Month of January, 2002

DJed last night and managed to overcome my lack-of-transition lag...almost everyone in the bar (all tremendous 20 of them) came up to me at some point to say they liked what was going on - played the rad $1 records i bought on the street in lew of lunch yesterday - elvis costello, the tubes, psychedelic furs, heaven 17, and the go-gos (which sounds infinitely better slowed down a bit), along with a synthy set including my new favorite song ever, the tom tom club's 'genius of love.' i hadn't realized i had two copies of it on me and when some boy asked me what it was, then remarked how much he

have listened to nothing of value this weekend - went to see metalux/rah bras and was annoyed beyond belief at the pretentious pointlessness of those two awful girls + dirty hippie kid of metalux. low, dull thuds and piercing formless synth. why bother? rah bras ruled in a pre-recorded, super richmond badass sex bomb kind of way. everyone in the band sings well, the really put soul into the music and although it has industrial-lite inklings, i full endorse it.

listening to peng - stereolab, revelling in the utter mid-90sness of mental dispair.

formulating what i want my solo/covers project to sound like :::

stereolab - peng 'super falling star'

nico - chelsea girls

young marble giants - collossal youth

the orb - orbus terrarum - that incredible string track

smashing pumpkins - gish - rhinoceros/suffer

and thinking about songs that are sonically built on lyrical quirks/conceptions - self-referential but also providing a sound argument (ouch!) for the lyrical content -

top songs to put on a break up mix tape to make the other person feel like a huge dickhead.

1. all i really want to do - bob dylan

2. beautiful mind - the verve

3. broken heart - spiritualized

on unrelated note, smarmy room mate published his jackass photo on www.makeoutclub.com today, entering the sea of pathetic emo boys looking for a blow job from the internet. i wrote his bio (ha, just like AMG bios i write of pathetic emo boys looking for a blow job from the audience) and was credited as 'lacrimose' which is a word that'd never passed my lips til that moment. be my thesaurus, indeed.

came home from work and my stereo was playing songs:ohia's 'ghost tropic.' i must have accidentally set the alarm long ago, because i think it goes off around seven p.m. every nite, usually to the radio in this eerie, untuned crackle of voices. today is was as if i had some utopian future home, or like my bio-smart co-intern would say, a smart house run by monitoring a microchip in my skin which measures blood sugar levels, heart-rate or the humors - my infinite sea of black bile requires this album precisely as i enter the home! (lament!)

laid in bed in a funk tonite listening to the new lambchop album, sounds like a depressed meatloaf with neil young on guitar. apparent humor in the statement 'lambchop sounds like meatloaf.' not in a laughing mood. also, the singer from the swedish band 'club 8''s solo record, pretty good (wish i had listened to it bfr the indie pop comp, oh well, i'll have another chance) - a few radiohead meets her space elliot smith very 'now' jams, the first one catching me with offhand 'you don't need to tell me i don't need you anymore' lyrics.

"all those animals on the extinction list - they obviously didn't deserve to make it."

eric burdon is one of the best singers of all time - the animals singularly informed my freshman year of college, linking me to my parents who played 'we gotta get out of this place' out their dorm room windows in the late '60s. always so deperate, so strained and i simply couldn't imagine them giving a lackluster show.

thinking of doing a covers project - just me reinterpreting things like 'noise annoys' by the buzzcocks and doing some lame wanna be nico style stuff. i'm pulled both ways - wanting to be badass and demure in my vocals. oh, the life.

am burning my first mix cd for the indie pop list. makes me feel incredibly old. the girl who sent me one made the most lovely little package, all the music really just fits in the waxy beige envelope. now i'm forced to realize people really listen to masters of the hemisphere and things like that - that given a mix of it, i may enjoy it myself. i like the idea of mixtapes from strangers although it is a bit frightening. i am sending a bit of my diary out to another home, another stereo, two ears that love sound as much as i do.

played my first show in a year last night - very strange. probably over 100 people, most of whom i half-knew. after five years in nyc that's still a big deal. adrenaline rush like i haven't had in a while, my hands powerful but not my own - the songs playing themselves. during 'insignificant other' i had a mysterious loss of power in my legs, i had to keep changing rock stances just not to fall. i wasn't nervous so much as unsure - i didn't really care one way or the other if people liked us, i just didn't really want to hear about it.

sucks that the second i quit my paying job i become interested in music again and just want to buy things...great czech bands - lvmen, here, and iva bittova...the more hardcore i listen to, the more i get into bands like lvmen - dark and brooding rock songs with endless energy. damn me for getting into angel hair so late in life. www.tamizdat.org...

thinking about liquid liquid...cavern has to be one of the best, underappreciated dance songs. why do all artists either turn to attempting great dance songs or attempt to write sincere love songs? can't imagine being an industry 'song-writer' living in stockholm, conjuring up teenage sentiments in convienient end rhyme. i really feel like both creating those things and spending too much time listening to them is detrimental to my facilities as an intelligent adult. it's corrupting.

man, billboard magazine really is for industry choads. this isn't surprising so much for readership but in that they actually hype the revival of cracker as interesting and vital. publishing companies take out full page spreads thanking destiny's child for staying quiet and subservient enough to be the most uninteresting, toppest selling artists of the year. again. no wonder millions of dollars are wasted on redundant and unimportant crap.

blessed streaming media - keeps me feeling like i know what's going on if not in the world than at least in the minds of epitonic, insound, and other. suspiciously not recieving other music updates these days. conspiracy theories abound. have decided among my constantly piling new year's resolutions (i've kept them all thus far!) that i will include the final, conclusive study of distopian literature and film. it's a bit regressive but fitting of these rather dark times. am about to interview this guy who runs a club in atlanta for a mag.

brian eno. 'a year with swollen appendices' making me question when one starts practicing and just does. is the mark of a true master that of alleviated self-doubt? total confidence...there's a difference truly between that and ego. he's a genius not just for music but in total living. collaboration is a by-gone idea in high art? save for commercial hip hop albums? ludacris is a jingle merchant. i love him still.