The sound was characterized by power chords, gritty vocals and manic drums. Think of the early hits by The Kinks, The Who, The Small Faces and you ll know what I m talking about. /p p Enter The Makes Nice, a San Francisco-based trio that draws upon the influence of those seminal bands on their debut CD, Candy Wrapper And Twelve Other Songs.
With 13 songs clocking in at 31:30, the CD hurries by at a blistering pace, with only one song breaking the three-minute mark. But The Makes Nice replaces the brash snottiness of their influences with sweet pop melodies and harmonies, so the result sounds less like the first two records by The Jam and more like early-90s Boston popsters The Cavedogs. Try to imagine Big Star s Radio City album but with vocals by The Byrds.
/p p All three musicians; guitarist Josh Smith, bassist Aaron Burnham, and drummer Jack Matthew are exceptional musicians who negotiate the off-beat changes with aplomb. Smith rips off a number of hot solos while Matthew pounds away with the gleeful intensity of Keith Moon. Like most power pop bands, the lead vocals could be a little more precise, but they tend to sort themselves out by the time the harmonies kick in.
Anyway, that s just nitpicking when you re dealing with songs that are as fun to listen to as this. /p p It s a whole new month in The Listening Room. What a perfect excuse to refresh your iPods with some new music.
Perfect may be overstating things a bit. It is as much an excuse as I would ever need. Do you need some suggestions?
We ve got them. /p p These may not be the best songs ever, they may not even be our favorites, but they kept us entertained last week. You could do worse than to try a few of them out and see what they do for you.
br / /p p I was i very /i late to the Pulp party, to the point where I am only now buying their proper albums. I have been listening to i This is Hardcore /i and i We Love Life /i over and over. I recently got a copy of the UK-only solo album from frontman Jarvis Cocker, i Jarvis /i as well as Pulp s i Different Class /i (Deluxe Edition).
/p p Among the many wonderful songs on i Jarvis /i is a song I am now claiming as my official mantra for a new political party I am forming. It s a little lefty for me but it reflects my anti-authority leanings. The BBC banned this song.
It should also be noted, friends, that it uses a word that means very different things in the US and the UK. Jarvis is using it in the UK sense. br / /p p A.
Hathaway: ldquo;Machine rdquo; from i Awake /i by Josh Groban br / br / Guilty pleasure week. Actually, I haven t been listening to anything until Friday night. But, I put the song on repeat and listened to it five or six times so maybe that makes up for Sunday through Thursday.
br / br / A departure from what he usually belts. Has much more of a pop feel to the song. A little fast paced.
I didn t like it at first, but as this type of thing usually goes, it grew on me. I know Josh Groban isn t for everyone. Well, unless you are female and between the ages of 12 and 55.
I have a feeling most people, fan or not, wouldn t like this song -- but I do. So there! br / br / a href="/writer/pico" Pico /a : Draconian Blump from i Nonkertompf /i by Mike Keneally br / br / Out of a true grab bag of spontaneous, totally instrumental ideas -- songs makes it sound too well-formed -- comes a track that s highly reminiscent of Miles i In A Silent Way /i -era experimentations.
It s more amazing when you consider that this wasn t a bunch of seasoned musicians getting together to bounce ideas off each other; Keneally played all the instruments and dubbed them together. While Mike is better known as a shredder (he was a stunt guitarist for Zappa), his guitar here is pure pre-Mahavishnu John McLaughlin. Not even Johnny Mac himself plays such incisive guitar like that anymore and it s a pity.
br / br / It ends all too abruptly at four minutes; you wouldn t expect Davis trumpet to enter for another six or seven minutes. br / br / a href="/writer/mat_brewster" Mat Brewster /a : ldquo;California Stars rdquo; from i Mermaid Avenue /i by Billy Bragg and Wilco br / br / I spent most of this past week lying on my back, with a nasty stomach virus. My mind was too fuzzy to read, and daytime television makes me nauseated on healthy days, so I spent some very quality time with the iPod.
br / br / The entire Billy Bragg/Wilco collaboration is a marvelous, eclectic thing And with it rsquo;s dreamy lyrics and bright pillowy music, how could I not listen to ldquo;California Stars rdquo; ad repetum? It just makes you i feel /i better. br / br / a href="/writer/lisa_mckay" Lisa McKay /a : (I Love The Sound Of) Breaking Glass from i Basher /i by Nick Lowe br / br / I first became aware of Nick Lowe via his role as producer of some of Elvis Costello s best albums (including the flawless i This Year s Model /i ) and the author of (What s So Funny Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding , one of Costello s signature tunes that remains a staple of his live performances.
In his own right, Lowe, with his roots in Brit pub rock, is a master of the three-minute pop song. This album is a really nice survey of the highlights of Lowe s career from the mid- 70s through the 80s. Full of brisk, incisive, and often humorous lyrics hung on catchy hooks, this is pop music at its unsentimental and uncomplicated best.
i Basher /i contains a whopping 25 tunes, and there s not a loser among them. This track is one of my favorites. br / br / a href="http://www.
lookoutforhope.com" Tom Johnson /a : I See You from i Here /i by Adrian Belew br / br / A coworker of mine has a band that has set out with a specific goal: to avoid the influence of the Beatles. Obviously, he can t be the first musician to attempt such a thing, but it s a noble effort.
I just wonder if it really matters. br / br / It doesn t matter to my daughter, that s for sure. Driving along one day, with Adrian Belew s 1994 masterpiece i Here /i playing, I looked in mirror to find her gently swaying to this oh-so-Beatlesesque tune.
In her big car seat, she rocked from side to side while gazing out the rear windows to the sound of Adrian and his spot-on Lennon imitation. br / br / So, no, I m not convinced it matters if a band is obviously copping from the Beatles ndash; and, in fact, sometimes the world just needs more of that. br / br / a href="/writer/michael_jones" Michael Jones /a : Nothing Left Inside from i My War /i by Black Flag br / br / Nothing Left Inside is slow, churning, and brutally raw.
While I m a huge fan of Henry Rollins and the varied incarnations of the Rollins Band, I don t think he has ever bested the slow ponderous inferno of emotions that he wore on his sleeve during the recording of My War. br / br / Nothing Left Inside sounds like what I d imagine a therapy session for a child of Black Sabbath and the Misfits would sound like..
