Bob Dylan said this, about the quality of current music, in a new interview with Jonathan Lethem in the Shitrag Formerly Known as Rolling Stone:

I remember when that Napster guy came up across, it was like, ‘Everybody’s gettin’ music for free.’ I was like, ‘Well, why not? It ain’t worth nothing anyway.”

That’s a fantastic statement. Unfortunately, all that free music worth nothing included everything by Bob Dylan since 1976, but I still love him for saying it. Of course, there’s probably no one near him who can put a good current record in his hand. His own son made some of the shittiest music since Hootie and the Blowfish.

I’m in this mood today, so to heck with Lost Oughts/Nineties etc:

Kelley Stoltz – Birdies Singing
The bassline reminds me of a Love and Rockets song, I think, but I can’t totally recall it. Might not be L&R. That’s what waking up at 3:30 am does for you. I didn’t originally care for much else I heard from Stoltz, but now the non-hate gene is stimulated, and I can’t go back.

M. Ward — To Go Home
A Daniel Johnston cover, and one done wonderfully well. It seems to understand Johnston’s brain, maybe because M. Ward is an equally limited singer with equally big melody ideas. You probably have this already.

M.Ward – Right in the Head
Maybe of a part with the loose theme of M. Ward’s gradually impressive Post War. I was resistant to Ward’s albums as they arrived over the years, at first, but Post-War might make me investigate previous work.

Langhorne Slim — In the Midnight
These songs make me think of this widely blogged song. Slim’s full length on Narnack, from where this track springs, wasn’t what I wanted — more of this — but there were a couple other highlights. I see him all the time on the street, so I could just tell him, but now he’s signed to V2, and therfore has no time to stop. This song also makes me think of sleeping in my backyard, in a tent, in the fifth grade, and getting up at midnight to see a lunar eclipse and then running around the neighborhood like maniacs until my friend Justin got one of his bloody noses and we had to stop and go inside like pussies.

And it’s also the typical type of song that was dropped on my head right at the end of the summer, or just as school was beginning, that would make me moon nostalgic about the past months’ events, albeit events that weren’t all that earth shattering anyway, save that one August when I was seventeen and this older woman … I’ll stop there. This is a family blog.

Enjoy the weak-end.