Valleywag reports:

Is Nick Denton going soft? Even his cutbacks are sentimental these days. In the old days, Denton, the publisher of Valleywag and 14 other Gawker Media blogs, would simply shutter blogs. These days, he worries first about finding them nice homes. Such is the velvet-glove treatment he's giving Gridskipper, Wonkette, and Idolator, his blogs about, respectively, travel, politics, and music. The three blogs amount to less than 3 percent of Gawker Media's traffic, he says. Fine, so why keep them around in any form? Silicon Alley Insider has the details on their new owners. More evidence of Denton's increasing namby-pambosity: Instead of threatening to fire leakers, he's encouraging us to post the internal memo announcing the move. Darling bossman, that's no fun. But also no reason to keep the memo from you, dear readers:

Nick Denton Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 7:26 AM I'm amazed we've managed to keep a lid on this news; that, given your naturally gossipy natures, must be a first! We're spinning off three sites: Idolator, Gridskipper and—this one may be a surprise—Wonkette. There were indeed some rumors about Maura Johnston's music blog late last year; they were true of course. For reasons that I'll explain below, both it and our travel and politics sites have better commercial futures outside Gawker than within. (Excuse the corporate lingo: some of it is unavoidable.) But, first, the facts, which will be hitting the wires later this morning, or as soon as you leak this email. Go ahead!

* IDOLATOR is going to Buzznet, a music-focused web and social network. Buzznet recently acquired Idolator's chief rival, Stereogum, and received a big investment from Universal Music Group. * GRIDSKIPPER isn't going far: it's being taken over by Curbed, the network founded by Lockhart Steele, in which Gawker Media is a shareholder. * WONKETTE is being spun off to the managing editor, Ken Layne, former founder of one of the web's very first news sites, Tabloid.net. The title will become part of the Blogads network of political sites, which includes Daily Kos, among others.

Why these three sites? To be blunt: they each had their editorial successes; but someone else will have better luck selling the advertising than we did.

From the old press-release inbox comes this little gem:

9 April, 2008 (Berkeley, CA) - This July the ever-growing relationship between comics and music reaches new heights as Tori Amos and Image Comics release COMIC BOOK TATTOO, a 480-page, full color anthology adapting the themes and ideas behind her songs into a lush volume of sequential art. “I have been surprised, excited and pleasantly shocked by these comics that are extensions of the songs that I have loved and therefore welcome these amazing stories of pictures and words because they are uncompromisingly inspiring,” says Amos. “It shows you thought is a powerful formidable essence and can have a breathtaking domino effect."

...

[COMIC BOOK TATTOO's Editor Rantz] Hoseley added, "While the connections between comics and music have been long established by generations of creators, Comic Book Tattoo is the pure distillation of how these two art forms inspire and feed off of each other across all the classifications, genres and styles of comic storytelling. Like Tori’s music, these stories run the gamut of human experience, emotion and imagination brought to life by some of the most compelling and innovative creators in the field of comics."

COMIC BOOK TATTOO, a 12” x 12” 480-page anthology, will be in stores July 23rd.

I went to a Tori Amos show once. I was young, and in love, and painfully stupid. Never again, not even in comic book form.

I know it's old news, but I still can't get over Common's endorsement of the Lincoln Navigator...

One of the best and smartest rappers in the history of hiphop. One of the few rappers to shape the music into comprehensive philosophical and intellectual project. Indeed, Common was at one point (between 95 and 01) the mind of hiphop. For him to support this type of car in our times constitutes not only a betrayal but also exposes the fatal hole in his project: it could not connect the truths of the street with global truths. And street truths are useless if they are limited to the streets.

Says one commentator on this post:

The new Lincoln Navigator gets 12 miles to the gallon, consumes 24.5 barrels of petroleum and emits 13.1 tons of CO2 each year, successfully contributing to the genocide of Middle Eastern people, and the relentless destruction of our ecosystem. What will become of the children's hopes and dreams in the wake of these crises?

Common, open your eyes and see that the world is a ghetto.

Liz Phair, just starting out as a book reviewer, is writing her first novel. I think this could actually be good. Or at least, it has to be better than her last two albums. This won't be the first time Phair has appeared in fiction, though: Camden Joy's The Last Rock Star Book: or Liz Phair, A Rant is a pretty enjoyable novel.

It's April Fools day, and you know what that means: Rickrolling!

Yes, Rickrolling, which Urban Dictionary defines as:

To post a misleading link with a subject that promises to be exciting or interesting, e.g. "World of Starcraft in-game footage!" or "Paris Hilton blows Busta Rhymes' dick" but actually turns out to be the video for Rick Astley's debut single, "Never Gonna Give You Up". A variant on the duckroll. Allegedly hilarious.

...so instead of getting to beat off to footage of Ann Coulter getting raped by hyenas, I got rickrolled. What a day!

There's been some Rickrolling in Line Out's comments section today, and anecdotal evidence suggests other blogs (Status Ain't Hood, for instance) are suffering similar April Fools. So, have you been Rickrolled today?

