[MMouse]: Weezer
Does anyone have any extra tickets to Weezer in SF? I'm dying that I missed getting them. Please email me directly; i'd love you forever. -taylor
[MMouse]: word to star and sdre
word, star. i'm diggin richard buckner addictively these days, and i've always had a thing for silkworm, though usually they just nail it on a few songs per album (except libertine, which is perfect), in my opinion. i've been napstering the sdre album, to see if i want to buy. and it just makes me hanker for diary. i listened to that shit this weekend and i think its a crime they don't play off it anymore live. definitely their best album. this new album DOES sound like Rush, though i know they ain't got no geddy lee. it's just got this crisply-recorded, studio-geek feel to it. can not dig it. anyone out there hear anything about the new bedhead project, called, like the new year or something? apparently they were going to play some shows in NYC before recording an album... -taylor
[MMouse]: danielewski and THIS AINT NO PICNIC
yeah, i read House of Leaves and kinda dug it. It's overlong, overwritten, has possibly one too many self-indulgent spots, but if you get all the way to the end it actually works really well, is kind of moving, etc. Danielewski isn't much of a writer; he's more of an experiment guy, i.e. there are more cool ideas than cool sentences in the book. saw him read here in SF. Freak. for sure. -taylor and for those going to this ain't no picnic, beware smuggling stuff in. last year they searched everyone's bags really thoroughly. we had a bag of weed buried at the bottom of our bag and it was shear dumb luck that they missed it. these dudes were on a mission.
[MMouse]: no other interests
yeah, word to Phil. eagerly anticipating the release of a new mouse album on a MODEST MOUSE MAILING LIST seems pretty natural to me. bitching at people you don't know for supposed narrowmindedness (how the fuck does he know if we don't read books?) does not. seth, we won't miss you. --taylor
[MMouse]: Bright Eyes
Yes, folks, I saw Bright Eyes too, at Bottom of the Hill in SF, and the way-too-short 45 minutes or so that they played absolutely blew me away. I've ordered the new thing from the saddle creek web site and I think everyone else should too. Funny, they were playing with this band called the Subtonix which were this lesbian chicks wearing trashbags, smeared with fake blood, playing casios and a sax and generally punked out in a post-John Hughes throwback kind of way. Then the headliner was the Need which is more weird chick performance art stuff. Bright Eyes, indie boys in ill fitting thrift store garb, heartbreakingly earnest, just didn't really fit the whole vibe. I was worried the Subtonix fans (also smeared with fake blood) were going to riot. Bottom line: Bright Eyes is incredible. --taylor
[MMouse]: Noise Pop
Hey all, I'm going to a bunch of Noise Pop nonsense including Magnetic Fields, Death Cab for Cutie and Beulah. And Bob Mould, for which I HAVE AN EXTRA TICKET IF ANY ONE IS INTERESTED. So that's Bob Mould at Bimbos on Friday the third (playing with Mountain Goats and others). Email me directly. --Taylor
[MMouse]: impressed
Big props to Russ and all that embraced this most recent concept of hotgirls and hotboys on the mm list. I'm particularly in to the same sex voting thing. Just very impressed is all. Hey anyone like country music? -T
[MMouse]: Bright Eyes
I took the recent slew of rec's on Bright Eyes to heart and am now the proud owner of the Every Day ep. Rockin' Other cd's I picked up for Christmas: Old 97s Too Far to Care Blonde Redhead s/t Luna Penthouse Fiona Apple When the Pawn Unwound A Single History Black Heart Procession ep Those and the Scribner's Best of the Fiction Workshops anthology; it's a compilation of the best of the best stories being written in graduate programs across the country and makes for more exciting reading than I've come across in a while. Not necessarily all brilliant, but all trying something new, and all refreshingly young feeling. Anyone read this? --Taylor
[MMouse]: just to keep the thread rollin
I think there's got to be less sex among the so-called indie community than any other. I've been to shows with tons of good-looking people, none of whom are able to make eye contact with each other because of a proscribed indie misanthropy which seems to preclude good locked-eye flirtation. The jocks and thugs and sorority girls have this one down, but the rest of us are eyes-ahead introverts. Something should be done about this, I just don't know what. And DJ Shadow, Entroducing and Massive Attack, mezzanine are the two best make out cds I have. any word from anyone on the future of any ex-bedhead members? that was hands down one of my favorite bands and I keep looking for side projects. does anyone know? I like pedro the lion, but the dead-ahead christianity of the lyrics spook me a little and i have no trouble believing this homophobia thing. I'd probably steer clear, I have to say. --Taylor
