We remember an interview we did with Art Brut, in which they attempted to entertain us with their wisdom and faux pharmacological humor. Frankly, we thought it came off a bit forced and that they took themselves a bit too seriously. Enter Britain's Johnny Foreigner and their attempt to charm us with music and their interpretation of the way of the world. I remember going to see Guided By Voices shortly after they signed to Matador and as they prepared to join a Lollapalooza tour. Despite the lofty expectations of the crowd, Robert Pollard showed up, [...]

( Editor's note: Tomorrow is an (admittedly not super sexy) election day. There are no congressional seats up for grabs and (obviously), no president to vote for. We're guessing that most of the new voters that signed up to usher President Obama into office are going to stay at home tomorrow, taking bong rips, playing xbox and eating cheetos. Strangely, our target audience probably coincides (at least partially) with those same "slackers." (The rest of the audience is comprised solely of bearded, expensive jean wearing "hipsters" who find it declasse to vote for anything at anytime. After all, there's no [...]

Gr eets. Just three records this time, and a lot of back-fill. One of the records is on an archived previous post. So, you'll have to hit the link back to it to hear the audio and read the other Bo connection to it that I did not get into this time. I plan to cut off my detailed retrospective on the late Mr. Bocage's early career at 1966 or so. Other than the one Seven B issue this time, I won't be getting into that label or what lies beyond in the near future. [...]

Buy some Riva Starr right HERE on Beatport Riva Starr- Fanfarone (ALT) These are facts: 1) I love Riva Starr 2) "If Life Gives You Lemons, Make House Music" (not actual album title) is going to be amazing 3) If you missed his freshly-released collaboration with Noze, you need to watch it. Or buy it. HOWEVER: Maybe I'm missing something on the relation [...]

What is it they say about the best laid plans? Something about them never running smoothly I'm sure. Well if nothing else, my intentions were honourable. You can't take that away from me. The day before we were due to fly, while my girlfriend was packing, I hastily rearranged the contents of my iPod, replacing rarely listened to albums with new records to immerse myself in and write about on my return. That was the plan anyway. Like I said, my intentions were honourable. Unfortunately, lying poolside with the sun slow roasting me, my plan evaporated. [...]
I'm really sad that I haven't been writing as much. Honestly. It's a awful truth that when you're getting paid to write, writing for free suddenly loses appeal. Even though I haven't actually had anything published yet -- a fact that continues to befuddle friends and family alike ("What the heck have you been doing for over a month??) -- I've spent most of my days on the ground doing prep work, preparing stories for the launch, training and editing. Needless to say, the last thing I want to do when I get home [...]

Is there such a thing as fall music? We know there's The Fall , but is there a particular "sound" that lends itself to autumn listening? Well, if you noticed the title of this Countdown, you might realize this is a loaded question - of course there's such a thing! And just as we did when we tackled the best summer albums way back in our very first Countdown , we've rounded up another batch of seasonally specific essential albums, except this time our ears are tuned to the changing leaves and shorter days rather than beaches [...]

Wow, what a horrendously bad week for me and music. First, the cassette player in my Infiniti inexplicably stopped working, and the cassette player was how I hooked up my iPod to my speakers. Since then, I've been using an old FM Transmitter that works well, as long as you like a hearty handful of static with your music, which I... don't. Anyone have any suggestions? I hadn't been planning to buy a new car due to the troubling financial state of affairs over the past year, but this may have pushed me past a tipping point. I have a [...]

Miike Snow by anthoNYC 9.16.09 Last night we chatted with Jack Peñate before the 1st of 2 Jack Peñate / Miike Snow shows at Mercury Lounge, and today I sat down with Miike Snow before the 2nd. Each brought something totally different to the plate, serving a solid set that brought even Mark Ronson and Adele to the yard. Tonight Miike Snow takes their turn as headliner and in turn will play a longer set. Make sure you catch this dynamite tour when it comes to your town, you will [...]
I pulled this off a compilation album entitled N.F.T.F.H (Not For The Faint Hearted) vol.1 that was put together for me a couple years ago by TSID site regular and supreme North LDN O.G : DeEbO. Rarely do these pages get to see any good old American hardcore (or post-hardcore??), and so I thought it would be a nice mix up for today's upload and post. I unfortunately know bugger all about the band, excepting for the few facts that I've picked up off mates over time. One of those facts being that ATDI are long since [...]

