WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Exercises in Internet Avoidance, Part Two: Strong Bad Email

Watching funny cartoons on the funny Internet can get in the way of important things like incessantly checking email and downloading ribbons of underground metal and free improv radio broadcasts and stuff. In fact, I had been so busy checking email and, uh, previewing CDs which I then deleted and ordered from Amazon that I totally missed out on Homestar Runner, just like the same way how everyone always knows about everything before me until someone said something about going to Crazy Go Nutz University and I was all "Wisconsin Tourism Federation?" I was soon set straight.

Homestar, a sort of emasculated Trix rabbit with a lisp is kinda funny, but I immediately took to this grouchy Mexican wrestler guy who guess what he does? It's so cool. He checks email ! So here I was watching this little Mexican wrestler guy that sounds like Jack Klugman and looks like an egg, but it was all like distracting me from checking my own email. But so then get this, I found it on DVD!

So like, really, the whole nonlinear thing of the internet makes me nervous. There was this blob of episodes to watch and I couldn't remember which ones I'd already watched and I was worried about finding the ones I liked again and I was kind of freaking out, so the DVDs are cool for that because they're nice and orderly and stuff. Well, except for these bonus feature Easter egg things which you have to find and then you forget what you're doing and next thing you know you're missing your window for downloading another demo by another French black metal band.

So yeah, I got a couple of the DVDs, including SBEmail's 50 Greatest Hits which was of course the most economical option because they were the greatest and because it actually contained 50-five greatest hits, including "Radio" (see up above), a valuable episode on death metal and "Personal Favorites" which is like a meta sorta besta within the greatest hits.

In short, my live is richer now. I have begun faking a Spanish accent when writing emails, even though I'm not really sure that's what Strong Bad's accent is really. And my bandwidth is reserved for more important things, like tracking down Slits bootlegs. Now if only they could figure out a way to put emails on paper and bring them to my door.

Exercises in Internet Avoidance, Part One: FU, Penguin

Keili, WFMU's most beastingest DJ, turned me on to the fine blog Fuck You, Penguin. And while it's now one of my favorite things in the whole cyberworld, the problem with blogs is that they take away from time that could be spent reading other blogs. Which is why it's so completely useful that FU is coming out in book form.  See, that way while you're downloading from Music for Maniacs and keeping up on the truth behind the Michael Jackson hoax of death, you can still look at the Web on pieces of paper. It's excellent that way.

And the thing is, I don't know why hating on animals isn't more universally recognized as hilarious. Talking Heads did it on on their song "Animals," which was great but which unfortunately some video someone made with pictures of animals was the only thing I could find on YouTube, but you already spend two-thirds of every day online so I'm sure you can figure out some way to hear it or request it from whatever DJ is on the air right now. Actually, yeah, do that.

Anyway, FU Penguin is even more totally dedicated to hating on animals than David Byrne, Macca, Moby and Merzbow put together. FU is sick of penguins "accidentally" forgetting their wallets when it goes out to dinner with him. It sees right through loser felines trying to be LOLcats. It doesn't let walruses get away with faking like they can play saxophone. And don't even get it started on kangaroos. Plus it swears a whole lot which is also really funny but you can't do that on the radio so don't ask.

The Star-Maker Machinery Strikes Again

I almost canceled my plans last night after hearing the news about Michael Jackson. I was strangely saddened by it, like if the neighbor's dog died. It's not that I felt much for the dog, but I was used to it hearing it bark all the time. And I think it's safe to say for about half the people in this country, and a good part around the world, Michael Jackson was one of the first musician names they learned. Like it or not, he was always there. Like Joni Mitchell said, you don't know what you got till it's gone.

So I wanted to go home and watch the same four minutes of news repeated ad nauseam, to let the TV tell me over and over something I couldn't figure out whether or not I cared about. But I didn't want to cancel plans, and somehow going to see a female impersonator pay tribute to Joni Mitchell seemed as good a thing to do as any in my strange, maybe sad I guess, frame of mind.

