last night i realized, i am a cross between an old man and a preteen girl.
caitlin rielly turned 23 and we danced around to led zeppelin and save ferris and stole beer from her housemates' keg, which was gross, but after two tall boys of miller genuine draft i was happy. p.s. never drinking one of those again. bud tall boys remain superior. anyway, everyone started freaking out to one of those bands, like the killers or something and i just got all grumpy because i just really can't identify with that shit. but it's good to know that my friends will default to the foo fighters. sometimes i miss listening to the radio when i was like, 12.
today at work we were listening to xm radio all day and this one station was literally everything i listened to when i was in middle school/beginning of high school. it was like they'd dug into the vaults of WRRV 96.9 in poughkeepsie circa 1998. eqx, which is out of manchester MA i believe, is pretty much the same. i listen to that whenever i'm up in the albany area.
speaking of albany. craig finn told a really amazing story when i saw the hold steady there last week. i'll try to recreate it as well as i can. he went into the dunkin' donuts where lark st. crosses delaware ave., and this woman caught the attention of a cop and goes, "hey! hey, remember me?" the cops says "um, i don't think so ..." and the woman's like, "you arrested me a few months ago! you know, right over there, out there ..." and the cop says, "ohhh yeah, i think i remember you. how you doin'?" and the woman says "oh i'm all right, i had a baby." and the cop responds, "oh i was gonna say, you lost weight!" the crowd totally lost and just started yelling "THAT'S ALBANY!" and craig's like, "yeah, that's albany ... i love it." great shit.
anyway. i feel like i had something else to say ... oh, right. so last night after cait's, i wasn't exactly ready to head home, so i ran into my friend dana and this other girl in my class whose name is escaping me, and talked them into a couple drinks at snugs. i was pretty drunk, so i ended up pumping the jukebox full of money and playing equal parts the replacements' "tim" and the hold steady's "boys and girls in america." i just sat on a barstool listening to the music, drinking a pint of PBR and watching knicks replays on tv. i was really happy. i'm turning into an old man, and it feels fine, actually.
so when i woke up this morning i looked at my phone and computer ... i had changed my myspace and my away message to hold steady lyrics and fell asleep listening to built to spill's "you in reverse." i had called about seven people, but no one i was embarassed about, so maybe i'm getting more of a handle on drunk dialing. i think i talked to miles on the walk home, and maybe drew too. which was cool, i'd say.
i'm listening to chavez, another example of something tom whalen recommended to me eons ago and i've put off for inexplicable reasons. i'm trying to get better at that, because when i finally listened to broken social scene, i was a little late for the train, but it was so fucking good it didn't matter. so far i like this. not uplifting, but nice and big and guitar-heavy with a scratchy-voiced dude. noticing a trend?
top 5 artists as of late:
1. the hold steady
2. the replacements
3. the constantines
4. the posies (jon auer's giving me an interview, i'm pretty psyched)
5. lifter puller
also, a song by catfish haven is on heavy rotation: "crazy for leaving you." fucking love it. they opened for the hold steady in albany. down-home, guitar-heavy again, no distortion, repetitive but not lulling, whiskey-soaked again.
the hold steady are playing at the stone pony in asbury park, NJ. i felt dumb when kevin falahee informed me that was to bruce springsteen what cbgb's was to the ramones, 'cause i didn't know that. there are a lot of things i don't know about music. i'm going to spend a lot of this break just reading my face off about music. anyway, i'm pretty sure it's a ridiculously appropriate venue and i can't wait.
my professor, rolling stone editor holly george-warren, has finally told me which member of the replacements she kicked it with, and i was surprised.
here's the catfish haven song i can't stop listening to:
is follow bands around and write about them. i'm listening to the constantines right now and remembering how fucking good they were when they opened up for the hold steady.
i saw dinosaur jr. a couple weeks ago and i haven't gotten a chance to write about them yet even tho i was in there on a press pass. fuck school, honestly.
i can't write about the hold steady for a while, but i have an amazing reason. trust me.
i keep writing in my livejournal about music. mistake. i've just been so busy and so full of the hold steady.
i'll transfer some writings soon. right now i'm reading every interview
i can find with craig finn et al because i will be interviewing one or
more members of THS very soon for tiny mix tapes.
oh-em-gee, etc.
here's my favorite thing that i've found so far:
JH--What is wrong with the indie music scene?
CF--Kids who sit on the floor during shows. I seriously will drop a beer bottle on your head if you do this. And I am a nice person. Anything that precludes fun or humor. Bands with matching outfits suck as a rule. Anything that puts style before substance. 80s new wave revival makes me embarrassed for the people taking part. Any good band has some element of danger in them. A band without a sense of danger is about the worst thing in the world. That said, danger comes a lot of different ways, and I see danger in Cat Power and Belle & Sebastian and not in the Hives/Vines/etc.
