Andy Warhol - David Bowie - Hunky Dory - 1971

Speaking as I was of artist that I appreciate more than I enjoy, there's always Andy Warhol. It's easy to see him as ridiculous symbol of Boomer Cool. A weird dude with crazy hair, and odd mannerisms, with art that at first seems fairly banal, he is the kind of artist that needs to be taken in context. On one hand, it's really easy to look at his stuff and say "It's a fucking soup can"...but then we tend to think of a can of soup as being a thing that just exists, like a rock or a tree...but at some point, in our culture's past, someone engineered that can. They figured out the design on the label, the red banner over white, the script, the little circle emblem...all of that is design that we take for granted, and it is useful that someone drew attention to that.

Beyond that his ideas on pop culture are what lead us as a culture to believe that there is art to be found in what we consider disposable entertainment. Without Warhol (or someone like him) it's doubtful that we'd ever consider things like The Beatles, The Godfather, Motown, Star Wars, etc, etc to be art. He presented the idea that pop culture was something to be observed.

Now Bowie, on the other hand, is an artist that I immensely appreciate AND enjoy...though I could do without the 52 seconds of studio chatter about how you pronounce Warhol's last name. But whatever, daring artist have some licence to fuck up from time to time.

Andy's Chest - Lou Reed - Transformer - 1972

Really, as a rock snob I should love Lou Reed...and I try, I honestly try...but short of a few Velvet Underground songs, my reaction is mostly "Admire, but don't enjoy".

Androgynous - The Replacements - Let It Be - 1984

The Summer of 1984 was the first time I can remember having a great time, the first time I remember thinking "Wow, summer is awesome!" I was 9. The movie theater had been playing such treasures as Ghostbusters, Gremlins and Temple of Doom (I was too young to realize its shortcomings). I spent a lot of time at the pool or cruising around the neighborhood with my cousin Ryan. I was too young to be stressed by girls or grades or any of the crippling self consciousness that would plague my junior high years.

Sadly, I was an oldest child so I had no older siblings to play Replacements records for me. I would only discover them backwards through Nirvana. (I don't know if anyone remembers the relentless Replacements comparrisons they received prior to Cobain becoming St. Kurt). Not that I had gender identification issues...that and acne are the two adolescent traumas I escaped...but an older brother might have at least ensured that I was listening to better stuff than Axel F, Summer of 69, and the theme from the aforementioned Ghostbusters.

Andover - Bound Stems - Appreciation Night - 2006

There's honestly little on the planet more painful than watching someone you have immense respect for hang themselves on their principles. So, after watching my team collapse to an embarrassing loss in their second game of the season...to a vastly inferior team...I finally may be losing faith in our coach.

Arsene Wenger has made a habit of making great players out of talented, promising young men. And his current team shows the signs of producing more of these great players. Additionally, Wenger has a distaste for celebrity ego. He has a long history of selling off his prodigies the second they start believing their own press, and an equally long history of not buying established stars. But now as we have watched last seasons promising stars largely depart for bigger pay checks, it is abundantly clear that we need an experienced central midfielder on the pitch, and yet the coach will not budge, insisting that the squad is strong enough. It's going to be a long, long season.

Bound Stems mostly sound like a somewhat more light hearted Modest Mouse. Listen accordingly.

Andalucia - Yo La Tengo - Fakebook - 1990

I feel like my entire office is coasting through to the weekend...and yes it's Monday. It's just one of those weeks where it feels like everybody in the city is zombie walking through the week to make it to that early dismissal on Friday and the long weekend vacation/staycation they've got lined up for Labor Day. Even the subway seemed slow.

Anyway, speaking of Slow...here's YLT covering John Cale on the Fakebook album. Sadly, I can remember a time when YLT putting out a mellow album was a new and novel twist, rather than to be expected and sighed at with disappointment.

And Your Bird Can Sing - The Beatles - Revolver - 1966

I'm hardly breaking new ground in saying The Beatles contain multitudes. In their decade of existance they were: The German hooker bedding rockabilly cover band, the original boy band, the song writing movie stars, the Dylan worshipping balladeers, the hard rocking guitar band, the studio experimenting acid heads, and finally the burnt out, strung out and hung over men trying to find their bearings. But of all those, Revolver Beatles have always been my favorite, and this is probably my favorite of John's songs on the album.

I like The Beatles most when they were honestly a band, writing and playing together, still playing live shows. You can hear all of them at their best here: John's ability to weave an acerbic sensibility into a rock melody, Paul's boyant bass line and even more boyant harmony vocals, George's searing circular guitar work, and Ringo's...okay, well maybe Ringo played the drums, who would know?

