Just Before Our Love Got Lost

Try not crying. I dare you.

Radiohead, Street Spirit (Fade Out)

Haunting. Thom Yorke explains its hidden heart-breaking layers:

“Street Spirit is our purest song, but I didn’t write it. It wrote itself. We were just its messengers; its biological catalysts. Its core is a complete mystery to me, and, you know, I wouldn’t ever try to write something that hopeless. All of our saddest songs have somewhere in them at least a glimmer of resolve. Street Spirit has no resolve. It is the dark tunnel without the light at the end. It represents all tragic emotion that is so hurtful that the sound of that melody is its only definition. We all have a way of dealing with that song. It’s called detachment. Especially me; I detach my emotional radar from that song, or I couldn’t play it. I’d crack. I’d break down on stage. That’s why its lyrics are just a bunch of mini-stories or visual images as opposed to a cohesive explanation of its meaning. I used images set to the music that I thought would convey the emotional entirety of the lyric and music working together. That’s what’s meant by ‘all these things you’ll one day swallow whole.’ I meant the emotional entirety, because I didn’t have it in me to articulate the emotion. I’d crack…

Our fans are braver than I to let that song penetrate them, or maybe they don’t realise what they’re listening to. They don’t realise that Street Spirit is about staring the fucking devil right in the eyes, and knowing, no matter what the hell you do, he’ll get the last laugh. And it’s real, and true. The devil really will get the last laugh in all cases without exception, and if I let myself think about that too long, I’d crack.

I can’t believe we have fans that can deal emotionally with that song. That’s why I’m convinced that they don’t know what it’s about. It’s why we play it towards the end of our sets. It drains me, and it shakes me, and hurts like hell every time I play it, looking out at thousands of people cheering and smiling, oblivious to the tragedy of its meaning, like when you’re going to have your dog put down and it’s wagging its tail on the way there. That’s what they all look like, and it breaks my heart. I wish that song hadn’t picked us as its catalysts, and so I don’t claim it. It asks too much. I didn’t write that song.”

The Dead Weather, I Cut Like A Buffalo

I wrote this off as a novelty project too. Big mistake. Jack White is phenomenal.

Death Cab for Cutie, in my words.

The thing about Death Cab: all their albums hit you in a different way. An old friend and I always used to argue about which one was their very best. He said Transatlanticism, I said Plans - being at a point in my life where I thought I understood every aspect of that album, the morbidity, the loneliness, the realism. But on days when I’m flowing with desire and am burdened by a strong feeling of withdrawn affection, I’ll pop on Transatlanticism. Nobody quite gets unrequited love like Gibbard on the title track, sing-begging “I need you so much closer.” The NPR review of their latest album Codes & Keys puts it best: “Few bands could convey Ben Gibbard’s gift for singing like his heart can’t quite fit in his chest.” “Their records played like the soundtracks to breathless long-distance romances between young adults who’d always been just a little too smart for the rooms they were in.”

The ones that hit me hardest:
We Have The Facts And We’re Voting Yes
Something About Airplanes
The Photo Album
Stability EP

Animal Collective, Peacebone (2007)

1) Play this at a party.
2) Get laid.

A Fantastic Article from The American Prospect

A unique outlook on America’s third parties. They may seem innocuous, but can turn the tide of a presidential election, influence Washington with big money, and attract voters with off-beat Internet-friendly discourse.

A particularly brilliant line is the following:

In fact, the views of people like Friedman and Bloomberg, who claim their perspectives are underrepresented by the two parties, are actually the only views that are consistently well represented in Washington no matter which party is in charge. Some might call it the elite consensus: pro-free trade, pro-business, hawkish, internationalist, and tough on crime. Want to see bipartisan agreement? Look at all the Democrats who, as Friedman and Bloomberg did, supported the Iraq War and are now making our foreign policy. Or look at the policies of Bill Clinton’s, George W. Bush’s, and Barack Obama’s Treasury secretaries and Federal Reserve chairs.

O generation of the thoroughly smug
and thoroughly uncomfortable,
I have seen fishermen picnicking in the sun,
I have seen them with untidy families,
I have seen their smiles full of teeth
and heard ungainly laughter.
And I am happier than you are,
And they were happier than I am;
And the fish swim in the lake
and do not even own clothing.
Ezra Pound, “Salutation”
bestrooftalkever: Found at my Aunt’s house.
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bestrooftalkever:

Found at my Aunt’s house.