You'll be able to see it on the following channels: MTV, MTV2, mtvU, VH1, CMT, Spike, Comedy Central, TVLand, BET.

It's been a hell of a week for reporter Chuck Philips and the LA Times.

First the LA Times published his story linking Diddy to Tupac's 1994 shooting.

Then Sean "Diddy" Combs said the story is a lie, lashing out against the paper for running it.

Next the Smoking Gun discovered that the FBI reports that reporter Philips cited throughout the story were possibly fake.

After that, the LA Times claimed they would launch their own investigation.

And now... the LA Times has apologized and Chuck Philips says he now believes those documents are indeed fake.

Reporter Chuck Philips and his supervisor, Deputy Managing Editor Marc Duvoisin, issued statements of apology Wednesday afternoon. The statements came after The Times took withering criticism for the Shakur article, which appeared on latimes.com last week and two days later in the paper's Calendar section.

The criticism came first from The Smoking Gun website, which said the newspaper had been the victim of a hoax, and then from subjects of the story, who said they had been defamed.

"In relying on documents that I now believe were fake, I failed to do my job," Philips said in a statement Wednesday. "I'm sorry."

In his statement, Duvoisin added: "We should not have let ourselves be fooled. That we were is as much my fault as Chuck's. I deeply regret that we let our readers down."

That's a big whoops.

Guh. Music genre themed photoshoot on ANTM tonight (at McCarren Park Pool? EDGY): The plus sized "grunge" model looked just like Tad. The "house" model held DJ headphones up to her ear, only with the headphones cupped together rather than actually open. Some judge called the "pop" model Britney when she was so clearly Kylie. But the kicker, by far, was the "emo" shoot, just some standard Urban Otufitters blacks and stripes, to which J Alexander responded with this post's headline, "So, This is White Music?" Oh, hell yes! Pitchfork gives this episode an 8.8.

This has been buzzing around the blogs for a few days now, but should you have missed it... R.E.M. will be on the cover of Spin next week. In the story, written by Michael Azerrad, frontman Michael Stipe speaks publicly and on record about his sexuality for the first time, like, ever:

The only time Stipe really takes a break is when he head to Europe most summers with his boyfriend. Following a long period of speculation about his sexuality, during which he was stubbornly coy and ambiguous, Stipe has been out for years but has rarely publicly discussed the topic in any depth. "It was supercomplicated for me in the '80s," he says. "I was totally open with the band and my family and my friends and certainly the people I was sleeping with. I thought it was pretty obvious."

Going public was a little easier when he realized it might inspire people to change their views about homosexuality. "I didn't always see that," he says. "But I see now, of course that's the case, of course that's needed. I'd just never felt strongly enough about a particular relationship to say, 'Yeah, he's my boyfriend, that is what it is.' Now I recognize that to have public figures be very open about their sexuality helps some kid somewhere out there."

The magazine is previewing the story here.

Your obvious choice for music industry commentary Entertainment Weekly just posted their list of which indie records defined music in the past 25 years. Each year gets one record, here's what they chose:

1984: The Replacements, Let It Be
1985: The Smiths, Meat Is Murder
1986: R.E.M., Life's Rich Pageant
1987: Dinosaur Jr., You're Living All Over Me
1988: Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation
1989: The Pixies, Doolittle
1990: Fugazi, Repeater
1991: My Bloody Valentine, Loveless
1992: Pavement, Slanted and Enchanted
1993: Built To Spill, Ultimate Alternative Wavers
1994: Guided By Voices, Bee Thousand
1995: Archers Of Loaf, Vee Vee
1996: Belle And Sebastian, If You're Feeling Sinister
1997: Modest Mouse, The Lonesome Crowded West
1998: Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
1999: Sleater-Kinney, The Hot Rock
2000: Yo La Tengo, And then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
2001: The Shins, Oh, Inverted World
2002: Interpol, Turn on the Bright Lights
2003: The White Stripes, Elephant
2004: Arcade Fire, Funeral
2005: Bright Eyes, I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
2006: The Hold Steady, Boys and Girls in America
2007: Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
2008: Radiohead, In Rainbows

Here's what Idolator.com has to say about it:

Well-versed in the knowledge that nothing gets people clicking around Web sites like a photo gallery, nothing gets people arguing on the Internet like a slightly specious list, and no demographic has more work-hours time to click on said photo galleries and argue over said lists than the knowledge workers who proclaim themselves lovers of the nebulously defined genre "indie rock," Entertainment Weekly has put together a photo gallery/list called "The Indie Rock 25," which assigns one album to each of the 25 years since 1984, a year that was apparently defined by the Replacements' Let It Be. There are some arbitrary rules (no solo acts, albums that came out on an indie overseas but a major in the U.S. are OK), some arbitrary picks (see: Bright Eyes in 2005), lots of white dudes (cf. 1993: Ultimate Alternative Wavers over Pussy Whipped? Really?), and an obligatory mention of Radiohead, whose stature in "indie" probably wouldn't exist were it not for the major-label machine of 15 years ago but I'll probably be stuck arguing that until I'm blue in the face.

