Things:
1) The last show went well. Great friends came, blew bubbles, shimmied and shook to the tunes, shuddered at the noise, Springsteen and the Stones were heckled, the mic was turned off prematurely, our set nearly shut down secondary to our volume and crankiness, and the tunes were sloppy but soulful. Not perfect, but pretty awesome. Quiet My Dear played an excellent set featuring some really tight rhythmic ideas and neat prog-rocky song structures. Like the Police, but friendly. Anyway, thanks for coming to our shows and being our buddies. We loves you.
2) I will be seeing Polvo live in one week. In the meantime, Polvo associates Black Taj are releasing their second album, Beyonder. Classic rock post-Sonic Youth is the tag. I still need to snag their eponymous first album.
3) I've been inundated with a lot of great new music. One of the albums I've been totally hooked on for a few weeks now is the fresh Erykah Badu jam. Sasha Frere-Jones does a pretty good job summing up a lot of why I like the album -- i.e. R&B + noise + politics = excellent. I would simply add to his analysis that she also does a great job of incorporating the last few years' worth of innovation in the hip-hop underground into her neo-soul bag-o'-tricks.
4) Get Excited! Circulatory System! New Album Soon! When they last released an album (2001ish), I saw them at Tokyo Rose and Jeff Mangum (yes, that Neutral Milk Hotel dude, no shizz!) was playing drums for them and singing. I stood around near him, too star-struck to really pipe up and say hello. His voice was so loud, no mic was necessary. Chilling stuff.
5) Muxtape is a really cool website. You should check out Wes Webb aka Western Front via muxtape. He's been mashing up tracks and woodshedding DJ skills lately. Then peruse some of the other muxtapes and make yr own here.