Source: bestrooftalkever

I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary.
Margaret Atwood
a phenomenal letter from lcd’s james murphy: holy shit this here is just to say that we were more than taken aback and surprised about the speed of ticket sales for the april 2nd msg gig, as well as the effectiveness of scalper pieces of fucking shit at getting their hands on said tickets before fans could, and it’s knocked us on our asses. no—we didn’t have a smart paperless ticketing system in place, and no—we didn’t have the pre-sale worked out very well, but this is simply because we’ve never sold anything out so quickly in our lives, and certainly never sold out anything as big as msg. i personally thought i was being bold in suggesting to our manager that we might sell it out “in 10 days”. that was my bold claim. everyone laughed at me. it’s us and liquid liquid. that’s it. we had meetings and meetings about the “other band” we needed to “fill the place”, as we were definitely considered to be nowhere near big enough (most of these bands were, like, way bigger than us, by the way). we didn’t sell out hollywood bowl, and that was with both hot chip and sleigh bells. there was, i repeat, no expectation of our selling this out either. my main concerns at the time were things like ticketmaster charges—how they were going to make the tickets ridiculously costly… we never dreamed some shitbags would try to get thousands for our show. it’s insane. but it happened. we all looked at each other in horror and sat there. i mean, aren’t you supposed to be psyched? your band sold out madison square garden! i live in nyc, and that’s the place. i saw the jackson’s victory tour there when i was a kid. but there it was—the shit was gone, and people—not just people, but fucking proper fans—were pissed. nancy from the band tried to buy tickets. failed. i tried. failed. our best friends—not wanting to hassle us for guestlist spots tried—failed. i bought 2 tickets to my own show for 3 times the value like an idiot to see if real tickets showed up. my family got burned. it was, to say the least, weird. we tried getting another day at msg. i’d mentioned this before and most everyone kind of rolled their eyes at me. “2 madison square garden shows, dude? really?” i thought, well, just in case, you know? maybe some people would fly from other places or something. but msg, being one of the most popular venues on the planet, was unsurprisingly booked. (for the record: just because it doesn’t look booked on the internet, doesn’t mean it’s available. just saying.) we tried calling our lawyer about the ticket scalping. “it’s legal”. no joke. it’s fucking legal. i tramped around with friends and band getting insane. i wanted to buy some expensive tickets and then track the seller down to beat him. i acted stupid. i did some classic, shakespearean vain “fist shaking”, etc. i made angry tweets. (i’m wondering now what on earth could be less effective and more of a first-world spoiled idiotic move than “angry tweets”? jesus.) i read conspiracy theories about how this was some cash-grab i orchestrated. i read that there are 50,000 seats at msg (i think our show will have 13k). i read that people had already bought flights, hotels. wanted to bring their kids. waited in the cold. i read that some people thought this was one of the reasons we were calling it quits (check). i read that this was a media stunt we planned. i read very funny comments from my friend aziz, one of which was taken seriously (that msg had given me 30,000 tickets personally for guest list). i read that i was giving all the tickets to my “new celebrity friends” (aziz is about the closest thing i have to a “celebrity friend”, and we met at terminal 5 watching hot chip when we were, well, not very “celebrated”). i read that we should cancel the show and put the tickets up on sale in a better fashion. i read that we should not do that, for fuck’s sake. i read that