Middle age has taught me that regardless of my current views on the state of print media, nobody wants to hear about the good old days reading Suburban Relapse and Sick Teen ’til 4am whilst surrounded by vomiting kitty-cats. Look, I already know that Rusty Clarke and Mission Of Burma excepted, most everything I used to love has completely gone to shit. Fortunately for the rest of you, however, former NME/current Guardian scribe Steven Wells (above) isn’t quite prepared to take the death of modern rock criticism lying down. “Once music journalism was the playground of punks, pirates, arse bandits, chancers, hardcore lesbian punk bondage freaks, revolutionaries, drug addicts and the borderline insane,” writes Wells in the current Philadelphia Weekly. Man, have you ever heard someone so romantic for the glory days of Alternative Press?

Three leading indie music magazines have bitten the dust since the beginning of the year. The spectacularly dull No Depression, the stunningly uninteresting Resonance and the jaw–droppingly mediocre Harp have all recently gone to that great Belle and Sebastian disco in the sky. All of which is great news for anybody who hates mediocrity.

Harp founder Scott Crawford was actually proud of how timid and unambitious and bland his baby was. He described Harp as ”a nice middle ground between the indie–centric Magnet and the dad–rockin’ Paste,” which is not so much a manifesto as a prenatal death rattle.

Full disclosure: I worked for Harp for a while. Publisher Glenn Sabin recently described the magazine as ”irreverent.” It wasn’t. It licked musician ass until its tongue bled. The line ”Joe Strummer must be laughing his rotting cock off,” was cut from a review I wrote of an embarrassingly necrophiliac Clash re–reissue box set because it was ”disrespectful.” And the editor who hired me—admittedly a rampaging punk rock lunatic—was told to clear his desk and vacate the building immediately.

Eventually the dullards reached a dull critical mass. They formed hundreds of dull, white, sexless and punchably smug suburban bands. And they started magazines with names like No Depression and Harp and Resonance and Corduroy. Yes there really is a magazine called Corduroy. One imagines they passed on Beige as too incendiary and Cardigan as just a shade too fucking exciting.

Hey Chicago!

You get TWO chances to see Dead Meadow this weekend!

Saturday – May 3rd

1. 3:30 FREE in-store at the Apple Store on N. Michigan Ave.

2. Later that night at The Abbey!

Last week, Dump made a rare live appearance at Maxwell’s.  I took a photo as proof.  Regarding the 7″ Gerard so kindly posted about below, you can also get it on the Dump myspace page and in the Matador Store! Love,Jennifer 

shown above, the latest 7″ from Jennifer’s own Kiam label :   Jennifer O’Connor – “I Was A Race Car Driver”, b/w “I Was So Wrong” (Dump remix) and Dump’s version of Rose Royce’s “I Wanna Get Next To You”.  Sleeve art by Mr. James McNew, all copies on beautiful white wax.  Jennifer’s peddling these gems for $5 (+ $2 for U.S. shipping), with full details available at the Kiam MySpace page.

I’ve recently been obsessing about West Coast burgers, which typically use thinner patties, more toppings and place a greater emphasis on proportion than those from around here. East Coast burgers can be as thick as baseballs, the emphasis is on grilling and quality of meat, and individuals put on their own condiments. My attempt to combine the two failed miserably, so this time I tried to go purist.

For meat I chose fatty ground chuck (grass-fed) from Ceriello’s at Grand Central. I formed 4 patties where I would usually make 2 (from slightly under two-thirds of a pound of beef), handling them as little as possible, and making them very thing. Burgers contract and puff up during cooking, so these had to be extremely thin.

I heated a well-seasoned cast iron griddle pan to very high, rubbed it with a little butter, and placed my patties in it. Simultaneously I put English muffins in the toaster. I would have preferred to use the kind of egg-flour (or is it potato-flour?) rolls that you get out West, but these are not the kind of things you can buy at Grand Central or my local deli, and I didn’t have time to hit the supermarket. Not that a NYC supermarket would be a slam-dunk for finding those either.

