I seem to be blessed with duck visits

Though really it’s just because it’s spring and ducks are always about, which I like. Mostly I see them on campus because of the nearby wetlands, thus yesterday’s shot — which had left me a little melancholy because said duck had been separated from its partner, who had wandered away to check something out, and it was quacking a bit sadly. (They soon met up and all was well.)

In contrast these two were happily floating around the pool at my apartment complex in the late spring evening being content and enjoying life. And in the same way that I felt a bit melancholy yesterday evening, tonight, while I’m a bit tired, I’m much more content in turn. More tomorrow, when I’m more awake!

Thursdays shouldn’t be so tired-feeling but…

…that’s about me right now! Mental break to catch up on a few things, more tonight hopefully. In the meantime, though, from last night, a photo of a duck:

Not sinister, not smoking cigars.

A coda to a failed record company

In this post a while back I talked about TVT Records — and most everything I had to say was said then. But there’s been an amusing followup, via Idolator:

For those of you who are pretty sure that you don’t need cash from TeeVeeToons, Inc., there’s still good reading to be had: The label owes $26,883.50 to SoundScan, and $1,300 to the now-defunct Harp, Also, their accounts payable department has apparently neglected to send a $945.46 check to Chad Kroeger for some time, and I for one would love to know why.

So would I, actually. The actual list is here. Anton Newcombe’s not on it. Typical.

And because it’s that kind of day, a random treat

Cindy and Bert doing their version of Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” for German TV in the early 70s, except the lyrics are an adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes story “The Hound of the Baskervilles”:

Long live inexplicability. And RIP to the earlier incarnation of the Germans Under Cover blog which first called my attention to this. (The current one is a completely different deal about language learning and country music. Long story.)

So hey did you hear there was a My Bloody Valentine tour and all

I suppose I can’t not post about this — first, tour dates are confirmed:

06-20 London, England - The Roundhouse
06-21 London, England - The Roundhouse
06-22 London, England - The Roundhouse
06-23 London, England - The Roundhouse
06-24 London, England - The Roundhouse
06-28 Manchester, England - Apollo
06-29 Manchester, England - Apollo
07-02 Glasgow, Scotland - Barrowland
07-03 Glasgow, Scotland - Barrowland
07-03-06 Roskilde, Denmark - Roskilde Festival
07-09 Paris, France - Zenith
07-17-20 Benicàssim, Spain - Festival Internacional de Benicàssim
07-25 Naeba, Japan - Fuji Rock Festival
08-08 Oslo, Norway - Øya Festival
09-05 Isle of Wight, England - Bestival
09-19-21 Monticello, NY - Kutshers Country Club (ATP New York)
09-22 New York, NY - Roseland
09-23 New York, NY - Roseland
09-25 Toronto, Ontario - Ricoh
09-27 Chicago, IL - Aragon Ballroom
09-30 San Francisco, CA - The Concourse
10-01 Los Angeles, CA - Santa Monica Civic
10-02 Los Angeles, CA - Santa Monica Civic

And furthermore there’s finally some sort of rerelease plan in the works:

As initially reported on Wired’s Blog Network and now confirmed by a Sony BMG UK rep, the only two MBV albums that matter (This Is Your Bloody Valentine was practically an EP anyway) will hit UK shops June 16 in newly remastered formats. While the Isn’t Anything remaster spans only one disc, the Loveless one comes as a double-disc: the first disc remastered from both DAT (digital audio tape) and analogue tape, and the second remastered from just analogue tape.

