If anybody out there thinks "My Humps" is a damn fine song, please let me know. I'm feeling very, very lonely in my fanship right now. I know the word choice is bafflingly dorky. I know that people who watch too much TV associate the Black Eyed Peas with obnoxious ads for Best Buy, Target and who knows what else, but if this was a Fannypack track, some of you would be going gaga. BEP denies you that ironic detachment, shoving your face in that ol' fashioned American Top 10 straight-up ridonkadonkulous. 13 year olds across the country are grinding their hips to this:

I mix your milk wit' my cocoa puff
Milky, milky cocoa
Mix your milk with my cocoa puff, milky milky riiiiiiight

What's not to love? Plus you get to think about Taboo. When another member is singing or rapping, I guarantee he's thrusting his shoulders, spinning on his head, walking like an egyptian, breakin' you some electric boogaloo.


"We know a lot of people think that's all the Black Eyed Peas do - jump around onstage - but we're now taking audiences through different moods. We bring a lot of energy to our shows, but we like to swing through various moods and interpretations of our material to give audiences a little bit of spice in the mix" (Time Off)

It's fun to think about Taboo. Try it some time - you won't be disappointed.

More bon mots about recent singles. Fittingly, its been two months(!!) since I've heard a 2005 full length that made a strong impression. It's possible that Twin Cinema and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! are the best I've heard since TP3.Reloaded and The Cookbook, but I refuse to say either of those overlong indie pleasantries really made a mark on me. Guess it's time to check out this Gogol Bordello! They're an Eastern European Pogues or something, right? I also need to burn a friend's copy of Late Registration. That "Gold Digger" hook is pretty undeniable.

The long-awaited Scott Stapp solo album drops Nov. 22. In case you don't remember why I've long been awaiting this, here's the Yarl King in a March '04 Billboard article:

Stapp is working with producer 7 Aurelius, best known for his work with such hip-hop heavyweights as Nelly and Ja Rule. "It's Creed meets Zeppelin meets Doors with 7's [influence]," Stapp reveals. "So it's going to have some thump in the back and rock over the top of it -- but I'm not going to rap," he adds with a laugh. "I'm going to sing."

DUDE. Scott Stapp doing his thing over JEEP BEATS?! That's nasty! Imagine Scott singing over the "Rhymin' And Stealin"/"Sweet Leaf"/"Leveee Breaks" backdrop. I wanna roll down the street with the windows open, blaring that shit, fully aware that I'm destroying passerby. Ludacris gave Three Doors Down a shout-out in Blender a while back, so I know that dude's been waiting for some Thump-Rock too. I got a feeling its the "white crunk" Kanye's been aching for. Disco-metal slow jams - it doesn't get more raw than that. If Scott covers "I Feel Love" it's my album of the year.

It's possible that none of the Aurelius tracks made the final product. Fingers are crossed, though! Don't want another Extraordinary Machine situation.

Mike Powell responds to my Sugar Ray CD-R dare. Bless his soul.

I'm enjoying listening to America's Sweetheart so much that I actually feel like apologizing to Courtney Love for not digging it back when it came out. I've been reading reviews of the album and I have to assume that a lot of people who hated it were simply unable to get past their lack of sympathy for this noxious, obnoxious, child-endangering, face-mutilating cultural presence. Noticing, let alone acknowledging, the power behind her marriage of commercial thrust and wounded, megapunk passion would be asking for more awkward, self-adoring interviews and skank-out pics. Better to mourn a riot grrrl inspiration than champion a painfully honest freak product of celebrity culture and rock-as-rebellion mythology.

I've found that albums that inspire indignant, negative reviews are just as likely to be powerful experiences as five-star polltoppers. It takes energy to inspire outrage and offense, to earn a "fuck you" from cultural watchdogs - "this is not what music is supposed to be like." It's not enough to be mediocre, you have to STAND OUT to get an D+ or one star. The most flagrant example of a trend someone despises (especially if that person's tastes don't really match yours anyhow) is probably the one you should check out. The new Dandy Warhols album is getting that kind of disdain, and while the songs aren't particularly memorable, its cool to hear them respond to the success of Dig! by dropping a big pile of trippy, tossed-off mush that is still more on-key and energized than anything I've heard by the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Plus that 'new wave' album sucked.

