NMT 59

I just finished a fun little book called, Perfect from now on: how indie rock saved my life by John Sellers (a $3.99 sale book at Borders). It was basically a guy writing about his obsession with music and in particular with our pick this week. I basically agreed with most of his observations about us music obsessives, though I am not near as bad anymore (I don't hunt down bootlegs and imports and shit), but the basic ideas are there. I did relate to all the feelings of frustration when someone didn't realize this band was an off-shoot of this other band or the singer X used to be in band Y and all that. At the time it seemed important, I know better now.

It's all about the ego. Or the need to artificially inflate your lack thereof. Hey, here's something you have over people. Doesn't mean anything, but fuck them, you know it and they don't.

Anyway, it was a fun read even though I disagreed with some of his choices (just some bands I didn't get in to), I thought he got the overall feeling right; the great feeling of handing someone something and them saying, "hey, what's this?" (which is what brings us here). Good feeling.

Over the years it's gone from a feeling of mock superiority to just a good feeling of making someone happy for 3 1/2 min. Or just staving off their boredom for a few minutes. Either way.

SO, our pick this week is the band he listed as his favorite in the book. They have an interesting story:

They're from Dayton, OH and the singer and songwriter was an elementary teacher while making music on the side. They put out some home made recordings made in their basement (or "down cellar") with a 4 track in the 80's. My friend Cary that I worked with at the store told me about them and said they put out each record on a different "label" so the indie rock kids would think they kept changing labels and thus were cool (indie rock kids are easily fooled), when in fact it was just them with their own money. Anyways, they didn't put anything out from like 1987 to 93 or something and then the 35 year old singer decided to make one last record and mailed it out to different media outlets and such. An editor at Spin magazine got a copy, loved it and wrote about them. Underground success follows and they end up influencing a whole generation of indie rock stars.

The lead guy, Robert Pollard, is very proficient. He's written over a thousand songs, for this band, solo records and side projects. Not all of them are good, most of them are a little too weird for me, but the good ones are really good. For you Scrubs fans, they did the song "Hold on Hope" that plays in one of the Brenden Frasier episodes (Two of the best episodes of that show ever) when they start looking through his pictures.

I didn't pick that one, but this one is good too.

So, from Dayton, OH (O-H...I-O!):

Guided By Voices - "I am a Scientist":





Bonus Tracks:

SO, you know how we're all big fans of the show The "L" word? I mean, not obsessive fans like Mormon Girl (she loves that show in ways she's not ready to deal with yet), but fans none the less. Well, the girl who plays Alice is also a singer, in fact she was one of the girls in The Murmurs. You know, those little folk rock girls who sang "You suck". Which was always fun when people would come in to ask for it: Do you have that You suck song? Um, cute little folk song about how the guy broke her heart and for that he sucks or raunchy, club song about making your boyfriend go down on you? Um, that first one...

Anyway, she's got a new band and here it is:

Uh Huh Her -"Say so":




I Miss the 90's:

This is stretching it a bit. This is a 1993 remix of a song from the late 80's. It's a Lynn special, so let's get out the tights, get our pack of cloves, head to the Edge and get a drink with all the fruit drinks and dance to the funky sounds.

Severed Heads - "Dead Eyes Opened":

No Dignity

Why do people do this to their dogs?


Have no fear....



Underdog is here....


(Sorry, I couldn't resist)


No wonder he eats pine cones in the living room.

Jack and Soapy would never stand for this.

Everybody dabbles

When Ellen shows the world what an ignorant asshole you are, you know you suck.

Funniest thing I have seen this whole election:

NMT 58

Talking about how you're not going to talk about something, is talking about that something. And talking about how someone isn't going to talk about something, is talking about that something.

Translation: Nobody gives a shit about Bill Ayers. Move on. Talk about how Joe the (kind of a) Plumber has had more press conferences than your VP Candidate and that her husband was a member of a group who wanted a state to secede from the Union. Secede. Like the South. Oh, and she believes in witches.

Well, now that we've gotten that out of the way. Our pick this week will try to take us in a different direction. We have 14 days to go and I"m sure it's going to start getting ugly down the stretch. So, in an effort to keep us all sane and positive, just remember: no matter what, in the end, everything will work out reasonably well.

As long as we remember to lookout for each other, give when you have and they don't. We can make it better from the bottom up.

This video is a homemade job and I think parts of it are a bit cheese, but I was more concerned about the song. This is the lead singer from James.


From Manchester, England:

Booth and the Band Angel - "I Believe":




Bonus Tracks:

You know how you've never heard Britney Spears sing. No you haven't. She lip syncs every performance. Not saying it's not her, but being able to just stand there and belt it out separates pop stars from the artists. The geniuses.

