Mika Miko

I feel uncool for having never heard of Mika Miko until now.

Sounds like: 5 sisters who had a much older half brother who was really into Minor Threat and Operation Ivy in a big way. The much older half brother lived in the basement for a while instead of going to college. The 5 sisters all had a hereditary body odor problem and had no friends so they spent a lot of time with their older brother who also had no friends. By the time the girls reached high school they were already playing in bars where former Minor Threat and Operation Ivy fans went to drink. Before they reached college they played at SXSW and that's where we are now.

It's the Virgin Suicides of the 2000's if they hadn't killed themselves!

New "Hop Along, Queen Ansleis" song

Seems "really sweet."

It is on her MySpace page.

Not sure who reads this blog anymore.

I think I removed the Statcounter and I feel that I don't link it anywhere.

Animal Collective

Their new album is called Merriweather Post Pavilion. Buy it.

Watch this:

a 'the mystery books' interview

is here (myspace), 'If I am promoting something then I have something to do, otherwise I get into habits of sleeping for an entire day or just laying around and feeling bad. That is why I do things that I do. So that I have something to do.'

i stayed in riley's former house once, or in the backyard

riley is in my next book

he said he would promote himself as in his next book, like tell people he is in the book and what pages he is on, or something like that

Handsome Furs

#1

Handsome Furs wake up in the same bed. They are married.
'What time is it?' one of the Handsome Furs says.
'I don't know,' the other Handsome Fur says.
'Oh, okay.'
The Handsome Fur that said 'I don't know' feels a small amount of animosity radiating from the 'Oh, okay' Handsome Fur (which is faced away in the bed). The 'I don't know' Handsome Fur panics, not wanting the day to start off bad, and lead to an irrational, full-blown argument or something.
'Maybe it's eleven,' the panicking Handsome Fur says. 'It looks like eleven. It's bright out.'
The facing away Handsome Fur doesn't say anything.


#2

The Handsome Furs go on a tour of Russia. They decide to do a second album called 'Face Control' based on something or other while on tour. Sometimes they go into museums and look at things.
At one of their Russian gigs, a Handsome Fur plugs the drum machine in wrong. At sound check the drum machine doesn't work.
'What's happening?' one of the Handsome Furs says.
'I don't know,' the other one says.
'Oh, life is long and hard,' says the Handsome Fur who unwittingly plugged the drum machine in wrong.
'What's that? It sounds familiar.'
'It's a lyric from one of our songs.'
'Right.'


#3

One of the Handsome Furs wakes up, confused, and thinks it is in the Psychedelic Furs. It doesn't know much about the Psychedelic Furs so it looks them up on wikipedia. 'Richard Butler,' it thinks, looking at the computer screen. 'My name is Richard Butler.'
In the practice room it starts playing the riff from the song 'Pretty in Pink'.
'What are you doing?' the other Handsome Fur says.
'I don't know' the confused Handsome Fur says.


#4

It is a nice day.
'Lets have a bake sale,' says one of the Handsome Furs.
'Okay,' says the other one.
'What is a bake sale?'
'I don't know.'
They look up 'bakesale' and then 'bake sale' on wikipedia.
They find out that it is a 'fundraising activity where baked goods such as doughnuts, cupcakes, and cookies, sometimes along with ethnic goods, are sold'.
The bake sale takes a long time.
The Handsome Furs become increasingly frustrated and bored by the slow progress of the bake sale.
'We haven't updated our myspace,' they think. 'We could be uploading new pictures or songs or something. We could be playing a charity gig, instead, maybe. This is ridiculous. Oh god. What are we doing?'


external links

Handsome Furs wikipedia
Handsome Furs myspace
Handsome Furs youtube

Okkervil River - 'The Latest Toughs'

0-0:09 seconds: i think i want to be in this band. i wish i was in a band. playing at an outdoor festival in the daytime in a suit would be fun.
0:15: she knows all the words. i wish i knew all the words.
0:31: Miranda July is playing tambourine for them.
0:45-48: i could be that traffic cone, maybe.
0:54: "Okkervil River are not as good as my vegetarian sandwich thing."
1:13-17: i like how the cutaways to the crowd are usually to people who don't give a shit about the band playing.
1:23: there is a 100-year-old man singing backing vocals for them.
1:59: i would look dreadful in cowboy boots i think. i kind of wanted some for a bit, after watching 'Buffalo 66' but knew i would look stupid.
2:09: you tube freezes at this point on my computer.

Matthew Herbert & WHY? & a confession

Often it takes me a few listens to something for me to like it. I would estimate this is true for about a third of my music library. (Amon Tobin, Bjork, Buddy Holly, Casiotone ftpa., etc.)

My friend Jonathan gave me "Scale" by Matthew Herbert and I hated it so very much. It was too poppy, too produced, too sappy. It made me want to throw things at people who looked like they might enjoy such atrocities. Then I didn't delete it out of my itunes and a few months later I listened to it and it was suddenly good. Maybe I became a less interesting person in those months. I hope not.

Brandon Gorrell Scott interviewed Yoni Wolf of WHY? and I listened to The Hollows & Elephant Eyelash about three times today in response. I didn't like WHY? at first because I felt like their songs all had ADD. I wanted them to just make up their minds and stay in one mood for more than three seconds. Then the same thing happened that happened with the Matthew Herbert album. All of a sudden it just made sense and now I can listen to Elephant Eyelash about five times in a row before looking for something else to listen to.

Two musicians that I have always bristled at and have finally given up on are John Coletrane and John Abercrombie and everyone else who sounds like them. I tried! I would listen to them about once a month for the past year and I could hardly ever get through a song. I just don't think I like Jazz. Maybe some jazz I like, but I don't know of any. I just deleted all the Coletrane and Abercrombie that a very smart, musically-minded friend loaded onto my computer last summer. I am some kind of jerk.

