» I am still reeling from two incredible interviews I taped with No Age and the Breeders this past week, to be featured on an upcoming epsiode of Pop Recon. Both bands couldn’t have been better people to simply talk with. And if I told my teenage self that I’d get to sit in a huddle with the Breeders, she would flip. (OMG, I remember staying up to watch this!) I think I’m taping something with Broken Social Scene and/or the Duchess & the Duke this week too. So busy! The most recent Pop Recon is online for your listening pleasure, BTW.

» Attended the Independents Day Conference hosted by the Philly chapter of the Recording Academy, and as mentioned before, spoke on a panel about radio. I felt like a fish out of water because unlike most places, I get to play whatever I want when I want. I can only hope that I offered up some useful advice. Places like WPRB, WXPN, WFMU and the like remind us that radio isn’t “dead”; most of what happens at radio stations is that a lot of (well, nearly all) energies are misdirected. I have many more things to say about this, but perhaps I’ll talk about ‘em another time.

I can’t lie: I was troubled by the digital panel. Was it about blogging, PR in the Age of the Internet or digital distribution? Wait, it was all three. The moderator did quite good job at trying to straddle all three and made some really good links, but IMHO all three topics deserve their own respective panels. Anyway, gotta mention at how wowed I was by everything Stephanie Renee had to say. Amazing on top of amazing.

» I definitely noticed that many of the questions asked up by the audience in the stuff I attended were of the “How do I do x?” nature. Though panels and breakout groups are designed to address these kinds of situations, is there anything else to help disseminate basic information, and to make sure that people aren’t rewriting the wheel each time around?

» I was bummed that I missed out on the legal and more business/financial panels — they’re always incredibly useful. Also, it’s nice to get out of the clusterfucky world of new/old/mass media. (Maybe that’s why I found Bruce Pavitt’s portion of the Sub Pop PF piece was so satisfying?)

PWRFL Power at the Popped! Music Festival.

Do you ever have moments where you feel like you’re living someone else’s life? Ever since I got this new job that’s basically all I ever feel.

Case in point: last night I had to photograph Pearl Jam & Ted Leo at Madison Square Garden for Stereogum. No, that’s not the weird part (but, yeah, it is a total OppositeLand moment). Anyway, press photographers have to enter at a different entrance, and they are led through the concrete maze/bunker that is MSG. You ride up the same giant freight elevator they use for elephants in the circus, and they lead you through to the stage area, right past the VIP green rooms and all. You kind of feel like a rock star until someone hisses to another, “That’s the paparazzi,” and when you walk out the crowd boos you because you’re not the band. Did Robert Capa ever have to put up with this?

Last week I taped two interviews for Pop Recon — one with patternismovement that will air on Friday, another with Love Is All for a future episode. PIM were probably one of the best interviews I’ve taped. Dudes were funny, talkative and smart. More bands should follow their lead.

Those that know me well know I don’t like to dine out, but I recently went to the new Eric Ripert restaurant, 10 Arts. (I grew up in a restaurant, so the thought of having to pay someone to cook my food seems totally preposterous.) But if I’m going to dine, I will do it right — and 10 Arts is definitely a good way to go. The combination of local and upscale stuff was just right. I was amazed at the grand size of the portion; I typically don’t expect it at these kinds of places. I felt full after the wild boar prosciutto appetizer, and by the time my main course was done, I couldn’t do dessert at all. (I tried a bit of my friend’s, and the mini beignets were delish.) Moreover, and more importantly, the service was top-notch. We were seated promptly at our reservation time and our servers were totally attentive. If I have that sort of cash to drop again (hello early birthday present!), I’d totally do it again.

Alright, that’s it for this episode of Watch the Names Drop! I’ve been your host, Maria T.

This morning, on the way to work, I spotted this lovely gem of a display in the window of a J Crew store. If I had a dick, it would probably shrivel merely thinking of this. In a previous life I would have spent plenty of time writing down all the reasons this is just so W-R-O-N-G.

Ahem, anyway. I was all down in the dumps until Mingering Mike’s Solid Gold Greatest Hits (eMusic) landed on my desk. I take forever when reviewing records for the station, but I’m pretty certain this is the album I reviewed the fastest. Seriously, an hour, tops. And now my life is all the better for hearing Mingering Mike. Yours will be too after you buy this. Or, you can just spend your day requesting this at WPRB.

I have managed to squander the last 2 weeks and accomplished nothing. This is OK, because it’s what I intended to do, and it was totally deserved since I was (a) moving out of my apartment, (b) leaving my job, and (c) trying to make it through the end of the semester in one piece.

Here I am now, ready to tend to The Business of Fun. That new No Age album is quite possibly the greatest tribute to Further, like, ever. And please, take that as I exactly intend it to be — a compliment of the highest order. If you don’t believe me, watch the video below. (I admit that I am wrong about many things, but 1990s indie rock ain’t one of them.)

Readers of this blog are well aware that I’m quite fond of WPRB to the point that I will say it’s the best damn radio station in the whole wide world — and our neighbor/friend/hot date to the north, WFMU, is not so shabby either — BUT this station trumps them all.

