Month of May, 2008

Am putting the final touches on the "Other Notable" essays for the 2008 edition of the book and wanted to share some of my favorite pieces that didn't make it in the book.

First is "This Atlas Rocks."

I'm biased to love great writing/illustration projects because I have a great artist friend with whom I collaborate (www.scottgursky.com), and I was pleased to see the fabulous local scene writer Peter Scholtes tackle the places and stories of Minneapolis rock history with this two page illustrated spread:

Today my LA Weekly article on the new NIN album The Slip is out. Been thinking a lot about that "Welcome to the Machine" reference – neither of them denied the mechanisms of fame, just the indignities that were suffered for it.

Re: the lede. Best when angry. For my book I interviewed one of Reznor's roadie/techs whose job it was to glue the keys back on his keyboards after each performance. Who knew this could be a 20 year career?

So last week I read Drew Daniel's excellent Throbbing Gristle book 20 Jazz Funk Greats (Continuum), and directly afterward spent 21 hours watching noise live at the Knitting Factory for the No Fun Fest. Yesterday I turned in yet another NIN piece, this time for the LA Weekly, and so all revolves right now around the noise/industrial nexus and my blossoming (re)interest in what it means to listen to and participate in so called transgressive art. I want to share this bit from Drew's book, which is part of the chapter on the song "Convincing People," because it reveals something that bothers me about the contemporary noise scene, which I see as very much the inheritor of the values Genesis et al. founded, however ironically given the context of this extended quote:

ERMP don't take no mess!

The most excellent Luke Lucky Dragons agreed to curate the first East River Music Project show of the summer. Mark your calendars! And...the world is ready for Obits, the new project of my dear friend Scott Gursky (of Shortstack and the Ruby Dare fame) and Rick Froberg (Drive Like Jehu/Hot Snakes). Are you? Get with it.

East River Amphitheater (Cherry St. @ FDR Drive, NYC)
June 7, 2008 | 2 PM 

Lucky Dragons

Wrote a little Pitchfork news story about the No Fun Fest. Here's some pix that didn't make the cut from everyone's favorite morally repugnant Consumer Electronics, etc.

This just in from the GirlGroup list - Skope Magazine is closing its print edition: 

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