It is appropriate that the zoo was born in the age of cocaine. The essence of successful zoo radio was speed and rapid-fire creativity, creating a nonstop on-air party. Even when DJs were talking, Top 40 hits were playing in the background. Zoo DJs, often fueled by that decade’s iconic powder, pushed morning radio from [...]

CLERK
OK, let’s take a look. (pause) Um, is this gentleman with you?
ELEANOR
My brother Matt had my shoes in the cab of his blue truck
He drove out to the bad side of the bluffs with Tony, just my luck
I used the old Fiesta from the parade float to track him down
But some pirates stole the gas [...]

The first thing I thought after listening to Embryonic in full, or at least one of the first thoughts (I have lots of thoughts sometimes), was “how will these songs, which are clearly different than those with which they’ve made their bread and butter over the past decade, translate live?” The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi [...]

Hypebot reports:
“Without the help of a single digital download, The Beatles have broken multiple chart records around the world following the 9-9-09 CD release of their digitally re-mastered catalog. In the major music markets of North America, Japan and the UK, consumers purchased more than 2.25 million copies of The Beatles’ re-mastered albums during the [...]

Bathroom graffiti, Laughing Planet-style. For non-Bloomingtonians, Laughing Planet is our local “hipster” (sic) burrito place, with a crew of tattooed, fixed-gear bike riders serving food with all-organic, all-local ingredients. It’s really great stuff, actually (I recommend the Cuban–mmmm…plantains), but it comes, on occasion, with a healthy side of antagonistic anti-free-market ideology.
The above exchange [...]

I have no idea how my Fork Friend Ian Cohen dug this up (see cap below), but huh: wow. If you don’t recognize that guy’s name or face, he’s in this band, and also just released this album, which is also very fine. Because the Onion more or less made up this particular [...]

a) This is not what I expected William DeVaughn to look like.
b) Because I’ve always associated this song with Curtis Mayfield, not Pensive Robert Townshend, Hanging in The Waiting Room.
c) Either way, man. This song, right?
d) I do enjoy the seemingly random zooms in and out into the image. It surprises me every [...]

All sound is more or less “noise” until conventions congeal to classify it as “music,” but according to Marc Masters’ “The Decade in Noise”, dozens of bands used the Oughts to reintroduce dissonance and volume to rock and punk audiences. In the process new hybrids were created, more wild polarities explored, and, like so [...]

The last few years, various things–scheduling conflicts, themes at the other end of the world from what I’m interested in/can write compellingly about–have coalesced to restrict my attending EMP, despite my intense desire to commingle with so many others whose work I admire, fear, and most of all, enjoy reading. This year, though: uh-huh. [...]

Fun books for the next few months! And some chatty academic ones, too!