TED NUGENT REACHES OUT TO SARAH PALIN

Sarah Palin was the first name on TED NUGENT’s list to receive an advance copy of TED, WHITE & BLUE: THE NUGENT MANIFESTO, comprised of 16 chapters on how to fix America. This week, the multi-platinum guitar icon, best-selling author and outspoken activist sent the book—due October 6 via Regnery Publishing—to Palin with a note in praise of the vice presidential nominee’s “bold spirit.”

Dear Governor Palin, Please accept this copy of my new book, "TED WHITE & BLUE-The Nugent Manifesto" for you and your family. As a proud fellow American hunter, fisherman and lover of Alaska's soul cleansing magnificent Spirit of the Wild, we who live our American Dream by God, truth, logic, goodwill and decency, thank you for bringing such defiant common sense and self evident truth back to the GOP and politics. We wish you Godspeed for the best hunting and fishing season of your life and pray to God almighty that you bring your bold spirit to the White House. Godbless, American BloodBrothers, Ted Nugent and family

Okay, all this talk about collecting records and dealing records and spending millions of dollars for millions of records that may or may not be worth millions of dollars has got me thinking... I know that a lot of you out there are record collectors who would (and have) spent large sums of money on one very coveted album.

What I wanna know is, what's the most you've ever paid for a record, and what record was it? (The amount of money you would pay for a specific record, should you ever find it, is also an acceptable answer.)

I can't answer, as I'm not really one to spend much money on records since I don't own a record player (well, I do, but it's been collecting dust here at work since I bought it over a year ago). But I once spent all my allowance on a New Kids on the Block VHS tape for $20, if that counts for something. I was about 10-years old. It took me forever to save that $20 and about half of it was in change.

Via noiseaddicts.com:

Paul Mawhinney was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. Over the years he has amassed what has become the world’s largest record collection. Due to advancing age, financial issues, health issues and a struggling record industry Paul has been forced to sell his collection…. AGAIN.

Read the complete story at www.NoiseAddicts.com.

I would LOVE to get my hands on his Christmas music collection... I'm a sucker for good Christmas songs.

According to Seattletimes.com:

The Zune designs remain largely the same, but they're getting more capacity.

Microsoft is replacing the 80-gigabyte Zune with a 120-gig hard-drive player for $250. (The biggest iPod can store 160 gigs and is priced at $350.)

It is introducing a 16-gigabyte flash-drive player for $199. It will be in the same design as the current 8-gig player. The 4-gigabyte player is being discontinued.

In addition to new hardware, Microsoft on Sept. 16 is rolling out an update to the Zune software, on the device and the PC.

Listeners will be able to flag a song on the radio for purchase later and to stream or download songs over a Wi-Fi connection directly from the device.

Meanwhile, Forbes.com had this to say about the future of Steve Jobs and the market-dominating Apple I-Pod:

BURLINGAME, CALIF.-Apple has summoned the press for an announcement Tuesday morning, and, as usual, it's keeping the details secret. But Chief Executive Steve Jobs will almost certainly introduce a fresh lineup of iPods.

A few years ago, this would have been a big deal. But something funny has happened as the Cupertino, Calif.-based company's iconic music players--first introduced in 2001--have transformed the music business. Sales of digital content is remaking Apple...even though iPod sales have cooled.

In fact, many are betting the changes to Apple's iPod lineup will be rather humdrum. In a note to investors Monday, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster predicted Apple will introduce redesigned editions of its widescreen iPod touch and iPod nano, and tweak the pricing and capacity for its iPod Shuffle and Classic.

The real news Tuesday will be the appearance of Jobs, who had surgery to remove pancreatic cancer in 2004 and startled many with his gaunt appearance at a developers' conference in June. The New York Times later reported that Jobs had surgery earlier this year to address "a problem that was contributing to a loss of weight." In other words, investors have more riding on the survival of the man behind the iPod than on the product itself.

