Die, Evan Dando, Die!

Every Wednesday when it's time to write my portion of the "We're Obsessed" entry, I spend at least a minute or two staring at my iBook screen and counseling myself, "Don't write about Rock of Love. DO NOT WRITE ABOUT ROCK OF LOVE." It's a great struggle but I manage. So instead of blowing my cool and writing about Rock of Love in this post, I'm going to speak of another long-blonde-haired mimbo rock boy from my youth. That would be Evan Dando, whose lovely Lemonheads just reissued their 1992 record It's A Shame About Ray.

I've already talked about my own personal teenhood encounters with Evan, but since that post I've been on a bit of a Lemonheads kick - not just Ray, but also '93's Come On Feel The Lemonheads and '96's Car Button Cloth. (And, lord have mercy, when I just searched for "Evan Dando" on nogoodforme to get the link in that last sentence, guess which Google ad randomly popped up in the sidebar? One for BRET MICHAELS RINGTONES. See, I'm totally onto something.) They're both probably less perfect albums than Ray, but my fave songs off each - like Car Button Cloth's mega-heartachey "Break Me" (mp3!) - have really got that extra something special. And I almost just wrote something to the effect of "Tis a shame that we pay vastly more heed to Evan's good looks and charms than to his songwriting abilities," but then I got a grip on myself. Would I love Evan the same if it weren't for the pretty? No, I would not. However, I still believe him to be quite adept at whipping together brilliantly catchy pop songs, full of lyrics that usually do this cute little pogo-dance on the line between genius and uber-goofball.

But I digress, a lot. I'm supposed to be focusing on It's A Shame About Ray here, for the sake of timeliness and all. I don't know if I'll end up going out and grabbing the reissue, but I've given the original CD a spin or two lately and the songs hold up damn well (though, I must confess, the cover of "Frank Mills" from Hair might forever be my favorite track). And if you want to fall in love with Ray-era Evan all over again - or maybe for the first time - do watch this little clip from his appearance on Regis & Kathi Lee. He's such a beauty queen here, I kind of can't believe I ever actually exchanged words with him.

P.S. The title of this post is a reference to an early-90s zine, and nothing more. I don't really want Evan to die! I love Evan very much! Also, what is wrong with me that I actually feel sorta bad about calling Bret Michaels a mimbo?

P.P.S. The creepy picture below comes from a '93 issue of Details. Here are my favorite parts of the interview:

Are you the sensitive face of grunge?
Huh? Wooow. Um. No. I'm gonna go for a glam-grunge look in '93. But it's a fun thing to be asked: "Hey, are you grunge?" And you sniff your jacket and go, "Yup!"
What's the grungiest thing you've done all week?
(thinks for several hours) The grungiest thing I did all week was pull the tablecloth out from under four place settings and they all stayed there.
That's not very grunge, but it's pretty good all the same.
Yep. I was proud.
Do you consider yourself a poet?
Not yet. I would love to be, though I don't think I'd like calling myself a poet. That's like grunge, y'know. Grunge poetry! Yeah: "I was bustin' my pencil! I blew up the word processor!"

Suffering Students, here is my gift to YOU!

Exams are in the air, and I've never been so happy to have graduated as I am right now. Oh, sweet freedom! Every time I stop into a coffee shop nowadays, my heart breaks for the droves of students hunched over textbooks and laptops looking like they want to cry, die, or probably both. The city is rife with Adderall-infused vibes of maniacal pre-exam anxiety; I've worked really hard this past year to suppress my memories of such cruel and desperate times, and now it's all been shot to shit. I can't help but reflect upon the thousands of occasions when I would show up at a print shop at 8 in the morning after a night of bullshitting my way through a paper about corporate social responsibility, only to find that my Design 3 final (which, for the record, was a re-design of the LP sleeve of Paul McCartney's RAM) was totally pixelated and the margins were all screwy! Or let's not forget the time I slept through my History of Graphic Design final- thank the sweet Lord above that this nightmare happened to coincide with the infamous New York City subway strike. When I showed up unshowered and fuzzy-teethed three hours late, my professor actually thanked me for making my way into Manhattan- I still can't believe life threw me that bone. Wow.

Anyway, if there's one thing that can make frantic cram sessions moderately less unbearable, it's a good study soundtrack. The perfect study soundtrack is reliant on a very delicate balance- the music has to be peppy enough that you don't fall asleep or get even more depressed than you already are (which I'm assuming is a lot), but at the same time, if your tunes are too catchy, you'll probably end up distracted, procrastinating, and/or impeded by your own resentment towards Tommy Roe for being able to melodically expound upon how dizzy he is because some girl he met is cute or whatever.

Okay, so now I'm going to help you out, you poor overworked souls, and tell you exactly what music you should put on the ol' iTunes these Finals Weeks of Spring 2008. I guarantee that if you listen to these two albums, you will feel highly more in control of the extremely terrifying situation in which you presently find yourself.

