Were they still alive, today would mark the 74th birthday of Ted Cassidy (”Lurch” from the Adams Family) and the 62nd birthday of Nico.

Former US Secretary of Education William Bennett, however, celebrated his 63rd birthday today. Presumably, he’s not touched the milk money, though it is a very special occasion.

Emma Forrest once argued that Top Of The Pops was a massive cultural force simply because it had no editorial policy. It was reportage; if a record was high enough in the charts, it was on TOTP. They were just presenting the facts. The general consensus is that TOTP’s failure to be objective over the last few years has led directly to it’s demise - and by failing to be objective, I mean their chasing of the youth demographic for the past 4 years was about as subtle as a brick in the face. And the thing is, theres one fundamental aspect of Top Of The Pops that is increasingly alien to that demographic, and indeed the rest of us: TOTP was the very definition of appointment television. Until a few years ago, I made sure that I was free to watch TOTP because, God help me, I actually cared about what was going on in the charts, and the state of pop music in general.

In the documentary ‘The Story of Top Of The Pops’, everything seemed to be going fine with TOTP until mid-90s producer Chris Cowey arrived. Now, theres nothing wrong with Cowey. Dude looks like the Aphex Twin, and he really does love pop music with all his heart. But the BBC gave him carte blanche to do what he wanted to TOTP, which could have been madness in the wrong hands. And after Cowey left, the BBC wanted someone who could steer TOTP towards the youth market that seemed to be drifting away from them. Enter Andi ‘Wrong Hands’ Peters. The documentary implied basically that the shows sharp and massive decline was all his fault, and given that he didn’t show up to present a defence, I can only assume it’s true. At the very least, I find him deeply annoying. And so began an era of exclusives, songs that weren’t in the charts yet, moves to Sunday nights, ‘archive’ clips, interviews in the artist bar etc. They tried to turn it into ‘Heat Magazine: The Musical!’, and predictably, it was shit. So very shit.

Watching the final ever TOTP on Sunday was gut-wrenchingly awful. Absolute unmitigated arse water, the lot of it. Instead of having some all-star blowout, they went down the clip-show route of budget TV. First, playing clips of old TOTPs robs them of their context, like watching a greatest hits of News At Ten, evocative but remote and arcane. Showing Nirvana’s performance of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ doesn’t make half as much sense as when you first saw it alongside the other 25 minutes of chart pop that week. Secondly, the hour-long parade of clips implied that the show had a rich and varied history, which only begs the question ‘How did you fuck this up?’. Popjustice succintly summed it up as ‘60 minutes of us telling you how proud we are of something we don’t care about’. It really was like watching the ghost of a suicidee enthusing over how good the turnout was for his funeral. When they actually got around to the final ever top ten countdown, Shakira was no.1 with her frankly bizarre new single (sounds like outsider music. Really), and SHE WASN’T EVEN THERE TO PERFORM IT. ON THE LAST EVER TOTP. No fucking effort whatsoever. Post credits, Jimmy Savile did the symbolic thing and turned off the studio lights, dolefully shaking his head. As did I, thinking ‘Saville outlived Top Of The Pops. I miss John Peel so much.’ And thus ended the most pathetic piece of television I think I’ve ever witnessed.

Apologies to US readers, for whom this post must be completely incomprehensible, not to mention totally irrelevant. Sorry.

Jennifer O’Connor has far better photos of Yo La Tengo at the Pitchfork Fest (Union Park, Chicago) but if I can’t pull rank every now and then, where’s the fun in this job?

Even by the usual zero-attention span standards, the claim by one local jackass that Yo La Tengo were “so quiet ’til the last song I did not know they were playing” is kinda off the charts. Never again is the word “quiet” likely to be employed when describing songs like “Pass The Hatchet” or “Watch Out For Me Ronnie”, though I can’t deny even the loudest of bands come off as somewhat muted for someone whose head is up their ass.

