"Disintegration is the best album ever"

Stereogum's recent post discussing the Pete Wentz interview of Robert Smith in Entertainment Weekly thankfully included a clip of the South Park episode in which Robert destroys the Barbara Streisand-zilla. I completely forgot about that. Great stuff - especially when Kyle says "Disintegration is the best album ever" (of which Robert says was "one of my greatest moments in life"). So true Kyle, so true.

Tuesday, November 28 at The Mercury Lounge

Some shoegazing goodness at the Mercury Lounge tonight. Loveless Music Group presents four great bands (Unlove, Saints + Lovers, Soundpool, and The Sad Little Stars) and

popkiss

popkiss on Saturday night was a lot of fun...you should have been there...if you weren't...here's what I played:

Set 1 --
Mixel Pixel - Coming Up X's
Asobi Seksu - Strings (Glass Factory remix)
Antarctica - Absence
New Order - Age of Consent
The Sunshine Underground - Commercial Breakdown
Blur - Starshaped
The Cure - How Beautiful You Are
The Daysleepers - Mesmerize
The Rapture - I've Been Down for So Long
The Diggs - Everyone's Starting Over (Cassettes Won't Listen remix)
The Sugarcubes - Walkabout

Set 2--
Cut Copy - That Was Just a Dream/Zip Zap
Out Hud - All For You
Saint Etienne - Lightning Strikes Twice
The Presets - The Girl and The Sea
Editors - Orange Crush
Sleeper - Statuesque
New Young Pony Club - Get Dancey
New Order - 586 (Razormaid remix)
Depeche Mode - Precious
Don Juan Dracula - Take Me Home (DJ Henning remix)

Set 3--
Lily Allen - Smile
The Knife - Heartbeats (Rex the Dog remix)
Death From Above 1979 - Romantic Rights
MSTRKRFT - Work on You
Annie - Anniemal
Pulp - Disco 2000

Dr. Maz threw out some great stuff too - including tracks I love from The Embassy and Lo Fi Fink.

This Saturday, the 25th, I'll be DJ'ing popkiss with Dr. Maz at Last Exit in Brooklyn. IndiePop, BritPop, ScandiPop, and other assorted gems. Last Exit is located at 136 Atlantic Ave. Closeest subway stops are the 4,5,2,3,N,R trains at Borough Hall or the F,G at Bergen St. See ya there.

Falling Tower

Everyone is lamenting the loss of Tower Records, which is now in liquidation. Myself included. However, you can get some great deals on the remaining merchandise in the stores. CDs and DVDs are 40% off and CD singles are 60%. I picked up a bunch of import singles - from The Sunshine Undergound, Stereophonics, and Suede - for pretty cheap. So at least there is one bright side for Tower's closing.

Bond

I saw Casino Royale over the weekend, and thought it was excellent. I'm a big Bond fan and thought Daniel Craig was a great choice as the new Bond (I loved his Layer Cake). Casino showed off a grittier, meaner Bond who was not afraid to kill someone with his bare hands. And there wasn't too much of the cheesy Bond lines or mannerisms (those that plagued Roger Moore and even Pierce Brosnan to some extent). Looking forward to the next couple of Bonds from Mr. Craig.

Also of note, the Chris Cornell theme song - "You Know My Name" - was quite poor. Makes you yearn for the days of Duran Duran's "A View To a Kill."

Must see shows

Paul Weller is making a rare appearance in the States this January in order to promote his 4 disc set Hit Parade. The "Modfather" will be at Irving Plaza on January 29, 30, and 31, where he'll do a The Jam night, a Style Council night, and a Weller solo career night, respecitvely.

New Young Pony Club are finally coming to the States and will be at The Annex on Dec. 8 and The White Room in Williamsburg on Dec. 9 for the Modular People Xmas party. I know them for putting out some incredible singles over the past 12 months, and you know them for the use of their "Ice Cream" in the Intel commercial.

The Cure in '84

Wolfgang's Vault, a great concert t-shirt, artwork, poster site, has offered up its concert vault in streaming format, and has included a show by The Cure at Washington, DC's Ontano Theater from Nov. 16, 1984 (holy shit, that was 22 years ago tomorrow!). This 90 minute show features a lot of stuff from their Concert and Curiosity era sound (Japanese Whispers, The Top, some Seventeen Seconds and Pornography) . It's not my favorite period for The Cure, but the recording is of great quality and is worth listening to for any Cure fan.

Exporting music to America

Interesting article from the NY Times regarding foreign government's subsidizing their nation's bands' trips to America. We've seen this issue before, with the numerous articles about Canada subsidizing their musicians (that's a very general statement), but this article notes the Total Noway! night at CMJ that I attended.

Party Blocked

Bloc Party has been forced to cancel a few dates on their U.S. tour because Matt Tong has a collapsed lung. Sounds painful, but he's apparently in a "comfortable" condition at a hospital in Atlanta. The band will miss the Charlotte, Fairfax, and Madison Square Garden shows.

