Oh my goodness, what have I been doing?

Well! Not updating my blog, obviously. For someone who sits in front of a computer all day at work and, you know, "writes", I'm pretty terrible at this. One thing I'm currently doing is a SECRET, but it's awesome and taking up loads of my time right now. It is a mildly musical endeavor. Mildly.

I've been busy! Busy eating. Jamie invited me to Minnie's with Jenn and Angela. Miniature food and good company is delightful. I was strangely social that night and promised to meet up with folks later on so I had to bail early. Pfffft, should've totally spent the rest of the night with the fabulous blog girls instead.

This isn't a food blog but a music blog so I will spare you the deets of how I spent the rest of my weekend at Veggie Bite. Basically. All weekend. Nom nom nom.

I did go to the CHIRP Record Fair this weekend. Formerly the WLUW Record Fair, it now benefits the Chicago Independent Radio Project, a much-needed endeavor. I was there for a while shifting through a surprising amount of Madness and Melanie. I should've made a list of stuff I wanted but came away with Leonard Cohen's Recent Songs, Talking Heads' 77 and More Songs About Buildings & Food, the soundtrack to Valley of the Dolls, and Television's Adventure. Nothing too exciting. I almost bought Harmonicats' Dolls Dolls Dolls just for sheer kitsch factor but even I refuse to pay $6 for kitsch. I wish I had the $$$ to pick up some of the amazing girl group, soul, and doo-wop 45s that were organized really, really well, but jeez louise, they were a bit on the pricey side. I want to be that dude when I grow up.

So that's that. Hi. Hello. I'll be back again. I had the day off today so I caught up on watching Top Chef, reading for fun, and indexing twenty years worth of poetry. Fun fun fun.

"Could be worse...you could be the lead singer in The Fall."

Have you seen Control, the Ian Curtis biopic yet? You should. It's really very good. We all know what happens in the end and you can figure out the stuff in the middle if there's any familiarity with the band's history and music. The film? Is a looker. A beaut. Surprisingly funny and wonderful to look at. And enjoyable to watch, too. The story moves at the appropriate pace and distance, complementing its subject. One of my faves from the past year. If you've ever seen band photos from the past two or so decades (and who hasn't?), you've probably encountered Anton Corbijn's work. This is such a solid first film for the renowned photographer. LOVE IT. I can write whole essays about this movie but it's late and I have poetry to reread for class tomorrow. Really need to see this movie again. So good!

Say What You Will About Public Radio

I love it! I love Ira Glass, too. And the pretty picture below from Scott Olson Photography.
Did you listen to This American Life this weekend? Well, you should've. Then you should've promptly gone to the website and checked out the winners for the Break-Up Song Contest that stemmed from the brilliant story by Starlee Kine on the aptly-named episode Break-Up.

The original song was fantastic and the remakes/remixes are all lovely and heartbreakingly sweet. I love me some cute music.

What happened?

Someone please explain to me what happened to all of the time.

I feel like I am always sitting in front of my computer doing something other than updating this blog: typing up journal entries for my Critical Reading and Writing class, looking up pictures of dead babies for my upcoming speech (in mere hours; I am sooo not ready and will be lucky to pull off a B) in Public Speaking, er, I mean Oral Expression and just SCHOOL SCHOOL (and in between, watching Heroes, Ugly Betty, Pushing Daisies, The Office, and Project Runway) SCHOOL WORK WORK WORK SCHOOL SCHOOL DEATH. Scholastic Deth! I love that band! See, music related stuff in a music blog!

I have even more stuff to write in here about. Once tomorrow (today, technically) is over, I'm going to clean my room really well and I'm going to post a bunch of stuff that I've been meaning to and some new stuff. So, this entry is a filler entry just to keep me on track. Things to expect in the next few days:

- My take on Jay-Z's "American Gangster" and why Kanye West is my fave and my least fave mainstream MC
- Vinyl rips! Yeah. For real. Out of print, C86-ish stuff. You'll love it because I love it.
- More vinyl rips! Remember all of those singles I mentioned I had before? Well, I have some on my 'puter now, and I love to share. Because sharing is caring. Yes. That's it.

Gosh. I really need to get some sleep. I have a ridiculously busy day tomorrow and a weekend of catching up on my internet life as well as my school life (who needs a social life?!). Let's hope I hear my alarm clock and don't sleep through the only conference I have this semester. Urgh.

swiftly sweeping away swift from my titling vocabulary

if you don't see me in the next few days, I've moved to Sweden and bought a horse and a cat. Blame NPR. Seriously. You can also blame the truly wonderful Bob Boilen's/NPR's All Songs Considered for my taste in music. Sometimes Pitchfork (yeah, I said it) but mostly ASC--go to their redesigned site and, most importantly, the new blog. It's great and where I came across the video.

Failing Swiftly

I failed at NaBloPoMo in just a three-day period. Wow. That's okay, because I failed at NaNoWriMo in even less time than that. How embarassing. Oh well. Such is the life of a "busy" person. I JUST HAVEN'T BEEN ON THE INTERNET! Blasphemy, I know. And I broke my favorite pen but that's a different story for a different place if I ever get around to it. AND I've been sick. Look, I have a lot of excuses with varying degrees of legitimacy. Really, though, I have a sinus infection that feels like a squirrel living in my upper left jaw. I didn't know that was possible until it happened! No really. My jaw hurts and I have a sinus infection. Sick or not, I did do a lot of music related stuff since I went missing. I'll parcel those out in appropriate doses in the next few days.

