Category: Music

Ok, time for another Embarrassing Music Post™. I want to know what was on the turntable (or CD player for you young’uns) at your teenage house parties. Being an old man, my parties straddled the late 70’s/early 80’s divide, but most of my party friends were a little more backward looking than I was. While I was the punk/new wave guy, this is what I had to endure. No wonder I drank myself into a stupor:

• Alice Cooper – Greatest Hits
• Nazareth – Greatest Hits
• Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon
• Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
• Foreigner – Foreigner
• Queen – News of the World

The best I could do was slip The Cars on now and then, after everyone had nodded off. How about you?

Almost four months after I ordered it, Chapters finally sent me the Loveways EP from Spoon. And I don’t think I’m being charged for it, either. Nice!

I have really been enjoying Steve Malkmus‘s new CD lately. It reminds me of all the reasons I wish I could play guitar. Worst of all, he’s playing SXSW, and I’m leaving Austin before the Music portion starts. Here are all the shows I wish I could see, but won’t:

• Spoon
• Stephen Malkmus
• David Byrne
• The Flashing Lights
• Mike Peters (ex-Alarm)

In other news, Denise sent a fiery package of hot sauce, hot tamales, and chili, which has already started to melt the snow up here. Thank you Denise! Hopefully, I can bring a little bit of Canada with me next week…

My new favourite CD, Spoon‘s Girls Can Tell is released on February 20. Look for it!

Here’s a great example of the dot-com shakedown in action. (keep clicking…)

I emailed Spoon to see when they were playing at SXSW and to tell them I’d been at their 1998 Toronto show. Here’s what I got back…

From: <detektor @somedomain.com>
To: <james @thisdomain.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 7:24 PM
Subject: SXSW

march 15 at the mercury

you must have been 1/3rd of the audience that night in toronto