kids these days… can’t they do anything that doesn’t sound like Pixies+Clash+Mission Of Burma ?

egad, so The damn Wombats have now invaded my daily reading, or at least that damn song has invaded my daily reading. great pop song but the lyrics drive me totally batty. let’s just curl up into a ball and please go away, Wombats.

Michelle is just miffed about not winning a webbie and needs to feel persecuted.

XTC RUUUUUULLLLLEEEEESSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did you know there are more grizzly bears in XTC songs than in any other post-punk-pop band?

Go google it yourself if you don’t believe me.

Re: XTC video. That’s $55 well-spent. Here’s my favorite of theirs.

Fridge note for Gavmo and M-

Kellys???

Call the bat phone

Michelle started crap with boingboing?
How the hell would you even do that? They seem like the nicest bunch of MASSIVE NERDS in the world. It’d be like starting shit with Conan O’Brien or summin.

equivalent of comment in Patriots Football post:

congrats on the win, Brad’s team. God I hate the Patriots and the Red Sox. Also, Gregg Easterbrook is a massive cobag.

Fridge note for Gavmo and M-

Ooh, hot gossip.

Speaking of videos, I think I may have found a worse video parody than Atlas Shrug’s “My Sharia.”

Apologies in advance for the relentless pain and suffering you’ll endure if you click on the link.

Michelle started crap with boingboing?

I’ve always grumbled to myself about the indiscriminate linkage – Iowahawk for god’s sake? – from Mark in particular and the Glenn Reynolds fellating in general, but that’s because BoingBoing really doesn’t give a shit about what I think if they find something interesting. Good for them.

It’s a measure of the state of the nation that they are finding some things so outrageous that they’re posting more political bits along with the crap about bukkake or papercraft sculptures of furries or something.

Funny, I always thought early Talking Heads when I heard Franz Ferdinand.

knitting a small colon in 21 steps!

can’t they do anything that doesn’t sound like Pixies+Clash+Mission Of Burma ?

Please god let that continue, it’s the only thing keeping me from falling right off the demographic curve. A world where I can make fun of my 1st-year comp students for their “Black Parade tour” tshirts & oh-yay-Bloc-Party-is-playing-HoB facebook shoutouts is a fucking blessed world.

RB- Glennbot n Mark both wanna be robots is my best guess. I used to read boingboing a lot more than I do now. I began drifting when it got all self-aware, and they posted a cartoon joke about someone making something useless to have it posted on boingboing for the 3rd or 4th time. Also because most of the posts are about crap like you mentioned, along with Second Life n the like.

can’t they do anything that doesn’t sound like Pixies+Clash+Mission Of Burma ?

I’ll have mine with a soupçon of Buzzcocks, please.

XTC totally rulez, like the feller said. The day Andy Partridge reeled off that stage, never to return to touring, was a sad day for the hearing world.

Although thanks for nothing, since in one second I’m going to play the Battery Brides video and commence to sing it to myself for the rest of the day.

I’ll have mine with a soupçon of Buzzcocks, please.

!!!

I’m sorry, but the Buzzcocks were faggots. And if this isn’t me I’m suing myself.

This calls for Homosapien.

This calls for Telephone Operator…

I love Joy Division. The song Atmosphere is one of the saddest, most beautiful pieces I’ve heard, and the weird little guys in the robes in the film clip (shot after Ian’s suicide) makes it strangely poignant. And then there’s New Dawn Fades, with the melody driven by the bass and the haunting lyrics. A lot of their music was like this, at least until Ian died and they became (a) New Order and (b) massively successful and rich.

And of course there’s the combination of perky dance music and love-lost lyrics that is Love Will Tear Us Apart.

Buzzcocks were good too, of course: all the bands of that time/place had such energy and whatever. But only Joy Division had Ian Curtis, and only Ian did that weird ‘dead fly’ dance; only Ian got that crazed look in his eyes when he performed; only Ian went slack-lipped and bug-eyed as the epilepsy took control on stage. Poor bugger.

On a lighter note, I Wanna Be Straight. I mean, who else isn’t sick of taking drugs and staying up late? Ian Dury should have been bloody well knighted for his contribution to the culture.

