Category Archives: Rants

tales of a Sunday night

  By Sarah | June 19, 2011 - 7:20 pm | Rants
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In my apartment we have one of those air conditioner units that stick out your window. It’s removable in the winter and apparently we get the same one every time in case anything were to go wrong, they’d know who to blame. If you look up from the street, you can see all the units sticking out. One above the other, one below the next. A perfectly fine design. When you’re inside all you hear is a constant dripping. A sort of water torture. No one can help this and even if it isn’t on and cooling your home space, it still makes this noise. I’m sure it’s due to the silent environment I was raised to create in a living space and the way my parents live now – a quite life with any outside sounds creating an immediate disturbance. It seems to effect me more than Angeline. By that I mean it never seems to bother her. As if a ticking clock would never reach someone’s brain.  Another part of the world, why get mad at something you have no control over? Like time and the weather it is forever present and almost unpredictable. You’ll never know when it will rain on you at the ballpark, even if it’s nice out. And you will never know when time is crawling or quickly passing you by.

the devil keeps you cool

 

A majority of conversations I have with people our age lately has to do with no one being sure of what they want to do. It’s like The Graduate, only real. Even if you know your profession or interests – or even have a job that you like, in your field. Sometimes it adds up to just being another month of work for another month of rent. Ebbs and flows come with every job. It doesn’t depend on if you are crunching numbers, filing unimportant scripts or folding clothes and serving breakfast. There are weeks and days that go by where you never want to work again. I guess you can find me in one of those weeks.

Another birthday passed and it’s almost the end of June already. Which means the first of the month is around the corner. A day I know I don’t like to think about. And I’m sure you don’t want to either. The thing is, I love my job. And I love the people I work with. Sometimes I look forward to seeing them more than I want to go to work. Most days the best part of my day is my bike ride to work and then riding home afterwords to spend the night cooking something new in my tiny kitchen. Staring into a computer screen mixing and editing wave forms seems to be my ideal. There are people I am friends with who have been doing what I’ve been doing for just under a year for four years. Apparently four years is the shelf life of my job. I know what comes next. Hopefully bigger and better things. Ya’ll know I want to move out west and maybe start my own station somewhere one day. But then I find myself thinking about my co-workers. They like their job as much as me, and less. But why won’t they leave? My biggest problem is being too happy and never wanting to leave. I get scared the comfort it can, and has been, offering me. Which doesn’t even deserve to be called a problem. Perhaps it really is a curse to think about the future too much. Or is it too cliche to just live in the moment? I am in no way shape or form complaining. I am happy and healthy and really don’t have much to worry about. But there are days that go by where you just think, if I show up to work and the building isn’t there today, I am not going to be disappointed.

something new in my kitchen. birthday strawberry rhubarb pie. i even made the crust and lattice.

My sister quit her job because she didn’t want to crunch numbers every day to make an already rich man who she would never meet even richer than he needs to be. And when I compare my situation to that – life sounds like a daydream. I get to wear shorts to work and show up on time around 10:30 or even 11 or noon if I want. And no one will say anything to me. What do I do all day? I make sure music is always playing somewhere. I also get to sit and listen to music all day every day and talk to every one around me about music, old and new. They make jokes and laugh at mine. It’s really the nicest work environment and I hope it only gets better from here. I’ve always said the same thing about radio folk. I love them – and I can hope that they can love me.

I don’t believe in existential thinking, or over-thinking about my cerebral being. I’m pretty sure that all I can offer to this mindless mind conversation I have with you here is that even if we feel like we are living through The Graduate while being happy, successful and comfortable, is that people need their moments. Everyone needs to be saved and woken up into a new reality that doesn’t belong to them. For the weeks that go by that offer me nothing more than going to work six days a week and having drinks with friends, sometimes more not than often, to return home to a place that has constant dripping noises – I can just try something new. Ordered a new salad dressing on a make-your-own-salad at a mom & pop coffee shop in Adam’s Morgan. Saw Aziz Ansari live with Angeline and her cousin. Decided to go out on the shortest limb and buy kettle corn microwavable popcorn (something I’ve always hated until recently) from CVS at 12:30 at night while everyone around me was drunk, fighting and buying condoms, cigarettes and soda. I like, and need, those strangely distinct moments to myself in order to make me see that the everything is so wonderful. Homemade ice cream and bourbon on a Sunday night. Erica Levine getting hired back at TeenNick. Hearing Home in my headphones walking up Connecticut and thinking about how music and cities never make me feel alone.  And finding old friends on Facebook having new happy lives that continue on without me – and managing to feel happy for them.

