LA Weekly

A few nights ago I caught a late night re-broadcast on CNN about the NY Philharmonic's "historic" (read: trying too hard) concert in Pyongyang, North Korea. It struggled to explain -- through various melodramatic story lines -- how this was a moment for Art. But I kept wondering if it was actually just a moment for The Arts?

To understand the difference, I ask that you read this wonderful essay just posted by critic, musician and arts consultant Greg Sandow on a BLOG for this year's National Performing Arts Convention in Denver, CO. (The convention kicks off in early June.)

It's a bit long-winded but remember this is a BLOG not a formal printed essay -- there is a difference -- and that this is a point that has to be hammered into the brains of arts presenters and classical music aficionados in much the same way that you might struggle to explain punk rock to your grandparents.

So why am I telling this story? To introduce my thought that art and the arts aren't the same thing. Art is an activity, sometimes sublime, and also the result of that activity. By now we know - or certainly we ought to know -- that it might be found anywhere, in vacant lots, in silence and graffiti, in overheard remarks (see the poetry of Jonathan Williams, an advocate of outsider art, who died not long ago), and in popular culture. The arts, by contrast, are a set of interest groups, whose claim to glory (and to funding) is that they speak for art, which is only partly true. They don't speak for all art, and when someone speaking for the arts - by which I mean for the interest groups - says that only the arts can offer meaning in our society, we've strayed so far from reality that we might as well be jumping off a cliff. Especially if we're looking for a younger audience!

Here's an example. Dana Gioa, the chairman of the NEA, gave a widely circulated commencement speech at Stamford, in which (among much else) he longed for the good old days, when art was in its glory, and opera singers like Robert Merrill could be heard on network TV. But Robert Merrill didn't have a brain in his head. I can say this affectionately, because I love opera, and Merrill can ravish me with his voice. But he had nothing to say in his singing (something that certainly was noticed back in the day), and to imagine that putting him on TV brings art in all its glory to an audience of millions is really pretty funny. Contrast what happens now, when we have pop stars like Bruce Springsteen, who write their own words and music (something Robert Merrill couldn't do), who sing about serious things, who both reflect profound things in our culture, and influence them (see for example the book about Springsteen - Springsteen's America: The People Listening, a Poet Singing -- by Robert Coles, one of our most profound and literate psychologists). And who go on 60 Minutes, talking about society and politics, in a completely serious, compelling way. Is that a step backward? I'd call it a big step forward, at least if you want art to mean something, and to help form both our consciousness and our reality.

But wait! How can Springsteen be an artist, if he's a pop musician, and therefore (horror! horror!) commercial? To me that question is based on a misunderstanding both of commerce and of art. Or at least of the history of art. My field is classical music, and you can't study its history without noticing that many great musicians of the past were commercial, including many of the great composers, or maybe even most of them. I've just been reading a lively little book - Liszt: My Travelling Circus Life, by David Lee Allsobrook -- about one of the greatest pianists of the 19th century, Franz Liszt, and his two tours of England in the 1840s. He made those tours purely for money, flacked for a piano manufacturer, whose pianos he endorsed, and packed his programs with popular opera arias and comical songs, all to please an audience that would have run away from more serious music, by the likes of Mozart or Beethoven.

...

... Why was commerce, for an artist, OK in past centuries, but bad in this one? Someone's going to say that our culture has degenerated, but I don't buy it. Things were better in the days of slavery? Should we look back with admiration at an age when women were their husbands' property, just because people (or so we think) liked better music then? Picasso knew exactly how to sell himself. Should we condemn his art?

...

... Orchestras and opera companies, not to mention big classical record labels and classical radio stations, are terrified of their audience. They're afraid to program things that their audience won't like. Yes, they do it sometimes, but they always know that some large part of their audience might not like anything new or adventurous - and that it would be commercial (that word again) suicide for them to do too much of that.

After the jump, more proof that Art can be found in the places you'd least expect!

Read on...

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It's been a bad month or two for music industry reporters at America's major daily newspapers. You probably remember the LA Times' retraction of Chuck Phillips' story on P. Diddy's responsibility for Tupac's shooting death. Now, the New York Times has cut beat reporter Jeff Leeds.

There's a few weird aspects of this. First there's the fact that firing your music biz reporter at this moment in time is a bit like firing your campaign trail reporter during an election year. Leeds has been a consistently solid reporter on the industry as evinced by this archive of his writing. Second, only four years ago -- granted, a lifetime in newspaper land -- the NY Times snatched Leeds from the LA Times in what was considered a large scale effort to make in-roads on west coast audiences. Oh let's reminisce with this 2004 post from our buddy in BLOGging, Nikki Finke.

In the past week, the NYT captured three other high-profile entertainment/culture writers from the LAT — film critic Manohla Dargis, music business writer Jeff Leeds and architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff. Already in the dumps over parent company Tribune Co.–ordered layoffs, the LAT newsroom was in a bunker mentality anticipating the dampening effect the NYT’s body snatching would have on its Pulitzer-pumped national prestige. And someone needs to argue with the LAT’s bean counters that the year-old controversial subscription model for its online Calendar coverage may be sending at least some of its superstar scribblers into the arms of the enemy.

The latest NYT moves on the LAT are part of a carefully thought-out campaign to make circulation inroads in the West and gain even more exposure in Hollywood. This does not come as a surprise to the LAT staff, either.

As one Calendar source rues, “We’d always heard that once it got its act together [post-Raines] The New York Times was coming to get us.”

So wha' happen? Leeds was a consistently great reporter on this beat for the LA Times. I'll admit I've noticed his pieces less in recent years. But is this because my news reading has increasingly transitioned to the web; because he just hasn't been getting his pieces published; or because he's lost his stuff?

There's been a fair amount of blogging activity about this. (Here's pieces from Finke & TheDailySwarm.) But there's been few explanations as to why?

Anyhoo, with Leeds gone readers have few reasons now to go anywhere else but Coolfer & TheDailySwarm for their daily hit of music industry factage.

Previously:
- Newsflash: LA Times ruins P. Diddy's weekend
- Chuck Phillips should not resign from being a reporter, but it would be fantastic if the LA Times resigned from being a newspaper

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Hello internet users. In about 10 minutes I will be co-DJing with my friend Brian Long on his long-running internet radio show Infinite Eargasm. That is 2pm-4pm EDT, 11am-1pm Pacific. I have just drunk a single glass of red wine and am such a lightweight that the world is starting to spin just a tad slower than it usually does. In other words, this show could be extremely entertaining.