My feelings on all this are a bit muddled still — these two posts on ILM from Elvis Telecom and NoTimeBeforeTime sum up my conflicting views:

What’s nagging me though, especially after the ATP announcement (fuck, why don’t they go ahead and just put Butthole Surfers and Pavement on the bill) is the predictability of it all. In other words:

“You Made Me Realize” crowd reaction 1992: “HOLYFUCKINGSHITITSSOLOUDICANTMOVETHINKGAARRAAGGHH”
“You Made Me Realize” crowd reaction 2008: “Dude it’s the part where it gets loud and crazy! I’m going to blog about all this via my iPhone. OK, I’m going to go get a beer”

If I want to hear “Loveless,” I can pull out the album anytime. What I really want to see live is the crazy intensity that made their shows so infamous back in the day. I’d be much more excited about things if they loaded up on military-grade infrasonics and began the set by announcing “This is a song we stopped working on in 1994″ and broke into a half-hour of demolition jungle.

I don’t want museum exhibits!

—-

I understand the skepticism, but the new Portishead album has completely renewed my faith in formerly great bands that vanish for a decade and return better than ever.

Live for the best, expect the worst, or maybe the reverse.

Hurrah for some sort of focus

That may sound a bit underwhelming (or underwhelmed) but while things are still being drawn out by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the likelihood is that Barack Obama will be securing the nomination in relatively short order. Which I’m more than fine with, really — the hypercheerleaders for him were sometimes a bit guileless, which I always find amusing when it comes to politics, but I’ve heard it argued, and quite understandably, that you need to be cheerily positive to some degree or another to succeed in American politics in general, and if that’s the case then Obama’s got it in spades and so do a lot of his supporters. It’s all good there, and we’ll see what goes from here.

But it’s a slog. A big ol’ slog, half a year. I’ve hammered my larger points about what will determine the election home often enough on here that I’ll spare you for now (but maybe not later). Instead it’s interesting to see what other undercurrents are up for grabs right about now. For instance:

• As I linked yesterday, John McCain made a speech about judicial philosophy and making sure to appoint the right sorts of judges and so forth. The issue of the Supreme Court is a massive one that I’ve not ignored, but I admit I’ve underplayed a bit, partially because I see it as an issue that mostly drives those who are invested in the judicial process more fully than I. It isn’t only that, of course, and regardless whether or not you care about constitutional originalism as a theory or not, it’s the practical applications that have mattered to many people.

  But what’s interesting is how the speech has been received by its putative audience, the judiciary-interested right — badly. Or at least, with deep suspicion. Andy McCarthy at NRO:

  The Gang of 14 deal killed more judicial nominations than it saved. It elevated senatorial privilege over constitutional duty. It protected senators who didn’t want to stand up and be counted. It took off the table in 2006 what would have been a winning issue for Republicans. And once the Democrats won the midterm elections, it ensured that Sen. Leahy could take things from there — slow-walking nominations into a record number of vacancies he is waiting for a Democrat president to fill. There’s bipartisanship for you.

  If McCain really wants to open up this debate again, good luck

  There’s plenty similar out there. McCain’s got a long road to walk, at least with this bunch. It may not matter at all in the end, but we’ll see.

• Where the real paranoia among the GOP seems to be, though, lies in the House:
  

  …in a closed-door session at the Capitol, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told members that the NRCC doesn’t have enough cash to “save them” in November if they don’t raise enough money or run strong campaigns themselves….Cole, on the defensive in the wake of special election losses in Louisiana and Illinois, pointed his finger Tuesday at his Republican colleagues, telling them that they had been too stingy in helping fund party efforts. He also complained that the Republicans ran weak candidates in both Louisiana and Illinois — a charge Cole made despite the fact that, as NRCC chairman, he could have played a major role in choosing the party’s candidates if he hadn’t made the decision to stay out of GOP primaries.

  In his meeting with members, Cole distributed a document showing that even former Republican political guru Karl Rove had badmouthed Jenkins, according to GOP sources. It’s not clear whether Cole meant it as a criticism of Rove or of Jenkins.

  The idea of the GOP having less money than the Democrats onhand amuses me — shilling for big business openly (as opposed to privately — which plenty of Democrats are happy to do, it should be noted) should have brought them greater rewards, you’d think. Alack.

