It may seem weird, but this week, I have more time to read about music than to listen to it. In reading the new Magnet, in the absurdly short Elliott Smith “interview”, it surprised me to see that Elliott is a fan of the Stooges’ Raw Power, an album that I’ve only recently discovered the full glory of. As anyone can see since the intro line changed, I’ve been playing the album nearly every other day. It also surprised me to read that Elliott will be playing keyboards on three tracks on the next Guided by Voices album. Is this supposed to make sense?
Certain things i just don’t know what to make of. Honestly, I never warmed up to the last Pavement album. Vale likes it, and i gave it a listen, and instead of good or bad, the only thing that crossed my mind is “mature”. Pavement cannot mature for me. they may have been devastatingly influential in their time, but to me, they are a Cretacious fly, trapped in amber. Every time i hear Pavement, I think of Jason Harrison, and getting drunk in Cate Square on whiskey and malt liquor after working all day in the carpentry shop or weedeating along sidewalks. One particularly great drunken moment had me convinced one song was an in-depth exploration of the aftermath of the Irish Potato Famine. No… really..
Anyway, it makes no sense to have Elliott connected to Guided by Voices, as Elliott is here and now for me, as he makes me think of Lou (even though I listened to him long before Lou and I met,) and Guided by Voices is another fly in amber from the mid ’90s. So very, very strange.
More strange is to envision Jeff Tweedy’s description of the upcoming Wilco album, “Flock of Seagulls doing Beggars Banquet.”
And not to obsess on NYLPM, but Tom Ewing is almost certainly wrong. I have the Q magazine issue on drugs, and it goes over that same thought that many of drug obsessed music lovers go over every few months… what effect drugs have on music. Cocaine is certainly not the best drug for the creation of music. It’s heroin. How can we make this official?
What the hell are these “Alien Choir” photos? And why would some glowing green aliens being hanging out on a garage roof in Alabama?