Predictable list, sure (something pointed out in Idolator's comments). I agree with Hold Steady for 2006, but disagree with Bright Eyes for 2005. And sure to Neutral Milk Hotel, but does anyone else think Modest Mouse should've come a little sooner? Maybe that should've been 1995 instead of Belle and Sebastian? But then again, I just really don't like B&S.

What are your thoughts?

The Pharmacy's profile was hacked into and deleted over the weekend, while the band is out on the road.

They lost over 11,000 friends, along with all their tour contacts (the band uses that for a lot of e-mail/message exchange). Whoever did it is a big, stupid jerk.

They've set up a new profile--www.myspace.com/thepharmacyofficial--but still, that sucks.

Punknews.org says:

While precious little has been revealed about Radiohead's success with the donation-suggested model, Nine Inch Nails' recent experiment has proven quite successful. Despite no marketing and no label, the donation-suggested 36-track album netted the artist a stunning $1,619,420 US.

Meanwhile, Maiden is going to release their new "best of" album for free too. Only their release will self-destruct after three listens, in which case you'll have to pay for a download if you want to keep listening to it. NME has the full story.

All week, Line Out has been giving away PotUSA prizes. This is just the beginning of some of the freebies to come, and you want to the be the first to hear about it, right? Right! So if you have a Twitter account, follow Line Out and get all the breaking news before anyone else.

We'll keep you posted when there are heated debates about Rush and Yes and hot polls about Slats, but mostly we'll use it to announce any breaking news and contests.

If you aren't familiar with Twitter, it's a pretty cool application--you sign up (for free) and you can send and receive short updates via your phone or computer. You can let people know what you're up to (if you want). You can choose to follow your friends so you know what they're up to too. The BBC is on it, NPR is on it, I think even Obama has an account. All updates can be sent to you via e-mail or directly to your phone, so you don't even have to be near a computer to know the latest.

Don't worry, if you start following Line Out, you won't be getting spammed constantly with every post to go up throughout the day. It'll be a few updates a week, and used especially if there's breaking or exciting news.

Log on to twitter.com to sign up to get your free Twitter account, or click here if you're already on Twitter and want to start following Line Out (or just want to see more of what it's all about).

So, there's a new-ish tv advertisement running for one of those odious male deoderant body sprays—you know, the kind that unfailingly turns women into unconrtollably aroused animals. Anyway, it's pretty typical body spray boilerplate—it's hot out, girls are in bikinis, dude sprays himself with product, girl makes eyes at dude.

But! The soundtrack to the ad is the swooning, opening guitar and organ riff of the Seeds' "Can't Seem to Make You Mine." It's the same song that Diplo samples on his remix of "Put That Pussy on Me" by Spank Rock. So, even though it's a lame ad for a product in which I have zero interest, I at least enjoy hearing it. And! I can't help but wonder if the dual reference is intentional—like the ad could be saying, "Our product will help you make girls yours," or it could be saying, "Our product will make girls put their pussies on you." It works either way!

Still, I'd rather smell like armpits.

Just kidding.

Pitchfork to Launch Online Music TV Channel

Sasha Frere-Jones new piece in this week's New Yorker about Amy Winehouse is pretty good.

As with most of his writing, he does get some thing right. Like this:

I bought Winehouse’s first album, “Frank,” in 2004 at a Heathrow Airport music kiosk. I listened to it on the plane home and dropped it in a garbage can on the way to baggage claim.

and this last bit at the end (which I think is particularly funny/true):

One effective summing up of her style can be seen in a YouTube video of her performing the album’s title track, labelled “Amy Winehouse performing drunk or high. Your guess!” It may be neither—it is Winehouse’s signature, and if she can detach it from the past and keep writing songs like “Rehab” there will be nothing surprising about having her around for a long time. Other than having her around.

But he also makes some stomach turning comparisons, for example:

The singing style heard on “Frank” started years ago—Lauryn Hill, the dopey singer-songwriter Jewel, and Joni Mitchell are all glossed in this approach—and has filtered down through singers like Nelly Furtado, Winehouse, and a currently rising star, Sia.

Excuse me. I don't want to come off all Christopher Frizzelle or nuthin', but Joni Mitchell deserves more respect and credit than this jab. Comparing Jewel, Hill, Furtado and Sia to Mitchell. Uh-uh. Them's is fighting words, bitch.

Further he goes on to compare Sharon Jones and Winehouse's live performances with the same band, The Dap-Kings. I am one of those folks who think Jones is actually kinda boring and too retro. I prefer Winehouses very modern slap in the face kind of homage to Jones' pastiche. So I suppose it's just a matter of taste.

