
Our favorite review of the week, thanks to Something Awful.
Florence & The Machine:
I am also certain that she identifies strongly with movies about a quirky girl who meets a sweet indie dude with permanently messy hair who wears rumpled, button-up shirts. He is about to get married to some uptight bitch who wants to control everything and stomp all the creativity out of him, but fortunately the quirky girl comes along and reignites his passion for life and shows him that he has to call off the wedding at the last minute, even though it's going to disappoint his parents and make him question everything he thought he knew about himself.Oh, and I'm almost positive she "doesn't even OWN a television" and takes every possible opportunity she can to tell you that she doesn't know who a given celebrity is: "Who is THAT?? Why do you get so wrapped in all that fake Hollywood bullshit? It's so PLASTIC and PHONY, man! Wait, hang on a second, my iPhone is ringing."
Due to low ticket sales, according to Neumos. FUCK!!!
Cue "Demons Out" ("how am I supposed to sleep at night/when no one likes the music we write"):
I'm stoked Audion is coming to town—dude absolutely burned shit down at Decibel 2008, but I have to say: it succccks that he's playing the Triple Door. Don't get me wrong, the Triple Door is great for some shows—the sound is ideal (and capable of some deep, seat-buzzing bass frequencies), the sightlines are great, the ability to support large-scale visuals is vital to shows like Audion's upcoming one, and being served food and drink during a show always makes me feel a little bit kingly. BUT! You can't fucking dance at a dinner theater, and however cerebral and arty Audion's A/V show is, it's still essentially dance music:
The BBC reports:
For better or worse. [Researchers found] that if the wife was five or more years older than her husband, they were more than three times as likely to divorce than if they were the same age.If the age gap is reversed, and the man is older than the woman, the odds of marital bliss are higher.
Add in a better education for the woman - Beyonce has her high school diploma, unlike husband Jay-Z - and the chances of lasting happiness improve further.
Beyonce Knowles is 28, and her rapper husband Jay-Z is 39.

Am I trippin' or is this video of Louisiana Ca$h's "Walk Wit a Dip"—which landed in my inbox this morning—a carbon copy of 19,000 other videos shot in the last 10 years or so by rappers looking to blow up—or who've already blown up? Are we tired of this shtick yet? Apparently not. I like watching boomin' hotties in short shorts and tight tops getting low low low in slow slow slow motion as much as the next Y-chromosome-having homo sapien, but this whole approach to musical presentation just reeks of creative stagnation.
Anyone want to defend the aesthetic merits of videos of this ilk? Anyone want to explain why a motherfucker wouldn't be better off watching a random clip off redtube.com while listening to Antipop Consortium, Ghostface, or Dälek?
How do you all feel about Dirty Projectors (born in Connecticut, attended Yale, plays like Ali Farka Touré)? I'm guessing you must hate him just on principle, even if you haven't heard his music, right?
(PS. Pro tip: You want the Vampire Weekend to stop, quit making them the most commented posts on Line Out.)
Dirty Projectors play Seattle November 4th at Neumos, with Little Wings.
C'mon, guys, it's as dumb to dismiss music based solely on the perceived privileged class of the artist as it is to fetishize poverty as the only true means to artistic authenticity. I'm decidedly working class—I have as much class antipathy as the next guy—I've never been to, let alone "summered at" Cape Cod, and yet, I can appreciate the Vampire Weekend song "Walcott," because it expresses a pretty universal feeling ("don't you wanna get out?") despite it's specific cultural signifiers ("out of Cape Cod tonight?"). See how that works? Hate Vampire Weekend—I don't give a fuck—hate rich people, but doing the former on account of the latter is just lazy criticism.
...Jared Swiley of the Black Lips' moronically homophobic "official" response:
“First of all, I just wanna say that Wavves was NOT involved in that fight. That faggot didn’t even touch me.I’ve never “come after” that kid, it wasn’t four a.m., that wasn’t my girlfriend, no one was spitting, and I didn’t attack him. I don’t give a shit about that kid and his music.
What happened was, after we finished our set I went to Daddy’s with some friends and saw that faggot from Wavves talking to a photographer friend of mine. The only thing I did was walk up to him and say “You’re that faggot from Wavves and I don’t like you”. He smiled a bit but didn’t say anything.
After that, I went outside and saw their tour manager hanging around with some guys. They started getting all chuckles with me and so I told them I wasn’t gonna have it. After that, Wavves tour manager hit me square in the face with a bottle. Blood started pouring out and six dudes fucking started kicking me until I blacked out.
