So, somehow I had never heard of WOXY 97X FM in Cincinatti. WOXY bills itself as “Modern Rock”, but what they really play is a good slate of indie stuff — most of which I haven’t heard. Right now, I’m listening to a little Zwan, and earlier there was a little Cat Power (which I’d heard of, but never heard), and up soon — Rainer Maria! Yaay!

Oh yeah, they are family-owned, none of this WQMF-style sellout to ClearChannel here! Also, they have a great sounding MP3 stream (48kbps), as well as a couple other streaming formats.

m@: an actually good rock radio station?
BenCorvus: shocking, i know!

friday night, the 17th, Jackson, Jason and I went up to beautiful Newport, KY to see Interpol at the Southgate House. Imagine your grandmother’s house — then imagine if she had been dead for 50 years, and then and only then would you get the true feeling of the Southgate House. There are two bars, one upstairs, and one down, at least three different venues of varying sizes, of which the main one has an upper and lower seating area. Also, this was the house that “Thompson” of the “Thompson (Tommy) Gun” was born. But enough about that — the showed rocked ($3 good bands for $11!).

First up was Mallory, some local talent from Cinci — and they put on a great show replete with German silent films playing in the background, to which they applied the soundtrack, and rocked. Next up was Calla, who put on a decidedly soft, but interesting set that was hampered a little by some audio problems. From what I heard, they were good, but I think they may be better when listened too..

Interpol came on and immediately got right into their groove. They aren’t a dynamic sound, by any means, and their music isn’t “groovy”, but the rhythm section turns out a great driving beat that I think the songs would be lacking if without. Anyway, more later perhaps — gotta go!

more from the rock front. yes, yes, i’m a pitchfork media whore, but I recently checked out their mp3 archive, and listened to just about every bit of it. well, if there had to be a winner in that battle of the bands, it would be Rainer Maria with Ears Ring. That is not to say there wasn’t heavy competition with Matt Pond PA, The Pattern, and local guys Instant Camera.

so far, my new years resolution to listen to more music is paying off…

First up, Gary has again (as I type this no less, barring aeronautical hold-ups) gone back across the pond to his Asiatic homestead. A visit all too short, considering he *might* be back in August or December, depending upon a number of things. Now, he’s got a trick or two up his sleeve upon his return, none of which I will ruin by laying out spoilers (though, I think that would be the ultimate spoiled movie ending, heh.) Anyway, good luck, Gary! Use the bat given to you well!

So, when I first read Pitchfork‘s review of Interpol‘s Turn On The Bright Lights, and then their subsequent hailing of the album as “#1 of the Year” I was a bit suspicious. As with all critical media, they never hit 1.000 in anyone’s ballpark.

Well, thanks Jackson‘s various gift certificates, the Interpol disc made its way over to the house shortly after Christmas. I ripped it, as was my want (and Jackson was in no state to argue, heh), and later listened to it.

Do I think it’s the #1 album of the year? Of “THE” Year? Of “MY” Year is a more correct application, methinks. Well, no, that lies with Wilco‘s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (also a 10 on Pitchfork’s scale, and the #2 album of the Year. Nonetheless, I’d have to add “Turn On The Bright Lights” on my short list of “Great Albums That Ben Heard This Year”.

kelly and i went out to ear x-tacy this eve, and i finally picked up “Viva Last Blues” by Palace Music. Came back to house, and re-filled an empty inkjet cartridge. Plugged in kelly’s old synth, and fooled around. It’s funny to see cats walk on keyboards and make god-awful sounds. Clawing at the speakers. Heh. Kelly played me music — which made me happy. She hasn’t played me a song in ages.

Inspiration hath indeed struck. I finally got the archive working. Easy access to all the news I’ve fitted for printing. Also, note the “wayback machine” dropdown. Give that a whirl.

The new Coldplay, “A Rush of Blood to the Head”, is good. The Reunion Show I could take or leave — most likely leave. Emo begat Weezer-core, I guess.

Wow, this head cold has hit me hard! Even mighty DayQuil has not lessened the effects. Nonetheless, as I am stricken with the plague on my week off, I have managed to throw up a couple of new gallery albums of two shows Kelly and I went to see.

First, BR5-49 and Souther Culture on the Skids @ Headliners

Second, Ben Kweller (with Adam Greene) at Top Cat’s in Cinci

Also, as an added bonus — cat pictures!

Oh yeah, word up to all my LAN-gaming homies that threw down over here on Saturday. Now, off to the couch I go!

Anyone who knows me, knows that i like the blues. Good blues, old blues. A great example of good, old school blues is Not the Same Old Blues Crap Vol. 2 from Fat Possum Records. Now, I also happen to enjoy re-invented old blues, in the form of The Rolling Stones (see: Midnight Rambler), or Led Zeppelin (see: Whole Lotta Love Live Blues Medley).

Really, and truthfully it was the Rolling STones and Led Zeppelin that introduced me to the blues, and there are more people like myself that enjoy the raw goodness of the blues, and would like it carried on. Well, I think I’ve found today’s Led Zeppelin — in the form of a brother/sister duo called The White Stripes.

Geoffrey, a colleague of mine at work was a fan, and had an album (De Stijl) of theirs. I gave it a listen, but for some reason I forgot about it. Well, then I saw them on The Late Show, doing Fell In Love With a Girl (which has an awesome video). I was blown away!

