My friends The Minor Leagues just released their latest (final? no one ever knows) album, This Story Is Old, I Know, But It Goes On (props for the Smiths reference!). I picked it up at their live show on Saturday night, but if you weren’t there or didn’t have the scratch, you’ll be able to get your own copy in November from datawaslost, their label.
In the meantime, you can quell your sadness by listening to this jazzy track from it, “Little Angel”:
The Minor Leagues – “Little Angel”
Move over, Scott Walker, because there’s some great new pop rock out in the world name-dropping the Queen City (not this song specifically, but on the album, you see). This song is a great jazz duet (full disclosure: two of my favorite people are doing the dueting!), with a fantastic melody held together by a) bass, b) guitar, c) trumpet, and d) piano. It pulls off one of my favorite tricks in the book, sharing the bass line between the left hand of the piano and the bass guitar, lending the verses a full-throated sense of intrigue and impending misadventure.
I haven’t given the album more than a couple of listens so far, but I’m sure I’ll have more to say once it’s sunk in. In the meantime, try to find a copy of your own!
The new J.Crew men’s catalog arrived in the mail this weekend. Their fall schtick is “artists in their studios” modeling J.Crew. The cover of the catalog is Ryan McGinness, aka the King of Day-Glo, being worn by an ill-fitting white shirt. As a premise it promised to at least be pleasurably awkward, so I flipped my catalog open. Only to be greeted, on page 26, by Vito Acconci.
Vito Acconci in J Crew
I knew that he’d been doing architecture in recent years, but seriously– the guy who did Seed Bed is modeling in J.Crew? Do they know about that? The interview with him was maybe the best part:
J.Crew: IS THERE ANY ONE PIECE OF CLOTHING YOU CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT?
Shoes. Because, wherever I am, I need to be sure I can get somewhere else.J.Crew: WHAT WERE YOU THINKING WHILE YOU HAD YOUR PORTRAIT TAKEN FOR J.CREW?
I must have been saying to myself something like, “I’m not myself. But who am I then?”
The world in which we are living is now comprised of a new reality. Thank you for this, October J. Crew catalog.
The Internet Archive amazes me with its continual ability to provide the things I have long been seeking. The most recent case in point:
Lesbian Concentrate, a 1977 anthology of songs by and about lesbians, published by the feminist label Olivia Records. It was released partly as a reaction to Anita Bryant’s crazy crazytalk, and partly because the world can always use another lesbian anthology. Excuse me, lesbianthology. It’s one word now.
The reason I’d been looking so long and hard for it was to find the track by Sue Fink, titled “Leaping Lesbians”:
It’s sort of a lesbian funhouse horror song. My greatest wish in the world at this moment is that I could say there were other songs in this genre. To compensate, please memorize this one and sing it every chance you get: “We’re gonna please you, tease you, hypnotize and tightly squeeze you, we’re gonna get if you we can (Here come the lesbians)! Don’t go and try to fight it, run away or try to hide it, we want your lovin’, that’s our plan!”
30 Rock starts again on October 15th! Less than four weeks! A lot of people don’t care for Jenna, but I think Jane Krakowski is a comic genius.
recent listens recent links