I want a copy of Death Cab For Cutie's "Soul Meets Body" right now. I want to get away from my computer, go into my room and put it on my turntable and move the arm back and forth so that I can listen to it over and over and over again until I have every damned word memorized. I want it to tug at my heatstrings over and over again in that same music geek way that "The Whole of the Moon" or "Kingdom of Rain" or "Under Pressure" or any other song that with which I am attached has. We are entering a new age of obsession for this simple lass.

Recently a post has been floating around My Space regarding the Derby. Out-of-towners might know this best as "the club from Swingers." Those of us who live in LA know it as the home of many a good show. (Plus, the bathrooms are unusually clean and, as you probably noticed, I have a fixation on the cleanliness of club bathrooms.)
The Derby and neighboring Louise's Trattoria were purchased by Adler Realty and you can read about the group's plan on its website.
If you don't want to lose the Derby, you can write to L.A. City Councilperson Tom LaBonge, who represents Los Feliz, via email, snail mail, fax, etc.

Here is his contact information:

Coucilman Tom La Bonge
City Hall Office
200 N. Spring Street Room 480
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Phone: (213) 473-7004
Fax: (213)624-7810

Hollywood Field Office
6501 Fountain Ave.
Mail Stop 2061
Los Angeles, CA 90028
Phone: (323) 957-6415
Fax: (323) 957-6477

Email: Labonge@council.lacity.org

Los Anjealous reports that Morrissey's 1931 Mediterranean-style home in the Hollywood Hills is now on the market. For just under $2 million dollars, you too can party like Hollywood royalty (the house once belonged to Clark Gable). The report wonders if Moz will stay in LA, home to his most loyal fanbase, or head back to dreary old England. I wonder if he's just heading to the San Morrissey, uh, I mean San Gabriel Valley.

Thanks to Cory for the link.

Check out Paris in the Spring, a website created by my former high school classmate, Cory. Her store features limited edition, hand numbered and signed posters that she created for Vaginal Davis' 1920s speakeasy-themed nightclub, Bricktops.

"Music is our life's foundation..." --Pet Shop Boys, 'It's Alright'

Hey everybody,

Since the People's Dance Party loves to help and educate through music I wanted to help hype a collection of CDs for purchase that can really make a difference in a little girl's life. A co-worker of a really great friend of mine had the following explanation regarding his thought and vision for the project:

"A good friend of mine, John Obina's daughter was recently diagnosed with Leukemia. John, a well known DJ from the Bay Area, has produced and recorded his own CD to help raise money for his daughter's treatments. I have decided to put this webpage together to help my dear friend and his family in this chapter of their lives. If you can help, it would be greatly appreciated."

http://www.casasola.org/muzik_for_miracles

Thank you for your support! If you know anyone that is interested in donating to this worthy cause, please spread the word. To hear samples of the tracks on this CD please visit:

http://www.myspace.com/djswift

You will need Macromedia Flash Player to hear the samples. You can download it from

http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer

The mixes are awesome and are a great gift for anyone who loves club music! Save yourself the hassle of a hefty cover and parking at Spundae and live it up in your livingroom! Do you really need any other reasons? C'mon it's great music for a great cause. Enough said.

Thanks to everyone who turned in to Contagious Radio last night. Special thanks to Shok and Legion for letting us invade the netwaves.
If you didn't get to hear the show last night, you should be able to listen today. We do most of our babbling during the show's third hour.
We actually didn't get to play any music, but did a good deal of talking about music (yeah, and All My Children, too). Shok asked us what we thought about upcoming trends in music. I said that it was kind of hard to answer that because anytime something exciting comes around, it is nipped in the bud by cynical yet hopelessly trendy sorts known as hipsters. Now, some might stick us into the hipster category as well, but in our defense, I'd like to say that a) None of us have ever appeared on the Cobrasnake and b) We don't hang out at Star Shoes. Back to my argument, though. Pick an artist that you have heard name dropped lately. Now Google said artist. Look through all of the pages and see how many of the sites are blogs. Maybe there will be something on Pitchfork, but you probably won't see anything in the major music magazines yet. Read all the raves about said performers "awesomeness." Wait until the debut album is about one week away from hitting the streets. Go to the bookstore and look through the music magazines. Chances are, you will see this artist in almost every issue. Then go back online, check the blogs and, most importantly, check the chatboards. Chances are, you will find more criticism than praise of said artist.
It is really a sad time to be a musician. I pity all of you wielding instruments right now. Unless you are part of the hip-hop scene, where apparently, selling-out just makes you cooler, you are doomed. People will talk about how you are just no-brainer 80s revivalists even if you sound more like Supergrass than the Jam. You're popularity will wane before you can even get played on KROQ.
Contrary to popular belief, the current crop of alternative bands are not typically crossing over into the mainstream. Check out the charts on Billboard. Most importantly, look at the Top 20 albums and singles. There is a reason that Fuse and MTV separate their countdowns (which are, btw, identical) into Top 20 and Top 20 Rock.
I know what bands I like and I want those bands to get popular. Really popular. I would love it if my much younger cousins asked me about Winston and the Telescreen, for example. Hell, I was excited that my cousin liked the Hot Hot Heat song I played for her the other day. Now, that is a band that is already considered really huge, but how many of your high school-aged relations have actually heard "Middle of Nowhere?" It's too big for college radio, yet unless you listen to 103.1 or 106.7 all day, you probably won't hear it. It's not "Hollaback Girl." So, people, I implore you to stop jumping the gun on bands and scenes. Let something happen. I'm really sick of Gwen Stefani.

