You know comics are a big pop-culture deal when jokes about the supposed pretentiousness of the term “graphic novels” are made in Levi’s commercials.

For your listening pleasure tonight (or until the ATF triumvirate sees what I’m doing, whatever), I present three chills-inducing Tori Amos live covers.

Father Figure (George Michael)–from her concert in San Francisco a couple of nights ago. Sexy.

Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues) One of my favorite songs, by my parents’ favorite band. Gorgeous, dead-on vocals and piano on this one–ooh, just thinking about it gives me goosebumps.

Purple Rain (Prince)–This tune (which served as, shall we say, “inspiration” for Tori’s song “Hey Jupiter” off Boys for Pele) is a perennial favorite amongst Toriphiles, but the version I’ve uploaded is one I hadn’t heard until recently. Rather than play it on her grand piano, she went with a harmonium instead, which is a very different and somehow more intimate vibe. There’s also some lovely, soaring guitar, just before those killer high notes.

More to come, if Ken, Ben, and Ton don’t yell at me.

(Blogging likely to remain sparse until the home-internet situation is fixed, which doesn’t look to be any time soon. Just F y’all’s I.)

Question: What kind of idiot would argue that Trent Reznor’s angst on the fragile felt phony and forced whereas his angst on with teeth constitutes “music we can believe in”?

Answer: The kind of idiot who writes cover stories for Spin!

It’s really fascinating to watch the critical consensus backtrack and rewrite itself Nineteen Eighty-Four-style. (This is what enables every Prince record to be his comeback, every David Bowie album to be the only one worth listening to since Scary Monsters, and The Blair Witch Project to once again be one of the best horror movies ever made now that The Ring uses videotape.) In this particular Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia incident, the author points out that Spin named the fragile the Best Album of 1999, but then goes on to say it’s a plodding, by-the-numbers affair that didn’t really deserve the accolade. I’ve seen this notion reflected in any number of reviews for with teeth, used to praise wt‘s (let’s put this politely) somewhat straightforward approach to songcraft as opposed to the fragile‘s legendarily obsessive construction. Boo, hiss. Not only is this a manifestation of Woody Allen style Earlier, Funnier Stuffitis (albeit in chronological reverse), it rejects earlier acknowledgements of the depth, intelligence, and beauty of the fragile pretty much solely because the album didn’t sell very well whereas with teeth‘s nu-rock-radio-friendly singles-in-waiting will probably do just fine. (Again, many reviewers have all but acknowledged this, and this feature’s no exception.) Blecch.

Interestingly (to me), I listened to the fragile today and it holds up unbelievably well, much better than I thought it might given my headspace now versus then. When listened to in headphones many tracks have an odd tendency to break into their constituent parts, almost like you can see the ProTools strings, but for my money that only enhances the insular man-and-his-madness transmission quality of the record.

Number of New York area radio stations that played mostly new alternative rock in 1994: Five (92.3 K-ROCK, 92.7 WDRE, 100.3 Z-100, 102.7 WNEW, 104.3 Q-104.3)

Number of New York area radio stations that play mostly new alternative rock now: Zero

If these posts have felt rushed and disjointed lately, it’s because they are: My net access is limited these days so I’m blogging in a hurry. Hopefully this will be rectified soon, but I’m not holding my breath. I hope you’ll tough it out with me.

Okay, now I can’t stop listening to with teeth. I’ve talked myself into really enjoying it a great deal. True, Trent is no longer at the vanguard of rock development–gone are the days where Spin would list him as the most vital artist in the industry. And the electroclashy moments, though naturally I enjoy the hell out of them, are more follower than leader. (O’course, he was there before them–you could slide “Ringfinger” into any Larry Tee DJ set you’d care to.) But as a whole it propels along with a crunchy glee. Even “every day is exactly the same” is starting to grow on me in its ploddingly catchy fashion; I just wish it did something unexpected at some point, like the wonderfully weird dance-rock of “Only” or that terrific dental-drill guitar(?) in “Sunspots.” Well, one thing I (re)discovered yesterday is that it sure feels great to roll down a suburban street with your car windows open, blasting a song that says “fuck” a lot.

