I haven’t heard the latest Northern State album yet, so I’ll reserve judgment. It seems any album to come out in the past 5 years with even a modicum of political innuendo generates much eye rolling. White girls rapping also generates the eye rolling. I don’t get it. This is surely no worse than The […]

I’m late to the game, but Little Brother’s (one of the longest running independent music venues in Ohio) closed. It’s a large slap in the face that absurdly high rent should drive out the very business that revitalized this part of High Street into the booming shopping area it is now. I have many fond […]

The Ocean Floor attempts to do indie pop as it’s been done countless times before, only not quite as good as the contemporaries the band emulates. The final track list seems a bit scattered, and like a bunch of puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit together. The album would’ve been greatly improved by simply omitting […]

Coming to a chick flick near you. This sounds like Norah Jones meets Joanna Newsom. Sadly, this probably would’ve made for a nice lo fi album, but all the production just cheeses up some decent songwriting.

Now That’s What I Call Indie! It was only a matter of time. Incidentally quite a few bands on this comp are on major and not independent labels. Indie is the new alternative, a word thrown around with no real meaning other than a marketing label. It is not a genre of music.
See also […]

This album is worth listening to more for its’ guests than the actual band.

I am the bane of the RIAA’s existence, yet I’m one of their best customers. Why? I download music. I also buy several times more music than the average consumer. It’s clear that I’m not at fault for tanking album sales, because I buy so much, yet the approach the RIAA takes is to try and scare me out of downloading, not convince me to buy more.

I do not believe music is public domain and that I have a right to it. I do believe musicians should be compensated for their work, and the majority of them aren’t compensated enough. This is why I also believe it’s extremely wrong to profit by exploiting their work, which is why I would never buy or sell a bootlegged copy of an album. Artists have families to feed too.

It’s painfully obvious, however, that the RIAA threatening to sue their best customers, and in actuality suing children and old people and sending them into horrendous debt, is not going to solve this problem, because the problem isn’t downloading. The music industry can do some simple things right now to fix their profits.

I’ve been absent for a few days, as I took some time to visit old friends in Columbus and go see Peter Bjorn and John. I had a great time, and it’s weird to see how much the city has changed since I lived there, mostly for the better but definitely gentrified.

We ate at a few new (to me) places, Surly Girl for late night tex-mex and Northstar (Clintonville) for organic foodie fare. Surly Girl has a great selection of beers on tap, and they highlight which were women brewed and which are organic. Something like 99% of of the food served at Northstar is organic and anything you order looks like it could’ve popped off the pages of Gastronomica. Did I mention they also sell Gastronomica? In addition to uber-modern digs they have an awesome magazine selection available for sale.

From the Human Rights Campaign website:

The Human Rights Campaign has joined forces with legendary performer Cyndi Lauper to launch a national tour in support of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality.

What a fabulous idea. Too bad HRC apparently only wants to raise support for the GLBT communities in large cities. You know, the ones that are already pretty gay? Isn’t awareness needed more in the country’s smaller cities and rural areas where gay culture is swept under the rug?

This isn’t really in any order, except almost reverse alphabetical. Samples of most of these bands can be found at either Amazon or Allmusic.com. For extra snobby reviews, please see Pitchfork.
Tender Forever - The Soft and The Hardcore (K) For fans of: Mirah, Stereo Total, The Blow
Sleater-Kinney - The Woods (Sub Pop) Album […]

2002 found Sleater-Kinney in a difficult position. Would they be able to live up to the hype of being Rolling Stone’s “Most Important Band in Rock and Roll”, and more importantly, after scads of arena shows, would they stay true to their roots in doing so? Pearl Jam tours are a long […]

A Target commercial, of all things, compelled me to revisit this album more than a year after its debut as the first proper Concretes LP. Slow down the beats in the catchy commercial and you have the first track of the album. Yeah you know the song, “Say Something New”, it’s supposed […]

If some bum shouted to you on the street “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet.” would it hold any weight? Probably not any more than the guy carrying the end is near sign. Luckily Shakespeare said it first almost 500 […]

When I heard these guys’ gear was stolen, I thought to myself “What, you can’t go out and buy some more pots and pans?” The first time I saw Xiu Xiu was at More Than Music in 2001, and their erm, percussionist, had a rack with pots and pans strung from it. Yeah, […]

…or were Sloth and the guy from Modest Mouse separated at birth?

Scores of shaggy haired students packed Oberlin’s Dionysus club, while patchouli scented lines of the ticketless overflowed out the doors. An hour late, a glassy eyed Chan Marshall plops herself down onstage, and proceeds to stare into space for the greater part of five minutes. She lazily instructs the crowd to sit […]

The good folks of Pitchfork posted an article today about a company calling themselves the Digital Rights Agency releasing “indie” ringtones. I guess the ladies of Le Tigre aren’t the only ones with dollar signs in their eyes. The fat cash also now goes to most of Barsuk, the K Records lineup, and […]