And then there’s Oliver’s Army. Perhaps the US Army might have a chat with Elvis Costello, see if he could do some recruiting for them. Or perhaps not.*

Sigh. The glory days are long gone, folks.

* Geek note: The Oliver referred to is Oliver Cromwell, who was responsible for the composition of the standing army in England. Elvis doesn’t seem too taken with the idea, although he has a lot of fun saying so.

Gus said,

Funny, I always thought early Talking Heads when I heard Franz Ferdinand.

Like this?

Here’s an odd interview with Robert Quine: http://www.furious.com/PERFECT/quine.html

Am I the only one here who finds the growing sentimentality among Xers for the “good ol’ music” to be a bit cloying and sad? Sure, I listen to and still enjoy all the old shit that everyone our age now pretends to have been into, but there’s plenty of good new stuff out there if you know where to dig.

For fucks sake, leave the gauzy sepia-toned wank-back-in-anger to the Boomers; its their only legitimate hobby and it seems unfair to poach their turf.

Dennis Prager on the radio, mercifully short :

Am I the only one here who finds the growing sentimentality among Xers for the “good ol’ music” to be a bit cloying and sad?

No, but it’s hard not to think of some new bands as modern Stray Cats.

kingubu said,
November 13, 2007 at 4:13

Am I the only one here who finds the growing sentimentality among Xers for the “good ol’ music” to be a bit cloying and sad? ….For fucks sake, leave the gauzy sepia-toned wank-back-in-anger to the Boomers; its their only legitimate hobby and it seems unfair to poach their turf.

No. Yes.

Wow, Gav…I think you deserve a public service award for the music posts.

I never knew XTC outside of the Skylarking/Black Sea/Oranges and Lemons era.

I had no internets back then, people!

For fucks sake, leave the gauzy sepia-toned wank-back-in-anger to the Boomers; its their only legitimate hobby and it seems unfair to poach their turf.

Alright, big guy, this pisses me off.

Sure, it’s completely accurate, but you could refrain from pointing it out.

Jefferson Airplane, man…

mikey

Attention guitar wielding whippersnappers: There’s more to music than Souxsie & The Banshees’ “Peekaboo” and various up-tempo arrangements by The Cure.

Thank you.

And you kids get offa my lawn!

Mikey–

Airplane? I hear ya, man. Saw them 3, 4 times here and there. And if you don’t know “After Bathing at Baxter’s” don’t talk to me.

But check out XTC. Andy Partridge has more anger, poetry, passion, and chops than anyone (incl. Balin) on the Airplane. Okay, I’m being drunk at the moment. So let’s not say either/or. It’s both-and.

Start with Black Sea (others will disagree), and go from there.

But there’ll never be a bass player as cool as Tina Weymouth.

/wanking sentimentality

I think Althouse still isn’t getting enough attention.

She posted a random snapshot of the table in front of her and called it “SoHo tablescape”. Look at it. That is her idea of something beautiful and interesting. I mean really, there are no words.

My faith in humanity just sank to a new low.

Is there a nice safe blog where you can go complain about work? Cause I had a shitty day and I don’t want to bore you guys.

Mr Wonderful, I will agree, but will quickly send the intrepid XTC traipster one LP in either direction to Drums & Wires and English Settlement, and would be remiss to not mention The Dukes of Stratosphear compilation ‘Chips from the Chocolate Fireball’, XTC’s homage to Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd.

I’m also with Mikey on Jefferson Airplane. Surrealistic Pillow was one of the breakthrough albums of the late 60’s & still one I listen to a lot. ‘Comin’ Back To Me’ is just a beautiful song anytime.

Room on the CD changer for bands like Spoon, Gomez and the New Pornographers too. Shuffle play is our friend.

A sentimental, gauzy, sepia-toned anger-wank sounds like just the ticket. But I better do the dishes first.

For fucks sake, leave the gauzy sepia-toned wank-back-in-anger to the Boomers; its their only legitimate hobby and it seems unfair to poach their turf.

Hey, that’s cruel.

{Grabs walking frame and angrily hobbles off into the glorious sunset of yesteryear}

Mr Wonderful, ABB is one great album. I’m a bit too young to have seen the Airplane, but the first time I heard that record, I was peaking on three hits of very good acid, and it was a religious experience. I also recommend any XTC record under the influence of psychedelics. English Settlement nearly killed me while in a similar state.

