The Office and Pride In My Alma Mater

I watched all of the original version of The Office this weekend. Just spectacular. I really identified with Tim (I think lots of guys my age probably did) and Ricky Gervais is just painfully hysterical to watch. Just a terrific show.

I'll be buying these DVDs.

Fortunately, I think I can still enjoy the U.S. version. No offense to Steve Carrell, but he's no Ricky, but it turns out to be a good thing. The emphasis isn't on Steve's character, and it really benefits the show because the other characters get more developed. The relationship between Jim and Pam is the U.S. version's center.

However, I highly suspect that they'll get the Hollywood ending treatment on this side of the pond as opposed to the beautiful, bittersweet ending that the original had. And I might be ok with that.

But fans and media at large need to help me out...because my American-think-I'm-at-the-center-of-the-universe-self wants to call the original The Office U.K., and it deserves better than that. I humbly beg forgiveness if I make such a heinous faux pas. To save me from that ignoble fate, we need to start calling the current version The Office U.S. Like now.

Moving on...

Like many other University of Michigan alumni, I've been lamenting the way our basketball and football teams have failed to compete for national titles in recent years (Damn you Lloyd Carr and Chris Webber! Damn you to HELL!). But it seems that karma has delivered the goods in another, slightly lesser known sport.

Beer pong.

Excuse me while I sing the fight song to myself. Bless those boys.

Finally...allow me to express my excitement at the pending new Wilderness record. 11 April...I'll be there.

"Hail to the Victors, valiant..."

Dude, I think "Late 80s/Early 90s Alt-Rock" is the preferred nomenclature

Nirvana. Pearl Jam. Soundgarden. Alice In Chains. All these bands seriously brought the rock out of the Pacific Northwest and into mainstream culture. To those of us it moved, no genre was necessary. To the media that was trying to pigeonhole, package and profit off of it, grunge became the title.

And now that those halcyon days of my mispent youth are gone, all I have to remind me of them are snarky I Love the 90s specials and compilation CDs. Oh, and the shitload of CDs I bought from that era. Those are good too.

The Birth of Grunge is apparently devoted to those bands that didn't quite make it out of the home of Starbucks, or ones that did but didn't make it as far as the aforementioned quartet. However, it's purpose seems less to remind us of a really cool time when left-of-the-dial, experimental music was getting mainstream attention, and more to give the snotty critical types (of which I usually consider myself a member) an excuse to mock it as though it were the
Macarena.

Excuse me? Yeah. I still don't get the flannel. I tried the flannel back in the day, but the combination of Seattle-flannel, the prevalence of oversized flannels from gangster rap, and an unfortunate Midwestern preppy sensibility led to what can only be called a fashion disaster. 3XLT Abercrombie Flannels, Dockers and flukers do not a look create.

Pictures shall not be forthcoming.

But my own adolescent debacles of dress aside, I wouldn't be the music enthusiast that I am today without those bands, fashions and cultural impacts letting me know that there was more in the world than what the mainstream wanted to spoonfeed me. I just had to look for it. I didn't just buy the albums of the icons of the era, I went further. I discovered The Catherine Wheel, The Afghan Whigs, and Camper Van Beethoven. I got into The Clash, The Replacements and The Pixies because the new bands that I liked were listing them as inspirations, and the writers that had been touting the music that was at the forefront of the revolution had touted their music as well.

Those same writers, I might add, are the ones who now talk about the era like it was a bad hairdo; it was the style at the time but it is silly now. They treat it like a fad. Like it was that swing music revival that happened a few years later.

It's not. And the folks at Pitchfork and others would do good to remember that. I'll lay odds that many of them wouldn't have discovered much of the music they love now if it wasn't for the gateway drug of early 90s alternative rock.

You can't rave about The Pixies and rave about The White Stripes and pretend their was nothing in between. Even if what was in between ultimately begat Nickelback and Puddle of Mudd.

Who cares if we'd all like to forget how dirty and nasty (and in my case, god-awfully mismatched) the clothes were. Who cares if the somber, serious and sometimes depressed lyrics may or may not have paved the way for the crappy, "why doesn't anybody love me?" emo and unnecessary cock rock of today. It was still more than a fad, and deserves to be treated as such.

