Whitty

My bests as we near the halfway point(!) of the year: Dr. Dog - We All Belong The Good, The Bad, & The Queen - s/t Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver Gruff Rhys - Candylion Sorry Wilco...

Super Furry Animals Spoon White Stripes New Pr0nographers M.I.A. I think Stephen Malkmus should have something by year's end, and maybe Built to Spill too.

Chad Kroeger was robbed.

I've mentioned this before to people who seem to moan about the ambiguity and open-endedness of shows like The Sopranos and Lost- perhps Law & Order is more up your alley. Anyone used to the Sopranos M.O. should know that the both the mundane tribulations of family life and the specter of imminent demise are always haunting the scene. The biggest weight on Tony's shoulders was relieved when Phil took some lead and American union-made steel to the dome- but as Tony's suspicious glares around Holston's will affirm, the weight is never truly removed in his line of work. Tony may have witnes

Your team probably needs Jeremy Guthrie right now. Not mine, though. Leading by 20.5 points in my roto league right now!

And the point of Danys Baez is what exactly?

Not a big fan of the live performance of this one- they sounded nervous and rushed. The vocals were merely OK (and the background singers were about as superfluous as they come), the bass nearly inaudible, and the whole thing seemed a little rough around the edges. I like We All Belong, though!

Nice. "Baby Bitch" is pretty brutal, too. Dylan likes hisself a good musical middle finger. I'll add "4th Time Around" and its spectacular closing lyric "And I, I never took much / I never asked for your crutch / Now don't ask for mine"

True- J. has a distinctive style and fairly simple formula, so it's not like he needs to re-assemble a huge collective of former bandmates to get "his" sound. I suppose I'm just so used to reconstituted rock bands sucking, that having one still rock after a long hiatus seems unusual.

It's weird how they pretty much picked up right where they left off. It's like they froze those searing J Mascis guitar leads along with Ted Williams' head and re-animated them for maximum rockage. One of the more instantly recognizable bands from the heyday of the alternative movement makes a record that is absolutely Dinosaur Jr. and not "Honda presents Dinosaur Jr. Lite- now with Xtreme Lime!" Huzzah for a worthwhile rock reunion!

I'm actually kind of sick to my stomach right now. Please fire Sam Perlozzo. Please make my Oriole loyalty somewhat less embarrassing. I thought we traded Jorge Julio, but apparently we just have a slimmer, lighter-hued version closing for us instead... I hope your Mom gets food poisoning for Mother's Day.

I prefer the warmth of analog cigarettes.

I love playing the Devil Rays. They'd be better off wheeling in a pitching machine out of the bullpen to mop up for them in the late innings.

The Flaming Lips say "how 'bout us, ya rubes!?" Transmissions From the Satellite Heart Clouds Taste Metallic Zaireeka The Soft Bulletin Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots -Two albums of top-notch, deliriously weird Okie garage psychedelia -Perhaps the most aurally ambitious rock album of all time sandwiched in the middle -A near-flawless symphonic-pop rumination on yearning, mortality, and ummm... insects -Top it all off with a remarkably warm-sounding electronic rock album that was probably recorded in the future on a planet designed by Roger Dean and brought back by people in metallic j

Spoon is one of the most efficient bands out there right now. The ear for arrangements is remarkably well-tuned. Every note counts. Britt Daniels' rasp is one of the more authoritative rock voices out there, too. It all sounds very Spoony when mixed together with those lilting, casually cool vocal melodies. The last two albums are probably my favorites, so suffice to say I'm eagerly waiting for the new one.

So I got the e-mail today saying my band (The Burning Dirty Band) is gonna be featured on The Radar Report on XMU (XM channel 43) this Thursday night! Check it out if you wish to hear the world satellite premiere of "Everybody's Got a Limit". Pretty cool stuff. The thought of ultra-sophisticated, precision engineered space machinery being used to beam out my band's noise is very amusing.

I'm fairly familiar with the VT campus. And it's big. Several square miles and 25,000+ students. "Locking down" something like this would be a feat- more or less like locking down a city of 25,000 people. When shootings happen in a non-school environment, the entire town doesn't generally get "locked down". I really do believe that the police were acting on their best information. No one would have anticipated the turn the situation took at Norris Hall. I know questions will be asked, and policies reviewed, but I feel that this is one of those acts of human cruelty that simply cannot be ant

Just unspeakably tragic... I have a lot of ties down there. Luckily I don't think I know anyone there any more. The drummer in my band just graduated last year and Norris Hall was where he spent most of his time... What would possibly convince someone that this was the only option left for them?

'00s: Wilco- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot; TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain '90s: Flaming Lips- The Soft Bulletin; Radiohead - OK Computer '80s: Talking Heads - Remain in Light; The Pogues - Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash '70s: David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars; Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street '60s: The Beatles - Revolver; Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde Apologies to about a hundred bands I might have listed here...

Couldn't we just set up a foosball tournament to settle this unpleasantness in the Fertile Crescent once and for all? We need to watch out for al-Sadr, though. He spins, and is known to suddenly institute a "must win by two goals" rule when he falls behind late in a match.

Timequake has two passages that seem appropriate here.

Arular was a delightfully sweaty, seductive orgy of electro-exotica, and I have high hopes for the new disc. I hope Timbaland doesn't reign in her weirder tendencies- "Bird Flu" is a hopeful sign. You just don't hear danceable beats that slithery and downright strange too often. MIA makes me all tingly. She's naughty.

Janice and Tony have the best passive-aggressive relationship ever scripted for a TV show. I'm not sure what they have in mind for Tony. Having him whacked seems almost too obvious- but someone's gotta drop. I could see AJ's meatheadedness leading to trouble for himself or his Dad. Either way, the show better not turn out to be dream taking place in Bob Newhart's head. I need some Paulie and Sil next week!

Provocative, well-filmed, non-geeky sci-fi about the end of the world- The Quiet Earth. New Zealand film from the 80's- I swear I'm one of about a dozen people who have ever seen it...