the other day i received a package from ace fu records, containing a number of cds from the ol' roster & they've surreptiously become the soundtrack to my 05 birthday weekend. received:

acid mother's temple & the cosmic inferno - iao chant: i put in the cd. i'm all like, "one song? 54 minutes?" what the fuck is that? it's good shit, maynard. chillin to it right now, in fact. it makes me picture a cooler, pissed off grateful dead without all the noodly crap.

an albatross - i am the lazer viking: this is the band that i've never got to see live, despite their multiple dates with the fugue, including multiple dates where i was at the show before an albatross went on, saw other bands, and then left, like a sucka. i ILLEGALLY DOWNLOADED this album a year or so ago & deleted it the same day. we didn't jive whatsoever. oh, what a year of jadedness does to musical tastes. now, i love the shit out of this album & to mimic critics--"...my only problem with this album is that under 10 minutes long, i have to keep hitting repeat! (ha ha hilarious! i'm a lazy fuck!)" if you don't have the time it takes to listen to this album in its entirety, then you the sucka, bitch. i watched friends with you for a whole half hour a million times.

aqui - the first trip out: apparently, these peeps aren't a band no more. too bad.

bonk - western soul: the dudes on the front cover look like they're either crying or more coked than anyone i've known personally, which makes me think of vice, which makes me hate the world, but at least the album doesn't suck like vice. probably the 2nd most rocking of the bunch.

man man - the man in a blue turban with a face: not feeling the album yet, but feeling that it's probably much sweeter live.

michael leviton - my favorite place to drown: ukelele. coming soon.

tungg - mother's daughters & other songs: this is my favorite of the bunch. i liked kings of convenience at some point & then saw ereland oyes (from k.o.c.) do his electronic stuff as an opener & this album sort of brings that shit together in a way that's actually good. it made a sweet soundtrack whilst walking along the bottom of the prospect park parade grounds & worked equally as well as i waited for the g at fulton st later in the night. it's not out yet, so i won't say more, but it's eventually worth checking out. i'll be strolling to it til then, bitches.

from the nov. 16 ny press:

jeff tweedy
november 16, 8

there’s a minute-and-a-half scene buried near the end of the dvd outtakes to the wilco documentary i am trying to break your heart, where a shaggy jeff tweedy sits with a smiling stuffed monkey leaning against the wall, calmly staring straight ahead, strumming and picking “bob dylan’s 49th beard” for the camera. it’s a fitting song for tweedy, who in the manner of dylan, now exists as “jeff tweedy,” the character from i am trying. it’s now tweedy’s challenge to expand upon that character under watchful eyes. so far we’ve learned more about his migraines and his painkiller use since the film’s release. with the release of wilco’s new live album, kicking television, wilco fans (most of whom have caught the group live) will have yet another permanent record of tweedy as the leader of his heralded band. tweedy, though, is currently on a 13-date tour sans band—“jeff tweedy solo performance.” his solo performances hearken back to that outtake from the film, where it’s just him and his guitar. there’s that intimacy and that chance to see tweedy in the flesh and wonder how he’s been doing lately. during the last 20 years, he’s kept busy playing with a number of bands who have more of a right to the term “supergroup” than, say, the new pornographers. there were the alt-country superstars uncle tupelo (with jay farrar, now of son volt). then there was golden smog (who are in the process of reuniting—go minneapolis!), featuring jayhawks’ gary louris and soul asylum’s dan murphy. more recently, there’s been the loose fur collaboration with musician/über-producer/ex–sonic youth member jim o’rourke. and then, of course, there’s wilco, who finally ditched the alt-country thing when they unleashed yankee hotel foxtrot back in 2002, subsequently causing the indie-rock world to briefly implode. soon after, tweedy announced to the chicago sun-times that ryan adams could have wilco’s old sound. (we hear he’s doing wonderful things with it these days.) and then there’s the million-times-told story behind the making of yhf, with its entangled record-company foibles, band-member departures and eventual successes captured in that documentary. in the course of all this (and wilco and tweedy’s follow-up, a ghost is born), tweedy has only released one solo album, 2002’s chelsea walls, the soundtrack for ethan hawke’s directorial debut, and it’s worth owning only if you’re “really into” all things jt. when he performs solo live, as he will twice this week, he brings out all the jeff tweedys in all the bands that he plays in, doling out their tunes with a feeling akin to the energy from a pre–newport folk dylan, who, at last count, was on his 11,000th beard. jeff tweedy still has many a beard to grow before he’s gone.

went and saw art brut at northsix friday night. slacked and missed test icicles, eventually arriving part way through the occasion's set, and they're um...if i wanted to see phish (well, i've already seen them 13 times) i would have stayed home & popped in bittersweet motel.