Noel's wit and wisdom

I checked out Lord, Don't Slow Me Down, the documentary for Oasis' Don't Believe the Truth tour. It was a really intimate look at the boys backstage and on stage. Some great footage from their New York show at the Garden, which I attended. You can really see why these guys are rock stars - they hit the stage with so much bombast and swagger and just blow out great sets. The film also showed some nice "real person" moments, like signing a birthday card and getting a birthday cake for Zak Starkey (Ringo's son and Oasis' tour drummer) and a trip to a Japanese instrument shop, where they tried out just about everything. They also spent some quality time with Kasabian and Jet. If you're an Oasis fan, the film is a must see.

After the film, Noel did a Q+A with Matt Pinfield and took some questions from the crowd (mostly softballs). We learned the following:

• The Beatles' "Blue" album is Noel's favorite Beatles' album (the greatest hits collection - 67-70)
• the purpose of Stop the Clocks is for fans 15 years from now to pick up one Oasis cd and find almost all of their best songs, and then go and buy the individual albums
• the reason Be Here Now was so bad was 1) it wasn't Morning Glory, 2) at that time Oasis was so big that no one had the guts to tell Noel to stop - case in point, at that time, he thought "D'ya Know What I Mean?" should have been longer than 8 minutes, and 3) he wrote most of the album while in the Caribbean and drunk
• "Go Let It Out" is the song that sounds most like a modern day The Beatles song
• his favorite artists are Neal Young and Bob Dylan, but his music doesn't sound like either of them
• the day he wrote "Live Forever" was the day that his songwriting really changed
• he thinks that the Kings of Leon are currently the best songwriters around
• Oasis will end when Liam's hair falls out

CMJ with The Diggs

The Diggs' CMJ show at Sin-E on Friday night was one of the best shows I've seen them perform. The packed house saw them go through some of their Commute tracks (including "Stagg" and "Everyone's Starting Over") and three new songs. Charlie the drummer was on fire, literally jumping up after smashing his drums for each song. Looking forward to seeing a new album from these guys.

Total Norway!

The Norway Stoy! event at Pianos was probably the best CMJ showcase that I went to this week. Comprised of three Norwegian bands, upstairs at Pianos was packed from 5pm to 8pm. Don Juan Dracula opened up, and they will now be your new secret obsession. With uptempo synth rock, these guys put on quite a show. Dressed in all white suits/wife-beaters, they have style and substance. The lead singer takes his job as a showman quite seriously - and has a little Simon Le Bon in him. He went into the crowd to sing and to dance and posed for pictures with fans while singing and dancing. At one point he says that they are a boy band and dress like a boy band and like a boy band, they have a dance. So the keyboardist puts on this early 80's synth line, and the other three line up and do this choreographed groove. Unreal. And this wasn't even the highlight! The moment of the show goes to the bassist and lead singer/guitarist lighting sparklers that were attached to the neck of their guitars. That's showmanship!

120 Days closed the event, and they may be my new favorite band. Upbeat Joy Division meets The Cure meets early U2. Synths, drum machines, live drums, on top of a driving bass line. They also put on quite a show, and while not as flashy as Don Juan Dracula, they really got into their set. They recently signed with Vice for the US, and with that pedigree, are primed to hit the big time with scenester cred. They've played a lot of little shows in NY during CMJ, and the bassist explained to me, "it's been quite hectic." I'm looking forward to a proper US tour, hopefully with them playing the Bowery. You should buy their album now.

Here's "Come Out, Come Down," courtesy of Vice.

Master Craft

MSTRKRFT's DJ performance at the Hiro Ballroom last night was incredible. They know how to throw down the electro-disco jams. Hiro's sound system is great, so the room was really moving as MSTRKRFT mixed it up. Cool points for eating a slice or two while manning the DJ booth! Princess Superstar followed, and she was ok, in that white girl glam-rap kind of way. I couldn't make it long enough to hear The Juan Maclean or Digitalism, which is a shame. (Digitalism is also playing Studio B in Greenpoint on Saturday night/Sunday morning).

Club NME/The Horrors/The Sounds/The Zune

I went to the kickoff of Club NME last night and saw performances by The Sounds and The Horrors (CSS was supposed to play, but the lead singer got sick). The show was at the Harmony Palace - a Chinese banquet hall/restaurant - pretty hilarious actually. The Sounds were quite good and my two favorite songs of theirs, "Tony the Beat" and "Paint By Numbers" sounded great live. The Horrors on the other hand were so awful that I would have shot myself in the head if it wasn't for the free beer being handed out. I can't believe that everyone is trying to hype this band. Smacking yourself repeatedly in the ear sounds better than those guys. (Apparently I'm not the only one who dislikes them - an audience member attacked lead singer Faris Badwan at their show on Tuesday night at Stereo).

As I discussed before, Club NME is coming to NYC permanently. Starting on December 15, it will starts its residence at the new Gramery Park Hotel. Club NME is at numerous cities around the UK, and as part of NME's attempted take over of the US, it will now be in LA and NYC.

Oh, and the best part about the launch party last night (other than the free beer) was the Microsoft Zune sponsorship - they had people walking around asking if you would like to check out the Zune. Hilarious, because these paid promoters had no idea what the hell the Zune did. This one girl kept coming up to me and asking "hey, would you like to check this thing out?" I'd ask her annoying questions like "how is this better than my iPod?" and "does this have some sort of wireless download option?" She had no clue and actually referred to a crib sheet on the Zune. Comedy.