But I can't help but make a connection to the fact that Jones is a black singer singing black music, and SF-J finds no offense in her "re-creations". But Winehouse, being white, nearly becomes "minstrelsy", and is only saved by her garbled marble-mouthed singing style.

His description:

Listen to the mid-tempo shuffle “You Know I’m No Good” and hear how she elongates and deforms the word “worst.” Is she channelling a little-known blues singer? Is she hammered?

And the caption I assume he wrote for the accompanying photograph of Winehouse on a bed with a ciggie hanging out of her mouth?

Winehouse’s voice can sound like aural blackface, but her range and variety resist definition. Photograph by Harry Benson.

I guess I'd just like to read an intelligent piece by SF-J that didn't in some way entangle his own garbled and marble-mouthed views on race into his critiques. Is it even possible?

If you do, then you can now follow Line Out on Twitter!

We'll keep you posted when there are heated debates about Rush and Yes and hot polls about Slats, but mostly we'll use it to announce any breaking news like if a club shuts down, if a rad band is playing an unannounced show somewhere in the city, or when big shows get announced.

If you aren't familiar with Twitter, it's a pretty cool application--you sign up (for free) and you can send and receive short updates via your phone or computer. You can let people know what you're up to (if you want). You can choose to follow your friends so you know what they're up to too. The BBC is on it, NPR is on it, I think even Obama has an account. All updates can be sent to you via e-mail or directly to your phone, so you don't even have to be near a computer to know the latest.

Don't worry, if you start following Line Out, you won't be getting spammed constantly with every post to go up throughout the day. It'll be a few updates a week, and used especially if there's breaking or exciting news.

Log on to twitter.com to sign up to get your free Twitter account, or click here if you're already on Twitter and want to start following Line Out (or just want to see more of what it's all about).

I don't really read a lot of other music blogs, unless you count this one. Pretty much WFMU's Beware of the Blog and that's it. But every so often I go over to Grandy's desk and borrow CDs to try and figure out what Stereogum or whatever thinks is cool. I figure I'll be self-indulgent and add my unwanted opinion.

Here's the three I investigated today.

Dengue Fever-Venus on Earth

Indie rock interpretation of Jan Pahechaan Ho. Why would you make lounge music with no horns? This record sounds like the sound track to a really bad romantic thriller starring Sharon Stone somewhere in Asia. This plays during the scene in which she is being creepy to an Asian playboy in a hotel bar that has a taxidermied elephant in it.

Evangelista (Carla Bozulich)--Hello, Voyager

I couldn't find a pic of the cover, sorry. But you should look at it, it's pretty cool.

Carla Bozulich rides the crazy train, but I'm pretty into it. I can tell she's really into Diamanda Galas and Quix*o*tic, but I can't really wrap my head around anything else about it yet. Anyone have any peyote to lend me? I need to find understanding.

Kate Nash--Foundations

Kind of a weird thought, but I find her accent a little over-emphasized. I mean, I know it's real and whatevs, but I feel like she's saying, "Oi'm Brit-ish and it droIves me MEN-TAWL! But Oi'm bloody adorable, don'tcha fink?" This is just straight modern girl pop music and it's got nothing else. It's so easy and so accessible and so bright and so repetitive that you can ignore it just as easily as you can love it. Feist, Lily Allen (at least she's kind of a brat, right?), blah blah blah.

All done! I'll go back to being ignorant now!

First: You simply must read Vanessa Grigoriadis' 9000-word essay on Britney Spears. If there's a Britney-specific Pulitzer for 2008--and there should be--she will win it.

Second: Please enjoy this mind-blowing, Ozzy Osbourne-flavored performance by the Poca, West Virginia show choir Visual Volume. (The first five seconds alone should earn them a spot in the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.)

Thank you, Auschglitz.

If you do, then you can now follow Line Out on Twitter! It's what you've all been waiting for, right? I know.

We'll keep you posted when there are heated debates about Rush and Yes and hot polls about Slats, but mostly we'll use it to announce any breaking news like if a club shuts down, if a rad band is playing an unannounced show somewhere in the city, or if a big show gets announced (like Radiohead--book that shit dudes!) or canceled.

If you aren't familiar with Twitter, it's a pretty cool application--you sign up (for free) and you can send and receive short updates via your phone or computer. You can let people know what you're up to (if you want). You can choose to follow your friends so you know what they're up to too. The BBC is on it, NPR is on it, I think even Obama has an account. All updates can be sent to you via e-mail or directly to your phone, so you don't even have to be near a computer to know the latest.

Don't worry, if you start following Line Out, you won't be getting spammed constantly with every post to go up throughout the day. It'll be a few updates a week at most, and used especially if there's breaking or exciting news.

Log on to twitter.com to sign up to get your free Twitter account, or click here if you're already on Twitter and want to start following Line Out (or just want to see more of what it's all about).

Hey kids, Gawker is still up and running! Crazy, right? But they do have an interesting story up here about how Maxim magazine (which is still publishing, too!) ran a review of the latest Black Crowes album (who knew they were still putting out albums?). The fact that Maxim ran a review of a Black Crowes album isn't that surprising, really, but the fact that they reviewed it and gave it two and a half stars without even listening to it is pretty weird.