It deserves better than to be marginalized as a joke.

They're no AC/DShe...

I don't know what's sadder: the fact that CNN has nothing better to fill their webspace than an article touting the actual existence of Lez Zepplin, or the fact that I have nothing better to do than read it.

Give me Super Diamond for my money. Or even some Jerry Sprague.

Late Sunday Goodness

I usually take the weekend off, but gorilla vs. bear posted their Best of January mp3 selections. Do yourself a favor and don't walk...run over there and download The Funeral by Band of Horses. The album drops on 21 March and I may just have to grab it.

Peace.

Grandaddy Breaking Up and My Sudden, Uncontrolled Depression

Sometimes it feels like my love for a band is a kiss of death.

The ultra-depressing news that Grandaddy is breaking up broke at NME today. Then, just to confirm that it wasn't the Brits overreacting to something, Pitchfork went and confirmed it to twist the knife in my back. Damn.

There was nobody like them. They rode the post-Kid A wave of interest in experimental post rock and made two stellar records, The Sophtware Slump and Sumday in addition to the rest of their catalogue. Reliance on keyboards combined with traditional rock guitar backing Jason Lytle's haunting vocals made each a phenomenal listening experience. Or as my buddy J-Rob described it, "Imagine some college kids got there hands on a Casio keyboard, tried a bunch of weird shit, and recorded it."

He has all their records.

But the CDs were just part of the story. Their performances were audio-visual epics. Behind their performances there would be a projected video for each song. These videos were sometimes loosely related to the song that was playing, other times there would be no obvious connection. But each one was certainly unique. And anyone who's seen them perform Yeah Is What We Had with the video in the background knows that it lends a certain gravitas to the song that might have been lacking otherwise. And you never forget it.

Let's just say the experience makes it tough to listen to that song after a break-up.

However, their unique sound and performance made it difficult to find tour partners that would result in an audience that would be into both bands. I saw them twice, once with Pete Yorn (who I was actually there to see -- it's when I discovered them) and once with Saves The Day (who successfully killed my post-college crush on them as a pop-punk guilty pleasure). Neither audience was very consistent. In fact, I almost picked a fight with a heckler at the PY show who felt the need to repeatedly drunkenly shout "Could you bore me to death" at the band. Someone beat me to it, but the whole episode didn't detract from the experience.

At the STD show (think they know their initials spell that?) the unwashed throng of high school emo-wannabes left after their heroes performed, leaving a smaller, devoted crowd to watch Grandaddy with me up front. It was awesome.

This difficulty probably didn't help things, since one of the reasons they spoke of for the break-up was that they weren't making any money at it. That sucks.

The good news is their final album will still be released. So I get one last dose to hold me over until the next time one of my favorite bands break up. Tits.

I plan on celebrating Irish wake style, pouring 40s to dead homiez and drunkenly traipsing around Detroit looking to pick a fight with Skip Bayless. You don't want none of this, Skippy.

Well it's time to start the mourning. Some NetFlix and some malt liquor should do the trick. But the 'Flix better take care of me, because I've got one word that should strike fear into their hearts: Shatner. Hey! Why pick my own DVDs when I could let T.J. Hooker pick them for me! And I get to keep them! Yeek. Thanks to J-Rob for that sweet bit of tragic humor.

The weekend starts now.

Site redesign, Must See TV and Those Crazy Brits...

Anyone who's visited the site and actually come back can see that design changes are afoot. I wish I knew what the hell I was doing.

Happy Thursday. I'm (sadly) stoked becuase it's Thursday. That means Must See TV. It's fallen off in recent years, but these days it's getting emminently watchable again. Any CSI fans can stop by the radiologist to get sterilized on their way out the door.

I was big into Friends but never dug Joey (I was always a Chandler fan). But NBC has taken the bold step of putting My Name is Earl and The Office on Thursdays, and damned if it isn't working on this guy. All that with a Smallville lead-in (I don't watch The O.C. -- ha!) and I suddenly have a good two hour TV fix for those Thursdays when I'm not attempting to drink myself into oblivion. Good times.