Gavin, the Buzzcocks vid… I’m swooning.

“For fucks sake, leave the gauzy sepia-toned wank-back-in-anger to the Boomers; its their only legitimate hobby and it seems unfair to poach their turf.”

How about if we get ‘hip’ and pick up on bands like Redwall or Band of Bees? We get to have our wank and miss it too.

Oh, and jhshorter, you hit it on the head. Adrian Belew was a wonderful complement to the Heads.

g, you can tell us. Now I’m kind of curious and all ready to be sympathetic. \

It might be a sepia-toned swoon at that. I should’ve known that autoerotic asphyxiation with a skinny tie was a bad idea.

Gus, write your will before you listen to The Dukes of Stratosphear.

gbear, been there and done that and loved it. I had the 25 o’clock ep on vinyl before Psonic Psunspot was released. Yes, Andy and Colin are some heavy duty motherfuckers.

This seems like an apt thread for that, g.

Gonna hitch a ride
Head for the other side
Leave it all behind, never say Goodbye
Gonna sail away
Sunlight, another day
Freedom for my mind
Carry me away, for the last time.

Bring it g. You live here ‘smuch as any-damn-body.

You need an ear? Trust me. You’ll find one here.

Plus a troll that will say something so stupid it will make you laugh.

I have yet to be chastised for reaching out to this community. And I don’t even have the decency to say Off Topic…

mikey

is a comment ever off-topic? discuss.

Something you don’t hear every day.

The last one wouldn’t sound out of place on some of the albums mentioned here.

Well, thank you all. I am, on the plus side, enjoying a delicious grilled London Broil (medium rare) fixed by the delicate hands of my own Dear Spouse (about time!) So I feel a helluva lot better.

My complaint is mostly that it’s one of those horrendous annual milestones in the Budget Process – the Mid Year review. I work for a public employer. My boss is a really good person in many ways, but he is extremely literal minded, a control freak, and computer illiterate.

So – what happens is we get sent instructions in the form of highly formatted Excell spreadsheets from the Budget Overlords at Finance, with all the formulas pre-programmed.

Then we have to review our current records to figure out if our projections are on track.

If they’re not, we have to decide whether we want to bring it to our Overlords’ attention or not – if it’s good news do we want to prematurely toot our horn, or wait and see if the year will bring a downturn? If it’s bad news do we want to call for help and warn them, or hide it in the hopes that we’ll turn it around?

In our case, the news is Very Good, because we are extremely conservative in our projections. But we’re trying to decide if we’re going to tell them, or hide it.

So I’m charged with plugging our figures into the pre-programmed spreadsheet and updating the footnotes and sending them back into our Overlords at Finance.

Seems simple, yes? But it is complicated by my boss’s qualities.

1) he nitpicks all the details, and changes his mind from day to day, so we end up counting the same data about 6 different ways, depending on what he wants to count today.

2) he doesn’t work in Excell, he works in print. He doesn’t understand that the spreadsheet has formulae embedded in it. So you don’t sit in front of the monitor together and plug in the numbers and watch the other numbers change; you plug in the numbers and print him out a copy and let him review it. Then you go back and plug in a different number, and print him another version. Since this is also how he reviews our internal spreadsheets, it becomes a fricking snowball of endless versions of Excell docs each time he wants to count the data differently.

3) He is a non-linear thinker, so his thought process flits away from the subject. Are you projecting revenue from a sale to Client A? Suddenly, you’re directed to get on the phone and gather some piece of detail about Client A’s sale, on the premise that somehow that will affect the revenue in a budget-relevant manner.

4) he is overworked, serving on too many intra-institutional committees AND he is not good at time management, so the amount of time he can devote to working with me on the budget is limited. Appointments set aside for budget work are postponed. Sessions are interrupted.

5) he is personally disorganized, and – IMHO – under stress. He loses documents and needs them reprinted. He gets sick a lot. He runs late. His infrastructure is flawed – he works from home but only has a dial-up connection at home and he can’t download attachments so you can’t send him documents.

BUT – he is basically a decent, honorable and ethical person. He is never unkind. He doesn’t play dishonest games. So I want to support him, even though I want to strangle him.

