I should appreciate the fact that my thesis has nothing to do with Baudrillard and that convoluted hyperreality nonsense. I should be proud of myself for choosing to work with political economy, which is far more user-friendly. I'll give credit to McChensey, Bagdikian and Schiller, they write in accessible voices and their arguments regarding the problematic structure of today's mass media system are incredibly sound. However, after preparing to write 20+ pages summarizing some 1000-odd pages of their respective works, I feel fragments of brain turn into mush. Big Five corporations manipulating government policy to make way for more consolidation, effectively shutting out upstart firms. Sometimes I feel like I have been reading the same sentence for the past two weeks. So I just let the Nick Cave playlist run on my computer and try to get somehwere else.
Nick Cave was one of very few artists that my friends and I, despite our diverse tastes, could find mutually agreeable. Indie rockers, metalheads, ravers and goths, we all could dig Nick Cave. When Carlos and I first starting dating, he was into hardcore and I was all about seeking Some Bizarre releases from 1982, but Nick Cave and his merrymen of Bad Seeds were our common bond. Hell, Nick Cave can count my brother, sister and both of my parents amongst his fanbase. Because of that, it always struck me as odd that he isn't a household name. He makes music for everyone. Anyone can get lost in one of his albums and I learned the procrastination value of his work early on in my academic career.
Murder Ballads was release sometime during my freshman year of college. I would listen to it endlessly, prentending I was PJ or Kylie dueting with Nick. I eventually added other albums to my rotation-- Let Love In, The Good Son, compilations taped off of rare 12" singles that I found in the KXLU archives. Nick Cave is perfect for those times when you can't handle the tedium of homework. Nearly every one of his songs is a perfect pop number made subversive because of the (generally speaking) minimal instrumentation and, naturally, Nick Cave's menacing tone of voice. Sometimes, I would sit and think about what "The Mercy Seat" might sound like if Lush had covered it-- all Rickenbacker strum and girl-girl harmonies. I still believe that it could have been gorgeous. Sometimes, I would lay flat on my back like in the old slumber party game "Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board," and wonder if I could elevate myself in time to the "jingle-jangle" in "Do You Love Me?" Sometimes I would watch an imagined western film, shot like an Anton Corbjin video for Depeche Mode, on the back of my eyelids as I concentrated on "Tupelo." I could sit and pick out new noises found on "From Her to Eternity" or sing along to "Straight to You" or "The Weeping Song," but I rarely danced, unless it was "Red Right Hand" or "Deanna." Nick Cave is for pensive moments, when I would "contemplate my contemplation," as I once said in a momentary acknowledgment of my college freshman goth girl pretension.

Longtime readers of this blog know that we're fans of Berlin-based performer Dahlia. So, we're happy to announce that she will be in Los Angeles for a series of performances. Check her out April 15 at Hang the DJs and April 21 at Diskoteka. Also, it looks like there will be an April 14th show somewhere in LA where yours truly will be playing records as well.
Check her out at www.thisisdahlia.com


P.S. If anyone knows why I can't insert hyperlinks or use bold, itallic, underline, etc. on here, let me know. I'm posting from a Mac for the first time (using Safari) and haven't figured out all the odds and ends yet.

About two years ago, more or less, I interviewed Kill Hannah for Outburn. I had only a vague knowledge of the band prior to that, mostly from people in town from Chicago who would come to the DJ booth and tell me that I had to start playing this band that was like "the biggest thing back home." Finally, I said to someone, "Well, um, can you get me something of theirs to play?" So, I ended up with a demo of "Kennedy" in my email and it was good, but kind of grainy sounding, so I couldn't really play it out in the clubs. Then I got the Kill Hannah assignment, which meant that I also got an advance of the cd, which was much better quality. So, I played "Kennedy" here and there, but not that often until I finally got the remix 12" single about six months after point.
I think I'm digressing again.
To get to the point, if there is, in fact, one in here somewhere, I really liked Kill Hannah. Then I interviewed Mat on Sunset Boulevard, which was one hell of a tape to transcribe because he is sort of soft spoken and Sunset traffic is incredibly loud, and he seemed to be a pretty decent guy. Later on that night, I saw them play live and it was intense. I fell hard for the band and was really disappointed when a year past and there was no word of the band anywhere.
I thought maybe Kill Hannah fell to bad timing, because if the album was released earlier the following year, it could have ridden the FranzKillerInterpol wave that is still washing up bands with Anglophile tendencies (that is, if they aren't already British). I don't know if these things are so easy to judge, though, and perhaps it's best not to speculate.
I woke up this morning humming "Kennedy" for no particular reason. So, I checked the band's website and, according to a recent post on its journal, it seems that the band will return with a new album very soon. There are also funny quips about Starbucks and the ugliness of Chicago in the winter.

