Good Morning

Anecdotal reports suggest that Kanye West outsold 50 Cent yesterday. It's hard to believe 50 will actually retire, but it's still pretty fun to think about.

My early favorite line: "I'm like a fly Malcolm X: buy any jeans necessary".

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Currently playing: Kanye West - Good Morning [Intro]

Can't Tell Me Nothin

I'm painfully aware that this blog is degenerating into a lazy series of YouTube clips. That said, for lack of time (and inspiration), here's a lazy, albeit incredibly hilarious, YouTube clip:



Kanye's new album drops September 11th, the same day as 50 Cent's. In case you needed extra motivation, there's a rumor going around that 50 will retire if Kanye outsells him.

Death to the encore!

Certain brothers sent me a link to a good article about how much encores suck. I won't bother rehashing all the reasons, but man do they (the encores) usually suck. What was (presumably) designed as an honest way for an audience to show their appreciation for a really kick-ass show has devolved into a mandatory feature of virtually every performance. Playing an encore is like leaving a tip at a restaurant. The only time you don't is when something goes horribly, horribly wrong.

Interestingly, last month's Pitchfork Music Festival afforded an opportunity to experience the thrill of a not-totally-expected encore. The first night of the festival was kind of gimmicky: it featured 3 bands each playing their most famous album from start to finish. Slint played first (some album I've never heard of), then the Wu Tang Clan's GZA (Liquid Swords), then Sonic Youth capped off the night with Daydream Nation.

Playing an entire album at a live event has some serious drawbacks. There's no anticipation of what song the band will play next or what they'll end with. Often the best songs come near the beginning. Between-song banter feels out of place, destroying the integrity of the album rather than being interesting or (in the case of The New Pornographers) hilarious.

But as Sonic Youth was finished up their album-ending "Trilogy", the one cool thing about an album feature came to light: no one knew if they would play an encore. They were the last show of the evening. A handful of people left. As the rest of us stayed and cheered, there was a real sense of excitement because we really didn't know if they would come back out. And if they did come out, we had no idea what they would play because they had already performed their most famous song as a part of Daydream Nation.

The encore was the best part of the show, by far. I can't speak for the rest of the audience, but I felt like we earned the encore we were enjoying, rather than getting something we all felt entitled to.

This is what all encores should feel like. Let's put an end to the tomfoolery and save encores for the transcendent shows that really deserve one. And eat some toast every once in a while, too.

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Right click and save: The New Pornographers - Myriad Harbour

Yea Yeah!

Kill some time on a Wednesday:

Emergency Mailbag

Dear New Pornographers,

I wonder if you could answer a couple of things for me.

(1) You know that scene at the beginning of Manhattan where Isaac and Tracy and Yale and Emily are having dinner at Elaine's and Isaac tells them his ex-wife is writing a book about their divorce and Emily says "that's really tacky" and Isaac says "it's really depressing" and Yale says "gossip is the new pornography"? Is that where you got your name?

(2) Recently I've had kind of a problem. I was sitting around with my buddy a few weeks ago and one of us said "I wonder if The New Pornographers will ever write a bad song." Ever since then it's been killing me. COULD you write a bad song? I'm having trouble eating and sleeping and my work has really suffered. Maybe you all could go out of your way to write a bad song on purpose, just so I can put it behind me? If you'd just go out there and write a bad song (I'd even settle for mediocre), I think I could get on with my life.

Maybe you could eat some bad clams before you start writing. Or get soused the night before and throw something together on a raging hangover. Or perhaps a cover. That Justin Timberlake song "My Love" kind of sucks-- would you mind giving it a shot?

ps. If you think this qualifies as a bad song and/or video, I'm afraid you're going to have to try harder.

Yet Another Mailbag

I don't just pretend to receive letters; sometimes I pretend to send them, too. Recently I've kept myself busy writing fake letters to my favorite music celebrities. So busy, in fact, that I haven't had time to fake mail them!