I have the British version of The Office from NetFlix right now and will burn through both seasons this weekend. I seriously hope that it isn't so good that it taints my viewing of the U.S. version. From what I hear, I might have to take my anti-snob pills.

But really -- how great can it be? Our friends across the pond will rave about anything. Look at NME's Best British Albums of All Time! While most of the picks are predictable (oooh! London Calling! Didn't see that coming!) and I always like to see love given out to the shoegaze, Stone Roses style, how the deuce can anyone justify putting The Arctic Monkeys at number 5? That album just came out on Monday in the U.K.! I wish I could refute it with some actual, research-based evidence (i.e. having listened to it) but it ain't dropping Stateside until February 21! Shouldn't a record have to stand up after time has passed to be anywhere near a list with the words Best of All Time in it? I love you, U.K., and your absolutley ridonkulous hype machine.

The Hold Steady: My New Favorite Record

Hot damn. I was pretty excited when I got me my copy of Separation Sunday, the second record by The Hold Steady. But DAMN!

Initially, I had been shying away from this record. It's description as garage or bar rock gave me White Stripes visions. Seeing as I was totally sick of Jack and Meg, it wasn't high priority.

Man I'm a dumb ass.

This record is downright awesome and I could have been listening to it since last May. The music? It sounds like these guys tossed a few back with The Replacements while allowing The Afghan Whigs to infuse them with the soul of Black Love. I half expected Greg Dulli's voice to break in periodically.

And it's a concept album. How sweet is that? The decline, fall and revival of a girl named Hallelujah. Green Day's Jimmy and Liz Phair's Johnny best step the fuck aside.

How good is it? I got Set Yourself on Fire by the Stars yesterday as well. I don't want to listen to it. Seriously. I listened to half of it and while I knew I liked it, I was upset that it wasn't The Hold Steady. No record deserves to be listened to right after a great album like this. I'll get back to the Stars next week.

Meanwhile, my iPod, car CD player and iTunes jacked into my home stereo will be blasting Craig Finn et al. And I'll be seeking out their first album as well as Craig's prior band, Lifter Puller. This one's up in my head.

Apparently I spoke too soon

So Weezer isn't actually going to be portraying The Velvet Underground in Factory Girl. Er...at least not all of them will. The drummer (Patrick Wilson) and guitarist (Brian Bell) are the only offenders, with Bell playing Lou Reed and Wilson trying his hand as John Cale. Since I can't really picture Brian Bell right now and since I'm too lazy to do a Google Image Search, I can't say if this is better or worse.

Who am I kidding? It couldn't be much worse than Rivers Cuomo. He might have brought Muppets.

While only 50% of Weezer will be committing this grievious sin on film, 100% of them are apparently covering VU's Heroin. Hoooooo boy. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt because their cover of Velouria by The Pixies was pretty good.

But what the hell does Weezer know about heroin? Did I miss that Behind the Music?

The iPod cannot hold...

It's a 3rd gen 20g and I filled the bastard. I have to take music off to get new music on. This is obnoxious, but dammit I need to have my new Hold Steady and Stars CDs at my beck and call. I'll be sitting in the listening booth (my basement) rocking out, at least until Supernatural starts.

I picked up the most recent stellastarr* jaunt last week as well. I like it, but there's a reason they've been hearing things like Interpol-lite. I think they sound more like The Cure, but that ain't a bad thing.

The bad thing is the Sony Content Protection that is going to make it very difficult if not impossible to get it on my aforementioned iPod (and hopefully bump another White Stripes CD off). I hope the execs at Sony spend an eternity in hell as prags for patent attorneys.

Is American Idol homophobic? Wow...I couldn't care less. But I would definitely watch to see Simon Cowell apologize. Hell, I'd pay to see it. That self-righteous douche needs a fistful of humility across the bridge of his nose.

Not tonight, however. Tonight I listen to my overflowing iPod with my black headphones (anyone who thinks the white earbuds are a necessary yindie/yupster/indie hipster fashion accessory needs to step the eff off) and slowly start convincing myself that the money I have earmarked for an X-Box 360 would be better spent on a shiny new 60g that would take me at least another year to fill. Cheers.

I'm not dead, really.

