They should take their own advice. You really can’t go back. I will collect my thoughts on my dearly beloved, yet woefully misguided Primal Scream as well as Spiritualized after I see them at the TLA this Tuesday. I think I’m swimming in full-blown ’90’s nostalgia at this point.
Anyone else [...]
I was praising FriendFeed a short month ago in these very pages, but I’ve come to realize that what FriendFeed will never replace Twitter and its ilk as long as it remains a mostly passive interface. Sure, it’s a great way to keep track of what’s happening [...]
If you’ve talked to me lately, you probably know I’m training for the Philadelphia Marathon on November 23. When I started training six weeks ago, I had no idea how good I’d feel now. I ran 10 miles today. Next week I’m running 11. I’m breaking personal records each week! [...]
This has to be some of the most exciting news for Xbox 360 film geeks like me. As I mentioned when it was first announced, Netflix will make its “Watch Instantly” content available via Xbox Live, a move that beats Sony in the so-called battle for the living room yet [...]
I can’t express how excited I am about the news that Netflix’s “Watch Now” content will be available via Xbox Live. This is a tremendous step toward treating Xbox 360 as a multimedia platform, a play Sony made with the PS3 and failed. Microsoft made a [...]
Hypebot posted “5 Lies Indie Musicians Tell Themselves” today. Each of these would’ve been great to discuss on Saturday’s “Music 2.0″ panel. They’re great conversation starters about how the Internet hasn’t really changed much for independent artists despite rumors to the contrary.
First I’d like to thank Becky Clawson for inviting me to speak on the Music 2.0 panel this past Saturday. I hope it was as eye-opening an experience for my fellow panelists as it was for me. See, I find many “Web 2.0″ applications an integral part of my [...]
I took some time yesterday to read reviews of Beck’s Modern Guilt yesterday and was displeased with what I saw. Do I think it’s his greatest album? Nope. Do I think it holds up pretty well against his most recent material? Absolutely. In fact, I think it’s the most underrated [...]
I’m going to be on a Music 2.0 panel on Saturday at Drexel University. You can get the details here. You may witness some unintentional hilarity as I talk about the Web 2.0 wormhole and how it’s not revolutionizing the music industry, just fragmenting it some more. Can you [...]
I know you’re probably completely underwhelmed by Twitter and its technical glitches, so maybe it’s time to consider using FriendFeed. At first it’s probably a little too much Web 2.0 to process, but if you give it a chance you’ll find yourself spending way less time poking around the web [...]
How can Netflix possibly squander its rich opportunities to exploit its inherently social features? When I got notice that user profiles would be abolished effective September 1st, I was aghast. Why would any site eliminate such a useful tool for its users as they try to avail themselves of the [...]
I had a great conversation with Chris from ClickPopMedia Saturday about the future of this blog. Let’s say it’s very bright. What’s in store, you ask? Think gallons of data flowing through the strip: I’m not going to go nuts and try to drive everything I cram into [...]
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I know I’m a day early, [...]
I’m still working on turning this blog into something a bit more vital. I’m looking into pulling RSS feeds from my Twitter and Tumblr, as well as Flickr photos, to turn Blackmail Is My Life into a living document of what I’m into from moment to moment. I think it’ll [...]
I was catching up on Valleywag this morning — they have SXSW too, and it’s even nerdier — when I came across this item that caught my eye. Mahalo CEO Jason Calcanis writes:
Don’t buy a phone system. No one will use it. No one at Mahalo has a desk phone [...]
If you’re not totally Comcastic, you can check out most of my SXSW coverage at Head Games, the official blog of Game Invasion. Hats off to my producer and venerable video team for helping me learn some of the video communication basics. It’s hard to believe that all of [...]
I still have a few more wrap-up posts due over at Blinded by the Hype, but then I’ll be back here posting about how few bands I actually saw in Austin. I feel like the only souvenirs I picked up in Texas were stress, exhaustion and a terrible sunburn.
[...]And I’m twittering. Check it out, if you’re into that sort of thing. It’s like a writerly safety valve thus far.
[...]Why is it that now that I own an iPhone, I suddenly think the iPhone commercial theme is the same as Motel 6? Have these awful, painful Apple earbuds driven me to madness? I think that’s entirely possible.