So, like grandpa chugging a glass of Metamucil, it's time to empty the ol' outbag:

Dear Brandon Flowers,

I think The Killers rule! (I especially like the one album I own.) But one thing has always bugged me. In your song "All These Things That I've Done", you repeatedly sing, "I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier." Do you find that people make this mistake a lot? Personally, I've never misidentified anyone as a soldier; then again, I've never known anyone with an ounce of soul.

Best wishes for the new year!
_____

Dear Kanye West,

I think you're the greatest entertainer in the world. That's not hyperbole- I really mean it. I wonder if you could take time out of your frenetic schedule to answer a question from a longtime fan:

In your song "We Don't Care", you sing, "Drug dealin' just to get by/Stack your money 'til it gets sky high". This is one catchy lyric. But my question is, Does your character sell all those drugs to feed his family and pay his bills, or is he out to get rich? I read an article that said this song demonstrates your keen awareness of the tension between social responsibility and consumerism that informs many aspects of black culture.

I'll admit this didn't occur to me; I just figured you were looking for a good rhyme. So which is it?
_____

Dear Mike Skinner,

I've long enjoyed your work as the only member of The Streets. I think you're terrific. That's pretty much it, actually. Cheers!
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Dear Julian Casablancas,

I have grudgingly begun to accept that ignoring your band, The Strokes, won't make it go away. After listening to your first album, I have only one question: What are your thoughts on disaffected sex?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Warm regards,
Blogadier General

Random Rules

In spite of my growing disdain of The Onion, I continue to admire its AV Club section. One recurring feature the AV Club offers is called "Random Rules", where they ask a celebrity-- loosely defined-- to put his iPod on shuffle and talk about whatever songs come up. Here's a recent example.

So I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm not going to skip around or anything, and I'm going to write my comments in real time. Just in case this sucks, I'm going to crack a Heineken tallboy before I start. Maybe you should do the same.

Here goes:

1. Kanye West, "Hey Mama"

Man I should crack 100 Heineken tallboys before talking about this song. My mom's had Multiple Sclerosis since I was a little kid, so I'm kind of partial to this song even if that makes me a huge pussy. Moving on, does every rapper have to write a song about his mom? Will anyone ever do as well in this department as Tupac did?

I saw Kanye in North Carolina the Wednesday before Thanksgiving a couple of years ago, as part of Hip Hop Thanksgiving, which also featured Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Pharoah Monch the following Friday in D.C..

2. Spoon, "Someone Something"

I saw Spoon just last week at Webster Hall in New York with two of my siblings. The next night, New Year's Eve, we saw Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. We called it Rock 'N' Roll New Year's. Apparently I have a thing for music-themed holidays.

3. Elvis Costello, "Radio, Radio (Capital Radio Version)"

I've already written somewhere about this song. This is a stripped down early version recorded for a radio station somewhere. Elvis's plaintive voice and lack of production really changes the feel of the song.

God this didn't take long to suck, did it?

4. Talking Heads, "Heaven (live)"

My old boss introduced me to Talking Heads when I was selling knives after my first year of college. I borrowed his two-disc greatest hits compilation "Sand in the Vaseline" one day, then drove to Blacksburg to visit a buddy of mine. We got in a fight that night and I decided I was going to drive home, in spite of having consumed several beers. I popped disc one into my CD changer and the first track, "Sugar On My Tongue", freaked me out so much I pulled into a gas station and sat as still as I could until I sobered up.

5. Neil Young, "Cinnamon Girl"

Did you know Neil Young is sometimes referred to as The Godfather of Grunge? Does anyone remember Grunge? My brother's ground-breaking band The Coalition covered this song a few times, to mixed reviews.

6. God dammit what the hell is this song? Ah, yes, "Let the Funk Flow" by EPMD. I like having this album (Strictly Business) in my collection because it adds a veneer of credibility to my rap collection. But the truth is, I think it sucks.

A friend of mine hates Funk. And Jazz. She also sheds a lot of hair and never squeezes her toothpaste from the bottom OR flattens as she goes up.

7. The Beatles, "Birthday"

God, what luck. The White Album contains 9999 awesome songs, and Larry the iPod picks out this one. When you best remember a song for playing between innings at minor league baseball games, it's probably best not to remember the song at all.

