the sticking point

"I Tore Mommy A New One!"

While we're on the subject of t-shirts... these are effing funny.

(Thanks to Tim for the heads up.)

Deep Cuts

The Friday Ten = mp3 player on shuffle all songs + the first ten songs at random + comments.

1. Driver 8 - R.E.M. From their very best album, Fables of the Reconstruction. It sounds a little different than the other, more majestic songs on that record, I think; a bit poppier -- minor chords notwithstanding. One of the lasting highlights of my life is shooting the video for "Can't Get There From Here." I crashed at Pete Buck's house and went record hunting with him.

2. When A Man Loves A Woman - Percy Sledge. No one did soulful, teary-eyed angst like Sledge did. Obviously, this is a (the) standout tune of his career, but why? All of his songs sound like this.

3. You And Me - Glenn Danzig and the Power Fury Orchestra. Until this came out, on the Less Than Zero soundtrack, no one knew he had that voice.

4. You Didn't Need - Rollins Band.

5. The Negotiation Limerick File - Beastie Boys. "I love it when you hit those switches / A curveball's what my pitch is / So, here we here we come, like dum-diddly-dum / I keep all five boroughs in stitches."

6. Turn On The News - Husker Du. I love this song, and hadn't heard it in forever. So sonically dense and remarkably tight. It even has a break that features handclaps on the right channel and a Bob Mould guitar solo on the left.

7. Prosthetic Head - Green Day.

8. What'cha Gonna Do? - Pablo Cruise. Go ahead; laugh. When I was 10-years old, I got this 45, on A & M Records. I couldn't verbalize then why I liked it, and I can't now either.

9. Bingo Masters Breakout - The Fall. Mark E. Smith is a twisted genius. Get Fall info here.

10. Where's Summer B.? - Ben Folds Five.

The photo above is courtesy of Gorilla Mask. (Link unsafe for viewing at work.)

When The President Talks To God

Download the new Bright Eyes (non-LP) track FREE... here.

[posted with ecto]

We Will Become Silhouettes

The new Postal Service video was directed by Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) and co-stars Jenny Lewis. See it here.

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Listening: "Man In The Box" from Live by Alice In Chains.

Cheers

Congratulations to my pal S.O'C., who worked on (and supplied the title for) the Academy Award nominated doc Super Size Me.

And thumbs up, as well, to friend-of-a-friend Joe The Artist, who handled the art direction for the movie. Joe's a really cool and very talented guy, who sat in my living room during the American League Championship Series, eating edamome and sketching bizarre cartoons of my dog.

This year's reason for watching the slow-moving kudos-fest: If Super Size Me wins, you're entirely likely to see, assembled onstage behind Morgan Spurlock the motliest collection of creative misfits who've ever rented tuxedos.

Fingers crossed.

Flaky

As if 'tweren't bad enough that the incoming snowstorm will hit the New York City area on a weekend, precluding any chance of a snow day off from work or even a late-for-work-due-to-snow day... now this petty little shitstorm is screwing with my social calendar.

Alas, the Stereo Mike gig at Water Street Bar has been postponed.

I think that's pansy-ass bullshit. But then, I could sled there from my apartment.

Friday Ten

Ten songs, randomly shuffle-played on the iPod this morning. (Find last week's here. Please feel free to post yours and trackback here, or leave it in the comments link below.)

1. Makes No Sense At All - Husker Du. Where's the box set or onslaught of reissues-with-extra-tracks that this band deserves? Husker Du never disappointed. If you like any of their records, you'll like them all. And that's not to say that they never evolved; Land Speed Record (1981) is worlds away from Candy Apple Grey (1986) in sonics, speed, and approach. Husker Du and the Pixies, I think, are the only 80s "indie" rock bands whose sound has had a lasting influence. Far inferior musicians are still admirably trying to squeeze this sound out of their instruments in 2005.
2. Another Girl, Another Planet - The Only Ones. Admission to being uncool: Even though the Only Ones were part of the late-70s British punk scene, and contemporaries of the Pistols, Clash, Buzzcocks, et al, I'd never heard this song until the Replacements began playing it live. (It's on their Live Inconcerated EP.) The original, Only Ones version can be heard in an upcoming movie called D.E.B.S., which will earn its share of attention for the numerous wet kisses between Sara Foster and Jordana Brewster. And leggy freak Devon Aoki (who looks like the bastard daughter of Ken Watanabe and Winnie Cooper) in a ridiculously short catholic-school-girl's skirt. Anyway, the movie is certain to be panned though it's cleverly spooftastic. And "Another Girl..." is in it.
3. Teenagers From Mars - The Misfits. My favorite Misfits song. Ever.
4. Bewitched - Luna. Starts, all of a sudden, with "All of a sudden / The girl of my dreams..."
5. Love and War (11/11/46) - Rilo Kiley. Some day, I'll post the stuff I wrote about my favorite albums of 2004. (This is one of them.) Hopefully, that day will be early this year.
6. The Way It Is - The Strokes. Strokes fans and non-Strokes fans (that is to say: people) were largely disappointed with their second album. I wasn't. I liked it a lot and listened to it non-stop during our weeks-long move from Boerum Hill to Brooklyn Heights in the fall of 2003.
7. Moons of Jupiter - Scruffy The Cat. About a hundred years ago, I lived in Westchester County, New York, and the Scruffs used to come play a local bar called 7 Willow Street. What a great bar band! I never missed them. I had a prized cassette copy of their Moons of Jupiter album until someone stole it out of my 1974 Chevy Malibu along with about 200 other cassettes; my car stereo was left untouched. A few weeks later, I discovered some shady street vendor selling bunch of my cassettes on an East Village sidewalk, but I never got back my Scruffy. Thanks to eBay, early last year I was able to get my hands on a long-out-of-print vinyl copy of the album. There's a good interview with former STC leader Charlie Chesterman here. And also? Figlet's awe-inspiring husband J knows these guys and has worked with them.
8. Fell Down The Stairs - Tilly & The Wall. From another of my favorite albums of 2004. Check local listings, they may be in your town (opening for Bright Eyes) soon.
9. Flute Loop - Beastie Boys.
10. Sister Morphine - The Rolling Stones. The transition between song 9 and this one was a bit jarring.