Paying bills and growing up seems to be the worst sometimes. But I know it’s worth it. Mary sent me a birthday card with an e.e. cummings quote that she wrote inside. And I know it’s cliche and expected to leave you with a quote – but sometimes it’s others’ words that seem to do the best explaining. “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” Even if you aren’t sure who that is, it’s better to be someone than to be nowhere.

Dog Walkin’

  By Riley | April 6, 2011 - 6:52 pm | Rants
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Dog Eat Dog

I can see why this leash might turn some heads. What an awful way to take your dog for a walk, something I understand dog-owners have to do multiple times a day. You’re volunteering to become a spectacle by using one of these leashes, with each passerby getting the impression that you’re shooting your dog, execution style. Have you ever seen Fight Club? The threat of execution is enough to make you enroll in school to pursue your dreams – that is, if you’re an Asian cashier.  But does the dog know this? No – there’s no threat, there’s just pissing, shitting, fresh air and a maniacal owner. Man’s best friend, eh?

Maybe the use of the gun-leash is an act of bitter resentment. A classic Seinfeld joke reads, “If aliens are watching this through telescopes, they’re going to think the dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them’s making a poop, the other one’s carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge? At the end of the day, it’s your dog, and you love him, even if for the length of the walk you want to remind yourself who’s in charge.

Dot Com.


food and music – the only things that matter

  By Sarah | March 17, 2011 - 1:09 pm | Findings, Rants
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Jack White is abound. When he released that a rolling record store would appear at SXSW my heart was a-flutter. I almost dropped dead of jealousy when I saw this.  Thanks to the internet, there is plenty of SXSW coverage for those of us who cannot make it. (One day we will.)

In addition to that, there is plenty other findings I need to get out to the world. For our vegetarian loving friends, there is another Opinionator blog contribution from Mark Bittman. He brilliantly brings up the comparison of house pet treatment against and farm animal treatment. Why is it okay to beat a pig or a cow before you eat it but not okay to beat your dog, cat (or in this case, a hamster)?  The treatment of farm animals and house pets should always be in the same conversation. Bittman does it well (in anything he does). If you’ve seen any footage from investigative food industry reporting (be it documentary or online) you can see the harsh lives these animals live every day. It makes you think, shouldn’t  you be treating the animals you consume every day the same way you treat your house pets? 

For our friends at Team Coco, there is a new documentary about him. It chronicles the backstage life and life of the Legally Prohibited from Being on Television Tour from last summer. Which I did see with my dad in Atlantic City. It was pretty funny. But it dragged in the end. (Even before his fame I didn’t think Reggie Watts was very funny.) The tour seemed like Conan wanted something to do with himself. Instead of doing nothing. Which is why his ‘dark’ side coming out isn’t surprising. Although I cannot feel bad for him since he was given like, what - 30 million? to leave The Tonight Show. It’s the writers and the rest of us I feel bad for. The previous for moving their lives to get (literally) nothing and the latter for having to sit and listen to it.

And now there is my still current obsession with the press surrounding the Strokes. You can stream their whole album on their website until it comes out next Tuesday, the 22nd. I haven’t heard most of it. Just the first track (and the single that you hear everywhere.) But when Angeline sent me this, I started raging. David Fricke can call them the band that lead the beginning of revival of garage rock. (I guess he can.) But in no way shape or form is it okay to compare the debuting of the Strokes to the debuting of the Velvet Underground. The Velvet Underground is one of the most important bands. It is because of their content, timing, experiments with music, instruments, sound and their poetry. There is plenty of literature on the subject. And it’s not hard to find.  Being compared to the Velvets is unusual. Almost unheard of. And of all places to be found, for this to be published in Rolling Stone, the paralleling really dumbs down the Velvet Underground. (The Strokes are the last band that ever deserves that comparison.) I’m not sure who I would even compare the Velvets to. The Strokes have a new sound, but in no way did they start a revolution for freaks, junkies, artists, poets or musicians. I can’t stop reading, but the more I do the more irritated I become at the undeserving pedestal the Strokes are on.