Like the Master here (just makes your soul feel good):




I Miss the 90's:

We were sitting in her living room the other weekend and going through a playlist thing on iTunes and she was trying to stump me. There were a couple I didn't know. I knew the name, but had never heard a song or enough to recognize. However, she thought this band's name was funny and I told her I had it on cassette (promo cassette no less). Well, she bought it on iTunes for me, so I have it now. It's fun.
They're from Austin and their name is funny and the video is just a stream of ridiculous.

Butthole Surfers - "Who was in my room last night?":

Ok, honestly...

If your job were to cover sports and as such you would be required to A) stand a lot and B) do most of that standing on grass and dirt fields would these be your shoes of choice:



I'm not saying they're not cute (and that would be because I don't know), but they don't seem functional for the task at hand.

Also, no matter your profession, you can't really complain about not being taken seriously as a professional if you wear a dress that short to work. Mormon Girl consistently pulls it off, but she's an anomaly.

By the way, that's Erin Andrews, ESPN sideline "reporter". She's the one that gives you information during the game like: "The training staff is reporting he pulled a grion muscle, we assume it was his own and his return is questionable".

(Oh I wasn't going to do this, but I must)

It's also KG's girlfriend. I think it's just a casual thing since she travels a lot and you know how KG can't commit to anything. Girls.

NMT 57

You remember when a new Kenny Chesney album would make us go to Wal-Mart at midnight to buy it?

Our pick this week is brand spanking new. It came out today and I like it. In fact I may go buy it when we are done here (2.99 at Amazon.com. Hurry.) Previous stuff from this band have been more lush, if you will. They did that "Somewhere only we know" song. This one seems to be more funky. More of a groove.

Anyway, it's really good, the video is cool (it's strange and LRHG loves her some strange videos) and it's only 2.99 (probably still on Wednesday too, so hurry).

So, let's pick it up and put it down and dance to the funky sounds...

From Battle, East Sussex, England:

Keane - "Spiralling":





Bonus Tracks:

A comment on the above video said it was the weirdest video they had seen since Weezer's "Pork and Beans". Well, let's see if they're right. This is a fun song too.

Weezer - "Pork and Beans":





I Miss the 90's:

I don't know why and I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but I woke up this morning and this song was running through my head. No reason for it because I haven't heard it in forever. Just popped in there. That's what it's like inside my head.

NMT 56

Purses are like mini-briefcases, Dwight.

OK, oddly, I fell like I'm about to repeat myself, but I can't tell if it's because I've already used this one or I've made this argument 1000 times already and I repeat myself all the time anyway. You guys are used to it.

When you reach a point and become one of the biggest bands in the world, or at least put out two records in two years that you can not get away from even if you wanted to (and why would you want to, they were brilliant), it would be very easy to just keep doing that. Like Matchbox 20 (now that argument I know I've made before). Bands that choose not to do that are usually the great ones.

U2, Joshua Tree 2? Nope, Auchtung, Baby, which was a far from Joshua Tree as you could get and still be the same band.

This band's run started at the end of that album's cycle. From the first time you heard the opening mandolin riff (itself a deviation from previous success) to the ballad that still gets played whenever someone dies or some moody doctor has a bad day on TV, they were it.

Then, in 1994, time to follow up those 2 records, filled with acoustic guitars, mandolins and baroque string arrangements not with more of the same, but with a record of loud, fuzzed out guitars and distorted vocals.

It wasn't broke, but they fixed it anyway and the results have been overlooked ever since.

It took me a few listens to get into it, but I soon realized it was just a beautiful as the others, it just made you work harder for it. It's all there, melodies, words, it's just buried beneath the fuzz.

It debuted at #1 and it's funny because a couple of years later you would find 4 or 5 copies in every used cd bin. This is all the people who thought, he I like this band after those last two records and then they got this and said, um, this is different. Where do you keep the Collective Soul cd's ?(All. Day.) Little realizing; this is what this band does.

Listened to this song last night and felt it's beauty and raw emotion again. Maybe you have to listen to it through headphones and get it inside your head to hear the subtleties, but my hope is you'll hear it.

This was written after the deaths of Kurt Cobain and River Phoenix, close friends of the singer.

From Athens, GA:

R.E.M. - "Let me in":





Bonus Tracks:

I think she stopped watching, so we'll do a little check to see.

Check it out, Amanda: New vagina rock:




I Miss the 90's:

Don't be afraid to shout out the vocal break. You know you all want to.

Damn this band was tight.

So sad...

Me thinks the caretaker guy got a little too melodramatic:

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=5953999

Getting the word out

Ok, girls, she needs your help. Next Saturday, her school is having their fall festival. Each class has a basket entered in the silent auction and each basket has a theme. Her theme is "coffee and tea time". She's looking for cheap ideas to put in it (coffee, tea things that go with coffee and tea). Since most of yous drink that stuff and being girls, you should be able to come up with all kinds of fun stuff and ideas.

She also looking for a "cute idea" for the basket. Doesn't have to be a basket, just something to hold all of this crap.

Do me proud girls. This is a bigger softball than a Hannity-Palin question.