Star Fucking Hipsters

I saw Star Fucking Hipsters (listen to their CD free) last night at Supreme Trading. Stza seemed alert, or just normal, in the beginning and for the first few songs. They paused for about 5 minutes between songs due to technical problems I think. The audience seemed calm and nice. After a few songs Stza seemed "extremely wasted." I don't really remember him drinking alcohol that much. The other band members seemed alert. After about 5 songs Stza was lying on the stage on his back. At one point he stood and swung his guitar holding the neck at the audience. People seemed afraid yet appreciative. Some people didn't seem afraid at all. I was standing like 25 feet away and I thought the guitar would hit me in the face for some reason. For the last 6-7 songs he talked a lot between songs but could not be understood at all. He sat on the stage "bemoaning" that he was "wasted" at one point using his guitar for leverage for his upper body. At the end they played 3 Choking Victim songs, Stza played guitar and sang while "extremely wasted," it was "nearly incomprehensible." It was just Stza, "Frank," and the drummer for the Choking Victim songs which were "Money," "500 Channels," and "Infested." The sound person was in his 60's I think and he seemed "fatherly," I thought, toward Stza (I thought this just by looking at his face sometimes, he stayed in the sound part the entire time looking concerned or something). I have seen Leftover Crack or Choking Victim 8-12 times and have not seen Stza "wasted" to this degree. I thought back to previous concerts where political things were said by Stza and felt emotional in a good way, I think, thinking overall about life, a person's life.

If You Make It

This site has many videos of bands I like.

Here is a new Defiance, Ohio song.

Here is a Lemuria song I like. (I like the drummer's "stage presence.")

Here is Best Friends Forever at Death by Audio.

Neva Dinova - "Tripped," "Poison," "Get Back," "Spring Cleaning"

Here are my four favorite Neva Dinova songs (I think the last one is written or co-written or something by Bright Eyes), they are from "One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels," I listened to these songs a lot while writing some of "Bed," or like the first story in "Bed" or something. Later on I listened to these songs a lot, during other periods of my life. Today I still listen to these songs I guess "a lot," I guess "a lot" is still accurate.

Here are lyrics to one of their more "nihilistic" songs, perhaps ("I hesitate, 'or something,' to use that word," "just kidding, I think, 'I feel confident using that word,'" I don't know), I played it one time on a mixed CD while being a personal assistant to an entrepreneur starting a business in his bedroom while we were working (yes, working without quotes; "I feel like I'm writing for Gawker or something right now") and he laughed and told me to turn it off, because "it is too depressing." He had inspirational quotes pasted along the tops of his walls to help him be focused on succeeding with his business. I liked him. He is in my second novel.

I like all the lyrics to the songs pasted below, you should Google them if you want, if there's any interest. I also blogged about these songs here and here. The songs are "Tripped," "Poison," "Get Back," "Spring Cleaning." When I listen to them I feel like I don't need friends and that eating food and drinking things like coconut water "really is enough" for me. I can imagine one day in the future listening to these songs and imagining having a pet hamster and no friends and being "really 'happy,'" quotes around happy because most of that happiness would be from having strong feelings of nostalgia for feeling severely depressed in the past, "it's complicated." Go here for more videos.

TRIPPED


POISON


GET BACK


SPRING CLEANING

MUSIC.

Rafter is good. I like Zzzzpenchant the best. I can listen to it when I'm writing without getting distracted or bored, but it's also good to listen to all by itself.

If Rafter's music was not music it would be carmelized walnuts. Or maybe those little debbie oatmeal pies that came wrapped in plastic but you never got in your lunch bag.

St. Vincent & Marry Me Jane

I feel confused about St. Vincent sort of. The label she is on seems small, I don't know how famous she is. She seems very famous, I'm not sure. I listen to "Now, Now" and "The Apocalypse Song" a lot recently. She covered "These Days" by Jackson Browne. I think most people think "These Days" was originally by Nico. It is originally by Jackson Browne, according to Wikipedia.

I commented on St. Vincent's blog. I have listened to this band called Marry Me Jane sometimes since middle school. Somehow a promo CD for their first CD was in my room. I did homework while listening to it a lot. I feel confused why I had homework that I couldn't finish in school in middle school.

The Books

I am always surprised when people haven't heard of The Books. Pretty much everyone that I like and value in the world enjoys The Books, and if they don't enjoy The Books, they haven't heard them yet.

The Books make these strange sound-collage songs and I can't really say that they sound like anything else you may have heard, except the music gives you the same sensation you get in life's brief moments of clarity, those times when you don't care if you're broke or going to die or that the world is unfair in larger ways. When I listen to The Books I feel like I understand the world.



The Books has two members: Nick Zammuto (L) and Paul de Jong (R). Paul looks like Chris Killen a little. They are Americans but they are on the German label Tomlab. Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, The Blow, Final Fantasy, Xiu Xiu, Islands and David Shirigly are all on Tomlab too.
The Books's first album came out in 2000 and is called Thought For Food, the second is called The Lemon of Pink and the third is called Lost and Safe. On their website you can listen to every single track on their albums, in full, for free.

If Crispin Glover in Rivers Edge was a song he would be...

Here's Crispin Glover in River's Edge:



And here is more...



...equals this:





Also, is you've seen River's Edge, you might be suprised by what Siskel & Ebert thought of it:

a = b

This:



Equals this=



(Especially if you changed the little boys to seuxally frustrated teenage lesbians.)

I love cross media comparisons.
I would like to write a book that would be compared to a dozen drunk ballerinas trying to preform swan lake on a subway train in the middle of the night.