::: Snowden, "Anti Anti" :::

i just added them to my myspace, so i must have liked them. believe me, i have high standards for which bands get to be my friend. forward russia were another story. even though they were billed as some sort of "crazy frontman" band, i was bored. every song sounded the same. also, they wore matching t-shirts with their band's logo (and reportedly they always do this) and all their songs are named with numbers, after the order in which they were written. shows a lack of creativity, wouldn't you say? i left halfway through their set.

this morning i spent a good 20 minutes clicking through this mitch hedburg quote generator. giggles aplenty, folks. i thought about creating a signature and incorporating one of the quotes into that, but then i realized: i don't do email signatures. next!

the new york state liquor authority is being naughty and banning "christmas beers" with cute labels. what the? this is an outrage! i want my santa's butt winter porter! immediately!

here's a great interview with craig finn, complete with some pretty funny pictures from their shoot for the "chips ahoy" video (which itself contains some serious hilarities). we learn, among other things, that craig has a friend who writes for lost. hey craig, let him know there are still a ton of loose ends, mkay? and tell him if they kill sawyer, there will be hell to pay from catherine's pita. here is my favorite quote from the interview:

"there are a lot of people who are kind of misinformed as to what you are and what you want. There's been a couple instances where people have been like, "Do you want to maybe go to my apartment and maybe smoke some crack?" And I'll be like, "No! And I actually don't think you should either. Is it at all an option for you not to do that? I really recommend not." People are like, "Oh, I thought you might be into that."

by the way, those last two links came from old-school web guy and minneapolite (minneapolitan?) fimoculous, who is compiling a list of year-end lists, including his own top 10 albums list. i seriously could steal so many links from that guy. he sort of makes me realize that hey, there might still be interesting shit on the internet.

so the rumor is that gawker's gonna do a women's magazine blog. huh? this sounds like bad idea jeans to me. some snarky chick making fun of the women's mags? isn't that gonna get old after about two visits?

this is rich: racist michael richards, according to his oh-so-effective PR agent, "feels he is jewish. that is what he'd like to be." yeah, and i'd like to be a millionaire.

like miss modernage, i have finally, just 12 days ago, joined the netflix revolution, and i have now logged hours, literally, rating movies, adding movies to my queue, inspecting my netflix friends' queues and ratings, fucking refreshing the friends page so i can take more quizzes about my friends' favorite movies, and on and on. i mean, i sorta had nothing better to do since my first two dvds never arrived, possibly due to an evil mailman who has thrown mail on the concrete outside my door at least once. um, hello? would you just fling netflix dvds on the damn ground for any passing meanie to steal? i have since put up a sad little file folder with my name on it in the vestibule where my mailbox is, for which no one has the key. this is why the folder. in an ideal world i would like a "picasso" mailbox to throw up there, or even t his swedish one (from mahvelous mailboxes), but i'm morally opposed to paying over a hundred bucks for a mailbox so i'll be going economy style. if i do get a mailbox. anyway: let's be netflix friends! or at least you can recommend me some movies. i have a ton of documentaries; need smart comedies (please, no will ferrell vehicles). to the comments with you!

i spent thanksgiving as i do every year: eating turkey at the farm, as we call it (not accurately). unlike every year, however, my brothers and i did not then race off to my dad's for a second turkey dinner, as he had apparently motored off (not jetted) to one of the carolinas. somewhat disappointing, this singular feast, but better for the waistline. instead we played a couple of contentious games of scrabble. i played "nongeeky" and was met with much disapproval from family members who played the likes of "uh" and "ah." back me up here, reader! we also turned to youtube instead of the boob tube for our entertainment. this crazy dog was a real crowd-pleaser.

friday night i convinced steve (seen here being ridiculous a couple years ago) to drive me back up to the city and go see the hold steady at maxwell's. tiny club, great band, how can you go wrong? it was a fun show, but i don't really looooove the new album like i have their others, and so: maybe not so much on the concert nirvana tip. jami is correct when she says their vibe is a little too happy; craig finn smiles a lot more than he sneers these days. apparently they're also taking a page from the dismemberment plan's playbook with the whole invite the entire audience up on the stage with you trick. they only got two dudes on stage friday night, but they let them play their instruments, which i could have done without. i mean, tad is a really good guitar player, yet i had to hear nothing but bass for two minutes while this dude tried to figure shit out. i dunno; i am probably just an old fart. okay, i am definitely an old fart: i also skipped seeing bobby bare jr. and centromatic about a week ago because i didn't feel like standing around the mercury lounge for three hours. i ended up sitting on my duff with a few friends at buttermilk; that worked much better for me. the brooklynization continues....