The Black Crowes' label contacted Maxim, and they said this:

'Of course, we always prefer to (sic) hearing music, but sometimes there are big albums that we don't want to ignore that aren't available to hear, which is what happened with the Crowes. It's either an educated guess preview or no coverage at all, so in this case we chose the former.'

Kudos to Gawker, Maxim, and the Black Crowes for still existing. Way to survive!

Prove it by watching the (dear god even typing the words makes me want to vomit) the just-surfaced Gene Simmons sex tape.

It's NSFW, obviously. It's also one of the more depressing sex acts you'll ever see. Can it be that Gene Simmons has created the world's first effective piece of abstinence education?

Apologies to all, especially that poor hooker who can't bear to kiss Simmons on the mouth.

Thank you, Fleshbot. (Link NSFW)

From today's Pitchfork reviews:

British Sea Power

Do You Like Rock Music?

[Rough Trade; 2008]

Rating: U.2

Ouch. But is that lower than a 0.0?

Semi-retarded? Left hand? What the hell are you talking about?

The Teenagers - Starlett Johansson

I was a little surprised by a part of last week's Interrogation, wherein the honorable Alex Ross talked about Joanna Newsom as being kind of classical (interview by the honorable Jen Graves):

You've written great profiles of Björk and Radiohead, exploring their classical influences. But it's starting to feel like these artists are the beginning and end of the connection between classical and pop.

It's a little bit of a cliché, definitely. There's a lot more there, but the artists are just not as well known.

Like who?

Joanna Newsom and Sufjan Stevens. They have strong interests in classical and 20th-century music. Joanna Newsom trained as a composer; you wouldn't guess that, but once you factor that in, it actually makes sense—the long structures and the ornate harmonies. With Sufjan Stevens, you have these long-form minimalist things protruding on the ends of his records, and his instrumentations, well, he has these little orchestras.

Really? Joanna Newsom songs are certainly long, but they never seemed all that composerly, no matter how many different instruments play the orchestral arrangements she didn't write. But who am I to contradict Alex Ross? He's the expert.

So I was gratified to read Counter Critic take a stand against letting Newsom pass as some kind of pop-classical composer:

Let’s be clear. Ms. Newsom is not writing classical music. I don’t know that anyone has explicitly made the claim, but there are stirrings among the classical music literati that seem to endorse Ms. Newsom as the next big crossover, or that new breed of alternative musician, like Sufjan Stevens and Rufus Wainwright before him (both have performed on BAM’s opera house stage)...

And he also gets down to why I cannot be wooed by Ms. Newsom's elfin-sylvan ballads:

These pieces turn like a spinning wheel; just when you think you’ve gone somewhere, you come right round to the same place. It isn’t bad, it just doesn’t transport you.

Yes.

Local mountainfolk Fleet Foxes are featured artists on Pitchfork's Forkcast for their undeniably catchy tune "White Winter Hymnal." Pitchfork thanks their Sub Pop signing to Myspace buzz, but all of us in Seattle know they would've gotten a sweet record deal whether a hundred thousand teenagers clicked on their page or not.

Also streaming is a full version of the Mars Volta's new album The Bedlam in Goliath, from, of all places, Napster. This is a great way to hear the record in full if for some reason you are still too skiddish to just steal your music like everyone else. Seriously though, try before you buy. How hard is that?

More at sleeveface.com. (thanks, Brian)

Huzzah! Idolator's 2nd Annual Pop Critics Poll (you know, Pazz&Jop's snarky, non-Christgau-firing, little brother), is live!

Conflict of Interest Alert: Michelangelo It's a Hit" Matos curated the beast for the second year running, and yours truly cast a ballot and put together a mix cd. My impeccable, king-making picks can be found here.

Hundreds of ranked albums, singles, artists, and reissues, as well as essays and individual ballots can all be found here.

There's a chance that many of the albums you've illegally downloaded have been tampered with. Not pumped full of viruses or digital anthrax or anything, they've just been slightly altered sonically. Added to. Changed. This is the work of the Overdub Tampering Committee, who released their manifesto earlier this week.

We are a group of musicians who have downloaded newly leaked albums by popular artists, quickly recorded many subtle overdubs over the work, and then re-leaked it to the internet. We have done this for about three years now. We used all kinds of instruments with recording techniques that matched the audio quality of the album in question. We used a varied amount of re-leaking methods including but not limited to Soulseek, OiNK, The Pirate Bay, Limewire and zipped files hosted on sites like YouSendIt or Mediafire with links spread out on hundreds of message boards. Our turnaround time was usually very short so often our version of the artist’s album was online for download within hours of its original leak. If you illegally download music on the internet the chances that our work is in your collection is very, very likely! In fact, you might have a whole lot of us!

So what's the point?