Tim offers a play-by-play of Nine Black Alps show and some witty observations of Tuesdays at Cinespace right here. You should read it.

Dear James Blunt:

We have seen, at this point, several interviews with you on television and noted that the questions, as well as your answers, are exactly the same. With that in mind, we humbly submit these probes into your life, none of which concern your tenure in Her Majesty's service. We hope that one day you will be bored enough to Google yourself, find this blog and answer these to the best of your ability.

Sincerely,

Liz O. & Balthazar Monsoon

1. Did you find the thought of playing to millions of bored suburban housewives on Oprah titillating or just plain creepy?

2. Have you ever thought about going emo so that boys will buy your album too?

3. Do you wonder how you could have become popular in a country where the humor within The Queen is Dead is lost on most?

4. Are you going to marry a pretentious American movie star and name your first child Pear?

5. Do you ever write on postcards, "How I dearly wish I was not here?"

6. Do you ever find yourself buying copies of The Bell Jar to hand out to people because you are tired of explaining yourself?

7. How long did it take you to realize that being a sad Englishman with messy hair means that you can get any girl in the club?

8. Are you completely offended by these questions, or do understand that we only ask because we love you?

It should be finding it's way towards LA record stores tomorrow. In the meantime, some stories are online. Here are my contributions.

Smoking Popes
Hawthorne Heights
The Mojo Filters
Also, in the review section, I tell you about the new record from The Sounds.

Oh, and since a certain one of my friends mentioned that if she were fifteen, she would love The All-American Rejects, here's a link to that feature as well. I think if I were fifteen, my crush would be on Fallout Boy. The video for "Dance Dance" really hooked me.

Plus, I have a new title. Oh, and I'm working on some really awesome stuff for the next issue, so keep reading.

My friend, Paul the ex-GGBW, sent out this music quiz with 60 album titles. You had to respond with the names of the band. I think I answered half correctly, which I blame entirely on having just come back from class because I know, I really do know that Rocket to Russia is the Ramones and New Traditionalists is Devo. Also, I know that Argybargy is Squeeze, but managed to answer that incorrectly as well. But, here's the thing that is kind of odd: I was completely clueless as to titles that belonged to the likes of Elvis, the Monkees and Pink Floyd, but managed to correctly identify albums from Dramarama, Ween, Midnight Oil and the Lemonheads. In what sort of music-consumed universe does that make sense?
Now I am completely obsessed with stumping Paul, so I have to put together a list of records for him to identify. However, Paul's areas of expertise are music and Aqua Teen Hunger Force, so I fear that he cannot be stumped. Then again, he probably thought I knew more than I did as well.

We're still accepting submissions for the first PDP podcast, set to air in early April. So far, we've received some killer new music, but we know that there is more out there. Here are the guidelines:

• Bands must be from the greater Los Angeles area
• Submissions may be sent via email or snail mail (see contact info below), but submissions cannot be returned, so use your best judgement on which form you use.
• Submissions need not be genre specific, but should kind of be in line with what you read here.
• Submissions are not guaranteed airply, but I will try to personally respond to everyone with feedback.