Meanwhile, Apple's thriving digital content business gives Steve Jobs & Co. plenty of room to slash the price of the iPod to keep digital music and movie sales growing, and to use the company's increasingly powerful digital content business as a way to segue into sales of tablet computers and other gizmos, as it has with the iPhone.

"With iPod price cuts, Apple is choosing revenue over unit cannibalization," Credit Suisse analyst Bill Shope wrote in a research note Monday.

To be sure, Apple's lineup of digital music players could use a boost. IPod sales are up just 7% from the year-ago period. In part, that's just the law of large numbers at work. However, fresh designs, coupled with a price cut, could reignite demand for the stylish gadgets and keep customers rolling into Apple's increasingly lucrative iTunes store.

Does anyone even own a Zune, and, if so, do you like it?

Our apologies for the slump on Line Out this morning. We've all been a bit busy here getting shit together for a little thing called Bumbershoot (start relearning the lines to "Plush" now!). So, yes, this is yesterday's news, and yes, other media outlets have mentioned it already, but how fucking stoked are you for the new Of Montreal album?! Minus the few stubbornly contrarian trolls out there (shorter version: "cheap beer sucks! sunglasses suck! anything popular sucks!"), you should all be very, very excited—trust. If not for the further trans-gendered/racial lyrical advenutres of Georgie Fruit, than for the bevy of merch formats in which Skeletal Lamping will be available, pictured above, which include: cd, vinyl, paper lantern, tote bag and t-shirt, buttons, and wall decals, with all the non-musical media coming with download codes for the mp3s of the album. Everything comes out Oct 7, 2008 on Polyvinyl (who might want to change their name to Polyvinyltotesshirtsdecalsbuttonsandpaperlanterns).

Barfly the Saturday Knight / Line Out Champion makes Patrick Swayze candles. They illuminate Swayzicity and are a stylie addition to any room:

The 2009 Bad Brains collection will feature three t-shirt designs and three shoe designs.

See more photos at www.highsnobiety.com.

(ht to Punknews.org)

It appears the recently rumored Jimi Hendrix Sex Tape is actually going to see the light of consumerism. Hendrix's estate has not denied nor confirmed the validity of the tape, so Vivid Entertainment will be putting the silent, 40 year old film on shelves for $39.99. Watch the NSFW trailer on the tape's website to decide for yourself if it really is Jimi quenching his "Burning Desire."

(ht and title props to Idolator and one of their witty commenters)

Bands want and need people to buy their CD. Sometimes at shows, they give the hard sell by announcing they have CD’s for sale after every song. Just in case you didn’t see the merch table or hear the first four announcements. It gets uncomfortable. If you’re not going to buy the CD, hearing the “We have CD’s for sale” announcement eight times is probably not going to sway you into purchase mode.

I once saw a man get Satanic with the hard sell. It wasn’t so much a sell as it was a threatening. He was in a metalish funk band and after his show, he said this to a merch browser:

If you don’t buy our CD, I’m going to get 666 on your ass.

The merch browser was dismayed and quickly walked away. It was a joke. A joke that didn’t fly. They guy in the band wasn’t really going to get 666 on anyone, but his negative and ugly tone lost the sale for him. He tried to stop the browser and laugh off his evil fumbling, but she kept walking.

Remember Microsoft's plans to release a Joy Division-themed Zune?

Well, it's done.

Today Microsoft Corp. announced that a limited-edition Zune digital media player designed by Peter Saville will be made available to commemorate the DVD release of “Joy Division,” the critically acclaimed documentary. The film will come pre-loaded on a custom black Zune 80 player that is etched with an adaptation of Saville’s iconic artwork from Joy Division’s “Unknown Pleasures” album. Five hundred limited-edition players will be available for purchase June 17 for $399.99. In addition, Zune Marketplace will feature exclusive outtakes from the DVD.

Kurt Cobain-themed Converse sneakers, illustrated with snippets of his journals.

Last week, because I got sick of hitting 'skip' when my iPod was set to shuffle, I erased every last Nirvana song from my iTunes. I was a big fan, back in the day, and I knew every note of every song. That's why I can't listen to it anymore; it's not entertaining, it's not enlightening. There's nothing new that I can scavenge from it. Less than a week later, here are these shoes. This seems like a sign that I did the right thing.