WORD UP.
that being said, listen to this album. it won't save you, but it'll help.
1. big star - thirteen
2, guy chadwick - fall in love with me (david bowie cover)
3. belle & sebastian - like dylan in the movies
4. big star - the ballad of el goodo
5. billy joel - just the way you are
6. the hold steady - most people are djs
7. iggy pop & the stooges - penetration
8. jets to brazil - crown of the valley
9. joy division - something must break
10. lou reed - intro/sweet jane (rock'n'roll animal)
11. sleater-kinney - the fox
12. a silver mount zion - mountains made of steam
13. the magnetic fields - fido, your leash is too long
14. rod stewart - angel
15. mirah - we're both so sorry
16. mogwai - autorock
17. mott the hoople - all the young dudes
18. david bowie - soul love
19. the mountain goats - dance music
20. of montreal - kissing in the grass
21. opeth - the drapery falls
22. pavement - cut your hair
23. pink floyd - vera
24. the pixies - bone machine
25. placebo - without you i'm nothing
26. pulp - this is hardcore
27. radiohead - electioneering
28. new order - age of consent
29. nirvana - hairspray queen
30. smashing pumpkins - i am one
31. sonic youth - teenage riot
32. sufjan stevens - size too small
33. t-rex - metal guru
34. u.n.k.l.e. - nursery rhyme
35. upholstery - path train
36. the velvet underground - heroin
37. the walkmen - the rat
38. the white stripes - ball & biscuit
39. wilco - i'm the man who loves you
40. yo la tengo - pass the hatchet OR cherry chapstick
41. sunny day real estate - guitar and video games
whoops ... guess i've been pretty busy getting my byline on tiny mix tapes. shyeah.
anyway, check this out ... sexy/scary man mike patton has another project out on record, and it features everyone from massive attack to norah jones. i know, i know, norah jones, snore, blah, lame, etc.
just trust me here.
more about the new york dolls show later, but ...
thanks to my awesome (er, right) camera phone, here's a nice low-res
shot of david johanssen of the new york dolls. who, i might add, is
doing just fine, and probably has more energy than i do. plus a touch
(or five) of glam.
i haven't been down to new york city all summer, and it's really bumming me out.
so when judy told me the new york dolls are playing a free show this friday at south street seaport, i said "fuck my financial peril, i'm going!" so i am. right after work. and then i'm coming back the next morning in time for my 1:30 shift at the vineyard. take that, monetary woes!
i'm greatly anticipating the new album from the hold steady, "boys and girls in america," and i'd probably have it already if it wasn't for my busted laptop.
but
scott said to me a couple weeks ago ... "i don't care, get a fourth job
and buy albums." he was kidding (kind of), but it got me thinking,
because we were talking about the demise of the CD ... actually, the
demise of the physical album and not just an entry on the ipod. i
realized i haven't bought an album since last summer, which was of
montreal's "the sunlandic twins."
i'll say that honestly, i can't really afford to buy every new album that comes out. and yeah, i usually get to listen to them when the radio station gets them months before their releases. annnd sometimes i get them mailed to me when i'm writing about them. but you know, i really miss walking into record shops and leaving with instant gratification. i hadn't even been in the new rhino store since they moved a year ago, and it was because i was saying hi to scott and picking up a copy of the interboro rock tribune, for which i wrote a couple of reviews. and you know, that's fucked up.
i also realized that i miss getting that little package in the mail, which usually has little stickers and label samplers and clever packaging.
so. now that i'm actually getting paid to write, i think i'll start buying albums again. starting with this one:
and then hopefully, this one:
yesterday while hanging out in newburgh (don't ask), i stopped in barnes & noble to kill some time and browsed the magazine section. it had been a really long time since i'd done that. i remember going there all the time with my mom in high school, and spending whatever money i had on copies of SPIN, uncut, and occasionally, alternative press.
i was thumbing through said magazines yesterday and realized how much they don't interest me now ... with the exception of uncut, who still make pretty amazing samplers and i still consider my uncut david bowie tribute sampler to be a prized possession. it just seems like they're all writing about the same thing, over and over. more than ever, "alternative press" is a completely ironic title. 100 best debut albums ever, blah blah blah. the strokes. okay, duh. have some imagination.
anyway,
it was just funny, because i realized i had no idea which print music
magazine is good these days, but i think i've settled on magnet. it had
an amazing interview with the walkmen and an eyewitness rundown of
SXSW. at $15/yr. for bimonthly issues with cd samplers, a subscription
is really tempting.
i also need to spend more time in bookstores.