...and maybe i was in a bad mood when art brut came on, but i hated everyone, most of all the band, during their set...and i'm a fan of the album.

maybe it actually was fun for many people. many people.

maybe they bring out that selective-performance-musician/artist-preference function in me that makes me hate karen o but enjoy les savy fav's loveable tim harrington. art brut is traipsing 'cross karen o country with their antics.

maybe it was because whilst standing outside with mates finishing cigs before entering the club, a bouncer asked a guy to move along and gave him a tap on the shoulder. the kid dropped to the ground as if he had been clocked & had people thinking something was seriously wrong (seizure?). it was sad. the bouncer asked us to stay outside while the cops came so we could tell them how ridiculous this was. one of my mates agreed & we then had to comply but when the ordeal was over, he bought the first round. did that incident foul up art brut?

whatever it was, i was so over it five minutes into the set.

then i was supposed to go back to northsix saturday night to see man man. that didn't happen though.

a tip for all you people going to a musical concert. if the show starts in an hour and a half & you decide to shave your head with an electric razor before the show & you have a lot of hair & you're going to shave it all haphazard because it's all going to end up the same length eventually, make sure that the razor is fully charged. if you don't, it will konk out after a short time and leave your head half shaved. by the time you get the razor charged enough to finish off your head, the show will be over. i'm jus' saying. that's all.

from the nov. 9 ny press:

arctic monkeys
november 15, 8:30

marketed as the greatest thing since otto rohwedder introduced his new "sliced bread" to the good people of chillicothe, missouri, back in 1928, arctic monkeys step stateside for the first time this month, riding a tsunami of british hype. filling the brit-pop void left by the crack-laden demise of the libertines, this sheffield, england, four-piece first stepped on stage in early 2005 and gained a skyrocketing rep following their demo, which was distributed solely via shows and fan-distributed mp3s. to the surprise of the band, by the august 2005 reading and leeds festivals, throngs of fans were singing along to these demo tracks. the hype behind them grew so large that when they released their first single, "i bet you look good on the dance floor" just weeks ago, it entered the u.k. singles chart at no. 1, a feat generally reserved for the likes of the spice girls. now they've signed to domino records and have a "proper full-length" to be released early next year, when the record industry will be left wondering why they continue to be such codgers about the whole mp3 thing.

next week (11.16): a 500-word piece on jeff tweedy

ifihadahifi rock the freakin' awesome shit.

recognize, five borough suckas...so they come back to nyc.

my two from this week's new york press (11.02.05)

xiu xiu
november 03, 8

we like to stalk musicians. currently, we're stalking xiu xiu, who just played bowery ballroom at the beginning of september. we penned a preview of the performance and then watched quietly from the audience, occasionally shushing those around us so we could hear singer jamie stewart's muted lyrics and guitar. we plan on continuing our indie-stalking on the nyu campus this thursday to close out our halloween week. as narcissistic stalkers, we always put our eyes and ears out for musicians who are like ourselves (likeably creepy). we found our match in san jose's xiu xiu. with lyrics rife with disturbing images like"cremate me after you come on my lips," we sometimes get the feeling that jamie stewart could well be stalking us.

spoon
november 05, 9

there is a guy we work with who we all whispered about on his first day in the office. "holy crap. that guy is totally britt daniel, the lead singer of spoon." unfortunately, he only looked like britt daniel. damn. no lunchtime jam sessions out back in the smoking area. still, we often dream of what life would be like if britt daniel did work in our office. we'd be all like, "hey britt, remember back in the '90s when you got dropped from elektra and then wrote a whole ep about it?" he'd be all like, "of course, but i'm trying to get this email out before five. enough with the music questions, ok? and do we always have to play my albums in here? i understand that gimme fiction's all new and you like it, but i can't concentrate if i hear myself singing in the background. can't we put on some boz scaggs?"

next week (11.09): arctic monkeys