the late '80s. They didn't sound like my Dad's LPs. They sounded like the way it would sound if you just spun up the cardboard LP jacket on your turntable. I rattled on about it here almost exactly 2 years ago.

I remember the Stones reissues coming out in 2002 or 2004 and being blown away by the clarity of the tone and the sounds of fingers on strings...you could almost slip your hands between the layers of the music. That's all I was hoping for.

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Then, let me talk about the panic.

At first I panicked about which set to get: The Stereo box or the collector's Mono box. From all early reports from a voice I repsect above nearly all others, the mono mixes have a lot more punch and just better sound, but don't come with a handful of the later albums that were initially produced in stereo, so I went with the Stereo box.

Then I panicked because a buddy told me that EMI (amazingly) did not anticipate the level of demand and did not produce enough of the boxed sets. Holy Shit! I actually took a day off of work to listen to these! I envisioned myself racing from indie store to big box store to (shudder) Wal-Mart (somewhere I would not enter unless I was on fire and they were selling 99 cent water) trying to find the damned thing. Luckily, like a fucking sweet-sweetback pusher on the street who knows your weakness and throws in a little extra, someone came through. He will remain nameless unless he lets me know that I can broadcast his name to the world, at which point I will tattoo his name on my arm.

Finally, I got to one of those rare points where all responsibilities were set accomplished (oh, happy birthday son) and my darling bride shoved me out of the house, saying "You need to be somewhere else. Go. Feel free to come back after dinnertime. I got this."

So I went to a little place I know and plugged Please Please Me into the hi-fi.

Uh oh.

Panic.

Muddy. Too much high-end. Crackling highs. Crunching harmonies. Muddled solos. Snarling bass lines. Pizza-box snare sound. Maybe some tears on the cheek. No no no. Not possible. Another CD drive, that's what we need. Plug in the laptop into the stereo...same scene. Haul the old Sony 200 CD changer from the closet. Ug. No dice. OK, c'mon man...think. thinkthinkthink.

AHA! The Car!

(race out to the car with Magical Mystery Tour in hand)... ahhhhhh "Flying" "Blue Jay Way" "Your Mother Should Know" "Penny Lane"....sounds good. No muddle. No peaking highs. OK. It's just the thrift store/everybody's attic stereo that is forcing this trauma.

Back to home base. OK, laptop with headphones. Plug in. Hmmm...

So this is where I admit some hilarious counter-intuitive nincompoopery on my part.

Hooray for stereo. The ability to separate sound into multiple channels so it feels like you are there maaaaan. Thank you Ernesto Stereo from coming down from that Greek mountain and inventing it. Only ...the Beatles use too much. Sorry Paul and John, sorry Mr. Martin. I know it was cool, and it seemed like a great like a stoney idea to slam all of the vocals into one room and leave all of the instruments in another corridor, but if you are listening in a 1972 Chevy Malibu that only has one speaker in the center of the dash, you lose half the story, and if you are sober and listening on headphones it splits your head in half (without the necessary chemicals to tie all of the pieces together...sorry).

Luckily technology comes to my aid again, and the media playback software Winamp has a 3rd party plugin called "Somewhat Mono" that allows you (the listener) to choose how much stereo split you end up getting. This is how I dove in.

I really wanted to crank up the tunes on a hi-end Maranz tube amp-driven system, but I ended up listening on this laptop with my (actually really good) Sony Fontopia earbuds, and that will have to do.

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The packaging:

From the accounts I'd received, it is "a large, vertical set with two stacks of discs in slick cardboard sleeves piled on top of each other" which made me worried that it was packaged like a grocery bag packed by one of those special needs baggers at the local Kroger's... all jumbled in there with the canned goods on top of the white bread

In reality, it ain't so bad. The box is a box. It is meant to hold the digipaks so they can ship to the store OK, then you can put the individual discs on your CD shelf, then wonder what to do with the outside box. It will end up in the basement. One corner will get crushed. If you live in my house, the cat may pee on the box it is in and you'll end up throwing it away.

Is it a gold-and-mahogany gilded box with emeralds the same colour as the Apple logo? No.

Did it get the CDs to my house intact (even though that asshole cut me off as I was driving and it tumbled to the footwell of my car and I thought "Oh shit, I'll be blogging about THIS")? Yes it did. In fact I am in support of boring utilitarian boxes because it makes their banishment to the basement that much easier.

The digipaks are well built, the actual disc (CD) graphics shift from Parlophone to Capitol to Apple appropriately. Did they exactly replicate the LP labels exactly (the little stickers that were pasted on the LPs indicating side 1 and side 2)? I'll be damned if they didn't (or as close as you can get when the A side and B side are on the same piece of plastic). The White Album even has the image of the full apple on the first disc, then the halved apple on the second disc. Nice fucking work, gents.

