RRRRRREEEEMMMMMIIIIXXXXX



via Sir-Griz-a-Lot

Inevitable Really



via JP McKrengels

Return of Yacht Rock

Oh yes, the Yacht Rock is BACK!



Maybe because their TV show got canceled the best of the best is back on Channel101.com

Investigative Fiddler


Is This It from Goldenfiddle on Vimeo.

Dude in Paybacks Shirt Writes Book, Film at 11

If we read books, we'd probably check this one out.






















via the New York Times (That's the paper of record y'all.)

Big Matt Photographed in the Wild

Detour interviews Big Matt and Sult from MCR for their Meet and Greet Feature... which taught me that I look a lot like the Sultan right now... might need to loose my Red Beards of Spain... no offense... ellipsis.

Magilla is Dead, Long Live Gorilla

The big C took another member of the G-Unit.
Mourn ya' till I join ya.

Because it's Friday










And because one of the all-time great blogs, Goldenfiddle linked to this pic of George Washington's teeth (sears, I think those came out of the Cloverfield Monster)... I give you for the 80 millionth time....Washington.


After you watch that go to youtube and look up Wizard People... then plan on taking the rest of the day off. You deserve it anyway.

Read this!

Great little feature on Quack! Media by Chris Handyside, complete with interviews, commas -- you know all that other real journalist kinda stuff.

Good read

Caught by the Fuzz
a review by Dmitri jr.

The Magnetic Fields -- Distortion

The problem with some Stephin Merritt songs is they have to live next to the other Stephin Merritt songs. The great ones. The devastating ones.

You can make it straight through all three volumes of 69 Love Songs in longish afternoon, though doesn’t everybody eventually skip through “The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be” to “I Think I Need a New Heart”? Why even sequence two “heart” together? On Distortion, the first Magnetic Fields album in four years, Stephin does it again, when the so-so “I Dream Alone” unfairly comes a mere one song after the show-stopping Cole Porter-Paul Westerberg mash-up “Too Drunk to Dream.”

I don’t pity a prolific songwriter for having to suffer in the shadow of his own best work. (Surely, Steve-o has more than enough uber-fans to tend to the less obvious parts of his back-catalog) Still there’s some itsy heartbreak to having to be the Ira to your own George. Sort of shocking Merritt hasn’t already written a song about it.

On Distortion, there’s both the average and the above average. The distortion of the title is two-fold:

1.
Every single song is soaked in the stuff. Awash in hisses and hums, fuzz and feedback, Merritt and crew go out of their way to make a record that’s both ode to psychocandy shoe-gazer bliss and the way heirloom pop sounds played off scratched 45s or distant radio stations on cheap speakers. The waves of noise here are powerful, but intentional and manicured. Pianos chime, guitars buzz and processed strings drone but there’s an internal order anchored on the stateliness of Merritt’s and drummer Claudia Gonson’s vocals. Any rocking out is done on a restrained, relative scale and, fitting Merritt’s sense of humor, the noise is understated, even elegant.

The songs are all written from distorted points of view or altered states: drunkenness, bitterness, lust. There are ironic narrators like the rich guy in “Driver, Drive On” telling his chauffer to leave the lover who he just through out of the car in the dust or the sister in “Nun’s Litany” wishing she had become a topless waitress.

Even near-instrumental “Three-Way” booms along without words except for the occasional gleeful shouts of the title, which is kinda of it’s own clever little commentary the probably fairly complicated logistics of group sex we’re willing to gloss over.

When it hits, Merritt’s cleverness bowls you over. When it doesn’t, you feel like you’re listening to They Might Be Giants castoffs. If you want to get reductive, it be easy to point out Merritt’s most recent projects include a series of Volvo ads and helping Daniel Handler crank-out Lemon Snickett tie-ins. Maybe this album is an excuse to cut loose and play bad with noise and sex jokes.

There’s this disconnect between the proper vocals and the noise surrounding them. On other albums and his 6ths project, Merritt has no problem farming out songs to, let’s say, more stylistically appropriate singers. I think he deliberate kept these for himself and Gonsons because their voices seem to come from another time. His is a deep narcoleptic croon is almost able to swing, but not quite. Hers might pass as back up in unrefined girl group.

Sometimes the disconnect is jarring, like the Caribbean undead-sex-slave dirge “Zombie Boy.” Sometimes it’s gorgeous and startling, like the sad bastard carol “ Mr. Mistletoe” and “I Hate California Girls,” which plays in alternative reality where a surly Brian Wilson threatens the cast of “Laguna Beach” with an ax. More often than not, the songs seem to be floating in from some strange, fuzzy past—slowly fading, yet timeless.

rating: 3/5

-Dmitri jr.

