Hey, if we can be a day late acknowledging Mark Ohe’s birthday, two days late for Joey’s will just have to do.

This is as good a time as any to remind you Lee Ving can be seen in the upcoming motion picture, “Endless Bummer”, starring alongside Matthew Lillard, Joan Jett and Keith Morris.  Would IMBD lie to you?

From Billboard.com’s Jonathan Cohen :

Liz Phair has signed a new record deal with ATO, the first fruit of which will be a reissue of her classic 1993 debut, “Exile in Guyville.”

Due June 24, the set includes four previously unreleased audio tracks and a DVD with a documentary about the album’s genesis. A new Phair studio album, her first since 2005′s Capitol swan song “Somebody’s Miracle,” is penciled in for the fall.

Fans will be most jazzed for the “Guyville” documentary “Guyville Redux” on the bonus DVD, which finds Phair interviewing Chicago music scene vets like producers Steve Albini and Brad Wood, her former Matador compadres Gerard Cosloy and Chris Lombardi, National Public Radio host Ira Glass and actor John Cusack.

The Condo Fucks are supporting the A-Bones this Friday night at Brooklyn’s Magnetic Field.  Doors open at 8pm, there’s an $8 cover and DJ Phast Phreddie will be spinning.  Records, presumably.

(Curb, right, relieved that Blender has left him off the hook)

Blender’s just issued their “20 Biggest Record Company Screw-Ups of All Time” list, and while I’m grateful Matador escaped their wrath (amazingly, no mention of Johan Kugelberg’s departure or “Whitechocolatespaceegg”), I’m still not entirely satisfied with the selections on offer.

Sure, it’s hard to argue with a few of ‘em (ie. Berry Gordy selling Motown for a collection of blankets and beads, Geffen suing Neil Young for making records that stiffed) and there’s undoubtedly others that should’ve made the cut (Mike Curb dropping the Velvets, the Mothers Of Invention and Solger on the same day).  But I’m pretty sure there’s no way you can make a list of historic rock biz fuck ups without mentioning there was once a bidding war for a band called Spade Ghetto Destruction.

1) Someone named “Mitch Michaels” calls Courtney Love’s blogs “impossible to decipher”. Heck, you should see some of the Matablog entries before I get my hands on ‘em.

2) Courtney is s being roundly mocked for claiming someone bought a house in New Jersey using Kurt Cobain’s social security number. I totally believe her ; I almost bought a house next door to someone named Lee Ving 4 years ago, and there’s no way you can tell me that was the former Fear vocalist’s residence. He’s at least as dead as Kurt.

3) It’s not she’d make a stink for no reason whatsoever. Someone’s been using Falling James’ identity to buy stuff (newspapers, correcto-type) for ages and please note NO WILD PRESS CONFERENCE was called.

So lay off, already. Anyone who thinks it’s easy to blow through tens of millions of dollars probably hasn’t tried it.

Ahh… Even As We Speak. Hand-fingerpainted sleeve, I haven’t listened to it in years, and can’t listen to it now (neighbors are nightmares). Australian or GB? Who knows. Weird association with Scapa Flow in mind. In any event, there it is. What is useful about this series is showing up the incredible banality of any collection, even ones the owner proudly thinks of as “edited.”

To see more of your favorite album covers literally in all their fleshy glory go here.

Gerard came on strong with the Frantix single… though as I remember it, their previous 7″ with the B&W sleeve was actually better musically (not as intense visually or conceptualy, obviously – they nailed that).

However my choices are ACTUALLY random…… hence the incredible lameness of the last one. OK, let’s see what it’s going to be tonight – I actually have not done the random pick yet. Here goes. [break]

All right. Just look at that. No points for guessing what the B-side is called. See, you kids today, you have no variety in your lives (9000, I hope you’re reading this). The kind of TANGIBLE randomness that today’s choice represents is completely unavailable to you. And if you think just because I’m showing a pic of a single that doesn’t mean there’s an MP3 link. Music is NOT the point. Thank you very much.

Painstakingly fished from the Live at The Bradford Ballroom, March 12, 1983 DVD that accompanies Vs.

As you might’ve read via Pitchfork or Idolator,  Michael Kaminski of Akron, OH was arrested last weekend for trying to hold up a video store with a cologne bottle shaped like a gun. Why might PF  give a hoot about the Akron police blotter?  Well, as it turns out, Kaminski is a former member of NYC avant combo Cop Shoot Cop.

Or so I’m told. When I saw the PF headline, “Ex-Cop Shoot Cop Dude Attempts Boneheaded Robbery“, I thought, “no, not sweet globe-trotting Tod A.  Please don’t let it be the dashing David Quimet.  If Jack Natz or Phil Puleo are facing jail time, where can I send the cake with the file inside?”

But it wasn’t any of those guys. It was Michael Kaminski, who by virtue of being a replacement guitarist during the group’s 7th and final year of existance (please note that Kaminski is featured on none of CSC’s commercially available recordings)  has given rock bloggers around the globe a chance to sneeringly drop a band name they might not otherwise bother with.

While I’m sure some of you would just as soon file this story under “who gives a fuck?”, the PF thing bugs me. If Willie Alexander got pinched for failing to pay his parking tickets, I doubt the Boston papers would run a headline claiming “VELVET UNDERGROUND ROCKER JAILED”.

Granted, there’s something irresistable about a dude from a band called Cop Shoot Cop being nabbed with a faux firearm. Except the guy in question was barely a member and the fellows responsible for CSC’s surviving works, have not, to my knowledge, been charged with any felonies in the past 7 days.

(Mother Mercy, above, include no members, original or otherwise, from LA Guns, Faster Pussycat, Odin, D’Molls, Pretty Boy Floyd, Foxx or Reinkus Tide.)

The LA Times’ Neal Shah on the sort of legal wrangling that sounds terribly familiar to anyone who ever purchased a Dead Kennedys ticket and ended up watching Brandon Cruz.

Steve Riley is a survivor. At 51, he still plays the drums for L.A. Guns, a biker-themed hair-metal band famous mostly for once featuring Guns N’ Roses singer Axl Rose. Riley and first mate Phil Lewis, who sang L.A. Guns’ only Top 40 hit, “The Ballad of Jayne,” toured Australia last fall before joining Mötley Crüe singer Vince Neil for a show in St. Paul, Minn.

Downe, 43, says he rejected an overture from Muscat to share the band’s name. “It’s my company. Someone from Starbucks is not going to go out and form another company called Starbucks.”

For perhaps the first and last time in his career, Downe has made a salient point. Perhaps Muscat should start a band called LA’s Best Guns?

Family tree connections to The Fluid aside, the above single is the greatest thing that ever happened in the city of Denver other than the time Denny Neagle sang “Caught With The Meat In Your Mouth” at karaoke. Thanks to the folks at Smooch Records, it is now available on the popular compact disc format for a price everyone can afford.  Well, everyone except Denny.

The above is the first chapter in the “random single from the collection” series, which will be happening as long as I can annoy people with it. This one is, appropriately enough, an incredibly boring French-Japanese childrens-lounge music single from 1997, recommended me by Yasuharu Konishi at a store in Tokyo the year it came out. Maybe one day it will be cool.