waking up to the BBC news about the terrorist attacks in london was eerie — not unlike the morning of september 11th. my heart goes out to everyone in the UK. i hope you and your loved ones are safe.

you know, its like once in a blue moon that a caller can incite such fury within me. but i guess, with the rain and haze and all, there might as well have been a blue moon.

so, as some of you know tonight is the springsteen version of “stay loose”, a weekly dj night hosted by joey sweeney. in the last half hour of the show, after reading back my playlist, i thought id plug the event. i had just played sweeneys band in the previous set and well, springsteen symbolizes new jersey to many many people. so it wasnt like i was far off the mark. my gabfest about superchunk earlier in the show, now see, i can understand how someone would take issue. they’re from north carolina! this is a show about new jersey! and pennsylvania!

anyway. as soon as i get off the air, my favorite caller — let’s call him F.I.N.E. for storytelling purposes — chimes in to tell me about how awful springsteen is, and how he hopes WPRB would never ever play that garbage. as there’s 15 minutes left of my show, i decide to throw on “born to run”. you know, a little dj humor. another person calls in — his name is I.S.H. — to tell me he doesnt appreciate being toyed with. his first complaint is that the volume keeps going up and down. my general rule of thumb is that unless i have to touch the board [cueing / mixing / mics], i stay as far away from it as possible. its big, scary and has lots of buttons that i dont know how to work. so clearly, this wasnt my fault. five bucks I.S.H.’s signal is shoddy.

but oh… the icing on the cake was that “i lost him when i played the springsteen”. it is this comment i take issue with. as much as i enjoy the bands i was playing, i began to feel as if i was on indie rock autopilot. so the opportunity arrived to change things up. as much as i hate to admit it, F.I.N.E.’s call was a blessing in disguise.

see, this is what i hate about indie rock. the inability to take its head out of its collective ass, even for just a brief moment. even more baffling is how people draw their line of irony in the grayest of areas. what makes a band like the constantines or oxford collapse acceptable to play on air, if they are nothing but parodies [whether irony is intentional or not] of bands such as springsteen and the embarrassment respectively? for the record, i happen to adore both of these bands and the groups they sonically reference, so please dont take this as shittalking on my behalf. or even more tangentially speaking, last week i played solomon burke. why wasnt i criticized then? what about when i play the roots, or any sort of commercially known band, merely because they fall under the aegis of being “local”?

before my class was over, there was a rather engaged discussion amongst my classmates about springsteen, primarily discussing if “born in the usa” was punk rock or not. ill spare you the longwinded wordy stuff, but we arrived at a criteria for punk rock utilizing nietzsche’s writing in the birth of tragedy. it boiled down to subversion. now you could argue that rock and roll was about subversion too, but its purpose for this antiauthoritarian stance was to seek The Truth. punk rock could care less about The Truth. in fact, it went and took the truth, mangled it up like a pretzel to make new songs. the sex pistols are constantly referred to as sped up chuck berry but its not trying to make the same point as berry, nor is it attempting to make virtuosic claims as that artist. and even though the example is post-punk, delta 5’s “mind your own business” is such because it parodies and subverts the musical tradition of the round [or canon, if you prefer. but since "canon" in rock crit language is used to talk about something else, ill go with the vernacular] by telling us to mind our own business, rather than get caught up in the whole thing.

what we determined is that “born in the usa” is punk rock because its attitude falls on the same side as say, johnny rotten sneering “no future” and its composition is intentionally pompous. then there’s the whole appropriation of it by political groups who have seemingly missed the point. ultimately, its subverting subversion through its muted [yet totally not!] nature. it cant be anything but punk rock.

even though ive just unloaded a ton of evidentiary support as to why i think the boss is punk rock, im sure there are weenies out there who would like to say its wrong to support him because he’s on a major label or something. oh please — has anyone bothered to pay attention to WPRB’s charts in like, always? tons of “indie” bands are on boutique labels funded by majors, so don’t even feed me that bullshit. who’s to say i was doing him a favor?

