July 2011
Rawkblog was almost in the new Martin Starr movie →
There was apparently a miscommunication and they called me while somebody else had already signed a contract. Pretty depressed about it, if only because it makes me increasingly unlikely to hang out with Martin Starr this weekend.
headunderwater replied to your post: Are music blogs dying?
I have a hard time believing that. I think traffic is down for some due to the heavy saturation of music blogs. Mine is doing fine within tumblr.
I think Tumblr definitely plays a role here, but if blogs like yours, Yvynyl and GvsB — blogs without a lot of commentary that just post a handful of cool songs and videos every day...
jamiesoncox replied to your post: Are music blogs dying?
I think the force that’s causing any decline isn’t over-expansion and repetition, but the ease of discovery of new music enabled by Last.fm, Turntable.fm, and now Spotify. The act of manually checking a blog is rendered extraneous by these services.
I mean, Last.fm predated blogs and Turntable.fm seems like a silly trend to me....
Put This On: On Gay Talese & Limited Budgets →
putthison:
When we visited Gay Talese, Adam, Ben and I admired his home. It’s a beautiful multi-story townhouse in Manhattan. Mr. Talese told us how he and his wife bought the place. When he returned from military service in 1956, he and his wife invested his meager salary in one floor of what was then a…
An impassioned and completely sensible essay. Jesse Thorn should run for...
softmoney replied to your post: Are music blogs dying?
FWIW: I think it’s relatively common for web traffic to fall ~15-20% during the summer months when students are on break and (ostensibly) not parked in front of computers all day.
Of course. But this is a bigger issue, from what I can tell. And gauge the discussion about MP3 blogs: they’re no longer cool. Tunrtable.fm is cool. No one...
maura replied to your post: Are music blogs dying?
Not to mention that the conversation’s shifting to Twitter/Facebook/maybe Google+ and more artists are putting out info about new releases, etc, on their own…
Yeah, this is huge. The next question: What do the rest of us do?!
yvynyl replied to your post: Are music blogs dying?
Mine continue to grow fast… but so is Tumblr and I’m sure it rubs off.
I would also put you in the rarified air of GvsB, etc. But you’re the only new blogger from the last few years that I can actually think of being relevant.
Are music blogs dying?
Every blogger I’ve talked to recently says traffic is down; my suspicion is that the big ones, GvsB, Stereogum, etc., are doing just fine but over-expansion and repetition is killing the rest of us.
On Rawkblog today: Two really nice songs from ARMS... →
Observations of Menswear in London
evolvingstyle:
1. Marginally more men are well-dressed.
2. Even otherwise well-dressed men still fail in the shoe department.
2. is true everywhere and it’s the most infuriating thing! 9/10 times you see a guy in a suit in L.A., they’re wearing these horrific boxy disasters. Hindenburg swag.
More layoffs at the L.A. Times →
I say “more” because I’m counting the Brand X axing, which at the time seemed like an isolated incident. It’s pretty heartbreaking to see the paper going through this again after a period of seeming stability and optimism — I certainly didn’t see it coming. The link above is to a very classy farewell letter from Tony Pierce, the Times’ now-former blog...
"Eyes Wide Shut"
I liked a lot of things about this movie. The Kubrick visuals. The cleverness of the script (like how Cruise’s first encounter with the prostitute mirrors Kidman’s temptation by the dancing gentleman, except Cruise is asked if he wants to stay while Kidman is told she should; how Kidman’s fantasy life is internal and Cruise’s is external, at least in his attempts; the...
The disparity in acting quality between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman is making Eyes Wide Shut so weird
More Chris Carter
From August 1997 through December 1999, he hosted his original show “The Chris Carter Mess,” a four-hour specialty show on Los Angeles radio station Modern Rock Y107. “The Mess” also aired in the midwest on WOXY-FM. After a Y107 format change in January 1999, “The Chris Carter Mess” moved to LA’s Channel 103.1, where it aired weekly through February 2001.
I probably heard half of his Y107...
michaelpop replied to your link: Creem magazine’s absurd legal drama
I need to go back and watch the Mayor of the Sunset Strip because the whole Rodney on the Roq and Chris Carter drama was weird. Carter had the better show in my opinion. But both were big influences during my formative teenage years.
I haven’t seen this. But I grew up in Ventura, so KROQ was a little fuzzy on the...
Creem magazine's absurd legal drama →
A surprising guest star in this story: ex-Dramarama member/radio host Chris Carter, whose defunct Y107 show The Chris Carter Mess was my first major exposure to underground music and, for all intents and purposes, changed my life forever.
The NYT article about Bebe Zeva →
Which is really an NYT article about Carles, which is really arjalsjfal;sjfa;lshfalhgaohgsadjfasfa
“Which party will have the more relevant people?” Ms. Zeva asked.
“Verso publishes Slavoj Zizek,” Mr. Lin said.
Ms. Zeva is an admirer of the Slovenian philosopher. “Will he be there?” she asked.
“Probably not,” Mr. Lin said.
The crowd hailed cabs and went to Bushwick. They finished the night...
Camp reunions
I was a camper for a half-decade and a counselor for another three years at Malibu’s Camp Hess Kramer, the sort of hedonistic-yet-religiously-grounded sleep-away camp experience Wet Hot American Summer paid homage to so brilliantly. Ever year, they do “Leadership Night,” in which past generations of campers who completed their “leadership” summer — between...
