Thursday, November 30, 2000 10:47 p.m. PST
life imitates art: actual comment made during today's screening of 1999 unbelievable-truth epic the hurricane during the scene when rube and john get pulled over by the njpd driving home from that club: "excuse me, fellas, we're with the police's special black harassment unit. . ."

much laughter ensued. the art being imitated? only the greatest tv show ever to be converted into cathode rays; mts3k.

ok, so i promised i'd talk about emo and rap today. what other two genres are so fundamentally alike yet so superficially dissimilar? hell, some bands (mainly indie rock) even celebrate the parallels: witness the dismemberment plan's liberal use of rap cliches AND artist-specific catchphrases, the faux-gangsta intro to the latest reggie and the full effect record, the title of the latest two dollar guitar record, the list goes on and on. and of course, leave us not forget all the poignant, touching rap singles of recent years, the most memorable examples being that lost boyz song about the one guy's girlfriend who died, and the pharcyde's "she keeps on passin' me by." but i think the most telling commonalities are also the most subtle. for instance: both genres are notoriously single-minded (for hip-hop examples, tune in to your local urban radio station; for emo, well, just skim this), which makes their music nearly indistinguishable to non-aficionados. Practicioners of hip-hop pride themselves on toughness and bitch-smackin'; emo-rockers present themselves as sensitive, pasty-yet-passionate males preyed upon by capricious females. Finally, both musiks inspire intense, specific hatred amongst their detractors. coincidence? doubtful. that's why one year ago, i wrote and recorded "beats, rhymes, and the inevitability of disappointment," a stylistic and lyrical plea for genre fusion. back then, no one understood it; so today, i'll take requests from people who want me to post the mp3. any takers? anyone? anyone?

Wednesday, November 29, 2000 07:57 p.m. PST
song's done!

Wednesday, November 29, 2000 03:47 p.m. PST
once again i find myself flattered beyond merit. someone over at themorningnews.org found my old forwarding page and gave this site an unqualified rave. what can i say, except thanks so much. it's nice to know that people appreciate what i'm doing. but enough of that:

i know why you people come here: you're looking to waste time. so here, let me be of assistance. anyone who hasn't seen this commercial yet, get thee to adcritic right now. go for the appearance of the clintons, al gore and kevin spacey in the same clip, stay for the omnipresent advertorial humor. if you've already seen it, check some canadian nostalgia with alanis, moose and alastair. yeah, y'all know what i'm talking about. you can't do that on tv on the web, baby. fall in love all over again.

hmmm. what pith should i spew today? ah yes, i promised bridgett i'd talk about her music. and i saw ya checkin' out my site from work today sweetheart; naughty naughty! so bridgett is the lead singer of the band i play bass for part-time, and she gave me a tape of her solo endeavors. it's pretty good ethereal girly stuff, very wavy, sporting kind of a soothing cranes/enya type feel. she uses only her voice and guitar, but the two elements make for beautifully delicate and pastoral indie-pop. here's a sample (well ok, it's an entire song. but please excuse the low fidelity; that's 4tracks for ya). and if you diggit, please let her know because like me, she's a sucker for praise. and guys, she's pretty cute (check her pic out on the lurve site), so prepare yourselves. bridgett also appears on an alternate version of wolf 359's "eris says," linked on the right.

be sure to tune in tomorrow, when i may or may not discuss the many similarities between emo and rap. oh, the possibilities!

Tuesday, November 28, 2000 06:30 p.m. PST
first off, i'd like to give overseas props to tom ewing and the rest of the pop deconstructionists over at new york london paris munich for prominently linking to my site. maybe they'll even give me a permanent link one day in the "weblogs" section. that'd rock. but i'd like to point out that although i'm still young and gifted, i'm no longer blacklisted, as i can count some of the net's most respected indiebloggers among my (semi-)regular readers. thanks everyone!

so. emo. word is, it still blows. and the jealous sound isn't doing much to change that. these guys were assembled by the dude who used to front knapsack, if that rings a bell. synths, palm-mutes, and frontman blair shehan's characteristic breathy delivery gel to form a big, syrupy mess. 80% of the time, that is. the band's debut ep has four insufferable tracks but manage to end it all with a friggin' spectacular song called "anxious arms." i bet most of y'all would disagree with me and say it's all bunk, and that's certainly an arguable position, but that track is the only one with an actual hook and some intricate guitar interplay. so napsterize it and decide for yourself.

consider the following situation: my best friend asked me if i wanted to drive from chapel hill, nc up to montreal the day after christmas with the rest of my band and stay at his parents' place through new year's. now i have a major aversion to extreme cold, but i only get to see the guy a couple times a year since he lives back in nc, so i reluctantly agreed. but then today i discover that, joy of joys, the dismemberment plan AND les savy fav are playing a double bill in dc on my birthday (dec. 29). what would you do? i know what i'm gonna do. sorry dimitri, the trip's ending early.

one last thing: could any of you who came to this page via http://www.freelon.com/wolf359/ (the page with the countdown applet) please tell me how you arrived at that URL? thanks; i sort of need to know, and my server's stats program sucks.