• Finally, the current administration is reminding all of us why we loved them so:
  

  The Bush administration has not found disaster recovery files for White House e-mails from a three-month time period in 2003, according to court documents filed this week, raising the possibility that messages sent before and after the invasion of Iraq may never be recovered.

  The White House chief information officer, Theresa Payton, said in a sworn declaration that the White House has identified more than 400 computer backup tapes from March through September of 2003 but that the earliest recorded file was dated May 23 of that year.

  That period was one of the most crucial of the Bush presidency. The United States launched the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003, and President Bush declared the end of major combat operations on May 1.

  Payton and other officials said that older e-mails could still be contained on the tapes because of the way the files are dated.

  Of course. Did I mention the raid on the Office of Special Counsel?

How much of any of this remains as even an undercurrent in six months is unclear, still. Long, long ways to go yet. But for now, the narrative at least got a little sharper. The better for the various unkindest cuts to come.

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Random thoughts? Why sure!

[EDIT -- well I didn't expect to be linked to CNN this morning about the SDSU case, that's for sure. Greetings all! Just a heads-up that there's really nothing much in my entry here about it, it's mostly links and quotes from other stories, but if you'd like to take the time to explore the site in general you'd be very welcome.]

A strangely full day and I’ve got a lot of writing ahead of me tonight. So in brief:

• Oh hey there were some more primaries today who knew! Not me! There hasn’t been any coverage about that at all! Obama takes North Carolina in a walk and it’s more down to the wire in Indiana. Etc. etc. Meanwhile McCain tries to make the hard-right judicial wonks happy, which won’t please anyone else besides them. In sum…talk to everyone after West Virginia next week.
• The existence of the continuing race however has led to the best photo I’ve seen in a long time from it:

  

  Friend Tombot captioned this as “THE MANY KINDS OF HUMAN TEETH” and it seems hard to disagree.

• Meanwhile, down south from here, it is proven that at San Diego State University frat guys can be, shall we say, creative when it comes to extracurricular activities:
  

  A year-long investigation at San Diego State University has resulted in 96 people being arrested on drug- related charges, including 75 students, officials said Tuesday.

  …

  Officers infiltrated seven campus fraternities. In some fraternities, most of the members were aware of organized drug dealing occurring from the houses by other members, officials said.

  …

  Narcotics authorities said the sales were predominantly arranged by text messages.

  The drug dealers “weren’t picky about who they sold to,” Mosler said.

  Weber said the fraternities involved, Theta Chi and Phi Kappa Psi, could face sanctions such as expulsion from the campus.

  There’s plenty to be cynical about in this whole affair, frankly — without trying to make light of a tragic situation, I note that this particular investigation was started due to a fatal overdose by an attractive young white female student, whereas I have to idly wonder what overdoses off-campus by people not fitting that description might have occurred, say. The whole question of drug laws and their enforcement is its own questionmark as well.

  Regardless, the one thing that comes to mind in reading up on all this is how much goofiness there is in all this. For instance, there’s this:

  Kenneth Ciaccio, 19, a member of the Theta Chi fraternity, allegedly sent out a mass text-message to “faithful customers,” saying that he was traveling to Las Vegas and would not be able to make his normal cocaine sales, the DEA said.

  Odd enough, but further comedy ensued when SDSU tried to expunge a puff-piece he appeared in last year on their website — more details here. (The piece itself is still cached over here, at least for now.)

  Then there’s this great bit:

  Officials said among those arrested is Michael Montoya, a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, who was one month away from obtaining his master’s degree in Homeland Security. Montoya also worked as a community service officer on campus and reported to campus police.

  Another student majoring in criminal justice was arrested for possession of 500 grams of cocaine and two guns, officials said.

  “A sad commentary is that when one of these individuals was arrested, he inquired as to whether or not his arrest and incarceration would have an effect on his becoming a federal law enforcement officer,” said Ralph Partridge, special agent-in-charge for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

  If he delivered that line with a straight face, I salute him.

