A nickel is a nickel, a dime is a dime

It's that time again, where I try and make up for the lack of any real content this week by offering you a sop in the form of a song.

"Talkin' About You," by Piney "Kokomo" Brown and His Blue Flashes, might be one of my favorite songs ever. Recorded in the late '40s, it falls into the category of jump blues, a subspecies of blues that could be loosely defined as what rock and roll was before white people got their sanitizing hands on it. (See here for more info.)

Amazingly, Piney Brown (who is not the same Big Piney Brown memorialized in "Piney Brown Blues, or his brother Little Piney Brown) is still alive and touring.

I first heard jump blues eight years when I moved to NYC. It was around that time that I grew strangely (though not unjustifiably) disenchanted with modern music, and so I decided that I was a 40something nerdy white rock critic type stuck inside the body of a 22-year-old girl* and refused to listen to any recording artist who didn't possess at least two of the following qualities:

1)dead
2)incarcerated
3)crazy

I could pretty much find everything I needed at the late, great Wowsville Records, which, of course, was run by Italians. (Pop quiz: Why do Europeans care more about American roots music than we do? Because we're assholes, that's why.)

Now that Wowsville is gone, the best resource for all things old and scratchy (of every genre) is Roots and Rhythm, where you can also buy City Jump Vs. Country Jump, the truly, truly amazing comp on which "Talkin' About You" is the first track.

I'm no longer quite as despondent about the state of modern music, especially because now we have the Arctic Monkeys to save us all, but, frankly, there isn't anything out right now that can possibly stand up to this.

If you'll excuse me, I need to go re-alphabetize my record collection by sound engineer and take an inventory of my WFMU t-shirts.

Talkin' About You, by Piney "Kokomo" Brown and His Blue Flashes

*And lemme tell you, I cannot tell you how many 40something nerdy white rock critics types I met at that time who wouldn't have minded being stuck inside the body of this 22-year-old.

Sometimes a Pony Gets Depressed

Perhaps you've heard that the Silver Jews are swinging into NYC this weekend? The Pogues--with Shane MacGowan allegedly scheduled to appear, if he lives long enough--are also coming.

We got tickets to the Saturday Jews show. Frankly, if the Pogues tickets hadn't sold out first, I'd have been hard pressed to choose which gig to attend (and it would have to be one or the other--the Pogues tickets were like 60 clams, to which I mutter something in aggravation under my breath). I mean, on one hand, you've got the Silver Jews, who haven't toured in, like, ever, and then on the other hand, you have probably the last chance ever to see complete Pogues, helmed by an estranged lead singer who in all likelihood will be wheeled out on stage attached to a portable dialysis machine.

Fists of love

N and I saw the Wedding Present at Maxwell's on Monday. They were very fun and pretty much stuck to this set list, so if that sounds appealing to you, go see them at the Bowery Ballroom tonight, and close your eyes and pretend that you're actually in a room with only 150 people in it and a decent soundsystem, suckas. And we got back home in under an hour even though like Jimmy Cliff we had many rivers to cross.

I managed to snag a coveted spot on the risers because the sadface livejournal chick sitting there the whole time with arms crossed over her buttoned-up mod coat left halfway through. She refused to clap for anything but "Go Out and Get 'Em Boy." Y'know, chica, I'm not much a fan of the past ten years' worth of their oeuvre either, but they're here performing for you, so kindly fuck off and take your Current Mood: I Am a Shadow Trapped in Hell shtik with you.

And we're back

N and I made it back from Florida with nary a scratch or a religious conversion. We came close though with our semiannual trip to Murph's, the single greatest bar in Florida (and that's what we call damning with faint praise), to see Singin' Bill. It was not as raucous an event as last time, it being xmas eve and all, but boy did we have fun. Some folks had a crazier xmas, but ours was still pert near perfect. Being told that you're wise beyond your years by a man who knows Hank Williams' entire oeuvre is pretty much the best xmas present evar. Hope your holidaze were good, too.

More to come in 2006.

And now I know how Joan of Arc felt...

You know what sucks? Like, okay, you have some really big dreams, which you manage to quash by a) taking every drug you can get your hands on and b) not being very talented, but that doesn't stop you from deciding: "I am going to have a Five-Year Plan, and at the end of those five years, I am going to go out in such a spectacular fashion that no one will forget me."