All my eating is really just trying to find an excuse to eat bread-and-butter pickles. But they really are a necessary condiment for West Coast hamburgers.

Other condiments included lettuce, ketchup, French’s yellow mustard (pictured) and thinly sliced sweet onion (not).

Result was beyond delicious. Though after second one I ran out of English muffins. Next time I need to apply American cheese (an obvious gaffe here), and that mysterious and wonderful substance SWEET RELISH.

A little more malevolent than my mental pic of the good doc, but still follows the script. I’d like to think he’d ride the deer to safety or something….

Missing man found dressed like doctor with dead deer in stolen ambulance

Holliman was admitted to a North Carolina hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. Police said they would decide whether to charge Holliman after that evaluation is complete.

For those of us who didn’t spend the weekend baking away in the Coachella sun, a friend of the Matablog sent along some photos of our first experiment with skywriting. To celebrate Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks’ performance we emblazoned the skies with their name. It went so well that we’ll be floating triumphantly above every summer festival this year! Keep an eye on the sky!

Incidentally, we are currently running a Stephen Malkmus Bundle Sale. You can get all 4 Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks CDs (Stephen Malkmus, Pig Lib, Face The Truth, Real Emotional Trash) plus a free rare 7″ flexi of “Jojo’s Jacket”, all for $40. Supplies of the flexi-7″ are very limited.

Order HERE

Time to line up all you pretty people, Times New Viking are coming in for the kill. Ugly people you need not worry, TNV have lined up over 2 months of tour dates for you. Miscreants, child prodigies, Rock n Roll hall of famers, Lebron James and music fans the world over are encouraged to attend as well. And to all who are worried that they may just be too pretty for Times New Viking, well simply look in the mirror and repeat after me…”I’m good enough and I’m smart enough and darn it people like me”. That always seems to answer any questions we have.

Fri, May 09 Proud Gallery, London (Vice Calling)
Sun, May 11 All Tomorrow’s Parties, Camber Sands (ATP vs. Pitchfork)
Mon, May 12 Louisiana, Bristol
Wed, May 14 Barden’s Boudoir, Dalston, London
Thur, May 15 Old Blue Last, London (Stag & Dagger Festival)
Fri, May 16 Great Escape Festival, Brighton (DiS stage)
Sat, May 17 Great Escape Festival, Brighton (Bosh)
Mon, May 19 Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff (plus Super Furry Animals DJs)
Tues, May 20 Korova, Liverpool
Wed, May 21 Corsica Studios, London (with Lovvers)
Thur, May 22 The Common Place, Leeds
Fri, May 23 Studio 24, Edinburgh
Sat, May 24 Captain’s Rest, Glasgow
Mon, May 26 Andrew’s Lane Theatre, Dublin
Sat, May 31 Primavera Sound ‘08, Barcelona

Wed, June 04 Bloomington, IN Waldron Art Center
Thur, June 05 Omaha, NE Waiting Room
Fri, June 06 Denver, CO Larimer Lounge
Sat, June 07 Salt Lake City, UT Kilby Court
Mon, June 09 Missoula, MT The Badlander
Tues, June 10 Seattle, WA Neumo’s
Wed, June 11 Portland, OR Doug Fir
Fri, June 13 San Francisco, CA Bottom of the Hill
Sat, June 14 Visalia, CA Howie & Sons Pizza
Sun, June 15 Los Angeles, CA The Echo
Tues, June 17 San Diego, CA Casbah
Wed, June 18 Tempe, AZ Modified
Thur, June 19 El Paso, TX Hush Gallery
Fri, June 20 Austin, TX Emo’s
Sat, June 21 Dallas, TX Club Dada
Sun, June 22 Memphis, TN Hi Tone
Mon, June 23 Atlanta, GA The Earl
Wed, June 25 Washington, DC Rock N Roll
Thur, June 26 Philadelphia, PA Johnny Brenda’s
Fri, June 27 New York, NY Whitney Museum
Sat, June 28 Providence, RI The Living Room
Sun, June 29 Boston, MA Great Scott
Mon, June 30 Montreal, QUE Divan Orange
Tues, July 01 Toronto, ONT Horseshoe Tavern
Sun, July 20 Chicago, IL Pitchfork Festival

