Get Weird & Lean Into It

I know it’s the longest of long shots, but.

I don’t even know if anybody who reads/looks at/listens to/scrolls past the shit I put up here is from England, but on the off chance one or more of you is, here’s this:

Hey Sholay, gentlemen and scholars all, have had their van and all of their gear inside of it stolen. It was parked at their rehearsal space in Rotherham. There is no longer a lot of gear where there once was a lot of gear:

Transit van - reg: ML05KPP - choice equipment - juno 60, 2 vox ac30 amplifiers. One ampeg valve head and trace elliot cab. Fender 1952 telecaster, gibson sg - heavily customised es335 with ‘rosie’ laquered to it, custom electronics, epiphone lucille with nicrophone input. 4 kaoss pads, four pedalboards all customised with various boutique pedals. Pearl export drumkit and sabian cymbals. Korg ms2000b synthesizer, cased, three stands, trace elliot bass cab, Fender 1950’s Reissue Precision Basses, Electro Harmonix Synth pedal. The Bass head was a brand new Ampeg SVT 7 Pro.

Eyes & ears open, kids. These dudes are super cool and took me out for a night in Brighton — I’ve moved some of this gear! Their new album is called ((O)) and is exceptional. Go buy it so they can get new stuff if they have to. Also go buy it because it’s awesome.

If any of y’all are British or have a whole bunch of British folks following you, could you be a doll and reblawrg to help take a bite out of crime? Also, to help keep the rock rolling? Cool. Thanks.

The New Yorker: Jukebox

By Susan Orlean, as published in The New Yorker.

I’m very excited about my new Spotify account, which gives me access to twenty gazillion songs any time, all the time. The day I opened my account, though, I sat there perplexed. How would I figure out what I wanted to hear? The music I already know and like, I already own; the music I don’t know, I don’t know. I stared at the Spotify Web site for about ten minutes and then logged out and walked away. That night, I thought wistfully about listening to the radio, which I did just about constantly when I was growing up. There was a great radio station in Cleveland—WMMS—and it played album sides and new rock bands and bootlegged concert tapes; it was the soundtrack of my entire childhood and teen-age years. What was un-Spotifyish about it was that there were DJs in charge, muttering to us in their slightly stoned, intimate way, urging us to listen to new music and bands, talking about the concerts they’d seen; serving, essentially, as an older sibling who was turning me on to cool new grown-up music. Those DJs changed my life: they pushed my taste in unexpected directions and personalized music, making it make sense in a context.

I love the Internet, and I am definitely going to figure out how to manage now having what is essentially the biggest jukebox in the universe and a lifetime supply of quarters. But like so much on the Web, the one thing that is hard to replace is that intimate voice. I don’t mean having ten thousand “like” buttons clicked on a band: I mean the person who seems a little more knowledgeable and a little bit further inside, picking the best there is and convincing me to listen, murmuring in my ear as I drift off to sleep.

Again, this is why we do it. Turn off your fucking iPod, unplug your headphones, and find a radio. I promise you, it’s not all that bad.

We’re not there because we like hearing ourselves talk. We’re there because we want to help convince you that radio isn’t the enemy. We’re not trying to shove the same 20 songs through your ears and down your throat. There is an immense world of music out there, and as responsible DJs, we’d like to show you some of it.