John Kelly is a female impersonator. That's an important word. He's not a drag queen. He's not a satirist. He is a Joni Mitchell impersonator, and Joni Mitchell is a female. And for two hours last night at the Abrons Arts Center, he embodied her all but effortlessly. He reached up to that soprano with almost as much ease as Joni herself. He played guitar and dulcimer, and even recited banter from her live album, actually stumbling on a word at the same point she did. I wondered if the sold-out audience thought they were laughing at John's jokes or Joni's, and I wondered if it mattered.

Kelly rarely broke character. He did change the lyrics of "Woodstock" to say "By the time we got to Wigstock." He did spin a bit on a joke of Mitchell's about fairies. And he acknowledged that when he heard that Jackson had died, he cried a little. "What an amazing talent Michael Jackson was, what a life he led" he said, returning immediately to the character he hadn't really left. "It made me think about this poem I wrote when I was in 10th grade. It's called 'The Fish Bowl.'" And he proceeded as her to read the verse she wrote in high school.

The Fishbowl is a world reversed
Where fishermen with hooks
That dangle from the bottom up
Reel down their catch without a fight
Pike, pickerel bass, the common fish
Ogle through distorting glass
See only glitter, glamour, gaiety
Fog up the bowl with lusty breath
Lunge towards the bait and miss
And weep for fortunes lost
Envy the goldfish? Why?
His bubbles breaking 'round the rim
While silly fishes faint for him
And say, "Look there!
I think he winked his eye at me."

And I thought of Michael's fishbowl. The one he drowned in. And thought that I was glad I went to see a guy dress up in women's clothes and sing hippie songs. And I thought Michael'd maybe like it, too.

John Kelly will play real good for free at Castle Clinton in Manhattan on Aug. 6. Photo by Fadingad.

Under a Darkly Dozen: 11 Metal Discoveries from 2008

The year that passed was, for me, a quest, a journey atop a coal-black riding animal, under dark skies, across fields of smoldering embers. I had long prepared for my mission, watching hair metal videos on YouTube with the knowledge deep in my heart that somewhere out there there was something. Something real. Something true. Something dark. A black hole borne of an electric vortex. Alone I traveled through moonless nights with nothing but my faith and a naugahyde pouch of hard tack, fruit jerky and Claritin.

As winter drew nigh and my constitution grew weak, a visage appeared on the horizon. Something not quite human, or so it seemed under its cloak. Something more a force than a being. Something from Spain. It greeted me with the words "Like Drone Razor Through Flesh Sphere," and shone a dim lantern on a path I'd not seen before.

Before I departed, the figure handed me a small, burlap sack containing a copper device unlike anything I'd ever seen. Carved onto the front of it were the letters "D.R.O.N.E.R.E.X.I.A." A pair of headphones were attached. I put them in my ears and immediately understood the course I was to take.

Having returned, I am yet only a novice. But I do have tales to tell, names to reveal, fragments chipped from glaciers, electrical storms which infest the ears. The bounty was shared on the eighth day of the first month of the new year, on The Brother Lucy Show. And here is almost a dozen bits of the loot, in reverse alphabetical order. Thanks to the Baroness for loaning her lantern.

Share Your First Concert Experiences

In response to Mac's call for first concert stories... (more here)

Growing up in central Illinois in the 1970s, my early concert-going life was dominated by Cheap Trick, but they were not my first. The first concert I went to where I knew at least a little about who I was going to see was Andy Gibb at the Illinois State Fair. But that wasn't my first either. My virgin show was also at the fair, one year prior.

My music knowledge in the 4th grade was pretty limited. I'd just that year made the venture into buying LPs (all and only by KISS), but still held on to my habit of buying Top 40 45s after hearing them on WDBR. From what I could gather, there were two kinds of music: the kind played by KISS and that played by the likes of Heatwave and the Starland Vocal Band. I knew there had to be more out there, but with no source of information - no older siblings, a house dominated by television - and $2 a week allowance, it was hard to know where to turn.

