E-MAIL ARCHIVES

Thursday, October 3, 2002 -- 12:03 p.m.

Busy week -- to an extent, at least. I've been working on another City Pages piece, a shortish review of the new Amon Tobin (verdict: a good album, but not necessarily a good Amon Tobin album -- the jazz has been almost completely extricated). I've also been job-hunting (with a possible light at the end of the tunnel) and geeking on the news that if what ?uestlove's saying is true, Common's next album will be weirder than all get-out. And the article doesn't even mention the alleged Stereolab guest appearance.

My two most recent CD purchases: Radio Birdman's Radios Appear (yeah yeah I know but I was previously going on a bunch of MP3s and this reissue sounds far better) and Funkadelic's Music For Your Mother, a 2-CD compilation of their various 45s and singles from 1970-1974 (suddenly Hendrix sounds ordinary).

-Nate

Monday, September 30, 2002 -- 11:17 p.m.

Saw the Bob and David/Mr. Show "Hooray For America" thing live last night and it was short but enjoyable. Highlights included Interpol's Turn on the Bright Lights playing over the pre-show PA, a Howard Devoto namedrop, Minister of War Ronnie Dobbs explaining how he'll handle the situation with North Korea (hint: it involves turnin' invisible an' shit), a rappin' Abe Lincoln and a nasty dirty closing performance by Three Times One Minus One (with lyrics no less!). Low points included noticing that Bob is getting a pretty significant bald spot.

-Nate

Sunday, September 29, 2002 -- 02:01 p.m.

I had a messed-up dream last night that I was watching Sesame Street (or had stumbled onto the set somehow) and all these unfamiliar Muppets were doing a skit about electro, shouting along to all these "Planet Rock" style beats. Perhaps someday this will become a beautiful reality.

Plenty of weird things have been happening to my musical sense at odd hours of the night, too, not just when I'm asleep. I was up Friday night/Saturday morning until 3, and I figured I'd try and fall asleep in front of MTV2. And you know what comes on? The new Xzibit. It's got the most entertaining comic-relief scorpion since Ben from Sealab 2021, plus some gimmicky but fun special effects visuals of the camera sweeping through the various engines and internal workings of all the cars in X's rap-caravan-to-Vegas. But THE BEAT -- ohhh damn. It's a Dre production and it sounds like one of the goofiest things ever, like g-funk-ulated sneaky cartoon music. Highly recommended.

-Nate

Saturday, September 28, 2002 -- 02:00 p.m.

Note to rap stars: I will buy your album if you drive one of these in your video.

-Nate

Friday, September 27, 2002 -- 11:50 p.m.

Another addition to my Favorites of 2002 as I've gotten enough MP3s now to mull over Röyksopp's "Melody A.M." and deem it worthy of inclusion. I'd say more but I think I'll save it for SSCB.
(EDIT: Oh hell, apparently it was originally released last year. Then again, the release date was sometime in December of '01, so let's just let that slide. Besides, it won't get released in the States until next month, so I have an excuse there.)

-Nate

Friday, September 27, 2002 -- 08:13 p.m.

I know that there's little to no likelihood that you'll be geeked as I am about this, but Ultimo Dragon could be headed to the WWE. Ohhhhhh damn. And if he brings some of his Toryumon students, we could see some top-notch Japanese high-flyin' craziness. This has got me jonesin' worse than anything since I heard of the El-P/Automator collab.
Speaking of wrestling, the wicked rad Buster Time has a bizarre but great write-up of an All-Japan Pro Wrestling tag match equating it with Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" (last article on the page). You know what? It fits. (WARNING: packed with confusing wrestling jargon!)

-Nate

Friday, September 27, 2002 -- 06:46 p.m.

OK, got the new layout figured out. Note the presence of the right-hand sidebar denoting albums released this year that I am fairly enthused over. (I stole that from Thrown Askew and s+s.) Note that there are 19 albums there, which averages out to about two a month so far. Also note that I've only partially listened to or haven't gotten the chance to listen to Tom Waits' Alice and Blood Money, Pere Ubu's St. Arkansas, J-Live's All of the Above, Schneider TM's Zoomer, Cinematic Orchestra's Every Day, Yesterday's New Quintet's Stevie Vol. 1, Dalek's From Filthy Tongues of Gods and Griots, Wire's Read and Burn EP 01, Queens of the Stone Age's Songs For the Deaf, Jean Grae's Attack of the Attacking Things, Royksopp's Melody A.M., Liars' They Threw Us All In A Trench and Stuck a Monument On Top, Sleater-Kinney's One Beat, Spoon's Kill the Moonlight, Copywrite's The High Exaulted, Akufen's My Way, Guided By Voices' Universal Truths and Cycles, Ash's Free All Angels, The Walkmen's Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone, Ladytron's Light and Magic, Pretty Girls Make Graves' Good Health, Boards of Canada's Geogaddi, Cee-Lo's Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections, Playgroup's self-titled album, Cornershop's Handcream For a Generation, Farben's Textstar, Underworld's A Hundred Days Off, and a small handful I probably don't even know exists yet. Note as well that I haven't even gotten to the singles OMG!!!. Finally, note that there are three full months left in 2002.

What a strange, magical year.

-Nate

Friday, September 27, 2002 -- 11:55 a.m.

Am I the only person in the blogosphere who likes both Interpol and Kurt Angle? No.