All I remember is getting hit with the bottle and my friends dragging me to another bar. They wrapped my head up until I looked like a Confederate soldier.
So yeah, I lost the fight.
I also missed three flights. I’ve been in the airport all day having stewardesses cleaning my head because it kept cracking open. You can’t go on board if you’re bleeding.
Bottom line is that faggot from Wavves didn’t even hit me. Never touched me. And he should’ve, cuz he had a free shot.
He’s coming to Atlanta October 3rd and we’re gonna get ugly on him. We’re gonna destroy their van, we’re gonna destroy their faces, we’re gonna get crazy on em’. Nasty style.
Seriously. Fuck these clowns. Anyone playing in a "punk" band (fuck, let alone a "flower punk" band) who uses insinuations of homosexuality as an insult* (because, you know, being gay is weak and despicable and thank god "that faggot" never touched him, because, eww gross) is either an idiot or a homophobe or both. Dudes sure didn't seem too homophobic when they played hella gay faggot bar Pony in its original incarnation, so maybe Swiley just has the mind and the mouth of an 11-year-old elementary school drop-out. In any case, stay assy, Black Lips.
*This post dedicated to anonymous commenter #2.
From the comments on this week's Decibel Festival-previewing Data Breaker:
You suck. Your article sucks. Why do I have to be informed that N-Type, the biggest dub step dj in the world, is playing the festival by locals but it's mentioned no where in your recommendations to see him? This years Decibel Festival is focused primarily on Dubstep. Dubstep is the "soup de' jour" in Seattle and I don't think your article reflected that relevant fact at all. You're totally out of touch and your writing about OUR scene is garbage. I hope you get canned soon. You need to move on. Take a moment to reflect on what I've said. It's the truth.
Posted by RA KHAN on September 23, 2009 at 2:22 PM · Report
You didn't even mention CASPA! Can somebody wake up and realize that this guy does not keep in touch with this scene?!
Posted by RA KHAN on September 23, 2009 at 2:26 PM · Report
From this week's Decibel Festival-previewing lead, (ahem) Dubstepping into the Spotlight, also written by Dave Segal:
A striking change to this year's bill is the preponderance of dubstep and other bass-centric producers and DJs. Although Decibel director Sean Horton contends that Decibel has been high on low-end-Âintensive electronic music since its 2004 inception, it appears that this year marks an increase in attention paid to musicians and DJs prowling around the sound spectrum's lowest realms.
[...]
Decibel 2009 is undeniably stacked with more dubstep artists (Benga, Martyn, Mala, N-Type, Boxcutter, Caspa, Pinch, etc.) and dub-inflected techno producers (Echospace, Voodeux, the Sight Below, etc.) than were previous years' lineups. In addition, outright dub specialist Mad Professor, dub-informed pan-globalist DJ /rupture, and dub/dancehall vocalist DJ Collage will perform (the latter with Monkeytek). To that end, Decibel is hosting two "dB in duB" showcases and a "dB in duB Afterhours: Dub Mutants." And in a real coup, Horton is bringing in BBC Radio 1 DJ Mary Anne Hobbs, who's become perhaps the world's foremost tastemaker and disseminator of dubstep and its myriad mutations. She'll be anchoring the "Bass Lovers Unite" showcase with Megasoid, Daedelus, Nosaj Thing, and others.
Can somebody wake up, indeed.
From the wilds of the I, Anonymous forums:
Who the fuck do you think you are?
We were super excited to hear that our first ever Showbox Market show was going to be opening up for your band. We knew you drew big crowds and we really wanted to put on the best show possible. We spent weeks preparing by practicing, selling tickets (which we HATE doing), and even spent many hours of many days working on a background video to go along with each song in our short 30 minute set. Not only were you guys total dicks when we introduced ourselves, but then you denied us the use of our background video that we so painstakingly synced with our songs on the basis that your band had a video as well (which was just fucking LAME-ASS stock footage, by the way). Who are you to call the shots on the venue's video gear and creatively stifle another band? Are you afraid of being upstaged by the opening local act? And then you had the fucking nerve to ask us if our merch girl will work YOUR merch booth too. To which we kindly obliged. FUCK YOU. We hope you fucking break up.
Well then.
A few years ago on Line Out, I wrote a screed about live hiphop performances. The problems are my problems, granted, but more than being mere personal pet peeves, I see them as a plague on the art form. (If it matters, I’ve been following hiphop since 1979.) These issues that I outlined in that June 2006 post have not really subsided, if my experiences at hiphop events are indicative.