But my day? I came in to work at 9. We have to turn in the Budget Docs tomorrow at 5 p.m. On Friday night Boss asked for yet another printing of spreadsheets for his review over the weekend, which would, presumably, inform my task list this morning. Boss called to say he’d been sick all weekend and didn’t get a chance to review the docs and he’d be in at 11. He arrived at 12:30, reviewed his email, said we’d talk at 1. We had a meeting about something else at 2. We talked at 1. At 1:39 I walked down the street & bought a pre-packaged tuna sandwich at a deli. At 2 we met on the other matter. At 3 we had another meeting. At 4 he had a meeting. At 5:15 he had reviewed the spreadsheet I had printed him Friday night, and asked for some changes. At 6 pm I gave him the changes for his review, and went home.

We are at exactly the same place in the Budget Process we were at on Friday morning.

Who’s got the booze?

With the election just around the corner…

It’s time to get fooled again!
.

Who’s got the booze?

the office three doors down from mine. I think she left so we can raid it.

g-

Well, the inefficiency could make anyone a little edgy. However, you describe your boss as “basically a decent, honorable and ethical person. He is never unkind. He doesn’t play dishonest games.” Lucky you to have such a boss; I’ve had many who had none of those qualities, and we parted ways quickly after much harshness.

Do the same spreadsheet fifty times (it all pays the same), go home to your spouse, post here. Repeat as necessary.

But there’ll never be a bass player as cool as Tina Weymouth.

She was so cool they hired somebody good to play the bass for their best stuff.

Lucky you to have such a boss; I’ve had many who had none of those qualities,

Yeah, isn’t that a bitch? It makes me feel bad for complaining.

Can I have another glass of that pinot noir, please?

Before I went out tonight I was trying to make a CD for a friend. Here’s A to B, which does not prove I’m interested in much modern music.

O’Brien Tryin’ to Talk Hawaiian – Ada Jones
Better Luck Next Time – The Afros
Sweet As A Candy Bar – Air Miami
Soul Sister – Allen Toussaint
I Feel Like Breaking Up Somebody’s Home – Ann Peebles
Divine – Antony and the Johnsons
Girl/Boy Song – The Aphex Twin
On Suicide – Art Bears
Haruka Kanata – Asian Kung-Fu Generation
Tocata Rea – Astor Piazzolla y su orquestra
Heroes And Villains – Beach Boys
You Take The Gold – Beachwood Sparks
Look At Him Now – The Beau Hunks
Down in the Swamp – Béla Fleck
Ground on Down – Ben Harper
Chloe – Benny Goodman
Gene Autry – Beulah
Joe Dimaggio Done It Again – Billy Bragg & Wilco
Under the Anheuser Busch – Billy Murray
Felix the Cat – Bix Beiderbecke
Just A Friend – Biz Markie
Been Listening All The Day – Blind Joe Taggart
To Keep My Love Alive – Blossom Dearie
Big Ball’s in Cowtown – Bob Wills & Texas Playboys
The Intro And The Outro – The Bonzo Dog Band
Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down – Brand Nubian
Two Against Three – Brian Eno & David Byrne
La Migra – Brujeria
You’re For Me – Buck Owens
What it is – Busta Rhymes

Am I the only one here who finds the growing sentimentality among Xers for the “good ol’ music” to be a bit cloying and sad?
I too am saddened and cloyed. If anyone wants to cheer me up, they should post a Crispy Ambulance vid.

g,

Don’t be afraid to bitch just because your boss isn’t evil incarnate. You have a job to do, he makes it harder, of course you’re frustrated. (I could rant here about people who are computer illiterate in this day and age, but I won’t.)

It might be easier if he were a complete ass because you could just dislike the entire package and have done with it. Instead you’re having to deal with Like This/Don’t Like That/Like/Don’t Like/Like/Don’t/Like/LikeDon’t Error! Error! [head explodes]

Have another drink.

On a serious note to begin with: g, you should try to convince your boss to adopt GTD (stands for Getting Things Done). It’s a system for managing Stuff, and it’s based on a book by David Allen called, oddly enough, Getting Things Done. Has a weird geek fan base (full of weird geeks like me), because it works, it’s simple, and it relieves stress and overload.