Special recognition for the weekend goes out to the straw hat-wearing, backpack-wielding, hygiene averse dude (and when I say “dude”, I really mean “fuckface”) who put his paws upon me while trying to prevent entry backstage. You’d think this city would’ve learned a valuable lesson from the Democratic National Convention of 1968, but alas, how quickly they forget.
That said, the psychic blow delivered from spotting SS Decontrol’s Springa onstage during Mission Of Burma’s set is not one I’ll soon recover from. Time constraints (if not straw hat-wearing, backpack-wielding assholes) prevented an encore of “How Much Art (Can You Take)?”, but there’s always Coachella next year, right?

And the cruise they skipped (most of ‘em, anyway) was the voyage of the S.S. Jennifer O’Connor, previewing selections from her forthcoming ‘Over the Mountain, Across the Valley, and Back to the Stars’ CD/LP at the Beat Kitchen. Were the town’s tastemakers and face chasers still overwhelmed from the Silver Jews and Futureheads sets in Union Park? Dwyane Wade’s All-Star Jam at the United Center? Or perhaps it was the mere fact that said gig wasn’t listed in the paper or on the venue’s website?

Regardless of the circumstances, Ms. O’Connor’s tuneful meditations on love, loss and other everyday topics were delivered with equal measures of humor and intensity. We’ve worked with a litany of talented lady-human singer/songsters at Matador Records & Filmworks in the past (Chan M., Liz P., Mary Timony, Barbara Manning, Thalia Zedek, Jean Smith, Sue Garner to name just a few) and I’m not just hyping-you-to-death when I say that Jennifer’s achingly beautiful songs are the equal of any of the above.

OK, I am hyping-you-to-death. But I’m telling the truth, too, and you don’t have to take my word for it. ‘Over The Mountains’ is out August 22.

“Today” (mp3)
“Exeter, Rhode Island” (mp3)

upcoming dates :

August 8 - Philadelphia, PA - The Khyber
August 16 - Raleigh, NC - North Carolina Museum Of Art (with Jeff Tweedy)
August 24 - NYC, NY - Joe’s Pub
August 26 - Brooklyn, NY - North Six
September 23 - Boston, MA - Great Scott (with Choo Choo LaRouge)

Not only has the San Francisco Chronicle’s handling of the BALCO investigations been of a very high quality, but the paper’s music coverage, while somewhat less explosive, also deserves a nod or two, particularly yesterday’s interview with Nathan Shineywater of Brightblack Morning Light. From the Chronicle’s Derek Richardson.

What concerns, if any, did you have about releasing your music on a commercial, albeit alternative, label?

N. Shineywater: I am very interested in being involved with a progression that isn’t regulated by any corporate patterns and philosophy. I am interested in making long-play recordings, yet I could never afford to do it on my own, and I feel that working with others is a unique process that should be valued. I think Matador values this thinking, too, and because of that I was thrilled to toke a little and make an LP.

How does making music in a studio setting differ from making it in front of an audience?

N. Shineywater: We never went in a studio. We recorded in an empty house in the mountains near Joshua Tree National Park. This is essentially our first attempt at a long-play recording. The current live-music venues don’t usually offer up a decent format for our ideas to reach their full potential — there is always the issue of someone working sound who isn’t into their job, or the various beaten club speakers that crackle and short out during a set.

When did you start playing music together?

N. Shineywater: Our first show together was a benefit for the Alabama Green Party that I organized in coalition with an organic farmer and about seven other local bands in 2002. Following that, a tour down the West Coast with Will Oldham inspired us to continue on.

What drew you to Northern California? What are some of the locales and settings where you’ve lived in recent years?

N. Shineywater: Originally, I found an old National Geographic from the 1970s with an article on Arcata. I moved there and voted for the first time. It was the first all-Green Party city council in the U.S.A. Northern California is a unique place. It is my hope that the Northern California locals will value their open space and protect it from misuse by developers. The whole U.S.A. is being developed from the worst of motives. This land is so unique. Many people take that for granted.

Our record was mainly written in the Point Reyes National Seashore area. I lived around there for almost three years. I currently travel between rural New Mexico and Point Reyes Station. My favorite places are the trail systems in these areas that bring me nearer to wildlife.

How do you put your songs together? What role does improvisation play?

N. Shineywater: These songs came together because Rachael and I have a respect for them in our Heart, and I think songs form from our desire to grow and learn more about both Life and Songs. We really enjoyed learning the recording process, and we consider this our first full-length.