Aye Jay is the creator and illustrator of the Heavy Metal Fun Time Activity Book, the Gangsta Rap Coloring Book, and the Indie Rock Connect the Dots. Coloring in Eazy E with a Violet-Red, Wild Strawberry, and Aquamarine combo fills a colorer with unparalleled joy. Coloring is the way. Fire Burnt Orange, not bullets. No Bloods or Crips, just fuschia. Aye Jay was kind enough to speak from his Chico, CA coloring compound:

What gave you the idea to do these activity coloring books?
Aye Jay: My inspiration was coloring with my son Cohen, who was two at the time. I had a thought like, "Why is there no coloring book that reflects the interests of the people in my age group?" I've been a fan of gangsta rap from the first time I heard it, in maybe 1988(?). It seemed like it would be a funny idea folks would like. I then spent the next couple of weeks making lists of inclusions and doing the drawings, went to the local copy shop and had one hundred copies made. I remember thinking there was no way I was going to be able to get rid of all one hundred. I was wrong.

After the book did well as a zine, it was published as an expanded version. I got to thinking about other types of music I like that I could make books out of. From there, I crafted a long term plan of several books in my head. I made Indie Rock Connect the Dots as the low key follow up, and a couple of years later linked up with ECW Press to make the Heavy Metal Fun Time Activity Book.

There's been tons of positive response to the books. There's been some negative feedback as well. Can you talk about that?
Getting positvie feedback from the people in the books I look up to is so rewarding. I’ve been surprised. The other side of that is the negative response due to people thinking the Gangsta book is socially irresponsible. That’s a huge bummer, as it was intended to be silly. I was never thinking about the political ramifications. Several chain stores have dropped the Gangsta book due to pressure from family based groups. Topshop in the UK dropped it and Urban Outfitters here in the states did too.

What are some of your favorite pages from the books?
Ice Cube and Suge Knight from the Gangsta book for the drawings, the Spinal Tap maze in the Metal book for the concepts, and Steve Albini's foreword from the Indie book, cause it's so well written and took over a year to get! Working with Andrew W.K. was cool too.

What's next? Will there be any new activity books coming out in the future?
Yes. I just signed on with ECW for two more activity books. They are genres you know and love. But I gotta keep them a surprise for now. Get your crayons ready though.

"On this day, all of these stores will simultaneously link and act as one with the purpose of celebrating the culture and unique place that they occupy both in their local communities and nationally," says RecordStoreDay.com.

Record stores throughout Seattle are celebrating the new holiday with live music, DJs, popcorn, cupcakes, sales on everything in the store, sidewalk sales, free shit, limited edition merchandise, Björk 3-D glasses, and more!

Here's a rundown of who's hosting what:

Easy Street: In-store performances by Mark Pickerel and Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter at the Queen Anne location. 5 pm, free. Also, everything in both stores not already on sale will be 20% off all day long.

Everyday Music: Enter to win an autographed copy of the Tom Waits box set People Take Warning! Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs 1913-1938. There will also be free CD samplers, a storewide sale, and other goodies.

Silver Platters: All four locations (Queen Anne, Bellevue, Southcenter, and Northgate) are offering 20% off on all vinyl, box sets, CD singles, and Billboard Collections CDs, and one day only DVD specials (starting at $3.99). Each location has it's own in-store specials and they also have tons of live music through the day.

Queen Anne:
1:00 The Mary McPage Band
2:00 Matt Jorgensen + 451
3:00 Pat Monahan
4:00 Kim Archer Band
5:00 Bee Simonds
6:00 Speaker Speaker
7:00 Low-Fi
8:00 The Pharmacy
9:00 How and Lightning

Bellevue Crossroads:
1:00 Interlake High School Jazz Band
2:30 Tribaljazz
3:30 Amateur Radio Operator
5:00 Hadley Caliman

Southcenter:
1:00 DJ ECM/Slantooth

Sonic Boom: Both locations (Capitol Hill and Ballard) will be selling Cupcake Royale cupcakes and new Sonic Boom slip mats, with all the proceeds going to the Vera project. They'll also have exclusive vinyl including a Stephen Malkmus 10" and 7"s from Built to Spill, Death Cab, Black Keys, REM, and more. There will be other free surprises included with every purchase, and a sidewalk sale with CDs, rock books, posters, and more starting at $1. 10% of Saturday's sales will be donated to Music4life. Topping it off, they have live music and DJs all day.