Rose Curtin comments on the harmful effects of glib rape references, even when those references are made in ostensible protest of other glib rape references. The post is worth reading in its entirety and so I’m not going to run the risk of summarizing it by commenting upon it here. I will say that it reminds me that with the death of Dworkin, there are issues far more worth thinking about than debating whether or not Dworkin herself was a reactionary paranoiac.

I have revised my opinion about the new nine inch nails record, with teeth. It is no longer an “eh”–it’s a “hey, that’s really good except for those two momentum-killing stinkers he saddled it with!” And those would be “every day is exactly the same” and “the line begins to blur.” Both songs’ titles give you some idea of how you feel upon listening to them. I got bored quick, and I’m a person who loved the fragile, which other NIN fans of my acquaintance have referred to as the boring, so that should maybe tell you something. Anyway, I’d recommend it.

Not recommended: Silent Alarm by Bloc Party. If you’re looking for the bigwinner of the “Who Can Most Slavishly Imitate K-Tel’s Classic Post-Punk Hits of the late ’70s and Early ’80s?” contest, here you are. I spent the whole time thinking, “What, do they think we are unable to download Gang of Four albums?” Almost entirely superfluous, and I think the huge wave of critical support they’re earning says a lot about record critics and how happy they are that they finally have something dour, humorless and Important-Sounding to support amidst the Franz Ferdinands and Fischerspooners of this big ’80s revival we find ourselves in. However, as my friend Josiah pointed out to me, his voice does sound an awful lot like Damon Albarn’s more heavily accented moments circa Parklife, and since Damon himself has been unlistenable for the past few years, it does have that to recommend it.

Line of the day: “If I was not me, I would hate me too.” Fischerspooner, “Never Win.”

Supposedly Tori Amos covered “By My Side” from Godspell last night. Holy shit. Ugh, holy moses, I’m getting chills just thinking of it. (I am the biggest Godspell fan this side of the members of the State.)

Hey, doesn’t the State sound like the name of a retro-rock band? Like a group that only plays analog synths and is signed to Sympathy for the Record Industry or something?

David Jones reviews David Bowie! I know Bowie had heretofore pretty much disowned his live albums David Live and Stage, so I’m surprised to see them re-emerge. And I’m thrilled that Stage has been resequenced to represent the playing order of the actual concert; the original album’s songs were rearranged in chronological order of the original songs’ release, an odd and project-defeating choice. On to the Amazon wish list with you!

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that I am a recurring character on my brother-in-law’s podcast, Air Ferg. I feature rather prominently in the latest episode if I’m not mistaken, so download accordingly.

I think that’s everything.

Today’s Bowie songs:

72. I

David Bowie songs I’ve listened to today:

1. Repetition

2. Art Decade

3. Fill Your Heart

4. Little Wonder

5. Rock

Our Internet connection at home is still down. Lousy timing, considering I just resurrected this blog, but we’ll get by. So real quick:

As if in response to my recent wond’ring aloud as to why there aren’t more horrorblogs, three of the comics blogosphere’s most horror-friendly writers, Kevin Melrose, Rick Geerling, and Sam Costello, have joined forces to create Dark, But Shining, a blog dedicated to horror, fantasy, and sci-fi. AWESOME. It’s already a daily stop. I’m hoping to participate in some capacity myself soon, so watch this space.

Toriphiles are directed to MollyKnight.com, where the titular Toriphile offers her take on the Tori show I saw this weekend. (No permalinks, inexplicably–look for the April 11th entry.)

Marc Mason, Kent Allard Jr. and Julian Sanchez ease into the warm, welcoming waters of Caesar’s Bath.

Finally, here are some songs I’ve been enjoying over the past couple weeks.