Email: lizziegolightly@gmail.com

Snail Mail:

Liz O.
PO Box 3454
Granada Hills, CA 91344

Another year, another South by Southwest that I will not be attending. (This needs to change, btw.) But, who cares about that, if you are going to Austin this week, check out the following LA bands (in alphabetical order).

The Adored
American Eyes
Anavan
The Bell Rays
Colored Shadows
Cut Chemist
Daedelus
Dengue Fever
Rob Dickinson (does he still live out here? Oh, well, go see him anyhow.)
Susanna Hoffs & Matthew Sweet
The Mojo Filters
The Plimsouls
The Tenderbox

There are probably much more than I have listed here, so just look around and remember, the rest of the scene's need to see Arctic Monkeys gives you the chance to check out something interesting that doesn't require a line.

Addendum: Just found out today (3/14/06) that Crom will play two gigs at SxSW.

Thursday, 3/16 @ 8pm FREE

Nasty's/Austin Alcoholacaust
606 maiden lane
austin, TX 73301

CROM
Oxbow
Lions of Tsavo
Year Long Disaster
Saviours
God's Temple of Family Deliverance
The Triggermen

Friday 3/17 All Day FREE

Vice Magazine Party (it's also going on all day Thursday)
The Longbranch Inn
1133 east 11th st
austin, TX 73301

CROM (we play around 5pm)
Oxbow
Diamond Nights
Rye Coalition
Kid 606
Saviours
Priestess... and a shitload of other bands.

They will tear shit up. Probably, literally. BTW, they have awesome t-shirts. I'm wearing one right now. It's kind of Lords of Chaos looking.

So, here's a story. The person I interviewed yesterday was Jason Forrest. Basically, after the show on Friday, I Googled him and sent him an email, told him where my work generally appears and asked if he was up for an interview. He responded an hour later.
We end up at House of Pies chatting for an hour or so and realized that we have three mutual acquaintances-- one here, one in Chicago and one in Berlin. There might be more, but we didn't get that involved in the six degrees game. That said, we started talking about how tiny the music community really is. I told him that, when I was a kid, I thought musicians were these inaccessible beings that would never be any closer than a pre-recorded voice coming through a speaker or an image roughly 100 feet away from me, separated by people with better seats, a rail and some beefy security guards. It's a misconception about music that I think, a lot of people believe, which is why I wanted to mention that here.
Even when I started working at KXLU back in 1995, the music seemed so far away. Once in a while, a band would show up for an interview or a live set, generally set up through various connected people, but this sort of stuff didn't happen on my show. As I started going out more often, started developing what would ended up becoming the sound I was then known for playing (think Joy Division, Bauhaus and Soft Cell influences in the midst of the post-grunge fallout), I just randomly asked people for music. The first band that I asked handed me a 7". When I moved up to the early-morning drivetime shift, they came in for an interview (the first one I ever did). When they asked why I hadn't been to any of their shows and I explained that I couldn't get in because I was 19 and lacked a fake ID, they snuck me in with the equipment.
When it comes down to it, I'm a pretty shameless person, so it never occurred to me that anyone might think that I was full of shit because I was this nineteen-year-old girl with the graveyard shift at the local college radio station, a station that any band outside of LA proper most likely could not hear. I'm not sure that the bands even realized that, though, because everyone of them gave me something and every one of those pieces of music were played on my show. Some of them eventually became friends, some fell out of contact over the years, but the point is that musicians are some of the nicest people you will meet. Okay, some are jerks, but those are rare and not really worth the mention.
Over the past few months, I've averaged three band interviews a week, which, for me, is a lot. Some of those bands are pretty big, like, #3 album in the country big (that one comes out on Thursday). The one thing I have learned from this experience is that a lot of people don't lose that appreciation for the people who believed in them before they went from musicians to rock stars. The excitement with which I have heard many musicians discuss meeting new fans, chatting with old ones and responding personally to My Space and chatboard messages is really inspiring. It makes me rethink music and fall in love with it over and over again.