1. Jean-Claude Vannier, L'enfant Assassin des Mouches

Serge Gainsbourg albums are ideal for listening to on headphones while walking down the street wearing a miniskirt. It's a cool sensation- you totally feel like you're walking through the opening credits of a 60s French flick all about how impossibly hot you are. But listening to Serge Gainsbourg while you're trying to memorize the key points brought up by Andrew Carnegie in his seminal 1889 article, Wealth, is about as much fun as taking a driving test and getting a root canal at the same time. However, this "conceptual ballet" from longtime Gainsbourg associate/collaborator Jean-Claude Vannier channels his same fancy-free Frenchitude, sans potentially discomposing sexual innuendos. This album ebbs and flows along pretty smoothly, and its few moments of raucous noise will you wake you up if you need it.

Here is the perfectly mid-tempo Je M'Appelle Geraldine for your downloadable listening pleasure.

2. George Harrison, Wonderwall Music

I've been majorly hating on the Dark Horse a lot these days, mostly because of his crotchety attitude towards the Beatles' success as exhibited in his Beatles Anthology commentary. Sorry George Harrison, but if you expect me to feel any sympathy for you because you were in the most important rock band of all time, you're looking at the wrong guy. Was it really so bad? Would you rather have been a window-dresser at a Liverpool department store or a bus driver like your Father? I doubt it. Stop whining.

Anyway, I'm sure in a few months time I'll be back in a George phase (it happens cyclically like that), but for the time being, the only Georges I have any time for are a) Style Icon George, and b) Wonderwall Music George. Harrison composed, produced and arranged Wonderwall Music, the soundtrack to Wonderwall (a sub-par but visually stunning psychedelic extravaganza starring Jane Birkin) in December 1967 while the Beatles were on a short break, presumably shit-talking John and Paul internally all the while. It's all instrumental and very pre-Rishikesh; stunningly chill, though not without its poppy "I just can't help but be influenced by the iron hand of Paul McCartney!" moments.

Before discovering Wonderwall Music, I would listen to Ravi Shankar's Sounds of India in its place, which is the Ravi Shankar album where he pops in every couple of songs to teach you about the structure of a raga. Which turned out to be really inconvenient when I answered the question "What is the difference between kearning and leading?" with "Ragas with five swaras are called audava" on my sophomore typography exam.

Anyway, here is Party Seacombe from Wonderwall Music.

Now if you are feeling the need to indulge yourself in some serious procrastination, you can totally go out and buy these two records! You can justify it to yourself by saying, "Laura from nogoodforme.com told me I would study better if I bought these albums!" and then, a few hours later, you'll think: "Wow. Laura from nogoodforme.com was right."

Enjoy your A+!

My favorite Neil Young cover ever

I don't really wanna stray from this week's glorious Neil Young theme, so let me tell you all about my deep affection for the late and lovely Nicolette Larson's rendition of "Lotta Love" (mp3 available at Art Decade). I'd forgotten the cover existed till a few months ago, when I heard it playing on some lite-and-easy station during a rush-hour drive back from the beach. But I'm pretty sure it sounds sweeter to me now than when I first heard it as a little kid: There's something so ineffably charming about the way Nicolette twists Neiler's flannel-y old guitar ballad into this late-70s country-pop confection that's more than a little bit saccharin (OMG, the sax and keyboards and the flute solo!) - and yet somehow stays true-blue to the spirit of the original. I want badly to use it in a movie or something, most likely in some kind of scene involving a tinny little radio playing in a roadside diner where the waitresses have to wear Pepto-Bismol-pink uniforms like Trudy's in Gas Food Lodging.

So yeah, I don't know where this performance comes from, but the set's so making me long for those Saturday nights when I was five or six and my cousins and I used to eat Jiffy Pop with butter and black pepper and watch Solid Gold (followed by Silver Spoons and Facts of Life and, if we were lucky and got to stay up extra-late, The Love Boat). Those were the days, y'all.

P.S. If you're simply dying to know my second-favorite Neil Young cover ever, allow me to end the suspense right now: It's Juliana Hatfield's version of "Only Love Can Break Your Heart."

Happy Easter from Ver Sacrum!

Happy Good Friday everyone! Ver Sacrum trust that you are all enjoying a relaxing day of sitting at home griping about how nothing is open and you're bored out of your skull. Here's hoping you can balance out some of the extreme banality of today by listening to Ver Sacrum's brand-new action-packed summertime jam, "Rabbit, Run", an Easter-related thumper packed thick to the brim like an Easter basket filled with hooks, riffs, licks, and jumps.

This hit is a slacker-pop retelling of John Updike's famed novel, incidentally also entitled Rabbit, Run. We're pretty sure this is the first song in the history of pop music based on a John Updike novel, and we are 100% certain that it is the first song in pop history to be based upon a John Updike novel AND lyrically reference the Kennedy assassination, two financial newspapers, Archie Bell & the Drells and five count-em' FIVE different holidays! This hit also features the scrappiest recorder solo ever put to tape, which is a really cool superlative to have under your belt as a fledgling rock duo in this day and age.

