Filed under: copouts
Sorry about the lack of Starfucking today. Mysteriously, I slept until 2:30 PM after one of the most annoying nights of my life. Nothing against San Serac (who performed) or Morgan the DJ, but the club is a miserable cocktail of elbowy little hipsters who run around in circles, creepy ay meth addicts, and shitty drinks that you have to wait half an hour for while little girls knock you over and glare at you because whatever you’re wearing isn’t, like, a pink tank top over a black t-shirt with something black that may be shorts or may be a skirt with skinny jeans under them and big socks over the skinny jeans. And white Reeboks with rhinestones bedazzled on them. Or whatever . And seriously, any time I order Budweiser because it’s the best option, it’s not a good sign. I kind of hate Budweiser. And it makes me even madder when it’s like $4.50. I mean Jesus.
Anyway. The other thing is that our internet was off for most of today, and by the time we got it back I had to get ready for my radio show. And, now that that’s over, I’m probably going to finish the book I’m reading. I’ll try to have something interesting to say tomorrow.
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I guess Jamie Hince is Kate Moss’s boyfriend now, and has been since last summer. I only noticed because I was just reading about her birthday party… I guess I should really pick up Hello! more often.
…the world would be in trouble, since I only saw a total of eight movies in the last year. And while I actually liked every single one of them–or at least appreciated them in some way, since the totally unsettling Dan In Real Life wasn’t in any way likeable–they weren’t all necessarily worthy of awards. But if pressed, here’s what I’d like to see get Oscar nominations next week: (more…)
[These are my thoughts after listening to Distortion, the new Magnetic Fields record, about seven or eight times in the last six hours or so.]
I bought my copy of the Magnetic Fields’ Distortion album yesterday but patiently waited until I left work to play it. If it was going to be the barrage of feedback that I’d heard it would be, I didn’t want my first listen to be on shitty computer speakers. Which is one of the reasons I didn’t get an advance listen on Myspace. A new Magnetic Fields album deserves better than streaming audio that’s probably going to hiccup every twenty seconds. I’d already sneaked listens of Three-way and Too Drunk To Dream when Stereogum leaked them, but I wanted to really listen the first time I played the album.
Call me a nerdy Stephin Merritt fanboy. I don’t care. It’s true.
So I left work last night, and Princess Onions* and I drove around Johnston and North Providence and Smithfield, some of the more quaint, New Englandy, To Die For-esque mafia suburbs of Rhode Island, and the CD didn’t disappoint. As I swooshed past snowy lawns and old-timey A&W Restaurants, Stephin Merritt and Shirley Simms took turns singing over drony feedback and, despite typically arch lyrics, I think this might be the MF’s warmest record yet.
Lyrically, the record is much as you’d expect. Witty, strange, a smidge pretentious. After releasing about an album a year under assorted names over the past fifteen years or so, Merritt’s songwriting still doesn’t extend much farther than the same topics he’s been singing about forever–love, dancing, the undead, and sometimes driving. When 69 Love Songs came out over eight (!) years ago, the lyrics seemed like the best part of the songs. Because who else rhymed “so sure” with “Holland-Dozier-Holland”? Or wrote anything as beautifully ridiculous as The Night You Can’t Remember? Or Xylophone Track?
The follow-up album, 2004′s i, disappointed me because the lack of synths seemed more spiteful than anything. I’m all for changing styles, but songs like I Thought You Were My Boyfriend (my favorite on the album) sounded like they were played with all the wrong instruments just to be stubborn.
That’s not a problem with Distortion. Although Merritt’s credit in the liner notes still says “NO SYNTHS,” this time the songs don’t suffer for it. And the fact that the vocals get buried under layers of swirling noise makes the poppy melodies all the more impressive. Three-way, the opening track, doesn’t even have lyrics other than the title. With a surf guitar reminiscent of Last Splash-era Breeders, it’s a great introduction to the album because it places emphasis on the production over the lyrics.
Drive On Driver, the one I’ve played ten times already in the eight waking hours since I bought the album, features Shirley Simms singing about a wealthy old man and the girl who jilted him. (For some reason I’m pretty sure the character in the song looks like Fred Flintstone’s Uncle Tex.) But the best thing about the song is the vocal melody.
Another highlight is The Nun’s Litany, where Simms sings about being a cobra dancer and “a playboy’s bunny” over a childlike melody. I also really like Please Stop Dancing, the album’s only duet.**
Not every song is immediately engrossing–I haven’t had time to fully absorb Courtesans, Mr Mistletoe, or the carnivalesque Till The Bitter End, and I had time yet to really wonder why Stephin Merritt likes it when women sound a little bit like Japanese robots, as Simms does on California Girls and all kinds of ladies did on the 6ths’ Wasps Nests. But none of the songs on Distortion immediately stick out as bad, or boring. Some might just take longer to warm up to than others.
My only complaint, really, is the disc’s artwork. While I like the cover image, I hate the way the lyrics look, and the inspiration for the CD image itself is, well, strange and not so good.
(PS–Zombie Boy reminds me a lot of a song from the early eighties that I’ve spent all morning trying to place, to no avail. A woman sings it, and it’s sort of frosty and might sound like a cross between Laura Branigan and Modern Talking, sort of militaryish in a flashy and badly dated way. It’s a very drummy song and I think I mostly know it from people singing it at karaoke. Ideas, anybody?)
