Author Archives: robert duffy

I didn’t even know Saint Nick Hornby (author of High Fidelity) was doing this. It sounds great great great.

This holiday season, McSweeney’s is excited to release Songbook ? a brand-new collection of essays by Nick Hornby on 31 of his favorite songs and songwriters. This hardcover book has 4-color illustrations throughout and comes complete with a compilation CD filled with 11 songs discussed in the book. If you like Nick Hornby, and you like music, and you like artwork by Marcel Dzama, then this is just the thing for you and your loved ones. (Buy It)

The Independent does a nice story about the UK music journalism scene, breaking down key statistics and points. I’ve always liked UK music journalism over USA, more because of their use of hyperbole and obvious, blatant love of particular bands. Where in the USA, magazines are more like “okay, your record is out this month, here’s your cover story, call us when the next record is out.” I hate that. It’s so mechanical, so by the numbers, it makes me not care at all. This article makes me believe the entire category of music journalism has gone to shit. And that’s why we’re here, motherfuckers!

“Part of the explanation lies in the growth of multimedia. There are more exciting ways for fans to obtain information than in magazines. It is available online. So is the music. Music magazines are losing influence and commercial appeal. The industry they cover is a feeding-ground for tabloid gossip, internet chat and digital radio.” (full story)

After a small riot in Philly, the band has gone and cancelled the rest of their tour.

Bye Axl.

There’s so many good quotes for me to post here, I’d just as well cut/paste the entire article. Why don’t you go and read it for yourself.

What a dick.

Cracker (or someone) has posted MP3 demos of a fun little redneck inspired album the band is working on. Download them here. Cracker and their label had a little falling out, and Lowery sings about it in “Ain’t Gonna Suck Itself.” For more information on this record, and the Virgin breakdown, go here.

(thanks to Swizzle Stick for the head’s up)

Most rock bands use bass. Bass players are usually the unsung heroes of bands, bringing a nice foundation to a song. Well, Meticallica’s bassist quit the band awhile back, and they’ve gone without a replacement ever since, with producers and various people sitting in for them. But the time to fill the full time position is now! It’s time to bring someone new to the band so that Metallica can once again rise from the ashes and conquer the musical world!

Or maybe it’s all about the money. Tell it like it is, Lars:
The real impetus for the search, Ulrich ultimately revealed, came when Metallica were going over some T-shirt designs and decided they’d look a lot better if four members were represented. “One of [the designs] was a tattoo thing with three cars on them with just [the initials] ‘L.U.,’ ‘J.H.’ and ‘K.H.’ [on the sides],” said Ulrich. “And we were like, ‘Isn’t it silly to have all this merchandise for just the three of us?’ Then we started talking about bass players and it opened up this whole big thing.” (full story)

Gotta move those t-shirts along, boys! Woo!

First off, let me say this: there is no better place to see a show in New York City than Maxwell’s in Hoboken. (let that sink in, but it makes sense). And there’s no better place, at least for a hyper-fan like me, than standing front row in this small venue.

This was the second of eight charity shows Yo La Tengo were doing @ Maxwell’s, and each night the band had a rotating line-up of openers, stand in musicians, and special guests. My show opened with The Other Dimensions in Music, an experimental jazz band that played instruments and created sounds that I’ve never heard before.

The second act of the night was comedian Todd Barry. Let me tell you something. You might think a comedian at a rock show in a rock club might not make sense, but it absolutely does. It might suck with someone like The Amazing Jonathan, but with Barry, it was a perfect fit. He has a really great understanding of music (he name checked Tragically Hip!), and his humor worked well with the crowd.

It was finally time for hometown heroes Yo La Tengo to hit the stage, and they once again tore up Hoboken, deconstructing their catalog and recreating original songs like you’ve never heard them before. Other Dimensions joined them for the main set, improvising along to the band. When it didn’t work, it was bad, but when it worked, god, it was a thing of beauty. Luckily it worked more than it didn’t, and the band pulled off great versions of “Autumn Sweater,” “Nuclear War,” and an amazing cover of “Venus in Furs,” among others.

It takes a lot of guts for a band to invite an improvising jazz band to play with them and basically say “make it up as you go.” Easier said than done, right? Luckily, with a band as strong as Yo La Tengo, this experiment proved to be a success.

During the encore, Todd Barry came back and played drums on a Dylan song, and “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” star John Cameron Mitchell made a surprise appearance, performing Lou Reed and Neil Diamond songs.

A good, holy night of rock. On a side note, the band gave away free 3-song Christmas CDs to the crowd, and only charged ten dollars for t-shirts. Happy Christmas, indeed!

Billy from Miranda Sound sent me a link to Emo Game today. I’ve wasted so much time with this.

It’s good to know there’s a ton of websites out on the internet that I still don’t know about.

Been to CD Now lately?

From their e-mail newsletter:
“John Peel was so impressed with Belle & Sebastian”s last session for him at Peel Acres that he”s invited us along to play his Christmas party show! It will be a live broadcast from the BBC studios at Maida Vale on Wednesday 18th December 2002 starting at 10pm GMT. The band will be performing live and doing a few Christmas Carols to get you in an christmassy kind of mood. You will also be able to tune in to the live stream on the internet by clicking here.”