adam arcuragi & his flaming lips cover band at the manhattan room
september 23, 2005

i guess you can say i got burnt out. or that i stopped caring. whatever it was, as soon as i graduated from art school, i dropped my camera faster than a hot potato. within the last few months, my need to photograph and document things has surged with a passion so intense that at times im frightened of it. rather than fight, for now i’ll follow.

im taking things in baby steps. for now i’ve returned to taking photos of concerts — where all of this [pointing around wildly] began — so feel free to take a look here. i thrive on critique, so if there’s something you want to say about the images, say it.

» why, amy, why? a.d. and i share a dark secret [reformed figure skaters] so i am 100% cool with him but doesn’t have have anything else to report on other than marah? and frankly, who cares about that band anymore? and why haven’t you hired me yet? i would be awesome.

» i went to see sufjan stevens last night. i had heard reports about the band being dressed up like cheerleaders but i certainly didnt expect full-on cheers and a human pyramid. the pacing of last night’s show sealed the deal on its greatness — it started off big and showy [even borderline big band!], got quiet, then picked up its pace midway through, got quiet again and then had a big send-off with the aforementioned pyramid. it left very few moments to think about how the TLA’s slanted floor was making an enchanted mess of my back. it was exactly how a high-concept project should be presented.

also astonishing: denison witmer and more specifically, how the audience didn’t talk through his set. i guess it was his in between song banter about being on a borders book tour which kept the audience at bay. or it was that most of the illinoisemakers were his backup band for most of his set? either way, it was pleasure to catch such a wonderful performer on that big big stage.

» friday, be there: wooden wand & the vanishing voice, dan higgs @ big jar bookstore. saturday: as if you needed to ask!

» attn: my friends who blog — if you don’t have an RSS feed, you should totally get one. that way i can read on the job, all stealth-like. feedburner makes it super easy to aid and abet.

» and lastly, for the love of god, will someone please YSI me some ELO? even a best of collection will do. i dont know why i long to hear jeff lynne right now, but i do.

so ive decided, in honor of this thread, that i really need to keep better track of the horrible things i’ve done. i wasn’t aware that i’ve been such a lousy person! clearly there’s a gigantic divide between my self-image and what people really think of me.

but i need your help, you see, i dont really know if i’ve offended someone, killed their firstborn or whatever. everything’s been roses. so why dont you submit some of my finest faux pas here?

let me start the game:

come on, i know you can provide better fodder for this canon!

because beto’s not here to remind me of how awesome i am, allow me to do it for myself:

» people do listen to my radio show! not only were people talking to me about it on friday night at the manhattan room, i just got this email from a listener:

Darn it. It was the best show on. I drive a cab on Tuesdays and enjoyed the show, then laughed at how bad the XPN local show would be later on. Oh, well.

i feel honored.

» REM’s using my photographs! well, their official fanclub newsletter is. you can see an online plug here.

» yes, its true — i have been listening to tsunami’s “poodle” 7″ non-stop for the last four days in the privacy of my own home. strangely enough, i don’t think i’ve touched this since getting it back in 1997. its a shame too because this one rules. the real treat on this tsunami single is not the title track [which is good in its own way], but the b-side, “old city”. what a deceptive slice of a song! even the lyrics sound simple — “who smashed the glass / with the handle of the axe / for the change on the dash?” — but i’ll bet you five bucks you couldnt come up with something that rolls off the tongue as easily as that. im also a sucker for songs that screw with the verse/chorus/verse structure, and this one is all verse. despite its linearity, its the song’s musical structure, a near-round [not too far off from the delta 5’s “mind your own business” really] that keeps it sounding fresh and perfectly hummable. but oh, such a sinister tune to hum! kristin writes such creepy lyrics on here that im either laughing my ass off or geniunely terrifed someone will break my door down and kill me. [this is not a fear borne out of this song, mere proof is in the first song i wrote as a child: “no one is in my home / i am alone / oh no, a robber might come and rob my home” make of this as you wish.]

» photos from the future of music policy summit are up! click on the image to see them all. beware though, its just photo after photo of panel discussions. might not be your steez, or whatever the hip kids say. allow me to take a moment and praise flickr — if it wasn’t for their awesome uploading tools and tags, i wouldn’t be able to tackle 250 photos this quickly.

» i’ve got two pieces in rockpile #117 — a feature on the intonation festival and interview with laris of arthur magazine. if the intonation fest piece seems very choppy to you, rest assured, the full version’s going up here soon.

» my new column for XLR8R is out as well. its for the most part a rundown on my current philly favorites. i’ll scan in a copy and post it here for the interested.

» how about that new strokes single, eh? what’s up the spy movie bassline?

i woke up this morning dreaming about one of the readers of this blog and realized that perhaps all of you had gone too long without an insightful, mindbending post from yours truly. what have i been up to these days? oh, you know, stuff:

» the school year has started so my day job has returned to its usual pace of absolutely bonkers and me buried underneath a pile of paperwork. can i get an intern/work-study up in this piece?

» plain parade’s cavalcade of attractive men and women [aka, our fall calendar] is shaping up beautifully. a few openings are left and we are seeking nothing but the most beautiful people in the world. and if they make good music, that’s even better.