Each album comes with a booklet of the original liner notes, some new photos and some "Recording Notes" by the blokes that were tasked with the remastering. It has everything for everybody. The generation that picked them up at their local Woolworth's on LP can revisit the liners, and those of us nerdy enough to have read about this entire remastering process can get their jollies over phrases like "Using this take as the master, overdubs of handclaps, timpani and guitar were made on track three and the remaining track was used for double-tracked vocals. The closing guitar coda was added on another day and the distinctive fade-in was created when the song was mixed." Ooooh! Anyone else with goosebumps!?! no? oh...ok.

Magical Mystery Tour comes with the whole goofy cartoony TV teleplay that I remember from Pop's LP, and The White Album (oh let's all collectively stop calling it "The Beatles" shall we?) comes with a gatefold with the four dreamy snapshots that were in the LP but also a booklet AND a fold-out poster that has the lyrics on one side and the photo montage (complete with John's sketch of the nude John & Yoko that my brother and sister and I giggled over 30 years ago) that was in the original album package.

There is also a DVD with documentary material about each album. Each of these should be 10 hours long (and still be too short) but are actually just a few minutes long each and were pretty accurately described as "infomercials" about each album. I figure: pick up The Beatles Anthology on DVD and throw it in while you're listening.

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Ahhhh...the music.

Once I got around the technical limitations of the system I was battling with, I started with Please Please Me and picked choice cuts throughout the discography:

At the very very end of "Tell Me Why" on Hard Day's Night there's a great "zip" of the strings that the remasterers recovered.

Of the early Beatles stuff, nothing sounds as good as "Beatles for Sale" featuring my top favorite moptop-era jam "What You're Doing." In this song (which I've listened to 6.8 million times) I'm hearing nuances like piano chords previously buried, and a low hum of a backing vocal in the last verse that was like finding a thousand-dollar bill in your back pocket.

The volume control guitar trickery of "I Need You" on Help! (nerds will know what the fuck I'm talking about) has been tempered in a very respectable way that now sounds like a musical instrument and not a freight train barreling down on your ears. Plus (can I say it?) More Cowbell!

"You're Gonna Lose That Girl" = Latin percussion jam? I never knew it, but there it is.

Oh "Yesterday"...I great, I now want to invent a time machine to go back in time and make out with Paul McCartney. Turns out that if I was alive in 1965 I may have been gay.

Disclaimer!
My favorite album since the dawn of time is the US edition of Rubber Soul.

In my opinion,

The songs added from Help! (the pleading acoustic "It's Only Love" and the rollicking opener "I've Just Seen a Face") change the entire feel of the album, making it more earthy and textural. By dropping the piano-driven "Drive My Car" and the stark "Nowhere Man," the U.S. edition stands as a much more organic and warm musical whole, enduring as by far the most intimate Beatles album until Let It Be was released in 1970.

So there.

So I hand-cobbled the sequence of the stateside version of Rubber Soul and it sounds great. "I've Just Seen a Face" was one of the songs I sung to Hank to try to get him to sleep when he was a babe. It will be the first song played in the Wes Anderson biopic of my life and it really needs to come first.

Ringo's goofy country-rock throwaway "What Goes On" simply sparkles (hey, I admitted to being gay a couple albums ago) with John's accent vocals and George's nimble guitar licks. There are also a bunch of awesome studio mumbles going on the background under everybody's breath. Fuck, man. They were real people with opinions and voices and funny asides to each other while the mic was on.

The fact that they could do so much with a track that was never a number 1 (or even on the radar) shows how much attention this canon got.

Holy shit. "Taxman"...That bassline is incredible. It's like Paul decided "OK, if we're going to launch off the album with a George song, It's gonna fucking tear it up."

"Eleanor Rigby" is the worst offender of the Stereo Discrepancy wars. Some verses are evenly balanced and some have some pretty extreme split.

("I'm Only Sleeping," "And Your Bird Can Sing" and "Doctor Robert" all get skipped because they weren't on the US version that I memorized and whenever they show up it is like when the the nerdy exchange students would show up at your dorm room party..."Yeah, I mean I guess you can come in...or whatever...I guess." I'm sure they're nice songs and have a lot to offer, but they are foreign to me and to you I say good day sir. Sir: I said Good Day.)

That being said, "And Your Bird Can Sing" has a JAM of a vocal harmony in the 'MEEEE"s, and when my Dad was going to school he roomed with a pre-med student that he called "Doctor Robert' so I guess those songs are OK.

