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Archive for May, 2008

Min Jin Lee–Free Food for Millionaires (2007)

Posted in Big Books, Canadian Music, Consumerism, Digression, Foreign Books, Marriage Trouble, Min Jin Lee, Pearl Jam, Religion, Rush, Set in New Jersey!, Smarty Pants, Twin Peaks, Universities on May 28, 2008 | 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RUSH-Snakes and Arrows Live (2008).
Rush puts out a lot of live CDs. They started out back in the 70s by doing a live record after every four studio records. Then at some point they broke the pattern and just went nuts with the releases. The pro and con of a [...]

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Andi Watson & Josh Howard–Clubbing (2007)

Posted in Andi Watson, Books about music, BritLit, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Consumerism, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Hex, Josh Howard, Marriage Trouble, Short Books, Supernatural, YA Books on May 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: X-More Fun in the New World (1983).
This is one of the first CDs I ever bought. When CDs first starting coming out, I was a freshman in college. There was a woman in a nearby dorm, Anita, who was super cool and had great taste in music. I, of course, had [...]

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Ben Greenman–Superbad (2001)

Posted in Ben Greenman, Corporate skewering, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), McSweeney's, New Yorker, Political Humor, Short Books, Short Story, Smarty Pants, Superbad, The Beautiful South on May 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BEAUTIFUL SOUTH-Superbi (2007).
I reviewed all of the Beautiful South records a few posts back. This one had not been released in the US at the time, and as far as I can tell has yet to be. But I ordered the import and here it is. Reviewing this is somewhat irrelevant [...]

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Roddy Doyle–”Bullfighting” (New Yorker, February 28, 2008)

Posted in Dead Kennedys, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Pearl Jam, Roddy Doyle, Short Story, The Avengers, X on May 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PEARL JAM-Live at Easy Street (2006).
This is a live EP of Pearl Jam playing at the Easy Street record store in West Seattle. Wikipedia says their set list had 16 songs; however the EP (which is only about 25 minutes) has 7 songs. The EP is really great, though, as it contains [...]

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Robert Coover–Stepmother (2004)

Posted in Boston, MA, Fantasy, Lemonheads, McSweeney's, Paul Debraski, Robert Coover, Short Books on May 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: The LEMONHEADS-The Lemonheads (2006).
I was a big fan of The Lemonheads back when they were riding the wave of indie pop fame back in the 1990s. Evan Dando was a poster boy of hunkiness, and he was paired with alt-pop-queen Juliana Hatfield. (Immortalized in the Barenaked Ladies song “Jane” [...]

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Benjamin Percy–”April 20, 2008″ (Esquire, May 2008)

Posted in Badly Drawn Boy, Benjamin Percy, Digression, Esquire, Pink Floyd, Short Story, Tanakh, Tindersticks, Tom Waits, Wikipedia on May 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TANAKH-Tanakh (2004) & Ardent Fevers (2006).
Tanakh are part of the whole Montreal subculture that I really like. Even though Jesse Poe, the founder lives and records in Virginia, somehow he got involved with the Quebeckers. They release CDs on the venerable Constellation and Alien8Records labels. They also released two CDs in [...]

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Michael J. Nelson–Mike Nelson’s Death Rat! (2003)

Posted in Adventure, Art Brut, Books about writers, Funny (ha ha), King Missile, MST3K, Michael J. Nelson, Minnesota, Smarty Pants on May 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ART BRUT-It’s a Bit Complicated (2007).
Art Brut is a really great punky band from England. Their first album contained two great singles: “Formed a Band” and “My Little Brother.” The premise of the band is that they play fast but melodic songs–they’re punk, but not thrash, and the songs are crisp. [...]

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Stephen Dixon–End of I. (2006)

Posted in Books about writers, Funny (strange), Marriage Trouble, McSweeney's, Public Enemy, Short Books, Stephen Dixon, The Go! Team on May 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: The Go! Team-Proof of Youth.
I reviewed the first Go! Team record a few months ago. I really enjoyed it but I wondered what they could do for a follow up. And, indeed, I was right to wonder. This album follows very similarly to their first record. They use a similar style of cheerleader/chanting over [...]

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Eric Hoffman & Gary Rudoren–Comedy By the Numbers (2007)

Posted in Dip-in Books, Eric Hoffman, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Gary Rudoren, Lush, McSweeney's, Mr Show, Pretty Girls Make Graves, X-Ray Spex on May 6, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PRETTY GIRLS MAKE GRAVES-Elan Vital (2006).
Every time I listen to this record I think I’m not going to like it, and that is because I really don’t like the first song. I’ve never had a record that rubbed me so badly off the bat and then turned out to be such a fulfilling record [...]

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