This thought occurred to me over the weekend at Bumbershoot. Both Dyme Def and De La Soul, as excellent artists as they are, fell prey to the sort of onstage antics I decried in that three-year-old post during their sets (Champagne Champagne, to their credit, did not).
So, if I may reiterate: If hiphop performers spent less time coaxing crowds to say this, do that, and make some fucking noise, and spent more time actually, you know, performing, live hiphop shows would dramatically improve—or not, depending on whether they have the goods. Do people in audiences really give a shit what their fellow attendees’ area codes are? I sure as hell don’t, with all due respect, Dyme Def. I can’t be the only one who thinks this way, can I?
On Sunday, after coming on to the Fisher Green Stage 20 minutes late, De La Soul squandered a lot of precious time discussing which side of the crowd was the “party” side and which was the “hiphop” side. Damn, De La: You guys just ought to catalyze the “party” with your “hiphop,” and not waste time talking about it. Do, don’t say (no go). With all due respect, sirs. You are too good to stoop to such pandering nonsense.

I know, I know—it’s hiphop “tradition” to rouse the crowd, to generate a vibe. I understand that some artist/audience interaction—in moderation—can be beneficial to the overall experience. But, but… when that function supersedes actual rhyming and beatmaking, then we have a serious problem. We have what I would call "a failure to entertain."
Merely saying it’s tradition and accepting the status quo is bunk. Not all traditions are worth preserving or encouraging. (Oppressing women and minorities were traditions, too.) From the Wu to you who just spit into a mic on a stage for the first time yesterday, please, in the name of all that is unholy, do your shit and drop the bullshit. I don’t want to hear my fellow punters shout stuff in inane call-and-response routines that were tired even when Bush I was in office. I don’t fucking care which part of the crowd’s having the “real” party. There is no entertainment value in trying to discern this.
I can’t be the only one who feels this way, can I?
While I believed my diatribe would have been honest and well deserved, I didn’t write it originally out of the respect I still hold deep down for the early work of the band. After ten straight years of consistent play, Until Your Heart Stops is still one of my all-time favorite albums. I idolized the band for many years, and have seen every show they’ve played in Seattle since I was in high school. I didn’t really have the heart to shit on them in a public forum, no matter how much Brodsky deserved it. I wanted to be kind to a band I once loved, and say nothing. Then today I saw the reaming that my once sparring partner Shane Mehling gave them in Decibel, complete with a very similar thesis on Brodsky:
“Now I know singer/guitarist Stephen Brodsky at one point was going to be a visionary metalcore Syd Barrett or something, but he is the albatross of this band. His vocals are uninspired and emotionless, as if he’s singing in an arena only to the cleaning crew.”
Ouch. That one's a stinger. Shane gets pretty harsh on the band, but really, even as a once die hard fan, I can't disagree with him. Whether Cave In takes this criticism to heart or not, at least we can know they heard it: the band posted the review as a MySpace bulletin, saying only, “Thanks Decibel!!!” Out of reverence for a once great band, I didn’t want to be the one to say it first; even if it was on a blog the band would never see. But now that it’s been said in a very big way, I don’t feel quite so bad concurring.

Shut… UP! Shut… UP! SHUT… UP!!!
Goddammit… why can't I make the font size bigger on this stupid blog?

MCs Terry Radjaw of Mad Rad and Sir Thomas Gray of Champagne Champagne are notorious for a few things: drunken debauchery, wild live performances, and their beards. Both men will enter the patio-side basketball court at the Funhouse, but only one will leave with his facial hair intact.
Both contestants are confident they will walk away with an unmolested growth to stroke in manly triumph, but here's some straight from the goat's mouth:
Sir Thomas Gray: "If i get the ball first, he's going to lose by the hard 15. He reminds me of the little fat dude from Teen Wolf who thinks he can hoop."
Terry Radjaw: "I'm shaving his face off. I'm playing both Nicholas Cage and John Travolta. From what I know he hasn't even got off of work yet."
In late January I wrote this snarky little note to Portland in which I said:
I was completely disappointed by the lack of anything interesting in your used vinyl, and was totally turned off by how many re-pressings and re-issues fill the bins at your stores.
Many readers from Portland, and some from Seattle took offense to that, adding that I had made the huge mistake of not going to Crossroads music and Exiled Records.
um, didja try Crossroads at all?and:
If you didn't go to Crossroads or Exiled you blew it.
and:
Have never shopped for music in Portland, but if I ever encountered you as a customer in any form I would hit you in the face. You sound like a whiny sophomore learning to shop like a bitch from your WASP mother in Nordstrom. Stop posting on lineout.
