i know a lot of pertinent and clever lyrical references

did you hear that A-Rod and his wife are divorcing?  Madonna is involved!?
someone said that America has gotten over Paris Hilton.  I think it was the boston phoenix (which should indicate this is a lie or was also true 2 years ago...ZZZING!)  I don't want to be over Paris.  I read an interview with a popular and bright author who believes pop-culture can be both holy and unholy (cause he's a buddhist)  I don't consider myself religious but in my way I agree.  Bless you saint Paris, pray for us sinners.
So this A-Rod thing could be important.  As well as a new Ratatat record soon to drrrop.  Naturally I have an easier time making religion of the boys from Brooklyn.  (but as John Stanier noted "fuck Williamsburg" but then I was talking about battles to a dude the other night who said "the drummer definetly seems like he'd be a prick"  i let him off the hook eternally for being a good musician, i'm very very superficial...did anyone see Jay-Z cover "wonderwall"? that was a trancendent moment of musical prick-ery)  Death Vessel has a new one as well.  i can barely contain myself over that one.  there was a period in my life a couple summers ago when i listened to so much death vessel and now the return of this to my consciousness is making me all kinds of nostalgic and also sad because instead of being an adult i think i am actually regressing and have a more clumsy emotional psyche.  i get easily confused and instead of recognizing complexities in myself and others i seem to now respond in the awkward and projectionary(?) screamy-emo chorus mood shifts of highschool?  i think even then i was more socially tuned.  i listened to a lot of ratatat in that same summer.  i fancied myself a writer and all the world was my palette.  no, i thought i'd be lester bangs (who was also offhandly dismissed the other night...my referents atrophy...my ducats, my daughter)
but it is both unholy and holy.  maybe sometimes at the same time.  can i grasp this zen of yours?  can i share?  you wrote commcomm, i cry everytime i read it, i'm a serious person, a real person.
so check out the death vessel myspace and listen to the new song.  
i leave you with further bullshit
i took six months off now i'm back up in this bitch
get em crackin


needlessly but painstakingly vague
no one must know too much, none must be allowed to close in on my half hearted deceit
a plague upon you
upon yours
upon your teeth
la la la laquer underneath
a studied abandon
oceans' sediment in your backyard
piled upon            obfuscating measurements
a haywire spedometer
a HRM
a withering whim of typewriter ribbon
a wrapped whimsy, warped by buddy bandits
a sugary clumsy explanation
a hand in the plans of the plantation
a too-few toothy grin telling me "dont laugh"
oh and dont you laugh
and dont you laugh though

some phrases

somebody's self-helping and holding OUT

hey mighty brontosaurus, dont you have a lesson for us 

recently i like to think about seeing music live. almost more than i like to see music live...? what are experiences without our re-creation and "objectifying" hindsight? can i buy pot from you?
sometimes, the good ones, there is such an overwhelming spirit of oneness in the collective viewing of good music. i htink maybe lots of folks singing along to "via chicago" at bonnaroo some weeks ago. or the spontaneous "that didn't suck!" from a stranger at said festival shortly after the police played. *really that fits in more with the initial thread but the strands are loose and there arent that many so bear with...* but this guy was so pumped by the experience that he felt the need to: share it, validate it by running it by other "participants", make noise out of inner excitement, or somehting. maybe he was crazy or high, but thats not my concern.
some people miss out on this and those folks will live shorter lives. some jerks walk around and muscle for better spots or just buzz around the bar or outside for a smoke or god only knows but you know what they kind of fuck up a good show by being so restless. this is annoying but its also a little depressing to me. VERY recently i saw Battles and the White Stripes and these shows were excellent but marred by distracted elements getting all up in the proverbial grill. it is of course a testament to the rock that i enjoyed the hell out of these shows notwithstanding. who are these dweebs that GO to see msuic and don't pay any attention? there is all consuming dome rocking going on at these concerts and yet some people just cant be bothered.