[...]So a little while ago I splurged and bought a pair of Etymotic Research 6i Isolator earphones. They’re excellent. But I’m not writing to extoll their virtue on the basis of performance alone. No, I’m writing this morning because I ran them through the laundry — washed and dried [...]
I’m literally drowning in new music, no thanks to the publicists who send me countless emails to at least three email addresses and rarely deliver any actual music. I know that it’s passe to complain about publicists and that most people find ways around them anyway, but I feel that [...]
I don’t know if it was being out of the office twice last week on work-related ‘missions,’ or if it’s realizing that after being faced with an impromptu interview with one of the best-selling female artists of all time, but indie bands at SXSW should be pretty fun.
Are you going [...]
So something is definitely happening. I’m hearing E=MC2 tomorrow morning, possibly interviewing (but more likely just meeting) Mariah tomorrow night. I’ll add a short update here Saturday evening when I’ve recovered.
[...]There are a few things we’ve been working on that I don’t generally share since they’re either business-related and therefore a bit secret, or seem so impossible that I psyche myself out that they’ll ever happen.
Well, on the day the R.E.M. interview fell through [couldn’t listen to the new album [...]
Late last summer our neighborhood ended up being named Olde Richmond after an abortive meeting in which an established organization stated its intention to absorb our human resources. So instead of Flatiron, which many of the locals call this triangle between Fishtown proper and Port Richmond, we got Olde Richmond, [...]
From the Inquirer’s series on homelessness in Philadelphia:
Nutter has not laid out specifics on how he will address the homeless situation. Yet change is already afoot. Since Nutter took office Jan. 7, police in Center City’s Ninth Police District have begun a “quality-of-life initiative” in which individuals caught loitering, [...]
You could do worse than nu-gaze. This is my way of saying that the new Raveonettes album is completely acceptable listening.
[...]I have two. The second song seems to be the only difference between them. I fully expect Boris to produce four more versions and for Southern Lord to only market one of them. This is actually fine.
[...]At this point the Internet is a publicist who gets you the promo you requested and never asks questions after that, which is pretty great if you ask me. And yeah that Mae Shi album is pretty great. These New Puritans aren’t half bad either.
[...]The Mae Shi’s Hillyh is pretty much exactly what I want to be listening to at 5:38 am on a Monday morning before heading in to the office.
[...]I think the thing that’s most aggravating about Vampire Weekend’s critical epicycle is that there’s this absolute need to be ‘right’ about the album, and that it’s not simply enough to write it off as clever pop that a listener can take or leave. The comments on that blog [...]
Looks like my first and only foray into the SXSW wilderness may be a success. From the way things sound right now, I should be sitting down to talk with my childhood heroes R.E.M. in Austin. This is great because I’m pretty sure it’s the first interview I’ll conduct where [...]
I listened to most of the Foals forthcoming album, Antidotes, yesterday. As much as I love the sound that TVOTR achieved with Return to Cookie Mountain, it doesn’t work for everyone. Even if you love Celebration as much as I do, you have to admit that it all starts to [...]
Sorry about that. Alfred’s right after all. It’s just hard to countenance a plea for niche music when most people only care about music-related celebrity on a day-to-day basis, and you’re on the hook for several hundred thousand pageviews every day. The indie music hype bubble [and the traffic [...]
The Grammys are a strange show. The production is outstanding [at least until 9 p.m.] and then, like an M. Night movie, they throw in a pointless plot twist to wreck the mood. Do Grammys voters not even know what Zeitgeist means? Maybe more appropriately: do they know they help [...]
Check out Rupture’s MuddUp! great podcast at WFMU. Wait until the Dexplicit exclusive. Then wait for the ‘Kiss Kiss’ remix. I’m fond of that song, and the New Young Pony Club remix too. It’s rare that I put the words ‘great’ and ‘podcast’ together, but Rupture’s a [...]
A few quick things:
I can’t say too much about this for professional reasons, but music in the information age is a strange business that doesn’t often make much sense. There’s also a part of me that wishes that someone out there would look past the self-interested rhetoric and take this as [...]
Yes. And it’s long overdue. Thoughts on Love Is Colder Than Death and Gods of the Plague shortly.
Also: maybe we could be Netflix friends?
[...]Vampire Weekend’s self-titled debut reeks of privilege, yet is so strangely self-assured, compelling and totally New York City that I needed to check my watch to remind myself how long ago Is This It? came out.