You can hear us by clicking here and then clicking somewhere else on that page. (It's the internet, lots of clicking!)

I expect to be, erm, spinning an admixture of contemporary classical music, old obscure hardcore tracks, and various other sad sad songs -- the emphasis being the flow between them, how to get from point A to point Z.

I'll try to post a playlist in this space after we're done DJing.

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You've probably already seen this:

...it seemed a good moment to share it again, though, because it's a meme that has legs. Check out the new video for R&B singer Erykah Badu. (Annoyingly it's is not embeddable but you can view it by clicking over to YouTube.)

Why do album covers stick with us so deep in memory, as indelible as old photos of family and friends, if not more so? Well, this phenomenon popped into my head as I was reading Designed by Peter Saville, a book about the British designer most renown for his work with the post-punk scene of the early 80s (Joy Division, Factory Records, and OMD). As his reputation grew he began to do more and more straight ahead pop projects -- including Wham! -- and this work remains somewhat less appreciated by the hipster cognesceti. But there's no good reason for that, really. Take, for example, the cover he designed for Peter Gabriel -- a piece which, to my mind, pioneers an entirely new sub-genre of graphics: erotic typography. (A detail of Saville's cover for Gabriel's So appears to the right of this text. Note the masterful use of two different fonts side-by-side, the "S" and the "o" caught in a push/pull relation as compelling & tense as a pair of foiled lovers.)

In the early 90s, Saville and one of his partners -- partnership & collaboration being a major part of his practice -- spent a few years in Los Angeles where he produced work like that pictured to the left of this text. While he was in LA, he worked for my uncle for a brief spell. Eventually, Saville was fire because of his disdain for corporate clients; his disinclination to work during banker's hours (or even a designer's more lax 11am-to-9pm schedule); and, finally, his gross inability to fit into any kind of standard workplace environment. (I believe he was caught fucking in his office.)

In any case, I guess we should be thankful for Saville's inability to grow up. Because he is a designer who remained young -- his imagination fired by desire and interest rather than pragmatism and professionalism -- his portfolio never went to shit. It's something most of us can only aspire to. This Q&A from the book gets at his philosophy & understanding of why record cover designs can be so unique, so memorable, so poweful.

Peter Saville: On a trip to London in the early seventies, I bought a pack of soap flakes from the Biba shop -- they were packaged in art deco dark brown and beige. I thought "Why don't supermarkets sell groovy-looking soap flakes?" It was about positioning the product in the context of lifestyle. The first opportunities that came to us were a Buzzcocks cover for Malcolm, and a clothes shop for me.

Christopher Wilson: Of all the badly designed products you saw around you, surely many of them -- such as soap flakes -- looked generally worse than the average record cover?

Peter Saville: Yes, they did. But you don't get much work to do when you're young, because you haven't learned how to do it yet. You certainly aren't given the soap flakes. You're given simple, disposable things to design for other young people

...

This is the most important point pertaining to my work: Malcolm and I, and to some extent Neville, were granted an autonomous zone within pop because it didn't matter. Records were not sold the way soap flakes were sold, so we were given opportunity.

But we got to do that work in service of another work -- the music inside. It was made by young people, on its way to other young people, and into their hearts and minds. That's the key thing. A soap flakes box was never addressed to hearts and minds. But pop music, and particularly subcultural pop music, is a delivery system which goes straight there. It's the single biggest influence on teenagers. Those covers could have been posters or postcards, and a few people might have quite liked them. But without the music it would not have gone to the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands people.

I don't know if I've ever read a better articulation of why records (covers & all) are so important to me, and why I hope they survive into the digital age. Wouldn't we all be a little bit less with images like these in our lives?

After the jump, a few more words from Mr. Saville...

Read on...

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Oh, wow, bummer, I just found out I missed the event of the century. Don't you hate it when you miss a celebration of such massive import?

If anyone wants to take me up on my suggestion in this post's headline you can email any documentary evidence to me c/o this here BLOG. Or, better yet, make a fawning YouTube style video to your moment of fecal glory.

A reminder of how special this will make you feel, as quoted verbatim from the Diddy's viddy:
If you are what you say you are,
A superstar
Gonna have no fear
The crowd is here

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Tonight I received a link to the above video from an old friend of mine who finds inspiration in politics in the same way that I find inspiration in music, art, and other less - erm - important things. The subject line of his email read: "Best. Politician. Inspired. Single. Ever." It included a link to this clip by Ti$a, a member of LA's own Sa-Ra Creative Partners.

And yes, I may just agree with him, it's an inspired single. But let's quickly remove from any description of this song nouns such as "politician" and "politics," and instead clarify what this song is: a rallying cry plain and simple. Sure it's inspired by Obama, but content-wise it has about as much to do with his politics as Toni Basil's '80s anthem has to do with Mickey Mouse:

Both singles are barely there combination of chants, nonsense, fashion and movement -- in many ways, exactly what I look & listen for in pop & dance music (as opposed to rock, classical, metal, and many other forms of music in which those attributes are usually less valued).

But, to repeat, this song is not good because it is political -- rather, it is good because it rallies us in the same way as a football stadium cheer gets one side or the other excited. It moves the blood, not the brain. It's about style.

Everyone can use a good rallying cry, now and again, and this one just happens to get all those style details right. The many celebrity cameos (Kanye West, Jay Z, Chris Brown, Travis Barker, Shepard Fairey, and Apple of The Black Eyed Peas) are relatively unobtrusive; the most obtrusive cameo is by someone that could really use the face time (LA producer & experimental musician Daedalus); and -- very important! -- the costume design is fantastic. (I can't pull off the MC's red tartan shawl with Burger King Crown, four-finger ring, and Smurf mask look, but God knows he sure can.)

And, hey, now that he's in the room, let's actually invoke God again and thank him for not making this song more overtly political.

Get it? God. Ha-ha. Thank God...

Okay maybe you don't get it. But the picture above is a good segue into a short rant on my problems with ideological art -- the reason I twitch when artists claim to be political animals. Whenever I start to think about such ideological art, I start to think about Nazis and -- being something of a contrarian, something of a professional Devil's advocate -- whenever I start to think about Nazis, I start to think about foot-in-mouth comments like this one uttered last year by Brian Ferry as reported in the UK's Guardian newspaper:

"Leni Riefenstahl's movies and Albert Speer's buildings and the mass parades and flags -- just amazing. Really beautiful". This is what Bryan Ferry, the crooner and Marks & Spencer model told the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag at the beginning of the week. He also admitted that he called his London studio the "fuhrerbunker".

