Dear Cin­gu­lar,

You’re com­mer­cials sug­gest that you have few dropped calls. This is wrong. Your ser­vice is so bad in my neigh­bor­hood [19125, hol­la at your boy] that I’ve con­sid­ered key­ing the Cin­gu­lar-brand­ed truck that’s often parked at the inter­sec­tion of York and Cedar. Your new music ser­vice is idi­ot­ic, and I think Apple made a pact with Satan when they chose your com­pa­ny of all com­pa­nies to pro­vide cel­lu­lar ser­vice to the iPhone. I’m hope­ful that Apple can over­come your rank stupidity.

In the mean­time, here’s what I thought of your phone and its mp3 capac­i­ty. The short answer? They both suck, though there’s a soft spot in my heart for a phone that can’t prop­er­ly queue mp3s in the order they ought to be played. That’s dar­ing, which is how I know it was unin­tend­ed. The web 2.0 beta test? Also dar­ing, and you put your fate in the hands of democ­ra­cy. You’re learn­ing a tough les­son. Best of luck going forward.

XOXO,

Black­mail Is My Life

P.S. Call­ing your beta test web­site My Blue Notes makes no sense. Is it sup­posed to be a jazz phone? It’s about as much fun to use as a Jaz dri­ve!

Here’s me prais­ing a band that’s fol­low­ing the same career arc as Guid­ed By Voic­es. I guess it’s nom­i­nal­ly “punk.” Times New Viking’s Present the Pais­ley Reich is the sort of album that will either pleas­ant­ly sur­prise you for sound­ing so fresh yet famil­iar or make you roll your eyes for seem­ing so derivative.

The longest song is 3:35. The fun­ni­est song title is “Imag­ine Dead John Lennon.”

Hav­ing wok­en up late for break­fast the morn­ing indie rock was served, I total­ly missed out on Yo La Ten­go. By rights, Yo La Ten­go and the Mata­dor cohort should’ve been main­stays of WDRE playlists, yet some­how they were lost in a mias­ma of Mor­ris­sey, Bel­ly and oth­er ear­ly nineties alter­na­tive rock faves. Some say that crit­ics are the art of pre­tend for­get­ful­ness, but the for­ma­tive years of crit­i­cal lis­ten­ing are often those that are most embar­rass­ing. So con­sid­er this post my mea cul­pa for being so late to the table that fate­ful day.

In short, Yo La Ten­go may be the most durable and ver­sa­tile band to ever suf­fer the “indie rock” hair­shirt. Their abil­i­ty to shift from art rock gui­tar tor­ture one moment to the Faux­town sound the next is more than a lit­tle mind­blow­ing when you con­sid­er how few bands in the genre suc­ceed at doing either.

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