Algernon Moncrieff (from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest): “I don’t play accurately— anyone can play accurately. But I play with wonderful expression.”

John Darnielle (of The Mountain Goats): “If I say a band is “dedicated to their craft,” that sounds boring and staid, right? Well, fuck you, then, Jack, with your antiquated half-recycled notions of how craft and intensity are somehow at odds. Craft is the path to the damn palace, and the palace’s windows are all ablaze with the fire that’s constantly raging in all the rooms, and it’s not even uncomfortable for the people who live there, because they have become accustomed to the heat.”

A hit for Plastic Bertrand (as “Ca Plane Pour Moi“) and The Damned, I stand by the Elton Motello original, presented here, in glorious cheesy German TV glory:

Honorable mention to the Sonic Youth cover of “Ca Plane Pour Moi” from 1995’s Freedom of Choice complilation.

Yesterday evening before I left work, Terri and I decided to meet for dinner at Johnny D’s. On the train I thought of a game to play over dinner, which I decided to call the either/or game. I would ask Terri either/or questions, and she’d have to pick one. I got there before she did, so I got the first “either/or” of the night, from the guy at the door: “are you staying for the show or just for dinner?” (Just dinner). I waited at the bar and eavesdropped on a bunch of good conversations between the bartenders and a couple of patrons (who also seemed to be fellow Johnny D’s coworkers and/or girlfriends who were hanging out on an off day). One of these conversations was another either/or conversation: who was hotter, the Celtics cheerleaders or the Patriots cheerleaders? (no consensus was reached).

Here are the highlights of my Either/Or questions for Terri:
“red or blue”? (declined)
“John Coltrane or Miles Davis?” (declined)
“The Specials or The English Beat?” (The Specials)
“Laurel or Hardy?” (Laurel)
“Booker T. Washington or W.E.B. Dubois?” (Booker T.)
“Greeks or Romans?” (Greeks)
“Beethoven or Mozart?” (Mozart! I can’t believe I married a Mozart-over-Beethoven!)

Terri asked me a bunch, too.
“Imperial or Parkay?” (Parkay)
“Mary Tyler Moore before or after Georgette?” (before)
“Empire Strikes Back or Star Wars?” (Empire, too easy)
“Mr. Ferley or Mr. Roper?” (Mr. Ferley, but if it were both of the Ropers as a unit, the Ropers).

The show started, and we asked for the check. As we were paying up, we exchanged pleasantries with Willie (the former Someday baristo (baristo?) who now waits tables at Johnny D’s). The opening band (violin, guitar, upright bass, female vocals) started off with “Love for Sale” (”Cole Porter or Rogers and Hart?” (ummmm, what did Rogers and Hart do again?…. besides “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered”, I couldn’t name a song on demand!). I was almost tempted to stay, but then their second song was kind of a crappy country-sounding thing, and we left.

As we were heading home up Holland Street in the cold, I asked Terri, “Woodstock or Altamont?” She answered, “Monterey”. She totally won! She also thereby confirmed that I married the right girl.

Robyn Hitchcock, Vashti Bunyan, and Joe Boyd discussing Nick Drake at last year’s SXSW. Zip through the first five minutes of Joe Boyd until Robyn starts talking.

“Snowstorm” by Galaxie 500.

I always think it’s the one where they talk about being on Route 128, but that’s “Blue Thunder”; nonetheless, there’s a very Massachusetts snowstorm feeling to “Snowstorm”.

Well I listen to the weather
And he’s changed his tone of voice
And he can see it on the radar
Only seven hours away
Well there’s gonna be a snowstorm
When the t.v.’s goin out
And they got nothin else to think of
And they’re letting me go home

Well I’m lookin at the snowflakes
And they all look the same
And the clouds are goin by me
They’re playin some kind of game
Well you know there’s a snowstorm
When the t.v. has gone out
And they got nothin else to think of
And they’re letting me go home

I picked this up at a bookshop in Berlin for reading material, since I was sort of out of reading material, and it seemed like a good read. It was pretty entertaining. It was supposed to be an autobiography, though the final 50% or so was finished by his wife after Peel’s death in 2005.

I won’t bother going into who he was, that is what wikipedia is for.

What I came away feeling was that there’s just not a place in the current media universe for someone like that. Despite how little choice we get from the tepid, bland mediocrity of coast-to-coast ClearChannel and Infinity stations, despite how much infinite and overwhelming variety we get from the internet, there’s nobody out there who has a pulpit, and an audience big enough to make the pulpit credible, where they can challenge people to listen to things they might not otherwise have listened to. You can get more of what you already know, you can spend all your time trying to find new things on your own, or you can listen to the same 10 songs everybody else is listening to.

Also, he was an extremely clever writer; was not surprised to hear him say that he admired Wodehouse.

From Last Train to Jakarta (John Darnielle(Mr. Mountain Goats)’s blog):

…your content can be 100% seen-it/heard-it nothing-new and you can still come off like a shiny new quarter if your writing is good enough. I’m bourgeois, right: in my life, knowing whether somebody is a snitch or not has exactly zero practical applications, and I only vaguely care on principle: at the end of the day, people protect their own asses, that’s not exactly news. But when Scarface hates on a snitch, his tone is so measured but passionate and the writing so tight that I’m able to share his outrage, even though for all practical purposes he might as well be calling out the guy who fucked up his topiary or something: my level of real-life engagement is about the same. That’s what good writing is about, as far as I’m concerned – drawing things so vividly that you can make people give a shit about stuff they needn’t actually even know about.

Having a not-so-secret on-again off-again thing for Salt-n-Pepa over the years, I had to watch the first few episodes of their new eponymous reality show on VH1. I watched episodes 2 and 3 late last night, and this morning I was thinking that it’s all so staged and bogus that I probably wouldn’t watch any more.

But then, how exciting is it that Spinderella’s coming back in episode 4? There’s no way I’m not watching that.

You are so crafty, VH1, and I am so hooked.

Except, imagine “Country Roads” by John Denver instead of Camera Obscura.

My itch for visceral musical experiences that don’t involve amplification or electricity or recording technology or guitars got a great big ol’ scratch this weekend at the Honk! festival. I can’t even try to explain what the whole Honk! thing is about, so if you want words, you should check out their website.



Terri astutely pointed out that this is the only thing we’ve ever seen in the United States that approaches what the street festivals we’ve been to in Barcelona are like. There are probably more differences than similarities, and La Merce is on a much bigger scale and there are more different kinds of things going on. But they both are sort of these autumn things that happen in the street, where there’s drumming and dancing, where there’s no performer/audience split— everybody is a participant. They’re both sort of modern expressions of something much more primal.



As far as I know, while there are over a dozen bands like this in the country, it’s the only festival of its kind. It’s definitely one of those things that make me happy to be living in Somerville.



I shot some video. It’s crappy, but it’s slightly better than the photos for giving you the flavor. It’s still nothing like being live in the middle of a dozen people all playing REALLY LOUD instruments.