* My truck.
**Well, aside from Three-way, I guess.
Listen!
The Magnetic Fields, Drive On, Driver
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So when I posted a Kills song on my mix this morning, I had no idea that they had a new album coming out in March, or that they just put out a brand-new single. I’ve just been listening to them a lot lately because I’ve been moody and sick lately, and they make the kind of angry songs that lend themselves to a long winter locked in one’s bedroom. (more…)
Something for everyone on this week’s mix, although it’s a little bit darker than usual. Blame that on my boring experience at the Fetish Fair Fleamarket this weekend, if you will, or on the fact that I’m dreading tomorrow’s snowstorm. (Even though I like snow–I do!–and I hate it when people in New England complain about getting snow in January. It’s totally me, I know that. Keep snowing, world!)
Anyway. This mix features some moody postpunk, some reggae, and a couple of nice ladies from the sixties, and the Swedish Jimmy Somerville. I’m trying something new, too. For those of you who don’t like lots of clicking, I made an RAR archive so you can just download all the songs at once. Or, in two parts. Because I’m whimsical (and because of the 50MB maximum file size at Fileden) I did in two parts. Think of it as Side A and Side B. (And lemme know if you like it that way. With Fileden I can’t actually see how many people are downloading compared to the ones I host myself.)
And, as usual, if you like the songs, go out and buy the albums. Preferably in a physical format, and preferably at a store that could actually use your money.
Download: Side A / Side B
Or click below for individual tracks. PS–Sorry for half-posting this in the middle of the night. I was in the middle of a domestic squabble and hit the publish button a little hastily.
Filed under: personal
I got really sick this weekend and we’re supposed to get a foot of snow by this time tomorrow. Blecch. I’m really bored and want to go to the video store to stock up on movies to watch, but a) I have about five cents to my name right now, literally, and b) I keep getting dizzy and don’t want to drive anywhere. I didn’t go to work today and I’m not sure if I’m going to go tomorrow, but I’m already getting cabin fever. Yuck.
Unrelatedly, I went to the Fetish Fair Fleamarket yesterday. It was massively overpriced and pretty boring.
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Filed under: porn, starfucking | Tags: Alan Stafford, Charles Dera, Mikey Butders
The 25th annual AVN awards happen tonight in Las Vegas, honoring the best (or at least biggest) folks in the porn industry. I saw shockingly little in the way of adult fare this past year, so I don’t know much about any of the movies nominated. Not that it really matters. There’s so many categories, and fifteen nominees in most of the categories, so getting nominated doesn’t actually mean that much.
Like I said, I don’t know much about the movies nominated, but I thought tonight I’d present you with the eight nominees for Best Male Newcomer, which is probably the most interesting category. Since nobody really focuses on the men in porn, and since most of these guys are on the new side, it was pretty hard to find pictures of most of them–face or otherwise–which is too bad, because some of them are actually pretty hot. And one of the reasons I like straight porn more than gay porn (generally) is that I only have to look at one guy, and the odds of one hot man in a scene are much greater than the odds of two hot men in the same scene. Plus, straight guys are never twinky. And, aside from the fact they generally shave their balls to make their dicks look bigger*, there’s not usually a whole lot to complain about.
Although don’t think I’m not complaining. I just spent a totally dumb amount of time trying to track these pictures down and I’m so bored now I don’t know what to do with myself. Blah.
(*I hate that!)
Filed under: in praise of athletic beauty, starfucking | Tags: Peyton Manning
Jeez. So I went, um, 0-4 with my NFL predictions last week. But on the upside the Seahawks won, and I did watch my first full football game in about twelve years. But I guess that means I was wrong, and that a cute QB may actually work as a detriment to a team. So, the quick breakdown for this week’s match-ups:
Brett Favre, old thing that he is, is hotter than Matt Hasselbeck. The Seahawks will win.
Tom Brady is seriously overrated in terms of hotness. David Garrard isn’t. The Patriots will win.
Eli Manning, though he’s kind of twinky, is cuter than cheeky Jessica Simpson-dating Tony Romo. The Cowboys will win.
Philip Rivers is cute enough, but Peyton Manning is a banana split of sex with chocolate chips and sprinkles on top. So maybe the Chargers, against all odds, will win.
Filed under: music
I’ve been meaning to post about this for awhile now, but one of my favorite CDs (and CD concepts, and CD covers) lately is the new compilation Home Schooled: The ABCs of Kid Soul, which came out last fall on Numero Group. A couple of other blogs talked about it months ago, but what can I say? I’m slow.
Inspired by the likes of the Jackson 5, the Osmonds, and Little Stevie Wonder, the CD features seventeen soul tracks sung by kids who wanted to be the next Michael. It gets to be a little much by the end if you’re not in the right mood–at least, that’s what the woman at the desk next to mine says–but some of the tracks are at least as good (and emotional) as what grown-ups were doing at the time. Listen to I’m Not Ready For Love and tell me the kid’s not as good as Al Green.
Aside from the squeaky vocal stylings that make the collection so unique, the songs are usually backed by pretty tight musicians and, luckily, there’s not too many drippy ballads. I’m not generally a fan of soul music, at least not in the authentic sense, but if you’re in the mood, this CD’s making my winter a little more bearable.
Promise, I’m Not Ready For Love
Cindy and the Playmates, Now That School Is Through
The Quantrells, Can’t Let You Break My Heart
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