February 22, 2002

 
Since there's no sense in pimping it on Barbelith, because so many people there are already aware of this band, I shall talk about my intense love of the song "Source Tags and Codes" by And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead here.

The song sounds as if it exists in a world permanently frozen in suburban US alt-rock 1993 - but is aware of that fact, and secretly does not mind being stuck there at all. It's sorta like Sonic Youth if they had only ever released Goo and Dirty, and Thurston was the only member of the band who sang. It's not exactly a nostalgic song, it's more romantic than anything else - the epic sweep of the guitar lines, stings, and clunky-sounding piano makes me think of it being like the soundtrack to the final scene of a period piece set in the early 90s, like an old film from the 40s, but the film is about Superchunk or something. In some ways, it reminds me of "Shoot The Singer" by Pavement, which I've always described as being a romantic song about romantic notions, a beautiful picture of a past that never really happened. Ha, and of course, "Shoot The Singer" on the Watery, Domestic EP was released in 1993.

Ah, this just isn't working out - I'm struggling with trying to describe this song, and one of the things I love most about it is this ineffable quality - I'll never articulate this properly. I highly recommend it, obviously.

 
More good news: Enon will be releasing a new record called 'High Society' on Touch & Go in June. Hopefully it will be pretty good, or at least have a couple songs as good as "Conjugate The Verbs" from their first LP.

Even better news: Ted Rall will be putting out a new book called To Afghanistan and Back in April. I'm obviously very excited about this, even though I've read a big chunk of it on his website already...

 
There's a funny thread on Barbelith in which "I" am an unstoppable force of destruction and misfortune. Ha...wrapped in milk.

I'm getting more and more fantastic boot mixes - the best one this morning being the Q-Tip Vs. Michael Jackson. That one is a classic, let me tell you...

Good news: NXM 123 comes out next week, only a couple weeks after the last issue. I guess I don't mind spots of lateness if the issues do come out in rapid succession sometimes. Too bad Frank Quitely didn't draw this one, though...

 
I'm up to my neck in bootleg mixes at the moment, thanks to a link to The Dr. Blog supplied by Videodrome on Barbelith. Some brilliant stuff here - I'm particularly impressed by the Missy/N'Sync "Pop" hybrid, the Madonna/Young MC "Music Know How" and the Kraftwerk/Whitney Houston "I Want To Dance With Numbers". I'm also very pleased to have a nice clean version of "Stroke of Genie-us" without any DJ chat at the end. Oh my, have I caught the bootleg mix fever.