When signs change perspectives

Been meaning to take a photo of this for a while. First time I saw it I was all ‘what the…some weird owl-nerd creature.’ (Looked at from the other direction, it’s a bike-path indicator.) It still amuses me.

Brief thoughts on “The Slip”

Giving it a second listen here now:

• At 43 minutes this is the shortest album Trent R. has released since Pretty Hate Machine, and while arguably you can look at Ghosts I-IV as being a complement to it all that could have easily swollen the size of it, taking a more compact route all around with this one seems just right.
• Initial impressions among many friends ranked it as Trent by numbers to a large extent and I can’t disagree — without the selling point of Ghosts as a fully instrumental collection, this feels like a combination extension and reworking of recent obsessions on the rhythm front, as the lead ’singles’ “Discipline” and “Echoplex” (and I can’t get over the name of that one, knowing how much my old roommate/housemate Jake loved his — and a more un-Trent-like person I could not name) showed already. This is so far enjoyable rather than striking, and in terms of compressed pop punch nothing still beats “The Hand That Feeds” for me when it comes to the last three years, though I suspect everything on here will be more of a grower with time.
• It is, however, extremely poppy in the best possible way — elsewhere today friend Anthony talked about how he might have figured Trent would have in fact gone ahead and just ‘dropped the boogie’ once he was off a major label, but as I said in response, there’s some part of him that will always want to be Prince. I think this is exactly what he needed and showed from the start, to excellent effect, and his devotion to astringent funk — again, “Echoplex” provides a prime example — pays off in spades. There are a couple of quiet and ambient moments as per usual — indeed, it’s interesting that all the instrumentals didn’t just end up on Ghosts, and “Corona Radiata” is an entrancing take on that style, while “Lights in the Sky” lets him indulge in his piano jones once again, nearly two decades removed from “Something I Can Never Have” but still tackling that sorrowful bent.
• The whole thing, as I muttered earlier today, is yet another astounding PR move on the part of Reznor and his team — and there’s no doubt that having learned their lessons well they got in the server space to handle everything properly, links and downloads worked like a charm for folks and I got my Apple Lossless torrent downloaded within a couple of hours on my DSL line.
• Finally, I’m still wondering what exactly the full impact of these experiments will turn out to be. Earlier today something occurred to me that hadn’t fully before — most of the various comments on the ‘free’ experiments and downloads and alternate arrangements address the question of how new bands and acts might make money in this environment, but I’ve now been wondering what if anything the current high profile pop acts would exactly do in the face of all this. The method of sale for Ghosts demonstrated one way forward; this even more consumer friendly approach is another and fully transforms the idea of album-as-promotional-tool for the current time and place.

More detailed thoughts at another time, perhaps.

Monday book musings

Two more mini-reviews here, since I’m feeling a bit tired and rundown today. But hopefully The Slip will spark me up more tonight. Anyway:

• Ken Mandelbaum’s Not Since Carrie, written back in 1991, covers flop musicals on Broadway ranging from the just-post-war period or so through the time of the book’s publication. I’d guess this was in part the inspiration of another book I read last year, Second Act Trouble by Steven Suskin, though that covered less plays and did so in an interesting fashion, relying on either contemporaneous or otherwise specific commentaries about the musicals in question and therefore actually being an anthology (and an often very interesting one) rather than a study. Suskin’s volume concludes with a famous piece about a retrospectively famous disaster, Lewis Lapham’s Saturday Evening Post piece on the 1965 production Kelly, and it’s worth checking out for that alone.

  Kelly is discussed in Mandelbaum’s book as well, but his focus is that of celebratory analysis of a wide range of numbers, acknowledging faults but also looking to find gems and to discuss why some sure-fire bets go down (as well as looking at which bets should never have been made to begin with). As such it’s actually a fantastic study not merely of the subject in question but of Broadway culture in general, specifically that knowledgeable fanbase that has become its own stereotype above and beyond more ‘obvious’ ones. (Mandelbaum’s odd skirting around gay issues — sometimes clearly stated, other times left as cryptic comments — is a bit strange, but possibly only given the passage of time.) He’s especially strong at noted the afterlife cult of some failed musicals by means of the original cast recordings, a common but not always fully recognized practice that even short-run productions often made before being shut down, and some of his best discussions throughout the book touch on how a strong or at least passable cast recording with some good songs can end up masking the dramatic failure of the original presentation to start with.

