The Sounds Inside My Mind

Stereogum has a great thread going about the greatest fictional musicians. One of the comment made me laugh out loud; it’s in reference to a single line comment of “Jesse and the Rippers.”

I had to Google who the hell Jesse and the Rippers are. You’re a homo for knowing that.

What makes this extra funny for me is that I know exactly who Jesse and the Rippers are, and though that was a funny suggestion, but it’s that comment I posted above that really takes the cake.  Comedy gold.

Here are my latest eMusic downloads!

My new MacBook arrived at work today!  It looks like my big plans of going out and socializing this evening may have to be put on hold so I can set it up.

The additional RAM I ordered, as well as my new Wacom bluetooth tablet arrived yesterday, so all I was waiting on was the laptop.  Now that it is here, it’ll be a whole new computing experience.  I’ll post my reactions to the new machine, Leopard, using a tablet, and dual-booting into Ubuntu soon.

David Dye interviewing Britt Daniel of the band Spoon, discussing AM radio: “You’d get the Singing Nuns—you know the Singing Nuns? They did a French song, Dominique.”

Interviewee Britt Daniel, sounding bored and confused: “Uh huh.”

Dye again, sounding excited: “It doesn’t matter. You should go look it up. Awful song. Catchy as hell. It’d drive you crazy.”

Daniel, still bored: “Uh huh.”

I’m glad someone with vast musical knowledge and influence like David Dye uses his great opportunity to talk with one of the best and brightest musicians today about something as important and influential as the Singing Nun.

Hear the entire Spoon concert and subsequent interview at All Songs Considered.

A related note: I once found the Singing Nun’s record at a Goodwill. I snatched that great piece of vinyl right up and gave it to my friend Jeff, the biggest Singing Nun fan I know.

Did you here that Nickel Creek are soon to be no more?  With them disbanding and Led Zeppelin reuniting, it looks like the good guys are winning.  If you haven’t guessed, I don’t like Nickel Creek.  I think their so-called bluegrass is water-down poseur music.  As I snidely told a friend once: “Nickel Creek is to bluegrass what Pat Boone is to rock and roll.”  Ha ha, I’m a jerk.

I’ve updated my tags for Freakonomics on Library Thing; as my copy is now autographed by both authors! Actually, it’s not quite as exciting as you’d think. Being economists, Levitt and Dubner have made it extremely easy and affordable for anyone to get their autographs; just fill out the form on their website, and they’ll send you a signed bookplate that you can add to your copy of their book. Viola, a signed copy!

If you don’t have a copy and want to know what all the fuss over this book is about, check out the authors’ blog at the New York Times. It’s always an interesting read.

When I first heard about WCLZ being released from Citadel Communications, I wasn’t too concerned. Over the past few years (ever since I moved to Portland), I’ve been listening to the station less and less. It seemed to me they were playing more of the Jamie Cullum/John Mayer brand of watered down rock and pop and less of the music that I enjoy. Plus I could now listen to WMPG any time I wanted, so WCLZ went from the default setting on my radio to a second (or third or fourth) string back-up.

The one thing on WCLZ that remained consistently strong was Greetings From Area Code 207. Last night was the last episode of the local music show on CLZ, and I’m very upset that I missed it. At least the show will go on, as it has been picked up by WBLM.

But that was yesterday. Today is a different story. According to the comments on the CLZ blog, today was the change over to the new owners. After reading this, I tuned in to CLZ, and the change was obvious. The Rolling Stones? On CLZ? That doesn’t add up. There is no way they can be considered AAA. Yet the very next song was an Indigo Girls tune, a CLZ staple. But the on air staff is different. Earlier today I saw Rock Bergeron’s name on the website; he’s a DJ on WMPG. Now there’s some guy named Rick Johnson; I have no idea who he is. So I’m not exactly sure what is going on with the new owners. They’re still using the “Different By Design” slogan, and as I type this, they are playing an Acoustic Coffee Break, another mainstay from the Citadel days. I hope they don’t start mixing classic rock into the playlist. We have too much classic rock in Portland as it is.

I guess the point of this post is for me to say even though I didn’t listen to CLZ that much anymore, and Nissa and I would constantly make fun of the DJs, I still appreciated the place it held in Portland’s radio scene. And now it seems that the CLZ that I knew and (perhaps still) loved may be no more. Oh well. Another reason for me to go get satellite radio.

A silver lining: I discovered through this blog post that because of the new ownership taking control of WCLZ, the simulcast on WCYI is no more. That station is currently playing a blues format. Quite interesting.

Also, the Senate will soon be voting on a bill that would expand the number of low power FM stations in the country (link via WFMU). I know that a number of groups were vying for the one station allocated to the Portland market. If the Senate does the good thing and passes the bill, maybe there will be a few more independent spots on our radio dials in the coming years.

Late last night, Apple released the rumored update to it’s MacBook line.  This was the sign I was waiting for to tell me it’s time to buy a new machine.  There are so many things about the new MacBooks that I’m excited about: Leopard and all it’s features, a fast Intel processor, the ability to dual-boot ito Ubuntu, a DVD burner, Airport Extreme wireless speeds, a huge hard drive for my music; the list goes on.  I’m going to supplement my new machine with a Wacom bluetooth tablet.  With that, I can get down to business on my comic book ideas, and start posting those!  I’ll think I’ll put together my order tonight, so by this time next week I could very well be posting from a shiny new machine!