And so then, the fabled day arrives. And believing that (as Don McClean sang) the world was never meant for one as beautiful as you, you cook up and inject the motherlode of all fixes, and ascend to the Golden Shooting Parlor in the Sky. Your status as Punk Rock God is cemented!

And then, the next day, the goddamned Millionaire Jesus of Hippies has to go and get himself killed.

And poof! Like that, the acme of your Five-Year Plan is destroyed.

I hereby declare December 8 to be National It-Sucks-To-Be-Darby-Crash Day.

Anyhow, I'm sure you've heard about this Darby Crash biopic that's been in postpostpostproduction for about two years now called What We Do Is Secret, which I think is a sadly ironic choice for a title, given that what the Germs did was suck and it weren't no big secret. If I had to employ the Song Title Nomenclature Rule, I would've chosen "Throw It Away," but that's why I'm not a filmmaker. Starring as Darby Crash is one Shane West, who you might know from his role as Doctor Goatee on ER. Apparently Shane had fake buck teeth affixed to his own for the role. Such is Shane's devotion to his craft.

Oh, heh, by the way, the "Germs" are playing this weekend at the Continental. Wanna know who's singing? Doctor Goatee himself.

Some would think that the real Darby Crash is spinning in his grave, but I think that he's absolutely delighted to be portrayed by such a hot piece of ass.

Obligatory holiday Flickr photoset

Wow, did a week go by that fast? Nothing like the dread of coming back to your office to realize you forgot to leave a vacation message on your voicemail and the little red light is blinking on your phone.

Also: Nothing like the realization that ten years ago you never would've expected that you'd even have an office or a phone with a blinking red light. Very demoralizing.

Speaking of demoralizing, we watched Crash this weekend on a pay-per-view whim. It was missing the crucial ensemble musical number. And it should have been called Look How Far We've Come Since "Grand Canyon"! Blech.

Authors: You all look the same to me

N an I attended the Housing Works "annual gin mingle" party thing last night. I am still a little lobotomized from it, even though there was no gin to be had by the time we got there. Provided that there was gin to be had in the first place.

Punk rock: Officially dead

Mr. Bloomberg offered the city's help in negotiating a new lease. If that fails, and CBGB is forced out of its space at 313 and 315 Bowery, "we will try to find another location," the mayor said.

M-E-T-H-O-D

I surround myself with ambition: Maud Newton's got a book review in the Times and another friend has managed to do the impossible and write a Modern Love column that doesn't suck. And I was sitting at a table with the both of 'em at the Water Taxi Beach on Saturday night. I've always imagined being in the presence of two Times writers, but I assumed that it would be Ariel Kaminer and Deborah Solomon, and that there would be a cattleprod involved.

[this is good]

The Annotated "Losing My Edge."

I was yours for seven years

You know, I'd just about gotten over the fact that I didn't get to see the Wedding Present when they toured earlier this spring until I read that they performed "Dalliance." This sucks, and I will cut myself if I find out they played "My Favorite Dress" as well.

False Nostalgia Fridays!!!

I have work deadlines up the yin yang--that's not what's kept me from posting. In fact, I have several unfinished posts. I can't believe I am procrastinating doing the very thing that began as a practice of procrastination in the first place. It's very meta.

On a rainy, bleary day such as this one, here's something that cheered me up:
You Are My Sunshine, sung by Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan.

Hold Watcha Got

RIP, Jimmy Martin.

Goodnight, sweethearts

I am adding to the chorus of fond farewells to the Cupcake Series. You will be missed. (Come back anytime, I'm saving the piece with the flowers on it for you.)

We are tired of your abuse

Hey, you know what's going on tonight? The Walk of the Elephants through the Midtown Tunnel, which is either a charming visitation of more innocent times or a horrifying example of animal abuse. (I can't decide what it is, but as soon as that goddamned baby is out of here I will be better able to focus.)

Living in LIC, I could watch it from the Pulaski Bridge. We'll see how embittered I feel by midnight tonight.

In 27 years, I've drunk 50,000 beers

I am in the process of moving offices and trying to remember how to do actual work. In the meantime, go visit Punk Turns 30, a nifty new blog by photographer Teresa Kereakes. [Via Kingblind.]

As a wise man once said, "It's all the same; only the names have changed."

The other night I was at a bar Ma'am, you'll have to be more specific and I heard a song that filled me with such immense joy that I smiled for the first time in a week and knew I needed to get a copy of it.

