Fractionals

I find the new Matt & Kim video oddly moving.

Okay, so now we're going to have discs capable of holding 500 gigabytes of information. The article wonders whether there'll be any consumer demand for them, but I'm telling you, if we can get seasons or even series of TV shows to fit into the same space that a movie takes up, I think that's a great thing (less wasteful packaging, to boot).

I've got a quick blurb up in the Memories Can't Wait post on happiness. Probably the hardest topic to date for me to pick a song for, but I think it came out fine.

I don't post here every time I update it (maybe I should), but since it's been four months or so I thought I'd serve due notice that my Low blog Too Many Words, Too Many Words has a new entry up (on "Little Argument With Myself"). I'm still committed to finishing it off, I've just been neglecting it for no good reason (except that guilt compounds like interest, and after a while part of my brain starts forgetting as a defence mechanism).

If you need another reason to mourn J.G. Ballard's passing aside from his writing (you shouldn't), then here you go. Not only was the man one of the better "science fiction" (whatever that means) writers out there, his influence on much of the more interesting music the UK produced over the last let's say forty years is incalculable. Although there is (at least) one massive gap in the BBC's overview of Ballardian music - where the holy hell is the Fall? I guess for the proper take on the extent to which Mark E. Smith looked to Ballard, we'll have to continue to look to k-punk.

The title is misleadingly stupid and I don't know if anyone is actually watching it, but Better Off Ted just might be my favourite show on television right now.

(If we're splitting it into comedy and drama divisions, Life is my other favourite)

I've got a capsule review of the Hot Puppies' Blue Hands up at PopMatters. It's better than the band name might lead you to think.

So last night I finally attended an Attic show (which is exactly what it sounds like; some friends of mine have been having shows in their attic, and this was the 20th), and it was fantastic. The sound was the best I've ever heard at a house show, and although Damien Jurado didn't make it, Laura Gibson and her backing band/opening act, 2/5ths of Musee Mecanique, were both really, really great. Gibson mentioned that one of the songs she played was used by the Oregon Humane Society for an ad, so here it is.

My live review of the Toronto Tindersticks show is up today at PopMatters.

My capsule review of the new-ish (and quite good) Deadbeat album Roots and Wire is up today at PopMatters.

Todd Burns keeps on of those blogs that doesn't update very often but is pretty much fucking crucial every single time he does. There's a new redesign over at Mondrian's Sketchbook which streamlines the organization (the mixes are separate from the posts!) and boasts one of the coolest placeholders I've seen on a blog.

Meanwhile, I can't remember if I already blogged about her, but my good (and talented) friend Rachel Kiel has started an excellent song-a-day blog called My Valuable Hunting Knife, and her current post (on country, via a Wynonna Judd song) is excellent.

My review of the fantastic new Mountains album is up today at PopMatters; even if you normally don't listen to ambient drone type stuff, I highly suggest you get your hands on at least the title track and give it a try.

My review of the fine new Psapp album is up today at PopMatters.

Today at the Art of Noise, there's another Memories Can't Wait up (I missed the last couple), on 'a night out.' My entry is on many nights out, I suppose, but it still fits.

Today on PopMatters I have a capsule review up, this time for the reissued debut by Germany's Sankt Otten.

Feel good hits of the 3rd of April, 2009:

Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out of This Country
Paul Simon - The Boy in the Bubble
Psapp - The Camel's Back
Butthole Surfers - TV Star
The Long Blondes - The Couples
Fight Likes Apes - Tie Me Up With Jackets
The Dears - Crisis 1 & 2
Lori Yates - Untogether
Xiu Xiu - Pox
Los Campesinos! - We Are All Accelerated Readers

1. Had all you can eat sushi, which is always a good (and filling) time, especially as we avoided the kind of mistakes that often lead me to look at my friends and say "we are horrible people and we deserve whatever happens to us now."

2. In a used bookstore in Toronto, finally found a cheap copy of the poetry anthology (I think it's one of the Norton's, although it doesn't say so on the front) we used in grade 11, which I always wanted to keep. It turns out the poem I've been trying to remember for years, which is one of my favourites, is "Epistle to Be Left in the Earth" by Archibald MacLeish.

3. Saw a really excellent show by one of my favourite live bands, Los Campesinos!, and continued our streak of not missing any of their Ontario shows (as far as I know). The opener, Sky Larkin, was a band I'd seeing LC! mention fondly many times, and they were excellent too. I managed to make my way to Gareth during the encore when he and Tom and Neil jumped into the crowd and we sang the chorus to "Broken Heartbeat Sounds Like Breakbeats" together (because I am a massive-loser fan of the band, and as we've now hung out with Gareth enough that I consider him a friend, I figured he wouldn't mind).

4. Bought horrible convenience store potato wedges near the Opera House, as I was 1. starving, 2. poor, 3. fond of horrible food and 4. still a liiiiittle drunk. The only one of these things that I even midly regret.

5. Since Julia decided driving back that night was not an option, stayed in the very reasonable Hostelling International place on Church St. Julia payed, which my unemployed ass thanks her for. A double room is only $60 if you get there late at night!

The only thin I've done today is use some more of my Beat Goes On credit on an album, but it's a momentous occasion: the first new album I've bought in a while. These days I buy new albums so rarely it feels like a bigger deal when I do, like I'm declaring an allegiance. My friend Theon will be happy to hear that I bought It's Blitz!.

So, for April Fool's day PopMatters is covering Wham!'s immortal Make It Big! LP in great detail (I wish they hadn't put up an April Fool's disclaimer, though). For my part, I cover "Careless Whisper" (scroll down), and I assure you I ain't joking in the slightest.