"She Said She Said" is an acerbic and raw rip of a song. Matt Knee and I saw a band called Overwhelming Colorfast who was opening up for Medicine(?) Luna(?) Screaming Trees(?) Mercury Rev(?) at The Pig in (fuck me) 1993? and they tore this song apart. I wish their albums were as good as this song.

Ok wait. Let me get this straight: The Beatles released Rubber Soul, then Revolver, then Sgt. Pepper? One after another? All within like a year and a half of each other? Never before and never again will this level of artistic achievement be matched.

"Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite" from Sgt. Pepper is worth the price of admission alone. So many other vocals and guitar parts that were never revealed before! How many people were in this band anyway!!!1!

These later albums end up being a split decision. So much of the engineering and instrumentation were so pioneering to begin with, these advances in mastering are sometimes illuminating and somewhat expected. I'm finding more revelation in some of the earlier "moptop" albums than I am with some of the trippier stuff. That stuff was already incredible to begin with. Still...

"Within You Without You" has so much sitar and cello and tabla and guitar goodness I can barely contain myself. There are these little whispered bits under the music that are chuckling to themselves...I see the giddy face of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi prodding the giggles and mantras...I...I want to give him my money...(ok maybe not, but still).

The awesomeness of John's "Within You Without You" (transcendental, wordly, I become an transparent eyeball) segueing into Paul's "When I'm Sixty-Four" (Vera, Chuck and Dave) forecasts the inevitable decline of the band. Damn if those clarinets and bassoons don't take you right from Rishikesh to a Liverpool Labour neighborhood in a flash though... Almost as if Paul was saying "Yes yes...mysticism is all well and good, but don't forget, John, your grandmum lived 'round the corner from mine."

Oh man. Let me tell you... I had never heard the creak of the engineer's chair at the end of "A Day in the Life" before (as hard as I strained) and now it is clear as day. Oh, and they kept the "Never to see any other world" bit on the end, in case you were wondering ...what's that? Oh, you weren't? Oh, ok.

Magical Mystery Tour has some under-appreciated tunes on it ("Flying" "Blue Jay Way" "Your Mother Should Know") and they all sound really crisp and great.

I kinda over-listened to The White Album from 1986-1990 (a.k.a. the entirety of high school) and it kinda occupies the same space as Pink Floyd and Nirvana in my brain: Like I dug WAAAYYYY too deep into it and have trouble returning to it again, not because of the quality of the music but because of the emotional heaviness I have attached to it. Still, it sounds so good here...you an still feel the tension beginning, and the bass work on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" actually outshines Clapton's solo. Ferreals.

"Blackbird" sounds fresh and amazing. The percussive foot taps or lap-slaps are right in the room with you. OOh! And did you know that the bass line in "I Will" was not a bass at all? But actually Paul himself going "Doomp Doomp" right in your left ear with his voice? So there you go.

They wisely split it into two albums as it should be.

Oh hello french horns in "Mother Nature's Son"...I didn't know you were hiding back there behind the curtain!

Jesus M. Christ "Everybody's Got Something To Hide" is a JAMMMMM! Ring that bell you crazy fucker!!! (note: I have been drinking bourbon)

(I did not listen to "Revolution 9" ..not since the ..."unpleasantness")

It seems kinda weird that Yellow Submarine came after The White Album, but what can you do?

"Only a Nothern Song" sucks and should not be listened to. Sorry George, I know you're dead and all, but does matter what chord you play and what key you're in...it's called music.

"All Together Now" brings out some weird stuff that I hadn't heard before, but overall I think that the version on the Yellow Submarine Songtrack may in fact be more listenable. This one is a bit too ramshackle and jumbled. It's fun to have a sing-along but those extra voices playing the tambourine and Harpo/bicycle horn on the floor could be dropped back in the mix. "Hey Bulldog" punches you in the tits, though.

There is a bunch of George Martin orchestral score stuff being listened to now and will never be listened to again. On to...

Abbey Road which starts with "Come Together" and is creepy and lecherous and wonderful. Like a Steely Dan song without the jazz. "Because" is equally stark and creepy. There is a great acapella version of this song on the third Anthology:

This information has nothing to do with the boxed set. Just thought I'd share it.

"'Out of college/Money Spent/See no future/Pay no rent/All the money's gone/No where to go...but oh that magic feeling...nowhere to go"

"Sun King" sounds great. The Beatles must've gotten real crickets to record that part at the beginning.

There is usually about a month out of every two years where I think that Let It Be is my favorite Beatles album. It just feels like the last chapter of a series of books that you dearly love (Tolkien, Lloyd Alexander's 'The Prydain Chronicles,' Harry Potter, ummm...that may be it) where you feel like you've been on a journey and maybe this chapter doesn't have the most swordfights or action, but it wraps it all up and it seems like there is a casual resolution in Samwise getting married or the hero returning to normal life.

