I am in information overload. The relentless war coverage is beating me down – sure, it’s terrific that we have unfettered access to such a wide variety of news sources, but with that comes the knowledge that none of these are giving you the whole picture. The days of naively believing what you read are gone, so if you want a complete picture you have to absorb as many POVs as possible, being sure not to fully believe any of them, and hope to assemble some facsimile of what’s going down. And I can’t do that anymore. How do you separate fact from propoganda? When each side states that they’re winning and you know both are lying, where do you turn? It’s only been a week, and I can’t take anymore. Everwhere I go online, people are debating every aspect of the war, linking to articles, news bulletins and conspiracy theories about Bush, Cheney, Haliburton, Sadaam, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Sharon, Bin Laden, et al. I *want* to read them all but I just can’t. It’s just too much. Even the satire and jokes that are coming out of this are losing their ability to take the edge off. I’m not a head-in-the-sand type by nature, but if the alternative is being bombarded Clockwork Orange-style by a shitstorm of half-truths and carefully doctored “slices of the war”, then I’m going to join the ostriches for a while.

So after almost a decade, I am finally warming to Pavement. Slanted & Enchanted – Luxe & Reduxe took a little while to get into just because of the sheer breadth of material, but I like it a lot now. Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is like visiting with an old high school buddy because, well, that’s what it is. I had a copy of the album on tape in grade 13 and I played it a fair bit. This was during that strange juxtoposition of pop, rock, alt and indie back in the early 90s that actually saw bands like Pavement charting on MuchMusic, a phenomenon the likes of which I suspect we’ll never see again. Maybe one of the reasons I shied away from Pavement back then (besides Malkmus’ perceived smugness) was the insane guitar work. I was just starting to play at that point and was trying to absorb ideas from anything I listened to, and Pavement’s ultra-precise sloppiness was impossible to wrap my head around. It’s ironic that now my playing is often straying into the Pavement-defined nether realm of weird, angular pop, at least when left to my own devices. But anyway, I suspect that the last three Pavement albums will be working their way into my collection soon enough. SM and Spiral Stairs have finally won.

My friend Dave down in Virginia is extolled the virtues of Baxter Drury to me. I can’t find anything by them to sample, can anyone offer some testimonials?

np – Sigur Ros / ( )

Check it out – I picked up a solder buddy tonight, perfect for holding delicate little bits and pieces whilst doing electronics work. AND, as you can see, it also makes a fine arch-villain for my unwitting action figures. Tremble before the might of, uh, Claw… Dor… Ator! You can’t fight back, Spider-Man! You don’t have moveable joints!

If you thought my Tuesday nights weren’t TV-saturated enough, Canadian television has decided that it’s the perfect night to run season three of The Sopranos. So I get to sit on my ass from 8 pm till 11:15 pm Tuesdays, soaking in Buffy, 24 and now The Sopranos. Actually, I’m taping the Sopranos. I’m not a freak, you know.

The CD collection got reinforcements tonight. Tift Merritt’s Bramble Rose, Lambchop’s How I Quit Smoking and my copy of Pavement’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain won on eBay. Also picked up Bright Eyes tickets for myself and Kyle – happy belated birthday to Kyle, by the way. I’m sorry I forgot yesterday, I suck. But no, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay me for the ticket.

Also got the three back issues of TapeOp I orderd a month ago. Finally, I have the issue where Kevin Shields discusses the making of MBV’s Loveless. I can’t wait – “Yeah, we got really stoned and turned everything up real loud. And recorded sixty tracks of that. Turned the tapes upside down. Recorded another sixty tracks. And then I decided I didn’t like it so we tossed it and smoked up some more”. Genius!

np – Lambchop / How I Quit Smoking

Trying alternate routes to get to work and outsmart the TTC construction schedules? Not as easy as it sounds.

Apparently the new Radiohead album is titled Hail To The Thief. Subtle. It sounds more like a Rage Against The Machine name than a Radiohead one.

And you know what? I can’t think of a blasted thing to say today.

np – Broken Social Scene / You Forgot It In People

Okay, tell me this isn’t the cutest picture ever.

I promised Azra I would publicly harangue myself for not knowing that The Family Guy was on every night Sunday through Thursday on The Comedy Channel at 9pm. I feel shame.

So I went down to the rehearsal space tonight not for practice, but to play open house and show the room to a couple guys interested in moving in. That and try playing drums again… alls I can say is any progress I’d made in my drumming at the end of last year? Gone. Pffft. It was shameful. But I’ll trade my opportunities to fuck around on the kit for a full-time drummer in the band every day of the week and twice on Tuesday.

I got the Luna tour posters I bought from Seripop in Montreal. They’re quite nice prints and apparently they glow in the dark!

np – Calla / Televise

Another sure sign of Spring – the hot dog vendor is back on the street corner opposite my office! There’s nothing like all-day access to all-beef street meat. Nothing at all.

Longwave are coming back to Toronto again on April 22. That’ll be three times in just over four months – talk about your market saturation. This one’s another free show at the Horseshoe, which is good because that means I don’t have to commit to going until the day of. And it’s free. Seeing as how that one would make it four shows in eleven days, I make no guarantees about my attendance.

np – The Dismemberment Plan / Emergency & I