Fractionals

Feel good hits of the 29th of November, 2008:

John Cale - "Dying on the Vine"
Tindersticks - "Before You Close Your Eyes"
Elbow - "Live on My Mind"
Cut Copy - "Far Away"
Muslimgauze - "Kabul Is Free Under a Veil"
RL/VL - "Dinosaurs"
The Bevis Frond - "Waving"
New Order - "Leave Me Alone"
Clinic - "Porno"
Dolorean - "You Can't Win"

So I did a bit of PR work for a new band, one that I happen to genuinely love (on the basis of the EP, at least). Anyone who got the full promo package got a page written by me, but right now my words are also on this site in briefer form, which is pretty cool. I highly recommend the EP (when it comes out, beginning to December) to anyone who likes, oh, New Order or Cut Copy or what have you.

As part of PopMatters' rather epic coverage of the White Album's 40th anniversary we're doing a series on other classic albums of 1968, and today my contribution went up. I wrote about Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, naturally.

Michael Dirda has a fantastic, lengthy piece on Paul Auster in The New York Review of Books today. I've got The New York Trilogy sitting around here somewhere, and he may have just bumped it to near the top of my to-read list.

I was thrilled and a little nervous when I heard Los Campesinos! were putting out a second album in 2008. Luckily, I had nothing to worry about. It's not going to make my top ten like Hold on Now, Youngster... did, but it did make my top twenty.

Ryan North linked to one of these, so I'm stealing it from him, but these PSAs are genius:



Edit: This one is even better.

My review of the new album by Woven is up today at PopMatters.

I participated in the Art of Noise's second 5x5 post, where five of us were given five untagged MP3s and reviewed them without context. Brought back fond memories of the old Stylus Singles Jukebox.

If you live in Ontario, please go here and check out a petition a friend/classmate of mine is spearheading. Chris works in privacy issues and technology, and the stuff he's told me about the new 'enhanced' driver's licenses they want to bring in here make me very worried. There's a link from the page I've linked (which explains how to sign) with details of what these new licenses would entail... certainly the risks don't seem to be worth the rather paltry rewards of such a system.

I'm up late working on reviews and my 2008 top-whatever for PopMatters and elsewhere, but I just noticed my review of the fine new Theresa Andersson album went up there. Back to work...

I hope you all had a good Remembrance Day, and marked it appropriately (or Veteran's Day, if you're in the States). I'm still wearing my poppy after getting home from work. There are always great things written about Canada on the 11th of November, but this year my favourite is this post by the inimitable Kate Beaton.

I have a short review of Populous with Short Stories' album Drawn in Basic up today at PopMatters. I really like it, to the extent that I suspect the 8 I gave it may be undervaluing it a little.

- Neil Young has started a company to convert old cars to electric. Cool.

- My newest Village Voice review is up, this one on Free Blood.

- Michael Crichton has passed away. Huh. My condolences to his family, of course; he was a hack, but one I enjoyed in high school.

- According to Popbitch, never the most reliable source, Obama has said "Brothers should pull up their pants.. Some people might not want to see your underwear - I'm one of them." Which if true, is hilarious.

I'll tell you a little secret about Canadians, or at least Southern Ontarions: We're basically Americans. We're not quite, and naturally we tend to focus on our superiority differences, but there's a reason the people up here been nearly as paralyzed by this election as my American friends (well, you can also factor in what a pathetic pissing match our 2008 election was, and how devoutly we all had a better Prime Minister to greet Obama with than Steven fucking Harper).

I could say a million things, but I'll stick with this for now: I was surprised, but when they announced Obama and his family as the next President etc., I grinned like an idiot. I couldn't help it. And that was before the speech. And it heartens me the most that he never seemed smug, or even overly euphoric. He seemed tired, and determined. Please, Barack, live up to your potential.

I've got another concert report up at PopMatters, this one on Wire.

I'm not sure why, especially given my attitude towards more household chores (in short: necessary evils), but I find doing the dishes strangely comforting and satisfying.

Working in the used CD field, you get some idea of what people in your area want. And we do sell some new CDs, in the form of our new releases chart. It's been a surprise, however, that aside from the predictable rush of purchases of all the
'big' new releases (AC/DC, Metallica, et al), the one CD that I've been selling tons of is Bloc Party's Intimacy, and not just to the indie kids that you'd expect would be picking it up. It's an odd record, and an even odder one if you're thinking in terms of crossovers into mainstream success (why it and not, say, Dear Science is striking a chord I have no idea). I have no idea if this success if being replicated on a macro scale, but I can at least say that Guelph seems to like their new direction.