Last Saturday, on the day that I did not post in this here blog, I went to the Sole headlining show at Abbey Pub. There's a lot to write and it deserves its own post. But I will leave you with the following--a Missed Connection for Mostly Certain:

sole (not the fish*) show @ abbey pub

You were by yourself, dark hair, scruffy-faced, glasses, a hoodie/vest? combo thing and a collared shirt? I can't remember. You grabbed a beer at the bar early on in the night and I almost approached you because I thought you were a friend of a friend; a friend of a friend I have yet to formally meet but have an e-crush on because I'm an idiot internet stalker fiend but this whole last bit is not relevant, is it? Anyway, I just wish you weren't into such didactic music. You were totally into it. How endearing.

*Fish pictures? You need fish pictures? You should go here.

Justin Long Is a Beautiful Man Who Shares My Last Name

I have given tons of money to Apple. I have an iPod now. I held off for a long time when it came to purchasing one, but I decided to just do it, gosh darn it, just get on that bandwagon already when I bought my new laptop.

So now I'm the owner of an 80GB iPod. How sweet is that?

You know what would be even sweeter? If my external hard drive with the roughly 60GB of audio files worked. That would be sweeter than the season's ripest fruit. Mango. Berries. Compound fruits are awesome.

Rejoice. Oh Glory, Rejoice.

I have a shiny MacBook Pro now. Lovin' it. Lovin' it real good. Lovin' it so much that I almost shed a tear when I plugged my external hard drive in and figured out what I knew all along: I have corrupted files. I'm working on it but haven't had the time to try and salvage the bulk of my digital music collection. There are two reasons for this:

One. The new-ish El-P record, I'll Sleep When You're Dead. It's so good. And different. And not disappointing. It's rather dark and not summertime music in the way that the usual indie-pop fare I gravitate towards to is what with the lack of sunshine of the over-exposed variety and hand-claps and vanilla ice cream and it being, well, not jangly pretty music. Dark but not angst-riddled. None of the malaise I often attribute dark things. Dark and pulsing. Dark and alive. Dark and Dark. Dark. Dark. Dark. But fun. I can listen to this album and hear something different each time. The truth is, I've spent the bulk of the past month holed up in my room trying very much to get writing done. What I have accomplished, however, is the fine art of reading in bed whilst listening to records in their entirety. This is one that I'm mostly certain will stick with me beyond summer. Oh, hey, I listen to something other than guitars and drums and all of things like that?

Two. I learned how to ride a bike. Sort of. I have no time for computers and music what with slimmed-hipped boys distracting me. I also bought a U Lock so no more lugging it up and down three flights in a very narrow stairway. Music. Pfft.

Reckless Lots

I find record stores as uncomfortable as book stores. I love these places, but I am under-qualified to be there. I know nothing of music or books. I played the violin for a little while when I was younger but what kid didn't play the violin? Sure, I'm a writing student. That doesn't mean a thing if I can't focus to write what I need to write.

Record stores make my guts open up and let my heart dive into an acidic bath. I get so nervous. I bite my nails. I end up buying some album, any album. Please don't judge me, I think. Please be my friend and think that my selection means that I am an inviting and interesting person.

Admittedly, that's stupid. Pathetic. No one cares about what album I am buying, about what album I'm listening to, what song I'm obsessed with. No one really cares about much of anything, least of all some dippy girl who is clutching on to a Leonard Cohen album she already owns but will probably buy again anyway because she's forgotten her Ever-Growing List of Records That Should Be Bought. She's forgotten it because she's walked into a dim record store where everyone else knows everyone else and she's starting to bite her nails, really bite them, and goodness, that's the sound of a heart splashing and writhing inside of another organ, isn't it?

I Know I'm Not Wrong

I didn't intend for an almost month-long hiatus from this blog. Not at all. I had listened to a fair amount of my digital music collection and made lists of what I thought would be interesting to put here so that I can show the great big wide world of the Internet that I do have taste, really, I do. Not particularly good taste or bad taste but taste still the same.

I didn't intend for my computer to die (shot motherboard). The death of a very important technological apparatus somehow sparked the idea in me that perhaps I can go a summer without a computer of my own. I can't. I'm going to purchase a MacBook (Pro?) by the end of the month.

I didn't intend to stop listening to music. I haven't stopped. I've listened to loads, actually. I've bought CDs and I'm going to suck it up and go to a record store and buy actual records soon. Record stores frighten me. I don't feel adequately interesting enough to patronise one.

I don't intend to keep this blog on the sickly sweet indie pop side of the musical spectrum, but here I am about to ramble on about a band from Brooklyn who make mildly folk-tinged pop songs with a spark of technology hovering over top (a big surprise, any of this?). I'm not going to tell you who's in the band (I have no idea) because you can find out on your own, but Mossyrock is pretty darn sweet in the way that my kid sister is sweet. So not sweet but another vague word: charming. Or maybe fresh. It's how my pores feel from a well-rested night of sleep and I wake up in the springtime. Full and content but not bloated. Whatever that means.

I like it best when no one sings, by the way. Reminds me too much of Shop Assistants when a warm voices creeps in to fill the gaps if Shop Assistants were more inclined toward Spring and not Autumn (and again, I have no idea what I'm talking about). You can hear a few tracks from Mossyrock on their Myspace (the first track, "I Know I'm Not Wrong", is great, singing and all). They're also currently on tour with James Apollo as part of the Big Art Show summer tour. Big Art Show is all sorts of fun. It'll be in Chicago tomorrow, June 13 at well-loved South Union Arts.