Confession

I confess to feeling less than inspired about the current round of year-end pontification over 2008's music (not to mention books, film, and what have you). Scott at Pretty Goes with Pretty posted insightfully about the lack of trust surrounding this year's best-of lists, and I'm so wishy-washy I can't even trust my lack of trust. Feh. Oh sure, I'm still making my annual mix CD (e-mail now to reserve yours! esp. if'n you think I might not have you on the list or if your mailing address has changed in the past year), and I'll post some thoughts about it here soon enough. But mostly I'm feeling quiet and not particularly eloquent or reflective about, well, anything right now. As such, take everything that follows with the proverbial grain of salt.

I visited Austin for the first time over Thanksgiving, and, while I was there, Bren and I caught Blitzen Trapper at the Mohawk (pics from the show, if you're interested, are here). Despite all the blowed-up hype surrounding them, mostly thanks to P-fork's raves, last year, I'd managed stay ignorant of them and their music until that day, so was pleasantly surprised by their performance. Their sound, approach, and aesthetic are throwbacky, sure, but they commit to it fully and do it well and make it work. Furr has been on nearly continual repeat since then. The title track contains several of the most satisfying melodic/lyrical turns of phrase I've heard this year.

While in town, Brendon and Catharine also made sure to take me to the famed Alamo Drafthouse for some food, booze, and film, where we saw Australia. I'll go to the mat for Moulin Rouge! any day of the week and think that Luhrmann is way smarter and more in control of what he's doing than most people give him credit for, but Australia left me a bit cold. It has its moments, I guess--most of which involve the camera's male-gaze fetishizing of Hugh Jackman's body instead of Nicole Kidman's--but trying to shoehorn his signature sentimentality about love and destiny, etc., etc., into a story involving national identity and the Stolen Generations (not to mention World War II) felt a bit overly naive (plus also maybe a bit unintentionally racist?). It's epic, sweeping, romantic, and paced exactly like a Luhrmann movie (goofy comedy that segues into flushed-cheek love story that segues into searing tragedy), but still, for all that, and its inflated running time, it seemed to be lacking that special something.

Slumdog Millionaire on the other hand is 100% delightful, so much so that I'm willing to forgive Boyle his missteps with Sunshine, if that's what he needed to do to get to the point where he could make this film. Aside from the fact that the movie itself is sweet and touching and scary and melodramtic in all the right ways, I cannot overstate how lucky I felt to have just finished reading Maximum City before I saw it. The context that it gave me about the slums, religious tension, gangs, police interrogation techniques, and dreams of the people (both singularly and, as various groups, collectively) in Mumbai enriched my enjoyment of the film immeasurably. It feels like a Danny Boyle film in all the best ways, with the happy addition that, as he did in Millions, he demonstrated again that he can be a gifted director of children. Plus the Bollywood dance sequence at the end is fucking golden; it was so perfect yet so unexpected that it probably made me cry more than anything else in the rest of the movie. Highly recommended, kittens.

I caught the Bound Stems at a late-night show at the Empty Bottle last weekend. I'm happy to say that The Family Afloat has grown on me tremendously, as I suspected it would, since October--so much so that I had trouble, in my sleepy and slightly tipsy state, distinguishing which songs appear on that album from which appear on Appreciation Night. Given how much I adore Appreciation Night, that's high praise indeed coming from me. Pics from the show posted here.

And speaking of fave-rave Chicago bands, I hope you've had a chance to check out Baby Teeth's second Daytrotter session. I've been listening to "I Hope She Won't Let Me" obsessively since downloading the tracks. I heard them play it when they opened for Jamie Lidell in early October and it absolutely knocked me out. I can't wait to have an official studio version in my grubby little paws. From what I understand, it should be on the forthcoming-in-'09 release Hustle Beach. Get excited.

Also! Chicagoans, you should get excited about THE RETURN OF THE DOLLAR STORE! Maestro Jonathan Messinger announced it on his blog the other day, and I've been convulsing with glee ever since. You can bet your ass I'll be at the Hideout on January 9, nerding out in style.

Avoiding the Inevitable Pun

I am approximately as sick of hearing about Bush's colon as I am of hearing about Harry Potter.

That is all.