Capitol Hill:
1:00 Vinnie Blackshadow
3:00 John Roderick (Long Winters) DJ Set
5:00 The Dutchess and The Duke

Ballard:
3:00 Vinnie Blackshadow
4:00 Aqueduct
5:30 Mono in VCF
7:00 The Moondoggies

And here are a few others that we should not forget--Jive Time, Bop Street, Wall of Sound, and Singles Going Steady.

For more information about Record Store Day, visit www.recordstoreday.com.

And if you're lookin' for those limited edition Björk glasses, click here to see where you can find 'em.

Via Punknews.org:

According to a report from Wired, Microsoft is gearing up to release a limited edition Joy Division-themed version of their less-than-ubiquitous MP3 player, The Zune.

The Joy Division Zune will feature an adaptation of the cover art from the band's 1979 debut, Unknown Pleasures, which artist Peter Saville created using a graph of one hundred pulses from pulsar CP 1919 (apparently the first radio pulsar ever discovered).

Read the Wired report here.

Via BrooklynVegan:

The highly anticipated 3-D video version for Björk's latest single "Wanderlust" will have its nationwide debut as part of National Record Store Day on April 19. During the inaugural event, music retailers nationwide will join together to celebrate and recognize the value and unique culture of independent record stores. As part of the day, over 300 stores will offer special events and giveaways including the distribution of 10,000 3-D glasses for customers to view "Wanderlust" on in-store kiosks and at home. In addition to Björk's contribution, other artists including Metallica, Steve Earle and Interpol will participate in the day with signings and performances at various local record stores.

And some of those lucky 300 stores are right here in Seattle--Satisfaction Records, and every location of Easy Street, Sonic Boom, and Silver Platters are all on the list of places where you can pick up your pair of glasses. Since there are "only" 10,000 of them in America, it'd be smart to get there sooner rather than later.

For a full list of everything happening in Seattle on Record Store Day (tomorrow!), click right here.

To see the video, click here.

A list of all stores participating can be found here.

Northwest Top 10
Best Selling Northwest Artists at Local Independent Record Stores for the week of April 10

1. FLEET FOXES Sun Giant EP (Sub Pop)
2. SERA CAHOONE Only as the Day Is Long (Sub Pop)
3. THE HELIO SEQUENCE Keep Your Eyes Ahead (Sub Pop)
4. EDDIE VEDDER Music for the Motion Picture Into the Wild (J)
5. COLIN MELOY Colin Meloy Sings Live (Kill Rock Stars)
6. GRAND ARCHIVES Grand Archives (Sub Pop)
7. STEPHEN MALKMUS Real Emotional Trash (Matador)
8. VOYAGER ONE Afterhours in the Afterlife (Loveless)
9. DESTROYER Trouble in Dreams (Merge)
10. BRANDI CARLILE Live at Easy Street Records (Columbia)

Compiled from figures at Sonic Boom (Capitol Hill and Ballard) and Easy Street (Queen Anne and West Seattle).

Via Fashion Windows:

Gaspard and Xavier's (Justice) love for leather jackets has almost become their trademark, together with the large light up cross that shines throughout their shows. Their love for leather jackets recently brought them to the design table of Surface to Air Paris studio. Together, they designed X & G's dream leather jackets.

The result: a limited edition series of 3 jackets (150 pieces), and 2 jeans, conceived and designed by Justice for Surface To Air. With a very exclusive distribution, the line will be available beginning June at the following locations: Surface To Air Paris, Surface To Air Brazil, Colette, Barneys, Lane Crawford, Isetan, Le Bon Marché, Paris Texas, Asylum, Le Shop, Incu.

