The Curious Cultural Journey of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” Pretty amazing. (Reminds me of this wonderful collection)

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A fellow by the name of Stewart Smith used Applesoft II and a 1979 Apple ][+ with 48K of RAM to program an amazing video for the song “Jed’s Other Poem (Beautiful Ground)” off of Grandaddy’s lovely 2000 release, The Sophtware Slump. The V2 label retroactively signed a contract with Smith and made his [...]

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Jeff Tweedy entered a Chicago rehabilitation clinic in 2004 to treat his chronic migraine headaches and subsequent addiction to painkillers. The New York Times‘ Migraine blog recently spoke with the Wilco frontman about his condition and how it has affected his personal and professional life.
He told The Times he’s never missed a show because [...]

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This year’s drawn-out primary season might have you wrestling with election fatigue, but that’s no reason to neglect your duty to participate in Name of the Year’s 2008 Tournament. The first round of voting is going on now.
So let us forget momentarily Messrs. Obama, McCain, Paul, Huckabee, Nader and Mrs. Clinton. The time has come [...]

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It is a cold Swedish winter and I find myself flying into Stockholm on a £0.01 flight from London with Ryanair. I’ve emailed Jens to say I’d like to interview him for a new web site called Perceptive Travel. I’m honest enough to tell him that I’ve never interviewed anyone before and that I’m not [...]

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New York magazine has a brief but excellent interview with The National’s Matt Berninger, wherein the soft-spoken vocalist comments on his band’s willingness to eschew staying an underground secret in favor of reaching more fans. But the best part is his reaction to the characterization of his unique vocal style by various journalists:
Critics get [...]

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Gawker points to a collection of visualizations of Pop songs. Highly Recommended. (reminds me of this guy’s work, for instance.)

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When climbing the American corporate ladder, it goes without saying that the more you make the less you actually have to do. But does it also hold true that the more you make the further your head is crammed up your own ass to the point where you have no idea what on earth is [...]

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Slate’s Jody Rosen attempts to argue that Amy Winehouse isn’t just another celebrity train wreck, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Yes, Winehouse got her shit together long enough to eke out a via satellite Grammy performance on Sunday, but whether that good behavior sustains is far from conclusive. I mean, she was just [...]

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My feedreader floweth over with mentions of The Bell in the last few weeks. The album “Make Some Quiet” comes out February 12th. Nothing earth shattering, sonically spectacular or even mind-blowing, just catchy power-pop that for some strange reason reminds me of The Stills debut album (in a good way). Muzzle of [...]

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Joe Queenan has an amusing piece in the Guardian today about what to do with over-the-hill rock stars. The impetus for his musings stems from the impending 50th birthdays of Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Prince this year. Rock/pop music is the only genre where age becomes an irreversible stigma, whereas in, say, Blues age [...]

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Metafilter says: “The band Beirut released the Flying Club Cup on October 9th, and La Blogothèque has filmed unique, one take, on the spot, mostly public ‘music videos‘ of each track.”
1- Nantes
2- Sunday Smile
3- Guyamas Sonora
List continues at Metafilter.

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I’m probably the last remaining carbon-based life form that has not heard a single note of Vampire Weekend’s newly released debut. Even this humble blog has been fairly resistant to the charms of this latest in a long succession of bands of the moment, so I feel like I’m among friends.
As for the rest of [...]

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Anyone who’s ever written about music and is not employed by, say, Billboard or Rolling Stone can appreciate The A.V. Club’s priceless list of The Worst Band Names of 2007.
There’s no telling what horrors lurk behind such hideous monikers as The Color Fred, Comanche Abortion, The Pleasures of Merely Circulating, Chevy Metal or Cobra Bubbles.
Their [...]

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Fat Cat recording artists The Twilight Sad — whose Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters was my favorite debut of 2007 — spoke recently with The Scotsman about their success in The States and how, curiously, it has outshined the response in their native Scotland:
“Last year was huge for the Twilight Sad — who come from [...]

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“Record-label woes, lineup changes, trouble at home, and an alluring new bass player on the road: a diary of a rock ‘n’ roll divorce from the founder of Luna.” A very personal excerpt in Vogue from Dean Wareham’s new book Black Postcards. (pity it isn’t parenthetically titled “I shagged Jem and you have [...]

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Getting back to work quickly after suffering a miscarriage with Chemical Brothers’ Ed Simons’ baby, Lily Allen shot the pilot for her new BBC3 chat show this week, which is scheduled to debut later this year. The British station’s website reveals that Blur’s Alex James will lend his myriad charms to the premiere. Always [...]

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This is an incredibly eye-opening piece about Morrissey’s inner circle written by a man who managed to be accepted into Morrissey’s entourage, who was flown into the US from the UK only to be unceremoniously dismissed after one day of service. The article presents no bias against Morrissey. In fact, the opposite is true. [...]

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Lisa Marie Presley, Alexandra (and the other one) Richards, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and if I’ve had enough Red Bull and vodkas, maybe even Rufus Wainwright – there’s something hot and mildly Freudian about wanting to bang the offspring of rock ‘n’ roll royalty. In a way, through some sort of ovarian osmosis, it’s like metaphysically doing [...]

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