"Don't go, say you'll stay, spend a lazy Sunday." - Stars

I'm a sucker for the indie pop love song, seemingly even more so as I get older, and the latest fixation is by Stars, which is fronted, I beleive, by a woman somehow related to the Broken Social Scene collective. I found the song on some blog somewhere, so you may be able to turn it up.

Anyhoo, today we bid adieu to J.J. Jackson, who, as one of the five original MTV VJs, played an integral role in my development as a youth. This article also proves that Mark Goodman, once a radio DJ in Philly, is still kind of a whore for attention. But at least his hair isn't as bad as Adam Curry's. Who, from what I recall, architected MTV's original online presence. Or something. Anyway, the last time I heard Mr. Jackson I was driving to the Nantucket ferry in the last couple years. He was hosting a Beatles radio show, and played the song "Blue Jay Way," which has since become a favorite of mine because of the play on the words "be long."

Last week Mystical Beast told me something I don't think I ever knew about Happy Flowers: that James from YLT and Dump was a one-time collaborator. I have had this artwork sitting in a file in my house for about 10 years; maybe one day I will actually get around to framing it. Anyhoo, Happy Flowers was one of the first underground records me and Woods discovered back in the day, probably courtesy of the great Joe McInally. In college, we played the cut "Unhappy Meal" on the radio. A lot.

Finally, I think this is worth comment. I stopped listening to Stern when I went to Wes 'cause, you know, he was just too Un-PC. But I did appreciate his humour at times, and Stern got me and Two-Can and Joe Bags and Big Dave through two summers' worth of hot work for the township. But I finally gave up on Stern once and for all when I thought he got too lazy to impress upon people that he is being ironic, not a bigot, when he makes all of his racist, sexist, ist-ist wisecracks. The majority of his listeners don't seem to know better. I know there are plenty who disagree with me, and I am too lazy to make any sort of firm argument. Back to the point: If Stern mutated his show into a valuable liberal political vehicle, I would be very, very, very happy. Not just so that there would be more meaningful (hopefully) mainstream political discourse. But because I think Stern is smart enough to foster such a thing on the air. But instead just talks tits and ass for four hours a day.

NCAA tournament is pretty exciting this year. I think 30 Magazine St. #1's pool hopes rest solely on Kansas getting to the Final Four at this point. Let's keep our fingaz x'd. Keep your eyes open for the latest Winston Bongo tirade at YRS, tambien.

That is all.

"And sometimes Y, you might need it too." - The Evens

Just. Stop. Everything.

And check out what Fugazi's Ian Mackaye is up to. This is amazing. If you aren't hip to the Pancake Mountain show, I just saw something on 60 Minutes or Dateline or something about it in the last week or so. So Google it. It is basically D.C.'s version of WGBH Boston's Zoom show for kids. But damn if this isn't a really awesome song and video, even though it is targeted at someone 1/6 my age. Thanks Monkey for turning me on to this.

That is really all.

"It's such a beautiful day, I wish the sun would go away." - Small Factory

Astute readers may have already stumbled on the cut from the new Wilco album that has made its way online via the very good MP3 blog SaidTheGramophone. If you haven't, you must. Right now. The song is called "At Least That's What You Said," and it is part somber piano ballad, part annihilatingly awesome Neil Young/Crazy Horse-styled guitar freakout. If I was 10 years younger I would have cranked my stereo up to 5, listened to this 10 times in a row, and started smashing things during about the fourth or fifth listen. Even the Monkey, after Herculean effort, is roundly praising this tune:

"You know, on a shitty dial up connection like we have here, it took me almost an HOUR to download that fucker ... but you know, when I listened back to it, at the 3:13 point --- that song just turns into total fucking GOD. Amazing, and so worth it. Plus, I spackled the bathroom walls while it was downloading, so no biggie."

The prospect of seeing the band rock out to this while Nels Cline is melting faces with his guitar pyrotechnics is really the most exciting thing I can think of right now. Anyway, I am also into new cuts I have found online from Pedro the Lion and Leslie Feist (a particularly hooky tune called "Mushaboom," of all things). So there.

Ripped four Kronos Quartet records to my ITunes this evening to boot. Felt like listening to it at work this week. So there you go. Also ripped the Blue Skied An Clear comp. Decided to sit out St. Patty's Day festivities -- Lopez and I figgered if we weren't feeling it and there was no groundswell, we can wait till next year. It's not like they stop serving beer at midnight tonight for the next 364 days. Tho I will feel pretty gypped if it turns out that that is the case.

That is all.

"Would it be all that bad to forget about my favorite thing." - velocity girl

A lot of people dying in the rock and roll world. And yet somehow Ronnie Wood keeps chugging along. But let's accentuate the positive: vegetable oil, dude.

More snow coming. That totally blows. Gave a hunk of money to our realtor and signed the agreement of purchase and sale this afternoon. This condo thing is coming along.