  A sequel would be of interest, and the fact that it ends before the impact of Disney upon Broadway is unfortunate but, again, inevitable given the time of its publication. Ultimately where it succeeds is that it goes beyond the usual if still enjoyable snark approach towards failures to bring an at-times idiosyncratic but still very well-informed and expressed popular history of the downsides of Broadway that becomes a good general study in its own right. And yes, the musical of Carrie is discussed, as a framing device for the book that also serves as a sharp analysis of why people rush to see flops before they close. Intriguing stuff all around.

• Dan Kennedy’s new book Rock On is also about failure — which is appropriate, seeing as the book fails. Badly.

  I was unsure whether to spend too much time talking about this book or not, so grouping it in within a shorter post like this seems to be the best. A couple of friends had looked at it already and mentioned its shortcomings, but a coworker at the library had read it and indicated it was all right enough. Not knowing anything about his work, but thinking that the subject matter was promising (guy talks about his experience working at a major label this decade as the business started to collapse inwardly), I thought, ‘why not?’

  The giveaway, though, should have been the fact that Kennedy’s a contributor to McSweeney’s — simply put, the style of Dan Eggers’ breakthrough, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, has had the same pernicious effect on first-person writing as Wes Anderson has had on any number of filmmakers (or Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan on graphic novels or the Flaming Lips’ Soft Bulletin on bands, except I like those two, at least). The hyperarchness masquerading as unironic naivete which is part and parcel of all these creations is something an audience member has to deal with in an individual way; I deal with it via barked annoyance.

  And so while there are stories buried within Rock On that are of amusing interest, too much of it feels like a dreary Xerox of texts and styles, and the fact that Jerry Stahl’s given a blurb to this thing on the back cover feels deflating somehow, given how excellent Permanent Midnight was and is. Kennedy’s hardly trying to be Stahl, I’ll note, and I’m glad of that. In any event, there’s a suffocating preciousness in this book’s organization, its chapter titles, its interjections and lists, its portrayals of office politics that aren’t anywhere at all new or interesting or surprising…there’s so little here to sink one’s teeth into. It’s all just so frustrating, and having him break into yet another monologue that boils down to ‘why am I here again? gosh I’m so out of place! am I the only person who feels like this and realizes what’s going on?’ makes it all out to be a combination of self-congratulation and droning dullness.

  I’ll just end by noting that one of the most bizarre tics Kennedy has throughout the book is the refusal to directly name the ‘grandson of the liquor mogul’ who ended up buying out the company and letting a slew of people go, including himself. This was and is Edgar Bronfman Jr., of course. This wasn’t a secret. It wasn’t meant to be a secret. There’s no way it can be a secret. This is public knowledge. He bought the company, he let people go, he still runs it. And yes he’s written songs on the side too, including at least one for Celine Dion. This is also public knowledge. He’s richer than God. He’s had all sorts of things said about him. The amount of time he would give to caring about whether or not his name was mentioned in this book is probably less than nil. SO JUST GO AHEAD AND MENTION HIS NAME FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, JEEZ!

Meantime, I’ve only had a chance to dip into this one for a bit before having to return it, but John Darwin’s After Tamerlane looks to be a well-written and argued survey of ‘world history’ from the death of that figure onward from the point of view of early 21st century scholarship, bringing in subaltern work, oral histories, a less Eurocentric perception and a series of overarching meditations on the non-inevitability of European triumph and the reign of the American hyperpower. Book was recalled so it’s out of my hands now, but I’ll try and snag it again at some point.