He of, of course, is taking about the wonders of Nazi art. I found it in part of a larger story in the Guardian titled Why Nazi aesthetics are a dangerous minefield
. (Someone let me know if I'm re-hashing it in this post. As I sit here blogging at 4am, I couldn't be bothered to read the whole thing.)

Anyhoo, blam, if you start condoning ideological art of any sort, suddenly we have to start considering images like this...

...and we have to start having considered discussions about them.

Fact is, the Nazis sponsored some truly compelling graphic design, film making, and architecture. You can try too deny this fact, but if you do so too strenuously you'll likely sound as ridiculous as Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's well-rationalized hatred of jazz and other forms of American pop culture. You'll be able to critique it in fine details, create ornate theoretical models to back up your case, but you just won't be able to deny that the average person on the street just wants to dance to those Hot Fives and Sevens -- just as you won't be able to deny that this rhetorical everyperson is likely to be compelled by columnated buildings that borrow from classic Greek & Roman architecture and are decorated with bold red banners with clear black logotypes.

I apologize to my relatives who died in various shtetls, death camps, and other dark places for saying this. But, that said, it's fairly undeniable that one thing those (more observant) relatives would have agreed upon is my larger point...

That being? Well, our beliefs should not be summed up or supported by false idols, golden calves, really good logotypes, or exceedingly catchy songs. Not that it shouldn't include those things -- I'm no hardliner -- but when image, sound, and movement begins to overtake something ineffable like private thought well, Houston, we have a problem. All of this is a long-winded way of explaining the reason why -- throughout this most thrilling political season -- I have strenuously avoided being thrilled, refused to follow the election through the televisual medium, and refused to forward stupid fucking videos about my favorite political candidates.

Instead, I've been reading lots of newspapers.

JUST SO NO ONE IS MISSING MY POINT. IT'S CALLED READING, PEOPLE. IT'S FUCKING AWESOME AND THAT SHIT'S BEEN PROVEN EFFECTIVE AT CONVEYING MEANING SINCE MOSES CAME DOWN THE MOUNTAIN WITH A PAIR OF GOLDEN TABLETS.

Okay, maybe they were stone. As you can tell by now, I'm really bad about the details on this religion stuff.

Bible scholars, Nazi apologists, and Sunday school teachers, please feel free to post your comments. But before you do, let's all take this opportunity to learn about and listen to the authors of the new Obama rally song, Sa-Ra Creative Partnership, who -- in addition to having a name as cool as the Advanced Association of Creative Musicians -- make some pretty good tunes.

After the jump, a video of one of history's all time great rallying cries inspired by then-current events, and two cheesy EPK's about Sa-Ra.

Read on...

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That's a photograph of Robert Plant next to some random Icelander. (I'm assuming he's the owner of the hotel where I found the portrait, while on vacation in Iceland a few years back.) It was occupying pride of place right near the hotel's main dining room. It's just the sort of snapshot any Zep loving American would take if said American ran into Robert Plant while motorcycling around the unspoiled landscape.

Sometimes, though, it's hard being American and not developing something of an inferiority complex, because it seem like we're the only ones that'd do that kind of thing: ride around on huge motorbikes, take silly snapshots near celebrities. Our global friends -- if by friends you mean "people we disrespect, don't understand, and/or occasionally attack with only ambiguous provocation" -- just seem so much cooler.

The Icelanders, what with their Bjork, their Sigur Ros, their extremely stylish citizens, and their high per-capita income, seem like their tops on that list of "coolest foreign peoples."

That is, until they don't.

It sort of warmed my heart -- no pun intended -- when I ran across this article about Iceland in Friday's Wall Street Journal: "Icelanders' Love Of Crazy Trucks Hits Deep Freeze"

I especially enjoyed this part:

Many 4x4 enthusiasts wield their own blowtorches, rebuilding big American and Japanese 4-wheel-drive off-roaders to suit their taste. Local innovations include exhaust-fed balloons that can lift cars out of snowdrifts, and the "bumper dumper" -- a flip-down toilet seat on trucks' rear end for use in the wild

I'm sorry to report I made only a half-hearted attempt to find a picture of that shit -- no pun intended -- on Flickr. See, everybody, the citizens of the world are just like the celebrities pictured in Us Weekly. They are just like us!

After the jump, some video about Icelanders and their monster trucks.

Read on...

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It's the team-up we've been waiting for. Not since Julia Roberts winked suggestively at Lyle Lovett...or since Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler began messaging each other on Facebook...or since Felix met Oscar and the Odd Couple was born...

But now:

Frankly, I'm *dying* for this twosome to make their way to reality television.

From the Lefsetz Letter, Bob Lefsetz on Perez Hilton:

Gossip

PerezHilton.com

Please separate the man from the site. We’ll get to Mario in a minute.

Perez has got all the gossip you want, as soon as it becomes available. He’s rarely scooped by Harvey Levin’s TMZ and there’s a personal attitude that makes the site attractive. All those doodlings might befuddle you, but you certainly believe he created them, no underling drew them.

Perez knows that you want to both adore and trash celebrities, believe and hate. He understands the culture of gossip. That’s it just not presentation, but pure entertainment for the reader, more fulfilling than the entertainment products those featured create.

As for his entry into the music business… You’re just jealous. He’s passionate about acts, he’s got an audience, he’s a tastemaker. Are he and his picks for the ages? Doubtful, but in the Internet world, it’s all about the here and now.

As for the shameless self-promotion… He gets away with it because he’s gay. As an inherent outcast, he’s fighting for all those without standing, he’s entitled to trumpet his cause.

Amazing he’s doing it right and no one else can do it as well. Could it be that unlike the others looking for a buck, he just likes gossip THAT MUCH?

And right back atcha from PerezHilton.com:

Such An Honor!

...

2) The amazing critic Bob Lefsetz just wrote these even more amazing words about the Gossip Gangstar!

cut & paste in the verbiage from above, then...

Wow. Wow. Wow.

And thank you!

Yes, we love gossip THAT MUCH. This website is much much more than a job. It's our passion! It's a way that we're able to be creative, express ourselves and entertain millions of people worldwide every single day.

