So the 2003 Grammy Award nominees are out, and it’s the usual pile of shit. Elvis Costello seems to be this year’s recipient of the “Old Guy Perpetually Ignored By The Grammies Getting His Due” nominations. Cruel Smile is up for best alternative rock album, despite the fact that it’s not a proper album, but a collection of b-sides, live tracks and remixes from When I Was Cruel. It’s good (though the folks at All-Music disagree quite vehemently), but I question the nomination of a compilation for any sort of award… but the Grammy folks are so clueless they probably haven’t even heard it. Dumbasses.

Other novel nominations – The Flaming Lips are up against Joe Satriani and Slash for Best Rock Instrumental.

Tickets for the Sleater-Kinney show at the Opera House go on sale Thursday.

np – Sleater-Kinney / All Hands On The Bad One

So Brad walks into rehearsal today clutching this little fella. His boss at Sonic Boom had bought a stack of old beater guitars from a pawnshop for the purpose of decorating the store, and Brad rescued this one in hopes that it might actually be servicable. We plugged it in and it did indeed make noise, though the output jack probably needs to be replaced. I’ve brought it hope with the intent of cleaning it up, restringing it and figuring out exactly what it is, if anything. It’s a pretty cool little axe – the action is pretty good for a cheapo old guitar, and the big single coil pickups look to have some cool Harmony/Stella mojo in them. And I can’t resist anything with a Bigsby or Bigsby-like vibrato installed. The body shape looks like a scaled down Fender Coronado or something. I have a feeling that if I can get it playable and it holds tune reasonably well, this could be a neat little piece to have around for recording or just posing in videos with.

The rest of rehearsal was as well as could be expected without a drummer. Worked on the arrangement of one of the loop-based songs, I got behind the kit while we tried another one. I even did fills! Very exciting. We also laid down the game plan for Lake Holiday for the new year, mainly sorting out personnel and doing our damndest to find a long-term drummer. Pheobe would have worked but scheduling has been impossible thus far. We need someone who can show up regularly. The idea of Brad getting behind the kit and bringing in someone else to play guitar and sing was also brought up… not entirely unreasonable if Brad is fine with someone else performing his songs and someone else is fine with performing Brad’s songs. Who the hell knows, I just wanna get out and play. We’ve been unofficially offered a slot at Wavelength sometime this Spring, and I would love to accept it.

I cannot leave well enough alone. I’ve decided that my pedalboard still needs tweaking, and am looking at getting a new power source and tuner. Somehow, spending more money to make things tidier when they’re certainly not untidy as is makes sense to me.

The problem with long nights at rehearsal is by the time I get home, it’s time to go to sleep and then it’s another day at work.

np – Guided By Voices / Under The Bushes, Under The Stars

Random bits of music news…

The good – The Cardigans to release Long Gone Before Daylight on March 25.

The bad – Natalie Imbruglia to marry mook from Silverchair (She was mine! MINE!)

The ugly – Courtney Love throws hissy-fit at Joe Strummer’s funeral.

np – Ken Stringfellow / Touched

One of the best videos ever.

Yo La Tengo – “Sugarcube”

So I’m working on some freelance stuff that I’d been slack on for, oh, a couple months now… funny how working on the weekend becomes so much less tolerable when you have an actual full-time job. Still, this is just a load of documenting and commenting for a long-term client, and I should have done it ages ago. It’s a little painful wading through code I wrote almost a year ago – I’ve gotten so much better and more efficient since then, it’s sort of like looking at naked baby photos. But they’re not going to pay me to redo things the way I’d do them today, and I’m not doing it gratis, so I guess supporting this old stuff is just something I’m going to have to get used to.

I did watch The Iron Giant this afternoon. It was terrific – beautiful old-school animation NOT greatly influenced by Japanese anime for a change (not that I dislike that stuff, I like it a lot, but it’s refreshing to not have characters with crazy giant eyes every once in a while). Great story and voice acting, as well. It’s scary how the paranoia and xenophobia depicted in 1957 America are still prevelant almost 50 years later. One curious fact is that the Ted Hughes novel that inspired this cartoon was also the inspiration behind Pete Townshend’s rock opera The Iron Man. I’m curious to read the book now. And that was indeed the first Vin Diesel film I’ve ever seen.

My copy of Superchunk’s Here’s Where The Strings Come In is scratched. I tried the toothpaste trick, but besides reducing the album’s chance of gingivitis and giving it a minty fresh scent, it hasn’t fixed much. I will have to find another copy, I guess.

Canada goes against Russia for gold in the World Junior Hockey tournament tonight, game at 7. Should be a good one, hopefully better than last year’s loss.

Man, weekend is over already. And next week is a full work week. And the one after that. And the following one. And… Dammit.

np – Superchunk / Here’s Where The Strings Come In