What I Did Over Summer Vacation

Friends back home on the prairie occasionally like to compare my Manhattan rent to their mortgages, as if people in New York pay astronomical fees to stay inside. This summer has been a good one for going outside, with a trove of free concerts to bask in. Two great WFMU-sponsored shows - Sonic Youth and The Feelies at Battery Park on the Fourth of July and The Ex with Getatchew Mekurya at Lincoln Center Out of Doors on August 20th - topped the list

Four days after the Ethiopunk explosion, punk and jazz fused with country on the same stage with a great set by The Knitters, followed by bassist Charlie Haden's new country revue, featuring an off-the-hook band including Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush and Jim Mills, with vocals by the Haden triplets (including FMU fave Petra), his son Josh (of the band Spain). Douglas and Bush also joined Patti Smith and her band (including son Jackson - it was family night) for "(Smells Like) Teen Spirit." This is why we live in New York.

Also this summer: Fennesz and Ryuichi Sakamoto at the World Financial Center Winter Garden; Gang Gang Dance, Black Dice and Battles at Central Park's Summerstage; the Fiery Furnaces at East River Park; Susie Ibarra at the Museum of Modern Art; and Deerhoof at the Prospect Park Bandshell in Brooklyn. To name a few. It's been a good summer.

But the equinox isn't until September 22, and Arts for Art / RUCMA is hosting a series of shows in community gardens over the next two weeks, including many of New York's best improvisors. Hold on to the summer, friends. Follow the jump for two dozen more free concerts.

Patti Smith photo by Kevin Yatarola. 

Did Bono Spring a Leak?

As Thumper's father used to say, "if you can't blog something nice, don't blog nothing at all." And my father certainly didn't raise me to be a Bonobasher, but sometimes it's just so easy (especially when Brian Turner is feeding you links. Thanks Brian!)

So it seems four tracks from U2's upcoming No Line on the Horizon were leaked after Sir Bono played them so loudly at his villa in the South of France that someone was able to record them from outside and post them online.

Posters on various message boards, however, have said that the tracks sound way too clean to have been recorded outside the house, and have suggested that the tracks may have been leaked by the band to stir some viral marketing, which is actually funnier than the thought of Bono blasting his own music so loudly it could be heard from the street.

But Bono & Co. might want to be cautious about such stunts. In January, the band's manager suggested that people illegally uploading music should have their Internet connections severed. If they did leak the tracks, and are claiming they didn't give permission, it could spell a TKO for U2's ISP.

(Photo: "Jesus Loves You Too" by sculptor Frans Smeets)

EDIT: In keeping with Frans Smeets' BonoJesus statue, word comes in that Tucson's Christ the King Episcopal Church has been holding services with a U2 soundtrack. According to the church website, the communion service features "the music & lyrics of Bono and U2 held on the 2nd Saturday of each month.  The music is performed by a live band with vocalists - not karaoke." The site also notes that for one service, the U2 song "Peace on Earth" was "chosen to reflect the Gospel lesson for the day:  ??." The question marks are theirs, perhaps intended to suggest that good Christians ought not play their stereos too loudly so as not to disrupt their neighborhood's peace. 

You Too Can Help Silence Bono

A few months ago, I upset some people with my totally scientific and unbiased report about the thorough and utter heinousness of Saint Bono and his his ongoing campaign to make everyone suffer until global suffering ends. To them I apologize, in a "truth hurts" kinda way.

But while I'm just a bunch of talk, I am pleased to see there are some people working to end the global epidemic which is Paul David Hewson. The
"Bono Retire From Public Live and We'll Donate a Ton of Money to Fight AIDS" campaign promises to collect pledges for the Global Fund  and hold them in escrow until Bono promises to go away. "If he wants to moan bland melodies he'll have to do it quietly in his bedroom," their pitch pronounces. "If he wants to fight AIDS he can make a direct donation instead of buying a sweatshop GAP T-shirt. As the pledges grow, Bono will have to decide what matters more, fighting AIDS effectively, or him being the movement's frontman."

