» considering that indie rock is pretty much synonymous with “selling out” and “farm team to major labels”, its moments like this that make me proud. amazing to think that hummer would ask to lease a song from a band where its leader works for the world wildlife federation. who said indie rock killed irony dead?

» plain parade had another totes increds show this past friday night at the m-room. big thumbs up to the eames era, whose final song was a rosebuds cover. the whole night was a non-stop love buzz that made its way over to party central — uh, i mean the walker lundee house — into the wee hours of the morning. unfortunately, i am getting old and lame and felt like crawling into bed before sunrise, so i went home on the early side.

» saturday i caught belong at the khyber with sir blackmail. you know, i cant tell if im too stupid or smart for this art school bullshit sometimes. belong was one of those droney noise duos who play in the dark with video projections, except the video projections were of other rock bands. [yardbirds? i thought i spotted a young eric clapton in the footage.] SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE FUCK? i guess you could say, “well, thats what makes them so punk/etc” and i totally disagree. they’re not subverting any ideas of how a band should perform, i think they’re being downright cowardly and reveling in their lack of talent. since ive been suffering through an ear ache [and i feel an odd twinge in my eye, which i pray is not a resurgence of conjunctivitis], i left early with jt, missing out on stevenwardjames, even though he so politely welcomed us into the khyber. i feel like a jerk for missing his set, along with plain parade’s steady boyfriends, dragon city.

» back at jt’s house, we watched the end of heathers with the missus. i havent watched this in ages — i had forgotten how beautifully the scenes are shot, like bill eggleston on meth.

» HELP. i cant stop listening to ELO’s “evil woman”. i thought i got over my obsession this fall but its taken hold of me like a chronic disease. [that said, i cant wait to hear mike mcgonigal’s paper on the band at emp this year.] its the string arrangements in the second and third verses, a counter-melody to jeff lynne’s lyrics, purring and coaxing like no other, building up in a crescendo until they “leave on the very next train”. yeah, the break has some orchestral pyrotechnics happening too, but that’s kinda obvious. [not that it isn’t fingerpointingly great, its just a given for lynne to be so damned dramatic in that part.] also to note: “evil woman” and “showdown” start with the same exact string intro. i just realized why they’re some of my favorites.

» speaking of emp, tenatively this is my panel:

Sat 4/2
4 – 5: 45 PM
Life of the Party

CHRISTINE BACAREZA BALANCE, “Guilty Pleasures: The Affective Charge of Karaoke”

YUKA HASEGAWA, “Practices of Fandom and Connecting ‘Japanese’ in a Social Networking Website Mixi”

MARIA TESSA SCIARRINO, “Lost in Translation: Musical Selection In Figure Skating”

HOPE MUNRO SMITH, “What Happens in the Party Stays in the Party: Exploring the Guilty Pleasures in Caribbean Popular Music”

why is my rock jock piece on essentially a karaoke panel? damned if i know but hey, cool!

»saturday i also spent my entire day at the library, writing eight skillion previews of bands people should see at SXSW. ill let you know where you can read these but in the meantime…

Kiss Me Deadly
Page France
Castanets
The Dansettes
Love of Diagrams
Jad Fair
Peelander-Z
Pidgeon
Lesbians on Ecstasy
The Weird Weeds
Low Skies
Octopus Project
Make A Rising
The Plimsouls
Capitol Years
The Whigs
Midnite Snake
Jai Alai Savant
Annie
Hockey Night
Nethers
The Zutons
National Eye
The Plastic Constellations
Celebration
Lion Fever
Oxford Collapse
The Teeth
Man Man
Super XX Man
The Fiery Furnaces
Hidden Cameras
Palaxy Tracks
Part Chimp
Blowfly
Black Lipstick
dEUS
Rhys Chatham
Spoon
Scout Niblett
Lifetime
Chunklet / Monitor / Buddyhead Party
Peek-A-Boo Records Party
Pitchfork Party
Merge / Sub Pop Records Party
Clockcleaner
Kinky Friedman
Bettye Lavette
Harry Shearer’s “Le Show Live”
Polysics
Jenny Hoyston
Mike Wexler
Pattern Is Movement
Sally Crewe & The Sudden Moves
Sharron Kraus & Christian Kiefer
Zolar X
Jack Rose
Peter Holsapple & Chris Stamey
Antietam
Hey Willpower
The Foxymorons
The Spinto Band
Witch
Archie Bell
Arthur Magazine Party
Jelly NYC / Southpaw Party
KOOP Radio Party
Porchlight Pop Fest
Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs
White Whale
Willie Nelson
Annie Hayden
Notekillers
Magneta Lane
The Joggers
Channel 3
Superchunk
Zombi
I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness
Happy Flowers
ill ease
Kid Congo Powers & the Pink Monkey Birds
Jon Auer
Turbonegro
We Are Scientists

congrats to shizuka arakawa but with all due respect, you shouldn’t have received a gold medal last night. cohen and slutskaya skated passionate but ultimately flawed programs, so im not suggesting they should have won instead. but if skating a program like yours, clean on the technical elements, but DOA when it came to close to any idea of “artistry”, skating as we know it totally over, thanks to the NJS. at the very least, your outfit was fascinating, like two different dresses hacked apart and sewn together but still, fashion should never make up for a totally dullsville performance.

because they do nice things like this. genius, absolute genius.