. That s if you could ever contain such a child long enough to get it to sit down and talk to someone, as opposed to kneeling down in the middle of the street and growling at the world. br / br / Great song from a band that imploded way too soon.
br / br / a href="/writer/Brian_Garrepy" Brian Garrepy /a : 500 Channels from i No Gods, No Managers(1999) /i by Choking Victim br / br / Spawned not only from listening to Choking Victim for a good portion of the week but also from an excerpt from Bill O Reily s radio show on 96.9 Talk as well as an article posted on this here website; a href="/archives/2007/02/27/091417.php" Citizen Fish /a , i 500 Channels /i Is a powerful and catchy track that attacks the ideology of narcissism and low self-esteem.
Or in layman s terms, Highs and Lows to the extreme. br / br / But, not to exclude their overall message about corruption and the evil that lies in this country s power to oppress the masses with war and greed and constant references to drugs. Also, let s not forget that it may also imply that your local cable company sucks and that watching that many channels can ultimately lead you to having a shallow existence.
br / br / Now, Don t get me wrong, I love the Choking Victim! Their music was impressive, especially for a scene that was about to be watered down with all the mainstream pop-punk. But, I don t necessarily subscribe to all their beliefs and that s fine because music isn t always about following trends or leaders.
br / br / a href="/writer/ian_woolstencroft" Ian Woolstencroft /a : Yakuza Girls from i The Last Wave Of Summer /i by Cold Chisel br / br / Some bands get back together merely to make a ton of cash and no doubt this was also a consideration when Australian rockers Cold Chisel reunited to produce The Last Wave of Summer in 1995. Still the ensuing album can hold its head up high in the company of classics like Circus Animals and East. br / br / Of course it would still have been a worthwhile venture if the only decent song produced was this crude, lewd stomper.
While not the greatest song they rsquo;ve ever recorded, its 2min 25sec of blistering rock is the kind of thing Jimmy Barnes was born to bawl out. br / br / It transports us to a sleazy bar and gives us the guided tour; you rsquo;ll enjoy the visit (although you may want to get checked out by the doctor afterwards). ldquo;Who rsquo;s that haulin rsquo; on a rubber glove/Yakuza girls and their lookin rsquo; for love rdquo; so you rsquo;d better beware these ldquo;chicks of doom rdquo;.
br / br / a href="/writer/cara_de_pescado" Cara de Pescado /a : Dirty Magazine from i More B.S. /i by Bree Sharp br / br / Bree Sharp doesn rsquo;t have the world rsquo;s most refined voice, but that is what makes ldquo;Dirty Magazine rdquo; so much fun.
She sings ldquo;some girls got class and some girls got dreams rdquo; but all she wants is to ldquo;be in a dirty magazine. rdquo; Something about her slight twang and rawness in her voice adds to her embracing her inner white trash with the attitude of a bad girl doing what she wants. The catchy beat and sophisticated yet witty lyrics make ldquo;Dirty Magazine rdquo; one of my favorite songs.
And yes, it makes me want to be in a dirty magazine too. br / br / a href="/%E2%80%9Dhttp://blogcritics.org/writer/glen_boyd%E2%80%9D" Glen Boyd /a : ldquo;Future Games rdquo; from i Future Games /i by Fleetwood Mac br / br / Before there was Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, there was Bob Welch and Danny Kirwan, and before them there was the real engine which drove the originally blues based boat that was Fleetwood Mac in the form of the great Peter Green.
There is a history lesson in there somewhere that I absolutely promise will be the subject of one of my future Rockologist columns, but for now, I ve found myself grooving to stuff from the era when Welch helmed this band creatively speaking. br / br / There s a ton of great songs from this era which are great -- Hypnotized to name the single most noteworthy of them. But Welch s haunting vocal on this one, with the great lyrics of you invent the future that you want to face, just really stick out for me.
br / /p div id="authorbio" IMG SRC="http://www.djradiohead.com/GFX/djr_color.
jpg" height="" width="" style="float:right; margin:5px;border:2px solid white"/ DJRadiohead is a href="http://blogcritics.org/music/" Assistant Music Editor /A and hosts the A HREF="http://blogcritics.org/archives/features/bcradio_podcast.
php" BC Radio Podcast /A . He is formerly an award-winning journalist and broadcaster. His podcasts and writing can be found at A HREF="http://www.
djradiohead.com" DJRadiohead.com /A as well as a href="http://www.
themondoproject.com" The Mondo Project /a . /div br style="clear: both;"/
This designation is meant to recognize and celebrate those writers who not only shine by virtue of their talent, but whose ongoing participation gives all of us a reason to tune in each and every day. As new readers are continually discovering BC Magazine, we also hope to introduce these fine writers to a new audience. /i br / br / Fans of the independent music scene who visit BC regularly already know that Jon Sobel is the go-to guy for up-to-date news on a href="/archives/features/new_indie_cds.
php" indie releases /a . Publisher Eric Olsen opines that Jon ldquo; hellip;combines a musician s knowledge of the subtleties and intricacies of music and the music industry with a lifelong fan s passion and a gift for very fine writing. Jon has long been the indie artist s best friend on Blogcritics and his more recent forays into theater have been exceptional as well!
rdquo; br / br / A BC contributor since January of 2004, New York-based Jon is equally at home writing theater reviews and the occasional piece of political or social commentary, and indeed the quality of his writing has made him a favorite with readers and editors alike. Assistant music editor DJRadiohead offers this: ldquo;Jon Sobel is a fabulous writer and a key contributor to our music section. His writing has a literary quality to it and his work is imbued with a rare dignity and intelligence.
Jon is better able to translate sound to word in his description than just about anyone I know. He s just a damn pleasure to read and edit. rdquo; Music editor Connie Phillips agrees that ldquo;Jon brings so much to the Music section with his reviews and round-ups of what s going on in the world of independent artists and recordings.
He writes with a lot of knowledge, a little humor, and consistently in top-notch form. rdquo; br / br / Jon doesn t just talk the talk when it comes to writing about music. In addition to holding down a day job as an IT professional and writing for BC, Jon is a working musician who fronts a band called Whisperado.