Well, I went back down to Portland last week and decided to check out the two stores that I had inadvertently missed.
Crossroads was okay. Just barely.
If you've never been to Crossroads, imagine an antique mall with each "room" having a different vendor and you'll get the vibe. The whole store is just a vendor mall for other smaller collectors. While there are some ace finds throughout, lots of the sections looked the same. I would look through soul selections and see many of the same second rate records in the bins. There were some notable vendors: One guy's niche was Soundtracks, and another had a great selection of World Music. But on the whole there wasn't a lot of wholly unique stuff there.
I did manage to pick up some stuff to fill in gaps in my Disco album collection, and a nice copy of hippy Hawaiian folk rockers Sunday Manoa's Cracked Seed. As well as a mint copy of (gulp) Madonna's "Everybody" (the dub side is soooo good).
The most hilarious thing in the store was one vendor's Electronic section, selections of which are pictured below.

Exiled was just a new vinyl store with a better selection than most new vinyl stores have. But still, buying new vinyl (lots of bootleg editions) of old albums makes one feel lazy. Like you didn't have to work that hard. I know that's where stores like Exiled find their niche, it just feels like cheating to me.
I still bought two records there. A new bootleg 180 gram vinyl pressing of Sandy Bull's Fantasias for Guitar and Banjo (so, So, SO, SO good!), and a Slow To Speak re-issue of Arthur Russell's "Is It All Over My Face". (Slow To Speak do great pressings of rare classic dance music that never got a good 12" treatment). The Sandy Bull record put me back $20, and it's a nice pressing, but finding it used in pristine condition would have only been $25-$30.
See what I mean? Kinda feels like cheating.
I don't know if I'm just used to Seattle's stores. Maybe I know what to expect, so I save my real rarities hunting for other cities. Or maybe I'm just pleasantly surprised at what I find when I root around the bins in Seattle. A friend also clued me into the fact that Portland is a "very white city", so looking for rare disco gold there is probably the wrong idea to begin with.
Anyways, even though your record stores still suck, Portland, I still had fun toiling in your dusty bins.
PS. Incidentally, I wrote about Sandy Bull quite awhile ago here.
Ladies and gentlemen, Ann Liv Young—the woman who might single-handedly reignite the culture wars.
On July 31, Kanye stopped by Why Won't You Let Me Be Be Great!!! at PS 122, a performance-art tribute to 808s & Heartbreak by Neal Medlyn and Brendan Kennedy. But superfreak Ann Liv Young apparently stole the show.
Kanye is sitting third row center, wearing a purple jacket and a barfy expression.
(NSFW.)
Originally posted to Slog, but needed to be shared with Line Out in its entirety. Thanks to Slog tipper Lane.
New Modest Mouse video?
As Karl Rove-subtle as car window-stickers of Calvin & Hobbes wee.
It conjures more interesting memories of Dizzee Rascal's "Sirens" from a couple of years ago, which reverses the roles in a similar way except sounds like Prodigy and references class, race, and Grant Morrison's 'The Invisibles'.
Run.
Kim Althea Gordon, born April 28, 1953 in Rochester, New York. Madonna Louise Ciccone, born August 16, 1958 in Bay City, Michigan.

Gordon photo by Curt Doughty, Capitol Hill Block Party. Madonna, via dailymail.co.uk.
You have to check out this infomercial for the 10th annual Gathering of the Juggalos, if only to satisfy your year's quota of schadenfreude in one sitting (the video's 14 minutes fly by like a winged Violent J). Twiztid, Tech9ine, Esham, GWAR (?!), Ice Cube (?!?!), Vanilla Ice (?!?!?!), Jimmie "JJ" Walker (?!?!?!?!), and, of course, Insane Clown Posse, head a cellar-dwelling cast of performers Aug. 6-9 in Cave in Rock, Illinois. It's goin' down, mommybangers.
Book your flight now, Kelly O.
Low Low Low La La La Love Love Love. Musically, they're okay—shivery, gentle folk rock for those looking to get their pleasant on. But their repetition/alliteration thing has gotten out of control, and it's a huge pain to type. On top of that, it takes up way too much space on a marquee, should this British group ever reach that level. Plus, I don't think Low, the La's, or Love will take very kindly to having their monikers dragged into this.
Are people calling them L9 yet?