The organizers claim that the "Product Red" effort - which sells garments through The Gap, American Express, Apple, Microsoft, Motorola and other outlets with a percentage of proceeds going to the Global Fund  - has spent $40 million more on marketing than it has raised through product sales.

Again from their site:

Many involved in the global fight against AIDS worry that RED will make it harder to raise funds, and that the oversimplified & disempowered image of Africa that Bono perpetuates ... obscures and undermines the assets African nations must focus on to defeat AIDS and poverty.

Furthermore, selling sweatshirts to save the world further reinforces the notion that has been sold hook, line and stinker to the American populace, that doing good can only be done on a personal level. Recycling is seen as a consumer issue, for example, so while people all over the country dutifully separate their trash, warehouses fill with paper and plastic waiting to be reused. Why? Because corporations aren't required to use recycled content. Wearing ribbons and Red clothes makes people feel good, but global problems have to be dealt with on a global level. One nation's epidemic is the problem of all nations, something rock stars and elected officials don't seem to get.

However if, for just the price of a cup of coffee a day, you can help get Bono to shut his piehole for good, well, the world might be a better place for it.

Greetings from Daliwood

The persistence of Dali’s memory is a perplexing thing. As an artist, his craft paled against Rene Magritte, Joan Miro, Man Ray and other artists affiliated with the surrealists. His paintings at times can seem flat, as if he quit once he got the idea across. But some 75 years after the heyday of the movement, he’s arguably the biggest celebrity of them all – likely enough because he wanted it so badly. He called himself the savior of painting; critic Jed Perl called him the “Liberace of modern art.” He was a paradox, and he wanted it that way.

Whatever one thinks of his work, he was one of the most enigmatic figures of the 20^th Century – and again, that’s the way he wanted it. And now, close to 20 years after his death, he’s the subject of a new, major exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, as well as two newly released DVDs that cast him in very different lights.

If celebrity is an invention of the last century, Dali was one of its first instigators. With his flamboyant costumes and waxed moustache, he made his persona a part of his art, presaging Andy Warhol and Michael Jackson. In his 1942 autobiography The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, he remembers contemplating his growing fame:

That I had reached fame I felt and knew the moment I landed at the Gare d’Orsay in Paris. But I had reached it without realizing it, and so quickly that I found myself all alone, without passport of baggage. I would therefore have to go back and fetch them, and hire porters. I would have to go back and have my documents visaed, and I realized that with all this bureaucratic red tape, I risked wasting the rest of my life. I therefore began to look around me, and from then on I regarded most of the people I met solely and exclusively as creatures I could use as porters in my voyages of ambition. Almost all these porters sooner or later because exhausted. Unable to endure the long marches that I forced on them at top speed and under all climactic conditions they died on the way. I took others. To attach them to my service, I promised to get them to where I myself was going, to that end station of glory which climbers desperately want to reach.

It’s a ridiculous tome, much of which can be read on Google Books. From his in utero memories to his adolescent confusions of sexual attraction and assault to the utter arrogance he displays as an ambitious young artist, he makes for a protagonist every bit as warm and cuddly as Louis-Ferdinand Celine’s namesake hero. And like Celine, he’s a good enough writer to make despicability engaging. How truthful he is in his writing is another question; publishing the book was clearly another step in the creation of his public persona.

The Field Guide to Staying Inside: Prince

This year, the '80s turn old. Three of the biggest artists of that decade turn 50 this summer: Madonna (August 16), Michael Jackson (August 29) and, today, Prince. Back in the day, everyone thought he was the weird one, but while Madonna peddles kid's books and lukewarm disco and Michael, well, whatever, Prince is the one who has grown up distinguished. He's fashioned himself an R&B statesman, and his work is as good as ever, despite the popular idea that he's "over." The Rainbow Children (2001), Musicology (2004) and 3121 (2006) stand up to his best albums. 3121 also received the biggest first-week sales of his career.