Stereogum has more photos.

Or would he have preferred Doc Martens?

Northwest Top 10
Best-Selling Northwest Artists at Local Independent Record Stores for the week of March 20

1. SERA CAHOONE Only as the Day Is Long (Sub Pop)
2. FLEET FOXES Sun Giant EP (Sub Pop)
3. GRAND ARCHIVES Grand Archives (Sub Pop)
4. THE GUTTER TWINS Saturnalia (Sub Pop)
5. STEPHEN MALKMUS & THE JICKS Real Emotional Trash (Matador)
6. PUSA These Are the Good Times People (Fugitive)
7. DESTROYER Trouble in Dreams (Merge)
8. VOYAGER ONE Afterhours in the Afterlife (Loveless)
9. MONO IN VCF Mono in VCF (Stylo)
10. THE HELIO SEQUENCE Keep Your Eyes Ahead (Sub Pop)

Compiled from figures at Sonic Boom (Capitol Hill and Ballard).

Via Punknews.org:

No Idea Records has begun auctioning off test-pressings for a number of releases from their catalog. The auction is being held as a fund raiser to benefit J. Robbins's son Cal, who was born with a genetic condition called Spinal Muscular Atrophy. While treatments for the condition are available, they are extremely costly and not covered by health insurance.

We posted about Cal before on Line Out. You can read more about him and his condition here. All the money raised from the auctions will help pay for Cal's treatments.

Just a few of the test presses up for sale are:

Against Me! Reinventing Axl Rose (which is already going for over $200)
Hot Water Music Fuel and Forever
Planes Mistaken for Stars Up In Them Guts
Small Brown Bike Nail

The whole list, which also includes Less Than Jake, Latterman, Grabass Charlestones, and Chuck Ragan, can be found here.

Fuck.

Via Idolator--bolds are mine:

Crocs Inc.—the makers of the ugly, yet allegedly very comfortable rubber shoes that are most famously worn by Mario Batali—is trying to hip up its brand. What better way to do that than by sponsoring some music festivals? The company is throwing money at the likes of All Points West promoter AEG and the people behind Bumbershoot; it's also signed a deal with superpromoter Live Nation that will allow the company to have some sort of "on-site presence" at 25 amphitheaters throughout the country. If ever there was a reason to buy a pair of steel-toed Doc Martens for concertgoing, this is it.

Those shoes were everywhere at last year's Bumbershoot. One day I was there I tried to count every pair I saw and I lost count after about an hour when I got up into the forties. No joke. I've never been so offended by footwear. And now, with Crocs Inc. tossing some money to Bumbershoot's people, we'll probably be inundated with an even stronger presence. Maybe some big signs. Maybe people passing out fliers or postcards to enter to win a free pair.

Oh Christ.

And they just signed a deal with Live Nation? Hey, so did U2! Does that mean there will be limited edition red and black U2 Crocs to go with the limited edition U2 iPods? Maybe they'll come with a free pair of Bono-esque sunglasses? Doesn't Madonna have a deal with Live Nation too? Oh, the possibilities...

Northwest Top 10
Best-Selling Northwest Artists at Local Independent Record Stores for the week of March 20

1. FLEET FOXES Sun Giant EP (Sub Pop)
2. SERA CAHOONE Only as the Day Is Long (Sub Pop)
3. THE HELIO SEQUENCE Keep Your Eyes Ahead (Sub Pop)
4. GRAND ARCHIVES Grand Archives (Sub Pop)
5. THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA These Are the Good Times People (Fugitive)
6. EDDIE VEDDER Music for the Motion Picture Into the Wild (J)
7. STEPHEN MALKMUS & THE JICKS Real Emotional Trash (Matador)
8. CHRIS WALLA Field Manual (Barsuk)
9. DESTROYER Trouble in Dreams (Merge)
10. BRANDI CARLILE Live at Easy Street Records (Columbia)

Compiled from figures at Sonic Boom (Capitol Hill and Ballard) and Easy Street (Queen Anne and West Seattle).