The Beatles cover some old blues tunes, flash some brilliance ("Let it Be," "Across the Universe," "The Long and Winding Road") revisit the first song they ever wrote, and throw in some studio banter/gooballiness, culminating in the last recording as they flame out on the rooftop of their studio.

This was revisited recently in the Let It Be...Naked release, so nothing here sounds absolutely revelatory, but I will say that there are brilliant pixies that fly around "Across the Universe" lighting John's path with choral voices and a loopy wah-wah, and Paul's glee during "I've Got a Feeling" simply pours through the speakers like an old Play-Doh Fun Factory.

There is also a two-disc Past Masters set that grabs all of the non-album tracks and I'm not convinced that it received the same attention. "She's a Woman" sounds like four (or maybe fewer) guys in separate rooms walking though the song. "Paperback Writer" fares better, but "Rain" sounds a little too brash and one-note, like it is all pouring out of them at exactly the same color and texture, overwhelming the listener.

But seriously, how often do I plan to throw the Past Masters in? Not all that often. They are like a shoebox full of quarters that I would've bitched about if they hadn't been included alongside the gold dollars of the rest of the songs.

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And in the end...

I am overjoyed at the purchase and am glad at all of the attention the lads are getting (oh, there's also a video game or something that is coming out). There are little gems in here that nerds like me will be uncovering for months to come...missed notes or studio banter or something.

Could there have been more? Sure. There are shit-tons of outtakes and alternate versions that exist and could've been included, but overall I couldn't be happier.

Even if you have all of these albums on CD already, I recommend re-investing.

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

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Thanks Amanda

That's enough, Nickelback.

2009-08-25T21:50:00.002-04:00

Dunno who wrote these. Probably the innernets:

- More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.

- Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

- I don't understand the purpose of the line, "I don't need to drink to have fun." Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they've invented the lighter?

- Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

- I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

- Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the "people you may know" feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?

- Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.

- There is a great need for sarcasm font.

- Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the f was going on when I first saw it.

- I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.

- How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

- I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

- I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

- The only time I look forward to a red light is when I'm trying to finish a text.

- A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.

- LOL has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say".

- I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

- Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.

- Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart", all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart".

- How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

- I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a dick from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!

- Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies"

- What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?

- While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks Mario Kart.

- MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

- I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

- Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

- I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.

- Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

- I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

- Bad decisions make good stories

- Whenever I'm Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don't mind if I do!

- Is it just me or do high school girls get sluttier & sluttier every year?

- If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.

- Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be a problem....

- You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

- Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.

- There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

- I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

- "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this ever.

- I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There's so much pressure. 'I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren't watching this. It's only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?'

- I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

- I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

- When I meet a new girl, I'm terrified of mentioning something she hasn't already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.

- I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

- Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles...

- As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.

- Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

- It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.

- I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

- Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn't know what do to with it.

- Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, hitting the G-spot, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet my ass everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time...

- My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day "Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How the hell do I respond to that?

- It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.

- I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.

- I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

- I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.

- That's enough, Nickelback.

Thanks Limey

Baseball Stats + Graphic Design = Nerderiffic

2009-08-08T22:26:00.002-04:00

Flip Flop Fly Ball Shows great Baseball statistic posters and nerdy trivia.

"Why Don't You Explain It To Me"

2009-08-02T15:08:00.002-04:00

A super-fun movie put together in 48 hours for the Detroit 48 Hour Film Festival by some familiar faces: Dave Serra, Joe Zettelmaier, Greg McIntosh, Jim Roll, Brian Lillie and a handful of others who I don't know (but I'm certain are nice people).

Items they had to incorporate in the movie:

Off the Wall

2009-07-31T18:57:00.000-04:00

Very cool trompe l'oeil murals on the sides of buildings:

"Hey, are you guys open?"

Article here and more photos here on the artist's site.

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Thanks Dan

Thumbhead

2009-07-25T15:23:00.001-04:00

Hey man, Sorry I Missed Your Party.com.

Guitar Hero

Meth hats

Helga is ready to drink and weld

Dog pipe

Joe versus the Volcano

Mountain Mafia

thumbhead

OK, this party actually looks pretty cool.

so many more

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Thanks David

Point Me at the Sky

2009-07-22T07:45:00.001-04:00

The Guardian reports: We [Pink Floyd] were in a BBC TV studio jamming to the landing. It was a live broadcast, and there was a panel of scientists on one side of the studio, with us on the other. I was 23.