I am now on the hunt for this, since Kemp Harris got Lopez all jazzed on it when we were all out drinking our heads off Friday night. Not really my cup of tea, but Lopez goes through a big disco phase every once in a while that is pretty fun. On the other hand, I have been trying to find a used copy of this in stores for months, with no luck. I might finally break down and pay what they are asking online after this house thing is all done. It is one of my favorite indie records from the day, now out of print.

Adam Oh of Roll Over Baby fame is booking the room below the Can Tab. Easing into a big opening in the fall. We batted around a lot of exciting ideas for it as we downed suds Friday. I think my head still kind of hurts.

Saw what turned out to be an amazing Bruins game Saturday afternoon with the Good Doctor. While all the yelling didn't do much for my head, the Bs ended up getting lucky and getting back into the game and won it with :04 left on the clock in overtime. We had an excellent vantage point for the whole thing, as Doobs scored A #1 tickets through work. Hot stuff.

My ITunes vitals to date: 3,021 songs ripped; 7.9 days of music; 13 gigs of data. Currently spinning "Jane Says" by Jane's Addiction. Not the version I prefer, which is the live cut from the act's amazing debut on XXX Records, but the styled-out version from the band's Nothing's Shocking effort. The former record stomps the gonads of the latter record in a lot of ways, not the least of which is the nihilistic, tribal assault of "Chip Away," which closes the set. In other news, Double Nickels on the Dime just keeps giving.

That is all.

"Those sheets are dirty and so are you." - Descendents

Kudos for the KooMahz who released Baby Kumar v. 2.O Monday morning. Good work people. And kudos to the Good Doctor for coming through with a promised hook-up of many, many radical records, including Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime, Descendents' Two Things At Once, Guided By Voices' Bee Thousand, Fripp & Eno's No Pussyfooting and a multitude of other muy caliente records. Si, muy caliente. My shoulder hurts for no reason. Not a lot more to report.

That is all.

"King of the road says you move too slow." - Fu Manchu

This week's holy crap moment comes from The Monkey, who reports that uber guitarist Nels Cline is the latest addition to the Wilco line-up. More information here and here. This is probably the most musically exciting thing to happen since... well, for a while. Nels Cline's "Bath" is probably my favorite jazz song ever. EVER. So there you go.

Currently listening to a Clash bootleg of rarities my old AOL buddy Liza hooked me up with. While her copy was called "The Ultimate Rarities," it is the same thing as what I presume to be more widely known 2002 European boot called "Street Rats." More info here. The sound quality is pretty decent, just a little quiet and fuzzy. A lot of interesting stuff here.

Not a lot more to report. It's been a quiet weekend. Worked on the taxes, getting in the planning stages of packing up our stuff so we can head down the road in about a month. Got a lot more CDs ripped. Currently, I've got 2,568 songs ripped constitute 11.24 gigs or 6.9 days of listening.

The MP3 blogs keep on giving, and this month's music development series mix CD promises to be pretty compelling, in my humble opinion. As my new music purchases are on hold for a while, blogs like Bubblegum Machine and Large-Hearted Boy are really picking up the slack of exposing me to new and cool things. And I keep following threads and finding more new cool stuff everyday. There is a lot of great live stuff here, including a super Blonde Redhead show (can't wait to get their new record), though the dowloads are painfully slow. In short, the Internet rocks.

Here is a little more on Wal-Mart. Those guyses whole head sucks.

That is all.

"Well it's not jazz when you play it like that." - Karl Hendricks Trio

Well, holy crap, Lopez and I signed an agreement to buy a condo yesterday, approximately six hours after seeing the joint with our realtor. We'd seen the property a week ago, and figured it would be gone by the time we had our act together. But sellin' people wanna sell, and we were ushered quickly into the process and I'd say we are pretty darn excited. The place is about eight blocks away, about the same size as we have now, and has a parking space. Come the middle or end of April we will probably be getting in there, and between now and then we have a lot of technical crap to take care of. So there.

Saw the Gaugin show at the MFA yesterday with H-Dawg from Accounts Receivable and Cardini. I spent a lot of time looking at the paintings, not having ever really studied his work. And after deciding I could make nothing of it with all of the tools my liberal arts education has given me, I was gratified to receive affirmation from H-Dawg (whose painting and grasp of the art I hold in some esteem) that in fact, "Yeah, it's just shit." So there you go. Not a bad exhibit on the whole as far as big budget wall-decorating sessions go, but you could save yourself some dough and blow your mind open wider by taking in the current student exhibition. Just sayin.'

P.S. today is Leap Day. Since I only get to point that out once every four years, I thought I'd make a point of pointing.

I traded in a stack of comped freebie records and some other destined to be cast off goods this afternoon and bought myself the first Beatles Anthology set and Archer Prewitt's Three, so perhaps I will have something to say about that, as well as the two Tubeway Army discs that H$ gave me, later this week.

That is all.