"Enough With This Cicada Bullshit"

From the brilliant and twisted mind of Dr. Benji Kelnardo, a few thoughts on cicadas:

This has to stop. Every single fucking day I turn on the news and some jackass from Schaumburg is fryin' up a pan of the little fuckers or covering them in chocolate and arranging them on a silver platter. People keep sending in pictures of cicadas doing all sorts of gross things. They are making cakes in the form of cicadas and finding dead ones and dressing them up like a rock band and then freezing them (seen on channel 5, worth checking the website). They have made their appearance in Crown Point and buzz and hum all day long (this is actually kinda neat, it echoes through the whole neighborhood). However, they are so fucking hideous I don't even know where to begin. This is some biblical shit. They are big, ugly, stupid creatures that fly haphazardly into windows, screens, cars, etc. And they shed their exoskeletons. Um, just in case you didn't get that the first time--"they shed their exoskeletons." And they leave them wherever they feel like, driveways, bushes, porches. Yuck. And, matters got much worse today and yesterday as the filthy fucking sea-chickens discovered them. It looks like our neighborhood is a beach or the Southlake Mall parking lot, covered in the flying rats as they peck at the ground and fight each other for the creatures. It is Mother Nature at her ugliest. This sea-chicken phenomenon is apparently happening all over the area according to the
news. That's some sick shit. Fuck them. All of them.

Wonderful Things

The Cold War Kids' video for "Hang Me Up to Dry" (via) is so sweet. I see a little bit of a Rushmore influence in it, in the way that you have these adults plopped into a middle school (?) setting but interacting with the kids as equals. And, ultimately, the shared influence there is probably Salinger; lead singer Nathan Willett even name-checks Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters in his description of their new song "God Make Up Your Mind," over at Daytrotter.

Speaking of Daytrotter, I love how Sean Moeller gets such consistently wonderful conversation and rumination out of the artists who make a point to stop off at the Futureapplestudio (not to mention, of course, such wonderful live performances). For just one example, here's George Hunter of Catfish Haven during their visit back in April:

"I’ve always had a dream of doing a crooner thing. Not like what Frank Sinatra did, but something where I’d write these angelic pop songs that are just perfect. I’d have my Price Is Right microphone and I’d just be walking around singing. I definitely try to get that fucking feeling into the songs, but we also try to wake up the neighbors every time we play too."

Aiee! That just makes me so happy. Daytrotter's also got John Vanderslice talking about, among other things, gardening blogs. So great.

I'm distraught that the Catfish Haven show this weekend is the same night as the Mountain Goats' gig at the Empty Bottle. Choices, choices. Darnielle's got my love for now, but I need to shimmy and sweat with Hunter and his boys sometime soon, soon, soon. Their full length Tell Me is out today, and if the rest of the album lives up to the soulful righteousness (in the full-on '70s slang sense of the word) of the eponymous single, hoo boy, it's going to be all kinds of good.

Matt Berninger, you totally were not doing boring things all summer. You were busy buying me boxes of chocolates and telling me how pretty I look in that new dress. Best imaginary boyfriend ever!

I'm sorry, I know this doesn't fall under the heading of wonderful things, but, seriously, enough with the cupcakes already. I am so over it. Can I get some backlash up in here?

I'd like to join the chorus with Ms. Paradise and send big love out to newlyweds Amber and Chad. There's something really special about attending the wedding of a couple that's already been together for a number of years. Rather than feeling like a uniting of one plus one, the ceremony felt like a celebration of the culture of their relationship, especially in the way they used their circle of friends as active participants in all aspects the event--everything from officiating to bartending. The repeated refrain, with variations, of "when I first met Amber" and "I've know Chad since" and "when the two of them first got together" added an intimate but communal feeling to all the romantic elegance. My snaps are up in a Flickr photoset, and believe you me I am not using the phrase romantic elegance lightly. It's not just self-deprecation when I say my photos do not do justice to how completely gorgeous it was. I was really honored to have been in attendance.

A belated happy birthday to LK!

Puppies Puppies Puppies Puppies Puppies!

CRP authors in the blogosphere this week: Dirk Jamison writes for Largehearted Boy and Doug Crandell gets written up for Post Road Magazine. These are two of my favorite new voices we've published recently, and both of the write-ups just make me love them even more.