Thanks you Mister Lefsetz!

Who knew it might be possible to even dream of such a mutual admiration society. Indie 103.1, KCRW, whoever: get these folks on air for a tete-a-tete as soon as humanly possible. Or at least some logrolling.

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Previously in this series:
- SXSW Flashback: Even Jandek is a SXSW whore
- Discovering Jandek: his oeuvre & some typical Jandek jams

Don't tell me this multi-part critical/blogeriffic exploration of Jandek isn't timely. A week or so ago, the man in black -- by which I mean Jandek -- released his 52nd album, The Myth of Blue Icicles. I know this because I saw it listed in the email list of beloved San Francisco record store Aquarius Records. (No, Jandek's shit is not on iTunes except for an odd appearance on a compilation or two. Apparently Jandek is playing hardball with Steve Jobs, just like the Beatles and Radiohead.)

Here's an excerpt of Aquarius's review of the record:

JANDEK "The Myth Of Blue Icicles" (Corwood) cd 8.98
For a while there, we used to really try and keep up with the detailed reviewin' of new Jandek joints as they came out... but now that we, and he, are on his 52nd (!) record, it's tough. We still like getting a new Jandek cd, to get another shot of that one of a kind Jandek feeling (lonely, weird, confusional) and they're cheap enough, so we hope he keeps on cranking 'em out (pretty sure he will, based on his track record over the last thirty years!!) but having something new to say about the mysterious Texas troubadour isn't easy. Of course, he's not *quite* so mysterious as he used to be, with live performances (begun in 2004) now almost commonplace. The front cover picture on this one (a grinning red haired man, who now we can identify as Jandek himself in younger days, photographed against a portion of Houston skyline) needn't necessarily be read for signs and portents the way they used to, but his words and music remain pretty opaque.

Note the weary "our heart is not quite in this anymore" tone. The reception of Jandek's new releases among his most ardent supporters -- record geeks -- has become less and less welcoming over the years, revealing a few sad truths about the Jandek phenomenon.

One: In the internet era, anyone whose artistic aura depends entirely on mystery is going to have an entirely more difficult time sustaining that aura.

Two: Jandek's music, over the long haul, just isn't that interesting.

Also worth noting on this front is Jandek's full discography page at Forced Exposure, one of the earliest and most fervent distributors of Corwood Industries product. See if you can sense an evolution in that excitement over time as traced through the album descriptions:

The 4th album: "absolutely riveting"

The 16th album: "It recalls the savage beauty of Mr. Howling Wolf..."

The 23rd album "Haunting, eternal genius, continued."

The 30th album: "As with Put My Dream On This Planet, this is an all-a capella affair, recording in same hi-hiss/gated-silence ratio. Opening with a 29-minute track, it follows through with 11 shorter vignettes. I have no idea what to say."

The 31st album: "The 31st Jandek album, this is the third document in Jandek's new solo-vocal style, following Put My Dream On This Planet & This Narrow Road. The cover photo depicts our man wearing a sweater I wouldn't be got dead in, standing in front of a red barn. Your views of the farming industry might just change ever so much..."

Don't feel bad Jandek, they're just not that into you anymore.

After the jump, Aquarius's full review of Jandek's new jam, and some more reviews from Forced Exposure.

Read on...

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To recant my previous post, I will admit that the photographs of Beth Gibbon's performing over a 100x enlargement of her own face made me a bit jealous of you all that got to attend this shindig...as did this shaky video of Prince:

Fuzzy = yes. Blurry = yes. Doused in purple light = natch.

Somehow it gets the point across. Listen for the end where some dude near the guy filming it yells out "Epic!"

If the speedy takedown of Prince's Super Bowl performance from 2007 is any indication, you should watch this right now.

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Well, I didn't put up the posts I was trying to get in this week on Jandek & Music Now. And unfortunately I have no interest in posting about Coachella and, now that I'm thinking of it, fairly minimal interest in actually attending Coachella. It strikes me as just another stop on the music industry's blog-friendly, media-worshipping clusterfuck of mediocrity.

Sure, I'd love to see whatever Aphex Twin is going to do -- if he even shows up. (I hear he sometimes sends doubles to perform in his stead.) And yes, groups like Simian Mobile Disco, Spank Rock, Justice, Black Lips and Kraftwerk will all thrive on that type of huge, drunk, whipped up crowd. Okay I guess this is a Coachella post and those are my recommendations...

But when it comes down to it, I have very little interest in that kind of expression and that kind of experience. The one and only time I went to Coachella I got a heatstroke and all I remember was that the Libertines canceled, the Rapture sounded okay, the Blue Man Group addressed the crowd as if we were all watching a mock-fascist rally, and the Beastie Boys did their whole old man rapper thing. (Not that awesome! Kind of sad! Neat orange jumpsuits!)

So, instead, let me offer some counter-programming, a video of the last artist one would never expect to see in a place like Indio, Antony & the Johnsons:

The person who introduced me to this clip was the most least likely of Antony supporters, our friend Bob Lefsetz, who introduced the singer with this total douchebag comment:

I know, you're asking yourself...is this guy gay? I mean what's up with his hair? Couldn't he go on a diet?

Really though, if you're anything like me that's not what you think about when you see this clip. Rather you're thinking about how much this performance just breaks your heart. It's not just the voice. It's the wet on his lips. It's the look on his face at the end of it. This almost total experience of ecstasy.

Antony's already been getting a lot of love this year for his performances on Hercules and Love Affair's s/t debut, a Pitchfork-acclaimed, as-of-yet-unavailable in America dance-type project to which he contributes his incredibly distinctive and evocative vocals. I can't wait for his band's new record which is coming later this year.

After the jump, Lefsetz's comments on Antony in their entirety. (Yes, Lefsez sort of redeems himself, as he usually does in my eyes...)

Read on...

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This video for The Dodos new song, "Fools," brings to mind subtle advances in what -- just a few years ago -- seemed like aesthetic + technological breakthroughs. In the song itself, the band take the sound Animal Collective pioneered with Sung Tungs (heedless, avant-garde, equally indebted to ecstatic devotional music as it was to indie rock) and they imbue it with a friendly, indie pop-music sheen.