Estelle, Kar3n and I are invading The IrRegular Show on Contagious Radio tonight at 8:00 p.m. PST. You can listen anywhere in the world through the wonders of the Internet. Below is the bio I wrote for us and pictures. See if you can guess who is who.
If you listen tonight, which we strongly suggest, you can communicate with us through chatrooms or IM or something like that. We also humbly appreciate any comments left on this here page.
Once upon a time, when Estelle Wall and Liz Ohanesian were college roommates, they dreamt of starting a band. Then they realized that they couldn't sing. Nor could they play anything more than "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on the telephone.
Musical ineptitude aside, Estelle and Liz have dedicated a good chunk of their lives in pursuit of the perfect song. While students at Loyola Marymount University in the late-1990s, they DJed at Los Angeles' renowned college station, KXLU 88.9 F.M. During that time, they championed Bis' should-have-been hit single "Eurodisco" and just about everything recorded by Belle and Sebastian, interviewed more bands than they can count and even offended one Dutch duo by serving cold beer.
Since graduating, Estelle went on to research cures for various diseases. Liz became a club DJ and music writer whose work can be found in such publications as Outburn and Razorcake. Both blather about music at The People's Dance Party, a blog/webzine created by Liz and fellow LMU alum Kar3n that will show you how to dismantle your hipster facade one day at a time.
Kar3n, who lived shouting distance (literally) from Estelle and Liz in college, spent her formative years stomping around various LA clubs of a dark persuasion in really big boots. During that time, she developed a knack for accurately portraying the Los Angeles club scene through a series of gaunt cartoon figures drawn on cocktail napkins, which you will no doubt find on Ebay someday. Her finely tuned observation skills and obsession with angry beatniks resulted in the animated feature you really should have seen, The Caffiend. When not busy working in the film industry as something other than an assistant, Kar3n puts her left hand to the test as a graphic designer.

As of late, I have accumulated a serious debt to Malcolm Gladwell. I read his articles for New Yorker religiously. However, his two books, The Tipping Point and Blink, have been most influential on me. I feel the Gladwell effect most frequently when thinking about music, which might be odd considering that he is not a music critic.
Last year, I had to teach one of the concepts from The Tipping Point to a class of undergraduates. I taught the only way I could and related the assigned reading to music. Specifically, it was a half-hour presentation on commercials as a vehicle for music promotion with Dirty Vegas' Top 40 hit "Days Gone By" cited as the "tipping point."
This summer, my self-required reading is Blink, which explains the power of snap decisions and the consequences of thinking to hard. In Chapter 5 of this book, "Kenna's Dilemma: The Right-- and Wrong-- Way to Ask People What They Want," Gladwell does more to explain the current state of commercial radio and, consequently, the music industry as a whole than any of the country's major music journalists.
Kenna suffers from a problem not unique to today's musicians. Place his music in the hands of people we call "heads" (industry folks on the creative side of the business, journalists, DJs and other assorted music geeks) and his songs are hits. However, Kenna's problems arise when he doesn't get adds on commercial radio. Gladwell attributes this to market research companies, who test potential singles and albums-in-the-works on random people. He likens this to the failure of all failures-- New Coke. Remember New Coke? It tested well but caused a major backlash. As Gladwell explains, taste tests do not account for how an item will taste after eating or drinking it for two weeks. Similarly, market research for songs that grow in beauty after a few weeks of regular airplay or, conversely, songs that prove to be more irritating upon each consecutive listen. He surmises that snap decisions of a hitmaking nature are best left to the experts. In the case of food, he means professional taste testers. For music, well, he is probably referencing a great number of people who read or write for this blog: people whose ears are trained to spot a hit.
I humbly hope that more music industry types read up on Gladwell. His work just might change how we view pop music.