New single from Everything Hits At Once: The Best of Spoon, coming July 26th.
Check it, yo.
Replacements At A Turning Point
Here’s a great 32-year-old article from SPIN’s archives, from around the time that I was getting into them. (Yes, I was late to the party and had to work my way back through the Twin/Tone albums.) The band had just parted ways with manager Pete Jesperson, fired lead guitarist Bob Stinson, and released one of their best albums, Pleased To Meet Me. Recorded right here in Memphis!
“When we started,” [Westerberg] says, pausing to sip from a midmorning Schmidt, “we definitely had a fear of success. We had a fear of everything. We were all very paranoid, and I think that goes hand in hand with the excessive drinking thing. We’d get drunk because we were basically scared shitless, and that snowballed into image. Now we’re a little more assured of what we’re doing. We’re not positive which way we’re going, but we think we know what mistakes lie ahead, and we’re trying to sidestep ‘em.”
Full article here.
Any Good Thing They Ever Sold They Stole
New Titus Andronicus, from the album An Obelisk. Out today!
They’re taking an old religion, fitting it with a different name
Now we’re cutting our own incisions and inserting their hurting pain
It’s another innocent victim shivering in the frigid cold
They’re making a dirty fortune selling something that’s barely working
An inferior version of rock and roll
Or whatever else ever has touched your soul
Call it what you will — there’s a billion of them they sold
They’re taking credit that they’re not earning
Any good thing they ever sold they stole
Oh yeah
They’re making a television different than the old one was
A limited deluxe edition, it’s a superior version of
Of the previous week’s installment, but ain’t it all the same? (Pretty much)
Yet I comfort myself at night with transmission by satellite
It’s like a good enough facsimile of real love
I guess I got a habit same as everyone else does
We’re all banging down doors, trying to grab that stuff
But we never should have left it up to the judge
That passed the bill that illegalized us
They illegalized us
Oh yeah
The inferior version, it isn’t really rock and roll
It’s but a shallow imitation — it doesn’t really get ya goin’
And there ain’t no good explanation why it’s flying off the shelves
It’s a sorry situation — entire world’s going to hell
But I in no way blame myself
Though I helped those bastards to sell that inferior version we love so well
An inferior version of rock and roll
An inferior version of rock and roll
They’re making a dirty fortune off an inferior version of rock and roll
Whoa yeah
What I’m Reading Right Now
I somehow made it to 50 without ever reading any of Raymond Carver’s short stories, but I’m fixing that now with this collection. Great stuff! Little depressing slices of life that any bastard can relate to. Perfect bedtime reading …
By the time of his early death in 1988, Raymond Carver had established himself as one of the great practitioners of the American short story, a writer who had not only found his own voice but imprinted it in the imaginations of thousands of readers. Where I’m Calling From, his last collection, encompasses classic stories from Cathedral, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, and earlier Carver volumes, along with seven new works previously unpublished in book form. Together, these 37 stories give us a superb overview of Carver’s life work and show us why he was so widely imitated but never equaled.
I picked this one up in hardback at Barnes & Noble for a few bucks. Chabon I’m quite familiar with, having read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Wonder Boys, and Werewolves in Their Youth. I honestly believe Chabon is one of our greatest living writers. Anyhoo …
In 1989, fresh from the publication of his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon traveled to his mother’s home in Oakland, California, to visit his terminally ill grandfather. Tongue loosened by powerful painkillers, memory stirred by the imminence of death, Chabon’s grandfather shared recollections and told stories the younger man had never heard before, uncovering bits and pieces of a history long buried and forgotten. That dreamlike week of revelations forms the basis for the novel Moonglow, the latest feat of legerdemain from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon.
My Thoughts Exactly
Some guy on the Internet, regarding last night’s Game of Thrones episode …
As a stand-alone piece of entertainment it was excellent. As a piece of the narrative of a long running show, it was trash.
Pretty much.
Also, this guy’s comment with SPOILERS …
Okay, see, what I thought they were building to with Dany was “Her desire to retake the throne ultimately overshadows her noble ideals and brings out her tyrannical side.”
Not “Well, we already won, but guess I’m the Mad Queen now, time to burn everything!”
It’s just so clumsy. They wanted a Big Moment and raced to get there, but there’s no real sense of interiority with the character anymore. The moral of the story is “Some people are just crazy!”
Everything felt just very rote and lifeless. All the actors look bored. The same generic looking peasant woman gets horribly brutalized about 5 different times. Arya finds a horse. The whole thing stinks of the kind of edgy nihilism people accused the show of being, but which I don’t think it actually slid into before. Until now.
Hell Yes
Judging from this trailer, IT Chapter 2 looks to be another faithful adaptation of the book.
I’m fired up!
Medic!
This week, on another episode of “Ow, my balls.” I shouldn’t really find humor in other people’s pain, but these are pretty funny. Lots of the mishaps happened on the football pitch. I’ve always wondered why FIFA can’t pony up for a decent stretcher to haul injured players off the field.
Abandoned Homes On Billionaires Row
This is bonkers.
Inside billionaires Row, London’s rotting derelict mansions worth 350 million pound a third of the mansions on the most expensive stretch of London’s “billionaires row” are standing empty several huge mansions have fallen into ruin after being abandoned for a quarter of a century.
I explored all that I could wear such risky explore.