Aside from that, clip him politely around the earhole and tell him that it doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to be done.

It’s possible that some of his shilly-shallying is because he’s so overwhelmed he can’t make decisions. Your points 1, 3, 4 and 5 sound a lot like it. Which means that it’s possible he can change, if he wants to. See if he’d like to get in a coach for that kind of thing: it can be expensive, but it can also work (provided you get the right coach).

I know whereof I speak: I’m currently running a pilot for a series of workshops in managing work overload (plus other stuff), and the participants keep telling me the difference it’s making. And in essence, it’s real simple. For an overview, look at Zen Habits (look at the categories Productivity and Simplicity at the bottom).

And now, since I’m indulging in a sepia-toned wank, I might as well make the most of it.

Apropos of drinking, how about The Nips Are Getting Bigger, or Too Many Times (I’ve seen the sun come up through bloodshot eyes this week)? For some reason, the songs of Oz legendary band Mental As Anything frequently centre around alcohol. Except for Apocalypso, which is, appropriately, Christmas-themed.

You really should watch these guys: dated, yes, but lots of fun and silliness, and some pretty good music. One of the creative minds behind the band is also one of the creative minds behind Mambo art/t-shirts/stuff. Absolutely piss-funny, for anyone who likes such things. Check out his bio page: anyone who managed to create a giant Beer Monster (with a beer-tap penis, no less) for the 2000 Olympics, and also created the glorious artwork Australian Jesus At The Football must be worth a look. Plus, his business card says “Artist and Dirty Old Hippy”.

Can I have another glass of that pinot noir, please?

G, as it happens, one of the women doing my workshops is a winemaker whose vineyard produces pinot noir. About six months ago I helped her out with the slideshow for a huge function that she’d organised to promote the industry, which she called “Pinot Envy”. Imagine me, occasionally pushing a button with an air of casual computer mastery, and spending the rest of the time slurping, err, tasting, fine pinot, and hoovering up some of the best food I’ve ever eaten.

Pinot Is Good.

g-

A glass on me. Frustration is one of the hazards of being a bright wage slave.

Excel has been around for over a decade.

g, you’re enabling him. Make the caring, kind, and decent human being demonstrate the ability to learn.

i’ve seen my wife attacked by both malkin and her ilk AND by boingboing and their cyberlibertarian roads-will-be-built-by-google bullshit, and in my experience
a) they both have utterly stupid readers who
b) truck in violence and hatred while
c) hiding behind anonymity to
d) go after the weakest link they can.

in our case, lucky me i had a link tracker on my children’s websites. boingboing readers (sent by cory doctorow’s link to scumbag thomas hawk’s blog accusing my wife of child abuse) were just as likely as malkinites (sent by michelle calling my wife the “worst person of the day” for having photos that called bush on his shit) to leave vile invective on our CHILDREN’S GUEST BOOK. typical stuff included the wish that we had aborted our children, that we suffer from torture etc.

fuck malkin and her haters, but fuck boingboing readers more for believing some sub-randian shit that they are too fucking stoned to understand anyway. a pox on the lot of them.

That’s impossible, Robert Green. Michele Malkin and her readers work AGAINST unhinged, radical, frothing hatred; not for FOR it!
That’s why they want to detain all Muslims in America forever and turn the middle east into a glass parking lot! For peace. It makes perfect logical to me, I don’t understand why you can’t see it like they do….

G: You know that *special* tone of voice, the one you use(d) on your kid when he was pushing the Very Outer Edges of the Good-Mommy interface? The one that let him know that he had the choice between quitting that shit rightnow and… ugly, ugly consequences?

The one that certain male persons have been heard to refer to as “PMS Alert Signal”?

If your boss has half the good qualities you think he does, he’ll respond to that tone of voice, too.

You just need to decide whether, and when, you want to let yourself go to that particular place. Depending on how much you cherish your non-mommy persona / dignity around the office, of course.

And it’s easier on all parties if you wait until it’s just the two of you in the room…

“Gen X” wankers/Here’s a clue
Ageing will happen/Even to you

Don’t think you’ll be/any different
You will suck too/So just get bent

And stay off my fucking lawn you little shitheads! I’ve got a shotgun & I’m itchin’ to use it!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9Shor9Bq_g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMm7gqowAO4

Go go gadget zany German dance music!