So I got lazy last week. Sue me.

Sometimes it takes the right motivation to get me posting. Like new Cat Power. Cat Power: my favorite kind of feline-themed power. And despite the fact that this record comes out tomorrow, the good folk at Record Time, Ferndale saw fit to score me a copy last Friday. Chan is good.

But it's not all cake and candy in the news. Perhaps some of you have heard of the Edie Sedgwick biopic, Factory Girl? Siena Miller as Edie? While Sedgwick, Andy Warhol and the whole Factory scene of the 60s and 70s is endlessly fascinating to me, I will not forgive Weezer portraying the Velvet Underground. Argh!

No shock there that Lou Reed didn't care for the script. I wouldn't want Rivers F-ing Cuomo playing me. And wow does he like the word "whore".

Look. Pinkerton was the shit. The Blue Album is a classic. The Green Album and Maladroit? They were certainly...there. But Weezer does not belong in the same breath as VU. I don't have any VU records, yet I feel very comfortable standing by that statement.

Perhaps Nickelback was not available.

Who in the world thought a Buttafuoco/Amy Fisher reunion was necessary? And have they been sterilized?

And finally some sad news. Ford is laying off up to 30,000 workers. And Matt Millen is not among them.

I feel very comforable saying that any one of those 30,000 people who ultimately loses his/her job could do a more effective job of managing the Detroit Lions that Matt. And think of how many employees Ford could afford to keep without the albatross that is his salary around their figurative neck. Fire Millen!

But I digress. I'll leave you all with the phenomenon that is Lee Hotti. Oh sweet mercy.

A kiss for all the haters...

Yindie?

Constantly finding new terms for self-definition at Stereogum is starting to get tedious. Indie yuppie has now been shortened to yindie.

I have to admit that I highly prefer yupster.

That yindie shit couldn't miss the mark by much more, either. Who the deuce is James Blunt, and why should I care? Maybe subgenrefication is already beginning. So much for the revolution...

First Impressions of First Impressions

Last week, The Strokes' new album, First Impressions of Earth was released. Unless you're like me, who found it a week before it's scheduled release just sitting on the shelf at Best Buy. Suddenly it was a lot easier to blow a gift card.

My thoughts? I dig it. It sounds like the band has made a conscious effort not to re-record their first album, as they were accused of doing on their second. And I like a lot of the new directions they went in. "Heart in a Cage" is probably my favorite track so far, but this seems to be one of those albums that you find something new every time you listen to it (as opposed to the albums you have to listen to several times before you start to "get it"; I'm looking at you Radiohead!). When I first listen to a CD, I just replay it over and over, not really making much of an attempt to idnetify or remember song titles, so I can't do much of a track by track review just yet. Let me just say that several songs hold on to their old sound, while others explore new, somewhat darker territory. And change can be good.

That said, while I like the album on the whole, some of the new sounds really expose some of the musical weaknesses of the band. I loved the first two albums (even if they really were just one long, delayed-release double CD), but the tight sound wrapped around catchy hooks definitely masked the fact that not all Strokes were created equal, musically that is. Several of the new songs are no longer able to cover the fact that Fab Moretti drums like a $29.99 Casio Keyboard. Yeah, he's great at holding the beat, but don't ask him to do any backflips back there. Hey, Fab? You're allowed to occasionally hit the drums harder and make the noise louder. It's ok. They're your drums. Because of Fab's refusal to crank up the intensity in places, some of the songs that try to raise said intensity without bringing him along fall a little flat.

But I'm over it. It's in my car. It's on my iPod. It's in the rotation. And man is the guitar playing bad-assed. Remember a few years ago when Rolling Stone dubbed Jack White the 4th Greatest Guitar Player Ever after only like three or four albums? Well Jacky-Jack ain't got nothing on The Strokes on this record. I don't care if that's sacrilege, seeing as I'm from Southeastern Michigan. It's just the truth.

Pitchfork wasn't as into the new sounds as I was: 5.9 out of 10. Ouch. But reading the review makes me wonder about the objectivity of the reviewer. Methinks I smell hype backlash. Plus he acutally complimented the drumming? Huh?