I haven’t read it yet (it hasn’t come in the mail) but I can only assume that this Week’s New Yorker Profile of Alec Baldwin is great.

I’m in the process of compiling my favorite live albums. Also I’ve found a way for you to stream MP3s right from our site, while you read. Stay tuned!

Also, Happy St. Patrick’s Day. As my mother said to me today via email, please drink responsibly.

i hate to love them and love to hate them

  By Sarah | March 1, 2011 - 8:52 pm | Findings, Rants
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The Strokes are a band I know about for a few reasons. First of all, we all know I was devoted to college radio and therefore heard their hits on the radio all the time. Then there is my best friend and current roommate. The Strokes are Angeline’s favorite band. Ever. She met Julian Casablancas. It’s big. Also Mike Sokol loves them and he was a big influence on my musical stylings (still is?) Understandable, I got to know them through many devotee platforms. Then when I became totally engrossed in keeping up with the Jones, The Strokes decided to release their first record (after a crappy Casablancas-holier than thou solo release) since 2006. We are hearing it little by little. And getting the album art revealed to us. You’d think its a new record from Sonic Youth (or any other important, ground breaking band.) Sticking with geometric shapes (aside from the bare ass-leather glove cover that wasn’t released in the US), the artwork is fun and reminiscent of well, not now. (Kind of makes me think of a trippy Super Nintendo level you’re never supposed to reach.)

Angles

The title, Angles, is in reference that this is the first Strokes record where all music and lyrics aren’t written and conducted by Casablancas. Where all their previous music had been. He literally conducted and composed it all. Julian acts as though he’s written a diverse catalog. But all he’s really given us is a great sound that is instantly recognizable as his own. Is This It is great. Room On Fire is good, but weaker. And First Impression Of Earth is even more forgettable. What we actually remember are the singles that were played on the radio all the time. We can sing along real loud and dance and have fun. I don’t understand why we act like The Strokes deliver us from heaven. It sounds like Julian had us at hello.

Angeline had sent me a youtube of The Strokes discussing what they taped off the radio when they were growing up (which did interest me. Most bands do that interview. Mainly I just love the idea of people taping things off of FM radio and wished we lived in that time.) Julian Casablancas has sunglasses on like he’s the next Bono (puke.) He barely speaks throughout the whole 8 minutes even though he’s the driving force of The Strokes. Who is this guy?

The Strokes were ranked as top new artists in many places. One that comes to memory of the grocery-store-isle-reading-type, Rolling Stone (puke) had a list of best songs and records (of course they had a list!) of the 00′s. Between Kid A as #1 and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot as #3, Is This It is #2. Which did in fact come out in 2001. Which is a long time ago. And is full of great songs. But they all kind of sound the same. Like I said, their other records have some good tunes. But they all kind of sound the same. Did I mention that all their songs kind of sound the same? Angeline loves her hooks and catchy guitar choruses. Hence, she loves her Strokes.

Which is why when I heard the second new track, released online today exclusively via NME (New Music Express – famous English music publication, fyi) I said aloud to an empty room, “wow, they went Radiohead on us.” At least that’s what I thought of first. Then I thought, I bet Ange won’t like this as much as the others. She told me it was being released today. And news about The Strokes is hard to escape lately, considering its plastered everywhere. (Check out how douchey Casablancas looks in the photo. Also, same photo with every new story about them.) There are theories going around that fans won’t be as elated with this record because it’s not all Casablancas. There is also a theory that when American bands gain credit and good press from England they’ve made it, or become more popular, in America – see: Jimi Hendrix, the RAMONES, Kings Of Leon (woof). Let’s see what happens.