* Tori Amos: Beauty Queen/Horses

* Tori Amos: Doughnut Song

* Tori Amos: Yes, Anastasia

* Azure Ray: Displaced

* Azure Ray: The Drinks We Drank Last Night

* Azure Ray: Sleep

* Beatles: Don’t Let Me Down

* Beatles: Taxman

* Black Leotard Front: Casual Friday

* The Brian Jonestown Massacre: Jesus

* Citizens Here & Abroad: Appearances

* Death from Above 1979: Blood on Our Hands

* Death from Above 1979: Romantic Rights (that’s right, I changed my mind)

* Doves: Black and White Town

* Doves: Snowden

* Electric Six: Radio Ga-Ga

* J.O.Y.: Sunplus (DFA Remix)

* The Juan Maclean: Give Me Every Little Thing

* LCD Soundsystem: Beat Connection

* M83: Don’t Save Us from the Flames

* Roxy Music: Sunset

* The Venus in Furs: 2HB

What’re yours? Email’s to the left!

Two interesting essays on horror to talk about today.

First, courtesy of Jim Dougan, comes this piece by the Washington Post’s Stephen Hunter. Man OH man is Hunter in love with the sound of his own written voice, but that aside it’s an interesting enough read, tracing the horror film’s evolution through various temporal and generic stages in a fairly comprehensive fashion. (Of course, I’ve yet to see a piece of this type that doesn’t miss at least one major phase; in this case he glosses over the sci-fi anxiety of the ’50s.) If you can get through his belabored attempt to argue that the true purpose of horror films is to get teenage boys to second base in the theater–not particularly convincing at least as far as the current crop of horror flicks is concerned; today’s kids (and my days kids, come to think of it) are apparently doling out oral with more frequency than handshakes, so who needs to go see The Amityville Horror in order to score?–he makes at least one truly valuable point in tying The Blair Witch Project to the current crop of J-horror

Last night Amy and I went to see Tori Amos play at the Bushnell in Hartford, Connecticut. I had a good time, but personally, I just think I’m not the target audience for a Tori Amos concert anymore. I’d seen her once before–in 1995, I believe, after her third album, Boys for Pele, came out. At the time, she’d recorded three albums (Little Earthquakes, Under the Pink, Boys for Pele), all of which I loved. In the intervening decade, however, she’s made two records I didn’t like (From the Choirgirl Hotel, To Venus and Back), two records I like but have not listened to that much, particularly compared to the first three albums (Strange Little Girls, Scarlet’s Walk), and one record that just came out and I hadn’t heard anything from prior to the concert (The Beekeeper). So I was basically attending a concert at which I had no real connection to more than half of the material the artist would be drawing from; a first for me. Also, we went with a posse of people who follow Tori around on tour, some of whom have seen something like 60-80 shows of hers; this also puts a different spin on things versus just picking up a couple of tickets and going to the concert. So I’m afraid I felt at a bit of a loss to evaluate most of the show. Any time she played anything from the first three records, I loved it; four of my favorites from those albums were accounted for (“Beauty Queen/Horses,” “Silent All These Years” (remember, if you’ve only seen two Tori concerts in your entire life and the last one was a decade ago, that song is not overplayed), “Cloud on My Tongue,” and “Twinkle”–which, as a matter of fact, was actually played for Amy, who requested it in person before the show in honor of our friend Bobo.). As for the rest of the songs…well, you can certainly appreciate the musicianship and the showmanship–it’s pretty impressive to see her play a technically perfect rendition of a song while straddling her piano bench, one hand on the big Bosendorfer on her left, the other on an organ on the opposite side. And I thought her voice was just phenomenal, particularly on lower notes, which seemed to flow right out of her and coat the audience. But I have a very particular set of Tori Amos-based expectations and emotions, and she’s different, and her audience is different. I can sit around and say “What about ‘Bells for Her’ and ‘Yes, Anastasia’ and ‘Doughnut Song’ and ‘Little Earthquakes’?” all that I want, but would that really be a better show? I want an experience that she’s just not going to be able to give me at this point. Which is fine.

Blogging will be light this weekend, because, alas, our pirated wireless connection has disappeared. (I’m writing this at the Apple Store, bless its Genius Bar heart.) In the meantime, Bill Sherman has dived into Caesar’s Bath. But that’s pretty much all I got.

More Caesar’s Bath goodness!

Dorian Wright!

Jim Henley!

Shane Bailey!

