songlinesmusic.com » Tomfoolery

Don’t Do Me Like That

Sean — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:15:17 +0000

So much is being blogged, Twittered and said about John Mayer’s recent interviews in Rolling Stone and Playboy. Check out this interesting discussion from yesterday’s Los Angeles Times online between veteran music journalists Ann Powers and Rob Tannenbaum (the man who conducted the interview for Playboy). Tannenbaum discusses the two interviews he conducted with Mayer and both journos comment on the echnical and cultural changes that have made it possible for a (now rare) 7000 word interview to be distilled into 140 word summaries.

Entropy

Sean — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 14:18:37 +0000

David Cerny is an artist who pokes his finger into the ribs of the Czech and European establishment. Here’s an interesting profile from today’s New York Times about his punk craft and lively sense of humor.

You Can’t Catch Me, I’m the Gingerbread Man

Melanie — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:25:35 +0000

Yesterday, San Francisco’s world-famous Lombard Street was transformed into a real-life Candy Land. Shots from the festivities are sure to make you haul out the board games after dinner tonight. Here’s a taste:

Henry Austin Ittigson

Sean — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:34:19 +0000

Congrats to our Melanie Shrawder and her husband, Matt Ittigson, on the birth of their first child, Henry Austin Ittigson. He was born at 8:14pm on April 10th in Pittsburgh. Hank weighed in at 8.05oz. and stretched out at 20.5 inches. All are doing well!

Diamonds & Rust

Melanie — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:06:58 +0000

Amazon has published a truly bizarre list of “The 100 Greatest Singer-Songwriter Albums of All Time.” It starts off fairly predictably, with Blonde on Blonde, Astral Weeks, Pink Moon and Nebraska all in the top 10, but takes detours past some real head-scratchers on its way down to 100 — Bill Callahan’s Woke on a Whaleheart and Secrets of the Beehive by David Sylvian both make the list, for example. (How many people have even heard these? Or heard OF them?)

The order is puzzling, too. For starters, how does Suzanne Vega’s mid-career release Nine Objects of Desire beat out Tori Amos’s groundbreaking debut?

Other oddities: do an overwhelming number of Tracy Chapman fans really prefer New Beginning to her self-titled album? And why would Sea Change be the only Beck album to make the list? Is it because, of all his records, that’s the only one Amazon’s editors would qualify as “a singer-songwriter album”?

What do you think? What makes a record a singer-songwriter record? What’s missing from this list? Leave a comment below.

Watching the Wheels

Julia — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:08:21 +0000

You’ve had a holiday hangover for six days straight due to crashing your friends’ lame office parties because yours was canceled due to “cutbacks.” The highlight of your work day is arriving at the office and crossing off the day on your vacation countdown calendar which you’ve told your boss is actually a memory aid for the Sanskrit course you’re taking at night. As usual in December, your mind is not on work. Except this year you can’t afford to spend your last days in the office doing your Christmas shopping online. That’s why we’ve compiled this short list of things to do at your computer that will while away the hours sufficiently.

1. Live out your secret Geppetto fantasies with two interactive videos from Arcade Fire. Either pull the strings and make lead singer Win Butler your puppet in Neon Bible or play producer and rearrange Black Mirror.

2. Insult your co-workers for free with these fantastic e-cards. You’ve spent 2000 hours stuck in an airtight, windowless office with them since last Christmas. You deserve it. Among my favorites are “Get Well Soon So That I Find You Attractive Again” (for the guy in the next cubicle who insists on coming to work despite revolting winter cold symptoms), “I hope the colder weather won’t deter you from continuing to wear slutty summer dresses to the office” (for the interns), and “You’re a hard person to half-assedly shop for” (for the boss).

3. Laugh your ass off looking at the Greatest Photo Bombers of All Time. Seriously. This is the only email that actually gets funnier with time, because you usually miss about 50% of it upon each viewing due to hysterical laughter. Not advised if you’re still operating under the loose pretense that you’re actually working at your desk.

4. Calculate what you drank last night in terms of calories with this convenient BBC calculator. Those zany Brits have boiled the damage down to measurements of more appetizing nature, equating last night’s wine with how many onion bhajis (fried Indian treats) and Jaffa Cakes (tasty orange and chocolate cookies) you would have consumed. In typical British fashion, it makes drinking seem fun and tasty.

5. Take the Shining Heads Poll! Weigh in on everything from Eliot Spitzer’s footwear and Obama’s inauguration to the best method of cooking bacon in our annual poll.

–Julia Clarke

Welcome to the Jungle

Julia — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:57:40 +0000

As the A&R guy who signed the trashcantastic Delta Spirit to Rounder Records earlier this year, we have a lot to thank Dave Godowski for. So we were psyched to see him have his own taste of stardom Wednesday night when his Guns n Roses cover band Mr. Brownstone was invited to perform “Welcome To the Jungle” on Letterman! We think Godowski makes a pretty convincing Izzy Stradlin.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

And to think it took a whole year to make this song a hit back in 1987!

Lemme Tell Ya, Them Guys Ain’t Dumb

Melanie — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 19:08:53 +0000

MTV recently launched MTV Music, a highly-searchable online portal that contains zillions of music videos. Those of you who have spent years complaining about how MTV hosts no actual music programming, take heart: now you can stream good-quality video versions of “Sledgehammer” and “Like a Virgin” to your heart’s content.

Is Kevin Youkilis really Bluto?

Sean — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:11:51 +0000

Judge for yourself:

Orange Blossom Special

Melanie — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:20:58 +0000

Shocking details have emerged about the seedy underbelly of the Florida orange blossom industry. We turn now to Senior State Flower Conspiracy Analysts JJ Grey & Mofro, who have more on this story…

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