Now, I’m pretty sure that Julian Casablancas is a jerk. And I’m positive that he looks and acts like a qualified Jack Ass. When you make a great record like Is This It, and then everything sounds the same. And your band is full of rich kids from NYC with probably nothing else better to do (see: Vampire Weekend did it better), and you jump on the trend where you NEVER take off your sunglasses. And you create a hype, release your tracks and album artwork separately, you make me want to hate you. And I do. But after listening (not even all the way through) to the second track, I like that it’s not all high and mighty Julian Casablancas. It’s about time this band worked as a band.

the music edition

  By Sarah | January 2, 2011 - 10:21 pm | Rants
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Having kept up with all the lists, friends, foes, and those in between it’s probably time to build my own. As mentioned, last year’s favorite was Bitte Orca. Angeline put it on yesterday, saying she’d like to get into them more. It helped me to revisit the feelings I have about those sounds.

There is one record this year that will also transport me, although I don’t think it’s my favorite of the year, its a close second dare I say tied for first. LCD Soundsystem’s This Is Happening will always make me think of that last month of college. Wherever I am, who I’m with, it always reminds me of that place on Spencer Street and April and May in Ithaca. LCD was completely new to me, I hadn’t heard it previous which shocked people (mostly Aaron) and now I can’t imagine not knowing their sounds. Different from said previous record and, famously, maybe the last one they’ll do for a while…, the new sounds of This Is Happening remain unlike anything else this year. I like his crooked ways and what I know will be a famous crooked photo.

But down to the first, how can it not be Brothers? The Black Keys, ALSO new to me this year (sorry Aaron). I always had them around and knew 10 AM Automatic, but I never knew them like this. Brothers is rock and roll at it’s best. Fast, slow, loud, romantic, sexual and smart. I’ve heard countless interviews with both of them on radio since the album came out in May. On the World Cafe with David Dye, Auerbach and Carney explained how they felt different with this record. It was from their hip hop collaboration, Blackroc, that really taught them to revisit their instruments and keep it simple and soulful. Because of Brothers I listened to all their previous albums falling in love: Rubber Factory and their amazing debut The Big Come Up (with my favorite Beatles cover, She Said She Said.)

Now something I’ve just realized, both of these bands were new to me this year. If only ya’ll knew me in high school you would know what a big deal this is. In the past I used to be so closed off and far far away from new music, hiding it from myself as useless and messy, made without care and just for show. ‘These new bands don’t really know what music is,’ 16 year old me would say, ‘This isn’t really rock and roll.’ Thank god that’s over.

Just found this, Pitchfork’s list of upcoming releases. It’s like being handed a syllabus on the first day of classes, an overwhelming load. Only this time I’m looking forward to the homework. This is definitely the first full year I’ve had with new music, following it, being genuinely interested and closely following along. First year I’ve read Pitchfork regularly. I even took their reader’s poll.

Angeline asked me about liking certain things and whether or not I form my opinion before or after all of the press that I read. She asked why I read it. Well, I love the press. I like to read all the lists and reviews because I want to see what different publications have to say about the same records. Rolling Stone will write something differently about My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy than what the New York Times will say. Pitchfork’s review was much different than what SPIN had to say. The comparative list goes on. But for me in reading the press (the same way I followed Jonathan Franzen’s press, went to hear him speak, and tonight I finally bought FREEDOM and I’m 40 pages in…) the lists have all become redundant. Stereogum is the only list that included Tame Impala, a December release that got lost in the already completed best of the year reviews because they came out so late. But they have a loss with me because they did not include Brothers in their list. It came out in May, hardly late or early enough to overlook. I’m not sure what peoples‘ problems are.

I want to make a list, without rankings just so we’re clear, of my favorite records. Now if only there was a way I could directly get them to you.

Beach Fossils, Beach Fossils (tied for first with favorite live show with EELS. The 12 hours surrounding the time I saw this band were some of the strangest 12 that May day. I always remember it so vividly. Having not heard the band before, I fell in love with them. And I continue to do so every time I revisit this record. New release expected this month!)