But will it make my 2008 top ten?
Added note: Lefsetz thinks that the role [...]
Information snacking: sometimes it actually helps people out, illuminates a point or something. Regardless of how much I agree with Ian’s thoughts on Juno and its soundtrack, I’m probably going to end up seeing this movie before too long. I’m bummed in advance.
[...]Matt Taibbi at the Smirking Chimp writes:
In Barack Obama versus Hillary Clinton, we’ve basically got Kennedy-Nixon redux, and I mean that in the most negative possible sense for both of them — a pair of superficial, posturing conservatives selling highly similar political packages using different emotional strategies. Obama is [...]
I’ve never been a Mountain Goats fan, though I can sense that at one point in history I might’ve been, were it not for the existence of the Smiths, R.E.M., et. al. Or another time when lo-fi was all that mattered, but I felt somehow more connected to Pavement, Sonic [...]
This interview with Culture Pulp is a new favorite. [HT: Bookslut]
[...]This will be my first and last SXSW Music Festival. I was initially very excited to cover the event for my day job, only to be denied press credentials. Our pitch was to cover the festival as a travelogue with a cranky critic — think Three Sheets [...]
I just submitted this for consideration. If you haven’t already read the Deciblog’s scathing, succinct takedown of the marketing plan for the Mars Volta’s new album, you should. The usb stick gimmick gives the middle finger to the environment in ways I cannot comprehend. Has the record industry not [...]
If you’re into reading brainy music blogs that don’t get mired in jargon, you already miss Woebot tremendously. I’m one of those people.
The past year saw the disappearance of Stylus Magazine too, a webzine that got me back on my music-writerly feet after a miserable audition at Pitchfork. [...]
I’m finding that one of my excuses for not writing here more regularly is that I’m really tired of looking at the current incarnation of Blackmail Is My Life. I’m really psyched to update the links to all the new blogs I’m reading now that I’ve been introduced to a [...]
So far this has been an incredible year. After getting my full-time gig at Comcast, I’ve been very excited and ambitious about what my job can mean to me. In just a few short months I’ve been able to do things I never thought I’d be doing as a job, [...]
Radiohead in about ten minutes. Be ready.
[...]If you’re still sending cds [this was almost full stop], they should at least be playable on the computer, iPod, whathaveyou. As much as I love independent artists and the music they make, I can’t spend time I don’t have listening to it at home when I could just as [...]
After a brief conversation with a Dylanite yesterday, I needed to immediately re-read Andy Beta’s excellent review of Todd Haynes’s new hagiography, I’m Not There. Will people ever stop Tom Brokaw-ing Sixties music?
[PS: There’s a part of me that would love to do a recurring feature called Never [...]
So much is still going on. My main man is still working up a redesign. I still can’t wait, but in the meantime, just so you know that I still care about music and stuff, I’m going to be writing snippets about my favorite albums/artists of ‘07 at my [...]
Which new iPod? Gizmodo wrestles with the options and comes to the conclusion that standing pat is the way to go. But they have a 60 gig video iPod. I still have my functional but weathered black and white 20G from ‘04. I know, it should be in a [...]
And it’s not just initials. I’m very excited about a few things in the offing at my day job. I’ll be sure to post links to them when they run. Big things, friends. In all honesty, it’s amazing to have a job that I a.) really care about and [...]
As the New Pornographers’ newness ends, their fans seem to grow more irritating. Confidential to Rob Mitchum: brace yourself for some ridiculous hatemail. [NB: Mitchum’s dig on Electric Version really captured how betrayed I felt by that album…and every last blogger falling over itself to congratulate New Pornographers [...]
I just wrote a long comment at All Things Girls Can Tell, which I automatically realized may be the only time I’ve ever actually brought my academic training to bear on South St., where I worked slavishly for over two years at TLA Video on 4th St.
To [...]
As busy as usual:
Things are busier than ever. This week I also start full-time, which is pretty exciting. I’m working on a new blog [still in staging] for work that I’m really excited about. It’s not anything special yet, but the possibilities, o the possibilities! I can’t wait for it to launch and [...]
Something I haven’t done lately, at least not since about 2003, is talk politics here, or at least talk politics very seriously. Or at all. I can barely remember being the enthusiastic adjunct who was racing around interning at a labor think tank while simultaneously tending to duties as a [...]