One of the things that's always shocked us about people “illegally downloading” music is the blind faith that what they’ve downloaded is the actual finished product that the band has released (or is about to release). We download and we had this faith too. But one day, about 4 years ago, one of us downloaded a newly leaked album by a very popular band. Excitedly listening to it for the first time we noticed a very out of place death metal song in the middle of the album. The obvious genre change and the ability to check the track listing and run time for each song on a reliable website made it easy to sniff out that this leak had been tampered with. We discarded the leaked files and waited patiently for the actual release where upon we bought it in a store.

This got us thinking: what if this problem got more insidious, subtle, and widespread? What if there was a network of musicians who got a hold of albums right as they leaked, added subtle yet very much additional overdubs all over the album, and then re-leaked it to the internet?

We imagined a scenario where someone would get in a car with their friend, he would put on the new _____ album, and you would say, "Where's all the piano parts?" to which the driver would say, "What piano parts? This album is all guitars and drums." Finally, you would scratch your head and say, "Not my copy!"

It would be bewildering.

It would be irksome.

It would be annoying.

We set out to make that specific bewildering, annoyance a possibility.

I remember downloading a copy of Built to Spill's You In Reverse with a "Who is Mike Jones?" sample every two minutes, but I doubt that was them. The best part about this whole debacle is that it may itself be a scam. Maybe they didn't do anything, and just said they did. From a post yesterday on their blog:

...Jon Parales of the New York Times wrote us with this short, reasonable request: "A scintilla of evidence would be nice."

We wrote back: "Jon, Thanks for your email. We won't be providing any more evidence than what is presented in the manifesto. We know what we've done, we've had fun doing it, and now it's in the public's hands. We don't believe the burden of proof lays on our shoulders. Part of our goal with the project was that no one would ever know for sure how many albums we worked on, which ones, or if they resided in your digital music collection. In this way we highlight certain aspects of living in present day U.S.A. Often times proof is nothing more than general public consensus."

The members of TOTC claim that they are all musicians themselves in bands whose music they have seen distributed illegally online, and that their albums have been tampered with as well.

thanks Brother for the tip.

Nine years after his last full-length release Harmony Korine is finally putting out another movie. It’s called Mister Lonely, and stars Diego Luna as a Michael Jackson impersonator. IMDB has this for a plot synopsis:

In Paris, a young American (Luna) who works as a Michael Jackson lookalike meets Marilyn Monroe (Morton), who invites him to her commune in Scotland, where she lives with Charlie Chaplin (Lavant) and her daughter, Shirley Temple.

Korine’s soundtracks have been always been stellar, and acted personally as gateways into new musical terrain. 1995’s Kids (which Korine wrote but did not direct) introduced me to the world of Lou Barlow through his Sebadoh side project Folk Implosion, who scored the film. The soundtrack single was the song “Natural One,” easily one of my favorite tracks from the nineties.

The soundtrack to his directorial debut Gummo had a little more diversity: black metal mixed with disabled people singing bible songs. This soundtrack became an introduction as well, this time to the amazing song "Dragonaut" by Sleep, which Korine used to score the opening scene of Solomon and Tummler riding their bikes.

His last release, 1999’s Julien Donkey Boy, was mostly filmed to follow the rules of Dogme95, an “avant-garde filmmaking movement started in 1995 by the Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg.” One of the rules of Dogme95 involves the strict use of diegetic sound:

2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed, i.e., diegetic).

The result is that Julien Donkey Boy didn’t have a soundtrack; the “music” was the disarming sound of Werner Herzog tripping on sizzurp and other unnerving situations. It was more effective than music possibly could have been.

Mister Lonely is scored by Spiritualized’s J. Spaceman, and is going to be released on Drag City. I’m not familiar with the music of Spiritualized, which only makes me more excited about the project. Undoubtedly the film and its score are going to introduce me to things I have never seen or heard before - the one reliable constant I have found in Korine’s bizarre but remarkable set of work.

(ht PF)

This post on la2day.com has been making the rounds (at least enough rounds to get back to me). It's about whether or not, in the past 10 years, there's been a band as important as Nirvana. The writer, Matthew Sidney Long, seems to think there hasn't.

I repeat my challenge: Please name me a band over the past 10 years who has come close to Nirvana in sheer impact and talent since Kurt put shotgun to mouth above garage in 1994? (and, I'm not talking about some indie band that hardly anyone listens to or some ring-tone fueled, Top-40 creation who no one will remember in 6 months. I'm talking IMPACT here, people. Combining art AND commerce. Both big AND authentic. Dig?).

Here, I'll even help you out -

Let's see...
RADIOHEAD, sure, I'd put them on this short list.
KANYE WEST, definitely, he's doing some of the coolest and most innovative stuff in music today.
OUTKAST (when they were going good there wasn't a better group on the planet).
U2.
LIL WAYNE.
RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS (sometimes).
ALICA KEYS.
FOO FIGHTERS (there's that drummer again).
EMINEM.
OASIS.
PRINCE (when he wants to).
???

