We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It

EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED: Illumina, Johnny Brendas, December 1, 2006 [FLICKR] EVA SAYS: Whenever I see Illumina, I like to imagine myself up there with them, jumping, dancing, and harmonizing all the live-long day. If only I could play an instrument, the cowbell even, maybe I could aim to be half as cool as these guys. Their whole LET’S START A BAND rockchestra steez is irresistibly fun — what with the cute Asian keyboardist, singing all cute and Asian-like, a small string section demurely rocking out and some crazy drummer in the back blowing on a whistle so sincerely you’re reminded […]

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JADED FUCKIN’ INDIE GUY: How I Learned To Love The ’80s And Still Thank God That They Are OVER

OF MONTREAL: Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? (Polyvinyl) ED KING REPORTS: I’m going to be a bigger man and put aside my distaste for album titles like Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer — Let’s talk about the music. Every time I find myself looking back with more fondness than I’d ever thought I could muster on the last days of disco, the final hits by ELO, and the early days of synth-pop, something like this new Of Montreal album hits my radar. The album opens with the bracing vocals, phased guitar, and index-finger synth lines of “Suffer for […]

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HOLLA: GUNS! WEED! COPS! Say It Ain’t So, SNOOP!

THE WOOK REPORTS: Wait a second — am I to discern from yesterday’s news that Snoop Dogg’s an unrepentant and heavily-armed stoner? Exactly. That incredulous, “how far outside of the pop cultural beltway do you hover, Wook” sentiment is exactly how the LAPD must feel every time they have to do some limpin’ to the pimpin’, whether it be at LAX or outside the NBC Studios. The fact is that after a decade of extolling the virtues of the sticky icky icky clear across the commercial landscape – be it music, film, porn or kids books – “Snoop as stoner” […]

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The Resurrection Of GREGG FOREMAN?

FROM PITCHFORK: Chan Marshall has recruited Dirty Three’s Jim White, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s Judah Bauer, the Delta 72’s Gregg Foreman, and Lizard Music’s Erik Paparozzi to accompany her on the rest of her tour dates this year, under the appropriate band name of “Dirty Delta Blues”. Four of those dates feature White and Bauer as the opening act and two will be in California for New Year’s celebrations with Gnarls Barkley and the Flaming Lips. PREVIOUSLY: Heroin Is Cool WILL Fuck Your Shit Up [PW]

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Now Playing On PHAWKER RADIO: How I Learned To STOP WORRYING About Chaos And LOVE Free Jazz

BY DAN BUSKIRK “I hope I never like this stuff,” I remember thinking as a 15-year-old, tuning past Philly’s jazz station, WRTI. Jazz was too unmelodic, too cerebral and too unsexy to my revved-up, hormone-addled mind, sentiments similar to what I still hear from many adult music lovers. For me, it was only a few years later that I finally found myself deep into jazz, after making my way up the time line from the big bands (the AM radio in my first car was set to the old timers’ station, WPEN), to Sinatra, to Chet Baker to Miles and […]

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I AM JADED FUCKIN’ INDIE GUY and You Will Know Me By The Trail Of Dead and the Sting Of Mine Envy

ED KING REPORTS: Show of hands, please: Who else found Mackenzie Phillips’ annoying kid sister character in American Graffiti kind of hot and wished that Paul LeMat’s Milner character would drop his noble rebel pose and give the girl the ride she deserved? As I listen to Ys, Joanna Newsom’s new rallying call for indie guys who love art school girls, sadly for the most part, from afar, and as I work hard to tune out constantly repeated critical buzz phrases like “classically trained” and “Van Dyke Parks,” I’m reminded of the desire my young, twisted teenage heart felt for […]

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