(we all have different ways of coping with disappointment)

It’s a good thing American insurance companies don’t commission these sort of polls — you don’t see the folks at Blender hawking cheap policies, do you?  From the Daily Mail :

Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out Of Hell” was voted the number one driving anthem in a survey of more than 2,000 motorists, it was revealed yesterday.

Runner-up to Meat Loaf in the in-car charts was Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, with Steppenwolf’s Born To Be Wild third and Queen’s Don’t Stop me Now fourth.

june 08

6 bristol venn festival
8 london beaconfield gallery
9 london beaconfield gallery with carter/tutti
12 dublin future days festival
15 amsterdam holland festival special program stockhausen mikrophonie
17 berlin festhall kreuzberg with carter / tutti
18 praha archa teatro
19 wienna szene wien
20 lubljana teatro
21 barcelona sonar festival

from the upcoming LP/CD ‘Supreme Balloon’ due out May 6, directed by M.C. Schmidt.

(preorder album)

(photo by Jeff Allen)

Matador is pleased to announce the signing of a multi-album, worldwide, exclusive recording agreement with prolific Memphis people person Jay Reatard. The label was already engaged in a series of limited-edition 7″ releases, to be compiled on CD for fall release. The first 7″, “See/Saw,” is already sold out; the second, “Painted Shut,” is due out on May 20. Jay will be recording in August for a brand-new studio album out in early 2009. (His former label, In The Red, is releasing a compilation of early singles in June.)

(above, sleeve art to the limited edition “Rooks” b/w “The Rainbow” 7″, available starting at the May 5 Florence Gould Concert Hall show in NY)

As we’re getting ready for the June 3 release of Shearwater’s ‘Rook’ LP/CD, major live events in New York and Austin and a May tour supporting Clinic, we’d be remiss if we didn’t spill the beans on a headlining tour starting in June :

June
13-Atlanta @ Earl
14-Chapel Hill @ Local 506
15-Washington DC @ Black Cat
17-Philadelphia @ Johnny Brenda’s
19-Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
21-Danbury, CT @ Heirloom Arts Theatre
24-Chicago, IL @ Mansion
27-Fort Worth, TX @ Lola’s

Further U.S. dates, and quite likely some UK/European activity, will be detailed shortly.

Hey…we’ll have news about the US dates that are being moved to October pretty soon. Until then, the following shows, previously planned for this week, have been rescheduled as follows :

Cat Power & Dirty Delta Blues

Mon    05.05.08     Mexico City (MX)    Lunario
Wed    05.07.08     Bogotá (CO)    Teatro ECCI

Tonight on NBC’s “Late Night With Conan O’Brien”, Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew —- otherwise known as internationally famous pop trio Yo La Tengo — will serve as part of the backing ensemble for Merge recording artists She & Him, aka M. Ward and Zoey Deschanel.

She & Him are not to be confused with the obscure noise rock due You & It, nor the semi-popular Y&T.

Dead Meadow is going to play a Free in-store at the Apple Store on North Michigan Ave in Chicago!

Saturday, May 3rd at 3:30pm!

Extracted from the companion DVD to ‘Vs.’ Live at their final all-ages show in Boston at the Bradford Hotel, March 12, 1983.

Our boys have got prank phone calls taking over…

…and the West Coast shall (heart) them. It is written! Consider it confirmed!