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Listening: "Mighty KC" by For Squirrels, from the album Example.

More Cowbell

I got an email from the gal across the hall here at work. (You may remember her from this. Or this.)

The subject line was: "These are beyond funny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

From the abundant lineup of exclamation points, I immediately remember that our sensibilities are so different, hers and mine, that the contents therein are certain to be entirely UNfunny. Or rather, measured against her "beyond" choice of phrasing, it would likely be "not even" funny.

The email had a link to bustedtees.com -- a link I was not about to click. But as my cursor journeyed ever closer to the big deletion X at the top of the page, colleague from across the hall tramped into my office (Sancto Sanctorum), yelping, "Isn't that funn-nny?!"

She walked all the way around to my side of the desk. (Called the death zone, because whenever someone who's not me walks back there, I feel so space-invaded I wish I were dead.) I hurriedly opened the link and looked at it while she looked over my shoulder. It's a T-shirt retail site and the main page is a number of samples of their wares. They specialize in shirts featuring tongue-in-cheek, momentarily clever, slogans and graphics. You know what I mean. You've seen these things at Urban Outfitters. You've seen them on Ashton Kutcher. You've seen them on indie-rock dweeb boys, who wear them under ill-fitting corduroy sport jackets at Scissor Sisters gigs. And every time you see them you smile briefly. Maybe you LJNOL*.

And every time you see one... alright, everytime I see one, I wonder how the sentiment stays funny long enough for a person to choose it, pay for it, bring it home, and actually put it on. I mean, that course of activity could take hours, maybe even days. Just who still thinks "BEARDS: They Grow On You" is worth even a chuckle after all that?

Well...

Colleague from across the hall stood next to me and pointed to each t-shirt design on the website, read its sentiment aloud, and threw her head back with a maniacal belly laugh. It echoed out into the hallway. Every single design -- "SEX: Do It For The Kids," "GILF," "Prose Before Hos," every one! -- threw her into shrieking spasmodic delight.

"I can't believe you're still laughing this hard -- how many times have you seen this site?" I asked.

"I know...it's just so funny every time!"

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* Laugh, Just Not Out Loud.

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Listening: "Buy Her Candy" from the album Dig Me Out by Sleater-Kinney.

Stereo Mike at Water Street Bar! Info below.

My DJ's got the cuts, and the beats are on

CLICK HERE FOR AN UPDATE!! (1.21.04)

Get a MetroCard, get directions, and get off your ass Saturday night. (I'll get a babysitter.)

Stereo Mike (formerly "The White Genius") is DJing at Water Street Bar. You should come down. It's a great bar, with good food, in an amazing neighborhood.

Mike told me he was planning to go rock/ new wave/ indie. I requested a particular song by Garbage. He said, "You got it."

Saturday Jan22 @ 9pm

Water Street Bar

66 Water Street (between Dock & Main)

Brooklyn

718/625.9352

Queen of Arts

Scam City found a good one. The website for ABC affiliate in Birmingham/Tuscaloosa, Alabama, covered the news that Queen Latifah will be hosting the 2005 Grammy Awards. Problem is, the photo which accompanied the story is of Queen Elizabeth II. (That's old school.) One might wonder how such a mistake could happen. But it's Alabama -- they had one black woman on that web page already.

Thanks to Michael for the heads up.

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Listening: "Girl" by Suicide from the album Suicide.