The tune in question is Wagon Wheel, by Old Crow Medicine Show. What was it about this song? I wondered as I listened to it ad infinitum all weekend. Couldn't put my finger on its je ne sais quoi.

In terms of craftsmanship, it's a bit common.* Was it the fiddle? I like me some fiddle. I thought about the chords. G D Em C. Pretty mundane. Hm.

So it turns out that the chords to Wagon Wheel are identical to Son Volt's Windfall, another song that, when I first heard it, rocked my world. It was all rather Pavlovian.

I am disappointed by how predictable (and easily triggered) the nostalgia button in my subconscious is. Since my discovery, I've been going through my favorite songs trying to determine how many of them are also composed of the magic G-D-Em-C progression. It turns out that number is 379.

*Interesting sidenote: It was originally written by Dylan, but never finished.

If you love something, set it free

I left a lot of things upstate when I moved down to the city 7 years ago. Some of it was intentional abusing of my former housemate's good will, but a lot of it was detritus that I forgot about completely. Like all my REM cassettes. I mean, who needs those after 1990, right? I forgot them.

A couple months ago, while I was organizing my CDs, I noticed that one of my Gun Club CDs was missing. Now, I've been in two long-term relationships and 5 apartments since college and I knew, I just knew, that "Fire of Love" had disappeared somewhere along the way. I mean, I currently possess three copies of the Stones' "Beggars Banquet." You do the math. There's a certain amount of musical attrition when relationships end.

So how delighted was I to discover, while I was visiting my old housemate yesterday, that she, in fact, had my copy of "Fire of Love"? (Answer: Very.) Hidden behind her husband's Genesis and Toad the Wet Sprocket CDs (I wish I were kidding.) was my Gun Club CD.

In celebration of this reunion, I present to you Sex Beat, by the Gun Club. Same as it ever was.

Play Music!

Because I live in a cave, I only just discovered More in the Monitor. Here's the concept:

It seems like more and more newspapers and magazines have decided that reviews of live music aren't worth the space. We think that sucks. Every night hundreds of shows unfold just in New York City. And people go. But the scene is largely unreported.

[Via Lacunae.]

Idle Browsers are the Devil's Playthings

Hey, inkeeping with my OCD-Judeo theme today, please go attend my pal Jennifer Traig's Virtual Book Tour. She'll be discussing her latest, a memoir called Devil in the Details.

This just in!

Cobain still dead, Love still murderous cunt.

Hate and war

While I was busily unpacking my 300 teapots this weekend, people was gettin' blowed up all over the world. Yay Jesus!

I pretty much have been jerking off to the fantasy of the George Bushes and Bill Clinton getting tried at the Hague for war crimes. I will probably be dead before that happens, blowed up by my own hand trying to light the GODDAMNED pilot in my stove.

In the meantime, since I have nothing of value to offer of my own, for a limited time only I present to you two Live Ones mp3s! Yay-yuh!

(Note: Titles are approximated as I never got the song list.)

We're the Ones
Got What You Wanted

Bon Appetit.

Every Good Boy Deserves Free Beer

PowerHouse Books is celebrating the release of Charles Peterson's* "Touch Me I'm Sick" with a big-ass reception on Thursday night. RSVP this afternoon so you can get free beer and see who's flyin' the flannel.

*Thank you Science Girl for correcting me.

We come to take you home

I come down I come down like a monkey*

Hey, are you too broke to see the Mekons tonite? (Actually, only the Catholic Workers are more broke than I am, but follow me here.) You should come down to Hank's tonight and see The Live Ones! Starts 10-ish. I'll be there.

Like the Onion, only with less Charisma and more Comeliness

Popdork. Look familiar?

The time monitor, the space measurer

Most likely unbeknownst to him, Mark Weisblott has given me the best xmas present ever: news of a documentary about the Minutemen called "We Jam Econo." Seriously, this is the happiest I've been in weeks, which, when you've spent the past six days drinking Listerine filtered through Wonderbread, isn't saying much, but still.

A body and a bed

Yay! Jim Crace's new book is out in the states! Alright, you FSG folks--I know you're out there, I've seen your IP addresses--gimme a promo copy! (Thanks Maud for reading the paper so that I don't have to.)

Three cheers for our bitsy belle-lettrist!

Maud's got a story up at Mr. Bellers. Good on her!

Every town shall furnish its own women

Right now all Fat Possum Records are 13 bucks or less. You should go order some. This might be a good time to pick up that Black Keys CD that you've been on the fence about. I mean, yeah, on one hand, they sound like Steppenwolf. But on the other hand, that's not such a bad thing.

