You seem like a soldier who's lost his composure

Two thoughts occurred to me pretty quickly upon seeing Gomez at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee last night:

1. Why have I not seen these guys in concert before?

2. This might be the only band that I've loved for 10 years, but don't know a single member's name*.

The show was really good (leading to question number one) and they played a set list that sounded like a greatest hits compilation. Three of their first six songs were tunes I've used in mix CDs over the years. It was just about the perfect set for a fan who's loved them for years but never seen them in concert.

So why have I avoided Gomez? I'm not sure. It's not like they've never played a show near me. I can think of two concerts they played in Cincinnati in just the last couple years. I think I just took them for granted. I thought they might be too much of a stoner jam band live and wasn't interested in watching a mob of dreadlocked white people noodle dance all night. Turns out I was wrong.

 

The show was tight (partly necessitated by a little too much reliance on prerecorded backing beats) and the fans were more like middle class thirty somethings than Phish phreaks. Did I mention the $3 pint cans of PBR? All in all it was a good time, and I vow to catch them again when I get the chance. Hopefully, it won't take another 10 years.

*Wikipedia tells me that the members of Gomez are: Ian Ball, Ben Ottewell, Tom Gray, Paul Blackburn and Olly Peacock. Sorry about that guys!

And what did you do today?

Tippy caught a mouse (or a vole, the jury's still out on that). He may be old, but he's still got it!

Wilco (the stream)

Wilco's new album isn't being released until June 30th, but it's being streamed on their website right now, if you're inclined to go check it out. I've listened to about half of it so far. While it seems to have some interesting moments, nothing's blown me away yet.

And as if to prove that my moving to Milwaukee automatically makes it 10% cooler, Wilco also shot their new album cover in The MKE (as I've now dubbed it). You don't see a lot of camels in town, so I'm glad they managed to capture such a rare occurrence.

In other news, I'm heading to Madison this weekend to hang out with Josh and his Lady Bear. I can only hope they have secured sufficient quantities of orange beer fixin's

I saw him scratch a rash and I had to grab an ax

It was really only a matter of time until all the great artists of our generation made music that captured the wave of swine flu hysteria sweeping the planet. I'm sure Bruce Springsteen's swine flu tribute album will be hitting the record stores any day now, but until then I give you The Streets.

I follow Mike Skinner's Twitter (I know, how very 2009 of me) and he posted a link to his new swine flu song today. It's accompanied by a video featuring all your favorite zombie movie moments. I can't begin to tell you how happy this video makes me. Just remember when Springsteen's album wins all the accolades that The Streets did it first and did it best.

Yellow is the color of my true love's crossbow

Once again I am heading on a giant road trip across the country, but this one is new and improved - now featuring parents!

What does the addition of parents bring? Well first off, there’s the authentic giant minivan filled with stuff. I’ve managed to carve out a niche for Tippy and me in the back, but that’s about it. I’m pretty sure that five years from now I’ll finally find the stash of ketchup packets I hid somewhere today. Parents also means extra stops for bathroom breaks. If we keep on this pace, I’m confident we will arrive in Milwaukee in time for Halloween, which means we’ll have a couple days before we have to turn around and head back to Tucson for the winter. On the plus side, I’ll have a deep knowledge of every gas station and rest stop West of the Mississippi. Really, it’s fine because what parents really mean is I can type blog posts while they drive, so at least that’s nice.

The iPod has been getting a heavy workout today. So here are a few one sentence reviews of albums I’ve listened to so far. Any of the artists mentioned to feel free to use them as pull quotes on their websites:

The Hazards of Love by The Decemberists - As close to prog rock as I’m comfortable getting yet fun and funky.

Asking for Flowers by Kathleen Edwards - I prefer my Kathleen Edwards with more Bourbon, please.

Changing Horses by Ben Kweller - Ben Kweller goes country and I’m OK with that.

Elvis Perkins in Dearland by Elvis Perkins - I’m really enjoying this new, slightly happier Elvis Perkins.

Almost You: The Songs of Elvis Costello by various artists - This album is an old favorite but Okkervil River's cover of "Riot Act" really stuck out for me today.

Which leads to...

The Stage Names by Okkervil River - I have two albums by this band so it's kind of late for me to name them my new favorite group, but that's what I'm going to do.

We went on a little side trip to the Very Large Array in New Mexico. It's a giant framework (or array) of radio telescopes and it's all very scientific. What's most important to me is it's picturesque. It's like I'm in a science fiction novel!

