I once greatly irritated Colin Hay

Generic Art Solutions perform and explain their performances Spill and The Raft, as seen at the "Deja Vu All Over Again" show at the New Orleans Museum of art. More info here. Yay performance art!

Media announcement: Dust off your whiskey drink' shirt in this week's Record Crate for 225 starring the Myrtles, Frontier Ruckus, Elsah, American Aquarium, Colour Revolt, Pine Leaf Boys and so on.

Belle & Sebastian, Write About Love
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Felt, The Pictorial Jackson Review 
Television, Adventure

I'm set to do an phone interview here in a minute and had to go get batteries for my trusty Olympus WS-100 digital voice recorder which was thankfully in the pencil cup on my desk where I thought it was. I thought I'd found an iPhone app that used some dodgy overseas service to record phone calls while I'm talking - basically it tells the other person the call is being recorded in a garbled English accented robot voice before calling - but I've found it works the three times I try it out before the interview and then cluges up for the real deal. I once greatly irritated Colin Hay of Men at Work as he sat at a California rest stop awaiting my getting my shit together.

When I interviewed Ian MacKaye from Fugazi, the first thing he asked was if I had my recorder situation straight. I'm guessing the three other interviewers to which he lent his time that morning did not, and you don't want to piss off the nicest guy in punk rock. I just came across that recording along with 35 others that I am archiving off. One day I'll figure out how to do this recording interview thing so I don't sound like Grimace from the McDonald commericals (also wearing purple today) on "tape".

(interview transpires)

The interview went great. I would rather talk to old minor country players and aspiring rappers before any rock ingenue. The former has stories and tells them.

The new Belle & Sebastian has grown on me greatly over the month, though I keep waiting for that "ohhh, I see what you're doing" moment re: crapola hook lines like make me dance/I want to surrender. Anna Karenina is good y'all, but not in the dull romantic classics way it is generally portrayed. How come nobody ever talks about how funny the Russians are? I am but two teacups into the samovar of Great Russian Literature Nobody Reads Unless They Have To and they are both whipsmart Falstaff frolics. Like I think I've said before, all my favorite mad bumblers like Ignacius Reilly and Arturo Bandini are apparently cut from this cloth. Who knew? Like my painter buddy Ed was saying to me yesterday afternoon about how his daughter carries her fresh, shiny knowledge after her first half-semester of college: There is so much I don't know, and it's all out there to know.

I do know Felt was great little band. The great little band. I'd love to interview Lawrence from Felt. Lawrence, if your reading this, holla.


"Don't Die on My Doorstep"