Catchy Black Friday

Anyone in the Christmas spirit yet?

A Colbert Christmas

Thanksgiving ushers in the holiday season. After watching it tonight, I can honestly say, this may well be the best Christmas special ever. Do not miss it.

Go Seminoles

I'm heading down to Tallahassee for the holiday. I'll be going to the Florida / Florida State game on Saturday. Chances are it will be rainy and we'll get our ass kicked! Woo Hoo! Should be fun, though. The last game I went to was a great one, but it was a looooong time ago.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, Bastardos!

Speaking Of The White Album ...

From NPR's All Songs Considered:

When The White Album was released 40 years ago this month, fans were both baffled and awe struck by its sprawling world of sound. It was released as a double LP (almost unheard of at the time) and featured instant classics like "I Will," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," and "Blackbird." But The White Album (its real name is simply The Beatles) was also filled with songs many found hard to digest, like the eight-minute, experimental sound collage "Revolution 9" or the inexplicably surreal "Honey Pie." On this edition of All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen talks with Bruce Spizer, author of The Beatles On Apple Records, about the groundbreaking White Album and how it came to be.

A Thanksgiving treat from me to you, but don't Forget The Pie.

Oops

WNBC anchor Sue Simmons and her on-air gaffe from earlier this year.

To peruse while you digest your turkey.....

Popdose has a fun list, Favorite Singles of the Last Fifty Years, as compiled by their contributors. I like it because it isn't claiming 'best' or 'greatest'. Just favorite. Check it out Bastards.

Happy Thanksgiving Bastards

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

This was a card I received from my brother. Enjoy! Sort of NSFW, but there are bleeps where appropriate.

Can Jay Wait Until Christmas?

Browsed through this at Bookstar tonight. Looks good for what it is: photos, sketches, memories from Dave Gibbons about the genesis of Watchmen. Too big to stick in a stocking, I predict one bastard won't be waiting for Santa to deliver this.

This Has Aged Well

Neighborhood Texture Jam is a Memphis institution, initially conceived by a bunch of middle-class, private-school-educated 20-year-olds, waaaay back in the late 80's. (They still get back together every once in awhile.) I wasn't friends with these guys or anything, but we ran in the same circles, and I distinctly remember that first afternoon my friend Dave played Funeral Mountain for me in his dorm room. I was rendered speechless by how good it was, how sophisticated and polished it sounded compared to our shitty college band. Even more amazingly, it got reviewed in Rolling Stone!

Funeral Mountain walks a fine, ferocious line between full-blown hardcore assault and Southern twin-guitar psych-out jam, with some industrial percussion thrown in for good measure. Singer- lyricist Joe Lapsley has quite a way with words: "I fell into the borax factory/Of your love," he wails in "Borax Factory," a saline love song that deserves to become a modern classic, and tunes like "Old South" ("Want to see the rebel flags?/Want to go see 'em?/ They're next to the swastikas in a museum") and the trudge epic "Torsos of Murdered People" (splatter rock with a vengeance) give an indication of his range. For the full impact of his rage, put this one on and turn it up: These guys rock like their lives depended on it.

I dug it out the other day, and this disc has aged really well. Lyrically, Funeral Mountain focuses primarily on society's unpleasant underbelly, but listening again, I was reminded of one song in particular that disturbed me. "The Big Johnson" is one of the best songs on the disc, but it fucked me up for a week. Fondue Takes Principles, ladies.

Mmmmm, Beer . . .

Interesting article in the New Yorker this week about the guy who founded the Dogfish Head brewery in Milton, Delaware. The passage below is about how he invented the delicious 60 Minute IPA, to which I was introduced by Dave, and to which I re-introduce myself as often as possible. I like the definition of a "session beer." (Good soup tip, too.)

The turning point came in 1999, when Calagione was watching a cooking show on television. The chef, who was making a soup, was saying that several grindings of pepper, added to the pot at different points, would give the dish more flavor than a single dose added at the beginning. Not long afterward, at a Salvation Army store, Calagione came across an old electric football set—the kind with a playing field that vibrates to send miniature players skittering across it. Back at home, he found a five-gallon bucket and drilled some holes in the bottom. He laid a pair of wooden blocks on the football set, put the bucket on the blocks, and strapped the whole thing together with duct tape. (“Pretty high-tech M.I.T. stuff,” he says.) Later, when his kettle was boiling, he put hops in the bucket, perched his contraption at a slant above the kettle, and set the game vibrating. Soon, a steady stream of hops was falling through the bucket onto the playing field and sliding into the kettle.
The beer born of that experiment, known as 60 Minute I.P.A., is still Calagione’s biggest seller. He calls it a beer geek’s idea of a “session beer”—mild enough to be consumed in quantity, but with an unexpected kick. It has the bright, citrusy bouquet of a much hoppier brew, without the bitterness. Wine Enthusiast tasted hints of rose petal, tangerine, orange zest, and nutmeg in it, and rated it a “classic.”
The extreme-beer era was under way.

