thoughts on chinese democracy

(copied from a post on Andrew Fanelli's facebox)

Pretty mediocre: a record so long in the making, regardless of whether it achieves its goals, goes against my cherished image of G 'n' R as a bunch of trashy junkies down and out on the Sunset strip. Songs are too plodding (also sound shitty on my computer speakers, but I'm too lazy to play 'em on anything else), whereas the limber Adler-McKagan rhythm section was Appetite's main strength. (Too much Metallica, not enough Dolls? I guess the Dolls were slower than Metallica, but had more vitality.) "Sweet Dreams" and "If the World" caught my attention for a little while.

Guns 'n' Roses (myspace) Continue reading...

collecting animal droppings

The new Animal Collective album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, is set to come out in early '09. Naturally, in the past few weeks, snippets of songs have begun slipping through the countless internet-oriented cracks that mar the facade of the record industry as it desperately tries to retain a semblance of control over its increasingly democratized "property." The biggest MPP-related crack came via a French podcast which played the Collective's newly recorded "Brothersport", and mp3s of the isolated track have been all over the place ever since. Including this place, now.

Web Sheriff, let me know if I have to take this down.

Until then,
Animal Collective - Brothersport Continue reading...

the thorns of life

blake schwarzenbach has a new band. I thought you should know. Continue reading...

would you like to write a book?

Would you like to write a book? Continue reading...

they said this day would never come...

They said this day would never come, but on this November night, at this defining moment in history, through some strange performative act...ah, who am I kidding, I've wanted to be a music blogger since kindergarten.

On the Northeast Regional this afternoon, I read this sentence in Greil Marcus' Mystery Train (required for my music class) about Randy Newman's "Sail Away" (a song "in which," to quote Robert Christgau, "a slave trader becomes the first advertising man"):

Scary, astonishing, Newman has presented an American temptation -- tempting not only the Africans, who became Negroes, and went on to create the music that finally tossed up Elvis Presley, rock 'n' roll, Newman, and his audience, but tempting America to believe that this image of itself just might be true.

and recalled a recent comment by a certain hip-hop wunderkind, who HOLY CRAP also happens to be related to Joey and Dee Dee I KNEW HE WAS A PUNK ROCKER:

Then came Soulja Boy Tell Em [sic]. I asked him, “What historical figure do you most hate?” He was stumped. I said, "Others have said Hitler, bin Laden, the slave masters..." He said, "Oh wait! Hold up! Shout out to the slave masters! Without them we'd still be in Africa."

My jaw, at this point, was on the ground."We wouldn't be here," he continued, having no idea how far in it he'd stepped, "to get this ice and tattoos."

Clearly, SBT'E has been bumping Randy Newman lately, and Touré (some rock critic!) hasn't read Mystery Train. In the brief intervening time before the two musicians team up to teach short people how to crank dat (cranking dat Robocop is damn hard with little baby legs), I guess I'll have to watch this video to be reminded how riding a Segway is preferable to running around the jungle and scuffing up your feet:



Of course, there are also Adornian arguments to be made about slavish devotion to ice and tattoos or about the slavish element in ritualized dance crazes, but those arguments suck. Continue reading...