Dear New York Times, I think you may need to check your photo file. Are these guys really in the New England Patriots, or some metal band being hyped on Pitchfork?

In other news, ahem. Hello. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I took the final bits of my winter break (I don’t recall it ever being that long as an undergrad) to do things like perfect my soup stock making skills, become obsessed with PBS and other leisurely free-time activities. School’s back in session, thankfully, and I’m working on a project that I’ll be able to tell you a bit more in the future. I think it’s going to be a good one.

I caught Tyvek at the Queen Sheba II on Sunday; I’d seen ‘em once prior at Herbie’s house, about a year ago. They were great, but definitely not playing at the breakneck speeds found on their new 7″. “Frustration Rock” is my song of the moment, with its relentless beat and guitar riffs plucked straight out of the Count Five’s messy breakdowns. (It should be noted that this particular song comes from Flowers, their collection of demos & live recordings — pick up the 7″ on What’s Your Rupture? for an even faster version.)

(Photo Credit: Molly Hude)

Typically, I’m the DJ who goes great with your citywide special while you’re sitting at a table with friends in some poorly lit bar. I’m actually OK with this scenario. This past Thursday night at Pilam, I was paid the highest compliment any DJ could possibly receive: a crowd dancing to anything I threw down. Superchunk’s “Punch Me Harder,” German TV show theme songs from the 60’s, Cardigans’ “Love Fool,” and onwards — everything was fair game. Days later, I’m still riding the high attached to this extremely generous gesture of appreciation.

Thanks Pilam, you’re pretty much the best thing in this godforsaken town.

Is an appearance at the Franklin Mills Mall a sign that your career is on the way down, or up?

I still have no idea what I think of the Democratic candidates but I’m definitely more than happy to tell you what I think of the coverage of the NH primaries so far.

Newsflash to the press: a margin of nearly 8,000 votes doesn’t even begin to qualify as an “upset,” especially when you realize the top two finishing candidates couldn’t crack 40% on their own. Describing something as an “upset” is usually reserved for David vs. Goliath stories in the world of sports reporting, not 3% margins coming from a very powerful woman.

Can we please, please get this straight and stop freaking out like crazy people? Because the next thing you know it’s gonna snowball into something huge, and folks will call everything an upset — like when moron music critics forget the OED exists before calling everything “angular” or “shambolic” in reviews.

BTW, this is all simple math I’m using here (perhaps you may have heard of it?). When you combine their percentages, they cornered 75% of election. Now That’s What I Call An Upset!

» In other news, hopefully you’ve checked out Timothy Noah’s pointed takedown of Steinem’s NYT Op Ed in Slate yesterday.

I am taking the rest of this school break to do… nothing. Well, nothing that doesn’t involve my job, personal administrative miscellany, getting a ton of exercise, or making stock for soups (which I am totally obsessed with right now). I know, I should be a bit more chatty here now that I’ve got downtime, but this prime time to get some ducks in a row. I have a really amazing project in the works, which you’ll hear about soon enough.

Speaking of “Soon Enough,” looks like Dallas Green (of Canadian post-hardcore dudes Alexisonfire) covered this tune. The vid’s crappy quality, but it sounds alright. I guess at this point I should remind you that the Cons have a new record coming out this year, which I can put on the short list of new releases I’m looking forward to: Breeders, Blood On the Wall, The Long Blondes, Oxford Collapse, and of course, the Constantines.

Here’s a rundown of everything that “happened” on this blog, just in case you were in a coma or unfrozen recently. 2007 was an interesting year, one that will go down in the history books as being one of the worst years of my life for personal reasons. Musically speaking, it fared only slightly better. But I’ll get to that in my next post.

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