Monday, November 27, 2000 05:04 p.m. PST
for any of you who may have been reading my short story, i have decided to post the final chapter. just goto the "a revisitation" link in the archive to checkit (ignore what the rest of the post says, the link works now). if you haven't read any of it yet, it's good, but long. and it's all about relationship bullshit. so readit already!!

here are some quick impressions of albums i've been listening to lately, from wack to sweet: i'm kinda disappointed in the new faraquet; it's simply not up to par with their older material. i got some of their live mp3s off napster and they used to seriously rock with impressive time changes and complex riffing, but the new shiite just doesn't measure up. the songs aren't as challenging, for one, plus a lot of the riffs are straightup boring. ehh. also the new j mascis ain't killin' me either. it's ok, but nothing mindblowing. q and not u is better than average dc-rock, but most of the songs are not very memorable at all. but it's cool, cuz those guys rip it up live.

on a more rockin' note, don't let anyone tell you that don caballero is getting soft in their old age. their new record is almost as vital as what burns, except that it's just a tad on the repetitive side, as my mom noted. if you need proof of their similarity to IDMavens autechre, look no further than "the peter criss jazz." also rocking my world recently has been the 90 day men, whose brand of dark, stoic math-rock has often been compared to the birthday party. with whom i'm not very familiar. but perhaps i should change that. also, if i have to tell you that slint and shellac's first full-lengths are essential indie-listening, you're reading the wrong blog.

if you ever wanted to see what i look like, keep your eyes here cuz i'm gonna submit my pic pretty soon. you should too; it's a very interesting psychology experiment.

Saturday, November 25, 2000 04:47 p.m. PST
this update comes to you from a dank corner of north carolina, home of my parents' base of operations. seriously though, it's quite nasty here. thanksgiving day was gorgeous, then the whole town just got dark. and wet. damn northern cali weather done spoiled me. oh shit, now i'm even talking like the natives. thank god i leave tomorrow.

quick rundown of what i've done so far: wed: enjoyed my first-ever direct flight from sjc to rdu, hung out with dimitri at his apartment in raleigh, trying to get the lurve homepage off the ground. thursday: ate heartily with the extended fam, endured excessive praise of god by my grandma, went and saw that atrocious new ben stiller flick with some people. friday: finally met a guy named hollin, who's a local hip-hop producer and allaround cool guy working with a local mc friend of mine. i sat there and made fun of his chosen pseudonym and he made fun of my diction. 'twas a good time. also i bought some old-school slint and shellac, and some newschool automator and qotsa. saturday: watched mtv and rolling stone's 100 greatest pop songs ever. #1 greatest travesty ever, more like. i'll discuss this further later.

highlight of the trip so far? forcing my parents and uncle to listen to don cab's american don during thanksgiving day preparations. this is basically what my mom thought of it.

you may have heard that mtv and rolling stone, in a horribly flawed attempt to convince the world that they know anything about music at all, have compiled the world's 100 greatest pop songs. and surprise, surprise: a large chunk of the nominees are actually credible. many of the safe choices are somewhere in the top 50, although most of them aren't nearly high enough (the police's "every breath you take" [42], the who's "my generation" [33], prince's "when doves cry" [27]). but what really blows this list's cred is the major concessions to mtv's adolescent demographic; most egregiously the inclusion of britney spears at #25 and the goddamn backstreet boys at #10. number 10! fuck, i could shit a better song than "i want it that way." (and i have.) 20 years from now, people all over the world will still be rocking out to the beatles, stevie wonder, the stones and marvin gaye. will they be listening to the backstreets, britney or blink-182? are people still listening to leif erickson or the monkees? it really hurts to see music journalists and pundits get up in front of the camera and pretend that kind of crap has any sort of lasting relevance. it almost would have been better if the entire list had been bullshit; at least that way musical greenhorns wouldn't get confused trying to tease apart the jewels from the junk.