And since I’ve been making a lot of headway with all these Internet-radio suggestions I’ve been getting, does anyone know of any good music blogs I should be reading? MP3 blogs or review/crit blogs, whatever.

I’m also looking, somewhat desperately, for horrorblogs. Suggest away–the email’s to your left.

(Like the title, longtime readers?)

Hot on the heels of his new comic, Jim Dougan has a new blog! (Or LiveJournal. Whatever.) Jim is one of my bestest Internet friends, and also one of the few I’ve met in person, much to my delight. I’m glad he’s blogging.

Speaking of Internet friends, Alan David Doane has posted his version of the Caesar’s Bath meme. Gee, when you see that two things he doesn’t really see the fuss about are music and comedy, it makes the arctic shit-knife a little easier to understand, no? 🙂 Ha ha, I kid because I love.

And hey, Joe Rybandt did it too! Folks, it’s not too late to get on this bandwagon.

It is good to see that Phoebe Gloeckner is blogging a lot again.

Yesterday my coworker Justin and I were discussing this article about the continuing decline of rock radio, and in particular, this quote:

Those within the business cite poor quality music with the sharp decrease in rock listenership and ratings figures.

It is to laugh, we both thought, so we did. After all, if rock radio is dead it’s a suicide, without question: The relentless uniformity of the “format” and its aversion to playing all but the surest-things in terms of new music has made it almost entirely worthless. (Oh, how I pine for the days of freeform.) My friend and I both chuckled because, of course, there’s plenty of great rock music out there–you just wouldn’t know it from listening to your FM dial. Infinity Broadcasting, heal thyself, in other words. But then I got to thinking: Would it really make a difference? K-ROCK could have switched from its usual diet of mook-rock to nonstop LCD Soundsystem and Death Cab for Cutie and freaking Azure Ray ’round the clock, and my guess is its ratings would have gotten even lower. Sometimes I wonder if the awful stuff really does choke out the good stuff–if it isn’t just that the good stuff is thought of as such by too few people for it to be viable. And sometimes I think that it might be good to keep this in mind when discussing similar issues in other media.

Aside: I’ve now gotten several recommendations for good radio stations listentable over the Internet thanks to this post on the dearth of good music video shows. So maybe there’s some hope.

As it turns out, Citizen X is an excellent film.

Recommended.

Finally, one of my favorite writers on horror, Sam Costello, has good things to say about The Outbreak. Perhaps you will too?

In the dozen or so entries below this one you’ll find most of the substantial posts I wrote for my new blog The Outbreak before, alas, its name became eerily prescient. There’s a month’s worth of material to go through, so may I be so bold as to recommend several items?

* A look at the videos played on three music-video programs that are actually pretty good

* The Best Albums of 2004

* Ways I could have fixed The Matrix Revolutions if anyone had asked for my help

And have I mentioned that The Outbreak is an ongoing chronicle of my life during a zombie plague? Yes, this was something I’d planned out when I started the blog as a relatively normal personal/pop-cultural affair, so it was certainly fun fielding concerned emails from confused readers when the shit started hitting the fan–I felt a little bit like I was doing my own personal War of the Worlds broadcast for a second there. But really, my goals in writing The Outbreak are to a) do something with the medium of blogging that I don’t think has been done before; b) work around some of the pitfalls of horror fiction by personalizing it with non-fictional autobiographical elements; c) get in the groove of writing fiction every day; d) tell some scary zombie stories. Anyway, I first dropped hints that something unsual was going on with this post, so start there and work your way to the present day.

I would also like to direct you to my extremely not safe for work autobiographical comic “1995,” written by me and drawn by Shawn Cheng. Originally created for and subsequently rejected by the True Porn 2 anthology, it probably reveals more information about me than you need or want to know, but nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it. Shawn and I both tought it accomplished what we set out to accomplish, and we’re very proud of it. There are no zombies involved at any rate.

One of the nice things about being once again ensconced between the warm and nurturing breasts of the All Too Flat websprawl is that my readers can click the links at the top of the page and find some funny stuff. But maybe the funniest thing my fellow Flatmates have ever done can be found here: Ladies and gentlemen, the Open House prank. If you ever read any other page on ATF, make it that one.