And You Lied To Me - The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse - 2007

I saw something one of the oddest things I've ever encountered on the subway this AM. I had stayed out later than I meant to last night, and then one of my friends had "forced" a shot of Wild Turkey on me, so my morning commute was a little rough. But between Bergen and Atlantic Aves I saw an mid-forties African-American man walking down the aisle towards the front of the train. He was a bit short, but very stocky. And he was wearing a Met's baseball cap and a brown plaid shirt...so from the waist up, nothing out of the ordinary...however...the plaid shirt was then tucked into a full red plaid kilt and hose set. For a second I wondered if I might be still drunk or something, because none of the other passengers were reacting. I know all about NYC cool...but seriously people, if you are not going to react to this, what are you going to react to?

I have mixed feelings about The Besnard Lakes. Their boy-girl harmonies are occasionally a bit Mama's and the Papa's for me, and they seem to have a completely un-ironic song about how cool the corner of Bedford and Grand is...but they are very good at creating menacing, ominous soundscapes, and this song is a great example of that. It's haunting guitars and fat chord keyboards combine wonderfully with the lyrics to create the sort of crushing feeling of being betrayed by someone you thought you could trust.

And The Same - Fugazi - Margin Walker - 1989

I was wasted at my BBQ on Sunday and Fugazi came up on my iPod and my friend who is also named Josh and I had a lengthy convo about the Fugazi fans we had known back in the day. Both of us came to the same conclusion that people who really loved the band were always great guys, but also little antagonistic. You're standing there having a conversation with Fugazi fan A and all of the sudden he's driving his finger into your chest, telling you how corporate America is ruining everything and soon we'll be nothing but an oligarchy and slaves to mediocrity...but you don't quite understand why he's treating this like a fight, when you totally agree with him.

And, rather obviously, I think the straight edge thing is pretty lame...but what are you going to do? The world needs cage rattlers too.

And The Cradle Will Rock - Van Halen - Women and Children First - 1980

Ok, so I mentioned the wait in line for the ID in order to drink...but I didn't even get to the biggest indignity of the day. The beer pens.

So, after you waited your 45 minutes for a beer...you had to stay in an enclosed area about 25 feet by 15 feet in the grass. You could not take your beer out to the show. You were also limited to 5 beers and they stopped serving at 830. To enforce this they had a ridiculous system...a purple x was drawn on your left hand in permanent marker. Then you were given a plastic wrist band with 5 plastic pull tabs. Each time you bought a drink a tab was pulled from the bracelet.

Basically, this sets off all of my alarm bells at once. First of all, there's the simple practical matter of having to sit in a confined pen to drink my beer, when I'm at an outdoor festival. Second of all, there is the moral principle of the thing. This is clearly designed to try to curb underage drinking...and nothing infuriates me more than things done for "the protection of the children". The world exists for adults...children should be toughened up for the world not protected from it, and adults should not be made to curtail their lives for the sake of the children. Beyond that, we are kidding ourselves if we think silly activities like this are actually going to curb underage drinking...and we are sucking all the fun out of childhood too. What the hell else are you supposed to do when you are 16 at an outdoor concert in August, you are going to sneak beer...that's what you do! And finally, kids these days don't even drink that much...they just steal the prescription drugs out of your medicine cabinets and snort them. The attitude that kids were pure and innocent and only corrupted by our society is one of the reasons I had to get the fuck out of the midwest...and to have it occur here in NYC (ok, Jersey, but barely) really infuriates me.

I'll give you a for instance of the kind thing that sets me off. I'm sitting in the beer pen drinking a couple beers and I bum one of Anand's cigarettes. Sitting next to us is a woman in her mid-late twenties reading a book. She immediately starts covering her nose and exaggerating a cough. Seriously! First of all, honey, go do your fucking homework somewhere besides the beer pen. Second of all, it's THE BEER PEN...it's bad enough I have to be locked in here drinking, you could at least not take up space READING. And third of all, when you are in the only place in the park where you can legally do anything even slightly unsavory...maybe you can cut me some slack on having a cigarette. Ugggghhhhh.

You know who'd really hate the beer pen policy? David Lee Roth, that's who. The Cradle Will Rock indeed, Diamond Dave. Rock on!

And Someone With Strengths - Wheat - Hope and Adams - 1999

So I went to the Saturday show of All Points West at Liberty State Park this past weekend to see my boys Radiohead play. This is the first of many posts, I'll probably spend ranting/raving about this show...but let's start with my biggest statement...which I'd like to state, has nothing to do with the performance of the bands....Jesus Christ did that fucking suck!