As a Jehovah's Witness, Prince probably isn't celebrating his birthday today, but that doesn't mean that TFGTSI has to ignore it. Here's a sampling of some of the finest Prince covers our team of interns were able to uncover. No Cyndi Lauper or Chaka Kahn or Alicia Keys, though. That'd be too easy.

On the title track of the 1981 album Controversy, Prince sang "Am I straight or gay?" The song was more about media fixation on his personal life than about his real preferences, but the album ended with a song that would beg the question. True he addresses a "girl" in the song, but who listens to lyrics? Most people missed "I only do it for a worthy cause / Virginity or menopause" and only heard the chorus: "I'll jack you off" (repeated five times) - making the song a natural for homo band Pansy Division to cover 13 years later.

Pansy Division - Jack U Off (MP3)

(Prince graphic from the b3ta Extended Album Art page)

Gene Simmons Knows From Prostitution

On July 8, the new book by New York Times bestselling author Gene Simmons will be released by Phoenix Books. Ladies of the Night: A Historical and Personal Perspective of the Oldest Profession in the World, is Gene's take on doing it for pay. Given that money and sex are his two fave subjects (and given that he's been talking about writing it forever), the book shouldn't be too big a surprise. The press release promises an "entirely new take on a traditionally taboo topic (which) promises to spark debate."

It's hard to really argue that it's such a taboo subject, but the book will no doubt be huge, if only because Gene will devote himself to endlessly telling the world how huge it is. And to say Gene is an expert on the subject is hardly a stretch. He's the brains behind what's easily the most merchandised band in rock history, and has never made bones about his whorishness.

All The Old Punks (New Loafers and Mortgages)

"There is no crueler way to describe the birth and peak of a musical scene," David Fricke wrote in Mojo several years ago, "than saying 'You had to be there.'" Truer words - well, truer words have been spoken, but just think about it. No matter how old you are, you missed out on almost everything. Were you there the first time The Ramones played CBGB's? Yeah, well you missed the Haight-Ashbury scene. What's that? You're the one who suggested R. Crumb just use the place mat to draw on? Don't matter. You never saw Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club.

Except, of course, that nowadays we have access to everything. The hippest scene in history is only a Netflix envelope away. Is it punk to sit back and watch The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle DVD on your plasma screen? Nah, but what are you gonna do? There's hardly any good punk bands anymore anyway, so you might as well crack a Zima and live in the past.

(Old punk pic by Will Murai)

Disco vs Metal: The Final Countdown

A decades-old question was finally and definitively answered at Canal Room in New York City on April 19, when Mini Kiss and Tragedy threw down in a battle royale to determine once and for all which is more powerful, the dance floor or the depths of hell.

It wasn't quite billed as such, but it was still hard to see a double bill of a KISS cover band and a Bee Gees cover band as anything else. Mini Kiss is a tribute show put on by four midgets. Tragedy do heavy metal versions of the better-selling of the Gibb bros. repertoire. The tallies after the jump.

The Sonic, Iconic, Harmonic, Multiphonic Club That Once Was Tonic: One Year Later

When Tonic closed its doors one year ago today, music lovers in New York didn't just lose a stage, they lost a gathering place. There are still plenty of spots in town for jazz, improv and against-the-grain rock, but nothing is so central and so social as the little club on Norfolk was.

After financial struggles, structural problems and - most importantly - rising real estate costs on the Lower East Side, Tonic threw in the towel in April, 2007. It was Friday the 13th. John Zorn led a huge improv night and they played 13 pieces. The line outside stretched down the block. Where those people were a year before no one knows.

But isn't just the stage we don't have anymore, it's the flyer table. Pictured above during its final days on the job, the table probably kept as many people up to date as any website or magazine. It was a little square of offerings - not just information, but artifacts, reproduced representations of the artists' aesthetics. Hopelessly late 20th Century perhaps, but no club listing could match, for example, the handcrafting of cellist (and Tonic employee) Okkyung Lee's palm cards.

