I've decided I don't use this thing enough, and until I get a real life it will have to do. Vacillating between extremes right now, musically. Full of caffeine and other stimulants, alone in the house for a few days. When I return from the film this evening, I will close the door on the world, and in all probability not emerge from my dire cocoon until I am called forth some time on Sunday. Too much to do, and no one to distract me or divert me. Sometimes, I sink into my own strange horrible world and emerge from…

Don't ask me why, but I've been on this serious noise-rock kick lately. Despite having gotten my grubby little hands on both the Execution of All Things and the Moon and Antarctica I'm still finding myself drawn to the other side of my preferences. Since the girl has left the state for a week and change, providing in paltry exchange her cat from a previous marriage, it behooves me to indulge myself in music she finds personally offensive.
Furthermore, I'm taking the time to try and hash out this story that's been floating around in my head for far too…

The Old 97's have a new album. I am an old fan. We are finding a balance. Heralded as their first record in four years, Blame it on Gravity is more than that– this is their first new material in longer still, as the last record to come out– Hit By a Train– was a compilation.
I bought it on Friday at the Waterloo making me one of about a billion people crammed into that Austin landmark to catch the in-store set that Old 97's put on for us. This is the third or fourth time I've seen them,…

Like most people not living under a rock or on the dark side of the Earth, I have heard of (and heard large parts of) this new Smashing Pumpkins album which is making headlines. I have heard rumors of the tour. Like any good little music geek who was pretty frickin hardcore before it became too much work, I know where to go for news of these things. I checked a couple sites, among them the Pumpkins fetish site, Netphoria, searching for information. I wanted to know the lineup. I couldn't find it. I found press releases from Billy, purporting…

Been hopping about the state again, and there's one thing long road trips mean: lots and lots of music. As fun as traveling with wireless, jumping from open network to open network as I cruise around the interstate system, can be, I decided against it this time and just stuck with my cd player. This car has one. The last car I drove was a 80s Toyota, with an aftermarket tape deck. Before I found an adaptor, I had listened to No Joke!, Woman As Salvation, and Congratulations I'm Sorry (the only decent tapes I had with me…

I've been doing yet another inadvisable thing, in addition to all my other bad habits: I've been going through my record collection and examining my own taste. Most hipsets will tell you that their taste is refined to the point of irony, that it is so far out you can't see it, and that they only like bands you've never heard of.
I like bands you've never heard of, but I want you to hear about them. I want you to hear them. I'd love them to cut demos. Other bands have put out records, and more people should listen…

it's cold in here and it won't ever get warm

Does god have a Buddha nature, master? Do I? Is the Infinite on the internet, master? Why does the prisoner watch the flight of birds, and what does it mean that I also watch them?
What is the Buddha nature, master, and how does one master it? Everything goes on, master; with me or without me? Is everything independent, or interdependent? Am I not part of the rain, master, and will it not continue to rain without me? How can light be both a wave and a particle?
This is a dream, and it is real.

I'm sitting around here, doing the usual nine things at once and solidifying my ideas of the (near) future. My personal future, anyway. The future at large will simply have to take care of itself for now. There are a few other personal futures I'm very interested in, besides my own; one of them is Cloud Cult's.
These guys have the very real ability to be big. They already are good, and they surf the curl of the Nu Indie Wave. Not that they sound too much like them, but they could be the next The Pixies: conceptually and…