Here comes the obligatory weekly Arcade Fire reference! On last nite's 100th episode of Gilmore Girls, every blogger's favorite Canadians were name-dropped (along with Brian Eno & Super Furry Animals) as Rory was (gasp!) ripping cd's for her mother Lorelai. Creator, executive producer & writer/director Amy Sherman-Palladino can show mother-daughter bonding & piss off the RIAA all at once. Entertainment Weekly has a nice feature on the show in honor of it reaching its syndication magic number, and Quo Vadimus points to another good article from Time Out NY.

ETA: Stereogum caught the name-drop as well. Nicely done, Scott.


Album covers for M.I.A's Arular & The Decemberists' Picaresque (click to enlarge).

After donewaiting revealed the album artwork for The Decemberists forthcoming Picaresque LP, I did a little hunting around to make sure it was for real. After all, the cover had real live people on it, and didn't exactly look like something from Carson Ellis. Long story short, I stumbled across the band's publicists, 230 Publicity, who handle quite a few great independent artists, including The Hold Steady, Of Montreal, The Fiery Furnaces, Les Savy Fav, U.S.E., Ratatat and more. Their website features press materials & hi-resolution images for most of their clients, which are kinda interesting to peruse. 230 is also handling M.I.A. & have a pretty detailed bio for the budding superstar. 230's Fiery Furnaces page features an intriguing letter to listeners from the Friedbergers regarding last year's Blueberry Boat LP, which describes a concept of "music as failure" that clap clap uses to connect to James Murphy's work on LCD Soundsystem. Cool, huh?

For more on Maya Arulpragasam's North American debuts, check out this post from Sepia Mutiny that discusses some of the controversy surrounding M.I.A. & has loads of links related to her recent shows in Toronto, NYC & LA.

MP3 RANA - "Bloodshed"
My favorite Jersey rawkers RANA just finished their three week residency at Tribeca Rock Club in NYC (SBD recordings available via Rockslide) & finished off their recent run of events last Saturday at one of their favorite haunts, John & Peter's in New Hope, PA. That show was particularly notable because it was superfan Erik Swain's 100th RANA gig (and here's proof)! Holy crap, that's devotion. Or, as Swain put it: "definitive proof of insanity, depending on your perspective." After two blistering sets, RANA brought Swain on-stage during the encore to "hoarsely shout" this song, which is from 2004's What It Is LP. I posted a live version of this anti-war song (written during the build-up to the Iraq invasion) back in March '04, but in honor of Dr. Swain's accomplishment, I thought it was worth posting the album version as well. Kudos, Doc! Photo below by Rena Siwek, courtesy RANARock.com.


Best picture ever.

MP3 Tom Waits - "God's Away on Business"
Seeing as it is Wednesday, it must be time for some more Tom Waits. This dark & grimy track comes from 2002's Blood Money (a fitting compliment to "Bloodshed"), and features some gruesome-yet-amusing lyrics:

There's a leak, there's a leak in the boiler room
The poor, the lame, the blind
Who are the ones that we kept in charge?
Killers, thieves and lawyers

God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business

[...]

Godddamn there's always such a big temptation
To be good, to be good
There's always free cheddar in a mousetrap, baby
It's a deal, it's a deal

God's away, God's away
God's away on business, business

Demented. Bizarre. I just love that guy.

Before you head out on the town this Friday nite (I'll most likely be at Grumpy's for Evan's b-day bash), don't forget to set your Tivo's & VCR's to record Ted Leo's appearance on Conan. It's not to be missed (heads-up).

This entry was posted by mr gilbert at 2/09/2005 11:05:00 AM.