He forgot his bedside manners

I've been meaning to write about A.C. Newman for the last few days, but I think it's gonna have to wait. He's not that inspiring for me anyway. What I want to talk about today is social networking and etiquette.

Every article I read about this fancy new social network Twitter mentions the correct way one should "tweet." Should you pimp your business? Is it okay to actually post what you're doing when it asks "What are you doing?" My question is, what does it matter?

People can't seem to wait to set down a batch of rules whenever a new form of communication pops up. But isn't part of the fun of the interwebs making up rules as you go along? Sure it's annoying to get Twitter spam, but I really enjoy the diversity of posts from my fellow Twitterers. I get job listings from some, random musings from others and grocery lists from celebrities. If they were all forced to say interesting of informative things or only share links, Twitter would be a lot more boring.

So let's ignore all the advice and just do whatever we want with Twitter. Seriously, it's just 140 characters. How many rules can there possibly be for such a short message?

The one band NPR really wants me to love

There are many ways to fill your days when you're unemployed. One way that's sort of a tradition in my family is to go for a long walk. It's a good way to eat up an hour or two and it gets you out of the house for free. So every day I go for a long walk in the Arizona sun and listen to podcasts. There's something about hearing stories about other people's lives that keeps your mind off yours. 

Two of my favorite podcasts are music related, naturally. Sound Opinions and All Songs Considered provide music news, album reviews and enough constant SXSW updates to fill me with jealousy.

Most of the time, these two podcasts don't agree on much. Sound Opinions, which features two newspaper writers, takes more of a populist stance while All Songs Considered encompasses more of that liberal media elite snobbery that we're so accustomed to on NPR. Both podcasts find common ground on one topic, though. I should be listening to Ponytail.

What's Ponytail, you ask? Well, technically they're an art punk band from Baltimore, but to really understand what they're like, you need to think about Yoko Ono imitating a tiger while people play random instruments in the background. Mostly, it makes me think, "THIS is what you agree on?"

I'm sorry NPR gods, but I can't get behind this band. I'm a lyrics freak and there's a noticeable lack of lyrics in Ponytail's work (unless you count the odd Japanese schoolgirl yelp). I want to be hip, too, but this is where I put my foot down. I'm sure their show at SXSW was killer and it's great that the lead singer is this tiny ball of energy, but I am not going to listen to this music. I'm just not. Does this mean I'm kicked out of the NPR cool kids club?

I think they both agree on the new Decemberists album, too. I can get behind that. Maybe that will keep me in the club.

How not to do community journalism

I've been meaning to post a link to this terrible, terrible story for a while now. I just can't wrap my head around (1) why this is news (2) why ANYONE cares and (3) why each sentence needs its own paragraph. Just read it then consider a world without professional journalists.

Hey everyone, remember Shannon?

When you are living with your parents, it's the little things that matter. Little things like the weekly showing of Lost that appears every Wednesday to break up the long stretch of days of not getting called about the resumes you sent out. It's 60 minutes (sometimes more) of thoroughly confusing drama that demands you focus on it and not the the strange set of circumstances that led you to this house, in this town with this amazingly large HDTV. 

So I've been a little out of sorts this week because Lost was a rerun. To fill the gap, I've spent my time reading the wiki, the recap of last week's episode and just about everything else I can get my hands on. In that spirit, I give you a gallery presenting the 10 Most Worthless Characters on Lost. Oh Television Without Pity, you always know what I need, and it is usually more stuff about Lost. That, or a job.

**********

Today also marks the launch of Kelly's (aka, Ladybear) new blog. It's over there on the right and it's called Here's What's Happening. What is happening, you ask? Well Kelly and her husband Josh (the author of the Lost column I wrote about the other day) just moved to Madison, Wisconsin after years of living in New York City. The whole thing reads like the pilot of a new sitcom. Look for it on the CW this fall.

Yep, we still don't know about the smoke monster

In the middle of all my travels and job hunting I missed an importnat development. Josh wrote a column about Lost! You can find it here, but I guess you can't talk to anyone about it.

I won't bore you with my theories about the new season (and it seems most of you haven't even seen it yet so it would just be a spoiler) but there are a whole new batch of querstions floating around. I have given up any hope of them being answered, but I would like them to get to the smoke monster at some point. Please? Can we at least answer the smoke monster question? Please?!