lennon-a-like, trippy guitar, ever changing, never bored

the 1980s called, they like your band

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Before Today (Aaron, I should have listened to you sooner.) Deerhunter, Halcyon Digest. EELS, End Times (Saw them live at the 930 club in dc. This show was a game changer. Forever I love bearded men. I love EELS unlike a love for any other band. They rock loud and tight and remain calm while singing me to sleep.) Sleigh Bells, Treats (A band I overlooked for the first few months I knew them, maybe longer, just like Deerhunter. Recently I fell in love with them. A grittier Go! Team and thrashing sound, how can you not love this record?) Tame Impala, Innerspeaker (Thanks Sokol. Best find/mention you’ve had since I can’t remember when.) Annnnnd how can we forget, Yeasayer, Odd Blood (saw them perform live, for free at end of school year show. Did CTW during this, was sober with Aaron and we were two of few who kinda, mostly, hated their live performance.) Vampire Weekend Contra (A band I just within the last few days started listening to. Angeline’s frequent obsession always lead me to leave them out because I knew their hits from her and WICB. Contra is a great record full of forgettable sad lyrics and similes that are Ivy League.) Surfer Blood’s Astro Cast (I do love this. Saw them live at the 930 club, not great. They played in Ithaca many many moons ago and sadly I did not take Reece’s advice to go see them. Now they’re signed to Warner Brothers, I’m excited to see what sounds comes next.) How can I forget Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. I am only putting this record on this list because I’ve been in too long a relationship with it to leave it out. Including the story here would only get violently wordy.

polaroid, controversy, blank indie stares. what more do you want in an album cover?

Honorable mentions includes my personal discoveries this year. Weezer’s Pinkerton (also was re-released this year, I promise, no coincidence.) PAVEMENT (Malkmus..Lou Reed….it’s a match made in uneasy heaven. Also this year I rediscovered a comp. book of 90s alternative rock journalism/coverage. Including revisits to Smashing Pumpkins and above mentioned bands, I learned about Courtney Love and why I don’t understand the underbelly of Seattle Grunge.) The Go (Jack White plays lead guitar and sings back up on Whatcha Doin’. You will surly dance to this Detroit sound.) The biggest let down with largest questionable expectations, Best Coast. (In fact tonight at dinner the big mouthed, long winded girl at the table behind us was the in-the-flesh version of the Best Coast girl. Or what I imagine her to be like if she was yelling conversation to people who can’t get a word in. Obnoxious and animated, this girl did had her life together, where she rambled about graduate school programs and not the munchies. She also talked about her cats a lot.)

I just realized how long this has gotten. At first meant to be a list of my favorites, I’m sure I have left some out, it has turned into a parenthetical rant. Also note that these are MY favorites and not the best. Left out: Titus Andronicus, Janelle Monae, Erykah Badu, countless other great records. We must remember to differentiate our favorite from the best.

There has been a lot of talk lately about dessert island records. Records always seemed so definitive. Is it too easy to do desert island bands? Ones you simply cannot live without. Also there was a lot of talk about a band’s sound and how we can compare them to their own discography and those of their peers. (Example, rock and roll from the Who, Zeppelin and Floyd all had their own sounds. Meanwhile Small Black, Beach Fossils, Surfer Blood and Vampire Weekend are all in the same family of sounds, and sometimes you can’t tell them apart. Except VW, they’re the best at what they do. Smartest, most fun to listen to. They win.)

More to come? Maybe. Glad we are keeping this blogging up? Yes. I hope all five of you are enjoying it. You know what, I’m not sorry about the length. It’s good to get it out. Thoughts?

remember kids, it’s never too early for rock and roll music

  By Sarah | December 24, 2010 - 8:55 am | Findings, Rants
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It’s Christmas Eve and I wake up to my phone alarm at 8:20 that I never turned off, and in fact probably (?) drunkenly turned on. Quickly, I panic at the thought of going to work today. Then I remember I don’t need to be there until 7:30 tonight. I turn it off and roll over only to fall asleep for another forty minutes. Creaking from our (finally!) working radiators and the wind getting through the cracks of my windows, my room is a mix of familiar sounds. Immediately the craving to re-watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, that has been tempting me quietly for weeks, seems like the only morning activity. Then I see the book I purchased yesterday, Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life. I finish the intro and first chapter, which I had glossed over in Kramer Books yesterday. Steve Almond has this life theory that I know we all identify with, the Drooling Fanatic. I bought the book not only because he’s funny and you can tell he likes the reader, but Aimee Mann is quoted on the front. I turn it over and see a longer quote from her and another from Dan Bern. A man I know a lot about from never hearing his music. Almond’s writing is simple. He uses surprising language that will, and I think already has, gotten me out of my book rut. I haven’t read someone who genuinely loves music like this since Chuck Klosterman’s 2005 Killing Yourself To Live: 85% A True Story (that I also stumbled upon accidentally.) When you find music writing like this it makes you fall in love with music all over again.

