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I saw the incomparable Jonathan Richman in Williamsburg last night. The show was bitchin, and totally entertaining, as per Richman’s usual. NY Mag decided to use one of my pics from the concert.

clipped from nymag.com

Jonathan Richman Overwhelms the Ladies at First of Two Shows

Sorry, the restraining order prevented us from getting any closer.Photo: Dan Patterson

While Clinton and Obama were still counting delegates in Texas and Ohio late last night, a blissfully apolitical Jonathan Richman kept fare nice and light in Brooklyn. Looking as though he’d just flown in from Ibiza, Richman shimmied his way through the first of two sold-out shows at the Music Hall of Williamsburg

 

Thanks, NYMag!

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Christopher Lydon is the consummate intellectual, and Radio Open Source was always engaging, enlightening, and edifying.  When it went ‘off air’ this past summer, I felt like an essential class had been removed from the curriculum.  After every episode, every interview I was a more informed individual.  Lydon not only understands culture and technology, but makes both more relevant, piratical, and useful.  Thanks for coming back, Chris, you were missed.

clipped from www.radioopensource.org

As We Were Saying…

In House | Chris, November 13th, 2007

The summer is over, and so is our hiatus.

What we learned in two years on the last round is that “open source”
works as well for public conversation as well as it works for
advancing software. We announced a “conspiracy of the curious,” and
people joined it – with an unending flow of show suggestions and
witty, critical, often impassioned extensions of the on-air
conversation.

So send us your dreams and expectations, please, for the next ride on
Open Source and reload your podcast here: www.radioopensource.org.

In the spirit of Emerson: Onward, ever onward!

Christopher Lydon and Mary McGrath

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Were it worth the energy expenditure, I would personally hammer-stab (that’s a stabbing, but with a hammer) the fingers of every self-professed music/book/culture critic in North America. That would prevent them from further harming the reputation of adjectives everywhere. Seriously, the adjective union should sue for libel.

Here’s the reasoning behind my hammer-stab fantasy of violence: self-professed ‘critics’ are worthless oxygen-wasters. Simply because you write hack stories for a hack magazine/website, you should never presume that I (read: your audience) care about your hack ideas and alleged ‘insights.’ Fuck you, and fuck your adjective-defaming year-end top-whatever lists; I don’t care.

…except, of course, I do care. And so do you. We both love to indulge in the complete irrelevance of arguing over Dylan’s latest ‘masterpiece’ (it’s not; it’s forgetable, but no critic has the balls to admit it) verses Joanna Newsom’s dissonant, meandering, Albini-engineered ‘insta-classic’ (it’s not bad, but more mediocre than the critic army will cop-to) EP. We love the irrelevance of such lists because of their irrelevance. I risk stating the obvious, but in a culture driven by crass and classless consumerism, and political and social cynicism, mindless bullshit like Top Albums of the Year help us momentarily forget that most of us lack decent health care, work shitty jobs, and will probably never create anything worthy of inclusion in a list. We love these irrelevant lists because we know they are irrelevant. You and I are smart, hard-working people. We know this pop-culture crap means nothing in the real-world, so we give it a place of elevated importance in our imagination. …And that’s not a bad thing.

So, sans further pontification, here’s my Irrelevant Top Whatever of the Year List; try to care (rank on all items below determined by precise, and yet arbitrary criteria):

Albums
12.) My Chemical Romance - Welcome to the Black Parade. Yeah, I too associate this band with badly-dressed, faux-goth, sophomoric, self-indulgent, whiney white kids who cry too much, but we can’t blame the band for their lame fans, can we?

11.) Mastadon - Blood Mountain. Balls.

10.) Cat Power - The Greatest. Ya know, this record was way over-hyped, but is still pretty good.

9.) The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones. Indiepopalicious!

8.) The Killers - Sam’s Town. So what if it’s anthemic pop-rock? It’s damn good anthemic pop-rock.

7.) RDJ2 - Here’s What’s Left. I know it’s just one track, but it’s really, really good.

6.) Michael Franti - Yell Fire. Slick and commercial-sounding, Michael takes on some intense subject matter.

5.) Jello Biafra - In The Grips of Official Treason. I know how compelling ‘Flava of Love’ is, but really, is it too much to ask you to spend three hours of your life with angry, political spoken-word?

4.) Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. It tops Blacklisted. Yep, it’s really good.

3.) Tom Waits - Orphans. It’s Tom Waits and it’s 50 tracks with a kick-ass booklet. Do I have to explain why it’s great?

2.) The Coup - Pick A Bigger Weapon. It’s like having sex while while the Revolution is going on: Awesome.

1.) The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers. What do you want? More irony and a skinny tie? Fuck you, you cynnical asshole! This album is fun rocknroll!

Piece of Shit Album of the Year that No One Will Admit is a Piece of Shit Because No One Has the Balls to Publicly Admit that Bob Dylan Isn’t Perfect: Bob Dylan Modern Times.

Piece of Shit Album of the Year that Every One Knows is a Piece of Shit (and uses political generalizations to seem ‘edgy’ but actually is just trite and manipulative): Audioslave Whatever album Audioslave released this year.

Rock Star Asshole of the Year: Maynard. Fuck that guy, and fuck his sense of entitlement.

Podcasts
5.) We’re all very aware that the DSC is your guilty pleasure. That’s okay, it’s mine too.

4.) Slate Daily Podcast. Andy Bowers is pretty droll, but the writing is tops.

