Hey Am: I got the Wire DVD in the mail this weekend. Glad you liked it. It's remarkable for a bunch of reasons, but the transformations undergone by the songs that'd eventually end up on 154 amaze on every viewing. It's not that skeletons of songs become fleshed-out bodies during recording, and it's not lead becomes gold either. So subtle it's hard to put a finger on it really, but the best I can do is the rendering [...]

This is a free crash course in music education from the last 40 years, courtesy of Gregg Gillis, aka Girl Talk . It goes by really, really fast. My blogger pal Bruce (of Some Velvet Blog hotness fame) came up with an idea to do a massive joint post of all the songs from the ADD-inducing, mile-a-minute mashup disc Night Ripper ( previous post ), which uses over a hundred original songs to make the 42 minutes of party goodness on this album. We both [...]

I know alot of other sites do semi-regular covers features, and so far I've been resisting the urge. Now, in the steamy home stretch of summer, I fear the tension between me and cover versions is just too great to deny. I can't take all these longing gazes, sleepless nights, and petty arguments springing from nowhere, any longer. While common decency won't let me do this on a regular basis, I need a release. So here, in an abundant, unthinking burst I give you more cover love than you can possibly handle. Hopefully things won't [...]

Play it: Covering Wire Thanks in part to Simon Reynolds ' Rip It Up and Start Again , I've been chomping at the bit to take on the recent reissues of Wire 's first three albums ( Pink Flag / Chairs Missing / 154 ) but I don't know when (or even if) it will make it's way [...]