Oh Sweet Mercy: Clerks 2 Cometh

You know, I thought I Love The 90s was about as brutal as pop culture would get on my formative years until I hit my midlife crisis. And I thought I had at least another 15 years to skate until then. But...no.

Formative years, condider thyself sodomized: Clerks 2 is on its way, and the teaser is up.

On a certain level, I really respect Kevin Smith for risking it all and making a sequel to his magnum opus. Most hardcore fans of the original are going to be much bigger assholes than I will and refuse to give it a chance. Me? Despite my incredible misgivings, I'm really exicted.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not sure I buy the fact that Dante and Randal are still working what amount to the same dead-end shit jobs that they were in the original. And I still want to throttle Jason Mewes for making Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back so horrifically awful (I know it really wasn't all his fault -- he's just the easiest target). But like many fans, part of the reason I liked the movie so much is that I was able to invest in the characters. Of course I'm anxious to see how they've grown. And Kevin Smith's wicked sense of humor guarantees that the movie could never be a total loss.

Still, when it comes out, I'm going to have to make a superhuman effort not to hold it to the same standard that was set by its predecessor. I know this, I'll try this, but I can't promise that I can do this. This is a movie that I literally watched every day after I got out of school for two weeks after I bought the VHS. I now own the original DVD and the super-duper extended version. The emotional investiture that makes me care so much about Clerks is what is going to make it hard to accept the sequel for what it is. Especially if the characters I've invested so much in fail to pay out in a way that is nearly as satisfying as the end of the first film.

But you know what? To hell with it. As long as Mallrats 2 isn't Kevin's next project, I'll deal. Check out the trailer -- there's an Affleck sighting.

Yupster?!

Yupster. It sounds like a file downloading service. But in reality, it's the amalgamation of "yuppie hipster" that is what MSNBC seems to be using to describe the cubicle jockeys such as myself who dig the indie rock and other such media. (Thanks Stereogum)

I was quite excited when I heard this! The thought that there were enough other flourescent tan sporting wage slaves trapped within the imposing walls of modular furniture who listened to music like myself to merit naming in mainstream media was fantastic! I immediately ran from cubicle to cubicle at my office, seeking someone to discuss the greatness of the Wolf Parade record. But alas, the only discussion to be found involved several questions about any medication I might be on or how I found dates. Needless to say, there weren't many "yupsters" to be found.

But in my excitement, I must have overlooked the part of that article that claimed Conor Oberst was our "poster boy". Um...?

Perhaps knowing that fact kept several yupsters at work in the closet, so to speak. It's hard enough being an indie rock fan without some Prada carrying O.C. watcher asking me how great Death Cab For Cutie is, but now people are going to assume I have Bright Eyes CDs? Gah!

I really have nothing against those two bands. They just aren't for me (or if I'm trying to pick up a girl who happens to be a fan -- "I haven't heard enough of their stuff to have an opinion"). Right.

MSNBC needs to get their shit straight. Nobody that works in an office and can afford $35 for a concert ticket on anything resembling a regular basis wants to be associated with emo-hair. Yupsters indeed.

Lessons Learned

Yeah. So obviously I did not:

• Do any of my Best of 2005 over my time off
• Work on the site design
• Post

Rather than blogging, I spent most of the past week trying to decide if my laundry tub could hold a half-barrel of Miller Lite (answer: yes). So I learned that during long periods of time off, looking through the news, gathering my thoughts, and posting on the internet are not priorities.

I also learned that leaving a post at the top of my page that included the phrase "f****** animals" was most definitely not a good idea. My Statcounter allows me to see how people are referred to my sad little blog here, and let's just say that those two unfortunate words were apparently entered into the MSN Search Engine a few times and led some wacked out pervs here. You people are sick.

No matter how desparate for attention I might be, there will never be pictures of anyone putting it to any of our animal brethren on this site. Promise.

As for the aforementioned Best of 2005 list that both of you are (quite possibly) waiting for? Later. I'm still buying or burning gift cards on CDs from 2005. I can already see the response(s) to my lists as they stand now. "How can you leave off [whatever]?"

Because I probably don't own it. I don't have the disposable income to make anything comprehensive. But damn it if I won't try. It'll get done.