3.) Radio Open Source with Christopher Lyden. It’s great; I learn something new on every show.

2.) Pacific Coast Hellway. Mark, you’re an offensive ass-hole. Please don’t change.

1.) In Over Your Head. People should treat me like a podcast rock star. They don’t, but instead they treat Julian like one. That’s cool, he deserves it.

Books
4.) State of Denial by Bob Woodward. Less relevant post-election, but still a good read.

3.) The Iraq Study Group Report by A Bunch of Anti-American Traitors. How dare they offer solutions.

2.) Life on Planet Rock by Lonn Friend. Do you remember when rocknroll was fun? No? Well, Lonn does.

1.) Like newspapers, books are Old Media. I no longer read books, I read Wiki.

People
5.) AC and Ron (tie). Seriously, I don’t care what you think of them. I LIKE having a monetized podcast, and fuck you if you don’t like me having a monetized podcast. AC and Ron help me rock my niche.

4.) G Dub Bush. What? The president of Iran beat out the President of the US on my list? Well, ask yourself: which one of these two world leaders has a blog? That’s right.

3.) Mahmoud Ahmadineblog. Dude, he has a blog! And also is crazy!

2.) Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. It’s obvious, but that doesn’t make it not true: these two are the only anchors America trusts.

1.) Dick Cheney. He shot his best friend in the face! How does he NOT deserve number one?

Websites
6.) YouTube. Hype sucks, but YouTube doesn’t.

5.) PodShow. They pay me and are very nice people. You really want them to be evil, don’t you?

4.) Slate. Great political news. They also have a pretty cool podcast.

3.) Digg. No comment.

2.0) Any site with drop-shadows, beveled edges, and rss feeds. Bonus points for OPML and Ajax.

1.) Weather.com. What? I like checking the weather.

TV/Movies
6.) Heroes. I don’t have a witty justification for watching this show. It’s just entertaining; deal with it.

5.) Lost. “Whaa whaa whaa - the story unfolds too slowly … whaa whaa whaa they never answer anything … whaa whaa whaa I have no grasp for subtle things …” Lost is TV that does not insult us, stop complaining.

4.) Borat. Americans are racist? What? I like you!

3.) Snakes on a Plane. This movie was awful. Not in a clever, nudge-nudge way, but in a sincerely irony-free sucky movie way. How refreshing!

2.) South Park. It gets more offensive to conservative people every year. God bless South Park.

1.) Bittorrent. TV and movies are SO old media, but torrents makes ‘em relevant in today’s oh-so-very web 2.0 world.

Events
5.) World of Warcraft. Pure crack.

4.) The Dump Bowl. Dude, it’s mashed potatos, gravy, corn, ‘chicken,’ and cheese. God is angry with us, and thus he sent the KFC Famous Bowl. Try eating a dump bowl while playing WoW. Seriously, it’s awesome.

3.) The Republicrats are Dead! Long live the Republicrats! We know the Republicans lost in November, but did anyone actually win?

2.) Saddam Smelly executed.

1.) The Creepy Sleepy Show. What’s the point in writing a Top Whatever list if you can’t include yourself? Dude, that IS the point.

Technorati Tags: 2006, 2007, list, year-end, music, books, indie, podcast, podshow, Jello Biafra, Michael Franti, Tom Waits, WoW, dump

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I really hope you’re in a good mood, because this is bad news.

From NPR:

Morning Edition, December 25, 2006 · Singer James Brown — one of the most influential popular musicians of the past 50 years — has died at 73. He had been hospitalized over the weekend in Atlanta, suffering from pneumonia.

Keep that night train rollin’ in Heaven, James.

Technorati Tags: James Brown

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A few months ago I was re-re-reading the Lester Bangs anthology Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic. Bangs was, and is now recognized as, a profoundly good writer. To say he was the Kerouac of his time would be to insult to the quality of of Bangs’ work. Lester was a far better writer than Kerouac, or any of the Beats he desperately wanted to emulate. His writing was frantic, and at time manic, but it was equally thoughtful and insightful on a variety of levels. The trouble with Bangs was two-fold. First, like many great writers, Bangs was self-centered and deeply depressed. Second, also like many great writers, Bangs could only write about rocknroll. Though he was constantly chided by his peers for ‘wasting’ his talent, Bangs found a deeper Truth in rocknroll than most.
Although Bangs wrote for a number of magazines - including Rolling Stone and Penthouse - he is best know for his work in Creem Magazine. Creem was infamously produced in Detroit by a cadre of passionate acolytes in the church of Rock. The magazine was typically compiled in bursts of late-night, speed-assisted writing and editing.

Creem’s reputation was one of brutal honesty that would expose the ‘deeper Truths’ of rocknroll without betraying the fun of the medium. Since its demise, rock writing has slowly sunk into a torpor of pop drivel and repetitive banality. While doing some Googling a few days ago, I stumbled upon the resurrection of Creem. Superficially, the website seems to do a pretty good job of emulating the aesthetics of the original Creem. It seems to have some fairly well-written rock reviews, decent writers, and a fun vibe. I have no idea who is responsible for this on-line version of the magazine, and will need to spend more time on the site before I determine if it’s the real deal or just cynical simulacrum. Regardless, it’s nice to see Creem rise once again. It is my sincere hope that this website can be similar to what the magazine once was.
Now, if only we could find ourselves a 21st Century Lester Bangs…

technorati tags:rock, music, rocknroll, Lester, Bangs, Creem, magazine

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