saturday was a do-nothing day, and yesterday i finally planted my spring bulbs in the garden and went running in prospect park. a whopping 3.3 miles! carl even suggested that we get on a marathon-training schedule, which is hilarious and intriguing at the same time. but maybe i should just aim to be a runner, or at least a person who runs sometimes, before i start thinking about marathonning.

do you like lists? blogger information leafblower does, so much so that he did his top 40 american bands list again this year, soliciting the participation of cutting-edge tastemakers such as myself. for some reason it seems to get people riled up. anyway, everyone was asked to make a list of the ten bands we covered the most on our blogs in 2006. i did mine scientifically, by counting up the number of significant references and excluding rhett miller (because let's face it, he sucks now, and we can prove that). my rather predictable list, for the record, with the ones that made the list starred, went like this:

the hold steady*
bob pollard
oneida
sonic youth*
sleater kinney*
the thermals*
home
oakley hall (also my pick for best local band)
yeah yeah yeahs
jenny lewis

so, there you have it (or some other cliche indicating that sign-off is imminent). are you all doing well? why don't you ever send me stuff to link to so i can keep this biotch alive? otherwise you'll just have to settle for my posts on fashion binge. get on over there; i know you love mittens!

so i was taken out to a business lunch last week, to keens steakhouse, and i ordered the "legendary" mutton chop. everyone seemed fairly impressed with my moxie. (yes, moxie.) there were also lots of exclamations when the chop arrived about its size. i was sort of afraid i was going to acquire the nickname "mutton chop." didn't happen though. also, mutton is tasty! and it's a mature sheep, in case you didn't know. i didn't. they also had "berry bibble" on the menu. good times.

bob pollard! i saw bob pollard last night! his hair was looking quite fluffy, i could not stop thinking most of the night. he was wasted (big surprise!), whereas i amazingly stuck to a strict $20 beer budget. i still reached concert nirvana a few times. brian espoused the theory that this is how gbv shows always went: you tolerate the new stuff in the beginning, rock out to the interspersed old favorites, and then when the encore comes it's so good that you forget how bad it was in the beginning. i laughed my ass off about that one. it's a little harsh but i know where he's coming from. there were a few points last night where i had to issue a "crappy song alert," but actually the new pollard solo stuff sounded really amazingly good live. other random thoughts: the new guitarist and bassist look like pretty-boy twins. and this girl, i gleaned from eavesdropping, is following the band on this tour. she's got a picture of trader vic, aka the bartender at the final show, caught in the madness, as well as some other great pics. i soooo need a new camera.

and folks, if you don't have "from a compound eye," you're missing out. "normal happiness" is the newie, the one that's supposedly the two-minute pop songs, the one you can stream on merge. they both came out in 2006, and they're both good albums, but "compound eye," the double album, is quite simply the shit. and i'm right now listening to a fading captain release by the keene brothers, called blues and boogie shoes, featuring bob and his current stage-right-hand man, guitarist tommy keene, and it is rocking my little basement quite awesomely! it's such bright-sounding pop-rock, i love it. pollard does put out so much product that it's hard to keep up, but i'm telling you: seek this out. i'll let you know when i've digested his other side project releases, the takeovers (with the last gbv bassist, chris slusarenko) and psycho and the birds. or maybe i won't. i still haven't picked up any circus devils releases, after all...and this gothamist interview with bob reveals we crazy superfans can look forward to a "best of" fading captain series, another takeovers album, a second comedy album (oh boy), another acid ranch album, and his next solo album, "silverfish trivia" (from which he played many songs last night). amazing, no? my gbv "sire," if you will, pete bothum, also interviewed bob and goaded him into taking a little bit of a shot at the hold steady. note he didn't say he didn't like them. they ARE the new gbv, after all (who's going to the pre-turkey day show at warsaw??). anyway, take a listen....

::: The Keene Brothers, "Heaven's Gate" ::: they've got kind of a melancholy song as the official mp3 ("death of the party"), which i think is a mistake. i DARE you tell me this song doesn't rule the big school! not just for completists, i swear!

::: The Takeovers, "Fairly Blacking Out" ::: good choice on this one, though. this rocked live.

::: Robert Pollard, "The Right Thing" ::: this is the song i achieved highest concert nirvana on. it's off "from a compound eye," and it's one of my favorite bob songs in years. i've probably highlighted it here before.