For me, “Friend of Time” feels a bit like “Midnight Rambler,” and the guitars, keyboards and horns call to mind other signifiers (Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, Ry Cooder’s “Paris, Texas,” and much more). If you were to connect the dots from the music you make in 2006 back through time, what would some of those dots be? And what connects them?

N. Shineywater: The biggest dot is the Alabama dot because both Rachael and I were raised there. Yet, because we feel our music is an expression of our lifestyle, the dots would also be in the formation of the endangered spotted owls of Northern California, the drying of the Eel River in Humboldt County, the current killing of wolves with tax money in Alaska: These things makes influential dots we connect with but are confused by.

You both played and sang on the new Vetiver record. Who else do you consider peers, musical, spiritual, philosophical or otherwise?

N. Shineywater: The Be Here Now teachings of Ram Dass; also a special composer, Rachel Grimes, of the Kentucky band called Rachel’s; I am also a fan of Leonard Peltier’s legacy as an activist with the American Indian Movement, and his writings from prison; Hamza El Din, who just passed away and played traditional Nubian music that is so ancient and from the heart.

When did you start doing the Quiet Quiet festivals? What was the intention behind them? What have been some of the more magical moments?

N. Shineywater: Quiet Quiet started three years ago with the intention of bringing progressive ideas in music to a rural place, nearby wilderness. I tried to curate a bill not based on a headliner, but on how the evening would take shape. We would pass out maps for hiking trails nearby and have two evenings of music. I would say that any Michael Hurley set (he’s played the past two years) has been legendary. The Feathers set in Big Sur last year was inspiring.

If you could put together a Quiet Quiet event featuring people who had to be brought back from another realm, who would those performers be?

N. Shineywater: This is a wild question. I guess the goal of Quiet Quiet is to participate with today’s Life, so I won’t go there.

What music has been blowing your mind these days?

N. Shineywater: Lately I’ve been enjoying the Hamza El Din Escalay: The Water Wheel recording. I really like Linda Perhacs and her Parallelograms album.

How do you relate to the notion of big change looming on the horizon and the idea of a counterculture fermenting and mobilizing to bring such change about? What role does music play in that?

N. Shineywater: That’s a heavy question. I think we should all focus more on our own particular counties for environmental and social justice. Can music help? If the people lead, the leaders will follow.

What are you looking for, and how does music help bring it into being?

N. Shineywater: Participation that is from the Heart. Participation that asks everyone involved to expand.

Brightblack Morning Light perform at SF’s Cafe Du Nord tonight (Sunday, July 30).

From left to right, Mark Lightcap, M.C. Schmidt, Drew Daniel. Matmos under the Biz 3 tent at the Pitchfork Festival, Saturday afternoon. Not shown : the guy who spilled his drink over my trousers, the former P.R. maven masquerading as a homeless person, nor Jeremy Piven.

From MobHappy.com

Geriatric rockers The Rolling Stones have hopped on board the mobile music train — sort of. Through a service called Listen Live Now!, fans will be able to listen live to their concert today in Paris via their mobile phones. And when I say via their mobile phones, I don’t mean some sort of streaming audiocast — they call in and get a feed from the mixing board piped across a standard phone connection to their handset. Sounds brilliant. But it gets better.

Users will be charged $1.99 for 7 minutes, and there doesn’t appear to be a way to simply buy the whole thing at once — so users who actually want to shell out the $40 or so to hear the whole thing will have to do it $1.99 and 7 minutes at a time. The Stones’ manager says the move will help deter bootlegging — seriously — and that “It’s passive income, and they’re helping fans enjoy the experience without affecting ticket sales.”

Once again, much like our terrific ideas for the “Brain Candy” ad campaign (ripped off by Paramount’s initiative for “World Trade Center”), Matador has been fucked over by The Man. Our own mobile phone-cast is ready to roll at this weekend’s Pitchfork Festival in Chicago, and we’ve been usurpred by the Rolling Stones.