Gravy Train!!! plays the Vera Project on Tuesday, March 25 with the New Bloods and Joey Casio. Tickets are only $8, but you can get into the show for free! Thanks to the Vera Project, we have a pair of tickets to give to one lucky Line Out winner. Want 'em? The show's all-ages and it starts at 7:30 pm.

All you have to do is e-mail your name to lineout@thestranger.com with GRAVY TRAIN in the subject line.

A winner will be picked at random at 6 pm tonight and notified via e-mail. Good luck!

USE and Pleaseasaur are opening. It's gonna be a hell of a time. Right now you can only get tickets for the third mezzanine, and even those are almost gone, but we have one pair of GENERAL ADMISSION tickets to give away to one of you lucky Line Out readers.

The show is tomorrow night at the Paramount, 7:30 pm, and it's all-ages.

To enter, e-mail your full name to lineout@thestranger.com with PUSA TICKETS in the subject line by 3 pm today. The winner will be notified via e-mail.

Good luck!

Tuesday you had a chance to win an autographed copy of the new record, yesterday you had a chance to win one of their new t-shirts, designed by singer Chris Ballew. Both those contests are over (congratulations to Michael, who won the t-shirt!), but today you still have a chance to get something for free!

Up for grabs is a copy of the 10-year anniversary edition of the Presidents of the USA's first record, 1995's self-titled hit! The record features "Kick Out the Jams," "Naked and Famous," "Peaches," "Lump," and more. This version also includes over a dozen bonus tracks and a DVD of the band's videos, including the second video for the song "Lump." And the band will sign it too. Woot!

Want it? Just send an e-mail to lineout@thestranger.com with SHE'S LUMP in the subject line. The winner will be chosen at random and notified via e-mail. Include your mailing address, please, so we can send it to you (we won't give your address away, promise).

Yesterday, we gave away an autographed copy of their new record These Are the Good Times People. The winner, Daniel, was just notified via e-mail. Congratulations Daniel! But if you didn't win, don't worry. There are more prizes all week. Today, we're giving away one of the band's new t-shirt designs, which were all drawn by Chris Ballew. There's a frog/octopus creature, a buffalo/eagle one... a bunch of weird little cartoons to choose from.

The winner will get to choose their design and t-shirt size. To enter, e-mail lineout@thestranger.com. Please put PUSA T-SHIRT in the subject line.

Good luck!

From the Heavy Metal Fun Time Activity Book.

Answers after the jump.

Continue reading "Mike Patton Scramble" »

Now you can buy a guitar autographed by the band.

(Thanks again, to Bryce.)

I'm sorry to keep going with this Pink Spiders shit, but I just have to tell this story.

So the reason we went to see this show is because my companion had once opened for the Pink Spiders on tour and he wanted to say hi to them (they disappeared after their set so we didn't see them). He also told me this tour story:

So we were hanging out backstage with them, you know, and the bassist [Jon Decious, the Whitney/Ocasek lovechild] comes over to me and says, "Hey dude, just a bit of advice. Don't use the Pink Spiders' condoms. When we were on Warped Tour, a couple of them broke on our drummer."

I couldn't find any pictures of the low-quality condoms and I didn't see any last night. They've probably been replaced with these:

Undies are a better souvenir of the show than a baby!

The way he keeps saying "the MySpace" reminds me of my dad.

Reading Brendan Kiley's "Confessions of a Gasoline Huffer" in this week's issue reminded me of a low point in my own life. No, I wasn't experimenting with inhalants. I was experimenting with punk rock. And t-shirts.