YACHT are shrouded (or should that be triangulated?) by mystery, masonry and mmmm...maybe murmurs... all great intrigue, no doubt. But wait! In See Mystery Lights YACHT has just released one of the most consistent dance album in years, not only that - the chants are intelligent, or at least meaningful, and the hooks are fun. Shouldn't we just enjoy it and analyze it all later, winter maybe (when darkness descends...)? YACHT are Jona Bechtolt & Claire L. Evans. Their music is very hot in Europe and the bigger US cities. Since signing for [...]
by Benn Ray Lately, we've all been seeing the difficulties in trying to have a rational conversation about something important with irrational actors. Yes, I'm talking about debating healthcare with Republicans. It's impossible to get to any substantial discussion of healthcare because all of my time has been spent trying to dispel viral lies that they've become infected with. And then, when you do dispel the lies, they like to challenge you to read the bill (a bill which they themselves haven't read). [...]

This week, I've got a sort of random piece for you. All of these things do have something in common, though. It's all stuff that happens on tour (I'm in a band; noted below). For instance, "facts" get made up. Why? Because why would we want to talk to each other about real shit? We often avoid talking altogether, by listening to loud music, listening to movies , or making up facts. Here are some facts... Metallica: The album Master of Puppets [...]

So I popped over to look at upcoming concerts in my city tonight. I saw that Modest Mouse were coming to a rather nice venue near me. They're a group that I'm intrigued by; I'd love to see live; I'd enjoy giving you a review of what it would be like to experience the hype, you know, the whole thing of it all. And there's a few tracks on their latest record that turn me on quite a bit. I click on the "buy now" button and my heart sank.... it directed me, immediately to TicketBastard. I knew then that [...]
I'm probably going to look back at this post and think I should have just taken the day off. too late. I use to write 57. People would ask, "whats 57?" and I could never say. I would reason up all sorts of things, and in reality I didn't even like the numbers. It just came together and I didn't really realize within the situation what the reason was. I never did come up with a good explanation, but I liked the way the two things came together; arbitrary and cohesive with good possibilities, to me of course. [...]
Wallpaper (featuring Jacob Safari & Kid Static) - "Pool Party" ; It may have been a drab and gray summer for the most part, but that didn't stop Wallpaper from doing their best to get the party started. They provided the remix of "The Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell" that got everyone hooked and on this tune they create the coolest vibe ever to get down at a pool party! This is how I'll remember summer 2009, even if that's being a bit delusional! Grade : B+ [...]

( BACK TO PART ONE ) Hell and High Water (1954, 103 minutes)(buy/ rent ) "I shall try my best to make you like me... as a scientist." A private consortium suspects that nuclear activity is occurring in on an island in the neutral waters of the North Pacific. They hire a mercenary WWII vet (Richard Widmark) to captain a submarine for a recon mission. Packed in the tin can are a full crew of sweaty men and one va-va-voomish French scientist. [...]
Here's another thing I wrote from the Pop Music class, though this was for the final project. We needed to choose our favorite album of all-time and writing about its importance/what makes it interesting/ etc. Naturally I chose the Magnetic Fields.... 69 Love Songs The Magnetic Field's 69 Love Songs is a three- volume concept album, released by Merge Records on September 7, 1999. The three volumes compile the tracks in a loosely thematic way: Volume 1 being the "Pop Album," Volume 2 the "Ballad Album," and Volume 3 the "Comedy Album." [...]

Well, despite my best efforts , that rumor about Kanye West campaigning to be King Of Pop in the wake of Michael Jackson's passing really took off, thanks to our hypermediated, hyperconnected world being mostly devoid of fact-checkers. So the story finally, inevitably reached Kanye himself today-via Wendy Williams' radio show-and he posted his thoughts on the whole thing to his blog: I WAS JUST LISTENING TO WENDY WILLIAMS AND HEARD SOME QUOTE ABOUT ME SAYING I'M THE NEW KING OF POP. NOT ONLY DID I NOT SAY THAT, I HAVEN'T [...]

Last night's Diesel : U : Music show at Webster Hall was a hot ticket, thanks to a bill stocked with highly bloggable acts like Clipse and the Roots, and rumors swirling all week that Jay-Z-in the tri-state area for his All Points West appearance this evening -was going to surprise the crowd by bringing the house down. We sent Jeff Rosenthal of ItsTheReal.com to suss out the rumors and scope out the scene; as it turned out, Jay didn't show up, but one of his town-running cohorts did. [...]