You Know All This But...

4/5 Detroit bloggers say go to this show

























Big Matt would recommend it too but he's like the 5th Dentist who won't recommend Trident NOT because he doesn't like it, but because of a childhood injury involving spearmint.

I'm going to be out of town, hopefully a blogger will go and blog the results.... blog style.

South to Rise Again For Fourth

South is near the top of recordreivews favorite new-millennial brit-poppers that should be bigger than Coldplay but sadly are not.

The trio has announced that their fourth album You are Here will be released April 15. They'll also be playing SXSW in March and following that with an American tour in April. And in the broken record of Detroit bloggers, here's to hoping they don't play the Blind Pig again this time through.

Maybe We Shouldn't Have Laughed When The Crack Dealer Shot Mama Yorke on Woodward and The Mayor Not Only Let Him Get Away With It, But Gave Him Beautification Award for His Crack House Shrubbery

Radiohead confirms they ain't ever comin' back to Detroit.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

RADIOHEAD CONFIRMS NORTH AMERICAN TOUR MARKETS

With In Rainbows having debuted today at #1 on the U.S. charts, RADIOHEAD has confirmed the cities to be visited on the band's upcoming North American tour.

The tour will take place in two segments, one prior to and one following the recently announced summer tour of the UK and Europe .

The cities IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER are:

Atlanta
Boston
Charlotte
Chicago
Cleveland
Dallas
Houston
Indianapolis
Los Angeles
Miami
Montreal
New York
Philadelphia
San Diego
San Francisco
Santa Barbara
Seattle
St Louis
Tampa
Toronto
Vancouver
Washington DC

I need Two of These.

Mick Bassett and the Marthas -- Here's the Whirlwind EP

There's a lot to consider when you get a tune from Mick Bassett -- well, at least for me there's a lot I have a hard time ignoring before I get to said song.

First, he was a member of the very promising and very young Dollfaces a few years back, but then you knew that and probably have a unreleased, but distressed Dollfaces t-shirt stashed away to wear to Sterling's 80th birthday in a few years, cause that's how YOU are.

Second, he's still quite young and depending on your particular perspective that's either quite good, because what is rock n roll if not youthful or just another kick to the crotch that you've been passed by another wundkind ya' old fart.

Third, he splits his time between the east side home of his younger-youth (presumably) and Ann Arbor. That is completely unremarkable, apart from the fact that every songwriting English major (must be an English major right?) at U of M I knew in the prior century was an obnoxious twat without much to say and even less to sing (I generalize of course, but that's how I remember it).

Fourth, Dutch Pink is to Tom Waits as Mick Bassett is to Dylan. This is not a remarkable observation, a keen insight or a big deal, it is just true. It's impossible to put this ep on and not hear a little bit of a young Bob -- not just because Mick sounds like Dylan (cause he does) but also because he floats, crams, clips, drags and fits his lyrics to his songs with a distinctly Dylan like cadence. Couple that with the Mick and the Marthas' folksy-blue-pop arrangements (not to distant from something you might hear from Bob's current boys in the Texas Playboys outfits) and again you're positively in fourth street territory.

In short, this should be a complete disaster. Promising teenage rocker makes it to college, where pretentiousness could easily win the day. Plus, he puts he poetry to a Dylaneque cadence which should he misstep slightly will sound more Hop On Pop than Blonde on Blonde.

But by now, you've figured out I like what I hear. Bassett's melodic sense is keen and beyond his years. His piano, when accompanied by the backing band leads them through simple, but never obvious changes. His blue notes are pretty choice and hint at deeper record collection than most, a tasteful music education or at least a keen ear. Plus, there's just enough blues to this pop to keep the remaining garagers entertained.

The CD release party for this EP is January 5 at the Magic Stick, appropriately accompanied by young gunners the Satin Peaches and Anna Ash and Rachel Thomas. I've never seen Mick and the Marthas live, but this recording hints that they may share a quality that has united many of the most beloved Detroit acts from the Stooges, Mitch Ryder and (dare I say it) Deadly Tedly on to the White Stripes, Dirtbombs and (dare I say it) the Von Bondies. It is the sense that at any moment any song might fly off the handle into a flaming wreck. As this clearly isn't garage rock, perhaps that is overstated a bit, I expect the rocking will be responsible -- but after all isn't that the whole promise of a good rock band -- to play it close to the edge with more than a little feeling?

Rating: 4/5

-Gorillla