judas

Last night I’m pretty sure I had an epiphany about Bob Dylan. His only listen-able album for me is Live, 1966 The Royal Albert Hall Concert [Disc 2] with Leopard Skin Pill-Box Hat, One Too Many Mornings, Ballad of a Thin Man and the infamous yelling of an English crowd member JUDAS (and Dylan’s retort of ….I don’t believe you….you’re a LIAR!!) It made me think, hmm well the Beatles were building their army in America at this very time and here was the poet, yet completely forgotten rock guitar god (and Google-able guitarist Robbie Robertson) back across the pond not smiling for the camera, smoking with twisted hands and fingernails, stirring the proverbial pot (and giving it out to the Beatles), singing tormented lyrics about the geek at the circus and one of the greatest love songs, and a ranking favorite (Pill-Box). I am convinced it’s about Edie Sedgwick. (I didn’t realize he had a love ‘affair’ with her until I endured Factory Girl. I use the word endured here because Hayden Christensen, for reasons misunderstood, was recruited to play Bob Dylan.) It is one of the greatest Live records I know and every time I listen to it, hits and all, it makes me realize the musical relationship between America and England in the 60s, and how complicated it was. Epiphany long over due, the Bob Dylan story in my life has now come full circle and I feel like I can move on without ever leaving him behind.

The best part about being alone on days like Christmas Eve and Christmas is that you get to be alone. No one is around. The train isn’t crowded, the streets are nothing but cold and you can play music at a louder than acceptable volume at 9am on Saturdays. With all the Best Of… lists squirming through my head lately, and the full album listens I’ve been devoting my brain to, I revert to my 2009 favorite album of the year (disclaimer, this has legit surprised more people than intrigued them) the Dirty Projectors’ Bitte Orca. A record that I listened to so much that I couldn’t for a while. But now when I hear it, I’m transported to winter of last year. Officially it’s become one of those records that can put you in a past place just from the opening chords.

there's something about his greasy hair...

At a 9am full volume I crack open one of the greatest Christmas presents I’ve ever gotten, all the way from London, the White Stripes photo book. (Thank you Morgan.) It is hardly a chronicle as it’s a presentation of art. Huge fold out newspaper sized photos, creased hardly down the middle, double sided. I figured the only proper way to display them would to put them between glass and hang them in a loft or hallway. I read the fine print and race to search about this Detroit garage rock band that Jack White played guitar for before him and Meg crafted the White Stripes: the Go. Doing exactly what I wanted to avoid all day until work, I am staring into a computer screen. Throwing myself into musical obsessions and loud rock earlier than planned. I’m afraid, quite frankly I know, it will lead to the filth in my apartment to build up and the choice to avoid human contact for the rest of the day.

As much as I want to turn on 24 hours of A Christmas Story, sweep the floor, and cook the spinach and mushrooms that I know if I don’t eat before lunch tomorrow will be spoiled, I can’t help but sit in my pajamas and reorganize my music library for the umpteenth time. My Christmas present to you, this new band: Tame Impala. Hailing from Australia, and the suggestions of Sokol and a co-worker playing them loudly in our empty office yesterday, I can finally remember their name after them blatantly popping up everywhere. What’s to follow? My favorite records of the year? Maybe. Until then, here’s a friend’s who has it planned and thought out more than I could try to do right now.

Freaky Bodily Phenomena

  By Riley | December 5, 2010 - 10:17 pm | Rants
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Have you ever spun around really fast with your arms outstretched? Go ahead, do it- get ten spins around like you’re a human helicopter. If you’ve done it right, that is, you’ve don it fast enough, then you had to stop because your fingertips hurt. It’s as if the centrifugal force from spinning pushed all the blood to your fingertips, making them feel as if they’d explode if pricked with a pencil-tip. Kinda freaky to think about. Not one of those things you want to test with a freshly sharpened pencil.