what ever happened to fun? why cant i, in addition to my responsibility as a dj, have FUN with my set? why did they take issue with springsteen and not say, atom & his package’s “the palestinians are not the same thing as the rebel alliance, jackass”?

since there is no conclusion to this long heavy think, ill just post my playlist. hows that for freedom?

dahlia seed — standing 8 count — please excuse all the blood
the teeth — then he said — send my regards to the sunshine
three 4 tens — little dove — change is on its way
atom & his package — the palestinians are not the same thing as the rebel alliance, jackass — atention blah blah blah
persons — easter vest — the lainmeyers are persons
boys of now — not ready for primetime — 7″
the van pelt — the speeding train — s/t ep
ruin
— dionysian freedom has no bounds — songs of reverie & ruin
the trolleyox — town and country — leap of folly
dr. dog — oh no — easy beat — R
kings ransom — here today gone tomorrow — allentown anglophile
the clocks — for my skunks — the saint the sinner the virgin and the dynamo

the capitol years — let them drink — let them drink
the spinto band — late — nice and nicely done
matt pond pa — this is montreal — the green fury
los halos — lo siento — leaving va
creeping weeds — track 1 — demo
caterpillar — winters come — december 7″
gringo motel — pueblo — return of el lobo
greg weeks — day for night — blood is trouble
ashtabula — archipelago — river of many dead fish
b.c. camplight — parapaleejo — hide, run away
scott bedford four — you turned your back on me — absolutely allentown
the chance — 7 years of bad luck — get outta philly

the wayward wind — postcards from the wind — wait for green
american altitude — handsome dead man — s/t
lungs of a giant — from breadbox to manger scene — sleepy fiels
the trouble with sweeney — l.t.w.t.m.s. — fishtown briefcase
billy crosbys — watch all your words if you want to be heard — who cremated the morning? 7″
all natural lemon & lime flavors — repetitive monotonous — straight blue line
trouble everyday — connection — days vs nights
hail social — get out — s/t
dead milkmen — instant club hit — death rides a pale cow
butler — the newest order — a life of service

future tips — cold bliss — crook book
leftys deceiver — wm. tell — conversations on favored nations
the vexers — somethng dirty — s/t
bruce springsteen — born to run — born to run
cordalene — isnt the sun — s/t
golden ball — siren — the luxury of pause
bruce springsteen — darkness on the edge of town — darkness on the edge of town

and maybe this was technology’s way of saying “the boss is not allowed” but my laptop only recorded an hour’s worth of my set before real audio pussed out. the day wprb gets streaming mp3 is the day i can finally say im proud to be an american.

by the way, you want to know the most hilarious part about this?

Read the rest of this entry »

» yes, i went to live 8. this is what you need to know: i wound up at the front, witnessed a fight and watched black eyed peas, sayreville nj’s finest [bon jovi], destiny’s child [just as boring as i figured theyd be], kanye west [better than i could have dreamed], will smith [SUMMERTIME]. personal victory was parking my bike and finding it later.

color me impressed. i expected the city to fall on its face with this thing and it turned out better than imagined. well, except for septa’s blunder. this does not surprise me, as i have spent many a time cursing the transit agency’s ineptitude.

» made it to the laura cantrell / stephen malkmus / yo la tengo free concert in battery park yesterday. there was a line to get into this thing but it seriously wasnt crowded. i understand, with it being NYC and all but geez, live 8 was easier to navigate and handle.

yo la tengo’s set was plagued by sound issues. the soundman was moving the eq around so much that it made me feel almost seasick! anyway, one of my favorite things about ylt is their ability to reinvent their songs by slight alteration — changes in who handles the vocals, different instrumentation, etc. it keeps us diehard fans on our toes, especially as we buckle down for the eight billionth playing of “autumn sweater” [which is the greatest song simple minds should have written for an 80's teen movie and happens to be one of my favorite songs ever]. it seemed as if ylt hadnt reached a consensus on how to handle this rendition, as the start-stop of the verses [which is a really cool idea] seemed a little unfinished. but you know despite the glitches, its fairly impossible to top yo la tengo at sunset on a perfect fourth of july.

