Boris tourdates:
Boris Tour with Growing, 30% Chance of Bloodshed
Apple Does The Impossible By Becoming Second Largest Music Retailer of Albums (Next to Wal-Mart Of Course)
Congrats, Apple! You're the second largest retailer of music albums, and it's about time! No one thought you could do it, but boy have you surprised us all.
“We’d like to thank the over 50 million music lovers who have helped the iTunes Store reach this incredible milestone,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. Such charming words from a corporation, don't you think? Sounds almost like Eddy Cue is thanking all music lovers for helping the iTunes Store send aid to Darfur. Incredible milestone, indeed!
Regardless, Apple is mighty proud of itself, and it goes to show that people are truly all about the digital age of music distribution, even with the accusations of fuzzy math. Besides, downloading music from iTunes for their iPods is much easier than driving to the nearest five Wal-Marts and purchasing a CD.
You Just Can’t Go Wrong with a Shellac Tour!!
Oftentimes something seems like a good idea that is really a bad idea. This can be detrimental not only to one's sense of satisfaction, but also to his or her pocketbook, self-esteem, waistline, etc. Now, I may not be an expert in, say, the national economy, the proper use of "lay" versus "lie," or which side of the street to park your car on during a Minneapolis snow emergency, but I can proudly profess to being good at distinguishing a stupid option from a good one. (Of course, this sense usually kicks in approximately one minute after I have been faced with the decision.) In the spirit of a thoroughly disappointing Wednesday, I would like to present:
Things that seem like they will be awesome but turn out not to be awesome
Versus
Things that seem like they will be awesome and then turn out to be totally awesome
A side-by-side comparison.
Things that seem like they will be awesome but turn out not to be awesome:
- Calling your credit card company when you notice a weird charge on your account and having the bank dude get all attitude-y.
- Ordering a cinnamon roll from the coffeeshop only to find it is stale and partially frozen.
- Realizing you don't have to work tomorrow, only to realize there's nothing to do tonight.
Things that seem like they will be awesome and then turn out to be totally awesome
- Shellac going on tour this spring.
- Shellac going on tour this spring to places I will not be, but which sound incredible and will probably totally enhance the lives of each and every member of Shellac.
- Steve Albini
* Allroh
You’re Cordially Invited to Theodore Francis “Ted” Leo’s Pre-St. Patrick’s Day Affair And The Subsequent Tourdates That Succeed It
Dear friends, family, and strangers on the internet,
Theodore Francis “Ted” Leo hereby requests that you join him in celebrating the great St. Patrick:
Friday, the fourteenth of March, two thousand and eight
IBEW Local 103
Dorchester, Massachusetts
With special guests The Dropkick Murphys
and
Saturday, the fifteenth of March, two thousand and eight
Lowell Memorial Auditorium
Lowell, Massachusetts
With special guests The Dropkick Murphys
A reception will follow each performance.
Theodore also wishes to extend a warm welcome to those in Europe that are not able to join him for the St. Patrick’s day concerts. He requests the honor of their presence at his upcoming European performances during the spring of two thousand and eight:
Elliott Smith Memorial Wall Vandalized… Again
The wall featured in the background of Elliott Smith's Figure 8 album cover is actually part of a building that houses an electronics store called Solutions, located in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. Since Smith's 2003 suicide, the wall has transformed into a memorial to the songwriter, covered with scrawls bearing messages and poems. This past summer, however, an exemplary specimen of the human race decided his "artwork" was more worthy of the wall, obscuring the top half of the memorial with blue spray paint. Not long after, another aspiring artist decided that large bubble letters were the extra touch the wall needed, essentially ruining the memorial. What's next, a touch-up on the John Lennon wall in Prague?
A group of fans restored the wall this week, but all of the previous messages written to Smith have been lost. The owner of Solutions, Stephon Lew, is planning to create a monument in memoriam to Smith, following the original artistic theme of the wall:
These are my dreams: I plan to place an electronic object of importance….a 5 foot 7 inch tall monument (of Elliott’s size--with two loudspeakers at the base of the monument to represent his two big shoes) formed from crushed electronics parts---to play and to identify Elliott’s musical influences (Elliott’s hobby, I hear, was to experiment with electronics to make music tone)---to have the monument--emanate new energy and the many solutions that music can provide.
Sin And Degradation on Sunday; WFMU Pledge Drive Marathon With Yo La Tengo Murdering The Classics
Listener supported radio WFMU calls it their 50th anniversary pledge drive, I call it a karaoke wet dream. Let us rejoice in an event that's primarily about you, your radio, and Yo La Tengo ruining your favorite songs over and over again.
Since 1996, Yo La Tengo and the gang have been taking pledger's requests and hurling themselves headfirst into reckless covers, a phenomenon immortalized in the group's 1996-2003 compilation Yo La Tengo Is Murdering The Classics, released on their own label Egon and available here.
While past WFMU pledge drive events have included DJs setting themselves on fire, self-inducing sickness on junk food, and getting Eagles tattoos, Yo La Tengo is hands down the highlight of the annual pledge-drive marathon. It's all for the cause.
Shh shh shhhhhh. No words. Just emotions.
This Sunday, March 2, on WFMU with hosts Gaylord Fields and Bob Brainen, 5-8 PM Eastern time. Stream it if you got it.
