::: Sham 69, "Questions and Answers" ::: jack rabid says that they are "the godfathers of Oi!" (exclamation point apparently part of the genre's name, which is pretty awesome). i will now go kill myself to escape my snot.

the bachelorette party for eileen occurred this past weekend, with an additional "surprise" shower element that wasn't quite carried out to my high standards. but whatevs, as the french say. we drank champagne, ate cupcakes encrusted with candy penises, and danced to 80s hits when we weren't getting our eardrums blasted by the fake journey. which is just what regular single girls do when they want to get wild and crazy, so it was a fitting last debaucherous night of singlehood for the lovely eileen before she gets married to the only slightly less lovely jesse next month in cape cod.

so bob pollard played his first solo show in new york last night. now, i've heard a lot of cynical noise about how guided by voices "never existed," and it was always bob, and bob with a band of guys backing him up is what guided by voices was. but i have to say that that is bullshit, because although this was a great show, and i danced and got drunk and loved the songs, it was not a guided by voices show. i just didn't really give a shit about those other dudes up there on stage at all. they were kind of like bizarro-seinfeld versions of the real band members. but they sounded good, and, you know, i danced and yelled and drank beer and talked to my peeps (you are totally allowed to talk at a gbv show because it's so loud; it's a beautiful thing), and concert nirvana was achieved. uh, especially during the gbv encore. some of the new shit (off of normal happiness, which isn't out yet) sounded really good. and my favorite song off of from a compound eye, "the right thing," rocked pretty hard. i enjoyed myself. one complaint: why does bob pollard's merch suck so much? no girl shirts at all, and the boy shirts were just dumb. talked about piss buckets, i believe. nice. for kicks, because there weren't many high kicks from bob (boo), here is a picture of bob knitting. he's pretty old, kids. but he still rocks!

in tribute to bob, the PUNK SONG OF THE WEEK is by guided by voices. bob always espoused the four p's: pop, prog, punk, and psych. usually they are combined in glorious fashion, but the most through-and-through punk song i could think of is this one. well, these two, which are situated back to back on arguably my favorite gbv album, propellor:

::: Guided By Voices, "Lethargy" :::

::: Guided By Voices, "Unleashed! The Large-Hearted boy" :::

you know how sometimes you think you know a person and then some totally weird fact comes out about them and you're like, the hell? here are two i discovered yesterday: 1) randi hecht HATES the word "fuck," and does not use it! for real! i don't get it. it's only the best curse word ever! this disturbs me, this development. 2) kurt eats these ridiculous frozen peanut butter and jelly ufo-shaped "sandwiches"! wtf is that? dude, make a pb 'n' j! you can do it, i promise!

the new hearst building sounds sweeeet. sushi five days a week! on-site gym! sign my ass up!

this is a fairly hilarious email exchange between a spammer and a man who agrees that yes, he would like to adopt two deaf children from the UK and receive a pile of money. [thank you leanne. i wish you still had a website.]

okay, i don't know what these ladies are talking about, but the end result is truly shocking: punched in the face! violence, kids. it's not pretty. [thank you tricia mcd, for that feel-bad video]

cute, funny, fucked-up cards: the best kind.

on that note, me out! i have a weekend of fun bachelorette activities planned. check back monday for pics of tiaras and shit.

big congrats to my dad, who became an american citizen this week after 36 years and 15 days in this country. that is a picture of my dad up there at a yankee game, flanked by a very happy-looking stranger. i wanted to find a picture of my dad waving an american flag or somesuch, which was not out of the question since he "collects fourth of julys," usually traveling to some random small town and participating in their parade or whatever. not that he's patriotic. i asked him about this seemingly major event and he said it had "no emotional importance" to him and that he believes that as a species we will evolve past the concept of nations. he did it for tax reasons. AND YET. dad called me fresh off his successful interrogation somewhere in the city of newark, new jersey, where he had been asked the number of amendments in the constitution and who wrote the star-spangled banner, which was a delightful surprise, as he was then able to SING THE ANSWER along to the tune of the star-spangled banner, thusly: "mr. francis scott KEY!" in his bellowing english accent. my dad's a little goofy.

speaking of goofiness, i get it from both parents. my mom made these surreal cupcakes this past weekend for easter. those are supposed to be bunny ears wedged into the top of the cupcakes. she also made a batch with butterfly wings. here is a pic of the wackiness:

everybody should go watch this video of a kid opening a nintendo 64 back in the day: OH MY GOD NINTENDO 64!!!!!