Another album from 2004 I didn't get into until now is Life Is Killing My Rock'n'Roll by Singapore Sling. Shameless JAMC rip that oh so slightly ups the tempo without losing the lo-fi scrape of Psychocandy. I'll never understand people who get angry about the successfully derivative - you mean you don't want MORE? The lyrics are dopey, but so were the originals and these guys require you to focus even harder to notice it.

More blurbs!

You know who made a good hits comp? Placebo. Them nervous little androgynes only sound better with age, and this disc grabs their most anxious, memorable moments. Too bad they attached a remix disc to it! And the Beta Band slapped a live disc to theirs. There's something so absurd about combining product that only diehard fans could want with a disc the faithful would find worthless. And the music industry wonders why we steal so shamelessly from their coffers.

Last night, in a state of drunken reverie, I came up with an ideal tracklisting for a Sugar Ray greatest hits comp (the real deal peters out 2/3rds of the way through - too much early rawkage).

THE TRUE BEST OF SUGAR RAY
1. Answer The Phone
2. Fly
3. Someday
4. Under The Sun
5. Every Morning
6. Mean Machine
7. Falls Apart
8. Waiting
9. When It's Over
10. Ours
11. Abracadabra
12. Chasin' You Around
13. Party For Two (Shania Twain w/ Mark McGrath)
14. Heaven
15. Rivers

Go forth, P2p Party People! Download these doozies*, play them in order, and report to me your pleasure.

*elsewhere, obv.

Thanks to everybody who showed up at the panel. It felt a little anticlimactic and less than it might have been had there been more focus and preparation (I wish we'd figured out beforehand where panelists specifically disagreed with each other), but there were enough talking points to keep discussion whizzing along. I was glad to hear what Julianne, Lynne, Chris and Jason had to say and would have liked to hear more, though I'm glad Chris isn't allowed to force the world to prefer Mr. Lif to 50 Cent.

Even though my mouth was in high gear throughout, I sympathize with the frustration Lynne describes. There were points I wish I made clearer, details I wish I'd acknowledged, tangents I wish I avoided. All of us understood that this music deserved criticism but none of us had any desire to be censorial. Making others aware of how we approach the songs (as well as the larger questions of race, sexuality and art-vs.-pornography they raise) and why, hoping the knowledge will inform their perspectives, is all one can do. I'm incredibly grateful when people do it.

As for the festivities that followed, I saw some great bands (gotta catch Man Man and the Wrens next time they're in town), but visiting old friends and meeting new people was the real highlight of the week for me. No showcase performance could compare to watching a karaoke cubicle full of Stylus scribes holler along to Johnny Cash's "Hurt,", except maybe my rendition of "This Woman's Work."

If you're one of the proud few attendees who will already be at the CMJ Music Marathon Wednesday afternoon, I recommend you attend this panel.

The Hoarse Whisperer: Decoding The Ying-Yang Twins
Have "Wait (The Whisper Song)" and "Pull My Hair" reached new depths of depravity and misogyny on the radio dial? Is it a secretly feminist ode to shared power-play? Or does any uproar just reveal the listener's failure to have a sense of humor? Our panel of critics discusses. Wed. Sept. 14th, 1:30-2:45pm, Helen Huntington Hull Room at Lincoln Center.

Moderator: Christopher Weingarten
Panel: Julianne Shepherd, Jon Caramanica, Lynne D. Johnson, Jason King, Anthony Miccio

I'll be in NY all week. My first CMJ. Should be a hoot!

Wrestling with my feelings about British music culture while listening to crap singles for Stylus. The Mattafix track made it all worthwhile.

Last night I got to see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. At the very least, they're explicable hype. The singer really projects that Gano/Verlaine whine and the band adds some post-Velvets juice to the OC-rock archetype. We can debate whether the deal is big or not, but it is a deal. It would be hypocritical to complain about people cheering balding bohemians for competently rehashing the work of their elders, as I welcome such attention myself. The singer for the National revealed he was Tim Booth by the second song, so I bolted.

And now, my first bit of Philly scene bitchiness: National Eye (who sound like Pavement if Malkmus was inspired by the Moody Blues) should perform more songs as energetically as they do their closer or make sure that the audience has chairs. They should also add either "Incense & Peppermints" or "The Porpoise Song" to their set list.

Happy birthday, Mom!