Back to The Outbreak, I started a meme over there that never really went anywhere, so I’m bringing it back here and forcing it down people’s throats until they swallow it.

Behold, the Caesar’s Bath meme! List five things that people in your circle of friends or peer group are wild about, but you can’t really understand the fuss over. To use the words of Caesar (from History of the World Part I), “Nice. Nice. Not thrilling…but nice.”

1. The Simpsons

2. Coffee

3. The Arcade Fire

4. Darwyn Cooke’s DC: The New Frontier as representative of Everything Superhero Comics Should Be

5. The Incredibles

Since Ian already did it, bless ‘im, I’m assigning this one out to Jim, Jim, and Alan, because I have no idea how or if they’ll respond. I’ll also kick it over to The Missus, if she’ll have it. But don’t forget: Anyone can pick this up and run with it. Try it, you’ll like it!

A fond farewell to one of my favorite bloggers, Franklin Harris. He was one of those bloggers who may have been a linkblogger but felt like a thinkblogger. Best of luck, Franklin!

Finally, remember: Never trust anyone who doesn’t like the Beatles or Abraham Lincoln.

I’m glad to be back here!

My friend Jim Dougan wrote a comic, and his friend Mike Fiffe drew it. It’s a half-Western, half-Frank Miller parody called “The Big Fat Noon.” You should read it.

Originally posted at The Outbreak on Mar. 20th, 2005:

For some reason I didn’t know that Pitchfork existed until last Friday or something like that. Actually, that’s not entirely true: I think I’d heard of it, but assumed that with a name like that it was some sort of Papa Roach/Damageplan fan site. Nu-metal, like Communism, can still do a lot of damage in its lingering death throes. Call it Snow Patrol Syndrome. (It’s amazing how much damage a poorly selected moniker can do. I mean, I’ve got to assume I’m not the only person who drew that conclusion about the site, since let’s face it, any thought that occurs to anyone has occurred to somebody else, and probably lots of sombodies else.)

Anyway, I just got done browsing through a review or twenty on Pitchfork, and it was time well spent. In many cases they were the type of reviews that are erudite, well-informed, devoid of point-scoring and trainspotting, intelligently argued, impeccably sourced, and still wrong (kinda like a superhero comic review by Tim O’Neil), but (as is the case with Tim, who of course is one of the four or five best writers in the ol’ comics blogosphere) all that other stuff is nothing to be sneezed at, so I enjoyed them a lot. (Case in point: they kinda pan LCD Soundsytem’s record, but have the good sense to a) note that the Eno homage “Great Release” is the best thing on the album; b) point out that “Never as Tired as When I’m Waking Up” owes as much to Floyd as it does to the Beatles, which everyone else seems to have missed. (I would have pegged it to Meddle rather than Dark Side, but the point still stands.))

All this is my roundabout way of introducing this thought: Once you’ve named your band Vietnam, you might as well call it a day, no? I mean, you’re never gonna come up with anything that brilliant ever again.

God, I wish I think of something half as awesome as naming a band Vietnam. (Maybe my “if you’ve thought of it, thousands of other people have too” rule is bogus. I’m reasonably sure this is the only band called Vietnam, and that’s a goddamn astounding idea.)

Postscript: Finding out that Chromeo was spawned by Vice Magazine explains an awful lot.

Originally posted at The Outbreak on Mar. 17th, 2005:

Album that is better than I thought it was: Tyrannosaurus Hives by the Hives

Album that is better than other people think it is: Frances the Mute by the Mars Volta

Album that is better than I thought it was but still not as good as everyone else thinks it is: Elephant by the White Stripes

Album that is just as good as I think it is but better than everyone else thinks it is in the sense that I don’t think anybody else has heard of it, much less heard it, much less formed an opinion about it: Pursuit of Happiness by Weekend Players

Ditto: Attention by Gus Gus

Album that almost makes inviting Ron Wood to join your band seem like a good idea (almost): Some Girls by the Rolling Stones

Album that for some reason has I think the lowest Amazon.com sales rank of all the Brian Jonestown Massacre albums but is actually enthralling and comparatively accessible: Bringing It All Back Home…Again by the Brian Jonestown Massacre