We are really proud of this track and are super-stoked to give it to the world on this beautiful thudding Easter of 2008. Oh yeah, and we're sending free Cadbury creme eggs to every single person who listens to this song today!

Okay, well, that's definitely a lie. But give it a listen anyway- it's way sweeter than a thousand chocolate bunnies put together.

You can listen to "Rabbit, Run" at Ver Sacrum's Myspace OR you can download it RIGHT HERE: that way, you can listen to it on your iPod, or whatever mp3 player you happen to own, or even download it to a blank CD and listen to it on your stereo! Wow!

A few of my favorite things (SXSW edition)

Actually, I mean new favorite things, for the most part. I'm still in Austin and, having drunk my weight in Lone Star and slept a total of about 10 hours over the past three days, pretty much ready to crawl on back to L.A. But my flight's stupidly not till 9 tonight, so I'm left to hang around vegan coffee shops and eat almond-butter cookies and debate whether to clean up my cowboy boots or leave on the serious layer of Texas dust they've acquired since Friday. In the meanwhile here's some of the most exciting stuff that happened this weekend (minus some unphotographable goodness like the show on Lamar Bridge on 3 a.m. Friday night/Saturday morning). So much fun!

New favorite spot to spend lots of money:

The Opera House. If I lived in Austin, this would be the most dangerous place. There's racks of fabulous vintage clothes and so many fantastic handmade t-shirts and, best of all, lots and lots of zines. They've also got a space for music and art shows, and supposedly there's a magical garden out back (along with some mysterious house that displayed one of the two most entertaining pieces of signage I spotted all weekend). The Smell's showcase was there Friday afternoon, and during the Mae Shi's set singer Jonathan got a new haircut. Then No Age had their set inside in the weird icicle-cave room, and Mika Miko played out in the big blazing sun. Yowza!

New favorite band:

Foot Village! Oh my god! A bunch of drummers all in a circle, but not like Venice Beach on Sunday afternoons (and not like the dorm room across from mine sophomore year of college either). Just four drum kits, three dudes, and one rad girl named Grace who sometimes hops off her stool and into the crowd to scream into a megaphone. Noisy as all get-out and so reminiscent of the first time I saw The Boredoms and had my dome blown like nothing else ever before.

Oh, and one of our runners-up for new favorite band: Ima Gymnist. Here they are playing the Todd P showcase at Miss Bea's (where I spent about 900 hours on Saturday and also caught the awesomely scary White Mice and the just-plain-awesome/totally beautiful Sian Alice Group, featuring Douglas Hart from Jesus and Mary Chain).

New favorite accessory:

Mika Miko sunglasses! Five bucks at merch table near you. Here I am modeling a pair while Randy clues me in on some secret stock tips. (I like the second photo better, but then we realized you couldn't really see the lettering on the shades. Vote No Age 2008!)

New favorite band, part II:

MONOTONIX!!!!!! It is tragic that I will never be able to articulate how fucking great this band is. They're from Tel Aviv and make scuzzy, trashed-out garage rock, and during their set at Beerland yesterday afternoon they ran all around the room, stealing bottles from girls' hands and spraying everybody with beer, climbing up onto the bar and generally raising hell. They're playing a buncha shows all around the U.S. this spring and you reeeeeeally want to go see them (check here for dates). In the meantime, a couple photos I took yesterday after the singer scooped up ice from the bar and poured it down the front of his pants, plus a YouTube clip of the band at SXSW 2007. (Dudes, how come everybody's so slow to post their videos from this year?? Grrrr!)

(The Mae Shi played Beerland too and there's not much new for me to say about them, but we love them lots so let's have another photo.)

New favorite old crush:

From ages 14 to 22 (give or take a few years), I adored Thurston more than almost anything. Then I got over it and occasionally found him so boring and annoying, despite the fact that I've basically halfway loved every Sonic Youth album that's come out over the past decade. Then I saw his newish band Northampton Wools Saturday afternoon and it was like, "Come back, Thurston; all is forgiven." Now he's my favorite giant all over again. Kind of wanker sometimes still, but ultimately unimpeachable.

Uno, Dos, One, Two, Tres, Quatro!

If you've ever read Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn (and if you haven't, you should; it's really good), I trust you'll remember the novel's Tourette's Syndrome-afflicted narrator, Lionel Essrog, and his manifold hilarious and obscene verbal tics. Essrog's most frequently-dropped linguistic compulsion involved constantly berating an imaginary narrator named Bailey; he explains to the reader that, when pressed for something to do, he cannot help but shout libelous and derogatory remarks against the imaginary Bailey.