How the fuck did I start to get sick when it just started looking this nice out? Not fair. Kind of makes me feel like that Zomby remix of Animal Collective's "Summertime Clothes" that showed up on hype machine not too long ago. Man, does that mix take a great thing and then just sneeze all the fuck over it. I was hoping for a big, wonky, '92-looking rave-up (I was looking for Zomby's equivalent of Surkin's remix of Juan Maclean's "One Day" if that makes any kind of sense) and instead Zomby just shits and squiggles around with a couple echo-drenched lines, a go-nowhere arpeggio, and then finally an off-beat that sounds like it was made in 10 minutes on an Electribe ER-1. MEHHHH.
Guess it's back to that Dam-Funk remix, which is sounding better and better (and/or, you know, the original cut).
Animal Collective's "Summertime Clothes" single, including remixes, is out July 7th
First of all, the Killers are going to do a covers album.
Fine. I usually hate it when bands do covers albums unless that band is Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, but whatever. Do a covers album, Killers, I don't care.
But what's this... what do they say they might cover? According to NME.com, the band's drummer "cited acts including 'Genesis, Tom Waits, a little Cyndi Lauper, Iggy Pop' as his preferred choices for the album, adding that he's also been 'messing around with a couple of Fleet Foxes songs' recently."
Dear God, no.
When you're at a rock concert with seating and the people in front of you stand up, you basically have three options:
1. Remain seated and quietly seethe because you can't see anything.
2. Remain seated and yell, like a dick, at the people in front of you to sit down, because they're ruining it for everybody, man!
3. Stand the fuck up and go on watching the show.
So, you know, when the people in front of me stood up, I weighed my options and decided to stand up as well (#3); I cannot believe you actually chose #2—don't you know there was like a whole SNL sketch about you?
A proper review of last night's otherwise totally amazing concert coming soon.




And as Idolator wisely warned, "Get ready to hear a lot of pontificating about the best records of the decade."
Now that you're ready, let's get this shit started, with my non-pontificating but entirely factual list of the ten best records of the past decade. (By "best" I mean "my favorite," and by "my favorite" I mean the ones I play and love the most. Also, this list was thrown together in six minutes. Neverthless, it is entirely factual.) In alphabetical order:
Clipse, Hell Hath No Fury
Bob Dylan, Love & Theft
Eminem, The Marshall Mathers LP
Girl Talk, Feed the Animals
Kanye West, Late Registration
K'naan, The Dusty Foot Philosopher
The Libertines, Up the Bracket
M.I.A., Kala
Outkast, Stankonia
TV on the Radio, Dear Science
Alternates (because there can only be ten greatest works of anything):
Arcade Fire, Neon Bible
Art Brut, Bang Bang Rock n Roll
Burial, Untrue
Ghostface Killah, Fishscale
PJ Harvey, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
Radiohead, Kid A
White Stripes, White Blood Cells
The Wrens, The Meadowlands
No hard feelings:
The College Dropout, Arular, Amnesiac, Silent Shout, and various works by Spoon, the Shins, Mountain Goats, the Hold Steady, and Of Montreal
We will address this matter again in ten years.
Somewhat inspired by David Schmader’s post about “squick songs,” I want to discuss those inexplicably adorable tunes by artists on whom you normally wouldn’t piss if they were on fire. I’m talking about musicians who stir up irrational bile in you just by the mere mention of their name, but who somehow created that one song you secretly dig the shit out of. File it under shameful pleasures (this goes beyond guilty—and yes, I know some of you scorn the entire concept of guilty pleasures with regard to music; just play along for now, okay?).
Mine is below. I have no use for Styx. Their overblown stadium nerf-rock for poodleheaded fules was anathema to me during the band's heyday and life's too short to revisit them for a revision. However, hearing "Lorelei" by chance in the old Cha Cha in 2006 stunned me into appreciation for a song I'd probably heard and quickly clicked off on the radio dozens of times.
But I had an epiphany that night. Styx wowed me with the way "Lorelei" builds anticipation with those plinky Phil Glass for Dummies synths and then accelerates into that damnably catchy, uproarious chorus, finally zooming into the stratosphere with the realization that you've found the person with whom you want to live forever.
"Lorelei" is trite ("Her eyes become a paradise"—blech), yeah, and I feel as if I've eaten an entire wedding cake after hearing it, but, damn, the layered vocals and ascending chord progression erode my long-simmering Styx hatred and force me to put this shit on repeat.
Which song by a band whom you loathe do you love, against your better judgment?