Oil Can Boyd

I liked it a lot. I think Joe and I are about the same age and I also grew up around Boston so I could defintiely relate to much of what he wrote about, even though I was not a big Smiths fan in high school. Have you read his other novel, It Feels So Good When I Stop? I thought that was great too ...

Feelies on Saturday?

I agree. It remains my favorite Dark Star.

For Bill Janovitz/Buffalo Tom fans, Janovitz has been recording new material and has it up on his website for download (with a tip jar for those so inclined). He explains the project here: http://billjanovitz.com/?page_id=643 As is evident by the frequency of my posting about him, I'm a big fan and I think there is some great stuff in these new songs.

There are a lot of fans of Black Swan Green here and I'm one of them. Great, great book. I read The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet which I also really liked. It's very different from Black Swan - it's got a much bigger scope - but it's good. I own Cloud Atlas and number9dream but have not yet read them.

Official statement from the Beastie Boys: Adam Yauch | 1964-2012 It is with great sadness that we confirm that musician, rapper, activist and director Adam “MCA” Yauch, founding member of Beastie Boys and also of the Milarepa Foundation that produced the Tibetan Freedom Concert benefits, and film production and distribution company Oscilloscope Laboratories, passed away in his native New York City this morning after a near-three-year battle with cancer. He was 47 years old. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Yauch taught himself to play bass in high school, forming a band for his 17th birthday party

That really is too bad if he is done. I remember when Red Sox fans gave him a standing ovation on opening day in 2005 and he smiled and tipped his hat to the crowd.

Springsteen's Levon Helm tribute last night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qPsmjlS_o5s

This was the intro: To celebrate the new generation of shredders profiled in our May/June "Loud Issue," the SPIN staff decided to find some wheedle in a haystack, taking on the impossible task of ranking our favorite guitar players of all time. Traditionally, the "greatest guitarist" timeline begins with Robert Johnson magically conjuring the blues, nears perfection with Eric Clapton mutating it beatifically, and then ultimately reaches a boomer-baiting Rock and Roll Hall of Fame apotheosis with the free-spirited Jimi Hendrix shooting it into space like feedback-laden fireworks. For this li

Dumber than Jam Master Jay at #10? But I agree that overall it is not a bad list as these things go. They are certainly trying to think differently and included a lot of people who I really like and who are rarely included in these sorts of things. Kristin Hersh? I love her guitar playing ... (And I also never knew the story of Tom Tom Club screwing over Adrian Belew.)

Keep reading ...

My namesake in the news: http://espn.go.com/boston/mlb/story/_/id/7879759/dennis-oil-boyd-says-used-crack-entire-86-season

If you google "Wilco Engineers Demos" you can find several sites that have that whole set as a download (in mp3 or FLAC).

I like the Wild Flag album but I've been on something of a Sleater-Kinney binge recently. I hadn't lsitened to any of their stuff in a while and sort of forgot how much I liked it.

Interview with Kevin Shields and stream of one of the unreleased songs on Pitchfork yeterday: http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/8809-kevin-shields/

LouieB: got any sources on that? It surprised me so I poked around some and even found her original 1978 New Yorker review which is pretty positive. A different reviewer for the Nww Yorker (Penelope Gilliatt) didn't like it much but Kael seems to be a fan. She is quoted in other articles as calling it "the most beautiful rock movie ever."

Hadn't listened to Sleater Kinney in a while but I'm going through them all right now.

I'm a big fan of Lou but this doesn't do it for me. There is just too little time and too much good music that I own and don't listen to for me to spend an hour listening to that.

I'm another person who has been playing it recently after putting it aside for a while. It is holding up well for me.

Agreed. I like the stuff on the third disc except for that tune.

Feelies - May 12 in Boston

Yup - it's pretty distressing to watch. It was not too long ago that I thought this ownership group was doing all the right things.

Came out 20 years ago today ...