This is cool It's about a "record a record in a month" challenge in New Hampshire:

The challenge took its inspiration and most of its rules from FAWM, but it called for 10 songs instead of 14-- and the bands had to record them. The Wire took sign-ups at the website, www.rpmchallenge.com, and announced a kick-off meeting for participants. Nolan personally badgered his friends: "One of my responsibilities early on was to go and make sure we had at least 10 people who were absolutely going to come through for us. In my head I was thinking, we quite possibly could have 30 albums if we really hit it out of the park.

They ended up getting more than 165. That's a lot for a small place in frickin' New Hampshire.

Which makes me rememer a show I went to at the old Hole In The Wall. A microshow. 4 Bands in 15 minutes. I got there right when it started. But I was frickin wasted by the end, man.



width="240" height="180"
alt="Synthetic Cybernetic Humanoid Normally for Immediate Troubleshooting, Zoology and Efficient Learning"
border="0">

Lies, Damn Lies and No Schnitzel

This shoulda been posted a little closer to 2005 but it's interesting anyways. It examines every known "Best of" list from 2005 and agri...um aggre..um I can't pronounce it but it kinda combines them all together.

Reminds me of a dodgeball game once , when a notoriously efficient and terrorizing participant was himself taken out. He said, "A million is a statistic. One is a tragedy." And that was presient because we didn't have statistics til the next semester.


The author's personal picks are interesting too if for nothing else than that he doesn't include Sufjan Stevens.

If Schnitzel ever does a music video it would look a lot like this.

Via BoingBoing (as are most good things) who got it from WFMU's Beware of The Blog ...you know, there was study done somewhere that says 65% of all are just links to blogs that link back to themselves.

Citation

Here's the bad news first: Scott Miller's new release "Citation" is too short. It clocks in just under 30 minutes. And for a great songwriter, you have to ask "What are you doing with your time? Why can't it be spent writing songs?" A man like Mr. Miller should have more songs than he knows what to do with.

And you can't argue that he's a good editor of his work. One track, albeit only 27 seconds long is studio noise, and 2 whole songs are complete filler. Plus, one is a Neil Young cover (though it's a really frickin good cover).

With that said, wanting more material from an artist is a compliment. "Citation" is a better album than the one before, "Upside/Downside". Sure it doesn't have as anything as good as "Amtrak Crescent" or "Ciderville Saturday Night" but those ones were written well before he made his first album, "Thus Always To Tyrants". But then who can ever follow up an album as good as TATT?

Citation is a very good album. Four stars out of 5.2 stars. This is a work from a writer no one else can match in historical songwriting. His ode to Sam Houston follows 2 main themes in Scott's work; leaving Virginia and people who lived over a hundred years ago. Plus, I don't know how long he's lived there now but I'm sure his Tennessee fans are happy he's finally mentioning his adopted state.

His WW2 song "The Only Road" (co-written with former bandmate Mic Harrison) is solid (though it reminds me a little of those Time/Life Book commercials from a few years back where the announcer would say "A woman in New Mexico falls down a well and screams for help. Two hundred miles away her twin sister feels a sharp pain through her left arm. Coincidence?").

But he also writes about more recent wars. His song "Jody" is a rockabilly-like ode to the soldier stationed far away from his girl. "8 Miles A Gallon" (the most rocking Scott Miller track recorded yet) is an ode to his tour bus but one of the smartest commentaries on the Iraq War I've heard that's out there.

It may take some a few listens to get into this record but I am confident most of Scott's fans will like this one. Some of the songs don't grab you right away. Take the Avett Brothers' new one "4 Thieves Gone" for example- There's an album that grabs you at first and stands up to repeated listens. I love that album and try to convert anyone to the Avetts who havent already joined the church. Yet I find myself reaching for "Citation" over "4 Thieves".

So maybe in 6 months I'll look back on this review and wonder why I seem kinda lukewarm for Citation. Maybe I expect too much from Mr. Miller. Like I said, this is the man who gave us Thus Always To Tyrants. I believe Virginia should be known as the birthplace of Scott Miller and our nation's founding fathers. In that order.

Jim Dickinson produced this record and while he has been at the helm of some of my favorite records of all time (The Replacements' "Pleased To Meet Me" and The Flat Duo Jets' "Go-Go Harlem Baby") I think Scott needs some sort of another partner. Or an editor. Would Scott have released "Only Everything" (my favorite) as a single if the label Sugar Hill didn't? Could he have put more songs on it if Mic Harrison hadn't just dropped by for just one afternoon while he was recording but instead stayed a few weeks? At Scott's live shows he's always joking that he's short on new material. He's not being self-effacing. It's true. But most of what he does write is great. He just needs a partner. Like he had in the V-Roys.

Let Me Get In Your Pants

When I first saw a headline "Former White House Advisor Charged in Retail Theft" I thought, " Oh jeez what did they find down Sandy Berger's pants this time?".


But Claude Allen? The man who wanted us to teach only abstinance-only Aids prevention? The man who everyone recently thought had quit his job cause the military only performs non-denominational services? (I wish I could quit my job cause of some "principle"). This is the man who headed our Commonwealth's department of health and human services?

Actually on second thought I don't care so much about Claude. But it's amazing this theft gets so much attention and not this theft.

I'm telling you now, our nation's banking system is gonna crash hard and soon from these attacks.

But don't misundertand, I still and always care about Sandy's pants.

We have a space on MySpace now.

It doesn't really have anything this site doesn't have expect there's one of them things where you can play some Schnitzel songs. Like a jukebox thingy. What do you call it? I want that for this site but don't know how.

Anyways, right now Schnitzel is working on songs. If all goes well then there will be a proper recording in the late summer. Same lineup as last time pretty much. There will probably be just one song on it that we've played in years past, "Broken Bottle". Another one though, "Saying It" can be heard (in rough demo form) at the MySpace site.

The above pic is from www.toothpastefordinner.com

You have to stand against censorship.

My "Buy Danish" kick by the way needs to be retooled. I kept getting that country mixed up with Belgium.