What Happened to Super Furry Animals?

I tuned out after Phan­tom Pow­er. I know peo­ple loved “Inau­gur­al Trams,” but I could­n’t get on board. (See what I did there?)

I lis­tened to their albums so much and SO LOUDLY dur­ing grad school that I’d thought I’d go deaf try­ing to fig­ure out what was hap­pen­ing in the back­ground on “Rings Around the World.” Then, sud­den­ly, like the New Pornog­ra­phers, every­thing end­ed up being more or less mid-tem­po. They’ve writ­ten some love­ly bal­lads over the years, but I just did­n’t expect them to ditch the fuzz pop altogether.

Can a case be made for Love Kraft and Dark Days/Light Years? Am I miss­ing out?

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Radiohead with Michael Stipe

Once upon a time, that would’ve been a dream walk-on for me. Real­l­ly hard to imag­ine Radio­head and R.E.M. togeth­er live now.

Their forth­com­ing album, Col­lapse Into Now, strikes me as the most des­per­ate attempt at rel­e­vance since their last. What­ev­er hap­pened to aging grace­ful­ly, guys?

I get hav­ing Pat­ti Smith and Eddie Ved­der aboard, but Peach­es? In 2010?

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My Musical Comfort Food

Now that I’m not mon­i­tor­ing news feeds across the web for the lat­est break­ing music news, I’ve been set­tling in with some old favorites. They’re beyond pre­dictable, but I find it so refresh­ing to tune back in with music I was lis­ten­ing to non­stop when I first start­ed get­ting inter­est­ed in music crit­i­cism. Let’s just say I find it more reward­ing than try­ing to fig­ure out what peo­ple find so amaz­ing about, say, Best Coast.

What am I lis­ten­ing to now? Here’s a quick list:

  • The Byrds. There was a stretch there in the ear­ly part of last decade that I thought they’d get a crit­i­cal revival from the freak folk crowd, but it did­n’t real­ly mate­ri­al­ize. They opt­ed for Cros­by’s amaz­ing solo work instead. Fair enough. Love the Byrds in all man­i­fes­ta­tions. Feel like they’re the Amer­i­can ver­sion of anoth­er of my favorite bands.
  • The Kinks! Love this band so much and real­ly haven’t lis­tened to them much at all late­ly. Guess the last time I went total­ly crazy for their stuff was right around the time I caught Ray Davies at Irv­ing Plaza in 2005. Going to see him in a few weeks. Can­not wait.
  • The Rolling Stones. Watch­ing Char­lie dance to Exile on Main Street remind­ed me how much fun this band is. I know it’s quin­tes­sen­tial dad-rock, but what can I say? I’ve been going back and check­ing out albums like After­math and Between the But­tons and lov­ing every minute. Real­ly need to pick up these reissues.
  • Bob Dylan. Have to admit that Dylan’s a tremen­dous blind spot for me. I have a bunch of his albums, my favorite being Bring­ing It All Back Home, but I’m not exact­ly con­ver­sant. Now I can spend some time!
  • Neil Young. It’s high time this old man took a life at his life, too. Have always loved Neil, not that that’s any­thing spe­cial, but feel like I was always scram­bling to hear some­thing new that crowd­ed out my fur­ther appre­ci­a­tion of this liv­ing legend.
  • Kate Bush, Vic Ches­nutt, so many more. Long overdue.

There are plen­ty of oth­er acts I’m leav­ing out. I’m not rul­ing out new music entire­ly, mind, but I’m so hap­py to have unplugged from the non­stop music PR circuit.

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Goodbye Playoff Beard

I start­ed grow­ing this beard the day the Phillies clinched the NL East. Sure, I jumped the gun a lit­tle bit, but when I look back on last year’s scrag­gly play­off beard, I’m glad I did.

Now I look like this.

Loved the beard, but I’m feel­ing human again.

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Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me

Went to see a record­ing of Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! at the Acad­e­my of Music last night here in Philadel­phia. If peo­ple think that this week­end’s Ral­ly to Restore San­i­ty is like the Gath­er­ing of the Smug­ga­loes, then they would­n’t know what to make of this.

Let’s just say that Helen and I real­ly love the show, but see­ing the sausage get made was­n’t quite as appeal­ing. Can some­one start a “More Carl!” cam­paign? I think you could make it catch­phrasey, like “more cow­bell.” Who’s with me?

Over­all the show was­n’t that bad, it’s just that, I dun­no, it just did­n’t come off quite the same live. When the jokes are flat, they’re real­ly flat and the pan­elists’ hem­ming and haw­ing was­n’t all that clever, although Tom Bodett was a treat! P.J. O’Rourke got booed once when he joked that ’60s pro­test­ers deserved to be beat­en and tear­gassed. Amy Dick­in­son did had to stand in for women every­where. Weird.

We heard the show air yes­ter­day as we drove back from D.C. Sound­ed much bet­ter. Prob­a­bly best to not see how the sausage gets made, huh?

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