Ah, sweet, sweet Trenchfork, you get something so right, but yet you forsake any hint of having cujones with your 6.0 rating of the dismissable Cansei De Ser Sexy album. Your rating doubles what the album deserves. Kow-towing to CDSS’s considerable bloghype will not engender editorial respect. Be an individual. A secular inhumanist, if you will. Operate in a vacuum, or within a Derridean purity (although that can lead to vigilantism). This album is the opposite of Schrodinger’s cat – nothing’s actually in the box, but when you open it, you see something because you opened it.
Time to list.
I’m currently unsure whether tracks from TV on the Radio’s Return to Cookie Mountain (Disney reference? Sesame reference?) in their finished state improve upon the leaked ‘unmastered’ tracks. I don’t dislike the new version of “Province,’ with Bowie needlessly on vocals, but simply like the unmastered version more. Maybe they’re better in concert now; a show I caught at Southpaw a few years ago was interesting but wobbly and sometimes poorly executed. They have the right idea, but they struggle getting it right. Most of this new one gets it right.
New leaked tracks from the Dears’ forthcoming Gang of Losers please me much better than their overproduced debut collection, which grew off me within a month of hearing it. These tracks breathe. Still mopey Brit-rock, but as well done as it can be done this side of Supergrass.
The Dears – Ticket to Immortality
Very baited breath for The Air Force, the new Xiu Xiu. Everything I’ve heard demolishes the forgettable La Foret from last year. He’s writing some real pop songs.
And the Hidden Cameras have done the indelible thing again with this track from their dammit-wait-til-Sept-in-the-US release Awoo:
Apologies to whomever or wherever I got these tracks. Do you even know?
So what’s to stop loving?
Brightblack Morning Light: Soft rock. I never liked Bread, and neither should you or anyone else. Air Supply on junk, this one. Galaxie 500 was more exciting.
Oneida’s new one is going limp on me. We had such a fun time together til now. Sigh. Nothing lasts.
The more I hear of the new Junior Boys, the more I grow suspicious. First, “Count Souvenirs” wholelsale lifts the melody to Depeche Commode’s (hat-tip to Mr. Tapeworm) “Strangelove,” and then “First Time” closely evokes Peter Gabriel’s “Lay Your hands On Me.” Innovation-well gone dry, Boys? I’m reminded of a too-famous poet once writing something like ‘immature poets imitate, mature poets steal.’ “In the Morning” starts off nice, but that’s all it does. A song without a chorus is not a song. It’s a broken umbrella.
And dear much-liked record labels that email J Frank some links to free mp3s: Please don’t stop sending them, but please check to see if said links work. Thanks.
Crazy Ass Update from the Unintentional T-Shirt Files: As of this afternoon, he who goes to Court wearing a t-shirt stating I’m Richie Rich, Bitch will shortly thereafter find himself un-rich and most definitely, in time, someone’s bitch.
Stop Loving Everything 
Add to your list of inappropriate court shirts:Don’t Ask Me 4 ShitConvicted of DUI.
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That’s pretty awesome. Think I recall you mentioning it. I now remember another one, but this time it was a hat – true story – kid who was a Blood goes to court wearing all red, including a Phillies hat. The Judge asks the kid one question, right away: “What team does that hat represent?” and the kid doesn’t know. Says, uhhh, Cleveland? or something to that effect.The judge says nothing further, and sends the kid back to Rikers for 8 months. Know your teams.
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Mr. Parenll:I have nothing against the Dears and TV on The Radio. I just don’t find them as exciting as Galaxie 500.
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Saying Galaxie 500 was exciting is like saying milk is exciting.
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Saying milk is exciting is like saying Canada is exciting. Saying Galaxie 500 is exciting is like admiting that Indie pop should be catchy, much better than average, and played by people with good taste.Saying Galaxie is exciting is like remembering the days when excitement meant more than the brother of the guy from Voxtrot strating a MySpace page. Galaxie 500 will be remembered as one of the best. Stop Loving Everying should show the pre-blog dinosaur bands the respect they earned.
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I agree with you on the Voxtrot thing. They excite me less than vacuuming. I never said Canada is exciting, did I? It’s boring — that’s why it’s a better place to die than Iraq.Indie Pop played by people with good taste is usually boring. Like Galaxie 500. Snoooooooore. They always make me want to listen to the Queers. J Frank will show no bands respect unless they’re good, pre-blog or not. I don’t care if Chuck Berry invented rock and roll – he wrote the same fucking song over and over again, so I thank him for nothing but the idea. We’ll show plenty of pre-blog dinosaurs repect, but aesthetic respect rather than reputative. Should we deny that <>Trompe Le Monde<> is ranker than llama afterbirth just becuase the Pixies were usually great? Respect is overrated anyway.
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I agree with you on the Voxtrot thing. They excite me less than vacuuming. I never said Canada is exciting, did I? It’s boring — that’s why it’s a better place to die than Iraq.Indie Pop played by people with good taste is usually boring. Like Galaxie 500. Snoooooooore. They always make me want to listen to the Queers. J Frank will show no bands respect unless they’re good, pre-blog or not. I don’t care if Chuck Berry invented rock and roll – he wrote the same fucking song over and over again, so I thank him for nothing but the idea. We’ll show plenty of pre-blog dinosaurs repect, but aesthetic respect rather than reputative. Should we deny that <>Trompe Le Monde<> is ranker than llama afterbirth just because the Pixies were usually great? Respect is overrated.
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The Pixies had their trash, Galaxie 500 never layed a dead egg. Three golden eggs and some tasty eps.
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“This album is the opposite of Schrodinger’s cat – nothing’s actually in the box, but when you open it, you see something because you opened it.”By George, that’s it EXACTLY. I couldn’t figure out what was going on, but you’ve nailed it. Congratulations, everyone, for fucking opening the box.However, please do see Voxtrot live sometime — I was skeptical too, and this was before they were as good as they are now, but they are really irresistable live. Promise.
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Quantum physics always helps out when you’re writing about music.I had an opportunity to see Voxtrot the other night in the park, for free, here in Brooklyn, and I was sufficiently intrigued (ok, the vacuum comment was maybe unfair, but this place is <>filthy<>) to consider going, but the free Prospect park events are always nuts with people; New Pornographers last year was hell, nowhere to sit, not even on the ground hours before the sun went down or the Sadies came on. And the people watching just overloads my hard drive. I have to pick events carefully – last summer I left the New Ps early, but made sure I caught Pere Ubu (really) and stayed for their live, entire soundtrack-ing of an old b-movie. This summer I skipped Yo La Tengo last night, and the Voxtrot show, because later this month Philip Glass & Kronos Quartet will be playing their score along to Tod Browning’s <>Dracula<>. Which excites me more than any housecleaning.
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