Okay, so my buddy Anand and I met up in the early afternoon to do a little pre-gaming and then head out towards Jersey. We had bought our $25 ferry tickets in advance, so we assumed the wait wouldn't be that bad...but when half the city of NYC wants to get out to a little park in Jersey...you are going to wait for a ferry. So first line I waited in, 1 hour.

Then you get to Jersey and you gotta walk a pretty good distance to get to the concert area...where security thoroughly pats you down. And when I say "security" I mean whatever Jersey crackheads they could find willing to pat you down and yell at you if they find anything...of course there were very authoritative looking state troopers around to enforce the decisions of the power mad crackheads. Second line I waited in 1.5 hours.

THEN you had to wait in line to get your ID bracelet to buy booze. Time spent waiting in this line 45 minutes.

Time spent waiting in lines for port-a-potties 1 hour.

Then of course, the line to get back ON the ferries to go home at the end of the night 1 hour, 15 minutes.

So time spent waiting in lines on Saturday: 5.5 hours. Time spent seeing my favorite band...about 2 hours. Something of a trade off I must say.

Wheat are kind of an Irish Wilco, depending on what way that sways your opinion, judge this song accordingly.

And She Would Darken The Memory - The Twilight Sad - The Twilight Sad EP - 2006

This version is only slightly different than the version that ended up on their debut full length, so not really sure I need both versions...but obviously I have some issues.

A friend of mine asked me not too long ago what sort of band I'd have, if I had a band, and The Twilight Sad was about as close as I could come to a good answer. Obviously I wouldn't sing with the accent...but they tend to have the sound I like. Melodic and dramatic, with a sizeable shoegazer influence, lyrics that are oblique enough to be universal, but not so much so that they could be mistaken for gibberish, and endings that descend into blissful chaos. This is pretty much "Josh" music. And this along with "Mapped By What Surrounds Them" are probably the best things on the first album.

And She Would Darken The Memory - The Twilight Sad - Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters - 2007

If you ever want to learn how to fake a Scottish accent, just buy this album and learn to sing along with every song. By the end, you will have a pretty good idea of how the vowel sounds work.

And One (On One) - The Lily's - The Three Way - 1999

My brain is complete mush after a lovely Brooklyn evening. Met over at my buddy Shani's place, where I met up with my lady friend and a couple of her friends. Drank a bottle of wine and ended up doing most of a shot of Jaggermiester (dear God, why?) that one of the ladies couldn't handle. Then went out to McCarren park to lay in the grass and listen to The Black Keys' show (which was awesome btw...never thought a two piece could fill the sound at an outdoor show so well.) where we split 3 mini bottles of Proseco and 4 red stripe. We also succesfully got a pizza delivered to a street corner which is bit of a Brooklyn badge of honor. Then went back to Shani's for more beer and vodka soda....so yeah, mushy brain.

This is another song from The Lily's album where they want to be The Zombies. Which is a perfectly acceptable aspiration. They lift the same angry "I'm so fucking hungover and strung out" guitar tone from "Happiness is a Warm Gun" that James Murphy would later use for "Never As Tired As When I'm Waking Up" six years later. And, of course, how can you not love a song with a harpsichord?

And My Unit Moves - Robert Pollard and Doug Gilliard - Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department - 1999

And now another song from this album. Sometimes a random assortment isn't that random. I guess that's how poker works. Sometimes you get numbers, sometimes you get a royal flush.

And yes, this song my very well be about Bob's wang. But with him, you just never know.

And It Rained All Night - Thom Yorke - The Eraser - 2006

The problem with German bars is that you end up drinking these giant stiens of beer. Sure, that sounds great...until you think about the physical realities of managing a one liter glass mug filled to the top with the finest Bavarian barley and hops concoction. It's not that hard for the first one, but by number three balance and coordination start going out the window...and the next thing you know you are covered in beer at your buddy's birthday party. And not in the fun way. And you almost certainly spilled beer all over some chicks purse...probably some chick you don't even know.

So for the rest of the night you're stumbling around, reeking of german brew and with some lady giving you the stink eye, cause all of her tampons and lipsticks now smell like Korstizer Schwarz Bier and her iPhone is sticky.

But on the upside, they do have those big soft pretzels to comfort you in your hour of darkness.

And speaking of hours of darkness, we got some more from Mr. Yorke. His solo record was something of a puzzler. I think many, and by many, I mean me, expected this to be a much more grandiose record. For all his griping and belly aching about how timid and confined modern "rock" music is, his solo effort was surprisingly modest and restrained. This took some adjustment. In hindsite though, I think the album is better than I initially thought. And this is one of the better songs.