OMG, where has this been all my life? thanks to doug wolk for posting this.

philly bands playing sxsw 2006 can be found here!

ive been so slack in writing here but its part illness, part business thats at fault here. illness: i woke up two weeks ago unable to open my left eye without blinding pain and thus had to drive, one-eye open [totes dangerous, i know!], to new jersey for an emergency visit with a doctor kind enough to overlook my health insurance situation [or lack thereof]. not only was it conjunctivitis, it was spreading to my right eye, triple-whammified by a sinus and ear infection on top of it.

business: while i was getting rad with my eyedropsparklemotionflonasesexjams, i was befallen by tons of schoolwork [a: how can one class have this much?! b: how do college students handle five times this amount?! c: suddenly its clear why i went to art school] and so trying to remind myself that i am taking classes because i want to, i felt my responsibility lie there, to my job and plain parade. not in that order, but you know. everything else had to drop off. getting sick was a sign!

thankfully for you, my dear readers, education turns the hamster wheel in my head and now i feel compelled to share what dim currents have been powering my brain:

» KWANTROVERSY. you know i just had to say something about kwan’s withdrawal. im glad she’s gone — she shouldnt have been there in the first place. if you are injured to the point that you can only compete in one qualifying competition during a season, you need to take it easy.

listen, i know michelle thinks she’s missing out on “the elusive gold” but if everyone stopped for a moment to realize that the only person with a better career record than her is sonja henie, we’d stop all this bellyaching in a heartbeat. truth of the matter is, skating is a sport where by the time you’re 18 or so, you pack it in, call it a day, rake in the cash from endorsements or become a pro skater/coach or fade away into another profession. you’re not supposed to have a skating career at 25! the fact that she’s made it this far and with her record, is monumental enough. no medal needed.

now that the us women’s team is back to the way it should have been, im psyched. emily hughes is a total longshot for medal contention, but hey, so was her sister at the 2002 games and she took home gold. let’s not rule out kimmie meissner, who came out of nowheresville to take second place at nationals, who could possibly best sasha cohen [if sasha doesnt screw up, but im not holding my breath on that]. frankly, im just psyched about watching some good skating — haven’t been really wowed by the pairs or men’s competitions, but then again, i never held an interest in either.

[while im on the subject, if you could refrain from discussing results in my presence, id appreciate it. i know all the results are out there prior to watching them on tv, but hearing the final scores beforehand makes it really hard to sit through the programming.]

kwan was the last holdout from an age of 6.0’s and a bunch of outdated ideas about skating. we have a young team, with even more talent [alissa csizny, bebe liang] waiting in the wings. an era is over and im happy about it.

» one last thought about figure skating: johnny weir. ive derived a math equation for who he is:

toller cranston + johny curry (coke + appletinis + christina aguilera) = johnny weir

» what ever happened to the concept of the poseur? sometimes i do not believe that there are suddenly that many more indie/punk/etc rock types in the world, no matter what myspace tells me. i feel gross and elitist when i think about this. is there a way to think about authenticity without sounding rockist?

» i read w.e.b. dubois’ “the souls of black folk” a few weeks back and now all i can think about is double consciousness and how many times i have been asked the retarded question about how being a woman affects my position in music. since when do feminists think they can get away with ripping it off for their own purposes? this too, makes me feel gross.

» after class last night i was advised that i start marking myself as latino for educational purposes. this came about because somehow the subject of my genetic background came up and i mentioned my mother was born in venezuela. however, her side of the family is ukrainian. [after WWII many russian families were not permitted to immigrate to the us and accordingly took up residence in south america. when my grandfather was able to secure a job as a welder, he brought everyone up to the states.] even though her first languages were spanish and russian, she has never considered herself latino. our family celebrates our ukrainian and italian heritage. apparently the gov’t gives more money to those with a latino background [due to high dropout rate of latino population in schools] but i feel like i’d be cheating someone, primarily my own heritage. or am i reclaiming something that’s been ignored? why does this sound like a dramatic passage from one of those articles about DNA testing?

» why is it that everyone i ask a question out loud, i can only hear sarah jessica parker’s voice in my head? please, make it stop.

» if you have made it thus far and don’t have tremors from all the cringeworthy text above AND you plan on attending SXSW: send me your showcases, your day parties, your unwashed huddled masses yearning for preview freedom. i got a lil’ writing gig for the festival and want to talk about you.

stevenwardjames “An Alcove”

Taking a big bite of whatever Jim O’Rourke and Animal Collective seem to be feeding him, swj creates a lovely pastoral concoction here, full of sensitive, burbling acoustic fingerpicking and mellifluous melodica. “An Alcove” is not so much one song but rather two, glued together by silence, re-emerging with understated percussion, off-kilter, hushed backup vocals and percolating electronic flourishes.

(Visit stevenwardjames here.)

…my proposal for emp was accepted.

here’s a rundown of how local music fared on this year’s list — let me know if im missing anyone!

ALBUMS

#96 Marah, If You Didn’t Laugh You’d Cry (Yep Roc)

#236 Spinto Band, Nice and Nicely Done (Bar/None)

#267 Dr. Dog, Easy Beat (National Parking) n.b. This album contains 1 mentions and 10 points from 2004

#524 Mazarin, We’re Already There (I and Ear)

#524 Pissed Jeans, Shallow (Parts Unknown)

#595 Espers, The Weed Tree (Locust)

#1019 Future Tips, Girls on Wheels (Extra-Curricular)

#1019 B.C. Camplight, Hide, Run Away (One Little Indian)

#1540 Hail Social, Hail Social (Polyvinyl)

SINGLES

#112 Spinto Band “Oh Mandy” (Bar/None)

#235 Marah “Walt Whitman Bridge” (Yep Roc)

#535 Method and Result “Private Eyes” (Plain Parade) WHAT?!

#535 Audible “Sound Makes a Circle” (Polyvinyl)

#535 Mazarin “Another One Goes By” (I And Ear)

#535 Mazarin “I’ll See You In The Evening” (I And Ear)