Sunday, May 25, 2008                Pomona, CA                Glass House
Tuesday, May 27, 2008                Los Angeles, CA            The Echo
Wednesday, May 28, 2008        San Diego, CA                    Beauty Bar
Thursday, May 29, 2008              San Francisco, CA           Popscene
Friday, May 30, 2008                    Modesto, CA                             Fat Cat
Saturday, May 31, 2008                Eugene                            The Indigo District
Monday, June 02, 2008                Vancouver, BC                      Richards on Richards
Tuesday, June 03, 2008                Portland, OR                      Hawthorne Theatre
Wednesday, June 04, 2008        Seattle, WA                             Neumos

“Bats Over The Pacific Ocean” (mp3)

On my trip up to SUNY Purchase this weekend to see Fucked Up I stopped off in Port Chester, the last town in New York on the Long Island Sound before you hit the Connecticut border. To my and Dean’s surprise, the town is totally Latin American now… almost all the businesses were Peruvian, Ecuadorean, Colombian or Mexican. Pupuserias, grosserias, a “meateria” and lots of long-distance phone card places. We had a nice Peruvian meal – half pollo a la brasa, that spicy green sauce, some potatoes in a thick yellow sauce with half hard-boiled eggs, sopa de pescado, and Mexican coke (made with sugar instead of corn syrup).

Of course it was Record Store Day and we wished we could have visited Vinyl Solution but it went out of business a long time ago, so instead we checked out 2 bootleg CDR/DVD shops with tons of chicha and cumbia CDRs. We tried to explain to the owners that it was Record Store Day but our Spanish wasn’t good enough, and that made me think that someone should record a song called “Do They Know It’s Record Store Day?” and we will give a special Matador prize to the best version. Submit MP3s to patrick@matadorrecords.com, please. (Only of that song.)

The cultural contrast between Port Chester and Purchase (and especially the town in between, Harrison) was extreme, even more Greenwich to the north of it. I need to get out to the suburbs more – they’re getting weirder.

(poster art culled from John Mavroudis)

While we wish Neko Case a very speedy recovery from her recent ankle injury, we’re pleased just the same to announce the following list of huge, outdoorsy events The New Pornographers will be appearing at this summer :

5/24 – Sasquatch Music Fest @ The Gorge (George, WA)
5/25 – Summer Camp Music Fest @ Three Sisters Park (Chillicothe, IL)
6/21 – Rock the Garden Music Fest @ Walker Arts Center (Minneapolis, MN) (with Andrew Bird)
6/22 – V Fest, Calgary
7/18 – Benicassim, Valencia, Spain
8/08 – All Points West Music and Arts Fest @ Liberty State Park (Jersey City, NJ)

Fucked Up came down to NYC to play the Culture Shock festival at SUNY Purchase this Saturday, so I rented a car, grabbed Dean Bein, and drove on up. Purchase is about 25 minutes north of the city, right on the border with Connecticut.

This was a really weird event. Turns out it was restricted to SUNY students. Security was over the top. Huge, huge luxurious campus in really wealthy area, and state troopers with flashing lights parked at the entrance where you drive in. Everyone was pulled over by troopers, and drive and all passengers had to show IDs. Since we weren’t students or visiting one, they wanted to turn us away, but I said I was acqainted with one of the bands… “Who…” “Umm, well, they’re actually called Fucked Up.” Guy looks pissed for a sec then says, “Man, that’s fucked up!” Very funny. Takes my ID and Dean’s and fortunately I had an old biz card, had me pull over to the right for like 10 minutes, made various phone calls, and then admitted us.

So we drive through this huge campus and the “festival” is just at end of parking lot…. pretty big stage, maybe, what, 300-400 people, max? All college students, SUPER hippie jamband bummer vibe, frisbees, some SERIOUS hackysack, tons of vegan food, Mr. Easy (some horrible pop/dub/reggae vibe) onstage, people dancing solo under the trees, at least it was sunny. Huge hookah at one corner and kids were smoking apple-scented tobacco. FU were there hanging out in their van, like, “how the fuck did we end up driving down from Toronto for this shit!?!”

