check out the "begats"

The Magnetic Fields - Realism (lala)
Adam Green - Minor Love (lala)
McSweeney's The San Fransisco Panorama (their site)
R. Crumb - The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb (Amazon)
Dinner at Herbsaint
Spoon @ the Republic, New Orleans
Drive-By Truckers - The Big To-Do (lala)
Director Series Vol. 1: The Work of Director Spike Jonze (Amazon)
The Sugarcubes - Life's Too Good (lala)

Not a bad night at all. Spoon was good as they always are but the Republic still has those crazy Y-posts it had back in their days as the Howlin' Wolf, when you couldn't see a damn thing. The shocker was arriving at 11 or so expecting the rock o'clock opening act of Deerhunter to be just winding down but no, Britt Daniels was putting his camera on, a sign things were approaching encore territory. Evidently the Republic gets the nasty business of musicians with instruments out of the way by midnight so that it may go dance party which is A-OK fine with me. Let the masses wanting to embrace their inner and outer Jersey Shores have the witching hours. The thrill of coming back from a 2-3 AM finish in New Orleans is gone for this concertgoer.

The real stars of the evening were (1) the excellent books always laying around my good friends George and Vassar's place. They are McSweeney oriented and book store connected, so they had the latest issue which is a gorgeously laid out newspaper, complete with magazine, sports page, book review, ads, comics, etc. Totally brilliant idea, and of Louisiana interest, on the first page of the magazine section was a dispatch from Montegut, LA, down the bayou from my home town of Houma. Most folks from Houma don't even go to Montegut unless they are going fishing, so it warms my heart that the tentacles of bookish San Fransiscans managed to reach it.

G&V also had the R. Crumb Genesis which is a thing of obsessive wonder. Just go check out the "begats."


The other star (2) was the housemade spaghetti with guanciale and fried-poached farm egg at Herbsaint, pictured above under Spoon, before and after sullying the egg. Yee-ha, y'all, bring on the small plates revolution if this is what it's like. One of the best things I've eaten in ages.

After the show, there was a wind-down with a DVD of Spike Jonze videos including this one for "It's Oh So Quiet" for Björk (please allow embedding, people) which made me realize I wrote two completely different articles referencing the Icelandic pop star in different contexts. Björk was as omnipresent in my day as was the death of Alex Chilton.. I don't know if Björk ever did a Big Star song - I'd recommend "Kangaroo" if she's into it. Icy loner supergroup This Mortal Coil did it with Gordon Sharp of the long forgotten Cindytalk.



They also did other deceased Big Star-er Chris Bell's "You and Your Sister" with Kim Deal and Tanya Donnelly.



The ride home was bellowed out with the Sugarcubes' first record, which reminded me what rockers they kinda were back then, like we all were.