You can hear some of their music on their a href="http://www.myspace.com/whisperado" Myspace page /a .
br / br / Before we get to the heart of the matter, a little background on Jon: br / blockquote I have three lives. As an IT professional, I mind machines during the day. As a musician and songwriter, I lead the roots-rock/alt-country band Whisperado, run blues shows in New York City, and, when time allows, play bass as a sideman with other bands.
As a writer, I review music, theater, and the occasional book or movie; once in a while I write something political, funny, or extra-stupid. br / br / I rsquo;m fortunate to have been raised in a humanist family, immersed in music, literature and science. The family has included both writers and musicians.
Grandpa Martin never finished high school but published a raft of self-help books, a few novels, and regular book reviews in The Jewish Post. He was also a published songwriter back in the days of sheet music. Grandma Pauline was a novelist and poet and also wrote for confessional magazines.
My parents have both authored textbooks, and my mother is the only person I know to have earned a weekly paycheck for writing verse (funny story, that hellip;). br / br / I grew up in the Long Island suburbs, outside New York City, and then spent four years at Harvard studying English poetry - everything from Beowulf to Yeats. After college I toiled in a toy factory, worked as a substitute teacher, drove a wheelchair van, and made a semi-living as a working musician, before settling into the computer career that has supported me and my creative endeavors ever since.
Since 1994 I rsquo;ve lived in Brooklyn. br / /blockquote /p p b Q A: The Serious Stuff /b br / br / b A person could get tired just looking at your resume -- writer, working musician, songwriter, musical entrepreneur -- and all of this on top of the job that pays the bills. First of all, where do you find the time, and secondly, was this part of your life s plan, or are you making this up as you go along?
And which of those varied personae do you find the most satisfying? /b br / br / img style="border: 1px solid gray; margin: 10px; float: right" src="http://img.photobucket.
com/albums/v297/Distorted_Angel/jon_sobel.jpg" alt="" width="240" / I rsquo;m mostly making it up as I go along. Writing is the one thing I always wanted to do, but I didn rsquo;t figure out what KIND of writing was my strong point until I started doing reviews, and that didn rsquo;t really happen until the age of the Web, when there were a lot more opportunities.
At online publications you could actually get some readers without having to battle for a rare spot in an ldquo;old media rdquo; publication - I never really had the stomach for that, so I never made a serious go at trying to be a professional writer. br / br / What I find interesting is that what really prepares you to write critical pieces is exactly what we always complained about in school ndash; writing book reports and term papers. You think, ldquo;When am I ever going to need to do anything like this in real life?
rdquo; And for most people it rsquo;s true ndash; they don rsquo;t. But writers do, especially writers of short essays on current events, music, art, literature, sports etc. Those are basically book reports and term papers!
So it seems that the one thing school DID prepare me to be was a writer. br / br / Most of what I do I had some preparation for, but, at a higher level, picked up as I went along. I always found computers interesting ndash; writing little BASIC programs back in junior high in the lsquo;70s, playing with those rinky-dink Commodore PET personal computers that we had in high school, and such ndash; but I never thought I rsquo;d make a living working with computers.
My Dad gave me summer jobs doing computer programming, which turned out to be very valuable, but for ldquo;real life rdquo; I assumed I rsquo;d be doing something liberal-artsy like writing ndash; which ended up being true ndash; just not for a living. At least not at this point. br / br / How do I find the time?
Good question. Two main factors. One: I rsquo;m a messy, scatterbrained person.
I can only concentrate on something for a short period of time. This forces me to be extremely productive in small periods. For example, I rsquo;m writing these answers during a few spare minutes here, a few minutes there, spread out over several days during lunch hours, in between checking emails and cooking and rehearsing music and working out, etc.
Even if I didn rsquo;t have a job, if I had all day to write and play music, I rsquo;d still do things like this in pieces, because that rsquo;s how I am. So I have to make the most of each piece of time. br / br / Two: I don rsquo;t watch too much television.
I watch some. I like TV. But it requires a lot of sitting still, which isn rsquo;t my strong point, and it rsquo;s also pretty much the opposite of productive.
Keep your TV watching to a minimum and you rsquo;ll be a far more productive person. br / br / The different things I do are satisfying in different ways. Playing music makes me happy acutely and immediately.
Writing criticism is satisfying in two calmer ways: it exercises the brain, and it (sometimes) helps others. The blues shows, which I run once or twice a month, are part of the same subsystem for me ndash; I can make people happy by a) giving performance opportunities to struggling musicians and b) presenting blues to blues-lovers in a city that rsquo;s sorely lacking in blues venues. (The blues scene in the suburbs is much more lively than in the city, where it rsquo;s practically non-existent these days ndash; I don rsquo;t know why.
) All that is probably a substitute for not having kids ndash; I don rsquo;t know, do your own psychoanalysis. br / br / In addition to paying the bills and providing structure (which, as a scatterbrained person, I need), my computer job lets me work with nice people and play with computers, both of which I like. br / br / b I listened to some Whisperado tracks on your Myspace page -- you guys are good!
You ve recently celebrated your fourth anniversary; how did the whole band thing get started? /b br / br / Thanks. Well, for most of my musical life I was pretty content to play in other people rsquo;s bands.
It rsquo;s a satisfying thing to get good enough at your instrument (bass guitar, and I also play some piano and acoustic guitar) to be sought after by other bands and singer-songwriters. I wrote songs over the years, but they mostly weren rsquo;t very good ndash; I certainly never had enough strong material for an act of my own. And I also never learned to sing.
But then I started to write some songs I thought were stronger, and I wanted to have an outlet for them, and to get my ass out in front of a band and see what that was like. br / br / Also, I had been writing a lot of reviews and I started to think that if I was going to be telling other people their music sucked, or they were bad singers or had crappy songs, I really ought to know something about what it was like from their perspective. Put my money where my mouth was.
So I got a band together and took voice lessons. And here we are. br / br / David, our drummer, is an old friend from bands of decades past ndash; I met him in the very first band I joined after moving back to New York after college.
He also played with me in an early version of my ex-wife a href="http://halleydevestern.com" Halley rsquo;s band /a . Patrick, our guitarist, is a well-known blogger ndash; he runs the blog a href="http://nielsenhayden.
com/makinglight" Making Light /a with his wife, Theresa. The two of them are well-known science fiction and fantasy editors with a combined IQ of 471 (I measured once when they weren rsquo;t looking). I knew Patrick from when we worked together backing up a singer-songwriter friend.