Read the full thing here.

But here's my beef: What's the point of answering this question? It's a matter of opinion, so it can't be answered (that's the obvious issue), but putting that aside, why should we continue to compare today's bands to the legacy yesterday's bands left behind?

You can't deny the cultural impact Nirvana had on the world, it's true, but is it fair to say, say, Green Day hasn't had as much of an impact (in a different way)? Love 'em or hate 'em for it, they brought pop punk to the masses. It's a different genre, a different kind of impact, but historically, the band fronted a big shift in the music industry, the culture, and blah blah blah. They're still alive, though. No one in Green Day has killed themselves.

And M.I.A. She's making some waves, making people think, wearing funny pants--but she's way too new to the scene for anyone to say whether or not she'll go down as an untouchable in music's history. She could pull a Britney next week. She could become a joke.

So say there isn't a band as important as Nirvana. Say no one can answer that question. So what? So no band is important? Modern music sucks? The world is ending? Nirvana wasn't as great as the Beatles. So you know what? Fuck Nirvana. Their impact wasn't as strong as the Beatles', so no band is as important as the Beatles, so no band, not even Nirvana, matters. How you like them apples?

To try and then to fail to answer this question feels to me like trying to prove whether music still matters at all. And it does, of course. Who cares if it's as important as Nirvana was to the masses? That doesn't mean it's not as important to me personally. And hell, maybe I'm being selfish, but that's all I really care about.

Light in the Attic has posted a hunormous year-end confabulation on their website. Included are lists from local luminaries like the Saturday Knights, Mr. Hill, Scott Reitherman of Throw Me the Statue, and Nabil Ayers of Sonic Boom, as well as out-of-towners like Peanut Butter Wolf, Robert Christgau, DJ Nobody, and a whole shit-ton more. It's a fun rundown that delves into far more than music.

The Blakes' is especially insightful/hilarious:

Bob Husak, Drums

Top 5 of 2007

5. Mormon Tabernacle Choir records for 50 cents at Goodwill.
4. A can of potted meat product as a reminder of the hardships of tours past.
3. Comiserating with Grandma about the scandalous styles of dress worn by young women today and sympathizing with the inability of those her age to find respectable clothing for themselves.
2. Pronouncing the word “fish” as “feesh” in mock tribute to generations past (as in, “don’t forget to warsh your hands before you eat your feesh”).
1. Any opening band that cancels a show because their drummer threw out his back going for an especially difficult fill in practice. Also, any sound guy that goes home early from a show because he twisted his ankle going for an unorthodox mic placement.

Garnet Keim,
Vocals, Guitar

5 things you take for granted on a winter tour:

1 showers
2 conversation
3 reptiles
4 feeling in your toes
5 summer tours

Snow Keim,
Vocals, Bass

top 5 “pains in the ass”

5. hollywood writers strike
4. scabies
3. conflicts of interest
2. Lame (ass) Promoters
1. meeting the outrageous demands of record executive Matt Sullivan

I think they should have drawn his head bigger. In person, Kaz looks like a bobblehead!

Pwrfl Power, if you will remember correctly, won a chance to be in an Esurance commercial in our Capitol Hill Block Party Block Star contest last spring. The commercial will air nationally starting in February.

In this interview, the man pictured above, Lupe Fiasco, makes the following statement:

I might go back to school – I’ll never say never – but I’m writing a book now. I’m battling with Nietzsche. I went back and [read him] because I wanted to see what all the hub-bub was about, and I was like, “I don’t particularly agree with that.” So, now I find myself filling my spare time articulating and de-articulating Nietzsche.

Hip hop and Nietzsche is kind of your beat, Charles. Any thoughts?

Seattle's favorite not-quite-Swedish hair metal band brings us a glimpse of their life on the road. In this round of Himsa TV: The band drinks lots vitamin water, makes soup, slap fights with each other, plays the Wii, goes to Universal Studios, and shreds. Oh metal dudes, you're such lighthearted scoundrels.

Disclaimer: "Himsa is not actually sponsored by Vitamin Water...YET!!!"

Best of luck with that, boys. I'm still working on my scheme to get sponsored by Capri Sun.

Recently, the only new music that's gotten me really excited has been from Fleet Foxes. After seeing them at Block Party and Bumbershoot their's has become my most anticipated release, but I wait and wait and it never seems to come. So I find myself, for the first time ever, just streaming what they have off of their myspace while I do my computer business, content enough to hear the same five songs again and again until they finally finish their album. The other night I was playing the song "Blue Ridge Mountains" for a friend and noticed that they had almost 9,000 plays that day alone. Last night as I listened to the songs (again) I noticed another 8,000+ plays for that single day.