Once, when I was a young boy, let’s say eleven years old I was sitting on a bench. I sat there for what seemed like hours. Trouble was that I had both my legs under my butt, sitting like the Land-O-Lakes butter Indian. When I got up, both of my legs had fallen asleep and I collapsed like one of those toys. My limbs fall asleep when I’m sleeping, which makes it mega-scary when I get up and try to move them. You ever touch your sleeping arm with your arm that’s not asleep? You think you’re DEAD! Again, kinda freaky to think about.

You know, one of THESE toys!

It’s wintertime and the cold weather ushers in another freaky bodily phenomenon. You’re shoveling, or clearing snow off your windshield, or tossing snowballs at schoolbuses and your hands are ice-cold. Sure you could slowly bring them back to normal body temperature by wrapping them in a blanket or even sitting on them, but no – you want feeling back in them NOW. So you ignore your mother’s warning not to run them under hot water – that’s a myth up there with waiting half-an-hour to swim after eating and not sticking a Q-tip all the way in your ear -how the hell are you supposed to remove wax if the cotton-tipped swab is for your outer ear only? I digress. So you run the hot water and you stick your hands in. YEEE-GAAAWD. They sting, they burn. You shake them around wildly and clutch a towel to dry them. Give ‘em ten minutes and a cup of cocoa; you’ll feel them soon enough. Kinda freaky, though.

Who else could recite this commercial from memory all the way through? Circa 1995

hipsterdom, overexposed

  By Sarah | November 28, 2010 - 5:54 pm | Rants, Reviews
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In an excited frenzy from a day off from work and alone time for music news binging, I spent an easy fifteen dollars to see the latest so-hipster-you-could-puke band Best Coast at Georgetown, an exclusive DC event. Being put on by Georgetown Radio, even better. I thought I could befriend the students and get back on air (something I’ve begun to miss deeply.) Tuesday I buy my ticket, Saturday night I attend the show alone. With immense directions on how to get there, I follow the print out signs once I find the building on campus. Only to discover I’m attending a show in a less-lounge-like-lounge in their ‘campus center.’ Lingering for forty minutes or so with no friends in the area, I wait around and make notes to myself about the make shift surroundings. The cinder block wall turned chalk board matched the slung xmas lights, lo-fi meets lo-fi. I checked out their set up and it looked surprisingly efficient. It wasn’t until the music started that I realized I wasn’t in Ithaca anymore.

The first band, a local duo, Long Walks On The Beach, was fun yet incredibly underdeveloped musically and lyrically. The few students who showed up by this point, still early at 9:30, were toe to toe hipsters dancing around in a sea of flannels and leggings to boot. Cults, the second band went through a half hour set up with only 25 minutes of play time. Their dirt lip mustaches and long stringy black hair fell to the wayside when they knew every detail up of set up for their equipment. But when their vocals were drowned out I could feel their frustrations with the student engineers. By their 10:10 start time I realized I was one of six non students out of the 100 that were beginning to fill the room. My lack of alcohol intake, on a STRONGLY noted alcohol-free event (aren’t they all), didn’t help much in dealing with the overall atmosphere. I’m surprised the band wasn’t distracted by all the students screaming conversations over their music. Drunken Georgetown sophomores with no one to make fun of them with proved to be a lot less fun when you’re getting elbowed and shoved out of a place you’ve been holding for yourself. With no record out, where would they go from here? Meanwhile, the crowd was restless and getting worse and worse.

I befriended a shorter-than-thou grad student who at first seemed to be the only other person annoyed at, or noticing, the crowd’s behavior. Even drunk Ithaca hippies were never this rude. I felt myself longing for a complacent crowd at the State Street Theater. The silent crowd at the Sufan show at Castaways, or the old Lost Dog lounge where I saw Beach Fossils. But after being what felt like millions of miles from the comfort of Ithaca shows all I could do was make conversation. Best Coast is a sound-the-same band, I began to tell my nameless friend. Their lo-fi sound is incredibly well produced but their day by day lyrics distracted me from enjoying any further. He began to tell me that lyrics meant nothing to him. If he wanted poetry he would go read (name drop obscurity here.) I rolled my eyes and when he mentioned the last great lyricists (or only great) were the Beatles, I lost interest and laughed at everything else he said, without looking him in the eye.