Album that it was probably a good idea for Capitol Records to put the kibosh on in favor of the songs that eventually became The Dandy Warhols Come Down: The Black Album by the Dandy Warhols

Album that it is probably not a good idea for Sony Records to put the kibosh on in favor of, well, apparently nothing: Extraordinary Machine by Fiona Apple

Album that, while entertaining, I think illustrates the artistic limitations of slavishly faithful recreations of the sounds of the early-to-mid-’80s: She’s In Control by Chromeo

Album that would be the band’s third five-starrer in the music magazine in my head if it weren’t for the fact that its emotional high point, “Walk in Fire,” is distractingly similar to said album’s predecessor’s emotional lead single, “There Goes the Fear,” so now it’s “just” a four-starrer: Some Cities by Doves

Album that everybody should listen to at least once today: Jailbreak by Thin Lizzy

Another album that everybody should listen to at least once today: Zooropa by U2

Originally posted at The Outbreak on Feb. 25th, 2005:

I just can’t get into the Killers. It’s weird, because everything I listen to these days is totally faggot-ass retro: the Faint, Franz Ferdinand, Scissor Sisters, the Bravery, the Dandy Warhols, Interpol, LCD Soundsystem, Elefant, Fischerspooner, W.I.T., and on and on and on and on and on. I downloaded the Killers’ whole album after going back and forth on “Somebody Told Me” (My question was, Can something that rips off Blur so flagrantly still be good? the answer is Yeah, it’s still pretty good), but I don’t know, something just didn’t click. It’s not like I hate ’em, I think they’re alright, but I feel like I should be flipping out about them and I just ain’t. I will say this for them, though: They dress well. And points for eyeliner, of course.

But this can only get you so far. I so wanted to like the Zutons because they looked damn sharp in the original video for that “Pressure Point” song (the version they show on Fuse as opposed to MTV), but if I hear that “ah-ooh, hoo, hoo” one more time, I’m going to drive my car through a Starbucks storefront.

I also just can’t get into the Arcade Fire. I find this band really interesting because I think 90% of the people who’ve listened to them (myself included) had never heard of them before they started showing up on every, and I do mean EVERY, Best of 2004 list at the end of last year, in many cases in magazines that hadn’t actually reviewed the record when it first came out. I know other *music critics* who hadn’t heard of them until they showed up in the Best Of list their own publication published. I think a week before I first read a Best Of with them on it, one of my co-workers asked me if I listened to them and expressed surprise when I said no because I was his quote-unquote “hipster music connection,” but that’s it.

(Please note that I don’t think anyone is less of an Arcade Fire fan due to when they started listening to the band, eg. after all the press they got. You can’t listen to a band you haven’t heard of! Life’s too short to get worried about stuff like that.)

Anyway in the car on the way to lunch this friend from work played me “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)” and I loved it–I thought this was another Rapture-style dance-rock band, and MAN, that sense of urgency. So I ran back to work and downloaded the album, and eh. Again, I don’t hate them–the first 30 seconds or so of the first song are GREAT, and “Power Out” is still awesome–but the rest doesn’t quite wang my dang, and I can’t understand the absolutely RAPTUROUS reception they’ve gotten.

I think part of my problem with them is that the guy can’t really sing–he’s got one of those warbly Frank Black/Wayne Coyne/guy from Modest Mouse voices that don’t really do it for me in the context of Big Anthemic Rock Music. (The only exception, for some reason, is the guy from the Polyphonic Spree, but they’re so goofy and over-the-top that it doesn’t matter; on the other hand you didn’t see me running out to buy their second album, I guess.) If Arcade Fire Guy could sing like Thom Yorke they’d probably kick all kinds of ass, but as it stands it’s like going to a Radiohead concert and finding out that Thom is sick and the guy who sets up the speakers is going to be singing tonight.

I dunno, like I said, I don’t hate ’em, I just could take ’em or leave ’em.

Originally posted at The Outbreak on Mar. 1st, 2005:

I truly did not intend to start a music blog. And this isn