Guero: The best Beck album nobody liked.
The top 15 things about being laid off by a...
The lengthy advance notice and industry-leading severance package.
40 more hours per week to read menswear Tumblrs.
Saving on gas by not taking advantage of the daily commute you moved across town for two days before layoffs.
Debating the finer points of the BBC’s “Spooks” with your cat. (The cat has a crush on Lucas but you’re not sure you can trust him.)
Eating ...
WEBSITE IDEAS
fek:
celebraterickysargulesh:
“Pot Catalog” - a list of pots
“Braut Catalog” - a list of sausages
“Hot Catalog” - tk
“Gott Catalog” - German religious website
“Scott Catalog” - a list of people named Scott
I would actually read the last one.
“Mott Catalog” - a list of apple sauces
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More dieting incentive
After a brief afternoon of trying on various tie/shirt combinations, I either need some 2 5/8” ties or to lose about 15 pounds so I can wear the 2.5” ones I already own and not look a fraction of an inch out of proportion.
In related news, I totally went to a yoga class last night. It was great.
Scott Brown on Braff's new play →
His Garden State made a hubristically deliberate bid to be The Graduate for the Exhausted Aughts — and it did, in fact, crystallize the profound self-absorption of mope-is-me Bush-age late-twentysomethings. We briefly, guiltily enjoyed Braff’s ad hoc quirk collage, his breezy use of modern anxiety as fashion accessory, his crypto-jailbait Flowers for Algernon girl-child love interest. We...
Instant reactions to Stereogum's Strokes tribute... →
These are always better in theory than in practice. Given that Is This It is a timeless classic that hasn’t aged a minute since 2k01, it shouldn’t have been a Herculean labor to turn in serviceable covers. And yet…
The hits: Frankie Rose’s sorta-shoegaze version of “Soma,” the Morning Bender’s Daft Punk reworking of “Last Night,” Owen...
Science identifies the saddest movie scene ever →
Even without the context of the movie, which I’ve never seen, this is fucking devastating.
The Man Registry →
thebachelorparty:
We’re starting to think about registering for gifts, despite the fact that the wedding’s another year out — certain generous family members want to get us engagement presents, which is unexpected but wonderful. We will not be registering here, but I’m glad it exists.
chaosaintyou replied to your post: Unrequited love
Very true. But people have to learn this the hard way. You can continue telling yourself it’s wrong and you won’t get anywhere unless you’ve experienced how it feels to have lost years to a retrospectively uninteresting dream.
But at least we can warn them, right?
thirtydollarproject replied to your post: Unrequited love
love is usually requited in Jane Austen novels.
Which is why it’s good to remember that they’re works of fiction, I think.
Unrequited love
We spend a considerable amount of time together around our other friends and we get along quite well. My question begins here, though – I have been what you could call in love with him for about the last year and a half.
1) I don’t know why they don’t teach this in school: you can’t be in love with someone you don’t actually know. Have you cooked a meal together? Had...
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Watchputthison:
Put This On Episode 7: Personal Style
Episode seven of Put This On explores personal style - elegant, quirky, distinctive and everywhere in between.
Inside Gay Talese’s closet! It doesn’t get any better than this, folks.
Spotify playlist: The Canon, Examined →
An ongoing collection of albums you probably haven’t heard. To start: Sea Snakes, Anthony Rochester, Always.
(Missing: Tim Hardin 1 and 2. Step your game up, Spotify!)
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New ties from the Windmill Club →
Yeezy should buy the crown one for The Throne tour.
In case you missed Russell Brand's lament for Amy... →
Really the only thing that needs to be read on the subject, although I can’t help but be irritated that he and Gaga, and everyone feel compelled by her death to elevate her to legendary genius status. Part of the tragedy is that her potential died with her; we’ll never know how good she could’ve been without her addictions. But she was very good, and that should be good enough.
“I’m sick of seeing 30-year-old men in New York look like toddlers, wearing...”
– Zach Condon of Beirut (via seanfennessey)
Zach would loooove Beverly Hills on Sunday mornings
Reactions to Amy Winehouse
Were I still working for Access Hollywood, my day would’ve involved building multiple photo galleries, writing an obituary from scratch, gathering a Twitter round-up of stars’ reactions and probably writing a follow-up investigative piece or two.
Instead, I went to Shabbat services with my fiancee and my grandparents and had a nice lunch with them and ate dinner at a food truck with...
Day 1 of Deleted Facebook
Times I clicked to Facebook to log in and then caught myself: 3? 4? Feels nice to have one less thing to spend an hour on, though.
$300,000 worth of new Beatles photos →
The one where they’re all at the table and Ringo is making the face is tremendous
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Charlie Kaufman's next movie is Frank or Francis →
Most anticipated
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The GQ lesbian thing
From the Videogum comment section, emphasis mine:
So the real question is: Why are ladies so upset when other women (who also happen to be funny, smart and talented) choose to be portrayed as sex objects?
I think the point that gets missed in these kinds of discussions (which go back to the foundation of Playboy, etc.) is being portrayed as a sex object does not suddenly make you only a sex...
Tumblr spam
C’mon, spam-bots! Have some respect! Not here!
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The untold story of Neil Young's "After the... →
Really awesome.
matthewedwards asked: Dude I still don't know anything about Spotify aside from the fact that I think I'm supposed to be getting on it?