MORE COWBELL

kids these days… can’t they do anything that doesn’t sound like Pixies+Clash+Mission Of Burma ?

Us kids can, but these fuckers always get the recording contracts.

God, I hate The Wombats.

I’ll have my modern post-punk pastiches with a glimmering of Gang of Four, incidentally.

From Our Lady of the Camps’ comments:

On October 4th, 2007 at 11:06 am, Pickle said:
Civil dialogue with the left is no longer possible.

Snap!

RE: Robert Green’s comment

Respectfully, there are people who feel that a series of photographs of children who have been deliberately made to cry is manipulative, crass, and wrong, and about as meaningful a statement on this administration’s wrongdoing as the that of the “masturbate for peace” crowd.  Is it child abuse?  Probably not, certainly not in a court of law, but that doesn’t make it acceptable in my book.

That said, leaving any comments about the debate on your children’s websites is unacceptable, and leaving abusive ones there completely forfeits any higher moral ground the people in question probably felt they had.

Whoa, wait, who’s been harassing someone’s children? Did I miss something? Robert, why are the Malkinites bothering you?

And thanks to all who responded so nicely to my whining. I will take your suggestions to heart. That book someone suggested sounded like a good idea.

“For fucks sake, leave the gauzy sepia-toned wank-back-in-anger to the Boomers; its their only legitimate hobby and it seems unfair to poach their turf.”

Thank you; that’s the most touching thing I’ve seen in…some indeterminate amount of time. Since y’all are far more connected than I, and generous and not at all snarky and all, who’s the new Stevie Ray Vaughan?

Mikey, how about some Humble Pie with that Airplane? Say what you will about old farts, there was some damn fine sound back then…

I have never understood the weighing of the value of one type of music against another, or one period, or one genre. Music is such an utterly subjective thing, and tastes are subject to change with time. I don’t have the arrogance necessary to say, “That music sucks.” Personally, I hate most modern country in a very visceral way. However, I would never tell someone who loved it, “Your taste sucks!” It’s their taste; for whatever reason, that music appeals to them, it moves them in some way. So why should I try to tear them down for that?

I’m 46, but the last thing I want to do is listen to the music I liked in the 70s and 80s. It’s just depressing as hell to do that. But obviously I’m in the minority on that. Most people seem to be into nostalgia. My favorite musical period, the 90s of Seattle, is now fading into the past. I still listen to the albums those bands did in the early 90s, but I also listen to new stuff that they do. I also listen to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Shins.

Tastes change over time as well. I, like all my midwestern contemporaries in the 70s, loathed punk. Now I like it. I was 40 when I discovered that I liked the Bad Brains. But mostly these days I listen to classical. I listen to it not because it makes me feel intellectually superior, but simply because I like it. I don’t even know that much about it. I just enjoy it, because it makes me feel happy.

I guess this rambling comment is just meant to say that I don’t understand why people want to argue about this. It’s like the cats are better than dogs or vice versa argument. It’s just taste. What’s the vested interest in trying to get someone to do something they’re never going to do, like say, “Jeez, you’re right. Poison sucks and I’m never going to listen to them again. I’ve seem the light, and progressive jazz is the only good music! And I’m getting rid of my cats and getting a dog. Yowzer!” You just wind up with hurt feelings. There’s too much hard feeling in the world to add to it by arguing over something that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things one iota.

I have never understood the weighing of the value of one type of music against another, or one period, or one genre.

It’s a long and detailed conversation you can have with someone in which nothing hangs in the balance. It’s like sports.

RB, I guess it’s just something I don’t understand. ( I truly don’t understand interst in watching other people play sports at all, let alone discussing it with someone, either.. But I know i’m seriously in the minority on that issue as well.)

I don’t like arguing with people I like. And I really get upset on sort of a gut level when people I like or love argue. I don’t really understand friendly argument, I guess. That’s probably an issue I should work on. Honestly, I don’t know how I got that way. Maybe it was my loud Irish American family that spent 99% of it’s home time screaming at each other about issues they actually agreed on, for the most part, that made me the way I am. LOL. See? I don’t even like discussions about arguing.