I tried to forget about how numb with cold my fingers were as I drove around Franklin and Vermont in search for a parking spot today, tried to get overly involved in the Rock Kills Kid CD that had been playing in my car for three days straight because sometimes when you start to get caught up in a beat, the cold stops penetrating the shins. I found a spot, pulled in, shivered out of the car and looked to my right, noticing an overgrown yard with a pile of bricks off to the side of it. Dude, I'm parked right in front of Glenn Danzig's house.
My phone rang as I locked up the car. It was the person I was set to meet for an interview calling to tell me he would be a few minutes late. I seriously thought that, since I had fifteen minutes to spare, I should sit in my car and wait and see if Danzig steps outside. I've never seen him in person before and have always wondered, is he that short? Is he that bulky? How fucking cool would it be if I got a picture of him pulling weeds? Shit, when was the last time he pulled weeds?
Damn, I'm turning into a total dork.
An hour or so later, after the interview, I walked back to the car, the chill growing worse, feeling like it could snow were it not for the fact that this is a city that hasn't seen snow in almost twenty years. I should totally get a picture of Danzig's house, I thought. I started digging through my purse for my phone, but my arms were loaded down with records at this point and my hands were freezing and my teeth were chattering and the guys in the white pick up behind me were just sitting there looking stoned like they had driven all the way out from Simi just to see if maybe they could catch a glimpse of Danzig washing his car. I got into the car, turned up the heat and sped off, thinking that might be the only appropriate thing to do.
Later on, after catching The Sopranos, I mentioned to Carlos over the phone that I had gone down to House of Pies for an interview.
"Did you drive past Danzig's house?" he asked.
"I parked in front of it."
It really shouldn't be that exciting. After all, pretty much anyone with a passing interest in punk or metal knows where the house is. Plenty have driven past it, trick-or-treated it, etc. And, really, Carlos and I are down on that side of town often enough where driving past it is sort of a non-event. It would be just another Los Feliz house if it weren't for the fact that it is dilapidated to the point of launching a thousand haunted house rumors. Plus, we're talking about the former (and best) singer for the Misfits. How can that get old?
I could have kicked myself for not taking pics to send to my out-of-town friends. Then I remembered that Danzig's House has a profile on My Space.

It's been a damp, dull day here in the city's finest borough, and I'm rattling around on my lonesome since the home team is playing away games for the next few weeks. I'm trying to get some work done, trying to find a job that doesn't suck, and - most importantly - trying to find some suitable music. I put the iTunes on shuffle, but it kept picking Gang of Four (it always does that!) and I am so not in the mood for Gang of Four. I tried the first Jicks album, but the rain was dripping and Malkie is just a bit too Clever for some days. Like this one. The Detroit Cobras were vetoed after thirty seconds; way too bouncy. The first Sleater-Kinney album? No no. No screaming. No distortion please. I'm tired and homesick for trees and there's nothing that-

-oh wait.

O'Death.

Right.

My memory of this is vague, but if I recall correctly, the boyfriend and I were loitering around some bar downtown, and the boyfriend struck up a conversation with the bartender (as he is wont to do), and the bartender handed him this CD. O'Death. In the car on the way home I believe we made some jokes about how crappy this CD would turn out to be. Suffice it to say, we were TOTALLY, INCREDIBLY, AWESOMELY WRONG.

The O'Death CD (Head Home) is fan-freakingtastic. Busted-up gothic folk country bluegrass fiddle-twang like what would happen if you locked Tom Waits up on an abandoned farm somewhere. I read a review that called it an "Appalachian apocalypse" and, dude, no lie. This does not sound like it came from New York. This does not sound like it came from any place with paved roads and internet access. Indeed, to my admittedly unprofessional ears, this sounds as though it could come from deep in the heart of Appalachia - and when I remember that bartender pushing the cd across the bar, all the people crowded around and the bad rock band blaring behind him, there's a disconnect that makes the music even more mysterious. How did this happen? Why doesn't it happen more? Also, why haven't you bought this album yet? Do yourself a favor and do so here at their CDBaby page.

Three hours ahead, goddamn, over and out.