The video file itself takes the media revolutions introduced by YouTube (embeds, convenience, instant loading & playback) and turns up the resolution several notches. I grabbed this video from the recently unveiled Pitchfork.tv. Maybe the online video experience will one day serve up real eye candy like this rather than the current standard experience, which is fuzzy, pixelated, and not-as-good as television. It's akin to being offered a buffet of food (soup, cake, etc), and then being told you can only eat it with chopsticks.

BTW, while all the reasons I've just enumerated contribute to my critical interest in this song, when it comes down to it, I just like it because it moves, it moves, and it never never stops...

After the jump, the YouTube version of the same video. Eat that cake with chopsticks bitchez!

Read on...

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It's always easy to come up with litany of "things that just depress us about contemporary pop culture today." You know things like upskirt shots of Britney Spears, whatever it is that Perez Hilton does, Josh Groban's stellar record sales history, et. al. To me, though, these things are simply trainwrecks. Best to just look the other way...

My disappointments tend to be a bit more subtle. Opportunities for aesthetic advancement and pleasure not taken. On my list, one peeve reigns supreme: record covers these days.

Here, via Pitchfork, are two of the worst examples thereof, by two of today's biggest genre stars, from hip-hop Lil' Wayne and from alt-rock Weezer. But wait, neither of these records are actually out yet, and all it takes is a cursory read of Pitchfork's headlines in debuting these covers (#1: Dear God, Please Let This Be the Lil Wayne Album Cover and #2: Is This Really the New Weezer Album Cover?) to realize what's amazing about them is their unlikelihood, their impossibility, the fact that critics are doubting they're even for real.

To my mind, shock tends to be a sure sign of artistic success (or at least artistic intrigue). And, at the end of the day, I've begun to take great pleasure in these covers, the way they seem to acknowledge the reduced graphic design standards of the day -- be it the ease & misuse of Photoshop, or the inherent limitations of interactive, internet graphics. Are these examples of "the new ugly" as discussed in Design Observer and the New York Times? (Both articles worth reading for those who want to stay on the cutting edge of graphic design cocktail chat.) The factors these pieces seem to consider are largely related to color and type rather than photography, but this is a natural difference that might occur in the record business (a business devoted to celebrities and the photographic deification thereof) versus the fashion and magazine scene (businesses devoted to style in its purest form, unhinged from personality).

After the jump, a single song that proves why Lil' Wayne is worth paying attention to.

Read on...

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Below: snapshot of Grizzly Bear founder Ed Droste "getting crunk" -- yes, that's a quote -- in the parking lot prior to their appearance at the 2008 edition of the Music Now festival:

Two weeks ago a lovely conjunction of work and pleasure took me to Cincinnati, OH to attend the third annual installment of the Music Now Festival, booked by my friend and business partner, Bryce Dessner, from the indie rock band The National. The groups billed to play the festival included Bang on a Can All-Stars, Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche, Andrew Bird, Dirty Projectors, Grizzly Bear, and Bill Frisell. More interesting, perhaps, was the fact that indie rock royalty like Sufjan Stevens and Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry were wandering about -- to participate in brief guest spots on stage, yes -- but moreover to hang out off-stage and take in the scene. Like Stevens and Parry, both, this was my second time attending the fest -- it's been running for three years -- and again, I enjoyed my time there very much.

Why? Well, I spend a lot of time in California and New York. And, first things first, a trip to the midwest gives this city dweller a much-needed, annual mental realignment to the realities of our country. Like, well, as in this:

Blam! Yeah, even if you live in Orange County or Long Island, you don't get to see a 62 foot high concrete statue of Jesus emerging from a giant pond in front of a mega-church very often in New York or California. At Music Now, however, I found myself ferrying between Cincinnati and the airport in Dayton, OH on four separate occasions. Apparently this 62 foot tall concrete statue of Jesus is a daily reality for the residents of the tiny roadside town known as Monroe, OH. Each time I passed it, I felt a little bit closer to fine -- if by "fine" you mean a little bit closer to gay bashing; denying teenagers their right to birth control; and borderline racist discomfort with Barack Obama's presidential run. (Residents of Monroe, feel free to quibble with me here!)

The second thing these trips to the festival brings to mind each year is an emerging sensibility that roughly splits the difference between the kind of stuff Alan Rich has long written about in his soon to be dearly-departed column, A Lot of Night Music, and the kind of stuff you might read about in Pitchfork or on the pop end of the LA Weekly's music coverage.

This subtle convergence between Alan's world (let's call it "classical music") and Pitchfork's world (let's call it "the hipster dominion") is something I've been noticing for awhile now and, to an extent, something I've beaten the drum for. But it's not just me. There's something zeitgeist-defining about the simultaneous emergence of quirky, classical-informed artists like Joanna Newsom and Sufjan Stevens. As another example, I suspect this zeitgeist I'm describing is one reason The New Yorker's quote-unquote classical critic Alex Ross had a surprise best seller last year with The Rest is Noise, his history of the 20th century classical music canon. (I say quote-unquote because -- with his articles about Bjork, Radiohead, Pavement, and Bob Dylan -- Ross proved he could out write and out think most pop critics in their stated area of expertise.)

My point? Well, I know, it takes me awhile to get there sometimes...

Ahem, that point: Classical music is not the institutional graveyard it once was. And pop music is not the thoughtless bacchanal it once was, not when artists like Radiohead and Bjork make their appreciation for classical figures like Paul Lansky and Stockhausen, well known. (Google it friends, I've rambled on too long already and also used up my daily requisition of A HREF tags.)

So, enough of my yadda yadda. More pitchers! Here's a photograph of the inside of Memorial Hall, the lovely Beaux Arts style room where Music Now took place this year and last.

In the upper right hand corner, the speaker looking thing with the bear on it is actually an installation by the sculptor/architect Karl Jensen. (I would have let you Google him yourself, but you may accidentally stumble upon the *other* Karl Jensen whose work appears a direct competitor with painter of light, Thomas Kinkade.)

Next week I'll post more photographs from the event, and more thoughts about the classical-slash-indie rock nexus.

After the jump a photograph of some Civil War era portraits, a lonely looking piano forte, and addressing the conflict of interest issue.

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Last night I was "taking a meeting" at the fancy ass Bowery Hotel, just down the street from legendary scum pit venue of punk rock lore, CBGBs. Scratch that. I keep forgetting it's now an outlet for clothier John Varvatos and (somehow, much less controversially) the new location of the Morrison Hotel, a gallery for musically-oriented fine art photographs. I only wonder about the controversy because complaining about John Varvatos ignores the fact that glamour and wealth has been encroaching on the neighborhood for decades now. (Viz, the very fancy Bowery Hotel where I met my friends at -- folks that one would undeniably have to acknowledge were quote-unquote rock'n'roll people.)