[MMouse]: dfw vs. coupland
I wrote a paper last semester about why Mark Leyner is destructive to the advancement of culture. Most of my evidence came from David Foster Wallace, from an essay in A Suppossedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. My teacher then informed me that Wallace's whole argument was concieved out of mock-spite...apparantly, Wallace and Leyner have some sort of war where they trash each other all over the media and in thier work, but are actually (almost secretly) friends. Kinda like Stephen Malkmus and Billy Corgan. so ooops, my argument was slightly invalid, but regardless, I still find Leyner annoying and I think David Foster Wallace is doing some really interesting stuff. But they're both pretentious, although Coupland, who I enjoy most of the three, is more pretentious than the other two together. props to you for writing on DFW who I consider borderline genius. But I'm definitely not with you on Coupland. Circa Gen X I was a big fan but Girlfriend in a Coma went way over the permissible-levels-of-pretension-top. have you tried Matthew Sharpe or Lorrie Moore or David Sedaris? --Taylor
[MMouse]: MM and LAL in SF
Yeah, I'm going to both shows. No danger that his jaw won't be working right? Ad how is Love as Laughter? As far as shows in SF, it has been and continues to be a great time right now. Magnetic Fields last week (amazing), modest mouse, more pavement, get up kids, chemical brothers and underworld and dj shadow, old 97s. Its going to be a good couple of weeks. --Taylor
[MMouse]: best show I ever saw
Best show ever is a near-impossible call. I did, however, just get back from Superchunk/Beulah at great american in San Francisco, and I have to say, it was a contender. Great beulah set, and a mindblowing one from Superchunk. Those guys just empty it out everytime I've ever seen them. Highlights from tonight's show: Water Wings, Detroit Has a Skyline Too, and unbelievably 100,000 Fireflies (the magnetic fields cover from incidental music). Five stars. Anyone else there? Oh, and I have high hopes for back to back mouse shows in October.
[MMouse]: braid woes vs. anti-libertarian angst
The alternating grief over Braid breakup rumors vs debate over political affinities has been VERY surreal.
[MMouse]: bts
Whoever was talking about "that stupid line about how we're all just bricks in the wall" I think Martsch agrees with you. If you listen to the song, it sounds like he's heaping some irony on some old cliches: dust in the wind, bricks in the wall, you can't always get what you want, hard rain's agonna fall, etc. Doug is way too smart to be rehashing metaphors for five year olds without making some sly fun of them. I think its a sad, regretful song which rocks out in all the right places. I didn't see them on Conan, but I did see them at Slims and I had zero complaints. Honestly I don't really understand all this bitching about Keep it like a secret. I have all the albums, bought in the right order, and I have to say, I just think they keep improving. The love album has some incredible songs but isn't as solid all the way through as Perfect or Secret. This is just one more person offering his opinion, but I'm just knocked off my feet a little everytime I put any one of their albums on and I don't really give a shit if they don't want to write songs longer than 6 minutes. Who said songs have to be that long? I'll take my BTS short and sweet if that's the way they want it. (the indie world could really do with more 3.5 minute pop songs, if you ask me: keep us away from the neo-hippy Phish-esque jam on and on bullshit).
[MMouse]: L. Phair
Liz Phair definitely does not suck. Liz has barely laid down a note i don't like. Witness Juvenelia, an e.p. of early music with tracks like batmobile and especially, ESPECIALLY Dead Shark with its brilliant lyrical nods to Annie Hall and the just brilliant lines: I'm not looking over my shoulder / I'm not gazing up at the stars / I'm not thinking five years in the future / I'm just wondering you'll sleep tonight. She hits that right dead on, and I give anybody a lot of credit for lines like that, maybe not as ironic and sarcastic as the mouse from Summer or talkinshitaboutaprettysunset but still right on with me. Damn whos paging me now. -TA
