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January 14, 2008
Shorties
Yo La Tengo's Ira Kaplan talks to the Red and Black about the band's current all-request tour.
"Not only is (touring) unsettling, I think it would be weird if it wasn't. There's a lot of things I like about this tour, but one of them is by being different, it's almost unsettling - extra unsettling," he said.
The New Yorker features a new short story, "Ash Fiction," by T. Coraghessan Boyle.
Popmatters interviews Jason Molina of Magnolia Electric Co.
Back to songwriting, you write a lot about trying to find your way. Your lyrics talk about being in the dark and finding yourself at a crossroads—do you think you feel more lost than most people?
I just don’t think people have found a language to talk about it. I’m not more depressed than a depressed person. My life is that music. My life is these songs. It was my language and it happened to be writing lyrics and making music. I had to make a language to deal with the world. My language was music, because there’s already language there—I could pull from ten thousand years and never even scratch the surface. I would suffer much more than I already do if I had no way to express what I was feeling.
Popmatters offers its best music scribing awards of 2007.
Alternative Reel lists the top ten quotes by gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson.
Southern Shelter has posted mp3s from last weekend's three Drive-By Truckers shows at Athens' 40 Watt Club.
Behance profiles my favorite small record label, Catbird Records.
Ryan Catbird is what we'd like to call an indie rock preservationist. As the world steadily moves away from compact discs and onto digital acquisition of its music, Ryan continues to produce some of the most intriguing, beautifully crafted CD packaging available today...that is, if you can get your hands on the super-limited-edition releases he churns out of his itty-bitty apartment in Brooklyn.
Five Chapters is serializing "The Last Story," a new piece of short fiction by Jami Attenberg.
see also: Hallelujah the Hills' Ryan Walsh's recent interview with Attenberg at Largehearted Boy
The Age lists the best armchair travel books.
Newsweek examines fan reaction to Spiderman's newly single status.
Of course, the breakup won't be easy for everyone to get over. A series is only as good as its characters, and it's only natural for fans to get invested in them. "My sixth- and seventh-grade students asked me, after the first [Spider-Man] movie came out, 'What happened with Peter and Mary Jane?' Like they're real people that send me postcards," says Greg Hatcher, a Seattle art teacher who teaches drawing and cartooning and writes a weekly column for Comic Book Resources, the Web site that puts out the Comics Should Be Good blog. He says his students have even come to favor Spider-Girl over the original series, a Marvel spinoff in which Spidey is married and retired, with a 15-year-old daughter who inherits his powers.
At the Guardian, author Julith Jedamus lists her favorite Japanese novels.
Fingertips offers its opinion on the way Radiohead released its In Rainbows album.
Drowned in Sound lists 2007's most overlooked CDs.
also at Largehearted Boy:
2007 online music lists
Daily Downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
this week's CD releases
tags: music books popculture indie news
