//nedward.org

GOD damn my head hurts… last night was really fuck­ing rough. We went to see Love­less and the Real­is­tics at the Par­adise, but I had way too much to drink. I think we pre-​partied at least 6 cans of Pabst BR, and then I must’ve had 4-5 buds at the show. Hooli­gan­ism abounded.

The Real­is­tics were fuck­ing cool as shit though. They’re so much better live than on their record. Anyway, Glen­ndo, evil­monkey, Ben, Pres­ley and I were up front rock­ing out in this nearly empty place…

I think toward the end of the Love­less set I was singing along (sub­tlety god damnit. not dorky), and Dave Wana­maker must’ve noticed cause he thanked us for singing along and pointed at me… dork. Then, after they tore up the place on the last song, and they came down off the stage, I screamed at Jen Trynin and gave her a high-five… Well, I bought a Jen Trynin record when I was in high school (a long, long time ago), so it was nice to see her. I hope they appre­ci­ate the enthu­si­asm because there wasn’t a good crowd, and quite frankly I’m unem­ployed & I don’t get excited much.

So anyway, I need to get to why my head hurts. Coming out of the Par­adise, we decided to head to the Sil­hou­ette for some pitch­ers, and we were fuck­ing trashed… I think there were punches and wrestling, but we were just having fun. So we go to the ‘ouette and drink and drink. And then we leave, and head back down Brighton to the house… And, as we enter my build­ing, I started chas­ing Glenn up the stairs, and I swear to GOD, I do a fuck­ing bat­ter­ing ram right into the wall. head-​first, I go down, and Glen­ndo starts laugh­ing because he’s glad that he’s not me.

So we come inside and go to bed… which prob­a­bly isn’t the great­est thing to do when you’ve just taken a header… So I wake up when Howard comes on my clock/radio at 8 30, and I’m naked sleep­ing side­ways on my bed. And I totally forgot about the head-​shot, so I think I’m only hungover… so I keep drink­ing water, and I’m won­der­ing why the fog isn’t lifting… and THEN, I reached up to my head and felt a big fuck­ing lump. right on the top of my head. big as day.

The New Yorker gave Sarah Shan­non’s solo debut album a favor­able review:

From the open­ing trumpet-and-saxophone volley of Sarah Shannon’s self-​titled début (Casa Record­ing Co.), it is clear that the singer is fin­ished with the basic guitar-drum-and-bass setup of her indie-​rock past, when she was the front woman for the intro­spec­tive pop outfit Veloc­ity Girl.

Here, Shan­non (who plays the Knit­ting Fac­tory this week) has assem­bled a small orches­tra of horns, strings, and wood­winds, and the result is a warm paean to the power of the imag­i­na­tion. The songs cover famil­iar sub­jects, mostly love sought and love lost, but the album isn’t a del­i­cate col­lec­tion of wilt­ing cham­ber pop. “I’ll Run Away,” which is pro­pelled by the piano work of col­lab­o­ra­tor Blake Wescott (he pro­duced the album and co-​wrote a number of its songs), is a strongly defi­ant piece rem­i­nis­cent of Carole King. “What’s Mine” bumps and grinds along on Wescott’s guitar chords, and it includes the staunch chorus “I don’t want to waste your time, but I got a feel­ing you’ve got what’s mine.”

The best part of the record, though, is Shannon’s won­der­ful voice, which makes each song a gem.

Also:

• NOW toronto
• Seat­tle Times

Once again, some­one writ­ing in the New Yorker puts to pen the thoughts that I’ve been loosely throw­ing about on the state of Rock n’ Roll…

Jerry Lee Lewis was rock and roll. Gene Pitney wasn’t. The Pre­tenders were rock and roll. The Bee Gees weren’t. Elvis Costello was rock and roll for a while, and then he wasn’t.

By this stan­dard, the moody croon­ing of Creed and friends doesn’t qual­ify; nor does the self-​effacing arena rock of the Dave Matthews Band. But there does seem to be a new crop of bands that favor short, spiky songs gal­va­nized by angst and anger. If these bands?the White Stripes and the Strokes are the best known, and among the best?aren’t exactly new, they’re a return to some­thing older and more dis­tinc­tive: to the spirit of punk and, before that, of the British Invasion.

(thanks danno for the link)

Well, it’s going to be 88 degrees here wednes­day, so summer has arrived. and, yes, that is Liz Phair singing back-​up vocals on Sheryl Crow’s new single, soak up the sun. Seems silly, but true.

Those of you famil­iar with her pecu­liar har­mo­niz­ing might have picked that up, (I didn’t). Rumor has it that everyone’s favorite reformed-indie-low-fi-pioneer makes a cameo in the video, play­ing bas­ket­ball, of all things. Sheryl’s expla­na­tion of how they hooked up, makes me wonder about this liz + bas­ket­ball thing.

• back­ground video on liz (hosted by j-lo??)