I have long been of the belief that the impulse to write is actually an undiagnosed cognitive disorder based upon an unhealthy preoccupation with the English language. I tend to fall passionately in love with particularly whimsical words, phrases or proper nouns ("knickerbocker"; "horses for courses"; "Mick Jagger"), which run through my head as nauseum when Rhianna's "Umbrella" and "Ready to Go" by Republica recede for a moment. That being said, my "Bailey" is definitely "Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs". I know, I'm probably crazy, but I'm also not kidding- I've had those six words stuck in my head since the sixth grade, or possibly age six. I actually spent most of my university education staving off the impulse to respond to the question "Who is the CEO of Hewlett-Packard?" with an exuberant "Sam the Sham!" Has there ever been a more fun-to-say band name in the history of time? Have six words ever coalesced so brilliantly as those? Am I an ideal candidate for lobotomization? Yes, yes and probably.

If you are a regular No Good For Me reader, you've most likely noticed that I'm a bit of a sixties-o-phile (unless you only check the blog to catch wind of sample sales and Target news, that is, and if so- shame on you! You have no idea what you're missing). I listen to sixties music with such undying regularity that I've at this point entirely lost touch with what music that wasn't made in the sixties sounds like; I mean, my ear has adapted so completely to jangly guitars, newspaper taxis and the Wall of Sound that I've lost the ability to examine sixties pop with any sort of contextual positioning or nostalgia whatsoever. As far as I'm concerned, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs are the hottest new band of '08 (besides Ver Sacrum, I mean).

A couple of days ago, I was walking down the street, skipping like an idiot and freaking out in my head to Sam the Sham's "Wooly Bully". I am one of those incredibly annoying people who refuses to listen to entire albums, instead insisting on listening to the same cloying hooky gems over and over and over forever. I mean, really, though- what's the point of listening to some phoned-in adaptation of "Long Tall Sally" when you can surround yourself with the magnetic energy of "Wooly Bully"? In addition to being vaguely Tourettic, trapped in the past, and really narrow-minded when it comes to B-sides, I'm also a really neurotic person. One of my favorite things to stress out about is the fading relevance of the Beatles. There is nothing more terrifying to me than the possibility that the Internetty cyber-losers of my children's generation (just kidding, I'm never having kids) will not know George Harrison's name. And that their children won't know John Lennon's name! It just makes me want to cry.

If John Lennon is poised to soon be forgotten, Sam the Sham's name and legacy will be lost to time by the end of this year, no doubt. Loving the sixties as I do, I can't help but attach to myself the responsibility of archiving and documenting the music of the coolest decade the world ever knew. I really wish I could have lived in a world where a flipped-out Tejano could dress himself up as an exaggerated and bedazzled Pharaoh and put out a scalding jammer written primarily in gobbledygook telling the story of a fictional Yeti-type creature named Wooly Bully. But unfortunately for me, I was born in dumb 1985, though at the very least the cartoons of my youth were savvy enough to include Sam the Sham rip-offs as innovative narrative devices.

Here is a clip from Alvin and the Chipmunks proving how effective "Woolly Bully" can be used to connote an atmosphere of primordial jungle Tiki-torch torture:

And here is a link to download the song itself, for you to listen to, revel in, and save for all of time:

Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs- Wooly Bully

PS: I'm sure you've already guessed this, but U2 totally ripped off Sam's rollicking Spanglish count-in in "Vertigo"- watch out, Bono! I'm on to your devious ways!

Come Beat the Blahs with Ver Sacrum!

Are you incredibly depressed because it's dismal late-February and winter is still raging on? Are you annoyed because the new season of Lost is really confusing and continues to pose new questions rather than answer old ones? Is the hole in your heart left over from the conclusion of the Harry Potter series still bleeding profusely?

Well have we got the cure-all for you!

Ver Sacrum are now the proud parents of their very own Myspace page, featuring three count 'em three action-packed and downloadable new hit singles:

1) Ghost Riders in the Sky, a torturous, crumbling lo-fi cover of this old cowboy tune by the ever-prolific Trad;
2) A rousing and God-awfully the-very-definition-of-punk-rock re-do of that song Please Please Me by that band who are so totally obscure I always forget their name (the Beatals? Something like that);
and, most importantly of all, a brand-new original composition entitled Flying South, which is so diggity damned good that I couldn't even begin to think of an apt "band A meets band B on drug C" metaphor that pays it proper justice. Ver Sacrum are really proud of this song and we guess you'll adore it too, for it is adorable.

In summation:

Here is Ver Sacrum's Myspace page. Visit us! Ver Sacrum are two sweet & amiable (though beguiling!) characters who would be beyond stoked to call ourselves your "Friend". & we would love to hear what you have to say about our songs.

Kurt the Goofball

So Kurt Cobain would've turned 41 today, which I'd forgotten all about till stupid KROQ reminded me this morning. I could go all psycho-mushy and prattle on and on about when I went to see Nirvana in '93 and how it was the BEST SHOW EVER (actually, for reals), but instead I'd rather celebrate Kurt the Goofball with this series of charming YouTube clips.

