Philadelphia Freedom

I was going to write a nice political post, but something just happened that got me all misty eyed

15 years ago I was a 15 year old living on the Main Line outside of Philadelphia.   My father and I, at the invitation of a family friend who happened to one of the city's finer citizens, attended game 3 of World Series between the Phillies and the Toronto Blue Jays.

Short story: it was a great night for a 15 year old boy and his dad. 

Tonight the Phillies finally won the World Series, 15 years too late for that 15 year old boy and his father to watch in person.  

But we celebrated over the phone. 

Sharks They Don't Have Wings

I'm listening to Pavement, and pondering whether No Monkeys deserves to live.  I've been a neglectful caretaker.  But I just bought a new computer and it's so much fun to use that keeping No Monkeys alive no longer feels like a chore.  So here we go.  Welcome, to NM 3.0.  Hold it close. 

Holy flirking Scnhit Radiohead is U2!!

You don’t believe me? You think like this twit that the new album sounds like Kid A, except that now the use traditional instruments (NOTE: So what he’s trying to say is there are melodies but they aren’t played on synths and drum machines - how that makes the album Kid A-esque is beyond me). You really don’t think that “Reckonor” couldn’t be the best U2 track of the last decade? Come here so I can hit you.

This is the most straightforward and melodic record in Radiohead’s catalog. There, I said it. Gone is the “you have to listen to it a million times to get all the nuances” mix by Nigel Godrich. The story of each track is immediately present, there is no need to aurally unwrap each track. And that's not a bad thing when the melodies are as engaging as they are here. (See Reckonor, House of Cards).

The album is full of bright, supple guitar chords. Selway and Greenwood The Lesser swing on all the midtempo grooves – you’d might swear this is a Wilco album. Bright melodies dominate the record.

Ironically, the album's best track is “All I Need.” It perfectly merges the electronic experiments of Kid A with a brilliant melody and live band play that made OK computer so beloved (and so missed). It’s like “Idioteque” and “Let Down” fucked and then gave birth to this supermodel baby. I’ll call it today: “All I Need” makes the greatest hits disc.

Elsewhere, Radiohead devotees will hear lots of familiar sounds – Bodysnatchers riff sounds like a hybrid of “Polyethalene” and “Palo Alto.” Videotape sounds eerily like “How I made My Millions” – even that weird clicking noise in the background. “Faust Arp” is “Wolf at the Door” part deux.

They say you get what you pay for. And one might have feared that a band willing to give away its album had nothing of value to sell. I’m happy to have found a bargain in my inbox this morning.

Song of the DAY: Oh Yoko! - John Lennon

The song of the day (if not already clear from the title of this post) is "Oh Yoko!" by John Lennon.

Opening with a quick, kicking drum lick, foreshadowing the song's propulsive rythmic base, the country rocker begins: "In the middle of the night I call your name."

Simple lyrics expressing profound need and love. And, it swings enough to call it danceable.

Speaking of danceable the Arctic Monkeys "I bet you look good on the dancefloor" is ass-shakealicious.

The Handshake Drugs

I can't make a decent martini. It's a god damned shame. I'm so talented in so many other ways, but I can't make my favorite tasty beverage.

This is hell - to have the means to make a perfect martini, but continually failing to achieve even mere adequecy.

My mediocore martinis burden my soul. My manhood is shattered. My alcoholism is embarrased. I weep over my impotence as a confectioner of intoxicants.

So I sit here alone, sipping on dry gin w/ the outlines of vermouth nipping at the back of my throat. There is no smoothness to it. It tastes like the afterburn of a mulberry jet fighter.

But I sip, and I sip some more. The onset of inebreation makes my 'tini a little tastier.

Actually, after six sips, it's not that bad.

Reborn - Again

No Monkeys died. Today, it is reborn. After more than a year of inactivity, Rothko returns with a new blog. Hopefully, it will display more wits, smarts and maturity than the last - but that seems unlikely.

We'll be talking music, movies, and the law - probably lots of antitrust, probably lots of links to above the law, probably nothing more than you already know.

Welcome back. I'm happy to be with you again.