Music

determining the most effective, expedient, and violent means of bringing an end to @JennLukas's control of the office speakers.

Music is weird. One day, someone said, "Bill, bang on this thing, and Steve, blow into this thing. I will talk funny on top of it all."

just caught wind of last.fm's big announcement. Wow. blog.last.fm/2008/01/23/free-the-…

37signals's glee at having Steve Albini comment on their blog reminds me of the time I got a voicemail from John Zorn. Fanboys unite!

The quality of one's car stereo is typically inversely proportionate to the quality of one's taste in music.

noticed how intense the reverb is throughout the new Magnetic Fields album hours before I connected the dots to its title: Distortion.

Far too many of the people submitting data to CDDB have their heads up their own asses.

Hey Philly! Who wants to go see Black Dahlia Murder and 3 Inches of Blood... right now?

bummed that the upcoming X tour (with original lineup) is not coming anywhere near the east coast.

being recommended The Postal Service by last.fm. Did someone put a tight sweater on me when I wasn't looking?

slapping myself on the forehead as I finally stumble upon the purpose of the Grouping field in iTunes. Up next: Hours of ID3 tag editing.

digging @simplebits's old band, which lands somewhere between early Low and and the quieter side of Mogwai. Really good stuff.

On the Web

• The Moby Equation: A clever formula used to determine a recording artist’s sellout level.
• Untraceable: The funniest film trailer I’ve seen in awhile. Looks like The Net meets Fear Dot Com. Enticing, no?

In the Stereo

• Salter Cane: Salter Cane
• Van Halen: Fair Warning

On the Silver Screen

• Juno

glad music is still more important to me than vacuuming.

The highway's jammed with broken heros on a last chance power drive.

anxious for details on the new My Bloody Valentine album, thinking it would be grand if my earplugs got to filter a stateside show in 2008.

looking forward to the forthcoming Faraquet singles compilation, and hoping their pseudo reunion yields some new material too.

can't believe it took me this long to officially complete my David Lee Roth era Van Halen collection. I started with 1984 (in 1984).

Although a lot of great songs do it, a fadeout seems like a lazy way to end a song.

can't imagine how or why anyone would sing "Proud Mary" with any kind of enthusiasm.

in need of some more good alt country.

The sidewalk is icy, so I'm walking like Ozzy Osbourne.

An oddly appropriate end to a bipolar kind of day: the first 12 episodes of Trapped in the Closet. Thoroughly entertaining.

wishing I got to see Thin Lizzy sometime between 1976 and 1980.

On the Web

• Fray Returns: The beloved site filled with true stories is reborn as a printed quarterly volume!
• Design Doing: A nice roundup and response to recent conversations regarding the relevance of web design within the greater spectrum of design.
• Charts and Graphs of Rap Song Lyrics: The title says it all. Fall-down funny stuff.
• Curriculum Vitae: The long-awaited followup to The Story of Eh, this fantastic new book of comics from Kevin Cornell… See more →

Nineteen years later, Metallica's ...And Justice for All is still one bleak, ugly album, surprisingly strengthened by the anemic production.

still not seeing what's "more accessible" about the last couple of Deerhoof records.

It's funny that 15 years ago, Ministry's sole recorded guitar solo poked fun at wanky guitar heros, and now every song has a wah'd-out solo.

trying out the new Ministry album against my better judgement.

just watched The Decline of Western Civilization: Part III. I hope that fabled DVD set of all three films actually happens.

Man, iTunes just can't get enough of the Meatmen lately.

Everything is Billy Joel's fault. Everything.

watching The Commitments, realizing once again that I own far too few R&B and soul records.

glad the dogsitting is over, but bummed I missed Melt-Banana last night due to rain.

listening to some ultra-nerdy wanker metal, noting how much more attention is paid to technical chops versus actual composition.

on a FOWD-bound train, as Tom Waits once sang.

not particularly enjoying the new Dillinger Escape Plan record.

I'm not so into mashups, but Mission of Burma's "Max Ernst" and Art Brut's "Emily Kane" would make a pretty seamless "Emily Ernst."

in a nursing home, listening to a gloriously off-key, geriatric rendition of "Disco Inferno."

I hate to say it, but some Steve Reich pieces are the perfect soundtrack for a low-key A-Team-style montage. Just what I need right now.

On the Web

• Behind the Scenes of Layer Tennis: Chris Glass details his side of the Layer Tennis match he played with Naz Hamid.
• The Pothole: My first guest contribution to The Superest!
• The Superest: A wonderful new site from Kevin Cornell and Matt Sutter, determined to determine who is the superest of them all.
• Radio Orphan Annie’s Secret Decoder Badges: A brief history of the decoder pins used by Radio Orphan Annie’s Secret Society… See more →

using Wikipedia to finally investigate the unspecified origins of all the tracks the Misfits box set compiles from singles and EPs.

working out an alternate melody and arrangement for the Misfits' "Horror Business" that could make a pretty cool cover version of the song.

Stupid shrieking girls have no place at any show that would entice me to buy a ticket. DMB ain’t on the bill tonight, ladies. Please go home.

waiting for Stars to take the stage.

The approximate ratio of gas to solid inside the Samhain box set is 39:11.

Don't ask me why, but the Art Brut vocalist reminds me of a cross between @lloydi and @adactio. Guitarists: Gareth Keenan and Bob Dylan.

The Hold Steady's Craig Finn is like an unlikely, overjoyed hybrid of @joshualane and my friend Ashley. Best fucking show I've seen all year