My point is that gentrification does not have a tipping point. It's more like the Red Menace or an alien invasion. One day everything seems normal, the next day we all are reading Marx and/or having alien spawn ripping through our belly flesh and freaking the crap out of our co-workers. Nothing you can do about it but hold your entrails in and hope.

Anyway there was a protest. It was a small group, maybe two dozen folks max, but as I rolled by a conflict arose between some guy that looked like a Sid Vicious impersonator, but is apparantly a member of The Misfits according to the Vanishing New York blog.

Yes, as the photos show, he had pretty impressive cheekbones.

My favorite placard: "One small loss of a music space, one giant leap for pants."

Photos shamelessly lifted from Curbed and Jeremiah's Vanishing New York. There's more postage at The New York Observer, including a photo that makes the protest look as friendly and staged as it seemed to this observer.

After the jump, that shamelessly lifted photo, and a brief memory about the legendary CBGBs.

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The first rule of Jandek is that he is extremely prolific. To the right you will note one of the creepy, barebones catalogs sent to interested parties by his Houston-based record label, Corwood Industries, clearly a vanity enterprise, albeit a frightfully prolific one. (See a full-size catalog here.)

The second rule of Jandek that you probably won't enjoy Jandek's music very much at all. Jandek's music is not about enjoyment. He typically combines truly odd blues guitar in unfamiliar open tunings, and mysterious voices warbling all over a fractured emotional map. Imagine the scariest variety of homeless street corner bluesman, one who has perfected his art: the sounds Jandek documents on his records are clearly intentional, yet it'd be nearly impossible to argue those sounds provide anything more than a voyeuristic peek into one man's unhinged psychic rollercoaster.

In the 20th century, Western culture grew accustomed to "ugly" art that was eventually accepted as revolutionary, prescient and -- more importantly -- relatively pleasant and emotionally accessible. Picasso, Jackson Pollack, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, William Faulkner, Bob Dylan, Ornette Coleman, Sonic Youth, et. al all fit into this category. Hell, we could even shoehorn in Bright Eyes if we wanted.

What are we supposed to think, however, of ugly music that remains ugly no matter how much we listen to it? I'm not sure. I'm just here to provide a sampling. For a relatively easy on-ramp into Jandek's art, let's start with a YouTube video for the prototypical Jandek joint, "European Jewel":

Kind of sounds like Velvet Underground on quaaludes huh? (And yes, VU already sound like the were doing quaaludes.)

After the jump, more sonic pain from Jandek. Remember: no pain, no gain!

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Say what we will about colleague in blogebrity, Bob Lefsetz, he sometimes serves up interesting and timely memes and insights -- in this case a link to an article from late 2006 in an off-the-rock-critical radar website, Jambase.

It's an interview with Steve Berlin of Los Angeles's own Los Lobos. In it, Berlin puts real teeth to the claim that Graceland-era Paul Simon was nothing but a cultural carpetbagger. Note that Lefsetz included this provocative link in a bit of verbiage about supposed Graceland-biters, Vampire Weekend, who for the record (1) I like a lot and (2) I think sound more like Squeeze than they do Paul Simon. Viz:

In any event, here's a tasty interview excerpt:

Speaking of doing a lot of different records and working with a lot of amazing songwriters, I own a ton of the records that you've done over the years. One, in particular, I'd like to ask you about is Paul Simon's Graceland. I obsessed over that thing when I was young. Do you have any recollections of working on it?

Oh, I have plenty of recollections of working on that one. I don't know if you heard the stories, but it was not a pleasant deal for us. I mean he [Simon] quite literally -- and in no way do I exaggerate when I say -- he stole the songs from us.

The interviewer's softball question leads to an extended rant that rolls on for over 1500 words. There's no clear way to verify Berlin's claims. But it's interesting to consider his characterization of Los Lobos' "collaboration" with Simon at a moment when the latter artist is being trumpeted as the latest hipster influence, like David Byrne and Gang of Four before him. It must be a heady moment for Simon. New York's much respected Brooklyn Academy of Music is feting him with a sold out month-long residency celebrating his post-Garfunkel career -- a tribute fest that finds everyone from Byrne to Ladysmith Black Mambazo singing his songs, a residency whose final week -- starting April 23rd -- includes one of the top 10 ever most unlikely co-bills: Grizzly Bear, Gillian Welch, Josh Groban, and Olu Dara.

WTF, indeed.

After the jump, Steve Berlin's entire diatribe on Los Lobos' "collaboration" with Simon, including a rare dis of legendary former Warner Bros chief Lenny Waronker.

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For this week's paper I conducted an interview with Stars of the Lid's Brian McBride, a Los Angeles native who also happens to be a coach of USC's debate team. Last year, over a half dozen records into their career, they released their most popular album yet, And Their Refinement of the Decline -- popular being a relative term for a band that specializes in extended electronic drones, lovely as they may be. Here's a Q&A that was left on the cutting room floor of my piece, about how Stars of the Lid's loveliness came to be -- a question about process.

Q: Has your method changed dramatically? Brian McBride: Yes, but neither of us has any formal training, so our development has been haphazard. I consider us to be folk composers of a sort, because we learn from what we pay attention to. My compositional chops were picked up as a radio DJ. It was one of those things where I was layering multiple songs together. At first it was very chaotic. I'd pick from a doo-wop record and mix it with samples from an old TV show. I wanted to make music out of playing music. I discovered the less that was involved kinetically speaking, the more I was interested. I used to describe it as islands of song, and everything else building up to the melody.

Early on, I remember recording a soft-serve ice cream machine, then picking up a guitar and realizing I could make those sounds myself. For awhile the music was just us using guitars but we started bringing in cellos, then pianos, then horns. Starting with drone we began to bring in more melodic phrases. That's the phase we're in currently.

Though single songs and short excerpts don't do SoTL justice, they now they sound a little bit like this:

Monday in Los Angeles marks the kick off of their first major US tour in many years. Let me also use this as an opportunity to point you back to The Sound of Music, a piece I wrote about them and the poet Robert Creeley in December 2001, soon after the release of SoTL's last album, The Tired Sounds of...

