Oil Can Boyd

Bill Janovitz (of Buffalo Tom) in Camden Maine in 2000.

I've seen a bunch of tributes on line today but that's one of the nicest (with the exception of the one a-hole). I think most people remember the first time they met (or saw) Billy. For me it was in the late 1980s at the Rat and he pogoed through the crowd, with drinks in both hands, got up on stage, twirled around and then went back through the crowd. When we left the place, he was out front handing out flyers for some show he was promoting. I remember talking to people the next day and everyone just kept saying, "oh sure - that's Billy."

Love that song ...

It may not mean much to folks outside of Boston but for anyone around here the death of Billy Ruane is a big loss for the Boston music scene. Billy Ruane RIP

I know I've already pimped my friend's movie about getting the Kinks back together ( ) but Zooey is one of the people he interviews and she is very endearing (and a big Kinks fan).

I went through that phase with Harborcoat when I was 20.

Golden Smog? Or was there something before that?

Not only am I not from St. Louis, I've never even been there!

Recorded 50 years ago today ...

Recent interview with Moe Tucker where she clarifies - but doesn't back away from - her position.

Wow - what a sad article. I saw him play a few months ago and it was pretty good but a little weird. He played a ton of songs, one right after the other, without stopping. His voice sounded great and it reminded me of how many good songs he has written but he didn't seem all that engaged.

What's not to like?

From Low's MySpace blog: we're almost done. after the RGC midwest tour, i flew out to L.A. for a couple days to work on more guitars and some vocals (sounds so glamorous when i have to type it out...). nels cline came in and played some guitar, too. i won't even begin to try to explain how awesome he is. now we are going thru rough mixes and the smallest decisions. i'm fairly sure the title is "c'mon." this upcoming tour to new zealand and austalia will be a nice break before final mixing. have a great week. if you can hear me, mavis staples, i love you.

There's a store near me (Newbury Comics which are mostly in the Boston area) that is selling it for $6.99. I think I'll go pick it up at lunch.

More big changes at emusic. The good news is that they are adding more than 250,000 tracks from Universal Music Group to its catalog. The bad news is that the pricing is getting more complicated and, as best as I can tell, more expensive. I will see how this goes for a month or two but this may be it for me. It used to be a good and inexpensive way to hear new stuff but unless there is a lot of Universal Music Group stuff I like (and as long as they continue to not allow unused downloads to carry over) it may not be worth it anymore.

Not really. Touch of Grey was a legitimate top 10 mainstream hit competing with Whitney Houston, George Michael, and Bon Jovi. It really did bring a whole new group of fans to the band. HMD may be the song that non-Wilco fans can identify as being a Wilco song but it's nowhere near the scale of something like Touch of Grey.

I was thinking either Foggy Notion or I'm Set Free (to find a new illusion) ...

I could watch that over and over again. And watching it just now reminded me of how tired I was those couple of weeks.

Not to defend the list but according to the title of the thread it is the best first films by directors ...

Just curious - who would you say was first?

I'm going to see him read tonight.

It's all that and a little bit more. Actually I am enjoying it. I remember reading The Corrections and thinking that I really liked the book and at the same time really disliked all of the characters. This has some of that same feeling but it is very well done. It's a fairly bleak view of America or at least a certain segment of America of which, frankly, I am probably a part. Oh and as I mentioned in another thread Wilco and Tweedy are mentioned a bunch of times.

This would be more "Wilco read while I'm out and about" but I am reading Jonathan Franzen's latest novel Freedom and one of the characters is a musician. As part of his story line there have been several references to Tweedy and/or Wilco.

I too saw them open for Pavement and liked the Jenny more than the Johnny.