Why, you ask? Because it’s some guy in West Philly with a CB radio, blasting an array of funk, oldies and whatever they want. I’ve never actually listened, because I don’t own a CB, but this makes me want to buy one. We should all forget about lame-ass Muxtape, podcasts, and just start doing crazy fun shit like this.

» BTW, hello there visitors?! It’s a shame you had to visit on a day where I was busy and stuff.

While I appear to be in the small, small camp that enjoys most, if not all, of Chris Leo’s creative output, this performance of [what I argue to be one of] the Greatest Songs Written By A New Jersey Band In The Past Fifteen-ish Years fits the clingy, damp sensations of today.

Because it’s that kind of day, here’s “His Saxophone Is My Guitar” from The Van Pelt’s 1996 release, Stealing From Our Favorite Thieves. Those paying close attention might recognize a WPRB show with a similar name.

After waiting for what seemed like a jillion hours (but was actually 3.5), CaUSE Co-MOTION! and Meneguar took the stage at Terrace F. Club in Princeton. Somehow, this late evening managed to set off a chain reaction of one late night after another, but not in a good or fun way.

ETA: Hello dere. Perhaps you may have not noticed this section before? If you keep stealing my photos for your sites, I will stop posting them here.

» In other news… the Austin Police Department located my missing driver’s license and bank card. Faith in humanity = restored.

The Oxford Collapse are going vinyl crazy, it seems. The dudes are releasing two slabs of the stuff: a 7″ on Flameshovel Records on April 29th, “to coincide with the 16th anniversary of the LA Riots” (uhh…?), and a four-song 12″ on Jon Solomon’s Comedy Minus One label this June.

And on a local front, the Collapse are playing Human BBQ on April 5th, alongside A Place to Bury Strangers, Japanther, Brown Recluse Sings, Pants Yell!, and others. This is definitely the best BBQ lineup since the year Wesley Willis played, so don’t miss out. Tix are 12$, and it’s all-ages.

Looking even further into the future, it seems their second full-length for Sub Pop, BITS, will be released on August 5th, 2008. That’s, like, 2-ish weeks after my birthday. So nice of them to celebrate my big 3-0 with a new record.

This is a top notch post. Note to self: I need to post my interview with Sharkey and Chuck Meehan The Legend on here, like, tonight.

No, really: yours truly at the Spice Girls concert in Newark, NJ. (Photo: JGH)

I’ve seen so many shows lately — No Age, Spice Girls, Julienne Baird, Clockcleaner, Home Blitz, Lame Drivers, Gang, Robyn, The Apes, Br’er, Blood on the Wall, CaUSE Co-MOTION!, Make A Rising, etc – that I feel like I’m in my own little version of SXSW (SXMTS, perhaps?). Even crazier is that all my coursework is getting done. I win at life!

Recently, I wound up with a copy of the new Constantines album, Kensington Heights. Being such a huge fan of this band, you should probably take my review with a grain of salt…. Not that I don’t love Tournament of Hearts, but this definitely feels more like they record they intended to make post-Shine A Light. (Toby and I were chatting about this over the weekend, and I believe ToH sounds like a late-career record, rather than the follow-up to a record that defined them as a group.) It’s a strong record throughout, and maybe not as obviously fist-pumping anthemic as some would like, but I have found “Trans-Canada” and “Brother Run Them Down” creeping up into the back of my head numerous times as I traverse the icy tundra of unshoveled Philadelphia sidewalks. (Srsly, the lack of snow cleanup in this godforsaken town is embarrassing.) Why I really like it (and why I like any record, for that matter): KH invokes enough inverse presence to fit the particulars of my personal life.

I’m worming my way through the new Breeders album (Mountain Battles) at the moment. I’m not all the way at the end, but here are two quick observations: (a) sound deliciously muddy and thick; (b) the songs feel really short. If you are one of those types who dig the whole nu-lo-fi scene (HB, NA, etc), you’ll probably enjoy it, too — unless you have hang-ups about women who can out-scuzz any of these younguns in a heartbeat. Also: no one sings like Kim Deal. No one.

In other news, I’ve joined the 21st century with the acquisition of a LCD flat-panel TV. (It sits next to my whole stereo set-up, so I have dubbed it the “LCD Soundsystem.” Sigh, I know.) Kind of perfect timing, since I’m currently taking a class on telepresence, and the whole high-definition thing falls neatly into those studies. While I love television, I refuse to fork over my hard-earned money to an organization like Comcast. (Also: the more channels I get, the less I find actually interesting!) So I get by with a pair of rabbit ears, which does not have the World’s Greatest Reception, but hey, it’s free. With the new TV, I have access to digital reception and I gotta say it’s pretty fantastic. Can’t wait to see how this plays out in the future. Just a quick PSA: analog broadcast ends next year, so you might want to check out dtv.gov and get acquainted with how to make the switch. There are voucher programs to assist with the cost of upgrading, but read the site and see what you need to do.

Last but not least, I finally understand the whole bike-nerd culture. I saved up for a custom-built road bike and it feels like heaven. Or freedom. Wait, isn’t that the same thing?

» Closing note: can anyone put me in touch with John Sayles? Weird request, I know.