*perhaps i am snobbishly ignoring a social aspect of the congregation and this is always in my mind*
it is a bit strange that the vast good vibes i am capable of are, like so much of my life, a solitary state in all but how i feel. what i mean to say is i FEEL all connected up but i aint gonna say a damn thing about it. BUT THATS THE POINT i dont need to say anyhting i dont need to do anything and so i dont and that way i am part of it without fucking it up for someone else. it is after all a trance state and transcendence is a trickly buisness *i aint no scientist so i gotta play careful with this and ive seen however how bad it can go* im not the science but i know its there. a big part of what im saying is
READ THIS
http://seedmagazine.com/news/2007/04/david_byrne_daniel_levitin.php

and if you go to a rock show have some damn respect.
 if perhaps you like interpol then the new album is worth peepin out.  those dudes are just getting more dramatic and self-serious but if that suits you (as it does me) they are in holding pattern.  i think mostly i have this nostalgic thing about when the first album came out and so i foolishly replay with them in diminished echoes a point that i somtimes long for.  what was so special about it is vague as remembering becomes.  i recall i visited john in nyc when the album dropped and was sucked in by its sleek ny-image/attitude/sound.  maybe if you dont live in new york that shit works.  mission accomplished boys of interpol.  also when antics came out there was that lyric about "killer for hire you know not yourself" in slow hands which is vague sinister and seductive.  sometimes nonsense is all i need...
de do do do
also evil is a great song
the new single is pretty dumb but i like pioneer to the falls

feist and spoon are my newest obsessions

battles is still probably the coolest thing in my world

i'll never be sting
thats ok

i am anxious to get a look at danny boyle's new flick 

it was so nice to be home for the weekend while the rest of my mind unravels   
goodnight

i dont care what you think unless it is about me

re-reading an old paper i wrote in school i am reminded of adorno's article on popular music and this is appropriate to revisit these days i think.  i am amused at my erstwhile disdain for the rock critic so evidenced in my music and politics writing.  the class should have been perfect for me but alas it was rather dull.  still i am amused and entertained by my musings.  i am wont to suffer almost crippling nostalgia as the admission of this practice should evidence.  anyway younger vlad wormwood is not the real draw.  adorno's disdain is far more broad and vehement.  the marxist reading of popular music lays the form to waste as simplistic and seductive.  a foolish distraction made of readily pleasing rhythms and tones.  oh woe is us.  is this not so far from marxist critiques of religion?  why do i worship at the altar of cobain and not jesus?  is it all that different in what it provides my life?
let us pray...  
music, of any category, that affects me provides my lfe with: distanced identification, pleasant (if unscientific) feelings, sometimes (good times, high times, man i feel fine...blood on the tracks and i feel fine...you know i've had my share) a vague feeling of community.  uh-oh, sounds a little religious.  though it never does seem a reason to kill the unbelievers (though i one time threatened to kill a man for tickets to see rage this summer...but i aint gonna do either of those, really)  by way of justification (heh, justified...gonna put on "rock your body"...talk about simple seduction...but oh yeah thats a-nice) i am putting myself into one of those silly, moderate positions.  like i'm not religious but i'm spiritual.  like the religion is broad enough that their are only loose fitting doctrines and i'm ok.  hmmm.  still anyone who disagrees and all who are with me you all can meet me in the middle of the floor.  and pop always has new voices to disrupt what gets old and tired.  someone comes along on a mission and yells "bitch!"  
but wait! the misogeny!  what's more patricentric than american pop?  and what about that?  what am i talking about in pop other than american culture, in any of its myriad forms...
here's one that's always interesting to me and since i'm a priviledged white male i can just wax philosophical about it and never get too worried.  or rather i can afford to actually worry about shit like...is american dominance of pop culture a good or bad thing?  clearly the world is held under the heavy and often idiotic sway of american whim.  naturally this can be ugly and marginalize important and insightful voices in 
favor of "grown ass ignorant men"  and yet, that's the way the world works.  for now, for the vast past, for the foreseeable future...  and haven't some good things come from it?  as callous as it is, as oft invoked, i think that jazz, blues, and rock music, hip-hop (and all things that derive themselves out of any of these forms) have been good for popular culture.  because this is basically all i know for pop culture?  but who ain't a fuckin expert in this field?  if you got eyes and ears in america you are knowin what i am spittin.  
well oh no what to do?  i mean do you really want to write about or write pop music in this world?  children die everyday.  people starve, blow themselves up etc. etc.  they dont do it for a good groove, but that may be all life is?  to me, for me.  why do you want to write about records or invoke shakespeare in the pursuit of a good boner joke?  would i be so much better to be fighting or raising money or awareness? and what about boner awareness?  we need that too.  i'm rambling, getting pretty much nowhere.  there are things i like a lot and though i often mistrust my own enjoyment i will soldier on in hedonistic ignorance...