what else... well, i've been listening to new music lately at a furious pace, so how about another edition of BUZZ OR BUNZ? here we go....

islands, "return to the sea." this is the new band by two-thirds of the unicorns, a wacky canadian band i never really checked out. i believe they involved peanut butter sandwiches in their early performances. this is pretty happy-go-lucky pop, this, but sort of wacked-out. lotsa fun instrumentation going on; it never gets dull. they've got four songs on their myspace page; go listen. "rough gem" especially makes me want to dance around. i've been told this is actually better than the unicorns record, which i now want to get. like pavement? bet you'll dig this. verdict: MUCHO BUZZ!

deadboy and the elephantmen, "we are night sky." read about this one in magazines (not blogs; can you believe it?!) and was intrigued. they do in fact sound sorta like the white stripes and queens of the stone age (the dude has a metal background), but they intersperse those heavy, catchy riff-rockers with quiet acoustic numbers that are by no means gay. i know, high praise. they talk about raining skulls and seem serious about it, which, i dunno. but somehow i like. verdict: LOTS OF LOW-END BUZZ.

::: Deadboy and the Elephantmen, "How Long the Night Was" :::

also, do you think i have the best boyfriend ever? last night carl made me orzo with tomaoes and feta cheese, and it was pure deliciousness. and today we had lunch in bryant park under the hot sun and he brought huge-ass cannolis. if i didn't know better i would think he is trying to fatten me up. speaking of delicious, i just discovered the beauty of old speckled hen beer. it might officially be my favorite beer, even (supplanting bud light). two bucks at the 12-inch, too, i believe. happy hour, anyone?

okay, that's all i got for today. happy national high-five day, fourtwenty day, and bob pollard day, everyone!

it's a little late for a weekend roundup, huh? well, let me just say, because i have to, that the hold steady show at the warsaw was one of the best i've ever seen them put on. they were on fire, and so was the crowd. someone even crowd-surfed, at which i tsked. they played a few new songs, at least one of which was fully awesome and made me say to myself, "i need to remember [some thing] about this song," but needless to say, after several polish beers i did not remember. i do remember jami going on about how the hold steady is the new guided by voices (a claim i've heard before but didn't really believe could be the truth until friday) -- the rock poses, the amped-up lead-singer performances, the crowd's devotion. and, uh, the drinking. people were there to party. and it was seriously the most fun i've had at a show in a long time. oh, and i need to mention the copious amounts of MERCH available. now that they are on vagrant, the hold steady seemingly have a huge sweatshirt budget. and not just sweatshirts either (one of which, a hoodie, said "hoodrat" and which i would have purchased if that wasn't my absolute least favorite song), but tons of t-shirts (long and short sleeves, of kind of ehhh design quality), and buttons, and my favorite, BEER COZIES. or koozies as they spelled them. with straight-edge Xes on them. how ironic! anyway. i think i've rambled long enough.

is it friday yet? where was i? oh yeah, weekend report. the next day i was underwhelmed by thank you for smoking (the opening credits were the best part) and then went to the 11th street bar to celebrate with randi and the peeps for her birthday. that's my hand proudly clutching my hold steady beer cozy/koozie. after several beers, carl and i left to go get tasty midnight snacks and check out the heartless bastards show at the mercury lounge. i really like the heartless bastards. the chick's voice is so rich and huge, and they play catchy, bluesy, fully awesome rock. check it:

::: The Heartless Bastards, "Onions"

::: The Heartless Bastards, "New Resolution"

neither of us cared for the soledad brothers' shtick, so we left after a while. i believe carl pronounced it "fakey."

a little thing i can't help but noticing and loving: catherine's pita announced her extremely belated entree to the glorious world of myspace on march 31. coolfer did the same a couple weeks later, on april 11. and on april 13, stereogum got in the game. coinkydink? i think not! the conclusion is clear: i totally started this myspace trend! and neither one of those biters links to me!

in answer to my previous question, yes, it is friday. thus it is time for the PUNK SONG OF THE WEEK! it comes to us from the buzzcocks album "singles going steady," which allmusic informs us has themes of "motivation," "cool & cocky" (what?) and my personal favorite, "TGIF." uhhh, okay. i picked a less-obvious song, one that hasn't been sold to a car company (i think). without further ado, here's today's PSOTW:

::: Buzzcocks, "Autonomy" :::

::: Buzzcocks, "Boredom" ::: this bonus song might be useful if it's, say, 4:30 on a friday afternoon when many people have off and you are just waiting for the cogs to stop grinding so you can go get on the bus to new jersey. at least that's how i'm hearing it right now.