September 11, 2001 was still at front of mind for most of us. We didn't yet know that folks like Rudy Giuliani and the current presidential administration would try to keep those memories alive for the better part of the next decade. I was trying to imagine the sounds that might give comfort, and better help the most vivid memories fade.

A completely unrelated video Donald Trump making a pass at Giuliani after the jump!

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Both of this blog's regular readers (hi Mom!) may have noticed that my posting schedule was unusually light the last week or so, a result of my aforementioned SXSW-induced illness/crises, and a number of other travels. Rest assured I was hard at work crafting posts throughout my sinus infection and my glamorous cross-continental lifestyle.

One of the things I've been most excited to think about is the Texas musician Jadek. It's quite possible that he, more than any artist in history, has milked the obscurity thing for all that it's worth, releasing literally dozens of LPs and, eventually, compact discs with nary an interview, tour, or press stunt to mar his near perfect track record of underground cred. (And note, you can't even find his shit on iTunes save a stray compilation track or two.) Pretty much all there was in terms of media exposure was a brief 1985 phone interview for, of all places, Spin Magazine. (Also documentaries, websites, and stalkerish articles, but none of which involved much participation from Mr. Jandek himself. We'll get to these later...)

Well, times have changed. In October 2004, Jandek conducted his first live appearance at an experimental music festival in Scotland. (It was, natch, not publicized in advance.) Since then he has popped up around the world with an increasingly ambitious, international gigging schedule including appearances at SXSW two years running. He was the last performer I saw at my SXSW 2008, and the gig provided a fitting contrast to the clusterfuck. It was packed, took place in a hallowed feeling room called the Central Presbyterian Church away from the buzz and thrum of 6th street. And, unlike most trainspotting audiences at the festival, these folks were completely riveted to their seats, obviously there only for him. I'd point also to an artist like Jandek for audiences annoyed at the celeb-trotting adventures of yesterday's blog subject, Devendra Banhart. Devendra may not be your poster child for freakiness anymore, but we'll always have Jandek...

I'll be posting more about Jandek in the next week's Play blog.

After the jump, more photos of his 2008 appearance in Austin, and a video of his SXSW performance from 2007.

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When Devendra Banhart emerged in the early 00s, I thought he seemed like the inheritor of the lo-fi throne whose lineage included Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, Lou Barlow's Sebadoh project, Elliott Smith, and the Mountain Goats. As any indie fan knows, all those musicians graduated into higher-fi settings and have -- in stretches -- turned out to be incredibly adept pop musicians. But with their lo-fi beginnings, often came initial impressions that these musicians were weirdos, shut-ins, folks incapable of making concessions to the world of pop. Basically that they were like Daniel Johnston, only without the mental illness.

In case you are unfamiliar with his story, here an excerpt from the heartrending documentary film about him, The Devil and Daniel Johnston:

Well, it's turned out that Devendra's music has not much evolved since those riveting initial 4-track demos. It's acquired layers, additional musicians to play it, international influences. What it has not acquired is depth. And Devendra, always out-and-about pimping his friends' projects, conducting interviews with the likes of Lindsey Lohan, even hogging the stage during Os Mutantes triumphant return to the stage a few years ago at Chicago's Pitchfork Music Festival -- well, he's turned out to not be that weird at all, certainly not in the way we expect of retiring, humble indie rockers.

That, perhaps, is why I see no reason to hem and haw about Devendra's evolution into, well, not so much a musician as a celebrity. As reported on LiveJournal's fearufully compelling new gossip forum OhNoTheyDidn't: that he seems to be spending quality time with Queen Amidala herself, Natalie Portman. It's not that Devendra's wholly uncompelling as a musician (he has a stage presence & a voice to die for). It's just that perhaps he'd be better off pursuing a career that many musicians before him have attempted and failed to pull off to my satisfaction. Devendra the thespian? Coming soon...

But okay, the question you're all dying to answer. Are Natalie and Devendra doin' it? I can't answer that...

...however, the answer to if they are K-I-S-S-I-N-G after the jump!

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Pictured (l to r): David Geffen, Suge Knight, Chuck Philips.

Sure, on Friday I jested a bit at the expense of Chuck Philips and the LA Times. (I'm a professional asshole and truthteller. I'm just doing my job.)

Please, though, do not mistake any humor made at Philips expense for a claim that he, historically speaking, has done anything less than a stellar job as the LA Times's entertainment industry reporter.

However, I will plainly and proudly state that the LA Times is a poor excuse for a newspaper. That's why the New York Times does so well here. Need evidence? Next time you're at Sunday brunch in Los Angeles check out what paper everyone around you is reading. Full stop.

But, anyway, back in the day when the LA Times was (somewhat) less horrible, and I bothered to read it with some regularity, Philips entertainment industry pieces were one of the few bright spots in an otherwise blighted, stupid, and irrelevant publication.

Moral of this story: Let's not hang the messenger, let's see if we can put the paper out of business! Or better yet read this comment that came in response to a self-congratulatory interview with Philips the LA Times ran on its Soundboard blog:

Chuck Phillips is paid by Suge Knight and is in his pocket like a #2 pencil.

Hmm, wouldn't it be awesome if David Geffen joined forces with Suge to actually purchase the paper? If, as they say, politics really is the entertainment industry for ugly people, maybe newspaper publishing is the music industry for former moguls who no longer understand music?

I am also an idea man.

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After reading this post, may I suggest you have some real fun and use the comments section to make up your own totally fictional news story about the contents of the image to the left. Fraudulent journalism can be fun for readers too!

But first, I want apologize on behalf of my fellow PLAY bloggers for the dearth of updates in the wake of our outburst of SXSW-related posts. Well, at least I blame SXSW-related injuries. My fellow bloggers may have just been overly impressed by the Los Angeles Times coup on Monday, March 17th -- linking P. Diddy to the murder of Tupac Shakur -- so much so that they considered hanging up their Scoops McGee journalistic hats for good.

Thankfully, the LA Times eternal spiral into idiocy has allowed us to reclaim our hats! You can get the full-scoop from the Times of London, the New York Times, and hey, fuck it, even the NME -- all of which put newsprint to better use than our LA Times friends at 202 W. 1st Street. (Google Map that shit if you want to send them a thank you letter.)

What can you do to help poor P. Diddy regain his reputation? I provide some ideas after the jump. Thankfully it doesn't involve having to purchase the new record by Danity Kane, Diddy's prefab girl-group which happens to have topped album charts for a second week in a row.