» the plain parade third anniversary compilation is moving along. just received word today that a former member of the dead milkmen has contributed to andrew chalfen’s rendition of “blue but not really” by joey sweeney. i dont want to spoil the suprise but here’s a little sampling of who’s tenatively agreed to do what:

sympathizers - late night television or o’jays
this radiant boy - franklin
golden ball - espers or kandywhales
hail social - mazarin [reviewed in pitchfork today]
a-sides - soul survivors
lee jae won - robert hazard’s “girls just wanna have fun”
dragon city - todd rundgren

there’s plenty more and i cant tell you how freaking psyched i am. you’re gonna lose your shit. but here’s my dilemma — how should i distribute this?

ive already decided that the bands who contribute will be rewarded with cd copies which they can sell on their own. fair enough for them to make money off it, not me. then i thought it might be a fun idea to set up a page where people can download the tracks, very much like what WXYC has done for their compilations. what do you think? if you have any other alternative methods of how to put this together, let me know. im more than willing to listen.

» but enough of the rock talk. this totally blew my little mind: former olympic figure skating champion dorothy hamill is performing at the upenn ice rink for a benefit exhibition. if i was 10 years old again, life would be awesome and id make sure she’d sign my skates. however, im older and completely aware that dorothy was a featured speaker at the 2004 RNC. always a shame when your idols disappoint.

after spending the last few days in washington dc attending the future of music policy summit, two things seem pretty clear: a) no one gives a shit about college radio anymore; b) localism in radio seemingly doesnt exist. so, i guess its kind of special that two states exist. sure, philadelphia has a wide variety of stations, aiming to please any sort of listener but what’s left off the map is any sort of dedication to local musicians. now, there’s been local programs in the past, but two states is the only one existing at the moment. just like everything else in my life, im sure some station will come along, steal my thunder and whip up a local show of their own. but will they have their own top 50? unlikely.

god bless the pivot table, because there’s no way i could have calculated this on my own. it was fairly ambitious to do 50 songs in a show where i average 40, but i sat down and did the calculations. [songs could not go over 3:30 to accomplish this, for the curious, though there were a couple moments where i broke the rule and paid dearly for it] thank heavens for the following dj, who showed up late, because i ran over my alotted time. but whatevs! despite the fact that it was a list, it didnt feel like it was. couple of strange transitions but overall, pretty nice.

also entertaining was the roots giveaway — ive never seen the lights flash up in the studio like that. its a good thing i dont have epilepsy.

last but certainly not least id like to thank all the bands featured on the show. were it not for your creativity and passion, i’d be stuck with three hours every week of dead air.

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» oh for the love of fucking christ: classy and timeless photographer david lachapelle blasts the simpson sisters for being “too superficial”. do i need to remind you that he’s responsible for the album covers of whitney houston, lil’ kim, mariah carey and elton john? why is it shit like this that makes me come out of blog vacation?

“They’re everything that’s wrong with music,” LaChapelle seethed to Lowdown. “Out of everything combined, they’re everything wrong with culture, and everything wrong with art, and what we think of as art and musical culture - in one family!”

if i recall correctly, david is the same caliber of photographer as say, walker evans.

» tv on the radio writes a song for hurricane katrina victims. its nice and all but dudes, you could have charged me a couple cents for the download and then donated profits to a charities that assist in relief efforts. i wouldnt have minded. i was in starbucks yesterday and charged a few additional dollars on my tab to aid the red cross.

i ask: why does it take a national disaster for people to voice their protest/anger/dissent/etc? this is not about tvotr, actually, but more in response to this utterly asinine post i read on a listserv a couple days ago — it just happened that their song triggered these feelings inside me. the basic gist of the post was about how this particular person did not want to donate to a corporate charity. look, i understand the whole “i hate corporations” viewpoint as much as the next person, but it seriously boggles my mind when people try to paint the red cross as an organization not worthy of their time or money. im a former employee of a RC affilated organization but who keeps on helping out with recovery long after the world’s stopped giving a shit and gone back to their radical knitting? [ironically, its people like this who also try to weasel their way out of paying for benefit concerts, or at least ones ive organized.]

anyway, enough remotely political talk from me. im no good at it. i guess what i wanted to say in regards to all of this is to keep this spirit alive. dont make natural disasters and the like a reason to pay attention. make donating to charities a regular part of your life, or volunteer somewhere. whatever it is, keep doing it.

» philly car share is waiving their deposit fees and so i’ve signed up. not sure how long the deal will last so get in while its good.

uh. hm. not much to report about this show, except that i managed to BLAZE through it, both on and off the air. i even got home to philadelphia early! its like the gods are smiling down on me, finally. i just wish they’d smile down on hurricane katrina victims. they could use it more than me. [anyone notice the next hurricane was called maria?]

lots of silly referential songs: “do the allentown”, detention’s “beach” [manville, nj’s finest!], automat and of course, the “theme song” to two states, “tale of the city”.

i cant believe next week’s the last show of the summer. B-U-M-M-E-R-! setlist after the cut.

(Download 09-06-2005)
this week’s show is not available. damn you, itunes!

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