Big Big Show
New York: I take back everything I ever said about you. Saturday night was the best show in recent memory, and while it certainly has something to do with the Kristen Shirts Ukulele Army, it is hard to ignore how amazing the crowd was. I haven’t played in NY for some time, so I was a little hopped up to begin with, and some kind of crazy rock juice feedback loop made me feel all crazy and rock juicy. Many thanks, I promise I won’t stay away as long this time.
Random Rules
For those of you who are wondering what’s on my iPod, I’m the subject of today’s Random Rules in the Onion AV club. I like this interview format very much: I put my iPod on shuffle and we talk about what happens. Kind of terrifying because I’ve always felt a little subconscious (blarg: I mean self-conscious) about sharing my taste in music, ever since 1982 when a neighbor kid asked me what bands I liked and I panicked and said “Um, Air Supply?” Fortunately nothing really embarrassing came up. Though I fear that I may have said too much about Billy Joel and Paul McCartney and how they’re not as good as they used to be – what if I meet them in person and they hate me because they read this interview?
Please do not forward this link to Billy Joel or Paul McCartney.
A Great Book
I don’t often pimp things here on this blog, but I will make an exception this time – mark it well. I do it not only because Darin Strauss is a good friend and a former member of the fantastic (not really) proto-JoCo band Supergroup, but because he is an exceptionally talented writer of fiction that you should read. Perhaps you have already enjoyed his previous novels: Chang and Eng which was about the original Siamese Twins, or The Real McCoy which was about con men. His new book, More Than it Hurts You, is 1) out today, 2) about Munchausen syndrome by proxy and a family in Long Island, and 3) awesome. I am not so eloquent when it comes to “describing books with words,” so I will not bother to string together a series of alliterative and superlative adjectives – other people smarter than me have already done that. So you know it’s good. Buy it today, won’t you?
Song Fu Round 2
The Song Fu challenge has bid adieu to Doc Hammer and several non-master contestants, and the rest of us are moving on to round 2. And I quote:
The following challenge applies to our Masters of Song Fu only. As Masters, it is expected that they have achieved a musical voice all their own – but does their mastery extend to assuming the voice of another artist? With that in mind, Each Master is tasked with writing a song in the style of their opponent. The Masters will be judged on how accurately they write a song in their opponent’s style without it becoming a simple parody. When listening to their entries, you must genuinely believe that they were written by the original Master. Got that? The Master’s songs must also be no shorter than 1m45s, and are due at 11:59pm EST on Tuesday, July 1st.
Paul and Storm have the obvious advantage here, which is that at the end of the day they will have a Jonathan Coulton song, and I will be stuck with a Paul and Storm song. Zing. Do you see what I did there? I am trash talking!
I already know exactly how my P+S song is going to end, even though I know nothing else about it…
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