Kurt wearing his beautiful yellow gown on Headbanger's Ball:

Kurt on the "Bette-Midler-in-The Rose vibe":

My favorite moment from Nirvana, Live! Tonight! Sold Out!:

Cast your PLUG Awards vote! Right now!

Today's the last day to vote for the winners of the 2008 PLUG Independent Music Awards! Go here and pick your picks for the year's best album, song, music blog, live music venue, etc. And of course we'd never tell you who to vote for, but you should definitely vote for No Age in the new artist and punk album categories. And if I've not sufficiently convinced you to rock the vote, perhaps you can be swayed by my #7 or #8 all-time crush Michael Showalter in this daffy little PLUG-plugging short film about the mixtape store he runs in his mom's basement:

Say Happy Valentine's Day to Ver Sacrum

What in the world is more romantic than collaborating creatively with the one you love? Well nothing, obviously- just ask John Lennon and Yoko Ono! Or Paul & Linda- even Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach, for that matter.
I think that V-day is the perfect day to unleash Ver Sacrum's debut single, Cod'ine, upon the world. The members of this slamming and haunting torch-folk duo just happen to be my boyfriend and I, but I'm being entirely unbiased and chock-full of humility when I say that this song rules. We are scared by how good it is!
So, in the grand tradition of Buffy Saint-Marie, Donovan Leitch, The Litter, The Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Charlatans, Gram Parsons and about ten billion other bands, may I present to you:

Cod'ine by Ver Sacrum.

Happy Valentine's Day! Eat chocolate! Listen to our song!

Random Video Entry: "Addicted To Love," Robert Palmer + Ciccone Youth

The more "left-field" offerings from the recent fall collections in New York got me thinking about dark clothes, slouchiness, a certain "cocooning," loosening and experimentation in silhouettes -- and about the sort of 'character' that would wear the clothes. As I fell asleep, it hit me: it's like those Robert Palmer "Addicted to Love" femmebots grew up and gone to art school and, like, melted themselves trying to escape a post-Soviet winter. Okay, so that's a bit silly and quick, but it gives us an excuse to post the video:

I think it's incredibly hilarious how all the 'bots are totally out of sync rhythmically. Our favorite skewed take on this song, of course, is the Ciccone Youth version of this song, found on The Whitey Album. Dig on the wry brilliance of Kim Gordon, yo:

"Do you smoke grass out in space, Bowie? Or do they smoke... Astroturf?"

Remember those two weeks in December of 2005 when the Lazy Sunday video first played on SNL and it was the funniest thing you ever saw in your life? Before it became hideously popular and spawned a million way-less-funny parodies and then Andy Samberg dated Kirsten Dunst and became incredibly annoying and in no way physically attractive? I do. It was a really happy time for me.

But then it all fell apart. And for the past two years straight, the mass media have provided me with absolutely nada that I've found legitimately humorous, except for about five seconds of Superbad and that time Britney Spears forced a Hollywood waitress to swap outfits with her and then tried to get a job at the restaurant. That was really funny.

Anyway, last week, my boyfriend's sister gave him the first season of The Flight of the Conchords on DVD as a belated Christmas gift. I looked at the cover and saw a picture of two hipstery looking dudes, one with mutton chops and thick-frame glasses who looked like 50% of the entire male population of Williamsburg, and the other short, bearded, and wearing a sweatshirt with a silkscreen of a tiger on it. He looked like the other half of the Northside.

I thought it looked kind of lame.

Then we watched an episode, and I've been obsessed ever since. Last night, we even watched five straight episodes in a row. And I never do that (except with The Hills. And Six Feet Under. And the Beatles Anthology. And the entire series of Full House. Whatever). The Flight of the Conchords is the fictionalized account of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement AKA The Flight of the Conchords, a New Zealand novelty-folk duo who have moved to New York to try and make it big. The episodes trade off between drily witty, semi-fantastic scenarios wherein the boys deal with a multitude of New Yorkified issues (getting gigs, paying rent, dating girls, buying fruit from street vendors, eating croissants, catching bulimia), and highly LOLificating music videos demonstrating the many facets of Bret & Jermaine's diverse comedic and/or musical talents.

Bowie's in Space is a highly intricate David Bowie send-up which manages to capture all of his weirdest and most idiosyncratic behaviors from Ziggy Stardust on through to Heroes. If you have ever heard a David Bowie song in your life, I personally guarantee that this vid will make you laugh until one of your eyes closes and the other one is streaming with tears. Watch it from start to finish- it only gets better with age.

This second vid, called Foux de Fa Fa, makes fun of hazy, dazey mid-sixties French Ye-Ye in a way nobody else ever thought to do because they were too busy flipping out over the genre's innate coolness. If you are from or have ever spent time in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, you will notice that Fabiane's on Bedford Avenue plays a key role in the clip, which is kind of fun.

And the best part of the whole Flight of the Conchords phenomenon is that you can keep yourself awake at night wondering if you'd fall in love with Jemaine (glasses) or Bret (beard) if they both wanted to date you. Probably Jemaine. Or Bret. Or Jemaine. Bret. Jemaine. Bret? Jemaine?