8. Lauryn Hill, "When It Hurts So Bad"

I don't think I've ever heard this song. I bought this album because of that single she had way back when and for her awesome cover of "Can't Take My Eyes Off You". This song isn't as good.

Fuck me, this really sucks.

Maybe next week I'll cut my toenails and tell you a story about every last one of them.

An actual blog

So I've been without a computer or internet access for a couple of weeks. Sorry. I should have computer access, but a lot less free time, now that I've started work.

Anyway, I'd like to begin a continuing series about Elvis Costello and why he's so goddamn cool. I know I just called Tom Waits the coolest god damned man on planet Earth, and I'm not ready to take that away from him, so Elvis will have to be satisfied with the title of My Personal Hero. So.

Reason #1 Why Elvis Costello is Lots Cooler Than You'll Ever Be

In the late 1970s, on the success of his debut album "My Aim is True", Elvis toured the United States. These days, this album is best known for the song "Alison", but the single that first gained him notoriety was "Less Than Zero", the first of his many erudite, long-winded political rants. While traveling to a show in Dallas, Elvis decided to rewrite the lyrics to be about the JFK assassination, simply because he's lots cooler than you'll ever be. I'm notoriously bad at interpreting lyrics (I, like Homer Simpson, assumed "You Light Up My Life" was about a man), but so far as I can tell, Elvis imagines that the true target of the assassination was one of JFK's bodyguards, whose wife was cheating on him. Among the lyrics:

Jenny takes her clothes off in succession,
While her husband rides a bumper in the President's procession.
She sees him on the screen as she looks up from giving head.
When he's had enough of that her lover throws her on the bed
to teach her she's alive and suddenly he's dead.

and

A pistol was still smoking, a man lay on the floor.
Mr. Oswald thought he had an understanding with the law.
She's got rubies on her fingers, Jenny turns and looks away.
Her mind upon a basement out of the USA.
She says, "Let's talk about the future now we've put the past away."

(Regarding the first couplet of the second exerpt, it warrants mentioning that Elvis is British, so he has that weird way of making "law" rhyme with "floor". Just so you know.)

And just for the hell of it, here are some facts about Elvis Costello that, while not quite evidence that he's better than you, are nevertheless fun and/or interesting:

- Elvis's backing band for his first album was Clover, which later added a lead singer and changed its name to Huey Lewis and The News.
- The Bret Easton Ellis novel Less Than Zero was named after the Costello song, although the stories have little in common besides some good old moral bankruptcy. Ellis later wrote American Psycho, which you probably didn't read. But you sure did like the movie.

Tom Waits Changes My Life For (At Least) The Third Time

I used to feel ashamed when someone would ask me if I'd heard of a band that I'd never heard of. I don't really know why. I think I just like knowing about things before other people, even though I rarely put in the effort to learn anything new.

But I don't feel like that anymore, thanks to Tom Waits. He was asked to write an article about his favorite albums. It's pretty long, and boring in parts, and I feel sure he didn't put a lot of thought into the list. But somewhere near the end, he wrote this:

14 Passion for Opera Aria (EMI Classics) 1994

I heard 'Nessun Dorma' in the kitchen at Coppola's with Raul Julia one night, and it changed my life, that particular Aria. I had never heard it. He asked me if I had ever heard it, and I said no, and he was like, as if I said I've never had spaghetti and meatballs - 'Oh My God, Oh My God!' - and he grabbed me and he brought me into the jukebox (there was a jukebox in the kitchen) and he put that on and he just kind of left me there. It was like giving a cigar to a five-year old. I turned blue, and I cried.

And the way I see it, if Tom Waits, the coolest god damned man on earth, isn't embarrassed about not having heard of something, then I shouldn't be either. And Jesus, what a good story. Thanks again, Mr. Waits.

Also, if anyone bothered reading the article, I wonder how good that Sinatra album really is. About scoring chicks, I mean. Perhaps my legions of faithful readers should give it a try, and later we can share zany stories of madcap sexual misadventure.

Or no?