[as high as you want to go] [i may be a bird in a cage but at least it's your cage]

LiveJournal, I know I don't talk to you enough these days. I'm sorry! I'm just really busy. Running around after bands, mostly, but then also sleeping in huge chunks when the huge amounts of time spent running around after bands are finished. I will update you more often. Or at least I'll think about it.

I'm working on an interview project, finalizing a series of generic questions that will then be furthered tailored to each interviewee, and I could use some help brainstorming things I'd like to ask these people. So first; If you could ask any musician any question about baseball, what would it be? (I realized that my niche market is the intersection of music and baseball, and I'm trying to capitalize on that.) And second: musicians or music bloggers who are also vocal baseball fans. I have a pretty nice start to a list, but I could use more, if you can think of any. Yes, Craig Finn is on my list. Yes, if I land an interview with Craig Finn, I will fall over briefly before regaining my composure.

Got a great question? Got a great musician suggestion? Leave 'em in the comments. I'll give you credit if it comes to fruition, this project. (Especially good if you have contact info. Like, if you have Brian Fallon's email address, leave it here, please.)
The last time I asked you guys for recommendations of books about music/music history, you were awesome. Time to play that game again! Books about music (specific bands, memoirs, whatever) or music history (genres, scenes, etc) that you'd recommend.

Recently and not so recently I have read and loved: Our Band Could Be Your Life; Please Kill Me (well, I'm still in the middle of that; I carry it in my camera bag for solo shows); Love Is A Mix Tape; Dixie Lullaby; Across The Great Divide: the Band and America; Just Kids; Miss O'Dell: My Life With The Beatles etc; Positively 4th Street. Girls Like Us is on my to-read list.

I'm not really picky about subject material as long as the writing's good, though I'm also not really interested in anything re: metal. ALRIGHT GO.

I will trade you those recommendations for this list of the 10 Best Music Documentaries of the past decade. :D? :D?
I think that the Truckers' two-night stand at the Lincoln still tops my list of shows for the year, but the Two Cow Garage show at Kings three Sundays ago was also phenomenal, for me at least, and this is one of my favorite photos I've taken this year. The National at Memorial Auditorium a few weeks ago is also handily in the top five. Probably my top five shows of the year are as follows: Truckers' two-night stand at the Lincoln, 02/2010; Brian Fallon & Dave Hause at the Black Cat, 01/2010; the National at Memorial, 10/2010; Superchunk at the Cradle, 05/2010; Two Cow at Kings, 10/2010. Ha Ha Tonka this past Tuesday would come in at 6.

But ask me again next week, it might change.
I am also working on my year end top 25 albums list. It is harder than I expected it to be; the top ten was pretty easy, both objectively and subjectively, but after that, it gets murky. I shall have a lot of re-listening to do in the next two months. Nobody else release anything good, I can't cope.

But also: hey, what's YOUR favorite album of 2010? I don't promise to listen to it, but I do promise to not judge.
Two Thursdays ago I pitched a million publicists, and then when I was done, I still had to do my day job. It was simultaneously exciting and depressing. I love my day job, but sometimes it is just not what I want to, you know, do every day. Then I got ignored by publicists and it made me cranky.
College football teams I am invested in this season: Auburn, and everything Cam Newton has thrown out of windows; Iowa, and their fine-lookin' Proud American Patriot Quarterback Ricky Stanzi, even if his hair is bad; Oregon and their Offensive Death Machine of Death; Boise State, because Boise State.

Everyone else can go hang. LSU was interesting until they lost. I am mad at Butch Davis. Even the Beam and VaTech are boring this year. Oregon, though. Man. That offense. I don't even know.
I wrote this post like 10 days ago and keep not posting it. Um. The only other things that have happened have been a) having a total meltdown at work two Mondays ago (I'm fine now), and b) Frank Turner is ruining my life. My Christmas mix was SO CLOSE to being done and then he released a new single and it was REALLY GOOD but I already had one of his songs in the mix, have for months, and I don't put two songs from one artist on the mix, so now I have to decide if I want to replace the song that was already there or save the new single and build the 2011 mix around it. Also ruining my life because he's not my boyfriend, but that one is less solvable. ALAS. FRANK TURNER, I LOVE YOU, BE MY BOYFRIEND.

That's all I got, y'all. What's up with you?

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BTW we are totally enjoying the new Sherlock Holmes on Masterpiece Mystery. Martin Freeman FTW!

Also: so far my best album of 2010 is a tie between Blonde Redhead "Penny Sparkle" and Marina & the Diamonds "Family Jewels".

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Is Please Kill Me yours or a library book? If it's yours, I want it when you are done.

Ummmm... well, I sent you Get in the Van. On a Cold Road is pretty good but VASTLY more related to my interests than yours. I do think you'd like Have Not Been The Same, but it's really hard to find and therefore expensive. It's also huge, but it's great; sort of the Canadian equivalent of Our Band Could Be Your Life (and there is actually some interesting overlap, the way movements crossed the border and what did and did not get picked up). I could give you my copy if you promise to give it back. :D?

My to-read list currently includes Kids of the Black Hole (for obvious reasons) and Rock & Roll Will Save Your Life, but I can't rec them because I have not read them. Oh, and there's some book about Darby Crash I want to read, even though I doubt it will be any good, because I feel the same way about Darby Crash as I do about Henry Rollins: CRY MOAR.

And now I'm going to watch all of those documentaries, assuming I can turn off this goddamn acoustic set ever ever ever.

If you haven't read "True Adventures of the Rolling Stones" or Lester Bangs' oeuvre, those are crucial.

Oh, and you remind me that I want to read Keith Richards' new book, too! I hear it is gossipy and amazing.

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He did a great interview about it on Fresh Air, if you're up for a listen I can probably dig the link up at work tomorrow.

I will never stop loving that his nickname for Mick Jagger is "Brenda."

Edited Date: 2010-11-04 03:37 am (UTC)

Ah, thanks, but I'll just dig it out of their podcast archives at some point No worries. :)

WTF Cam Newton?!

We have family friends who live and die with Iowa, so I've been cheering for them, too.

Boise State!!

Cam Newton did not, it must be said, actually throw all those things out windows. For the record.

But he would like to?

i just finished nothing feels good by andy greenwald, and i really enjoyed it. it's about the evolution of emo from the dc hardcore scene through dashboard confessional (with a heavy focus on dashboard). and rob sheffield has a new book that i haven't read yet, but i loved love is a mix tape so much that i can't imagine it won't be awesome. it's called talking to girls about duran duran.

favorite album of the year is either shira's my heart is full of lightning or los campesinos' romance is boring. although if eps count, then it's definitely damion suomi's needs a little water. he's in the studio recording what is already my most anticipated album of 2011 right now! yay! you would probably like him, i think- we've dubbed him folk punk, and he was far and away the best live show i saw this year.

I am buying my maternal unit Talking To Girls About Duran Duran for Christmas and plan to read it before gifting it. :)

I liked Romance Is Boring but their first album is still my favorite of theirs; what about this one grabbed you?

i actually bought it on a whim because i liked the album art and song titles, and it just really grabbed me in a way that music hasn't in a while. it was actually like listening to a well-done version of the keys to cat heaven album i had bought on a whim a few months earlier, like it was everything i was hoping that album would have been. now that i've listened to all three of theirs though, i like we are beautiful, we are doomed more. it's much more vibrant.

i may be a bird in a cage but at least it's your cage

[as high as you want to go]

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July