Maybe both.

Saint Julian

Three and a half years ago, I moved into a new apartment in Brooklyn. To christen our sweet new abode, my roommate Chelsea and I went halfsies on a fabulous special edition of Mojo magazine devoted entirely to Top Ten Lists.
And let me just say that the $14 we collectively forked over for this mag was probably some of the best $14 we ever spent. The magazine took up permanent shop in our bathroom and I can safely say I perused it upwards of a couple hundred times.
Now, I don't mean to diminish the importance of the top ten most phenomenal Stax releases, Madonna incarnations, or Stevie Nicks-donned shawls. But this blessed issue of Mojo contained one particular list that changed my life forever. It was the top ten record covers featuring animals (or parts of them).
This list was significant to my life for two reasons:

I bought Paul McCartney's RAM a couple of days after I first encountered the list. I fell deeply, madly in love with it. It is easily the best Beatles solo release. It is also my favorite album all time. If you haven't heard it, I feel sorry for you. But I have retailed the shit out of this album countless times to everyone and anyone I've ever met since the first time I heard it. In fact, my love for RAM is so very strong that once some dumb Williamsburg jerk was ribbing me for my Lennon and McCartney tattoos, jesting that I should have gotten Jagger and Richards inked on my inner elbows instead, and I said, "Have you ever heard RAM??" and bad-ass-ly threw a lit cigarette at his mid-section. This was one of the most proudest moments of my life. And no, he hadn't.

So that's RAM. But what about the other album? The one that this post's title quite clearly infers I'm trying to get at? Well, three and a half years ago, I thought, "Hmmm. Julian Cope, huh? That's a cool album cover. I wish I could wear a turtle's shell too". Then I put RAM on the hi-fi, dismissed the thought, and drifted off into the impenetrable beatitude that only ex-Beatles can bring about.

A few weeks ago, I was at my parents' house, stir-crazy and bored: typical Christmas with the Fam blahs. I was listening to the Children of Nuggets box set I'd recently received. I was in one hell of a black mood, and every song served only to remind me how inferior these children were to their artfully psychedelic parents. Then Julian Cope's Sunspots (click and go to the weird website to download) came on. It was one of those rare but exaltant moments in a lifetime of fevered pop music ingestion when you can tell from a song's very first few moments that this is one of your favorite songs of all time. And it was. And it is. The opening chords sound like the Rolling Stones' Citadel if it were about love and not sex (being a Beatles fan, I tend to find the subtleties of the former infinitely more satisfying, sonically at least), and the repeated "I'm in love with my very best friend" lyric makes me girlishly wish that I was Julian Cope's best friend. Who he was in love with. This desire was amplified tenfold when I realized that when he wrote this song, Julian looked like this:

How gloriously hot he is. But whatever. We all know it's the music that matters. And what matters even more than the music is whether or not the music makes you want to either
a) dance
or
b) drive around in a car listening to it at top volume.

This song does both and then some. It also makes me want to craft headdresses out of narwhal horns and romp around the beach with my fly turtle-shelled boyfriend, write twenty novels, drink lemonade, get stoned, eat Mexican food, sport batik-print, play tennis, ride on a ski lift, smash windows, and pet a puppy.

I've since downloaded Fried, and it is one of the best albums I've ever heard in my life. It may very well be my second-favorite album of all time, which cements a particular hypothesis I've been throwing around for the past three and a half years (that records featuring animals or animal-parts or drawings of animals are generally better than those that don't). Fried sounds like if you took all the most transcendent moments of every album ever recorded by Blur, Primal Scream, the Smiths, the Voidoids, Helium, the Inspiral Carpets and every other band you could think of who sounds remotely like the bands I just mentioned, then cut out all the crap and welded them together, amplified their brilliance by infinity to the power of infinity, cut it with a healthy dose of madcap Lennon-esque je ne sais quoi, and then sealed it all up together in an iridescent turtle shell crafted from gold, rubies and Ecstasy tablets.

I urge you to go out and buy Fried ASAP (or download it, if you're a cheapie like me). But if you need further convincing, even after that sick Ecstasy/turtle-shell metaphor I just dropped, please enjoy the nonsensical whimsy of Mik Mak Mok and the wistful introspection of Me Singing.

PS: Also buy RAM.

Gangster Elf Eco-Liberation Fashion

I always want to post pictures from the 8 million Lavender Diamond shows I attend quarterly, but then I end up sipping too much dandelion wine and said photos come out all stupid. But here's one, from tonight's Kime Buzzelli benefit, that almost properly shows off Becky Stark's loveliness of attire. This evening Becky wore some gorgeously froofy frock with birds perched upon the neckline, a thriftstore-wedding-gown sort of thing that she deemed a representation of "gangster elf eco-liberation fashion." And the band did a cover of "Wild Thing" by The Troggs, and they were introduced by none other than Cheri Oteri, and life was beautiful. So go listen to some Lavender Diamond songs on your magic computer, and please please please don't forget to show Kime some love.