Actually, you could pick up any of the Fat Possum collection and be pretty fuckin' set. They're truly a great label.

(And I realize this is all very boring but there is currently Not Enough Coffee In The World to awaken me from my torpor.)

Better late than never

I feel like such a heel, as I meant to post a link to the website for The Run, a documentary about the Tompkins Square Park Dog Run, on Friday afternoon so that you would all go up to the New-York Historical Society that night and watch it. But I forgot. Shit.

In a town where the kind of dog you have can be political no matter where you are, this particular dog run is like the Gaza Strip. (See here.) Class struggle as evinced by pooches. You get the picture.

Still, it's one of my favorite dog runs. I go there some weekends and stand outside the gates for probably too long. Like a pedophile casing a playground. Getting pitying looks from the people and their dogs coming in and out. I, the dogless.

Go watch the trailer, and cross your fingers that they'll show The Run again sometime soon and that I won't forget again.

You: don't talk so much, just smile and look nice

Josh Homme answers the dirty dozen and proves that he can wield and ax, and he can plow my field anytime, but clearly, we're bringing the ball gag out should that happen. (via Get Swank)

Server error

My brain cannot parse the fact that I had to discover the death of Robert Palmer via dong resin, who, unlike Mr. Palmer, actually did mean to turn me on. How did he know that industrial-grade machine shop lube is one of my "things"?

Like a knife fight in a phonebooth

Farbeit from me to dictate what your next record purchase should be, but since I *probably* have better taste in music than you, listen up:

Check out Dead Man Shake, new album by Grandpaboy.

Lina Koutrakos, Tuck and Patti Fans Rejoice

The Bottom Line has gotten a temporary reprieve. Oh, thank heavens. I was worried that I would have to find another venue to enjoy $7 Amstel Lights and dessicated chicken fingers while listening to jejune rock and rollers.

Hey good lookin' boys

OK, how psyched am I about the Bruce La Bruce photo show at John Connelly?

Tomorrow night's the opening. (<---- I set 'em up, you knock 'em down)

Watch Her Twirl that Mike Around

Although I'm sure she'd prefer that I not attend, I'm sure the rest of you are welcome to go see Maud perform at tomorrow night's Pindeldyboz reading/karaoke event.

("Hot Blooded," Maud! "Hot Blooded"!)

It sounds like 1963 but for now it sounds like heaven

I love the weather this morning. Even though it makes my hair look more ethnic than Lanie Kazan in a dashiki doing capoiera I still live for misty moisty mornings like these. I was listening to Trace, by Son Volt, which now might seem kinda goofy in its earnestness but it still holds up in its own way. I'll never forget the first time I heard it, though. Ever hear an album that just seems so incredible, so perfect, that your eyes widen and you look at the person next to you and the look on your face and the feeling in your heart--your awe and reverence--wordlessly communicate Wow? Well, that's how I felt when I first heard Trace.

I first heard that Jay Farrar had a new band from my friend M, who called me one morning, interrupting some sort of weighty postcoital philosophical inventory, to tell me that I had to get up and go get the new Son Volt album right away; that it was that good. So I woke up whatshisname--let's call him Number 40, 'cause it's, um, a nice round number--and told him we had to run an errand. We stopped at the Krispy Kreme on the way to placate him with glucose and caffiene. A half-hour later we were parked in front of the globe on DeRenne, because I was so agog that I didn't want to drive; I just wanted to listen. Number 40 understood. He was a very understanding guy, as I recall. (If you're out there, I'm sorry I never called you.) We sat in the car, our heads lolling on the seat backs, eyes squinty in the morning winter superbright sun, awash in sugar and intense aural beauty. It was a perfect album at that moment.

Maybe that kind of shit only happens when you're young. Greil Marcus said something about every punk rock album seemed to say everything in the world there was to say--or something similarly stupid--but in a way, he was right. There's a decadent beauty in music when you're young--it means more, at the time anyhow, and it almost immediately begins to mean less on the next listen. The other night I heard the first Jane's Addiction album at a bar; it was so nonsequitur and it immediately clocked my reverie. I hadn't heard it in probably ten years. It was still quite lovely, but foreign. I couldn't remember why it had been so important to me when I was 15 and stoned and fantasizing all day long about chasing the dragon with Perry Farrell.

It would be nice to hear music that way again.