Fast forward a week to today or so, and I got a hold of their BBC recording (Live at BBC – Maida Vale), and I start to hear the blues influence — specifically in “Death Letter. The dirty blues riffs, the quoting of nearly every kick-ass hard-rock riff ever packed into one little song.

The new album, White Blood Cells, is one of those albums — much like Pinkerton — that you can listen to over and over, and due to it’s perfect balance, you never get tired of. So — the next obvious question — when are they coming to Louisville? Answer: never.

So, you wanna hear what Weezer’s next album is gonna be like? Well, you are in luck, pa! href="http://www.weezer.com">Weezer.com has about 2 dozen MP3′s (located href="http://www.weezer.com/audiovideo/index.html" alt="new weezer mp3s">here) under there Audio/Video section that are
rough cuts for the new album. They probably haven’t been produced fully yet, but overall, it’s shaping up to be pretty good.
Also, they have plenty of extras — and the whole shebang is in FULL, 128kbps 44100Hz MP3s. Ain’t the internet grand? And
doesn’t Weezer ROCK? That’s not a question.

So, I was reading through The Onion’s href=”http://www.theonionavclub.com/avclub3745/bonusfeature1_3745.html”>Best Albums of 2001 today, and I came upon a
mention of the unreleased Wilco album, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”, which they noted borrowed
from the CONET Project, which was started by uber-indie label href=”http://www.ibmpcug.co.uk/~irdial”>irdial.

So, what is the CONET Project, you ask? It’s an encyclopedic
collection of recordings of shortwave href=”http://home.freeuk.com/spook007/”>number stations. Number stations? Yes, these are uber-secret shortwave
transmitting stations that broadcast people speaking numbers in a pattern that are assumed to be highly-highly encrypted
message (they have NEVER been broken).

Anyway, these are all VERY creepy, as you could imagine people reading off lists of numbers coming crackling through the ether
would probably be! Well, irdial has a very open publishing policy, and i managed to get all of their recordings, all four
discs, in mp3 from a mirror. I also yanked their 80-page booklet that went along
with it, that is VERY informative, and if you want to know more about number stations, I suggest read it.

disc 1
disc 2
disc 3

disc 4

CONET project booklet [pdf]

Just got back from Cincinatti, where Ben Folds played at Bogarts. We got there about 45 minutes late, and sur-prize sur-prize, Mapquest got us a little lost. And, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Cinci, but the “cool” part of town is really just a gentrified black neighborhood (aren’t all “cool” parts of town?), so we stopped at the local Kroger’s to ask for directions, and the people there were very congenial — apparently there were plenty of lost white kids that night looking for Bogarts.

{more}

I hate feeling afraid to be in a “part” of town. I feel stupid, ashamed, even. These are just people.

So, the frickin’ show was sold out. Luckily, scalping is apparently legal in Ohio, and we managed to still get tickets. Sure, they were about twice face value (which was only $18), but dammit, I had driven there with Kelly, and we were going to see the piano-mosh stylings of Ben Folds. We got in after they’d played about 2 songs, and the place was packed.

Most of the songs during the hour and a half set were from the new album, with an interlude of 2 covers, a punky “Mommy Make Me” and “Sweet Home Alabama”! Now, I know Holly would have hated it. I was a little torn, myself. Believe me, they rocked it out, for sure, though thinking about that song, and the whole Neil Young/Skynyrd argument. “Sweet Home” is a rebuttal to Neil Young’s “Alabama” — an indictment of that state’s history of racial inequality, and being in a town that has a certain level of racial tension, and in a room full of white college students, and a band singing “you don’t know what it’s like to be male, middle class and white”, it was all a little strange at the time.

I saw Luke Padgett while we were down there, much to our surprise, and he mentioned that he wasn’t sure if he was going to come up from Lexington to see it, due to the acquittal yesterday. It was a thought in the back of my mind as well, but I think that that fear is only felt outside of Cinci. There was no tension in that crowd, no violence, everyone in the crowd knew the lyrics, and because there was no overdub, they would fill in the background vocals. It was nice, and they rocked it hard. I think that’s what made me feel good about the state of the city, and the people within it. “You don’t know what it’s like, being male, middle-class and white” — and do I, a white middle class male know what it’s like to be hispanic, elderly and poor? Black young and rich? No, and race, creed, and status don’t matter — I know I don’t hate those people, and I know that most of them don’t hate me.

We also happened to see Art while we were down there as well, again, much to our surprise. What is this? We go to another city, much larger than our own, and we see people we haven’t seen in years? Never under-estimate the drawing power of white-boy piano mosh rock.

It was good to see Arthur. I miss Art. A lot. I think he and I shared a lot of similarities, and quirks. We are both too emotionally sheltered and too easy to “give up” on a relationship. And never let ourselves down for it. It was good to see him. We all appreciate good Art. (tee-hee).

Well, so anyway, BACK TO THE SHOW. It rocked. HARD. The new backing band (now with guitar!) is awesome, and the encore was a lot of Ben Folds Five stuff, including a 10 minute version of “Song for the Dumped”. I felt real good after leaving, and I still do. It was okay to just do the white-boy shuffle, hear a song that made me sullen, and then turn around and rock out hard, to a guy playing a piano…