::: Robert Pollard, "Supernatural Car Lover" ::: totally the hit off "normal happiness."

all right, i've nerded out long enough. now it's time to go nerd out some more with my copy of Guided by Voices: A Brief History: Twenty-one Years of Hunting Accidents in the Forest of Rock and Roll" on my new red ultrasuede couch, while i wait for my boyfriend to cook me pasta. oh yes, it's a good night, folks. hasta.

northsix is being bought by bowery presents, the company that owns the mercury lounge, bowery ballroom, and webster hall (two out of three of my favorite venues in the city). they're renovating the club, putting in balconies, and reopening it as (drum roll please)...the music hall of williamsburg. why such a dumb name, i wonder? can we all agree to just keep calling it northsix?

george bush "occasionally" likes to use "the google." funny.

tuesday
as planned, i did halloween stuff. dressed up as little dead riding hood, hit elisabeth's parade-watching party, and proceeded with jami to the flavorpill halloween party, where we jumped on couches and rubbed people with inappropriate vibrating objects found on the floor. i think we may have seen css play. if so, they sucked. i think their album is pretty fun, though (listen to some).

wednesday
the next night i got an early start. i'd actually taken wednesday through friday off, partly so i'd be rested enough to do it up right and partly because i needed to take the days and why not. so i decided to check out someone still loves you boris yeltsin at pianos at 6:30. i didn't really know their music too well but knew mr. catbirdseat had put out a record by them, and i respect that dude, so i wanted to check them out. i can't say i loved them. they played nice, safe indie rock. i can say they were cute, though.

::: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, "House Fire" :::

after that it was over to fontana's, which gets my vote for most enjoyed venue of cmj, for swearing at motorists. this is two guys from dayton, one a crazily charismatic frontman/guitarist who jumps around all over the place and generally just fucking brings it, and a rather morose drummer who looks miserable to be there but plays those drums in a really graceful way that makes it look like he's dancing. they are amazing.

i could listen to dave doughman, aforementioned frontman, sing the phone book, so rich is his voice. he recorded a bunch of songs off the band's latest album solo in a berlin subway station in the wee hours, because he liked the sound he got when he was busking there, and he's made those tracks available for free download—but only till election day. that's tomorrow! grab 'em now!

::: Swearing at Motorists, "Northern Line" :::

i then attempted to get into dr. dog at bowery ballroom: no dice. no big. i proceeded to magnetic field but mussels were done. and the band after them was done too. oh well. bedtime.

thursday
i had the overly optimistic idea that if we got there early enough, we could get into the subpop showcase. aiming to get there by 7 o'clock, when the first band went on, carl and i got held up by some sesame pancakes at dumpling house and didn't roll up till about 7:40. no badges. i wonder how many they let in...25? if that? whatever. the shins suck live anyway, and the thermals were playing again the next day. so we cabbed up to R&R in the hopes of seeing mellowdrone, who sound sorta like their name might imply. he was scheduled to go on at 9. we get there, suffer through this terrible scottish band called driveblind, whose name made me giggle because it reminded me of driveshaft, the band that charlie from lost was in before he crashed on the island.

when the next band, skybox, went on, i went and asked the bartender whether mellowdrone weren't supposed to be playing. he said another band had cancelled and mellowdrone were up next. okay. we had another $18 round and watched the now-sizable crowd dance giddily to their theatrical, quirky pop. not bad. then the third band took forever to start setting up, and the between-bands music was repeating itself. when a certain red hot chili peppers song came on for the second time, carl stood up and started freaking out and we had to leave. i was with him. on the way out, i asked the door girl what happened to mellowdrone. she said they'd cancelled. no signs, no announcements. WTF?? bullshit. i guess i will continue to enjoy the recordings and never see him live.

::: Mellowdrone, "Fashionably Uninvited" :::

pissed off, we cabbed down to tribeca to meet up with our peeps. we saw a nintendo band called megaband at the tank. they played along to a projection of a dude playing some nintendo game. they weren't really my bag. but carl made me laugh by pumping my arms in the air like i was.

we then walked over to the knitting factory for 60s band blue cheer, a carl pick. i unfortunately was flagging by this point, and not feeling so hot. i bailed. the next day i received emails from carl containing the following raves: "Blue Cheer were SO GOOD!!" and "totally great WILL NOT be documented in photos." no, but it never is, right? here are a couple shots anyway:

friday
i wake up completely sick. felt like i had a golf ball in my throat. worst! i manage to pull myself together enough to head over to the thermals show at fontana's, part of brooklyn vegan's ambitious series of day shows requiring no badge, no list bullshit, cheap drinks, and surprisingly good bands. i must give vegan his proper respects: shit was impressive. amazingly, at 4:00 the space wasn't packed to the gills considering the lineup. the oxford collapse warmed us up with an energetic set that was most exciting when it included saxophone. they're good at what they do. recommended if you like "oh-wee-oh-wee-ohhhh" sounds. check this video of my favorite song off their newest album, remember the night parties: "please visit your national parks". then it was time for the thermals, one of our era's most awesome bands (and they're only getting better). they almost made me cry, they were so good. powerful, catchy, rockin'. they've got the sound, AND they've got the songs“a rare combo. concert nirvana was achieved.