He rsquo;s so far written only one song for Whisperado, but that rsquo;s okay ndash; at this rate, after a mere 40 years together, we rsquo;ll have enough Patrick Nielsen Hayden songs for a whole set. He also spells me by singing lead on some cover tunes, and the sound of the band is defined in a big way by his Telecaster playing. br / br / b A lot of BC writers tend to stick to one section of the site or another, but your BC contributions, while leaning somewhat in the direction of music, are almost as varied in scope as your personal life, ranging from book and theater reviews to the occasional political piece.
Is there any one part of the site that you consider to be home more so than the others? /b br / br / Not really. I write more about music than anything else, so in that sense that rsquo;s my ldquo;home base, rdquo; but I probably have spent more time in the Politics section because that rsquo;s where you can get into (sometimes) fun arguments.
Less lately, since I just haven rsquo;t had the time ndash; also political arguments tend to make me angry, and who needs that? I also visit the Culture section pretty often. As far as music, most of my friends are musicians, and we talk about music all the time, so I don rsquo;t really need Blogcritics for musical companionship ndash; I have that in the meat world.
I do READ the Music section whenever I have a chance ndash; I like to get other writers rsquo; perspectives on things I think about a lot myself. br / br / More recently, I rsquo;ve been pretty excited about doing more theater reviews. I rsquo;m not at the level of getting invited to review Broadway shows yet, but it seems that at the off- and off-off-Broadway level, reviews are more important to the producers.
Broadway reviewers are much less powerful than they used to be ndash; it rsquo;s the audience ndash; mostly tourists -- that decides what shows are successful. Only tourists can afford Broadway prices anyway ndash; they rsquo;re people who have budgeted a big block of money for their New York City vacation, and a Broadway show is part of that. But smaller shows need all the promotional help they can get.
Even very small-scale shows include a publicist in their budget because it rsquo;s that important to them, and those publicists are happy to invite reviewers like me in to cover their productions. Plus when you rsquo;re a theater reviewer you always get the best seats. br / br / Also, reviewing theater you feel more of a personal connection with the production and the performers than you do with strangers who rsquo;ve sent you music they rsquo;ve recorded in a studio.
I don rsquo;t mean you meet them ndash; quite the opposite, you want to avoid that. I don rsquo;t like to meet anybody from the productions I review except the publicist. What I mean is it gives me a really good feeling to talk up an excellent play by a new playwright or a fantastic performance by a young or unknown actor.
I really feel I might be making a significant difference for them. br / br / Of course there are plenty of bad productions too, but I rsquo;ve gotten better at sensing in advance which ones are going to be worth seeing. br / br / Another good thing about theater reviewing is that it rsquo;s forced me to develop the skill of writing fast.
I can sit for weeks listening to a CD, but these plays usually only run for a month or so. So I feel it rsquo;s important to get my review published the very next day after I rsquo;ve seen the preview, so that if it rsquo;s a good review it can have the most helpful effect for them. br / br / b Your Indie Round-Up columns are a great place to go to find things that might normally fly under the radar of the average music lover.
How do you find and pick the records you write about there? /b br / br / Some of them come from Blogcritics postings. Some come directly from publicists who know me and send me CDs unsolicited, all of which I listen to and some of which I review.
To some degree, they rsquo;ve gotten to know my tastes and interests, so I don rsquo;t get too badly flooded. Others come straight from artists, who are doing their own P.R.
and have heard about me somewhere or read my reviews. /p p I try to review everything that I like. Sometimes I also write about recordings that I don rsquo;t like but that get me thinking for one reason or another, or that I expected to like but was disappointed in.
Sometimes that rsquo;ll happen with a CD I rsquo;ve requested through Blogcritics, in which case, since I rsquo;m ldquo;obligated rdquo; write about it anyway, I rsquo;ll give it a piece of my mind. Very little time for that, though ndash; I don rsquo;t request things unless I rsquo;m almost sure they rsquo;ll be good. So most of my reviews ndash; probably 80% or so, maybe even more - are positive.
br / br / b You re a real (as opposed to a transplanted) New Yorker. How has growing up under the cultural influence of the city shaped your work? /b br / br / I think living in and around the big city tends to expand your range of interests.
That seems to be reflected in my writing. br / br / When I was deciding on where to go to college, I had a chance to go to Swarthmore, which is one of the most selective small liberal arts schools in the country. Swarthmore has a really beautiful campus, and it rsquo;s not too far from Philadelphia, but I elected to go to Harvard instead and one major reason was that it was right in Cambridge/Boston.
I rsquo;d grown up in the Long Island suburbs under the influence of New York City and when I left home I couldn rsquo;t wait to live in the thick of a city, so that rsquo;s what I did. br / br / More so than Boston, New York is so huge it rsquo;s like a whole universe in itself. You could never possibly know every corner of even one of the five boroughs.
By population, Brooklyn (where I live) would be the fourth largest city in the US if it were its own city (which it was until 1898). Queens is the most culturally diverse county in the country. (That rsquo;s what they say, anyway ndash; I rsquo;m not sure how that claim is arrived at, but spend some time traveling around Queens and you rsquo;ll believe it.
) Manhattan is Manhattan ndash; still the center of the world in some ways, in spite of the spreading mall-ification and Disneyfication. The Bronx, too, would be a large city all on its own, and I know so little about it that it rsquo;s like another country to me. Staten Island has forts, open spaces, nature ndash; and Republicans, talk about diversity!
br / br / Making your way as a New Yorker is challenging but extremely rewarding. No matter how active or successful you are, you rsquo;re still going to be a tiny fish in a big pond. But there are more interesting fish swimming around than you could possibly ever get to know.
Just staying a healthy fish and avoiding the pond scum feels like a huge accomplishment. It rsquo;s hard to feel bad about your life when you live in a place like this and are out in the midst of it doing a bunch of stuff you like and not hiding quivering in a dark corner with a blanket over your head. br / br / Living in the city exposes you to lots of different cultures and subcultures.