And If All... - Guillemots ... Through The Window Pane - 2006

This is a snippet of a song, it's largely hushed, and barely a minute long...do I really have to say anything?

And I Remember Every Kiss - Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala - 2007

Jens Lekman can occassionally knock a song out of the park. "Pocketful of Money" for instance is really great, and probably the only non-annoying use of Calvin Johnson's voice ever recorded...but...and I know I've touched on this before...I just don't understand the current trend towards overblown grandiosity.

Stuff like this, Beirut, Anthony and the Johnsons, and The Fiery Furnaces baffle me. Why in the world would you want to sound like the special guest singer on the Lawrence Welk show?

And I Don't (So Now, I Do) - Robert Pollard and Doug Gillard - Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department - 1999

So a friend of mine wrote me to correct me on one of my blog postings:

"Dude…
The Romans never conquered the Greeks. The Romans actually defeated the Macedonians in 197 BC, at the battle of Cynoscephalae.
(I know, I know -- I'm being a snot. Bite me.)
They had to do that because the Macedonians had come out of the north and conquered Greece in 338 BC, defeating Athens in the battle of Chaeronea under Phillip II and his son Alexander (who later grew up to be Colin Farrell). The descendants of one of Alexander's generals ruled Greece for 150 years, and not nicely.
Before that, the Greeks spent about 100 years tearing at each other likes rats in a sack, in a series of civil wars (Athens vs. Sparta, Sparta vs. Thebes, Thebes vs. various hillbillies).
The Romans were actually seen as liberators and guardians of the peace (think us with England and France, right after WWII). They even tried to withdraw from Greece several times, only to have different Greek political factions keep pulling them back in to settle weird little feuds (think modern Iraq). And the Romans were way better at math and engineering.
All this was under the Roman Republic, 200 years before the Empire.
I tried to let the Patton quote go, BUT NOW YOU'RE KILLING ME!
And I'm never drinking tea near you again.
Regards. "

So there you go.

This track is one from one of Pollard's better solo efforts, though it also started a trend that would never again be a good thing for Bob. The trick works like this. Someone else gives him a tape of music they wrote. Bob then writes and sings the music. It worked with Gillard cause he was already a GBVer at the time...but some of the other attempts at this have been far less succesful. One of the great dissapointments of my life was the Mac McCaughan + Bob Pollard collaboration Go Back Snow Ball...it could have been awesome.

And I - Wolfsheim - Casting Shadows - 2003

So I had this weird dream last night where a guy I used to work with back at Moving.com was having a ninja star throwing demonstration at a party and accidentally threw one too close to me slicing open my stomach. Upon examination I realized that the wound was quite severe...but I didn't want to upset my co-worker so I tried to hide the damage and tough it out until my friend Shani could inspect the wound. Shani, in reality, works in advertising, but in my dream she had medical experience.

I'm sure this all means I'm fucked up in immeasurable ways, but you didn't need to hear about my dreams to put that together.

German synth pop with a good size dollop of melencholy to keep it from being too robotic. Managable if a tad wussy.

Ancient History - The Cribs - Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever - 2007

The Cribs work well enough for me. Like a lot of people I can get bored of the guitar-bass-drum set up...I can feel like there is nothing left to do with that format, but the fact of the matter is there is still little better for converying certain emotions than that set up. And rather than another hushed acoustic balladeer or pysch-folk collective, it's almost a refreshing change of pace to find a "turn it up to 11" guitar band out there.

As for ancient history...certain recent situations in my life have caused me to think a lot about the Roman Empire...no scratch that, I ALWAYS think about the Roman Empire, but the recent situation has caused me to think about the conquest of the Greeks in particular. The Romans were crafty and strong...essientially they were the first people to break through Greek defence by figuring out the brilliant strategy of "when they throw their spears, we should get out of the way". But all in all the Greeks were the smarter (unless you go with the "if they were so smart they wouldn't have been conquered" theory). They understood more about math and engineering and art and culture...all of these things.

So I think about how it must have been for the Greeks, having overlords that they knew they were smarter and more refined than. Being asked to teach secrets and knowledge that would allow Rome to grow into the big white marble Empire we all know and love, and knowing all the while that it's your knowledge that they will be remembered for. Wonder why I was thinking about that...

Analyze - Thom Yorke - The Eraser - 2006

I'm seeing Radiohead one week from tomorrow. Huzzah!