(be patient — I might be getting a beer)

Anyhow, if you send me $20 via paypal (gcosloy@earthlink.net) along with your phone number, I’ll be quite willing to ring you back during Mission Of Burma or Yo La Tengo’s sets on Sunday. I can’t guarantee this scheme will work — for one thing, I might be on a more important telephone call at the time. But it is your chance to take part in portable music history, and a great way to show the Rolling Stones that we’re sick to death of being pushed around.

Well, not really.  But we are putting out a CD + DVD set, ‘Better Days Will Haunt You’ on October 10. There’s only one unreleased track, but if you sing over the top of the rest of ‘em, it will almost be like a whole new Chavez discography.

If you’re just too cool for that kind of thing, well, I pity you.

Disc One

01 Repeat the Ending
02 Hack the Sides Away
03 Nailed to the Blank Spot
04 Break up Your Band
05 Laugh Track
06 The Ghost by the Sea
07 Pentagram Ring
08 Peeled out Too Late
09 The Flaming Gong
10 Wakeman’s Air
11 Relaxed Fit
12 The Nerve
13 You Faded
14 Little 12 Toes

Disc Two

01 Top Pocket Man
02 The Guard Attacks
03 Unreal Is Here
04 New Room
05 Tight Around the Jaws
06 Lions
07 Our Boys Will Shine Tonight
08 Memorize This Face
09 Cold Joys
10 Flight ‘96
11 Ever Overpysched
12 You Must Be Stopped
13 Theme From ‘For Russ’
14 White Jeans

DVD

01 Break up Your Band
02 Unreal Is Here
03 Boys Making Music . . . Music Making Men (documentary)

I was begining to feel a little guilty about the totally gratuitious jibes aimed at thespian/cretin Colin Farrell in the latest edition of the Matador News Update. I mean, for one thing, we should be totally grateful that the producers of “Miami Vice” have chosen to showcase one of our fledgling artists (in this case, Mogwai) on a major label soundtrack album (one that features the former vocalist of the Vatican Commandos, too!). But no, I had to fuck things up for everyone by focusing on something completely besides the point — How Much Colin Farrell Sucks.

Well, I’m not the only one. The New York Times’ A.O. Scott, while hailing Michael Mann’s “Miami Vice” as “an action picture for people who dig experimental art films, and vice versa,” also choose to single out one of the film’s stars for special praise. Colin Farrell isn’t one of them.

Mr. Farrell, however, is a movie star only in the sense that Richard Gephardt is president of the United States. He’s always looked good on paper, and he’s picked up some endorsements along the way — from Oliver Stone, Joel Schumacher and Terrence Malick, among others — but somehow it has never quite happened. Here he squints and twitches to suggest emotion and slackens his lower lip to suggest lust, concern or deep contemplation, but despite his good looks he lacks that mysterious quality we call presence.

Mr. Mann’s script has its share of silly, overwrought lines, but they only really sound that way in Mr. Farrell’s mouth. (Did he really say, “I’m a fiend for mojitos”? ¡Dios mío!) When he’s not on screen, you don’t miss him, and when he is, you find yourself, before long, looking at someone or something else. Gong Li. A boat. A lightning bolt illuminating the humid summer sky.

People are always asking my advice about audio equipment. A great way to get started is to pump up your headphone system. iPods and laptops have crappy little op-amps in them that can’t drive good phones accurately or to truly satisfying levels. I recommend the Grado SR-60s for rock in the under-$100 range, or if you have broader taste in music, the Sennheiser HD-600s (which list for $499 but can be found online for as little as $179) which are much comfier to boot. Both these phones are large and open; closed and noise-cancelling headphones are good for planes but little else, and personally, I can’t stand putting things inside my ears.

Then there’s the whole amp game. Without getting into huge amounts of detail, you need a LOT more power to drive Sennheisers than Grados, and a lot more power again to drive electrostatic headphones such as the AKG K-1000s or the legendary Japanese Stax line. However, even a little solid-state amp like Grado’s RA-1 ($349) will improve your Grado headphones to an extraordinary degreee. And it’s made of a solid block of wood - who can argue with that?

Myself, I prefer tubes, and have recently invested in the handbuilt custom amps from Singlepower, based in Colorado… incredibly nice guy, but beware of the prices. I got a fully tricked out Singlepower MPX3 Slam and it is blowing my mind. (And probably eardrums, but that’s another story.)