::: The Thermals, "A Pillar of Salt" :::

my sweet boyfriend then spirited me back to his place to make me chicken soup while i rested up. i felt like ass but had to go see home play as part of the "brahloween 2" brah records showcase at tonic. it was a great time in there, with a significant number of people in costumes, including a tin woman. here's a dude in a ghost costume rocking out to home:

i've documented my love of home and their sixteenth record about sex, sexteen, before. if you missed it just listen to this song:

::: Home, "Bubble" :::

we briefly caught rahim at pianos; didn't like 'em. what happened to their angularity? frenchkiss records is not impressing me these days. we headed over to catch cloud cult (playing again tonight at the knitting factory) at the mercury lounge. door guy says no badges, but they may let people in at 1 am. it's about 10. the line is down the block in the freezing cold! for albert hammond jr.! seriously? whatever. back to tonic. oakley hall still absolutely rules, taking americana to glorious heights. no two songs sound the same. see them live if you can. ask no questions, just go. they're playing this friday at mercury lounge for ten bucks.

::: Oakley Hall, "Lazy Susan" :::

saturday
i got six inches of my hair chopped off, then packed in with the other hipster sardines at bv's annex show. tokyo police club played a mercifully short set. they sound like a million other bands, but somehow got the kids a'clappin'. i got the hell out of there, dropped in at gothamist house, realized urgent need for food. recharged in brooklyn with a big fat cheeseburger, then headed back into the city for the fall.

or rather, two other bands, then a retarded video-art thing, then the fall. i liked the oh-sees. they were groovy. the fall totally knocked me out though. i was in the bathroom when they came on, and the attendant lady was asking me, "what kind of music is this? is this punk rock?" she said this with her face a bit scrunched up, as if she had smelled something unpleasant (which i suppose is an occupational hazard). i told her yeah, sort of, but it also made me want to dance. and oh my god, i so needed to go dance! i have had people try to convert me to the fall before, and i have become somewhat of a fan (i dig the repetition), but nothing has made me a believer till this show. i was a nonstop motion machine. and this is a postpunk band helmed by a guy who looks like my dad crossed with kurt loder crossed with gollum from lord of the rings. VERY C.R.E.E.P.Y., PEOPLE! but also pretty awesome. he's sing-speaking these largely unintelligible but also quite funny lines over this impossibly groovy backbeat, and he's like 80 years old and all these crazy fall fans around me are going nuts. they only played 30 minutes, then abruptly left the stage, never to return, but oh my god, those were the best 30 minutes of music i saw all cmj. hands down. i was not disappointed. they're playing studio b in greenpoint monday night; it's $20 and as one fan said, "fall tickets should come with odds," so unpredictable are their shows, but you should totally go. as one homemade t-shirt proclaimed, "before there was franz ferdinand, there was the fall, bitches."

::: The Fall, "Mountain Energei" :::

::: The Fall, "Theme from Sparta F.C." :::

we then cabbed over to bowery. i approached the door guy, who's recognized me as a regular before, and tried a little charm on him, donning my cutest smile: "now, i've been here three times in four nights. am i gonna get in with my badge tonight?" he was all business: "no badges. we may let you in if you wait behind those two people." i don't wait, so carl and i walked off and began discussing the plan of action. but then the other door guy yelled down the street: "hey, you two! you have badges? you can come in." okaaaay. so we got to see priestess, an all-right heavy-metal band who treated us to the only spotlit, flashing-lights, only-guy-on-stage drum solo i've ever seen. it was ridiculous. in a good way. and then diamond nights: solid fun. not life-changing, or even thought-provoking, but good fun. good tunes. and that was the end of cmj.

so, the final score was four great sets, with the fall and the thermals getting an A++ in my book and swearing at motorists and oakley hall each earning an A. and now, i must admit that i am somewhat relieved cmj is over. it was very fun but i'm not used to rocking out on a nightly basis anymore! someone fetch me my geritol...pita out.

p.s. if you want more coverage, i like subinev's, stereogum's (the hold steady played and no one told me?!!), pitchfork's, and of course vegan's.