Comic artist extraordinaire Alex Ross expresses his deep regard for George W Bush in the best way he knows how for The Village Voice. Here’s the accompanying article.

A live Steve Earle album and DVD dating way back into the Skinny Steve Earle (Mark 1) era is coming out on November 2. Live From Austin Texas is taken from a show in, uh, Austin, on September 12, 1986. Fast-forwarding back to the future, Skinny Steve Earle (Mark 2) talks to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about – shocker – his politics. I wonder if he ever wishes someone would ask him about, I don’t know, his thoughts on extra-terrestrial life or something.

The Guardian challenges one of their music writers to listen to every CD released in October and try to take the temperature of the musical zeitgeist at what it considers to be “a critical juncture in the history of pop music”. Their conclusions? I’m not actually sure, but the writer did apparently end up with a bad haircut.

Achtung Baby discovers a running meme amongst several sites casting a fond eye back on the music of 1994 in list format. We’ve got ‘best albums of 1994’ lists from Listology, Mojo and Alternative Rock Review. I was in my last year of high school/first year of university in 1994, and I’d say it was a pretty key juncture in the development of my musical tastes. It’s interesting to note the number of albums on these lists that mattered to me then (six, two and thireteen respectively) and now (seven, five and six, respecitvely), and how much overlap there is between the two lists (Pavement and Neil Young are about it). There’s hindsight for ya.

The Mazzy Star Anthology, which has been pushed back almost an entire year now, has yet another release date – April 26. In an attempt to make up for the endless delays, the compilation will be available in both a standard edition and a deluxe one, complete with DVD.

I bought season one of Arrested Development this weekend, and have been having a grand time wading through this terrific show. I think I got turned onto it about halfway through last season (I haven’t seen a familiar episode yet, about a third of the way through) but couldn’t find an appropriate jumping-on point so I decided to just wait until the inevitable DVD set and get ready for season two, kicking off next Sunday. Update: I mean the Sunday after next. November 7. I’m not good with dates. Or time. Or math.

davidartemiw.com follows up on my observations last week about ex-Jays in the ALCS with some interesting numbers on former Blue Jays in the World Series since the glory days of 1992 and 1993.

I wasn’t going to talk any more about the Ashlee Simpson debacle, but there’s just so much worth commenting on. Here’s a random hit list – you can probably click anywhere on my blogroll to get more scathing commentary:

• Lipsync.us is a blog dedicated to the whole incident – I imagine it will be the top resource for everything Ashlee-gate. From LHB
• Pop (All Love) claims to have the party line on the ‘microphone malfunction’
• The Modern Age has a comment from someone purporting have been work ing at SNL on Saturday
• Tiny Mix Tapes zings Saturday Night Live with, “This performance, ironically enough, was the funniest thing SNL ever broadcasted”)
• This would be my new wallpaper if I wasn’t certain it’d cause a seizure (The AP graciously describe it as “some exaggerated hopping dance moves”)
• The “remixed” performance had me peeing myself. Seriously, Ashlee Simpson has made me incontinent.

Surely this sort of fiasco was inevitable – it’s the laws of thermodynamics, baby. Ashlee is like a 20th generation copy of someone with a modicum of talent. She’s riding on the coattails of her sister, herself a b-list pop diva who needs to be propped up by a reality TV show while stealing the ‘rocker’ schtick from Avril. I think she’s just lucky that she didn’t spontaneously combust on stage. Literally, not just figuratively. I would have been satisfied if she should be eaten by wolves. Again, literally – not just figuratively.

np – Suede / Sci-Fi Lullabies

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