The programming was a little looser in those days, and if a producer of a late-night programme felt like it, they would do something a bit off the wall. Funnily enough I've never really heard it since, but it is on YouTube. They were broadcasting the moon landing and they thought that to provide a bit of a break they would show us jamming. It was only about five minutes long. The song was called Moonhead - it's a nice, atmospheric, spacey, 12-bar blues.

I also remember at the time being in my flat in London, gazing up at the moon, and thinking, "There are actually people standing up there right now." It brought it home to me powerfully, that you could be looking up at the moon and there would be people standing on it.

At the time, Pink Floyd had been doing rather well. For a while, the band had been somewhat erratic and its reputation was sinking. I joined in 1968, 18 months before the moon landing. By then we were beginning to climb back up again.

It was fantastic to be thinking that we were in there making up a piece of music, while the astronauts were standing on the moon. It doesn't seem conceivable that that would happen on the BBC nowadays.

It didn't have a significant impact on our later work. I think at the time Roger [Waters], our lyricist, was looking more into going inwards, going into the inner space of the human mind and condition. And I think that was sort of the end of our exploration into outer space.

We didn't make any songs out of the jam session. We did, on occasions, do music live that would be a jam session of some sort; that would have some structure which we would organise ourselves. And I've heard documentaries where I recognise my music. It's very odd to be watching a documentary and to hear something that you know is yourself, but you have no recognition of when you did it or how. I've never forgotten Moonhead, though.

After all, it's not hard to remember exactly where I was. - David Gilmour

• Moonhead was broadcast at 10pm on 20 July 1969.

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Thanks David

Disengage

2009-07-15T20:35:00.000-04:00

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Thanks Steve

This is like an Italian suppository- it's all innuendo.

2009-07-13T20:48:00.002-04:00

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Thanks Steve

Geezers Rule

2009-07-08T21:34:00.002-04:00

OldJewsTellingJokes.com is just old Jews. And they tell (old) jokes. With hilarious results.

::

Breakfast at Sulimay's is a trio of old folks who deconstruct current indie rock hits.
This is them reviewing an MF Doom track and a Phoenix track.

Sometimes Joe falls asleep.

::

Thanks Steve

Get your own business cards made of MEAT AND LASERS

2009-07-01T21:36:00.004-04:00

So these folks at Meatcards had a vision and a dream and (obviously) a business plan that one day the world will collapse in a fiery apocalypse and the only thing left to eat will be our business cards. Therefore they decided to start laser etching business cards into slabs of meat.

My God it's full of Meat and Win.

As if that wasn't genius enough, they had the foresight to run a contest asking regular joes to re-create classic Frank Frazetta paintings with some important rules to consider:

A couple of examples lifted from BoingBoing (since they did what I was going to do):

oh, and if you need a larger shot of "The Best Photo Evar" it can be found here:

I also gotta hand it to these bros for a lot of reasons:

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Thanks Brian

To make the music play, you push the large play button. It engages with a satisfying clunk.

2009-06-30T12:15:00.003-04:00

This 13-year-old kid explores the Sony Walkman (more than twice as old as he is):

"It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette."

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Thanks Steve

Seriously dudes, music is over.

2009-06-22T21:28:00.002-04:00

This is the greatest worst thing ever.
Please watch the entire thinig if your internal system will allow it.

I spent the whole time trying to figure out if it is all the same dude...like Eddie Murphy in those fat/farty movies.

Also: Autotune
Euro/fruity club/dance
cookie monster vocals
cloning
classical etude thrown in
Jacob's Ladder movie effect
keyboard guy rocking out in the sun on his keyboards

YouTube comment: "I won expert mode."

And then there are all these comments about "Crabcore" which led me to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crabcore

Crabcore is a contemporary offshoot from the emocore/screamo sub-genre of hard rock music.

Unlike almost all other genres and sub-genres of music, crabcore is defined not by aural motifs, tones, lyrical content, or specific instrument ensembles; but rather by physical gesticulations and contortions of the arms and legs of individual band members during live performances of their music. Sometimes, gesticulations are synchronized between two or more band members. This has the effect of exponentially multiplying the level of audience bewilderment.

Other moves available to crabcore players include:

* The "Richardson Richardson"
* "Krinking"
* The "Beaver Bounce"
* The "Krunkle Kick"
* The "Shrimp & White Wine"
* The "Dirty Hamper"
* The "Pestal Press"

Which led to this textbook example of Crabcore:

it all comes full circle

::

Thanks Steve

My Weekly Top Artists

2009-06-19T09:41:00.002-04:00

Goofing around with some Last.FM jonk.

At this piano filled with souls

2009-05-25T22:11:00.006-04:00

So a billion years ago Penny and I went to go see Wilco at the Majestic Theater in Detroit, and as they were playing, she pointed at a guy on the left who went from mandolin to violin to keyboards to guitar to melodica. She said "If you were ever in a band, I think you would be like that guy."