Below is a little walk through the life of Tonic, including a selection from Eugene Chadbourne's four-day guitar blowout; Loren Connors with Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon on his 50th birthday; the little-recorded supergroup Emergency! (John Zorn, John Medeski, Marc Ribot, Ben Perowsky); Zorn again during his 50th birthday month of shows (you can't see, but you can hear him playing while riding on Milford Graves' shoulders); Marco Benevento playing Thelonious Monk from his triple Live at Tonic CD; Peter Brotzmann's trio two nights before the club closed; and more.

Owners Melissa and John still put on occasional concerts, and the Live at Tonic CD is still available. More info at http://tonicnyc.com/. Peter Gannushkin took the flyer table photo. His pictures of the April 14 protest and occupation of the club can be seen at http://gallery.sonicbeet.com.

1999
Eugene Chadbourne / Elliott Sharp / Misha Feigen - untitled (MP3)
from Guitar Festival Summer 1999 (Leo)

Loren MazzaCane Connors / Kim Gordon - Loren's Birthday (MP3)
from Live at Tonic compilation

The Field Guide to Staying Inside: The Hurdy Gurdy

The hurdy gurdy is some thousand years old, a sort of imploded and rosined-up bicycle that was used to make a single note last way long in the days before electricity. Its design, a wheel that turns against depressed strings housed inside a wooden box, is far more economical than its predecessor - an early viol de gamba with a bow of several furlongs in length that required several grown men or a team of oxen to play. By the Donovanian Era, however, it had been contained in a small crank case and employed a second bridge, called a "dog" but crafted from raccoon bones, that lifted against the spinning wheel to create a buzzing sound thought to be pleasant.

As musical instruments got better with time, the hurdy gurdy came to be seen as an instrument for poor people, and was called the "Bettlerleier," or "beggar's lyre" in 17th Century Germany. This was long before the European Union, however, and other countries were free to like it. The French decided there was something fancy about it, and Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi went so far as to compose for it.

In later years, the barrel organ, popularly played by street vendors with monkeys, came to be called by the same name, and, unrelatedly, popular singer Sting appeared on the 2004 Grammy telecast holding one, setting off a short-lived air-hurdy-gurdy craze.

Popular musicians other than Sting and Vivaldi have also worked with the hurdy gurdy, and TFGTSI is pleased to present an A-Z digest of some of the more notable vielists of the hurdy gurdy.

Arnold Dreyblatt is a modern seer of the 'gurd. His 1981 piece Nodal Excitation (first issued on India Navigation and rereleased in 1998 on Dexter's Cigar, a reissue label run by Jim O'Rourke and David Grubbs) was scored for two bass viols, midget upright pianoforte and portable pipe organ, and featured Greg Lewis on hurdy gurdy. Here's the last of the eight sections of the piece.

Arnold Dreyblatt - 8 (MP3)

(Image: Georges de la Tour The Hurdy-Gurdy Player, 1631-1636)

Southern Rock and Musicogenic Epilepsy

Neurology researcher and professor David Sulzer might be better known around these parts as David Soldier of such projects as the Soldier String Quartet, The Kropotkins and the Thai Elephant Orchestra.  But with his PhD hat on, he spoke last night at the CUNY Graduate Center on "Brainwaves: Neuroscience and the Groove."

During the talk, he referred to "musicogenic seizures" brought on by particular pieces, or sorts of music, and referenced the case of a woman whose seizures were induced by the band Alabama. The case was written up in the journal Epilepsia in 2006. Excerpts follow, and thanks to Russell Scholl for bringing this to our attention.