2005: Politics Are So Much Better When There's Sex

1. Electric Six “Rock’n’Roll Evacuation”
2. Ying Yang Twins feat. Adam Levine “Live Again”
3. M83 “Don’t Save Us From Flames”
4. Louis XIV “Paper Doll”
5. Missy Elliot feat. Ciara & Fatman Scoop “Lose Control”
6. Crazy Frog “Axel F”
7. Natalie “Goin’ Crazy”
8. 50 Cent “Just A Lil Bit”
9. R. Kelly “Sex Weed”
10. Queens Of The Stone Age “Broken Box”
11. Kelly Osbourne “Don’t Touch Me When I’m Sleeping”
12. White Stripes “Blue Orchid"
13. Spoon “Was It You?”
14. Backstreet Boys "Incomplete"
15. Mountain Goats “Love Love Love”
16. Bloodhound Gang “Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo"

work in progress.

Me on the Spinto Band for the Voice.

e-mail from my good buddy TJ:

"I just wanted to direct your attention, in case you were unawares, to the video for The Bloodhound Gang's 'Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo' on Launch and AOL. Musically, the verse is Strokes by way of Since U Been Gone, and the singer is appropriately unrecognizable in the jet setting hipster garb he sports, and the song builds to a bashed Weezer chorus. But lyrically it's a lot more interesting. The Jimmy Pop dude is still doing the sex rap metaphor schtick a la 'The Bad Touch' but with such a high degree of Pavement-ed abstraction that the song is somewhat jarring to encounter in any radio or video play list.

I saw this on MTV2 and, not recognizing the band sonically or visually, was asking myself 'Is this singer just confidently spouting gibberish over streamlined pop?' On slightly closer inspection the entire conceptual novelty of the track seems apparent as an exercise in how far the guy can actually go in obtuse metaphors for his sexual suggestiveness - an admirable high wire act of sense and no sense Mr. Pop has achieved, IMO."

Damn straight. A lot of indie/nu-wave is devoted to suggestively cryptic wordplay (Stephen Malkmus is a cigar stand, you know) and it's time that some jerk mercilessly taints the trope. Even better that it signals the return of the auteur behind "The Bad Touch," one of finest singles of the 90s.

The video also stars Bam.

President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand
The President say, "Little fat man isn't it a shame what the river has done
To this poor crackers land."

- Randy Newman, "Louisiana 1927"

Addendum to previous post: While I can almost understand pointing out the whereabouts of your merch stand if it's tucked away in some truly illogical location, offering gratuitous assistance in purchasing your products is still one of the lamest types of stage patter I can fathom. How often is someone in the audience just dying to buy your shit but unable to figure out how? I've seen bands point out wares about two yards away from the stage. I realize most bands don't give it (or anything) much thought, but by doing this you're begging for more of my money and demeaning my intelligence at the same time. Not cool.

Prequisite Fugazi quote: "When I was 16 or 17, we couldn't play in clubs, we'd just go off and play in the basement of some suburban home. Forty kids would come over and dance like maniacs, the cops would come and then we would all go home. I didn't need 900 t-shirt designs. We just made up our own circuit. Now the kids come to our gigs and ask for our t-shirts or our fucking baseball caps." (Guy Picciotto, Dance Of Days: Two Decades Of Punk In The Nation's Capital)

Every male keyboardist I've seen in recent months has doubled as a go-go boy for the band, engaging in handstands, percussion tossing, flamboyant hand claps and gratuitous sweeps across the faux-ivories. Women who play the same instrument tend to be cool and remote, their parts devoid of bombast. Is it because dudes trapped behind distinctly non-phallic instruments feel the need to overcompensate?

One particularly egregious example I caught recently was Thunderbirds Are Now, who were opening for Bardo Pond (Psychedelphia lives, still can't sing) and Buffy theme enthusiasts Kinski. While Justamustache was energetic and consistent for a debut record, it was depressing to watch a band that didn't have a single idea outside the realm of "Les Savy Fav meets Franz Ferdinand." Their rote stage presence was dismaying as well. Occasionally the singer/guitarist would stand on his PA and stare accusingly at the audience while playing a chord. The keyboardist would spin around and throw his tambourine against the while before pointing a finger in the air and nodding frenetically. I caught the Warped tour and almost every band there was pulling the same uninspired showmanship, except for the Dropkick Murphys (the token "punk" act at this emo revue) and a funk-metal combo wearing nothing but wireless guitars, mohawks and loincloths (I ran). "Whether six or six thousand people are watching, we're gonna rock" has become "we're going to act like six thousand people think we're great even if only six people are watching us." I'm guessing women in bands realize they don't need to try so hard to get audiences to stare at them. And they'd be right.

