Arrogance

Coolfer takes note of traditional music journalists using concert and album reviews as a medium to undermine the legitimacy of music blogs.  This attitude gets my goat. 

Mojo and Rolling Stone have been appointing "The Next Dylan" for decades.  Go back and look at the covers of back issues of Spin to find headlines like "Are the Vines the next Nirvana?" or "Justin Timberlake: The Michael Jackson of 2002."  Don't talk to me about over-hyping.

The dominance of the current gentry has been called into question, and I think they are understandably scared.  The same thing happened in the news media when political blogs began stealing the thunder of traditional news sources.  The landscape has shifted.  Blogs are reporting faster, writing better, and offering a more usable alternative to monthly print mags.  Journalists can choose to adapt or fight a losing battle. 

Oohmpa-pa

New York's Bang on a Can is no stranger to overblown artistic statements.  In fact, this year a Siberian throat-singer performed "Love Will Tear Us Apart."  It makes you wonder where the line between "experimental" and "novelty" lies.  Nothing topped this year's 100Tubatet.

"Carrying a drum major's baton, Mr. Braxton mustered his "100Tubatet" — playing tubas, sousaphones, Wagner tubas and double-belled euphoniums — on the center's plaza. It played glacially slow, sustained melodies, creating a low growl that was uncannily similar to the tone of airplanes and helicopters flying overhead."

Glenn Branca is rolling his eyes somewhere. 

Ready…FIGHT!!!

Remember that one time when Bjork spazzed out on that reporter?  Some genius ‘Tuber added a few healthbars and viola, comedy.  Too bad she didn’t bust out the Chun Li Lightening Kick Attack. 

Yatta!

And you thought just plain ol’ “Boris” was bad

The Onion lists The Worst Band Names of 2006. Personal favorite: "Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin"

Science!

Corporate Casual discovers Pandora. 

Now, I know all of you guys are so cool that you totally knew about this like back in college before the internet was even invented. You had the pandora.com limited edition picture disc 7″ that was printed in Germany and only distributed via the underground railroad.

Aural glaciers

The Times has discovered art-metal. 

If Deep Purple had released an album showcasing the moments of pure bottom-end feedback between actual songs on "Deep Purple Live," it might have sounded something like "The Grimm Robe Demos." It's hard to imagine any music being heavier or, for that matter, very much slower — the first chord change happens four minutes and four seconds into the song. One fan wrote in an online chat room that the band waits for glaciers to roll by and then flags one down and hitches a ride.

What kills me about this music is how easily it has been able to garner a wide fanbase.  Now, I'm not saying my little sister is begging me to let her borrow my Sunn O))) records, but there are a lot of trucker-hatted kids going to these shows who would never listen to Throbbing Gristle, Terry Riley, the Boredoms or any number of other equally unapproachable groups.  There's something about doom-metal that kids go for.  Maybe because it's so darn creepy.

I know that if my mother ever heard Jesu, she'd immediately start praying in tongues. 

Adorable

The only TV program I watch is the Apprentice.  My mom tapes it for me while I'm away at school because she thinks it's a good supplement to my marketing classes at Grove City.  She's probably right.  It was during a comercial break that I heard a very familiar bouncy banjo strum from none other than Stephen Merrit of Magnetic Fields.  The song underscored a commercial for Cesar Canine Cuisine, an upscale brand of dog food that comes in eleven different flavors, each contained in cute color-coded tin.  The music makes sense, as it was chosen from the box set 69 Love Songs, an exercise in exess in its own right.  If Merrit's songs were tangible, I imagine they would be packaged similarly.  Perhaps it's my marketing background, but songs I love used in commercials rarely bothers me.  Iggy Pop's Lust for Life used in a Carnival Cruise commercial only makes me laugh (and wonder if sweet and sour heroin is served at the buffet).  The only commercial I can think of that has angered me is that Swiffer ad that turned Devo's post-punk anthem into a song that your mom sings to herself while dusting her husband's bowling trophies. 

This cesar.com dog is definitely a Magnetic Fields fan. 

Rama Lama Bang Bang

I've been listening to a pirated copy of Moloko vocalist Roisin Murphy's 2005 record Ruby Blue for some time now.  Imagine my glee when my honeypie came home from Ireland with a real copy from a real record store in Dublin, Roisin's hometown.  Roisin teamed up with glitchpop's finest Matthew Herbert (who took a quick break from recording the sound of eyeballs being sliced open) for this soulful LP that manages to retain catchiness despite Herbert's wild beat experimentation.  My current favorite song, "Night of the Dancing Flame" sounds like Bjork and Tom Waits throwing a dance party in an abandoned dentist office.  Someday I'll be able to actually post these songs so you don't have to settle for reading my grandiose song descriptions…

Two of the coolest videos I've seen:

"Sow Into You"

"If We're in Love"

If you don't have an awesome girlfriend, you can catch the US release of Ruby Blue right now as it hit our shores last month. 

Poptimists

Something Awful pokes fun at self-important music bloggers.  Perhaps by linking I am perpetuating the very pretense which Thorpe skewers?

"Oh and by the way anyone who actually knew anything about rock writing would know that in 1989, Greil Marcus called Whitney Houston a “porchbound shuck-and-jive tarbaby,” and you’re not going to accuse Greil Marcus of being a racist, are you? Hypocrites."

Dude's written some killer stabs at music dorks in his column, "Your Band Sucks."

Pop Nerds have an abiding love of everything canonically agreed upon as great by their peers, none of whom they respect. Their own taste is unimpeachable, and everyone else’s is dead wrong. They know more about bands they hate than you know about your favorite band. They know what label Jesus was on. They are torn between hating Rob Sheffield and secretly wanting to be him. They read books about books about music. Pop nerds are much more likely to be male than female, because boys have a far greater tendency toward wasting their lives in the pursuit of meaningless trivia. They fancy themselves as John Cusack from High Fidelity, but really they’re a perfect mixture of Jack Black and the effeminate bald guy.

and…

They all like The Velvet Underground, unless you accuse them of liking the Velvet Underground, in which case they bust out their contingency plan about what a pathetic poseur Lou Reed was.

Thanks, Dr. Thorpe.  If ever there were an internet subculture asking for a good ribbing, it's music bloggers. 

I was only a spudboy

I have this great pair of headphones.  Sennheiser 600's to be exact.  The things give me joy beyond compare.  Unfortunately, they've been giving me hassle recently.  I've spent hours trying to get them fixed.  Finally, after four months of half-butted* searching, a friend pointed me to this little hole in the wall called Gourmet PA  in Cranberry, Pennsylvania.  Since I don't live too far away from Cranberry, I gave it a shot and my cans were fixed in 10 minutes.  I noticed a large package on the front desk addressed to Mark Mothersbaugh.  Could it be that the man himself was also taking advantage of Gourmet PA's friendly and prompt service?  Sure enough Devo's frontman was getting a sound distorting synth patched up that week!  Neat!  

*thanks mom