Hat Tip

I've been on the road alot lately, and will be for a while, so have finally been catching up on some of the tunes you lot have posted recently. Some really good stuff (except the Ryan Adams, Dave -- I just don't get it), so just wanted to say thanks.

Mellow Friday

Chill, bastards.

Rocks Like Robots

If DEVO can produce a new album that consistently sounds like this, I'm in. This, by the way, is a single from last year sometime ("Watch Us Work It"), featured in a series of commercials for Dell.

Why Do Jay's Pants Look Funny?

Just read a blurb in Rolling Stone that Devo is together working on their first new album of original material in many, many moons. Heard about this Jay?

Music Discussion Friday

Quick, name an album that you anticipated listening to for years, only to finally hear it and be completely disappointed. All Things Must Pass fits the bill for me.

I Win

Coolest post today? Click and drag in the video when it starts.

Bon Iver

"Skinny Love"

Apropos of nothing

One of my favorite letters to the Times:

Hielo Negro

Feeling The Pain of the credit crunch? Tired of the war? Not sure which way is up and which is down? It's nice to know some things never change. Case in point, AC/DC. Okay, I haven't actually listened to it yet, but how much different can it possibly be?

The Gaslight Anthem

I think I'm too old to like this band as much as I do. This album looks like it's on the verge of breaking big (if it hasn't already). Not to indulge too much in the comparison game, but there are obvious Boss and 'Mats references throughout.

Also, Find The Punchy EP 'Senor and the Queen' and see how old you feel.

Olson and Louris, Louris and Olson

I don't know if ya'll ever got into the Jayhawks, but I did in a big way. The original principals, Gary Olson and Mark Louris, have reunited for an album that has yet to be released (I think they let it go in Europe, though). Chris Robinsin of the Black Crowes produced. I've been streaming it on the New West site and it's great. If you've got the time or the inkling, it's here.

From the record company:

Ready for the flood captures the stripped down, fingerpicked guitar playing and Laurel Canyon sound of an earlier time, with allusions to English folk – Bert Jansch, Nick Drake, John Renbourne, whom both Mark and Gary had both been getting into independently – and a simpler, live recording technique where capturing the right vibe was as important as the sound. It’s an album that only two career musicians and friends could make – organic, intuitive and loosely confident, heartfelt and moving, echoing with the combined experience of two kindred spirits reuniting to do what they do – and love – best.

Mmmm......

Happy Veteran's Day

The wisdom of General George S. Patton. Best remembered as the first US pentathlete in the 1912 Olympics, he actually went on to have a noteworthy military career. (This clip was also one of George C. Scott's finest acting moments.)

Are You There, Ryan...?

It's Me, God.

Honda's Robotic Legs

Supports bodyweight, protects balls.

Ha Ha!

CNN reports that "Bush is now more unpopular than Richard Nixon was when he resigned from office during Watergate with a 66 percent disapproval rating."

On the day that President-elect Barack Obama is visiting the White House, a new national poll suggests that the current occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the most unpopular president since approval ratings were first sought more than six decades ago.

Seventy-six percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday disapprove of how President Bush is handling his job.

Read the rest here.

William Eggleston At The Whitney

Here's a neat article in The New York Times about Memphis's greatest photographer. I wish I could see this retrospective, but I have a particular interest in Stranded in Canton, his fucked up home movies with the drunken and debauched locals, circa 1973-74.

Read the article here.

Frank Turner

A bit rueful for a Friday post, but a nice little song that reminds a bit of Ted Leo.

It's ... MORE Watchmen!

Watchmen Exclusive: Girls Kick Ass

Below the fold

I guess the good folks of Rockdale, Georgia think there is a lot more important stuff to talk about than this so-called Obama fellow

Rejoice, Comrades!

Terrorist fist bumps all around!

I heard Obama appeals to the younger set . . .

I came out...

I admitted I voted for BO at work today. Expect...a bit of tension. I'll bring donuts. Is he gonna win? Andy? Lurker? Dave? Other dumb guy?

Lemmy: The Movie

Unfortunately Prescient Article from the Onion

Click here to read this article from the Onion from waaaay back in 2001 as Bush was about to be inaugurated. Funny. But not that kind of funny. Article title kind of says it all: Bush: "Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity finally over".

Shit

Goodbye, Opus

New Yorker endorsement gets it right, I think

In what amounts to mostly preaching to the choir, I recommend you read this well-written, comprehensive, and thoughtful endorsement of Obama by the New Yorker. It does a very good job of encapsulating most of the lucid and legit arguments in favor of an Obama presidency, with relatively little knee-jerk quotient.

Cardinology + IV

Picked up the new Ryan Adams yesterday, as well as the latest from one my new favorite bands, Chatham County Line. Haven't listened yet, so no review, but Finding The Product is easy.

How true those words are even today

Can't go wrong with airplane jokes.