Yeah, basically, that LA Times story was really trying to put a damper on the champagne and strawberry party Mr. P was assuredly planning to have in St. Bart's or wherever to celebrate his latest, erm, creative triumph.

Read on...

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On obsessive repeat in my abode this morning is this video for "Machine Gun" from Portishead's long awaited third album titled, erm, Third. It went live on the band's website last night 8pm London time, and some kind soul has helpfully uploaded it to YouTube so you don't have to give them your email address in exchange for viewing rights.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

I find this band's output completely intriguing. Their albums from the 90s -- 1994's Dummy and 1997's Portishead -- were viewed as particularly cinematic exponents of the trip-hop fad which, let's be honest, is essentially thought of as really good wine bar music. (In Portishead's case really really good wine bar music.) Since then they've made nary a peep, save for singer Beth Gibbons excellent, but low-key collaborative album Out of Season, created with "Rustin Man" aka Paul Webb, bassist for the even more mysterious Talk Talk (about whom a week of posting here is inevitable). It marked the emergence in Gibbons' music of a more rustic (no pun intended), British countryside vibe. i.e. More strummed guitars. Hazy memories viewed through a boggy mist rather than a smoky club.

You could be excused for missing the shift in sound on that album, however, since Gibbons' voice is so overdetermined, so torch singer, anything quiet is bound to blur into a sexy wash of sound.

But "Machine Gun" rubs your face in change. The mood has shifted from something sexy to something claustrophobic, industrial -- it's dark as in deadly and dangerous rather than dark as in Eliot Spitzer. It has more in common with the jungle craze that was a kissing cousin to trip-hop or, perhaps, the newly resurgent experimental noise of young bands like Fuck Buttons, Health, and Crystal Castles.

It makes me think of terrorism, pollution, stagflation and various other forms of global panic rather than ecstasy consumption.

Portishead have gone more than a decade since producing music for public consumption, and audiences would have warmly embraced a rehash of their older records. So kudos to them. In a season where the most veterans are rousing excitement sheerly through guerilla street date strategy -- NIN a week or so ago, yesterday's announcements of imminent releases by Gnarls Barkley and the Raconteurs -- Portishead are doing it with music. Who wouldda thunk it?

After the jump, a live version of some new album tracks.

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One of the bands that roused the most enthusiasm at SXSW this year was Britain's Fuck Buttons, a brave band with a braver name. You could feel the incipient buzz coming off them, a buzz that would lead Stereogum to name them their favorite band of the festival and that would act as a perfect lead-in to their elevation to Best New Music status in today's Pitchfork.

I've just started working with the group as part of my duties repping their record label All Tomorrow's Parties in the US, and I met the lovely and talented band members, Ben and Andy, just before their first official showcase on Thursday evening. On Friday and Saturday I had the pleasure of escorting them to a few of the half-dozen or so appearances they would make during the festival.

Now, Fuck Buttons are a band with roots in the harsh experimental noise scene -- they're a kind of UK-equivalent to Los Angeles's own noise/punk heroes No Age and Health. But even more than those bands, Fuck Buttons' chosen moniker seems like an effort to take the 80s outrage over band names like Butthole Surfers and one-up it for the age of ubiquitous online pornography. Color me surprised, then, when I noticed the scene in the picture above during their set at the Stereogum/Paste day party on Saturday afternoon. (You can see a bit of Andy in the lower right hand corner of the photo.)

You are looking at Dell's new effort to unseat Apple from their "hippest computer maker in the universe" perch, a campaign I'd first encountered this a week earlier at the Plug Awards in New York ( the indie music equivalent of the Grammies). At least at the Plugs, though, Dell had the good sense not to place the, erm, blogger cage, so prominently as to make it obvious how little anyone actually wanted to use the damn thing. Now you name your band Fuck Buttons and you figure: that'll keep the wolves of commerce at bay, right? Well, welcome to the brave new world of indie rock.

I'll be honest, though, my surprise was tempered somewhat by the this scene which I witnessed a day earlier at a party they played sponsored by the marketing company / record label / magazine / online broadcaster, Vice.

You can see band member Ben in the right side of the photo and, yes, that is an actual audience member transacting with an ATM during the band's performance -- perhaps exhibit #1 in why sponsors are likely to continue flocking to indie for some time to come.

Indie is more than willing to show them the money.

After the jump, less sponsors, more music!

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So I have not seen any of my fellow LA Weekly bloggers down here in the lovely town of Austin, Texas but that's because this whole thing is a nightmarish clusterfuck that would do Hunter S. Thompson or Hieronymus Bosch proud. (The latter allusion for those of you whose tastes run more towards some classic rock.) It's hard to run into people you like down here and oh so easy to get lost in the throng of tarted-up girls marketing Miller Light; young kids who will eventually go on to take over their family's insurance business handing you demos; bloggers capturing exclusive "content" on their cell phone cameras; and drunk people.

For those who claim this thing is all about the music, I will -- by way of contrast -- offer my experience of SXSW point-by-point:
- Most of the bands here suck and are doing it for the wrong reasons.
- Most of the audience here have bad taste and are listening for the wrong reasons.
- Sponsors are a necessary evil though that doesn't lessen their evil.
- I fucking hate people.
That last point was actually an aside. Sorry for editorializing. That said, I am getting a lot of business done down here on behalf of my various and sundry ventures.

There are a few events I do regret missing this year because I had, like, actual work to do. For one, Van Morrison's performance at La Zona Rosa. The best of the blue-eyed soul singers thumbed his nose at the general shennanigins that too many other artists too readily accept. He took the following actions, as reported in the NME:

Morrison had the bars in the venue closed for the duration of his set, while cameras, voice recorders, and any recording or filming device were prohibited throughout his set.

I'm also sorry I missed the Lou Reed covers extravaganza at the Levi's (sponsored) FADER fort. The line ran around the block, and though I've heard reports from those that got in that it was underwhelming, Lou Reed actually showed up. That it was probably the hottest ticket in town this week only enforces my feelings from my post earlier in the week that "Lou Reed is a complete maniac and he will probably kick your ass in hand-to-hand combat..."

Basically, Lou Reed and Van Morrison gets it. They too kind of hate people who think the dominant youth culture of today has anything to do with the kind of art they make. And Lou Reed in particular understands that blogging about boxing has more to do with rock'n'roll these days than any youth culture festival.

For a true Internet 2.0 metaphor of what