frontwoman bethany cosentino


Best Coast was drunk. I was happy to see her playing guitar after expecting just another helpless female lead vocalist. I saw that her up and down slide of the same  bar chord helped her sounds stay the same. She was smiley and making friends with the crowd, only two feet above her hipster minions on fold out platforms. After stripping off the outer layer of her own band’s tee shirt, she apologized to those of us who paid to see them. (I learned students only paid $5 after the school subsidized their performance.) She said they’d be returning with Weezer in January. It was then that I decided I no longer needed to stay to hear the same song over and over again, purely empty music. All I could think about was the coming soon to DC Weezer “Memories” tour, back to back nights of full album run-throughs of Pinkerton and The Blue Album.

I went there with a mind to write something substantial about the night. The take over of lo-fi pop, how so many new bands sound the same: Girls, Wavves, Black Lips, the Smith Westerns, Crystal Castles (and the fact that we so easily embrace this.) I want to question why in the height of known technology that the most popular recording styles are on few channels with some reverb on the vocals. Anything but flashy, with thrift store frames and hand me down hats, the drunken crowd that was there just to play along with fame got the better of me. I wanted to ask them why they liked this band, who else they listened to. Is the popular musical simplicity present to balance our complex world? (Ironic that musical recordings are so stingy while release methods and coverage are generous in their efforts.) With environment meaning everything to impressions, I was overexposing my brain and couldn’t shut it off. Clearly I still can’t. Thank god for that-

kanye or kan-nay

  By Sarah | November 26, 2010 - 10:12 pm | Findings, Rants
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Perplexed by his new record’s popularity and in complete misunderstanding of Pitchfork’s 10.0 (highest possible) rating, I cannot help but follow the press like a word vomit obsession. I cannot control it, it just comes out. Like out onto your own moving car with everyone you know watching, into a trashcan, or all over your face. Kanye, like vomit, seems to get uncontrollably everywhere. He is an attention whore, tweet factory and all around strange man.

It was Dre who told me not to hate him just to continue my status quo. It was Shai who gave me the GOOD Fridays (and yes I listened to them and enjoyed them for a short while) who helped me consider him as more than just his douchey-ness. After receiving the album for free and listening to it two and a half times all the way through I can say that it is grand, over the top, histrionic, over-produced, arguably layered too much, features a lot (too many?) of big acts (credited and not) and well, is very good. Although I don’t know how I feel about a favorite Pitchfork’s Poptimist columnist Tom Ewing comparing My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy to John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.

See I’ve always hated Kanye West. And the level of thought I have given this man lately, quite frankly, scares me. I’m not sure I understand his popularity. OK, he’s a good producer. But is his popularity due to Jay-Z’s friendship? (Amazing Terry Gross interview.) The whole Peter Rothbart ‘gatekeeper’ idea is swirling about in my head (thanks Morg). Do we like him because we’ve been told this record would be great? Or is it actually? Also, I do not sympathize in the loss of his mother. She died during an elective cosmetic surgery (THERE, I SAID IT.) But I figured I would share this almost obsession and these ideas with you to see what you think. I am trying to write every day and since moving to DC have totally lost my passion (if there was any, it’s now gone) for politics and have completely thrown myself back into round-the-clock music obsession. Reading about it, writing about it and fervently, discussing it like word vomit. In a nut, I promise to be around more, only if you will.

To keep it short: recently fell into a co-worker’s personal music server with (this is the exact number: 1414 gigs) a lot of music. If you want any, you know what to do. Also, rediscovering my indie white suburban roots: I’ve completely fallen in love with Pavement (perhaps because of Malkmus to Lou Reed like qualities–Riley if you haven’t yet, listen to this band), Pinkerton, and decided I don’t miss college after an anticlimactic evening at a Georgetown show of Best Coast (I know, please don’t say it- inquire within for story, or just check back in a day.) Also Jack White is now ranking as a Jeff Tweedy all-timer (essay to follow as well) and is officially confirmed that I would do dirty nasty things to him.

To keep it short: will be around more, writing more as I’ve forgotten about this outlet and promise to not let our beloved ‘cant fall to the wayside. We need people who can say what everyone else is thinking and I volunteer. Also, if you’re reading this Riley: please accept my facebook friend request. Four months is a long enough wait.