we should go fuck ourselves. i read a lot of stuff, waiting to hear if we could get another night at msg, which seemed like the only option. but it failed. then i kind of sat in my house, trying not to worry for 20 minutes, and made a very, very good coffee.i don’t know what people think about us, really. i’d love to say i don’t care, but i do. these people in my band—they are my very good friends. i love them very much. i love this band very much. everything about it. i’m very proud of it—of us, and i get defensive when people talk shit about us. i feel like we’ve been able to do something sort of special for 9 years: making music we like the way we like it. going on tour and playing, no computers or bullshit. no in-ears. a bunch of weird substitute teachers just trying to play something like the bands we loved growing up. whenever anyone said shit about us being sellouts or something, it stung, because i consider this entire thing—the band, everything—to be a communication between us and whoever is listening, and not just a thing unto itself. i remember being a fan and seeing bands, thinking “this is us. this is you playing and me/us watching” and how real that connection was, and i always wanted to honor that strange relationship with our band. so when someone felt wronged or hurt or outraged, it stung. it stung because, on some level, regardless of the “you can’t please everyone” stuff that gets rationally said to you when this shit happens, it meant that i’d failed. i’d failed to communicate. on the other hand, i’ve had my world turned upside down by a lot of amazing things people have said about us, or to us. i’ve met fans and made friends, and felt very strongly how that relationship actually works—and how we brought ourselves, each other, finally here, to where we play our last show—and biggest show ever—together, at this amazing place. and then, this fucking ticket thing happened. so to the point. you can’t make everyone happy, and i’m sure this will wind someone up somewhere (“but i paid $600 for one seat at msg!!!) or seem like some shitty “plan” to someone else (“they were gonna do it all along!!! it’s all a big retirement money plan to bilk the fans!!!”) or something else that someone who theoretically likes our band thinks (why are you trying to buy a ticket?? how could you even listen to a band that you think is capable of some of this shit!??) but we’ve come up with the best solution i can think of, as quickly as possible so as to deflate the market for those scalping scumfucks. we’re going to play 4 shows at terminal 5 in nyc leading up to the msg show, and they will include most if not all of the songs we play at msg. the farewell run-up to the last dance. it’ll be the 28th, 29th, 30th and 31st of march. obviously we’re going to look seriously at the way we sell these tickets. not “paperless, (i’ve been advised that the “paperless” thing is apparently now illegal in ny… seriously—don’t ask me) but there are some ideas floating around that could be just as effective (though it’ll take a minute to get folks in the door.) we’ll announce the shows officially early in the week, and tickets will be on sale soon after. we’re announcing all the shows at once, and if they don’t sell out, i don’t care. i just want to give people who actually want to see us a chance to see us. for a reasonable ticket price. and i want to drop the price of the msg tickets being sold by piece of shit scalpers. oh—and a small thing to scalpers: “it’s legal” is what people say when they don’t have ethics. the law is there to set the limit of what is punishable (aka where the state needs to intervene) but we are supposed to have ethics, and that should be the primary guiding force in our actions, you fucking fuck. and to everyone else: thank you. you rule. don’t let the shitbags win. i feel like conan o’brien. james
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a phenomenal letter from lcd’s james murphy:

holy shit
this here is just to say that we were more than taken aback and surprised about the speed of ticket sales for the april 2nd msg gig, as well as the effectiveness of scalper pieces of fucking shit at getting their hands on said tickets before fans could, and it’s knocked us on our asses.
no—we didn’t have a smart paperless ticketing system in place, and no—we didn’t have the pre-sale worked out very well, but this is simply because we’ve never sold anything out so quickly in our lives, and certainly never sold out anything as big as msg. i personally thought i was being bold in suggesting to our manager that we might sell it out “in 10 days”. that was my bold claim. everyone laughed at me. it’s us and liquid liquid. that’s it. we had meetings and meetings about the “other band” we needed to “fill the place”, as we were definitely considered to be nowhere near big enough (most of these bands were, like, way bigger than us, by the way).
we didn’t sell out hollywood bowl, and that was with both hot chip and sleigh bells. there was, i repeat, no expectation of our selling this out either. my main concerns at the time were things like ticketmaster charges—how they were going to make the tickets ridiculously costly… we never dreamed some shitbags would try to get thousands for our show. it’s insane.
but it happened. we all looked at each other in horror and sat there. i mean, aren’t you supposed to be psyched? your band sold out madison square garden! i live in nyc, and that’s the place. i saw the jackson’s victory tour there when i was a kid.
but there it was—the shit was gone, and people—not just people, but fucking proper fans—were pissed. nancy from the band tried to buy tickets. failed. i tried. failed. our best friends—not wanting to hassle us for guestlist spots tried—failed. i bought 2 tickets to my own show for 3 times the value like an idiot to see if real tickets showed up. my family got burned.
it was, to say the least, weird.
we tried getting another day at msg. i’d mentioned this before and most everyone kind of rolled their eyes at me. “2 madison square garden shows, dude? really?” i thought, well, just in case, you know? maybe some people would fly from other places or something. but msg, being one of the most popular venues on the planet, was unsurprisingly booked. (for the record: just because it doesn’t look booked on the internet, doesn’t mean it’s available. just saying.)
we tried calling our lawyer about the ticket scalping. “it’s legal”. no joke. it’s fucking legal. i tramped around with friends and band getting insane. i wanted to buy some expensive tickets and then track the seller down to beat him. i acted stupid. i did some classic, shakespearean vain “fist shaking”, etc. i made angry tweets. (i’m wondering now what on earth could be less effective and more of a first-world spoiled idiotic move than “angry tweets”? jesus.) i read conspiracy theories about how this was some cash-grab i orchestrated. i read that there are 50,000 seats at msg (i think our show will have 13k). i read that people had already bought flights, hotels. wanted to bring their kids. waited in the cold. i read that some people thought this was one of the reasons we were calling it quits (check). i read that this was a media stunt we planned. i read very funny comments from my friend aziz, one of which was taken seriously (that msg had given me 30,000 tickets personally for guest list). i read that i was giving all the tickets to my “new celebrity friends” (aziz is about the closest thing i have to a “celebrity friend”, and we met at terminal 5 watching hot chip when we were, well, not very “celebrated”). i read that we should cancel the show and put the tickets up on sale in a better fashion. i read that we should not do that, for fuck’s sake. i read that we should go fuck ourselves.
i read a lot of stuff, waiting to hear if we could get another night at msg, which seemed like the only option. but it failed. then i kind of sat in my house, trying not to worry for 20 minutes, and made a very, very good coffee.
i don’t know what people think about us, really. i’d love to say i don’t care, but i do. these people in my band—they are my very good friends. i love them very much. i love this band very much. everything about it. i’m very proud of it—of us, and i get defensive when people talk shit about us. i feel like we’ve been able to do something sort of special for 9 years: making music we like the way we like it. going on tour and playing, no computers or bullshit. no in-ears. a bunch of weird substitute teachers just trying to play something like the bands we loved growing up. whenever anyone said shit about us being sellouts or something, it stung, because i consider this entire thing—the band, everything—to be a communication between us and whoever is listening, and not just a thing unto itself. i remember being a fan and seeing bands, thinking “this is us. this is you playing and me/us watching” and how real that connection was, and i always wanted to honor that strange relationship with our band. so when someone felt wronged or hurt or outraged, it stung. it stung because, on some level, regardless of the “you can’t please everyone” stuff that gets rationally said to you when this shit happens, it meant that i’d failed. i’d failed to communicate. on the other hand, i’ve had my world turned upside down by a lot of amazing things people have said about us, or to us. i’ve met fans and made friends, and felt very strongly how that relationship actually works—and how we brought ourselves, each other, finally here, to where we play our last show—and biggest show ever—together, at this amazing place.
and then, this fucking ticket thing happened.
so to the point. you can’t make everyone happy, and i’m sure this will wind someone up somewhere (“but i paid $600 for one seat at msg!!!) or seem like some shitty “plan” to someone else (“they were gonna do it all along!!! it’s all a big retirement money plan to bilk the fans!!!”) or something else that someone who theoretically likes our band thinks (why are you trying to buy a ticket?? how could you even listen to a band that you think is capable of some of this shit!??) but we’ve come up with the best solution i can think of, as quickly as possible so as to deflate the market for those scalping scumfucks.
we’re going to play 4 shows at terminal 5 in nyc leading up to the msg show, and they will include most if not all of the songs we play at msg. the farewell run-up to the last dance. it’ll be the 28th, 29th, 30th and 31st of march. obviously we’re going to look seriously at the way we sell these tickets. not “paperless, (i’ve been advised that the “paperless” thing is apparently now illegal in ny… seriously—don’t ask me) but there are some ideas floating around that could be just as effective (though it’ll take a minute to get folks in the door.)
we’ll announce the shows officially early in the week, and tickets will be on sale soon after. we’re announcing all the shows at once, and if they don’t sell out, i don’t care. i just want to give people who actually want to see us a chance to see us. for a reasonable ticket price. and i want to drop the price of the msg tickets being sold by piece of shit scalpers.
oh—and a small thing to scalpers: “it’s legal” is what people say when they don’t have ethics. the law is there to set the limit of what is punishable (aka where the state needs to intervene) but we are supposed to have ethics, and that should be the primary guiding force in our actions, you fucking fuck.
and to everyone else: thank you. you rule. don’t let the shitbags win.
i feel like conan o’brien.
james