Friday, March 28th, 2003
It’s Friday it’s Friday it’s Friday it’s Friday it’d Friday!
Very brief Iraq war commentary – now they’re using the words ‘siege’ and ‘Baghdad’ in the same sentence. This can’t be good for anyone involved. Okay, head back in the sand.
Funny stuff – Summarize a band’s entire career in one sentence. From The Rub.
I won a copy of the new Love compilation on eBay since it seemed like finding a copy of Da Capo wasn’t going to happen. Good price too, I’m surprised it didn’t go for more.
Disc two of the live Uncle Tupelo set from October 93 is now available for download here. It sounds so good, it’s unbelievable. There’s also some ‘official’ bootleg artwork kicking around the net, but it’s butt-ugly so I’m going to make my own when I get around to it.
np – Uncle Tupelo / Live At The Vic – 10-15-93
Thursday, March 27th, 2003
And more with the arena shows. R.E.M. are coming to the ACC on September 30 (yes, September!) with Sparklehorse in tow. I would go to that, but I would prefer it if Linkous releases his new album maybe this Spring or early Summer, and does his own tour before coming back as support for Stipey and co. We’ll see what shakes out.
And to throw another big ticket act into the mix, Radiohead are supposed to be on these shores around the same time in support of Hail To The Thief. Yeah, still not liking the title much.
np – Elvis Costello / My Aim Is True
Thursday, March 27th, 2003
Everyone’s morning should start with Pixies and two eggs over easy. Makes all the difference. I love the little snippets of spoken banter that sometimes makes its way onto albums.
Here’s a dilemma – Neil Young & Crazy Horse with Lucinda Williams at the ACC on June 23. On the one hand, a great show almost guaranteed. On the other hand, it’s at the ACC, which I would expect to sound awful, and it will cost me an arm and someone else’s leg. We will have to ponder this one a bit.
np – Pixies / Surfer Rosa & Come On Pilgrim
Wednesday, March 26th, 2003
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 / ( )
Tuesday, March 25th, 2003
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
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