PUNK SONG OF THE WEEK! like last week, we've got a UK punk band with a female singer who only survived for a couple of years and only had one real album. they play nice and fast and have funny lyrics and yada yada yada. this song by the rezillos pretty well represents my friday-afternoon attitude and as such is kind of a perfect punk song of the week.

::: The Rezillos, "Glad All Over" :::

::: The Rezillos, "(My Baby Does) Good Sculptures" ::: and this is a bonus song, because i love you.

moving on to something i promised you last week: more music talk. it's time for another edition of BUZZ OR BUNZ, yay! this is my version of album reviews of recent shit (pun intended). here we go:

the raconteurs, "broken boy soldiers." so jack white and brendan benson, beatles lovers both, in one band. not a bad way to spend 33 minutes, this album. the single, "steady as she goes," is flat-out awesome and head and shoulders above any other song. i listened to this thing about four times in a couple days, and even though there are some duddish moments, and i frankly didn't care enough to forsake my beloved hold steady for their instantly sold-out third-show-ever (or something) at irving plaza tonight, i think i will be listening to it quite a bit. verdict: MILD BUZZ.

the yeah yeah yeahs, "show your bones." this is a decidedly softened version of the amped-up rawk they used to put out, and it's only a little bit disappointing. i mean, i love the karen o howl as much as the next person, but i also love that she's expressing herself in a more vulnerable, and yet more confident, way. the music is sparer, so it doesn't quite rock as much, but it does let her voice shine through. and i never really thought about what an interesting voice she has. i really love singing that "something like a phenomena baby" line; i just wish she knew that the singular is actually "phenomenon." stupid rock stars. verdict: BUZZ!

band of horses, "everything all the time." hey, do you like my morning jacket? cause if so, you're going to love this album, as it sounds exactly like them. it's a pretty good bet that a lot of music critics will use the word "shimmering" to describe them. luckily, i like my morning jacket and shimmery music. verdict: BUZZ!

hot chip, "the warning." i heard this was supposed to be good stoned music. it turned out to be horrific bloopy, dancey shite! by track two on my first (and second) listens, i had to turn it off. forcing myself through, i found that not all of it was that offensive (some of the songs may be good for the gym, or for, like, sleeping on the beach in miami), but overall, it is still crap. who is responsible for the good press this band is getting? verdict: four turds out of five. BUNZ!

you learn something every day. today i learned the number of calories burned per hour for several common activities. i now plan to incorporate more of the following into my life: sexual activity with moderate effort (88), butchering animals (408), spiritual dancing in church (340), felling trees (544), reclining with a baby (102), sitting on the toilet (68). booya.

have a good weekend, kids. we out!

brother steve sent me this heartwarming (and let's face it, hilarious) video of a happy little two-legged dog who walks around like a human. incredible.

dudes, bob pollard is opening up for pearl jam! only two dates, in pittsburgh and cincinnati, but still. i think the apocalypse is coming....

highly bloggable weekend, folks, as you can see above. carlito and i took a walk to red hook on saturday afternoon, stopping in cute little shops on the other side of the BQE (who knew?!) along the way. it can be a bit desolate down there -- we were menaced by at least two scary dogs -- but the jaunt was otherwise extremely pleasant, especially when we got to the water. and the key lime pies! there is this little shop on a pier that sells only key lime pies, and they are delish. you need to get one immediately! i wasn't even sure i liked key lime pies, but oh my god. now i am sure. we wanted to get our drink on at sunny's, but it was not open (though hosting a reading with thomas beller the following afternoon), sadly. so we stopped in at hope and anchor, a cute little diner, for a drink, followed by another one and some subpar pulled pork at kitschy bbq joint pioneer bar-b-q. i sort of felt like i was not in new york, and it was a good feeling. sunday we walked around dumbo, with the specific mission of seeing this crazy new england-lookin' house on a rolling green hill. with young children carousing barefoot. in dumbo! very odd. and then carl crocker decided he wanted to bring a marinade to holly's house and so we purchased vast quantities of healthy vegetables and fatty sausages and proceeded to grill them in her backyard. and so, in sum: a LOVELY spring weekend.

here is a video of a lady going crazy on "trading spouses." she keeps screaming about the "dark side" but it sounds like she's saying "dork side"....please watch it. she's insane!

yeah yeah yeahs at the 9:30 club is available for download from your friends at npr. [via whitney]