The guy was Jay Bennett and I always took that as a real compliment. While he made questionable dreadlock choices and was probably not a guy I would choose to drive cross-country with in a Hundai, the truth was that the orchestration and colors he added to Wilco's music led to the band's most amazing period (in my opinion) from "Being There" through three-quarters of "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" and including "Summerteeth" which sits comfortably in my Top 5 Albums of All Time list.

Later in Porchsleeper's recording process, I was jokingly accused of "Jay Bennett-esque douchebaggery" (I'm paraphrasing here...it may have been "ass-hattery") when I wanted to add yet another layer of handclaps/Fender Rhodes/phone ringing/Tijuana Brass/String sections. I also took that as a compliment.

Below are a handful of songs that remind me of Jay Bennett who passed away in his sleep over the weekend.

"Why Would You Want to Live" - Wilco's "Being There"

"Airline to Heaven" - Billy Bragg & Wilco's "Mermaid Avenue II"

"When You Wake Up Feeling Old" - Wilco's "Summerteeth"

"Pieholden Suite" - Wilco's "Summerteeth"

Ashes of American Flags - Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot"

Poor Places - Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot"

"My Darlin'" - on Jay Bennett & Edward Burch's "The Palace at 4am"

Listen Here:

Chicago's Jim DeRogatis talks about Jay's life and death.

Jay Bennett's contributions to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot available here:

An interview

21 Reasons Why Jay Bennett Should Be Back In Wilco

Am I on candid camera?

2009-05-23T14:00:00.001-04:00

Let me get this straight...
Scarlett Johansson is recording an entire album inspired by Brigitte Bardot?

OK, who's putting me on?
Is this my birthday present?

I did not in any way find her Tom Waits album interesting,
but I gotta say this first single is actually pretty good.

::

Thanks GoldenFiddle

Time Vampires

2009-05-20T21:37:00.000-04:00

Three of the Time Vampires (sites that just suck all of the time away and all of the sudden you're like "Holy Shittake, how is it 3 in the morning already?") that I've been recently attacked by are:

TextsFromLastNight.com

This site asks users to input text messages that they've gotten. They are startlingly funny.

(919): so I was just driving high and I stopped to let a pinecone cross the road because I thought it was a hedgehog.

(847): i took some ambien and I TRIPPED out...i went into my mom's room to say goodnight and i don't remember anything...she said that i got really pissed at her because we were living in the Keebler elf tree and she was visiting other trees, then i started laughing hysterically and she goes "whats so funny?" and i go "there are 7 people sitting on my knees" and she goes "doesn't that hurt?" and i said "no we're sitting in a bowl" and then i capped it off and said "join the crazy train bro" and passed out.

(614): I woke up this AM and all of my clothes i wore last night are gone. Instead i am dressed in air jordans, boxers, cargo shorts, and an Affliction t-shirt. the part that upsets me most is that i was with a guy who wears Affliction t-shirts.

(650): Just FYI I rubbed poison oak on all your sheets and blankets so we all will know who you hooked up with (in about a day)

You can also search by your area code and look for people you know:

(734): I Once took so much Ecstacy that I tried to hug a fire.

(734): hey call me
(810): can't. in the shower.
(734): ... and this is probably why your phone does not work half the time.

::

FMyLife.com

The F. in F.M.L. Stands for F*** My Life and it is usually folks just telling short terrible stories about junk that happened to them.

Today, my girlfriend dumped me proclaiming she wanted someone more like her "Edward". I asked her who Edward was. She held up a copy her "Twilight" book. She was talking about a fictional vampire. FML

Today, I went on a date with a guy for the first time. We went to Starbucks and got coffee. We talked for awhile, and we weere joking and having a good time. Suddenly, he put his hand on my stomach and said, "soon, this will be plump with my seed." FML

Today, I took the bus to work and a sweet old lady got on after me and sat next to me. Halfway to work, she fell asleep and her head was on my shoulder. Trying to be nice, I gently tried to wake her up before my stop came. She wasn't sleeping. I let a dead woman lie on me for 30 minutes. FML

Today, I got a letter from Princeton that said i got accepted. I jumped for joy screaming at the top of my lungs. My little brother walks in laughing with his camcorder on record. He played a joke on me and gave me the real letter. I was denied. FML

Today, my boss fired me via text message. I don't have a text messaging plan. I paid $0.25 to get fired. FML

::

TweetingTooHard.com

These folks harvest all of the most self-important Twits(?) Tweets(?) Twattles(?) they can find.