Two Songs to Kick Off September

1. "Barker of the U.F.O." by the Bee Gees

Some sorry souls don't know that the the third-greatest band of the nineteen-sixties was actually the Bee Gees. Early Bee Gees records sound like a schmaltzier Beatles, only Australian. Their Revolver rips are totally on par with the worse Revolver tracks like And Your Bird Can Sing (which is my boyfriend's favorite Beatles song, incidentally), and they are one of the only bands in history able to make "the ballad" seem interesting to me. My favorite early Bee Gees ballad is Massachusetts. A photograph of my very own copy of the 45 is seen above. It is a beautiful artifact. I would venture to guess that you've unknowingly heard Massachusetts a hundred times before-- I find that it is often playing over loudspeakers in semi-abandoned, once-great suburban shopping malls.
One song you will never hear playing at a semi-abandoned strip mall is Massachusetts' b-side, Barker of the U.F.O. (click the link and go to the weird website to download it; it works!) Conceptually, this is my favorite song of all time (kind of); its emotional vibe is something along the lines of "Lucy in the sky with diamonds gets abducted by aliens". Sonically, Barker of the U.F.O. sounds like one of the jauntier Paul McCartney ditties (Penny Lane; Ob-la-di; Martha My Dear) mixed with a hit single from whoever would be the most popular contemporary rock band in the fictional netherworld of The Jetsons. Now does that sound good or what?

2. "Sympathy for the Devil" by Sandie Shaw

Next up is a song that someone in the universe besides myself will enjoy. Everybody knows that Sympathy for the Devil is the best Rolling Stones song (besides In Another Land, DUH), and, as is usually the case, the only thing better than the real thing is its subverted approximation! Enter Sandie Shaw's 1969 cover of the Stones' classic. Sandie Shaw (pictured above) was a sixties-era cutie-cute English bubblegum poppet type who I guess rebelled from her clean-cut image as the decade matured (another fun fact about Sandie: in the '80s, she was tight with the Smiths). Her cover of Sympathy for the Devil is featured on her 1969 album Reviewing the Situation, which I've never heard in full, but it a) has a really cool album title, and b) has a really aesthetically pleasing album cover.
This song is totally badass. I mean that honestly. It is spastic, or maybe spasmodic-- frenetic in a way that makes me (or you!) feel anxious and unsettled. Somehow Sandie Shaw is able to communicate the true nature of Satan's evil antics with a lot more clarity than Mick Jagger, which is weird. The female vocal makes it fresh and novel.
Also, this is an incredibly cool song. I am actually kind of sad to unleash it upon the world, because I am anticipating that in nine months' time, this song will be featured in the previews to Sofia Coppola and Wes Anderson's new movies, played at Erin Fetherston's latest show, and listed as "What Agyness Denn is listening to" in i-D magazine. Then Devendra Banhart and the Mika Miko girls will collaborate with Sandie Shaw on a brand-new album and it will be the number one record sold at Other Music.
So get in on the trend now, before it's too late and people think you're a lame poser.

From Motor City to Mod in Three Simple Steps

The Marvelettes, originators of the pop music phenomenon I like to call the Scrappy Girl Jam, are far and away my favorite early-'60s girl group. See, the other big Motown girl groups (Martha Reeves, Supremes, etc) are girl groups only in name-- they're not really girls so much as sexy, serious adult women (ew! gross!). But The Marvelettes are total kids; their hits (though jams of course) always have a "we're half-assing it", devil-may-care, laissez-faire semblance about them; like they don't really care either way if they are in a famous band or not, like singing songs is just another way to kill time between jump rope rhymes and shoplifting candy and sneaking contraband cigarettes while cutting class and all that other good stuff. 1965's I'll Keep Holding On is my favorite song by them, click to download. This track is a real single's single: slamming from start to finish, completely danceable, owning this 45 is probably the only reason why I've managed to garner any real esteem as a DJ.

I'll Keep Holding On was renamed I'll Keep On Holding On (for convenience's sake?) by English mod group The Action when they covered it in '66. The Action, signed to EMI by Beatles' producer George Martin in the mid-sixties, are the band that coulda woulda shoulda been the Small Faces (yet no single of theirs even charted;the world is a horrible place). Blue-eyed soul has never sounded so sweet as when it is sung by Action frontman Reg(gie) King. Here is their version of the Marvelettes' track; I personally couldn't choose one over the other, they both achieve and communicate such different things.