Not only does that expand your interests and your curiosity, but it makes you have a larger sense of community. This is a broad generalization, but I think people in small towns feel more of a sense of community centered in their town, and in their family, but less of a sense of community with all of humankind. Maybe that explains why there are so many liberals and progressives in big cities.
br / br / b Q A: The Fun Stuff /b br / br / b What book/CD/DVD do you have more than one copy of, in case something happens to the original one? br / /b br / That rsquo;s a more complicated question than it would have been back in the analog age. I don rsquo;t really have double copies of things, physically, but I rsquo;m in the process of copying my most valued CDs onto the computer (uncompressed, which takes up a lot of hard drive space).
So that, in a sense, is my ldquo;more than one copy. rdquo; br / br / Anyway, since it rsquo;s impossible for me to pick a single CD as my absolute favorite, I rsquo;ll answer the question with a book and a DVD. The book would be the complete works of W.
B. Yeats - mostly for the poems, and secondarily for the plays. Unless you go back to Shakespeare and Milton, the English language really doesn rsquo;t get any better than Yeats.
My two-copy DVD would be the movie Tremors. It rsquo;s the most perfect movie ever made. In fact I believe it rsquo;s the movie Yeats would have made, if he had made movies instead of written poems.
Yeats died on my birthday, did you know that? Twenty-four years (exactly one generation) to the day before I was born. ldquo;Six Degrees of Fred Ward.
rdquo; br / b br / If you had to pick one sense to do without, which of your five senses would it be? /b br / br / That rsquo;s easy: sight. I have bad eyes anyway, so I rsquo;d be mentally more prepared to go blind than to go deaf or lose any other sense.
Hearing - because of music (and certain people rsquo;s voices) - is too important as a source of pleasure. Touch, smell, and taste are also major pleasure senses. Hearing and smell are also really important for survival.
I rsquo;d miss seeing beautiful sights and watching movies, but there are plenty of movies in my brain. I could definitely handle that better than losing any of the other senses. Might not be the most convenient for the people who rsquo;d have to help me around, but this interview is all about me, right?
br / br / b What do you wish they d do a series about on TV? /b br / br / A girl who runs around in skimpy outfits killing vampires. Since that rsquo;s completely absurd, I rsquo;ll have to think of something else.
Seriously, I had a tough time with this question because there rsquo;s way too much on TV already. Even the 5% of TV that rsquo;s worth watching is way too much ndash; you could do nothing but watch TV all day. So I rsquo;m going to wish for a TV series about what happens when suddenly all TVs stop working.
Think about it. br / b br / If you could, would you swap sexes for a week? /b br / br / Sure, I rsquo;m fem-curious.
Oh, wait a second ndash; would I be having my period? br / b br / What do you think you d learn if you could swap to the opposite sex? /b br / br / I rsquo;d want to learn how much of my knowledge of women, painstakingly acquired over a lifetime, is right and how much is bullcrap.
Also I rsquo;d learn how women really see me. lsquo;Cause this interview is all about me, after all. And rightly so, if I do say so myself.
And I do say so. And rightly so. br / b br / What sports team will you love until the day you die?
/b br / br / The Mets. Dad was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, and so the family loyalty of course switched to the Mets, who were born the year before I was. I don rsquo;t think that had anything to do with Yeats, incidentally.
I found out, though, that my mom, who grew up in Manhattan and The Bronx, was - to the extent that she was a baseball fan - a Yankees fan. I didn rsquo;t learn that until well into my adulthood, but it still meant years and years of therapy before I could finally reconcile this bizarre bifurcation of the spirit. br / br / b What s one sign that you re a total nerd?
/b br / br / Oh, there are so many to choose from! I have a t-shirt with a picture of a Borg cube (from i Star Trek /i ) on it. Even my nerdy girlfriend won rsquo;t let me wear that one.
br / b br / What s the first book you recall reading? /b br / br / Hard to really remember, but I think the children rsquo;s book I remember most clearly is Maurice Sendak rsquo;s i Pierre /i , about the boy who gets eaten by a lion. That was supercool.
Of course I read a lot of other kids rsquo; books before that - I know I read i The Wizard of Oz /i because I still have the copy my parents got me when I was three, with my crayon drawings all over it. Come to think of it, that has a lion too. As for ldquo;grown-up rdquo; books, I rsquo;d say it was i The Lord of the Rings /i .
My Dad read i The Hobbit /i to me over many nights as a bedtime story, and I liked it so much I insisted on going on to read the trilogy myself. I was seven years old, but the story rsquo;s pretty easy to follow even for a kid. And one thing i The Lord of the Rings /i doesn rsquo;t have is child-confusing sex scenes.
Or lions, for some reason. br / b br / What magazines do you subscribe to? /b br / br / i The New Yorker, Time Out New York, Wired, Macworld /i .
Also a bunch of techie I.T. publications I get at work - exciting stuff like i CIO Decisions /i , i Infoworld, Mactech /i , and my favorite title, i Disaster Recovery Journal /i .
br / br / b Who is your favorite writer? /b br / br / Among contemporary prose writers, I rsquo;d say T. C.
Boyle. From earlier times, Thomas Hardy. One of my favorite nonfiction writers is John Lahr, who writes theater criticism for the i New Yorker /i .
He rsquo;s the son of Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion in the movie i The Wizard of Oz /i . See how it all connects? br / b br / Who is your least favorite writer?
/b br / br / Michael Crichton. When I was a kid I read tons of science fiction - anything I could get my hands on - and the only book I can recall actually not finishing was i The Andromeda Strain /i , in spite of what seemed like it should have been a really interesting and scary story. I guess even as a child I had some kind of instinctive feel for bad writing.
Since then, I rsquo;ve actually read a couple of his other books. He definitely comes up with some good stories. Unfortunately he writes like Jennifer Lopez sings.
br / br / b Do you have a favorite Blogcritic? /b br / br / I rsquo;d say Duke de Mondo ndash; he rsquo;s the only individual Blogcritics writer I subscribe to the RSS feed for - but it seems a little unfair to pick someone who doesn rsquo;t post frequently. Among the more prolific writers, I really like reading Nik Dirga rsquo;s good solid music criticism.
br / b br / What do you think is the best part of Blogcritics? /b br / br / The community aspect ndash; it rsquo;s like we rsquo;re all on one big team. Support and recognition from fellow writers is hard to find in other places.
br / b br / What song is stuck in your head right now? /b br / br / ldquo;Smile rdquo; by Lily Allen, because I happened to hear it just now. br / br / b What do you have set as the home page in your browser?