When I was a teenager, I must've seen Gas Huffer play at the Old Firehouse a dozen times. One of those times, I bought a t-shirt. It was puke green, with a caricature of a dude with a big nose hunched over a canister of rocket fuel, fumes wafting up into his giant nostrils, maybe x's on his eyes (anyone have an image of said shirt?). It was probably extra large for that baggy, mid '90s suburban alterna-teen look. Anyway, I got the shirt home and my mom cut it up with a pair of scissors and threw it in the trash. She was worried that I was going to start huffing gas or that the shirt encouraged drug use or something. I did do drugs, but I never huffed gas, and Kiley's story makes it pretty clear that obscure psych textbooks, not punk rock, is the real gateway into huff-town. Mom wouldn't reimburse me the $10 I spent on the shirt. I've still never huffed gas.

Srsly?

Yeah, srsly.

Hey Sam! You're the resident video game expert. You should play it and let us know if it's any good.

Also, just for shits and giggles (Christ, I hate that phrase...), here's a link to the Emo Game. (It's not safe for work since Steven Tyler is raping a member of the Get Up Kids within the first three minutes).

Check this out!

It's a blank cassette tape USB drive. It's 64MB so it holds about one hour of music, and it comes with a paper sleeve you can write on or decorate yourself.

Just like the old days!

Who would not be stoked to get something this cool, full of the music you love, made especially for the other.

Turntable Lab has 'em, and with second day air at $35. you may just luck out and get it before xmas (or you could go for the overnight and get it by friday for a total of $55).

Suck also makes this fantastic Flat Mini Boom Box you get to put together yourself that fits most iPods. I'm sure the sound is sucky, but imagine yourself having a little party with this....

and if you need to go somewhere in a hurry, it folds down flat.

They also make an iPod holder that looks like a hymn book, for, you know, when you visit your mormon relatives or something.

Those snazzy Brit designers. What will they think of next?

This morning brought the following to my mailbox:

It's a live CD/DVD combo from the Barenaked Ladies, featuring "a tight blend of classics" (they mean originals like "One Week," not standards like "Bridge Over Troubled Water") and boasting the awe-inspiring title Talk to the Hand.

I look forward the forthcoming making-of DVD, Barenaked Ladies: Oh No They Di'in't!

I can't say I never learned anything from TMZ.com--the celeb-stalking website took a quick break from reporting on Britney's every move, breath, and bowel movement to report on the White Stripes' limited edition Meg + Jack Holga cameras.

Each kit is $180 a pop and there's only 3,000 of 'em out there. You can order them at the White Stripes' website.

I guess that's one way to offset the declining record sales...

Says Punknews.org:

Nirvana's famous Unplugged performance is finally headed to DVD. Originally recorded on November 18th, 1993 and released on audio CD, the performance has remained unreleased in any video format since then. The DVD version is due out November 20, 2007 and will feature the unedited sixty-six-minute concert which featured Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic as well as touring guitarist Pat Smear and members of the Meat Puppets.

Finally. I love watching Nirvana Unplugged. I'd watch it whenever MTV would air it (which was fairly often, you know how they are about re-runs). I'm glad to see it's finally being released, as I still think it's one of the best Nirvana performances ever and I haven't seen it in years.

As for that Kurt doll pictured above, well you can buy that for $16.95 from www.rock-n-roll-action-figures.com

Sigh.

The Best American Nonrequired Reading comes out next week, edited by Dave Eggers and introduced by Sufjan Setvens, complete with Carson Ellis "Decemberists" cover art. The book compiles “fiction, nonfiction, alternative comics, screenplays, blogs, and anything else,” including several humorous “Best American” lists, one of which is “Best American New Band Names.” Reading through the list the first thing I noticed was that the majority of these bands had been around for several years (Kind of Like Spitting...like, over a decade), but then a particular name caught my eye: Rock Votolato. Bummer. Almost a sweet compliment.

From flipping through the stories and reading Eggers' introduction the book seems great. There's a high school commencement speech Conan O’Brien gave that had me actually laughing out loud.

[I]f I hadn’t allowed myself to experiment and risk doing something without a clear career payoff, I would have missed out on so much. I would never have written for Saturday Night Live. I wouldn’t have performed onstage in Chicago in a diaper in 1988. I never would have spent hours crafting the Homer Simpson line “The bee bit my bottom and now my bottom is big.”

