Stuck on Repeat

Chris — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 05:59:50 +0000

Maybe trying to update this thing every day wasn’t such a good idea.

Chris — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 06:22:42 +0000

Second verse, same as the first.

Chris — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 06:33:55 +0000

Sorry, it’s almost midnight and this is all I can write tonight.

Chris — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 03:05:55 +0000

Over at TIG, I wrote a lengthy profile about the ridiculously prolific King Khan. The story is one of my favorite pieces I’ve written, mostly because of the rat story that Khan told me when I had him on the phone. I only asked him “how’s the tour going?” to make small talk at the beginning of the interview and that was what he told me. Please check it out.

Chris — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 06:29:42 +0000

I’ve been trying to keep my committment to updating this blog every single day but I just wrote an 1100 word artist profile (which I’ll link to tomorrow when it goes up) and have two interviews in as many days to prep for, so I’m going to half-assed post this song by one band I’m interviewing at the end of the week.

Chris — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 06:12:03 +0000

The video linked here is of Liquid Liquid on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” last week. I recently discovered this band but haven’t been able to forget the above bass line.

Not unrelated, the music critic Joe Gross interviews the booker for “Fallon” and gets to the heart of why his show has been the best on late night television at booking the most interesting musical guests. It’s here and is a great read.

Chris — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 06:20:20 +0000

I got home late from a friend’s birthday party. I should have found time to transcribe an interview that I did with a musician last week, but hopefully we’ll get to it tomorrow.

Chris — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 04:54:59 +0000

Opening day of baseball season is tonight. This is all I can muster tonight.

Chris — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 04:58:52 +0000

This was probably the most interesting entertainment news story this week. From AFP:

Iconoclastic R&B singer Erykah Badu is expected to receive a disorderly conduct citation this week for stripping naked in her new video at the Dallas, Texas plaza where John F. Kennedy was assassinated.Dallas Police Deputy Chief Mike Genovese told the Dallas Morning News that a witness had come forward who “observed Ms. Badu remove her clothing on the public street. The witness had two small children with her and was offended.”

He told the paper the citation, which is to be issued this week, was “about as serious as a traffic ticket.”

In her new video “Window Seat,” filmed in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza, Badu — once known for her towering turbans — progressively loses her clothes, keeps walking in black lingerie and then peacefully strips.

Badu, who was born in Dallas, in February 1971, just released a new CD “New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh.”

Some of her fans were surprised at the public undress but she sent a message on microblog site Twitter saying “the people caught in the shot were trying hard to ignore me. LOL cept one guy grabbing clothes… it was the peeps off camera yelling.”

Once appalled onlooker told her “THIS IS A PUBLIC PLACE : YOU OUGHTA BE ASHAMED : PUT YOUR CLOTHES ON : DAMN GIRL! etc,” Badu added on the site, saying she has always shared her own vulnerable, naked truth.

“Singer to be cited for stripping at JFK killing site” [Yahoo!]

Chris — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 03:28:19 +0000

“Theodicy is the branch of theology that attempts to offer up rationalizations for the Problem of Evil—that is, how a supposedly omnipotent, benevolent God could allow really, really bad shit to happen.”

That’s the first sentence in a long feature story in The Stranger this week about Owl City, the project from Adam Young, a young kid from Minnesota who has inexplicably had a number one hit late last year.

Let’s stipulate that I don’t care a bit for Owl City’s music. I find the hit single “Fireflies” remarkably dull and think it’s hilarious that a friend of mine won tickets to the sold out show at the Paramount that was last night and still wouldn’t go. Yet having said that, I think this article belies a bigger problem than Owl City’s music and how derivative they are or aren’t of Postal Service (“Fireflies” particularly is). This isn’t to say I think he deserves a free pass (no one who tops the Hot 100 deserves such a thing) but this article is a self-important take-down of a pretty easy target.

While I’m sure that Eric Grandy wrote the above sentence with a grin and an overwhelming sense of sarcasm, “really, really bad shit” isn’t a record that doesn’t appeal to your demographic; it’s when the leader of a country with representation in the UN and an important church takes part in a coverup to protect the identity of someone molesting hundreds of boys or having too much of the economy based on mortgage-backed securities.

A commenter on this post (who I think interns at The Stranger) said “If a music journalist wants to tear into something, let them. They’re critics. That’s what they do. If you’re ambivalent about something as a music critic, you’re not doing it right.” That isn’t all they do and it isn’t true. Lots of great writers are ambivalent about how they receive music (ask any politically-aware liberal who likes hip hop).

The Owl City show sold out, so it didn’t matter if people were uncertain or noncommittal about going and how many people would have prefered to read something relevant to their interests? I bet many. Instead, this article was a weak attempt to gain consensus at someone both the author and his readership already dislike. It’s not good criticism, it’s playing Butthead to your readers’ Bevis.