Went to the gym this morning. As I left, everyone said I was the best! @serafinowicz

@wildbill I don't get it either. Who pushes out more interesting links AND interacts more than me on Twitter? @guykawasaki

At the W. I don't think this Viognier is going to work well with the foie gras I just ordered. @eston

I have 53 more pages to read on The Swiss Courier galleys. The book is hard to put down ... even when I wrote it! @triciagoyer

OMG i was saying how i couldn't afford the gas to fly daddy's jet to the riviera this summer, and this barista totally rolled her eyes at me @babesmcphee

::

Thanks David
Thanks Steve
Thanks Andy

School of Rock

2009-04-29T12:13:00.003-04:00

A friend of mine took this photo of what her kid's
preschool teacher has up on the classroom wall.

I say: I definitely want that person teaching my kid.
Hells yeah!

The Sounds of Summer

2009-04-25T13:02:00.003-04:00

Big fan of the debut (and, lets face it...probably only) album from stuporgroup Tinted Windows featuring James Iha from Smashing Pumpkins, Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick, Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne, and Taylor Hanson of Hanson.

I'm a big fan of three of these bands and I'll be damned if that girl from Hanson can't sing a solid pop song. It's sorta like Schlesinger said to himself "Man I wish I was a young man during Cheap Trick's heyday. The world needs that kind of super-shimmery pop song right now. Hmmm... aw fuck it, I'll just make my own Cheap Trick."

The band has just the right blend of cute/ugly members, walls of distorted guitars, plenty of treble, teenaged love songs (granted, written by men in their late thirties), sweetly disposable pop tunes and hooks for a million miles. Plus, having an actual member of Cheap Trick can't hurt.

When I listen I say "Oh, there's a Pumpkins song...I loved 'Plume.' Oh, this song of Adam's didn't make it onto Welcome Interstate Managers apparently. Man I wish Robin Zander could still fit into this song. Hey, I remember 'MMMMbop.' I liked that song."

So here's some jams:

(a misguided T Rex homage, but still fun stuff)

(Sounds exactly like "Two Days Gone" by somebody I can't remember...any help would be appreciated)

Put Some Cheese On It

2009-04-17T19:10:00.001-04:00

Junior, Turn That Racket DOWN!

2009-04-15T22:30:00.005-04:00

Saturday April 18th is National Record Store Day.

What does this mean for me? Well I'll tell you. One of my earliest pre-teen memories was going to a record store that was the Wazoo Annex which was on State Street in Ann Arbor across from Lane Hall (above what is now BW3 but was once In Flight and the Cat's Meow and a bunch of other crazy shit) with my dad.

We were looking for Black Sabbath's Paranoid on vinyl (not 8-Track which was the other option at the time). It had a pink circular sticker on it that said "3-" and I remember taking it home, pulling the LP out of the sleeve, and queuing up Iron Man for the first time.

This was the first Record Store experience that my mental database remembers and I never want that possibility to be denied to other grumpy white kids.

If you are looking for a good spot, I recommend Underground Sounds in Ann Arbor right next to Afternoon Delight...Liberty and whatever that is...across from the Post Office. I worked for the owner, Matt Bradish, (christ) 16 years ago at That Total Age records in Ypsilanti. He's still going and his store is better than ever.

I'm likely going to pick up:
The new Silversun Pickups
That Pearl Jam "Ten" reissue
Some Dntel recordings that I didn't know existed
some My Morning Jacket stuff I don't have ("Tennessee Fire" maybe?)
Maybe some Rilo Kiley or the second Jenny Lewis CD (I've been way into this tune which I stole from the interwebs and enjoyed, so I should attone somehow)
The Diana Krall Bossa Nova album if it is there
Maybe some Steinski (because I should)

and then whatever else catches my eye.

I get a whole lot of music that streams into my face free of charge due to the career choices I've made, the availability of the internets and the friends I have. When I drop $40, $80, $100 at a real honest-to-golly record store once every 6 months, I never have buyer's remorse. I always feel like I am supporting the machine that I still want to pay into.

I'm not lining the coffers of the fat-cats at the record labels or the glitzy A&R men, I feel like I'm supporting a community service...the old-school record store that we remember running off to after school with our allowance money.

whatever I can do to make it so my son has the same opportunity (to buy MP3s or plug the input directly into the medulla oblongata...I don't fucking care)...to go down to Matt's store and buy some hip-hop/AvantGrime/BlackDeathMetal record that I'll hate. That's what I want.