How to Dismantle a Pretentious Band or U2 Still Suck(s)

Reviews of the new film U2:3D have made it sound really cool. There's only one reason I can't bring myself to go: having to sit through 85 minutes of U2 music. Yeah, I know, hating on U2 isn't the most daring stand a fella can make. The band's list of nonfans includes Negativland, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and at least some of the good people of Africa and Scotland. And Michaelangelo Matos, who wrote that they "were precisely as full of clumsy rhetoric and/or shit as the Jefferson Airplane had been and therefore 'cared.'"

Negativland is U2's Green Goblin, and have documented well their legal and public battles with the fightin' Irish band. What began as a trademark infringement suit against Negativland for using the "U2" name on a single resulted in the best publicity the band could have dreamed of (if a tough battle for them). A book (FAIR USE: The Story of the Letter U and the Numeral 2) and a later CD (These Guys Are From England And Who Gives a Shit) document in text and audio the war. (Negativland's Mark Hosler laid out the whole story at the New School in New York in 2006. You can hear the talk right here on this very blog.)

Their newest take on the ordeal is an a cappella version of the song that started it all, from the brilliant CD 180 D'G's to the Future: The Music of Negativland as Performed by the 180 G's, included with the Our Favorite Things DVD. Let's call it Exhibit A.

180 G's - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (MP3)

After the jump, more exhibits of hoaxes and hatin' on U2.

The End Is Near!

According to Nostradamus, the first sign of the apocalypse is all of the Starbucks shops closing at the same time.

The second sign, if we're translating his writings correctly, is a presidential campaign pitting Michael Bloomberg against Ralph Nader.

What can you do to help save the world? Well for starters, how about donating to WFMU? Who knows? It might just stem the tide of overpriced coffee and millionaire candidates.

I'm not even going to say anything about the Gene Simmons sex tape

I can't. I just can't. It's too easy. Instead, I'll leave it to Anjali, who posted on Yahoo! Answers:

Gene simmons sex tape? my heart is broken :(?
i guess a sex tape with him and another chick (not shannon tweed) has been leaked onto the net. i'm totally heartbroken. they seemed like the cutest couple on their show 'family jewels'... i'm so confused.. why go on a show and act like a family man (apart from announcing that he's unmarried), raise those two smart hilarious children but have the reputation of having slept with thousands of woman? your opinion? has he slept with that many women whilst shannon's all happy with their relationship?? i'm such a geek i know!

Such a sweet kid.

And I'm not even gonna give a link to watch it. You can find it, if you feel the need. Instead, here's Apollo Zero's KISS/Human League mash.

Apollo Zero - Don't You Want the X in Sex (MP3)

EDIT: The demon has posted a statement on his website.

February 20th -

Hi everyone,

You may have heard or seen garbage that has sprung up from my past.

Rest assured the proper legal team is looking at all ramifications and options.

And us?  Shannon, Nick and Soph are happy and healthy.

All is well.

And thank you all for the kind words of support.

Dr. Love is calling his lawyers...

The Field Guide to Staying Inside: The Viola

The viola, sometimes called the violet, possesses the unusual capacity to mask it's scent. It releases a ketone component known as ionone which desensitizes nasal receptors, effectively making it nose-invisible.

The little flower shares its name with a stringed instrument of the same name, namely the viola, an instrument that many wish would also learn to mask its odor. The stringed viola is, sadly, oft scorned and ridiculed; If Satan plays the violin, it is presumably some short, ugly and mentally challenged step-demon who plays the viola. Orchestra members routinely swap occasionally slightly humorous jokes behind the violists' backs, and then get all quiet and awkward once the violist turns around. Why this should be struck the crack team at TFGTSI as something of a mysterious, so we assigned several interns to interview prominent violists and quiz them about their instrument's troubled reputation. Their findings, along with some audio samples, follow.

Carla Kihlstedt has been known not only to play real pretty in her Tin Hat, but has also applied the viola to the proggy arty gothy deathy rock band Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. She explained to us that "things of a truer and more humble beauty make people nervous. People tend to make jokes when they get nervous." This track comes from her 2005 Tzadik album Two Foot Yard.

Carla Kihlstedt - No One Nicer  (MP3)