Scroll down here to last week's episode, fast forward to approximately minute seven, and revel in the glory that is a This American Life piece on--wait for it--The Puppy Channel. I know, I could hardly believe it either. (Thanks for this and the Post Road link, LK.)

Has anyone anywhere ever had a relatively good/positive experience buying tickets for an event? Because I honestly don't think I have. I'm not talking about the sweet old lady who took your money at the front door of your little sister's choir concert. I'm talking about buying tickets to see a rock show or whatever. When I use Ticketmonster, I feel screwed, which makes me angry. When I make the effort to go to a box office, people are usually bitchy, which pisses me off. I hustled as fast as I could after work last night to get to the box office at the Metro before it closed at 6 to buy tickets for this weekend's Gogol Bordello show (Nora Rocket and JZ and I will be MAKING MERRY OUT OF NOTHING, LIKE IN REFUGEE CAMP! OH YEAH, WHOA NO!). My dilemma: will I make it to the box office in time if I try to hunt down one of my bank's very few cash machines in the distance between my office and the venue? But, what's this? Joy of joys: the website says they accept Visa, Mastercard, and American Express! Perfection. What an epoch of convenience I'm lucky to be living in!

Still, I'm cutting it close (thank you, rush hour brown line delays!), and I blow in to the Metro store windswept and out of breath at about 5:55. There are maybe four or five people standing behind various counters, some setting up merch for that night's show, others tapping on laptops and flipping through magazines. No eye contact whatsoever is made with the frantic, disheveled Polish tornado that has just tumbled through the door. I stagger around the room, trying to deduce if any of these clearly superior specimens of humanity have any interest in helping a sister out. I finally point-blank ask a petite blond woman, "can I buy tickets for a show on Saturday?" "Oh, you'll have to talk to her," she says, pointing to a woman standing about eight feet to her right. For fuck's sake. "Hi, can I buy three tickets for the Gogol Bordello show on Saturday?" I ask the woman standing eight feet to my left. She barely says a word to me, makes minimal eye contact, and starts processing the order. I reach into my bag for my wallet, and, just to be sure, I ask, "I can use a card to pay, right?" This query is met with eyeballs of steel. "There's a 4% surcharge on the total ticket price if you want to use a card." I temporarily die for a moment, standing right there on my own two little feet as I hear this, because OMG, WTF, not being surcharged was the whole reason I elected to make the journey to the box office in the first place and being able to use my card was the whole reason I didn't stop for cash on the way! (Bitch.) But, as politely as I can muster (read: not very politely at this point), I ask if there are any cash machines in the vicinity. "There's one on the front of the building, there's one across the street, there's one on the corner, but I'm closin' in five minutes." This is the point at which, in all exchanges like this, I am always tempted to begin weeping and rending my garmets as I deliver a soliloquy on the theme of Am I Not Pure of Heart? Am I not pure of heart? Did I not try as hard as I could to get here as quickly as I could? Was I not met with transportation challenges on the way? Did I not initially consider withdrawing cash from my checking account to make this transaction easier on you, the customer service representative? Is it not spring in Chicago and was I not struggling to walk against the wind off the lake with my very short skirt threatening to become my very short belt every step of the way? Regardless, I would like to believe that that exceptionally moving performance was subtextually obvious when I, instead, said, "um, OK, then here ya go," and handed over my debit card.

I mean, whatevs. I got the tickets, I'm going to the show, I'm looking forward to it, all is well in the kingdom of Entropy. But, is it just me, or are these hoops that must inevitably be jumped through just not very rock 'n' roll? I mean, how do the corduroy-clad hipsterati deal with these sorts of indignities when they're making plans to go see Art Brut or whoeverthefuck? Or is it just me? Do these box office workers smell the square on me when I walk in the door and then proceed to treat me like the guy from High Fidelity who was looking for a copy of "I Just Called to Say I Love You"? But, I mean, I usually walk among them fairly well disguised--hello, little camouflage skirt, bright red lipstick, black plastic frame glasses, black messenger bag festooned with band pins? What else do they want from me? People, people, people--there has got to be a better way!

I Shoulda Snagged Siskel's Chair While I Had the Chance

I have given the thumbs-up, unironically, as a genuine sign of approval, at least twice in the past 24 hours. What the hell is wrong with me?