Less than 10 months until we wake up from our collective eight-year nightmare!

Heading out to see Wilco in a minute. Third time I’ve fallen ass-backwards into tickets to Tweedy and Co.:

1. Suppose to cover the a2 show for my college paper, but got screwed by pr rep. a stranger handed me a ticket in front of the theater, which was suppose to be for his friend, who skipped the show to go into rehab.

2. free vip passes to d-town tastefest, which was free to begin with, but included side of stage seats and free booze.

3. tonight, media peeps at work had extra tickets. first time seeing the band in Chicago, and it comes right in the middle of their 5 night stand at the Rivera, playing all their songs (is this still happening? anybody know?).

Maybe it’s that they played a song they originally released almost seven years ago. Or maybe it’s that Whoopi Goldberg-Adam Green are the most awkward interviewer-interviewee ever. Or maybe it’s that they replaced the line “shook a little turd out of the bottom of your pants” with “blew a little load out of the bottom of your pants.” Or maybe it’s just that the Moldy Peaches were on The View.

Exhibits A, B and C in “the trial against the white race” from Metal Inquisition.

Andrew WK is producing an album for Lee “Scratch” Perry, titled “The Salvation of All Mankind.” Well it should be. Also there are some really awesome rumors about our man WK on the web, including that he cut his hair 3 years ago and now wears a wig.

Tip: Don’t kiss me on the bus.

Be back soon.

Wild fires, smild fires. This is a national crisis.

UPDATE: WORSE - We only have 14 months to save Simply Red.

I love that Simply Red thinks they aren’t already retired, and that they are doing the brave thing by launching a farewell tour when anyone who actually would go still assumes it’s a reunion tour.

You’re gonna have to read this sooner or later. To wit, Sasha Frere-Jones gets bored at an Arcade Fire show and attacks indie rock as chronically too white. Sasha is the guy standing next to RZA by the way. He also defends his own white funk band as implicated better than most of my favorite bands because they play black music.

So here’s what I think.

Dear Mr. Frere-Jones,

So I like a lot of indie rock loving nerds, I want to tell you to shut up. But i’ll give you that lots of the music I love and listen to everyday is very “white” and lacks deep soulful rhythm. When I feel like listening to soulful music, I go for the real stuff; actual black artists or honkies devoted and talent enough to pull it off. Why settle for white funk when you have the real stuff?

Where I think your article was really misleading to the oldsters dumb enough to read the New Yorker to learn about pop music, not only because it didn’t bother to mention the huge success of TV on the Radio, the Black Keys and the White Stripes, both with indie fans and in relative mainstream, but because it implied that rolling was inherently more important than rocking.

Your identity politics are bush league. You don’t say anything about the utter mess of rap-rockers that ruined rock for 5 years. You’re picking on Arcade Fire, Wilco, and Pavement for even dumber reasons than you did poor little Stephin Merritt.

J-Ho and I have talked about this many times. We never really came to any conclusions. I guess The Chronic is amazingly great, but Slanted and Enchanted ultimately speaks to me more. Two great California albums from ‘92, but come on more indie fans and musicians grew up closer to somewhere like Stockton than South Central. Why should we pretend otherwise? Why should we have to keep trying to be Snoop, or even Little Richard? Malkmus pointed out Dave Brubeck, Rush, and REM are closer to our experience, why can’t we ironically celebrate that?

Pavement, with all of it’s toss-off musicianship and shambled lyricism, on some goofy level validates me to me. Before that record, I knew great art could from the ghetto and sharecroppers, because of Motown and the blues, and the classic rock that celebrated them. What Pavement said was meaningful music that was true to itself could come from my suburban existence. Lo-fi noise rock by over-read undergrads with more vinyl than talent meant there was hope for me as me. Not as somebody playing dress-up.

I rock the suburbs. Irony is my sincerity. I love hip-hop, but a white riot is the best I’m gonna do and I’m fine with that.

PS - BACK IN THE DAY, HALL AND OATS WAS NOT AS GOOD AS MICHAEL JACKSON. YOU ARE FUCKING NUTS.

UPDATE -More kindling for our indie nerd bonfire:

Exhibit A: Lester Bangs tackling real racism in the punk era.

Exhibit B: Pavement on Leno refusing to play nice.

Exhibit C: Animal Collective playing “For Reverend Green,” which somehow might be the missing link to this whole thing.

On my way home tonight, I saw a guy on the train who looked just like Scott. The resemblance was uncanny. I thought for sure Scott was at BC HQ 700 miles away, but I decided I would test the look-alike just to be certain. I was like, “How vital do you think organizations such as the Elephant 6 collective are in this era of digital media, especially considering the RIAA’s hostility toward artists and consumers alike?” He was like, “Excuse me?” I was like, “For what? Not being the real Scott?” Then I stole his iPod.

I put it to you, the student body of BC: Are Radiohead gonna change the world tomorrow or are they just the parents of cool kids who let everybody get wasted in their finished basement?