While I was in Ohio over the weekend, my brother showed us this YouTube video of Ohio State’s very own flash mob, which took place a few weeks ago. He’s a sophomore there and happened to be walking through the (new, gorgeous) student union at the time, when all of a sudden: choreographed dance routine to music from Glee! My brother turned to the girl next to him to ask what was going on, and she expressed similar bafflement but then jumped up to join in a few minutes later. Look, I know it’s kind of cheesy,...
Continue reading...Music
Andrew WK is excited about some songs
In the most recent issue of NME, the special guest reviewer for the singles was Andrew WK, and he\’s pretty excited about some songs. For example: White Rabbits – They Done Wrong/We Done Wrong I like the way this starts – with surprising changing rhythms! I also like this band’s name as I’ve always loved white rabbits, especially with big blood-red eyes. This sounds like a rabbit – friendly, calm, soft. At first, it’s like the music people hear as they board an airplane. But then it grows and expand! The rabbits start mating and producing musical...
Continue reading...Juggalos: How do magnets work?
Jonah Weiner at Slate, for some reason, brings us a review of the new Insane Clown Posse video “Miracles.” It’s a rather grand review, comparing this particular posse of clowns to a rap-rock Wordsworth “dropping f-bombs aplenty in praise of the natural sublime,” for example. The song is a catalog of whoa-dude epiphanies, the sort that teenagers in movies enjoy while lying on the hoods of subcompacts, passing joints, and gazing up at the stars. Wide-eyed and wondrous, rappers Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope hail a variety of phenomena that will “blow your brain,” from “the Milky...
Continue reading...Alex Chilton: Likely or unlikely victim of the debacle that was the health care system?
Over at NOLA.com, there’s a spectacular overview of Alex Chilton\’s life in New Orleans, where he lived mostly anonymously and quietly for over 28 years. I recommend you read it if you care about music at all (because you should care about Alex Chilton if you like music at all). This part, however, kind of struck me: At least twice in the week before his fatal heart attack, Chilton experienced shortness of breath and chills while cutting grass. But he did not seek medical attention, Kersting said, in part because he had no health insurance. So, rock...
Continue reading...Attention music fans
Readers of this blog: I assume you have huge fans of this thing called “music.” Nearly everybody is, so, statistically, you are too. So, it is with great astonishment and pride that I make the following announcement. Every decade, if we the unwashed masses are lucky, a group of the preeminent musicians of the day gather for a kind of super music festival, the kind that is remembered and gets spoken of for generations. Festivals like Woodstock, Lollapalooza in the 90s, and Bonnaroo, which seems to have taken its place in the aughts. Now, our newly christened...
Continue reading...This seems about right.
Due to the weather in D.C. today, I’ve taken Beach House off of iTunes for a little while to listen to Husker Du’s ‘Standing in the Rain.’ I recommend you do the same.
Continue reading...Ownership of the means of production
It is both disheartening and convenient when you are struggling to write an essay, forcibly putting words together that do not work, trying ideas that make almost no sense, and working in a direction that isn’t clear, and finding an essay that says what you are trying to say more clearly and cogently than your efforts could lead you. I was trying to write such an essay recently, when today I came across the following spectacular essay by Ken Lowery Eugene Ahn at The Bureau Chiefs. It is a response to Rachael Maddux’s cover story for Paste,...
Continue reading...Crack Rock or a Jump Shot
In the school where I work, there’s a fifth grader who wears a Notorious B.I.G. jacket. There are a few staff who covet it. Though I don’t say anything, I’m one of them. The boy is 11. Biggie Smalls died 13 years ago, today. He doesn’t know anything about Biggie. Couldn’t name an album or even a track, couldn’t give me any 16 bars, let alone 16 Bars. I want to talk about it with him, to school him on Biggie, to get on his level in a way I can’t with their hip-hop idols. God knows...
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