Pay no attention to me. I’ll just sit these out and save my quarreling for wingnuts.

Since y’all are far more connected than I, and generous and not at all snarky and all, who’s the new Stevie Ray Vaughan?

Kenny Wayne Sheppard.

Who?

Exactly.

Though I like arguing about music because I like to know I’m not the only geek who is passionate about it to argue, I have a suggestion for less inter-thread snark and more librul hippiness. Let’s lay the blame for the allegedly crap state of music where it belongs –

1. The assholes handing out recording contracts based on the opinions of focus groups that have listened to 100 30 second clips from various bands.
2. The pigs who just bought that really cool independently owned radio station and made it into an endless loop of whatever music you like least (Vive WHFS!)
3. The greedy bastards trying to squeeze the life out of on-line services like Pandora.com, who lie and say it’s to help the artists.

Attack!

I’m with Candy on this one. There’s no accounting for taste.

I have a whole ton of YouTube selections lined up to listen to thanks to you all. I’m always on the lookout for new (to me) music. I’m … older than Candy and dog-tired of listening to the same stuff I listened to in high school and college.

So this thread is like a cornucopia of swellness in my book. Some of the music I’ll like and some…not so much and it’s all OK.

Finally, I’ll leave my own contribution. This is a band I heard about on (gasp!) NPR. Me likey. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEd35Gx8lC0

arky, thanks. And Pandora is doing nice things from that start.

I’m still in favour of the arguing position, especially since music provides so much to make fun of. Pop music really deserves a whole bunch more Spinal Taps (away from my memory CB4!) because there’s stupid stuff happening up and down the entire chain of the industry.

When I was playing my band would encounter folks within the industry or without and the hilarious thing was to hear people say “you’re so articulate”.

I’ve been a committed Slacker user for a long time. Now they have released the stand-alone player. I’ve got about fifteen highly customized “stations” saved, but I continue to tweak them. One of the best is my southern rock station built around .38 special, molly hatchet and skynnyrd. Then the service fills in a bunch of very cool additions.

Candy, slacker has a preset called “90’s alternative” that is a perfect sampling of the good shit from that period. Give ‘er a shot…

mikey

g said:

Whoa, wait, who’s been harassing someone’s children? Did I miss something? Robert, why are the Malkinites bothering you?

It’s an old issue, he’s carrying a grudge.

Sounds cool, mikey, I’ll give it a try.

OT – I just finished posting here about how much I hate it when people I like argue, and then I go over to Orcinus and see that Dave and Glenn Greenwald are fighting about, of all things, Ron Paul. Good lord. Is it a full moon?

In my opinion, Dave is right on this one. (ducks and runs for cover).

/OT

Okay, must write my paper now. Due tonight!

Henceforward I resolve to say ‘epigone’ instead of ‘ilk’.

XTC: Apple Venus Volume 1
Joy Division: you all saw Control already? Uncanny.
“This music all sounds like that music”. Yes. And? Everything old is new again, yada yada.

I am a sucker for what I call pop music – sweet harmonies and jangling guitars.
Some of my favorites are unfortunately not that new but here goes
Guided by Voices out of Dayton Ohio –Bob Pollard is an extremely prolific guy. He also has alot of solo stuff and there worked with most of the band members in Airport 5
Swell that is basically a guy named David Freel out of San Fran
and finally there is the Beta Band from The UK

The Editor & now you guys. No wonder you won the funny award. The awful Belichek will go down as a cheater & The Packers will smack the crap out of the whining boys in New England, again, in the Super Bowl. No self-respecting liberal ought to be supporting the P******S anyway. The Red Sox are another story & I proudly wear a Sox tshirt a friend gave me last summer. Something about the color of their socks.

Man, my favorite XTC song is “Need You Tonight.”

…

What?

I think I really like this Futureheads stuff, Gavin.  Thanks!

Wombats, eh, not so much, and I really wanted to like a band with that name playing a song with that title.

Funny, I always thought early Talking Heads when I heard Franz Ferdinand.

Franz Ferdinand and Talking Heads both share Art School, IIRC. That says a lot!

And, hey, wasn’t Andy’s birthday Sunday or Monday?

I love the Patriots and the Red Sox. They Rock !
Let’s hear it for the dynasties…