The mention of Iceland in "Gunnar Thorgilsson" gave me a yen to check out Mark E. Smith's lyrics for "Iceland" from the epic Fall album Hex Enduction Hour, and now I've got them I feel as if they should be reprinted for the edification of my f-list, albeit behind a cut.

( The Fall, Iceland )

Interesting debate about the legitimacy of the artistry of the breadth of the Sonic Youth catalogue: k-punk takes a comment on one of his own flippancies by another music critic and imomus's pet peeve / pro forma bitchslap "Retro Necro", and runs with it ( Read more... )

It finally clicked what the clone-o-Pavement was - "Whipping Tree" from ... The Dandy Warhols Come Down.

They really are rather similar in feel. Have a listen if you don't believe me.

This will probably make some people laugh, but I have a rock question straight out of the indie canon.

On the album Wowee Zowee Pavement have a song called "Father To A Sister Of Thought" that starts out slow with a basic, strummed electric chord progression, then a bit of tinkling piano comes in on the descant ( Read more... )

Henry Farrell has a readable blog post on the motives of popular critics on Crooked Timber this morning. His references are Matt Yglesias bemoaning Pitchfork's apparent monopoly on good taste when it comes to indie music, and an article by Diego Gambetta about the Mafia manufacturing distrust to prop up their extortion rackets (which should be ( Read more... )

Something, discovered yesterday while reading imomus, that's funny enough to be worth reposting.

For the last couple of days I've been listening obsessively to the album Mosaic by US folk artist Woven Hand, formerly known as 16 Horsepower ( Read more... )

Noel Pearson has an insightful opinion piece in The Australian, which he starts by requesting a new metaphor for a multicultural society, and ends by skewering the reactionary canard of "multiculturalism gone too far".

This song I'm listening to is odd - Fall meets Devo. I joined last.fm about two weeks ago. It hasn't recommended me anything ( Read more... )

Cabaret is dead to me

I've been watching a tape of the band Sons and Daughters programming Rage* that I stuck on to record just before collapsing into the sack last night.

Sons and Daughters played a lot of stuff I'm going to call "cabaret-ish" where the focus narrows in on singer as icon, idealised as a replacement for some set of virtues. They ( Read more... )

( Not really. Inside, NYE and Southbound in a few hundred words. )