aned so on to another recent piece: blogging serves a purpose?  deebs and jbg seem to have subtley differing opinions in this realm and it gets my brain working because my own relationship to this has been so otherwise.  i dont necessarily consider it edifying to know what i am listening to or thinking about but it has often served a purpose for me.  that being to articulate, however vaguely and informally, some of the shit in my life.  then others can get a glimpse and though they may never actually do this, the promise goads me to make a more diligent attempt to make some sense.  where the commas?!  "the promise goads me"  that should be a song or album or book or screenplay.  something else i should be doing.  ok, i get it now.

OK SO!  the quick part for people who got bored

hal hartley is cool, i liked "Fay Grim" if it seemed to get a little rushed in terms of development.  interesting considering i thought "henry fool" a little long in the tooth.

i will not go see pirates of the carribean3 because ive seen none of that nonsense and like to keep the streak alive.  i am the cal ripken of anti-establishment snobbery.  did i callously break anyone's record?  deebs?

the battles album "mirrored" is really radical.  get that, listen to it, dont be surprised if ya mind gets a little
blown.

if you ain't down...bullshit!

i think that once i started writing reviews of albums on a regular basis i have about nothing to blog about.  or so the feeling goes that i am already putting my feelings on popular music into the public sphere, hence no need for what was one time a lot of fun.  also i find myriad ways to waste free time and so as the glorious summer of no car and no job came to a close the blog did suffer.  if i don't have at least 8 free hours in a day (after rising at noon) how in the heell am i to keep
up with the breakneck pace of the information superhighway?  i'm not telling you i'm asking you...   and yet i am recalled to it in conversation with a dear contemporary (and sometime contributing editor to the atlantic monthly i am told) of the good this modest method can achieve.  what ever happened to derka?  and what do those not immediately associated with my person think of me?  a new year and prey tell...a vlad to match?  as spring time lurches twixt the dreary and the hazy...as the world still does turn and us doing most of the living and working and dying in this town! what is this quintessence of dust?! cambridge my town, cambridge my sow. and we've gone from b-real to shakespeare, thats about right...
i still enjoy rock and roll music:
jim o'rourke is something of a genius.  with loose fur a jam band sans wankery.  a focused and fantastical trip.  the flaming lips as well.  i never really got seriously into this band and the loss mine.  but 
there's a lot out there and so you gotta get it where and when you can and you gotta hope for
the best and ususally you can do alright.  an amigo from work gave me his old copy of the soft bulletin
and so thats how fate can make you sit up an' pay 'tention. and i dont believe in much fate or nuthin
of the like but with regard to rock...you've heard this one before...sue me if i play too long.
johnny marr is cool and i think the new modest mouse record benefits from his being so.  
a lot of guit-piece on that and it sounds pretty fuckin badass sometimes.  varied and dynamic
guit-piece i might add.  jarvis cocker gets a thumbs up.  boss.    
excitable boy i think needs to be in the top 10...
of all time? which would look like...
the beatles  - self titled (white)
bob dylan - highway 61 revisited
steely dan - aja
the minutemen  - double nickels on the dime
elvis costello and the attractions - trust
the clash - london calling
nirvana - in utero
at the drive in - relationship of command
excitable boy

hmmm...  it is necessarily imperfect.  is not the self titled zevon maybe the better?  tough call   tough call. and that list gets pretty punk heavy which is often my wont but more time might include zombies, or joni mitchell, or arcade fire for that matter.  who i go to see thursday night! kick-ass
-v

HEY!