Sadly, the story of The Action is a Sad Tragedy. Their shoulda-been-a masterpiece, 1967's melancholic, contemplative Rolled Gold (seriously, just impulse-buy this album right now) is the Lost Classic of all Lost Classics. Inexplicably, this record was shelved and scrapped by EMI, apparently for not being psych-y enough, and went unheard until the demos were re-released on CD in 2002. Yes, it's true, this album is not psychedelic in the least, but whatever, psych totally sucks compared to Rolled Gold (this means a lot, you know, coming from me). This album is way too cerebral and subtle to require the fanciful crutch of psychedelia in any way: it is concerned with real, heavy-hearted emotion, not stupid faux-LSD musings, it is the only rock music I've ever heard that manages to truly connote real compassion (except for the obvious Beatles cuts, Julia, Strawberry Fields, etc). Every song on this album is brilliant and beautiful; one of those rare "all killer, no filler" records.

Because I want you to buy the album off Amazon.com this exact second, I will only tease you with two mp3s: first, the heartbreaking Come Around, one of the moodiest and most effective Track 1s in the history of the long-playing record. And second, here is Brain, commonly acknowledged as the standout, but it doesn't even matter, because they're all standouts. I adamantly recommend listening to this album on headphones while thinking about all the saddest things that have ever happened to you. Reggie King understands. But hey, don't cry too hard.

My Second-Favorite JL of the 1960s

Anyone with even a passing interest in rock music is undoubtedly familiar with the glittering 1970s spectacle that is the Electric Light Orchestra. I don't think I've ever thumbed through a dollar record bin without coming across at least one worse-for-the-wear copy of El Dorado (no link necessary). I think it was either Paul McCartney or my boyfriend who once noted that if the Beatles hadn't broken up, they probably would've turned into ELO Part II.

This statement is easyish for me to digest because of the eternal flame I will always hold for ELO frontman Jeff Lynne, a bona fide auteur of brilliantly (or obnoxiously, depending on your P.O.V) catchy pop music. However, as much as Turn to Stone and Mr. Blue Sky may rule, they don't even come close to hitting the max levels of infectiousness that Lynne conjured up with his late-sixties pre-prog baroque-psych group, The Idle Race.

The Idle Race are the most overlooked and neglected band of the nineteen-sixties. Over time, they have faded into near-complete obscurity but for the inclusion of a couple singles on the Nuggets II compilation (and their ELO connection, of course). In fact, I would venture to guess that I may very well be the biggest Idle Race fan alive today. Which is why I consider it my responsibility to use my blogosphere hook-up as a chance to spread the gospel of these disregarded geniuses (seriously: if I had my way, they would totally swoop in and steal the Who's third-place spot in the Holy Trinity of Sixties British Pop Bands).

The band's first single, Here We Go Round The Lemon Tree (click to download), is one of my favorite songs EVER. Penned by the incomparable Roy Wood (with whom Lynne later collaborated on the first ELO record) and first performed by his band The Move, this is one of those rare cases where the cover version wholly surpasses the original. Lemon Tree is a sugary, juicy summertime anthem: it is music like this that reminds one of precisely why the format of three-minute pop song is so timeless and treasured.

Knocking Nails Into My House (again, click to download) is a weird chompy stomper from early '68, the B-side to the equally contagious Imposters of Life's Magazine (one of their two contributions to Nuggets). This is perhaps the only song in pop music history that deals with the subject matter of having one's house unexpectedly destroyed by a gang of thuggish repo men.

Hurry Up John (click it!!!) is the final track on the band's self-titled second (and last) album. This record is epic, symphonic and lush; its highest moments worthy of the Fab Four themselves (Their first full-length, The Birthday Party, is equally impressive: a concept album about, yes, you guessed it: birthdays. If that's not a rad out-there concept, I don't know what is). This sparkling, hallucinatory soundscape is like lysergic acid diethylamide with zero comedown. Dig it!

Shock, Tick-Tock, Can't Stop With the Body-Rock, etc.

Well, if there's going to be a Beastie Boys revival, I might as well spearhead it.

In celebration of the Great Beastie Boys Revival of Summer '07, please allow me to regale you all with this killer-ly adorable clip of Ad-Rock and co. performing at, um, their high school (?) circa 1983.

ENJOY:

MORE FASHIONCORE

According to style.com, Opti-Grab is the latest band to be beloved by the fashion tribe. File under electro with an 80s-soaked vibe. (Just like everything else, right?)

FASHIONCORE

There are always bands that somehow are mentioned only in fashion magazine: fashion folk seem to like them a lot, but that's pretty much it. Who really has heard Vive La Fete, the electroclash Belgian group that Karl Lagerfeld championed? (Especially when the field is already crowded with Soviet, A.R.E. Weapons, Adult., Fischerspooner and a whole bunch of names that are already soooooo 2002.) Anyway, here is a fashion feature about the Darkness, stadium rockers from England who truly look and dress the part with tight pants, animal prints and long hair that would make Kip Winger truly envious. They're apparently big in the UK, although I don't know if they'll ever hit here - we already have Andrew W.K. to fulfill our stadium rock irony quota. Still, if you've ever longed to be that chick in the Whitesnake video who did the splits on the hood of a car, this may be the lighter for all your metal chick fantasies.

And completely unrelated: a how-to guide on electroclash. File this away for the electroclash revival in 2007.