Police and campus security are EVERYWHERE… it was such a joke, these lame-ass unthreatening college kids (I found out that Purchase is SUNY’s art/creative campus, never realized that), not a hint or threat of trouble, but blue wooden police sawhorse barricades all around the stage. Saw my friend Babyleg with Gang Gang Dance, who were going on after Mr. Easy at 7 PM, then FU at 8 PM…

Only alcohol was $2 buds in a massive tent and you had to consume it in the tent… more ID checking, more state troopers in crisp Mountie hats, buy ticket, get beer, drink it next to these bozo shirtless frat guys with awful tank-top sunburns.

So far so good, I grab a beer, sun’s just gone down, beautiful evening, hear the mighty triple guitar roar, come back to the front, the audience has now been infiltrated with some FU fans, the vibe at least in front has definitely improved, and the pit gets going – and I mean SERIOUSLY going, before the band has played a note. Just whirling, mid-’90s East Coast hardcore dancing, you know, like the “Battling with invisible ninjas” style?

So the band launches into “Baiting The Public,” and it’s total mayhem. Not quite the contained little-kid style circle-jerk style I saw when the band played outside in Austin las month, a bit more chaotic than that, bunch of the kids are def. fucked up or stoned or just high on a piece of actual excitement at this shitty two-bit “festival”. Damian is shirtless of course, pants falling down, cops are on stage and in front of the stage, and Damian wants to interact with the crowd, so he comes down for the second song which is, of course, “Police”, and the cops do NOT want the barrier breached. It was those blue wooden sawhorses, like big deal, and the pit, while totally wild, is not out of control and doesn’t contain that many people either.

So Damian knocks down the wooden barricades so that he’s not separated from the audience, and the band plays “Manqueller Man.” I notice suddenly that the sound is thinner, not as mighty, the guitars esp, even though it still looks and sounds amazing… and then I realize the PA’s been turned off, and we’re only hearing live sound from the amp. Seconds later all power is cut, Damain shrugs and smiles to the audience, what can we do? and they’re walking offstage… crowd is chanting “BULL-SHIT BULL SHIT BULL SHIT” over and over, I go to the side of the stage and find out that the cops demanded that the sound guy cut the PA and then pulled the plug.

Just like Negative FX opening for Burma’s last show… aside from the weird lame environment. Total deja vu, late ’70s early ’80s hardcore versus the authorities. “This fucking city’s… run by pigs… they take the rights away… from all the kids…. we’re just fighting, fighting a war, we can’t win, NO WAY.” Except NFX would probably have been happy if there’d actually been chance of people getting hurt, which there definitely was not in this case.

So I head to the bathroom, I see Damian is talking to a state police officer, I hear him say, “I don’t mean to disrespect your job sir,” being all reasonable and Canadian as he is in real life… when I get back to the bathroom, the band is packing up. Damian tells me the guy is a sergeant in the state police, and told the band to get off the campus immediately or they would be arrested for incitement to riot. According to the cops, the other big mistake on Damian’s part was to turn over those wooden sawhorses… he told the police that he thought they were there to protect *him* from the audience, not the other way around, so that it would be OK to remove them. The cop replied (and I am not making this up) that when Damian tipped them over, “you could have squished some kids to death” – that’s the actual phrase he used.

Paradoxically, the police were simultaneously blaming the band for inciting the kids to riot and for attempting to injure them… are the authorities scared of the kids or overprotective of them? Typical conflicted societal attitude toward youth these days.

So at 9:30 PM the band were hastily packing up, they were all heading straight back to TO (maybe overnighting in Albany maybe not)… I told Mike I was sorry this had happened in our state and that they had driven all the way down from Toronto for this. So I ended up driving with friends back down to the city, and that was it… Fucking peculiar all the way through…

other bands on the Culture Shock festival included Cassidy, Jadakiss, Deerhoof, JD from Le Tigre and others of greater or lesser stature