I am currently in the process of checking out Eminem's new song "Lose Yourself" via RIAA-disapproved methods, and you know what? All the puppet-threatening, all the public angst, all the asshole tendencies? They disappear into the ether. The beat is siiiiiiick, similar to (but not biting) Aesop Rock's "9 to 5ers Anthem" with all the trippy Fisher-Price jazz and eerie harmonica extricated and replaced with a Keith Richards ca. 1969 guitar riff. And the lyrics? Yeah, claim he's gone soft for Hollywood, but with nary a hint of the (stereo)typical Eminem mockery and tantrum-throwing, he pulls off an incredible atmosphere of where he was in 1996 and where lots of aspiring MCs are now. This beats "Without Me" hands down as his best single of the year.

-Nate

Wednesday, September 25, 2002 -- 11:04 a.m.

Why am I linked on this site? Did she ignore the whole "Detritus" part? I mean, I'm not rich enough to be a full-fledged official hipster! Anyways, her criteria:
10. Hails from the Midwest, lives somewhere in Brooklyn. Well, she got half right.
9. Owns at least two Guided By Voices albums. I would, but like I said earlier: broke.
8. Firmly believes that Ralph Nader should have won the 2000 presidential election. Well, I wouldn't be too thrilled with Lieberman and Tipper so close to the seat of power. And our current White House resident... don't get me started. Hell, I'm of the belief that Flavor Flav should've won the 2000 election, given who our choices were.
7. General arts over-education (i.e. has either designs to attend graduate school, is in graduate school or has gone to graduate school) Does votech count?
6. Parents shoulder some of his/her financial burden. I don't see how this is hipster-specific and not, say, suddenly unemployed in the midst of a recession specific.
5. Owns at least three too tight T-shirts adorned with dated symbols (usually fuzzy or shiny/decal) with which he/she has absolutely no knowledge or connection. One "North American Hot Rod Association" shirt, too tight, with iron-on decal and horrendous '70s baseball shirt design (baby blue sleeves/collar; dark blue piping). This might not count because I actually like big stupid muscle cars.
4. Can readily and willfully recall the theme song from at least one television sitcom that was cancelled before his/her birth. Yeah, right, because only hipsters know the damn Brady Bunch or Gilligan's Island theme, or that of any other show that's been in perpetual syndicated reruns.
3. Will consciously muss and/or neglect to wash hair in order to achieve a 'look.' (male only) Male only my ass! Ever hear of Courtney Love? But yeah, guilty as charged (on occasion). So what?
2. Is of the opinion that 'Pet Sounds' is the greatest Beach Boys album (a comment generally follow by this statement): 'rivaling the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.' So does that mean that the people behind VH1 and Rolling Stone are hipsters? Enh. Pet Sounds is my favorite Beach Boys album, but I think most hipster kids prefer Revolver over Pepper's any day. And I can think of several albums to rival both of them, many of them not even of the indie rock variety.
1. Insists on calling movies 'film,' insists on calling concerts 'shows.' Yeah, I can see how this can be annoyin... huh?

Hey, maybe I should add one more: Spends too much time deconstructing websites nobody reads.

-Nate

Wednesday, September 25, 2002 -- 10:25 a.m.

Oh, I also reviewed something for southsidecallbox but I dragged my ass on actually posting the link because I needed to find some way to mention it without getting even more flooded with endless Google referrals involving its title. Click here.

-Nate

Wednesday, September 25, 2002 -- 12:27 a.m.

Well, after a couple-year hiatus I'm back in City Pages -- and there's more where that came from (at least I should hope). I do risk getting laughed at for giving ups to an Anticon release but that is a risk I am willing to take.

-Nate

Monday, September 23, 2002 -- 05:56 p.m.

Tonight at midnight Beck's Sea Change comes out. Since I'm broke, I'll wait a while to buy it -- probably when its inevitable journey to the cut-out bins begins, since it is a nice but fairly unexciting album. It should feel a lot more in tune with the overall mise-en-scene of my daily life once the snow falls and the sun sets at 5:30 PM, though. Anyhow, a few Well-Known Media Outlets have their shot at it:
The Village Voice writes a pretty blah article that spends far too much space reminding readers of who this already familiar artist is ("In 1994, Beck burst into fame with the mordantly defiant 'Loser'...") and the breakup with his girlfriend/Winona Ryder flirtation Enquirer material, and not much space actually describing the music. When he does, it seems misdirected somehow, though I can sort of see how Beck's voice could sound "Seattle" if one had never bothered to listen to Skip Spence's Oar.
Pitchfork laments the disappearance of the weirdo post-mod collage-rock Beck, which is understandable; six years later I'm still waiting for a real follow-up to Odelay that captured all that album's peerlessly swank atmosphere (and no, "Debra" and "Sexx Laws" notwithstanding, Midnite Vultures was not it). But I liked Mutations, so I find it hard to base my interest in Sea Change on the opinion of someone who called "Tropicalia" "made-for-Starbucks faux-exotica" and sees the rest of that album as nothing but "a soft-rock One Foot in the Grave made with Pro Tools and a heart of steel". (Er, since when does Godrich use Pro Tools? Also, since when does the cliche "heart of steel" denote a bad trait?)
Slate can't even write a review of a bloody Beck album without making reference to the horrendously shortsighted critical fallback that is the Strokes-VU analogy. It can, however, point out what a lot of writers seem to miss: if there's any scene that proved to be an important precedent to Beck's work, it's L.A.'s Zappa/Beefheart "freak" scene.
Rolling Stone gave it five stars, which would mean something if they hadn't given Mick Jagger five stars earlier this year.
And of course I Love Music seems to be split on it -- Most contributors are really kind of unpleasantly negative, though only one of the posters strips away all pretense of sociopopcultural namecalling and flat-out says "you know, he's written better lyrics". Spot the following terms: "boring, turgid rubbish", "smug overly ironic smartass", "coke-haze", "big fart". Momus hates it, which gives me hope.

-Nate