It turns out that the lead singer of Gratitude, easily the most absurd combo I saw at Warped, was also the man behind Onelinedrawing, an emo project I remember reading about in Rolling Stone before hearing about them anywhere else (allmusic tells me they were on Jade Tree, which is just super). Dude's an unholy combination of Guy Picciotto and Bruce Springsteen, prancing around in tight jeans and noting between each number that "this is about all of us coming together," despite the fact that 95% of the people 'watching' the band were as seated as they'll ever be in their life. The most emotional response they received was me and Keith Harris's giggles as the singer held up his band's tour-only EP and pointed out that this was the song were he and the guitarist played alone for the first verse ("it would be great if you would all sing along").

Btw, if anybody reading this is in a band: please don't suggest to the audience that they should sing along, dance, go wild, move closer to the stage, throw their hands in the air or anything else in that capacity unless we've made it clear that we'd probably do it anyway. Most acts should be grateful we paid the cover and shouldn't be asking for more. If anything, keep your exhortations to "please take two steps back! pretty pretty pretty pretty please!" if your band is as popular and invigorating as My Chemical Romance was at Warped, or, if you think we're not giving you the enthusiastic response you deserve, tell us to go fuck ourselves. Haughty bile will allow the fraction of the audience that likes you to feel special for realizing the greatness that is lost on everyone else. Just don't beg for love.

Top Five Couplets From Billboard Top 20 Modern Rock Singles That I Haven't Heard Yet
(what with the lack of internet and moving and everything)

Green Day, "Wake Me When September Ends"
Government greed and corporate need
doves that cry and hearts that bleed
praying it gets better someday
there's just got to be a way

311, "Don't Tread On Me"
Rockin' wit' the flavor for eleven years
got memories full of laughter and tears
critics politickin' but that shit ain't stickin'
still got the ill skills that pay the bills and we're kickin'

Switchfoot, "Stars"
It's the first time that I've held your hand
and it feels like you might understand
your smile and the way that you sigh
this love is the stars in the sky

System Of A Down, "Question!"
Psychotic sentient symbol of sin
frustrated fearful but not giving in
They scream at the gates and you're turning you're burning you're churning you're worried you're going to pay you're going to pay you're going to pay and PAY
la la la la la

Audioslave, "Doesn't Remind Me"
The mirror lies to me
it's not reality
the bleeding within
I can't see the bleeding within


p.s. people in Miami get to read my blurbs now. Jealous? Of them, I mean.

Playlist for LAST RADIO SHOW EVER
(which didn't get taped, sorry - I said as little as possible so I could play more music)

Feelies - Boy With Perpetual Nervousness
Fall - Theme From Sparta F.C.
Deus - Suds And Soda
Cracker - I'm A Little Rocketship
Danielson Famile - Fathom The Nines Fruitspie
Park Ave. - All Boy Band
Bright Eyes - The Calendar Hung Itself
Desaparecidos - $$$$
Fugazi - Smallpox Champion
Kimya Dawson - You Love Me
East River Pipe - Cybercar
Nick Cave - There She Goes, My Beautiful World
Dismemberment Plan - Ice Of Boston
Jonathan FireEater - Give Me Daughters
Hives - Abra Cadaver
Pixies - U-Mass
Gossip - Heartbeats
Mudhoney - Good Enough
Les Savy Fav - Hold On To Your Genre
Imperial Teen - You're One
Modest Mouse - Perfect Disguise
Sand On Stars - Margaret Is In Cincinnati
Rondelles - Rediscover Fire
Scrawl - Rot
Urge Overkill - The Mistake
Tall Dwarfs - Rorschach
Quasi - Smile
Morrissey - Last Of The Famous International Playboys
The Cure - Cut Here
Silkworm - Don't Look Back

Only two hours left on a radio station? Make sure you get in a block of Conor Oberst. And Cracker. Can't forget Cracker.

My computer, ashamed of the incredible amount of mp3s I'd spent the last month burning off of CDs from my friends, the station and the PSU library, committed hari kari last night. Stripped of my illicit booty, I am chastened. Stripped of my computer, I probably won't be the easiest person to reach for a while (unless you live in Philly). Back when I'm back.

Waaaay down at the bottom of this impressive-as-expected Tofu Hut post is my favorite Smashmouth album track. Trust me, it's worth hearing.