Before I picked it up I was looking through a book of poetry we were sent and I found myself thinking, “Wow, I think I might hate poetry.” I studied poetry in college, but realized looking at this particular collection that I have read virtually none since I graduated a couple years ago. The more I thought about it, the more I got to thinking that I do hate poetry now, that there wasn’t a poem I had read that did anything for me in a long, long time. Then I read a poem Eggers included in his introduction, written by Greg Ames:

Bathing Ed Asner

I snatched the rubber duck
from his hairy, wet fist
and in a cruel voice
instructed him to quit
fooling and to sit down
dammit in the tub.

“But I didn’t ask for your help,”
Asner whined, sulked and slapped
the murky water with his puckered palms.

“Well, that’s pretty much beside
the point, isn’t it?” I said.
“I’m here, helping you, so stop
making trouble for me, Lou Grant.”

“Don’t call me that!” he said.

“Well, then, lift up your arms,”
I whispered in his ear,
“and let’s swab out those pits.”

Whew. I don’t hate poetry after all.

Ben “Snakepit” White has been keeping a cartoon journal of his life for years now. It’s a “reality” comic in every sense - every day he does three crudely drawn frames of things that happened to him and chooses a song as it’s representative soundtrack. He does the same things most days: goes to work, gets drunk, gets stoned, practices with bands, kisses girls, eats burritos. His life is slightly more interesting than a normal person in that he is in bands that go on tour and put out records (he’s the bassist of J Church, Party Garbage and Bloodbath and Beyond, as well as being the original bass player for the Sword). There might be pages and pages of strips that read like this: “Went to work. Hung out with Greg. Got really stoned.” “Dicked around at work. Ate some tacos. Went to Sword Practice.”

There’s no story to be followed other than what some band dude who lives in Austin, TX does day to day, which might seem boring, but actually turns out to be engrossing. Everyone has a friend like Ben, or is like Ben themselves, so it’s pretty effortless to relate to his comic. There’s no pretension to his strips - he’s just a man with all his glorious imperfections trying to have a good time. There’s something refreshing about a guy who’s willing to put every part of his life onto the page, whether the stories are mundane or hilarious. His new collection My Life in a Jugular Vein from Microcosm Publishing spans the last three years of Snakepit’s life. It’s amazing to think of all the things you’ve done in the last three years, and how if they would have been compiled daily into a volume like White has done it might actually be a good story, banal minutia and all. In perfect “get to know me” form, the book comes with a mix CD compiled by Snakepit to be played “loud and drunk.” Check out Microcosm’s website, they’re putting out a lot of cool stuff lately.

the nation of ulysses

Chances are, if you don’t recognize the name Pat Graham you’ll probably recognize some of his pictures. He’s releasing his first book of rock photography next month, Silent Pictures, collecting his best shots from twenty years at shows and on tour with independent bands. He’s responsible for many of the iconic early nineties shots of Dischord bands Fugazi and the Nation of Ulysses / Make Up, as well as documenting Modest Mouse tours from the nineties through today (he’s currently in charge of their online tour photo blog). These acts have the most coverage in the book, with energetic live shots and intimate portraits that document huge spans of their careers. The rest of the subject list reads like a summary of my favorite bands: Frodus, Sebadoh, Tortoise, The Sea and Cake, the Jesus Lizard, Blonde Redhead, Sleater Kinney, Les Savy Fav, Elliott Smith, and Ted Leo to name a few. Silent Pictures is like a treasure trove of photographs of all the bands I wish I could have seen live fifteen years ago, like Jim Marshall’s Not Fade Away but for nineties indie rock. This is a book full of pictures I actually want to see – Liar era Jesus Lizard, Ian Svenonius in all his gloried antics, Modest Mouse covered in tumbleweed in a Taco Bell parking lot on tour for The Lonesome Crowded West.

frodus

Graham will be at the Sunset Tavern to promote the book on September 19th at 7:00. The tour includes “guest appearances” from musicians in the book. Frankly, if anyone on the list above were to show up I would be pretty stoked. Silent Pictures is available for sale next Tuesday.