/b br / br / My Gmail login page. I use Gmail only for personal emails from actual friends and co-conspirators - not for list stuff. So any message I get at that address is almost always something I actually want to read.
If I didn rsquo;t have any webmail, I rsquo;d probably have the BBC News as my home page. Blogcritics wouldn rsquo;t be a bad choice either - except that then I rsquo;d never get any work done. br / b br / Who was your idol as you were growing up?
/b br / br / Isaac Asimov. I wanted to be a science fiction writer so badly, and he was The Man - an endless fountain of amazing ideas. Also the exaggerated egotism in the introductions he wrote was very amusing to me - I was a kid who rsquo;d been taught not to toot his own horn.
br / br / b What are three items you would need to have on a desert island? /b br / br / Assuming people don rsquo;t count as items, I rsquo;d start with an iPod. I don rsquo;t actually own one, but if sentenced to a desert island I rsquo;d get one of those damn things and fill it up with my favorite music.
It would be a solar-powered iPod, of course, and it would have a built-in shortwave radio receiver. I think if O. Henry or Rod Serling were around today, they rsquo;d write a story about the last man on Earth, who rsquo;s a huge music fan and is perfectly content to live the rest of his life just listening to music on his solar-powered iPod - but then he loses his headphones (which were also the last headphones on Earth).
br / br / My second item would be a seat of the proper height to sit on for meditating, because if left to my own devices without any distractions or human contact I rapidly go insane and meditating tends to help with that. Third, a bottomless pint of Guinness, like in that leprechaun joke. That rsquo;s because meditating and listening to music by myself could get old real fast.
That rsquo;s assuming there rsquo;s plenty of food on the island - I don rsquo;t want to have to waste one of my three items on a Star Trek food replicator. I will if I have to, though. br / b br / What s the best place to get a meal in your neck of the woods?
/b br / br / Calexico. It rsquo;s a really good, inexpensive Mexican restaurant around the corner from my house. Spicy, filling, cheap comfort food with big portions.
br / b br / If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be? /b br / br / Make churches pay property taxes. Then we rsquo;ll see who rsquo;s really ldquo;godly.
rdquo; I mean it. If churches had to pay taxes, they rsquo;d have to charge their members really big dues. Then people wouldn rsquo;t just join a church because their parents did, or out of peer pressure.
And maybe people would start to see through the cloud of indoctrination and myth that prevents them from making sensible decisions and making up their own minds about things. (Also take away the ldquo;no parking in front of churches rdquo; rule. Make those ministers drive around looking for a parking space just like everyone else.
Stupid ministers.) Anyway, with all the money we get from the churches rsquo; taxes, we can exempt delicious Mexican restaurants instead. br / br / b Sobel on Sobel /b br / br / We asked Jon to pick his favorites from among his articles, and this is his list.
Check these out, and if you rsquo;re not a fan of Jon rsquo;s yet, check out the rest of a href="/writer/jon_sobel" his archive /a and find out what you rsquo;ve been missing. br / br / Two of my favorites are among my more personal essays: b a href="/archives/2006/10/26/220136.php" All I Really Need to Know I Learned from John Hiatt Lyrics /a /b and b a href="/archives/2006/10/04/184811.
php" Indie-Cision 2006: An American In Nashville /a /b . They were both a lot of fun to do. /p p b a href="/archives/2006/08/28/090634.
php" Mel Call! /a /b got a lot of positive response and reminded me that I could be funny. br / br / Getting back to music: b a href="/archives/2007/02/12/144017.
php" Rock rsquo;s Greatest Bass Riffs /a /b was fun. Nothing like publishing a ldquo;best ever rdquo; list to generate controversy. Leaving out John Entwistle caused a bit of a scandal.
br / br / My interview with the band b a href="/archives/2006/07/21/221641.php" Controlling the Famous /a /b was a nice opportunity to stretch out as a writer, even if the band hasn rsquo;t (yet) become as big as I imagined they might. Come on, guys!
br / br / And getting to write up b a href="/archives/2006/01/25/051321.php" Rosanne Cash rsquo;s CD release show /a /b was a blast, especially when the CD turned out to be so amazingly good. br / br / For analysis, I think I did a pretty good job b a href="/archives/2005/06/29/150752.
php" on Janis Joplin /a /b . br / br / My favorite book review is the one of i b a href="/archives/2006/12/03/143014.php" Steel Drivin Man: John Henry /a /b - The Untold Story of an American Legend /i .
For me it was history, music, and personal experience all rolled into one article. /p div id="authorbio" Lisa McKay is the Executive Editor at Blogcritics, where she can often be found hanging out in the a href=http://blogcritics.org/video Film section /a .
In her spare time, she writes, makes art, watches movies, listens to music, and reads. She is now in the "experience is better than things" stage of her life and almost never passes up the opportunity to go to a good concert. /div br style="clear: both;"/
When European rock bands invade U.S. shores, they typically come from England (Coldplay, Franz Ferdinand), Ireland (U2) or Norway (A-Ha).
Sweden's ability to pump out quality bands has grown in recent years. /p p Bands like The Hive, Razorlight, and The Soundtrack Of Our Lives have enjoyed some North American success. Other bands like I'm From Barcelona, Peter Bjorn And John, and The Sounds have gained critical acclaim, yet are still searching for an audience.
Mando Diao is in the latter group of bands trying to find that spark into mainstream consciousness. /p p It's not like the band isn't trying. Energetic is Mando's signature sound.
The band had so much enthusiasm with its first album i Bring 'Em In /i that you didn't think there would be any left for a second album ( i Hurricane Bar /i ), let alone a third. With i Ode To Ochrasy /I , Mando takes the lively, somewhat hyper energy of its debut album and evolves it into a more relaxed, albeit still punkish energetic throwback to sixties rock. /p p The open track "Welcome Home Luc Robitaille" sets the tone with its calming verses juxtaposed with a bouncing rebellious chorus.
The next track "Killer Kaczynyski" with even its title screams mania. You don't know it's a Mando album until "The Wildfire" where the band plays its signature inflective melodies in emphasizing the first choral syllables. /p p Toward the i Ode /i 's middle is where you start to feel a mood shift.