First off: Congratulations gentlemen. I hope the whole internet listens to your beautiful songs. You've earned every play you get.
But secondly: Zuh? Fleet Foxes aren't' even on a label yet, what kind of myspace sorcery have they concocted? My knowledge of PR is minuscule, but I am aware of the power of marketing through the internets, and I am aware that being a featured myspace artist can be purchased (anyone remember when the Trashies were featured for, like, a week? Yeah, I'm sure they earned that shit). But as far as I've seen Fleet Foxes haven't been a featured artist, they're just getting a lot of attention. I know Mr. Pecknold posts on here occasionally, and this is by no means a call out. But I'm curious. How do you make yourself blow up myspace like that?

NME reports:

Belle & Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch has penned a film.

'God Help The Girl' is a musical which will be filmed in 2009.

Murdoch is working on a soundtrack to the record, including a number of demos with members of Belle & Sebastian.

However, Murdoch is currently looking for a number of singers to work on the album.

According to the Myspace.com/pleasegodhelpthegirl the winner of on an ongoing singing competition "will be coming over to Glasgow to do some rehearsing and recording in early 2008".

More details about the film are available on Godhelpthegirl.com.

This is the new Baroness video for the song "Wanderlust:"

And this is the newest Mastodon video, "Sleeping Giant:"

These are examples of what to do and what not to do in a metal video. Both of these bands are from Georgia, both of them have a relatively similar sound, and they are both on Relapse Records. Although I love Baroness’ record, this video frustrates the hell out of me. There’s no point in filling a video with interesting, narrative imagery if you’re not going to be able to bring those images to some sort of logical conclusion. I don’t care if a video doesn’t have a point as long as it doesn’t lead you on for four minutes in the assumption that it will. Okay, so there’s trapper guy shooting at rabbits, red lady dancing and playing with leaves, fat guy who also seems to have killed some animals (and he’s thirsty), and there are some people in suits walking along the beach. When the song reaches its conclusion and the band comes to a sudden halt, what happens? Trapper guy looks over his shoulder. At what? What the fuck is this video about? Why is he pouring blood on those sticks? Damn it, Baroness, you tricked me into thinking your video was going to be about something, anything. That sucks.

This Mastodon video is actually the first from them that I’ve liked. They, as well as virtually all other metal bands, have been guilty of making “pointless” videos full of imagery with no conclusion. But this video is great. The campy sci-fi effects look awesome, everything is obviously a cheap model – it’s visually captivating. The story isn’t immediately clear, but it’s fascinating: there are some aliens growing dinosaurs on some guy/hill, and Dr. Doom is overseeing. Good enough. When it comes time to pull it all together, the four god-like stone heads of Mastodon shoot lasers out their eyes and everything explodes. Brilliant. It doesn’t matter that the video didn’t say anything poignant. It was fun to watch and it had an ending. Why is that so hard?

Why do modern metal videos almost always suck? I’m hard pressed to think of current metal bands putting together anything decent that isn’t just a splicing of live footage. Sure, it can be argued that most videos suck regardless of genre, but at least rap videos are full of hedonism, and pop videos are full of hilarious human failure. Those things are inherently entertaining. Metal bands insist on telling tales, and all too often they are bad storytellers.

I was on Youtube looking for the new Baroness video, the first off of their incredible Red Album that came out on Relapse earlier this year, when I inadvertently stumbled upon this heap. Apparently this band is also named Baroness, and their video... well, it speaks for itself. So I decided to just post this one instead. Enjoy.

Baroness
"Baby Wont You Kiss My Lips"

Also just announced were the nominees for the 2008 Plug Independent Music Awards.

Album of the year:
Arcade Fire - Neon Bible (Merge)
Band Of Horses - Cease To Begin (Sub Pop)
Battles - Mirrored (Warp)
Beirut - The Flying Club Cup (Ba Da Bing)
El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead (Definitive Jux)
Justice - † (Downtown / Vice / Ed Banger)
Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? (Polyvinyl)
Panda Bear - Person Pitch (Paw Tracks)
Radiohead - In Rainbows (self-released)
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - 100 Days, 100 Nights (Daptone)
Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (Merge)
The National - Boxer (Beggars Banquet)

New Artist of the Year:
Bat For Lashes
Battles
Dan Deacon
Deerhunter
Justice
Los Campesinos!
No Age
Sea Wolf
St. Vincent
Vampire Weekend
White Rabbits
Yeasayer

There are a bunch of other categories including Female Artist of the Year, Male Artist of the Year, Metal Album of the Year (with former Seattlites Big Business on the list), Hiphop Album of the Year, and Americana Album of the Year (with current Seattlites the Cave Singers and Jesse Skyes & the Sweet Hereafter listed).

There are also more detailed categories for the "obsessive" music fans including best live act, music festival of the year (Bumbershoot and Sasquatch are in the running) best song, best music video, best live venue (Neumo's got a shout out), best record store (Sonic Boom and Easy Street are up for that), and best college/non-commercial radio station (no surprise to see KEXP on the list).

You can see the rest of the categories and vote for your favorites artists/magazines/stores/stations at www.plugawards.com. The winners will be announced at the PLUG awards ceremony in NYC on March 6, 2008.