Shorties

Few bands have aged as well as New Jersey's Wrens. Here's the secret to their energetic live shows, via the East Bay Express: "The way that we structure our live sets is, uh -- we know we're old," admits Wrens drummer Jerry MacDonnell. "We also know that we write some pretty good rock songs, like, energy-wise. So we come out strong, only 'cause we know at the end of the set, we probably won't have it."

PlanetOut profiles Kylie Minogue (a belated birthday offering for Max). By the way, my spell-checker offers "munge" as an option al spelling of Minogue.

Cincinnati's excellent indie radio station WOXY has been reborn as an internet radio entity, offering both Windows media and mp3 streams. Well worth adding to your iTunes and Winamp bookmarks.

Chris Stamey explains his songwriting style to Popmatters: "When I'm the person who writes, I am young, and I feel pretty young every day anyway. All records are a combination of euphoria and digging ditches -- you've got to have both of those elements going on." Stamey's new album, Travels in the South, was released last month.

Newsday gives us a scorecard to tell the "pop girls" apart. If you can't distinguish Diana DeGarmo, Hilary Duff, JoJo, Maria Sharapova, and Skye Sweetnam, it's a must read.

ChartAttack lists Sarah Harmer fall Canadian tourdates, yet another reason I wish I lived north of the border.

NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Ilan Stavans, editor of the new three-volume series Isaac Bashevis Singer Collected Stories, to be released next Tuesday.

Kathie Smith of the Toledo Blade examines food in children's books, and offers a recipe for treacle tart.

Bohemia comes to the middle America: the Cincinnati Post is fascinated with the absinthe phenomenon.

Posted by david on July 14, 2004