check out the review of the new Of Montreal at
www.popmatters.com

i wrote that

come on mood shift, shift back to good again

 some time passed.  its 2007. what has happened? gerald ford died which is in a way, hilarious.  there i said it, flags down or not. RIP James Brown. apparently we, as a nation, need to be united on Iraq. whatever that means. the whole nation needs to unite and come down on iraq? we need an intervention? come on iraq, we need this to be tidied up...get yo shit together.  
 i saw mission of burma last week-ish at the paradise rock club. i saw them almost 5 years ago to that day (jan20) which i think is kind of cool. it put those 5 years in a funny perspective. without thinking about it it seems recent that i saw mob but i was in high school which seems distant but its only 5 years but thats almost a quarter of my damn life... whoa. so does mission of burma still rock 5 years hence? answer is YES. i liked this show even better. 1) the paradise is cooler than the avalon where they were last time and i was CLOSE to the stage 2) i am particularly fond of the obliterati (the kind of lamely titled new album) and had 
been listening to it a lot getting all sorts of pumped for the show. they opened with 2wice. its still surprising how loud these 
guys can throw down. the new album is extremely rocky even with regard to golden age burma. roger miller still hits an impeccable
falsetto and his guit-effects are as whackly melodic as evs. do i sound like i'm compensating? im a hardcore 2nd wave 
burma fan, what do you want. is old guy rock somehow less authentic? sometimes yes, and theres an argument 
to be made about these dudes just rolling through similar sounds...BUT i dont envision a time (ever) that i will not want
to listen to these records OR not want to play punk jazz OR not want to get a little tipsy and stomp my feet and scream
"im not judging you im judging me" with a crowd of the young and the old of boston. wave 1 meeting the 2nd in the rareified
presence of burma.  getting too fawning? let me assault the opening act which the DIG! seems to think are rad. oneida
ist not rad. they are a perfect example of potential songwriting. every number opened with tense chugging riffery which was
a little indistinct, a bit too bled together but just right to open up for a grand chorus or a precise bridge or...anything else at all.
what there was instead was like drone music theory applied to the Buzzcocks. which isnt fair cause half a verse of 
Buzzcocks is easily 2wice the excitement of oneida. they did inspire me to start a band called mrs deebs.

 new albums from the shins, deerhoof and of montreal! yay!
but seriously my seasonal depression/rockreational ennui is thawing in the heat of these (and BURMA) the hoof sounds a bit reserved, focusing on pretty/cooing deerhoof and less of the stomping of runners4. of course the first 3 tracks may rock you harder than anything this year (not just cause its a short one so far    i mean ill stand by that come dec07 if im alive you come find me or send me a myspace message or comment on the goddamn blog and ill tell you still that the first 3 tracks on friend opportunity rock my soul like nothing else in the year, which will be alie but only cause i dont have no soul!)
the shins sound has expanded tasefully. there are sweet moments of the shins playing the shins which is easy but i have to love and there are some funkier/more interesting/more instruments-in-the-mix tunes as well. so boss. this is the one ive been listening to least of the 3.
and of montreal is the one i love the most initially. this is like a giant leap for kevin barnes. i really dug some of montreal this spring when i was vague spacing about syracuse and trying to do as little as possible to authentically and appropriately say goodbye to that spot that university those people. satanic panic... and sunlandic twins rocked the itunes a lot and its funny that i feel like those were perfect vibes for who/where i was and now this new one (hissing fauna, are you the destroyer?) is right on for a more down vw. i mean i aint nearly as distraught as kevin barnes was/is for making this but i feel like the time that has passed made me an older person better placed to take this new record seriously and be blown away. what the fuck does that mean? i dont know really but i do know this, the album is affecting me and its awesome. funny how 5 years seems like nothing to me but 8months feels like a minor lifetime. of course one could argue that as much has happened in these 8 months as in those 5 years but one would probably be wrong and just trying to make more of the present than the past but wouldn't that be better or more healthy/progressive than the current brain which makes everything of the past.  nothing happens! everything happens! so get the record...steal it buy it whatevs.  of montreal is playing here in march and i wanna see em.  who wants to come with?!

dreamgirls was a good movie that i enjoyed watching

so there

ANDREW WILSON

http://andandrewrew.blogspot.com/