» today is my radio program. tune in, if you can!

john carroll at promohthree was so kind to IMterview me; all i could do was insult former mtv vj kennedy.

Somebody must have laced the water supply with the same drugs used in _Batman Begins_, because there is no other way to explain the loopy antics that have been occurring all summer. M.I.A. breaking up with Diplo on the final night of her tour in Philly. That whole Nike / Dischord thing. Live 8. I could go on, but this ain’t a high school yearbook. All I know is this: when I need things to feel normal, I hole up with some records. Just a few notes, and it all falls away. For the most part, it’s the sound of Philadelphia making the sweetest music.

Even though the driving force behind Yah Mos Def’s music are nonstop in-jokes about Philly punk history, the group manages to keep things interesting on their self-titled debut EP with awesome beats unexpectedly crafted from screamo records. The result is a loose, fun vibe where hip hop and D.I.Y. music and culture exist in the same breath, just like Check Your Head-era Beastie Boys. I never realized all the stuff which used to make me bang my head as a teenager, would make me dance my adult ass off years later in a completely different format.

When finished overdosing on Y.M.D.’s circa-1994 partytrain anthems, Plastic Little’s _Thug Paradise_ EP is the perfect antidote. “I’m Not A Thug”, as far as I know, contains the only hip hop skit which references the Cremaster cycle. When not skewering the audiences they’re designed to attract (Fischerspooner fans, Brooklyn, indie rockers, Philly’s singles scene, graff thugs, parents, you) or trying to make us dance with their glitchy beats, Plastic Little have a thing or two to say without having to be all soapboxy.

Another local group making my eardrums buzz are Hail Social. They have an album coming out soon on Polyvinyl Records but in the meantime, their new 7” will hold you over. Hail Social are dancy enough to win over the eyeliner and white belt fashion crowds they encountered during their tour with Interpol this past year. With incisor-sharp guitars, start-stop rhythms and introspective lyrics the group sounds like an updated Versus crossed with Wire – reminiscent of indie rock’s early days, when dressing to impress wasn’t a required part of the success equation. If this sounds like your bag, check out Kiss Me Deadly’s _Cosmic Lovers_ EP. The Montreal quartet adds breathy Blonde Redhead theatrics into the mix, among other things.

Lilys mastermind Kurt Heasley shows up on Nobody’s new 7”, available from Mush Records. The two collaborate on the Kink’s classic track “Fancy”. Heasley’s known for relentlessly seeking the holy grail of the Davies brothers; it’s interesting to hear his Anglophile vocals over this spacy, eastern-tinged track. In some ways, its slurred nature recalls early Lilys masterpiece _In The Presence Of Nothing_, which may be the greatest album My Bloody Valentine never made.

Speaking of unheard music, the Fellini / As Mercenarias 7” reissue on Soul Jazz might be the best thing to come out of South America since Os Mutantes. Both bands were part of Brazils post-punk scene in the 1980’s. As Mercenarias steals the show here, combining the best parts of Rough Trade compilation _Wanna Buy A Bridge?_ in under three minutes.

Also worth checking out is ! ! !’s new single. Side A is rendition of the Magnetic Fields “Take Ecstasy With Me”. As it’s penned by Stephin Merrit, the group unnecessarily applies another layer of gay disco gloss. Luckily, the cover of Nate Dogg’s“Get Up” saves this from the cutout bin purgatory. Starting as a smooth R&B inflected tune, it culminates in a hysterical frenzy of layered feedback and screaming. Kind of unexpected, just like this summer.

normally i try to keep business and pleasure separate but the writers house fellows program is totally worth plugging. [ditto for all the other programs we host throughout the year] how often do you get to hear redonkulously famous writers read in teeny little rooms. like, never. and for free? even better.

when we start taking RSVPs for the event, ill keep you posted.

The community of writers, artists and critics at the Kelly Writers House is pleased to announce our 2006 WRITERS HOUSE FELLOWS:

2/13-14: Richard Ford
3/20-21: Cynthia Ozick
4/17-18: Ian Frazier

Writers House Fellows is made possible by a generous grant from Paul Kelly.