Frontman Bjorn Dixgard explains it with the album's title "ochrasy" as "that hallucinatory world you enter around four and five in the morning...
a sort of utopian world where anything can happen, where everything is allowed." The swing is strongest felt in the composed "Amsterdam" with its imagery of complete uncertainty. Placed in-between the surf-at-the-beach melodies of "Tony Zoulias" and the mellow love letter to couch potatoes everywhere in "TV And Me," "Amsterdam" finds itself balancing the effects of alcohol and partying with the moment of sobriety when adrenaline vanishes and drunkenness wears off.
/p p A long night's eventual end couldn't be better captured with the pairing of the slight Jack Johnson-like "Josephine" and the Beatles-like "The New Boy" to create one connecting summation of a great time. With lyrics like "gets the very best of a man / and pays him with a laugh / don't you see she is not a mystery," "Josephine" sounds like a man singing himself a lullaby to get over being dumped. In "The New Boy," Dixgard becomes a man starting a new day with revelatory praise of himself ("now here is the new boy taking on the world tonight").
/p p One of the big differences for Mando this time around is the help of former Soundtrack of Our Lives bandmate Bjorn Olsson in producing this album. "This time we've been listening more to the general feeling and how we play together, instead of worrying too much about details," said bassist CJ Fogelklou of Olsson's contributions and influences on i Ode /i . It's fitting that the final track is called "Ochrasy," bringing the album full circle as Dixgard sings solo accompanied with only a guitar to give the song a reflective pace and mood.
He even whistles toward the song's end, giving it a slow, hometown feel. The night is over, but only until the next night starts /p div id="authorbio" center I'm a proud a href=http://www.dorksandlosers.
com Dork And Loser /a . /center /div br style="clear: both;"/
br / br / Former Luscious Jackson lead singer Jill Cunniff exercises her multitude of skills to great affect on her latest album i City Beach /i . It rsquo;s a lively journey through the eyes of a young woman aware of the beatific and sometimes horrid images that her home city of New York conjures. br / br / Cunniff was born and raised in New York City, and spent her adolescents in Greenwich Village, soaking up the ethnic environment and multi-cultural forays into jazz, punk, and experimental music Village clubs are known for.
At the age of thirteen, she had a birthday party at the now defunct CBGB rsquo;s in the Bowery, parents in tow. She hung out at St. Marks Sounds and Rat Cage Record shops, where her friends The Beastie Boys first started selling records.
The intensity of the Village had a major impact on Cunniff, inspiring her to pick up the guitar and make her way into the Village club scene. I spoke to her by phone at her home in Brooklyn. br / br / ldquo;I tried learning music in college rdquo; states Cunniff, ldquo;but the techniques were too traditional.
I gained more by finding chord changes on the guitar by accident. rdquo; br / br / Cunniff originally attended college as an art major. br / br / ldquo;My writing is heavily influenced by painting.
The art of painting isn rsquo;t in the main picture; it rsquo;s in the use of colors for light and shade, the background of the picture - all of the things that bring out the featured points of the painting. Writing lyrics is a lot like that, so I approach the paper as canvas, using words to fill in both the subtle and the obvious. Like music, paintings are composed, so I try to compose all the elements of a song as I write.
rdquo; br / br / i City Beach /i is an eclectic effort, mixing styles from Brazilian jazz to alternative rock into an intoxicating brew of mood pieces. It rsquo;s difficult to tell whether the album was planned this way or if it happened organically. br / br / ldquo;To a degree, the concept for the album was to work in several styles when I first started writing it, rdquo; Cunniff said.
ldquo;New York is a mix of so many elements; it would be difficult to do it any other way. However, the process of recording and collaboration always brings surprises and that adds to the freshness of the music. I was fortunate to have people with me who were as in to the concept as I was, so there was a good groove going on between us throughout.
rdquo; br / br / i City Beach /i has a dreamlike quality on some songs, and a gritty reality to others. The juxtaposing of the two makes the album feel like it takes place on two levels, one observational, and the other almost wistful. br / br / ldquo;Yes and no rdquo; said Cunniff.
ldquo;Some of the impressions in these songs I garnered as a teenager walking the East Village and the bowery and of course, those songs do have a less realistic feel to them. But it rsquo;s all observational. As I rsquo;ve grown and changed, the city has grown and changed.
We rsquo;ve both changed some for the better some for the worse. I see New York, and every other city, as a living entity, although at one time New York was more vibrant than most. There rsquo;s still a lot of good aspects to the city, but I can rsquo;t ignore that some of what made the city great has been replaced to make it more accessible to tourists, prettified in a way, and that has hurt the city in my view.
But the album isn rsquo;t just about the city. A lot of it is about me, experiences, people and things that have made me stop and think. New York City isn rsquo;t really the central theme, but it is a big part of my life, so it does come out in my writing.
rdquo; br / br / Cunniff plays several roles on the album, from producer to songwriter/composer and musician. She also contributed much of the DJ work, and did the cover painting. I wondered how much of what appears on the album is what Cunniff had in her head while writing it.
br / br / ldquo;Well, I worked a lot with tape loops in Luscious, and yes, I heard many of the beats on the album while writing it. There were a number of aspects to the recording I didn rsquo;t understand and again, this is where the collaboration with like-minded people really helps. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Sam Hollander, Dave Schommer, Danny Madorsky and Mason Rosenberg for instinctively picking up on my direction and really listening when I had trouble showing them what I was hearing in my head.
The album wouldn rsquo;t have been made without them. rdquo; br / br / Cunniff has several projects going on. A Luscious Jackson reunion album for kids was also released this year, and a future collaboration with Emmylou Harris is in the planning stages.
She rsquo;s also working closely with the Surfrider Foundation, a non-profit, grassroots environmental group dedicating to protecting our world rsquo;s oceans, waves, and beaches. br / br / Tour dates will be announced soon. br / br / /p div id="authorbio" Larry Sakin is a former music executive and non-profit medical organization administrator.