More from Detour:

Underground Sounds (Ann Arbor)

255 E Liberty St
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 327-9239
www.myspace.com/undergroundsoundsmi

Underground Sounds is fairly new to the scene – owner Matt Bradish has a serious love of music and a seriously cute black lab pup who will ask you to toss her rope bone while you’re pouring through his smartly stocked indie vinyl selection. She’ll drool over the toy, you drool over that new Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy 10” you haven’t seen anywhere else. He’s got some cool and rare stuff for you come this Saturday that will certainly be worth dipping into your weekend whiskey dollars for…

Detour: Any cool, collectible stuff that will be available on Record Store Day?
Matt Bradish: I’m getting lots of stuff specific for the occasion actually - Pavement Live in Germany LP, Akron/Family, Silversun Pickups, a comp of Domino artists including Franz Ferdinand and Junior Boys, Tom Waits live tracks on 7”, Bad Religion 7”, Cursive 7”, Gaslight Anthem 10”, Flight of the Conchords 7”, Soft Bulletin by Flaming Lips on vinyl (one of my favorite records!), also Jane’s Addiction, Walk Among Us by Misfits, Begin To Hope by Regina Spektor, ‘77 by Talking Heads…

DT: Why do you think vinyl is important?
MB: People who buy vinyl care more about the music, the artwork, knowing about it.
They generally have a longer attention span, and they more interested in listening to the entire record. It’s more participatory. The artwork is just much more fitting. You can engross yourself in it, and it’s more engaging.

::

Thanks Matt

The Green Movement (Recycling)

2009-04-08T22:01:00.002-04:00

crayzuh video of Disney (allegedly(?)) recycling some footage in (I'm guessing) Jungle Book, The Aristocats, Snow White, Beauty & the Beast, Robin Hood and others.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Awesome things from my childhood that resurfaced today

2009-04-07T21:19:00.002-04:00

Hotsy Totsy!

The Beatles have announced their plans to issue remastered versions of their CDs later this year.

If anyone still reads this blag, they might remember a couple years ago when I wished and wished for new remasters of the Beatles Catalog with extra bonus goodies and it seems like they're coming through!

::

Also:
Darth Vader in the cafeteria on the lower level of the Death Star

Made of Legos
[Beware of F-Bombs and Eddie Izzard]

::

Thanks David
Thanks Tom

Barking at the Moon

2009-03-31T18:42:00.002-04:00

Pretty into this song from the movie Bolt. Jenny Lewis with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings producing.

Get Rad, Bros

2009-03-26T20:57:00.001-04:00

::

Thanks Chris

Dr. Shasta Kielbasa, I presume

2009-03-23T21:15:00.000-04:00

The bros at Name Of the Year have posted the only brackets that matter this March. This guy collects all of the goofy names of athletes, foreign ambassadors and felons into one massive Nom De Madness competition. Please visit the NameOfTheYear website and put down your hard earned cash on either Infinite McCloud or Velvet Milkman.

The Brackets:

Printable PDF here:

::

Boom. Internet.

2009-03-20T17:46:00.001-04:00

Comedians and Ninjas explain the internet.

From here

Who Watches the Watchmen Cartoon?

2009-03-07T13:07:00.000-05:00

I do.
And then I laugh.

::

Thanks Heather

Kaboom (Dub)

2009-03-01T20:56:00.000-05:00

crying. laughing.

Google Reveals All!

2009-02-25T21:01:00.002-05:00

Putting your name plus the word "Needs" into Google means you never need to listen to your guidance councilor or family doctor again.

According to the Goog gods:

Zac needs an Autism Service Dog to help him stay safe.
Zac needs a friend.
Now more than ever, Zac needs your prayers and your support.
Maybe Zac needs extra vagisil?
Zac needs to find a new hairdo. That really kills it for me. Something manly, unless of course the rumors are true and he is gay. Then I suppose he can keep that look.
Zac needs to stop acting like he's 40 years old. He needs to just relax with who he is.
Sounds like Zac needs some of Geoff's biltong.
Zac needs to find the top-secret blueprints before his arch-enemy does!
Zac needs to suck on an exhaust pipe of a 426!
Zac needs his space to show off his movement.
Zac needs to go immediately into gay porn and JT needs to keep his pansy ass “singing career”
Zac needs you now more than ever.

Bird is The Word

2009-02-21T14:25:00.001-05:00

Two former Porchsleeper knuckleheads and a couple of bros from The Offramps are now making music in a band called Fidrych (if you have to ask about the name, you'll never get it).

Demos available Here and they're playing at the Hamtramck Blowout on March 5th at Carbon Lounge. See you there.

::

"Would it be alright if I called you Cathy?"

2009-02-16T21:56:00.002-05:00

Letterman gets a little loopy with Martha Stewart.
Worth watching.

We're in Hawaii!!!!1!

2009-02-11T21:42:00.001-05:00

If the previous post has too many swears (or if you like comedy/LOLCats), you'll laugh at how insane this video is.

::

Thanks Andy