He advocates for literacy issues and provides advocacy training for grassroots and non-profit groups around the country. /div br style="clear: both;"/
br / /p p b Paris /b br / Americans don t have good taste. br / br / a href="http://bp2.blogger.
com/_9jVOWoaUMdo/RdhFM84homI/AAAAAAAAAFo/wCriWoKUbjo/s1600-h/doorcountry.jpg" img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5032848672390488674" style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer" src="http://bp2.blogger.
com/_9jVOWoaUMdo/RdhFM84homI/AAAAAAAAAFo/wCriWoKUbjo/s200/doorcountry.jpg" border="0" alt="" / /a Never mind that I regard my 70s t-shirt collection with the pride in selectivity akin to that of a collector of Monet or Edward Hopper. Never mind that exquisite selectivity proudly, gleefully presents itself in bilingual puns on the shirts themselves sometimes, as if targeted perfectly at my local audience: Door County, Wisconsin: Come Smell Our Dairy Air!
(See photo at left) It s all lost on them. /p p Recently a female French colleague at the university told me I didn rsquo;t look all that professorial: ldquo;Jayson, tu as l rsquo;air d rsquo;un jeune etudiant aujourd rsquo;hui ( ldquo;You look like a young university student today. rdquo;).
I muttered something about having nothing but scorn for mainstream sartorial codes and the authority they try to produce (for some who don t deserve it). To which she in turn reminded me, ldquo;Oh, but they rsquo;re necessary! rdquo; Of course, you wouldn rsquo;t want to perform your authority and knowledge through what you say and do.
You need a power suit or a i grande dame rsquo;s /i sweater to be legit. Again, that attitude is not so different in many other societies, but its ubiquity here, with very few exceptions, is what surprises me. /p p b Historical origins /b br / This conflict in Franco-American style (even if I don t consider mine representative of all Americans) actually has deep roots caught up in each country s effort to construct its national identity.
In Gordon Wood s classic i Creation of the American Republic /i , for example, we learn that the founders of the American Republic exercised great care in discussing and hoping to avoid the cultural weaknesses of France, among other European foils, which they thought had dangerous implications for citizenship and government. /p p ldquo;Jefferson, viewing the new republics while standing amidst the pomp and debauchery of Paris remained calm and sanguine, rdquo; Wood writes. ldquo;America mdash;by contrast mdash;still seemed the land of happy frugal yeomen.
rdquo; Similarly, Thomas Shippen, something of a Philadelphia aristocrat himself was presented by Thomas Jefferson to the Court at Versailles in 1788 (see image of courtier at right). But the a href="http://farm1.static.
flickr.com/129/396295337_579bd3b915_o.jpg" img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px" src="http://farm1.
static.flickr.com/129/396295337_579bd3b915_o.
jpg" border="0" alt="" / /a ldquo;magnificence and elegance repulsed him, rdquo; as chasing after the tinsel of life led to a kind of depravity and delusion, he said in a popular American perspective of the time. In France, the king rsquo;s head was offed, but did the people continue to look reverently to his robes? Have you ever noticed that even the homeless men don jackets they rsquo;ve proudly scooped up off the dookie-bedizened sidewalks.
Not going to find that in the U.S. But is that superior style?
Or just the residue of mindless tradition? /p p br / The inability of some French to acknowledge that their bourgeois values and tastes are not universal is perhaps also partly the stinking, if somehow unconscious, detritus of French colonialism and its role in the production of French national identity. You have no style, Americans have bad taste.
It s like Colonel Kurtz sailing into the deep barbaric bowels of the Congo to give those untutored natives the Enlightenment diuretic, as obviously necessary for good health as a smallpox vaccine (I m aware that it was the Belgians there, but you get the figure). French national identity, only truly constructed with the vigor and assistance of burgeoning mass media (such as newspapers, even catalogues later) in the 19th century, was founded on its difference from the brutes, as were some other European nationalist projects. br / br / Another thing I get from the French, and less so but still a bit in the U.
S., is that your age corresponds to certain styles, like 32/0 degrees does to freezing. Something is badly, even sadly amiss when a Frenchman over thirty is not wearing a zip-up sweater, dress pants or new jeans, and the latest style of shoes.
A silk i cravate /i is the icing on the cake. But really the key is new. Old and worn is highly frowned upon.
Old faded Levis that are sold for twice or three times their original price in Copenhagen and Berlin are only the object of scorn or pity in Paris (yes, only on the whole, not with every single Frenchman/-woman). If you want to fit in, keep the consumer society roaring and buy, buy, buy mdash;new. And there s nothing superficial about it.
It jibes with widely assumed notions of cultivation, that there are proper ways for behaving and presenting oneself, and they are universal. Designers supposedly have found the sartorial equivalent of the philosopher rsquo;s stone, and they now can convert sundry materials into styles more and less truly feminine and masculine (concepts that are perhaps even more essentialized in a href="http://farm1.static.
flickr.com/131/396254463_13878ad55c_m.jpg" img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer" src="http://farm1.
static.flickr.com/131/396254463_13878ad55c_m.
jpg" border="0" alt="" width="179" height="245" / /a France than in the U.S. and many other places).
/p p To get an idea of the clash between indie and traditional French style, consider, for example, the photo (on the right) of the indie rock style that is found widely in the metropoli and college towns of the U.S. and Europe, here modeled by lead singer for the Icelandic group Mum, Krist i n Anna Valt y sd o ttir.
a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_9jVOWoaUMdo/RdrW3jPeAHI/AAAAAAAAAF0/IJm-SZA1VnI/s1600-h/liberatedparker.
jpg" img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5033571783381221490" style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_9jVOWoaUMdo/RdrW3jPeAHI/AAAAAAAAAF0/IJm-SZA1VnI/s200/liberatedparker.
jpg" border="0" alt="" / /a Vintage sweater-dress, red wine tights, and faded Chuck Taylor high tops. Call me crazy: I think it rsquo;s hot. And the French do indeed call me crazy.
Compare it with the one on the left, an image that is widespread in Paris, with minor variations.Something that I find particularly bizarre here is that I know many French women and men who love indie music. They buy it, and they attend its artists concerts.
But if Sufjan Stevens, an indie-dressing man if I ve ever seen one, were to hit on any of his female French fans with any success, I m afraid he d need a makeover beforehand, unless of course the ladies had the quite possible idea that they could teach him how to really dress (see Sufjan just below and to the left). /p p The cult of distinction remains quite powerful in France, as its mdash;some would say the img src="http://farm1.static.
flickr.com/160/396487326_fbe823b0c4_o.
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