"What does it take to turn you on?"

This song is my newest fascination. Suede brought overt sexuality to the forefront of 90s music alongside Pulp. This video is deliciously disturbing and strangely enticing. Brett Anderson's vocals are amazing and seductive. The guitar work is gorgeous and lends to the dirty, sexual tone.

Fabulously Burnt Coffee and a myriad of great oddities

First of all, take a look at this work of genius that I found in Home Goods yesterday. This fabulous cock sculpture stands about 6 feet tall and is going for 200 bucks. Who ever buys this sublime fixture is the luckiest being on the planet.

Speaking of genius, I highly recommend this blog to anyone and everyone. This man's conscious misuse of the English language is absolutely brilliant. He is a deconstructionist without even knowing it! Derrida would be so proud. Plus, he blogs about my favorite musicians and is not afraid to get.. uhh...controversial. Love it.

I'd like to end on Lou Barlow's fabulous cover of Elliott Smith's "Cupid's Trick". This song was played as a part of a tribute show at the 2003 ATP festival. I was awestruck and stupefied when I found this. Barlow and the band did a gorgeous job.

Heatmiser= awesome

I love, love, love the chord progression in this song. Gorgeous piece of craftsmanship right here. Portland breeds some awesome sounds!

Best, most awkward interview ever

J. Mascis has to be the hardest person to interview of all time. Most of the musicians that I dig have a hard time with interviews, but Mascis gets the gold star.

"Hey, Mr. Rain. Ain't you follow me down?"

Tonight is a night for some Velvet Underground. I’ve been listening to “Pale Blue Eyes” and “Hey Mr. Rain” religiously because they seem to fit the mood of this grey, indecisive day. There is something about Lou Reed’s voice and cadence that makes everything OK. His lyrics on “Pale Blue Eyes” sear right through you. John Cale’s viola work on “Hey Mr. Rain [Version 1]” is gorgeously orchestrated madness. This stuff encompasses the listless chaos of today.

cleaning toilets to the tune of Hazel

I'm in the process of moving and consequentially I have to clean the whole house (including the toilets...) To ease this arduous task I'm blasting some of Portland's finest while I'm elbow-deep in Lysol and Soft Scrub. Hazel is a hidden gem of the 90s, and Pete Kreb's greatness should be lauded.



These guys had great harmonies and some creative time signatures.

'like a dirty french novel combines the absurd with the vulgar'

I just read Marquis de Sade's Justine, and it gave me some strange nightmares. I definitely think that the English department should teach this book! After reading this, I watched Quills on Netflix. It was pretty awesome and Geoffrey Rush makes a great Marquis de Sade. It is deliciously lascivious. Must watch.

Undiscovered awesome things

I'm practically beside myself due to the fact that 5 previously-unreleased Elliott Smith songs are floating around the net... My favorite by far is "Shiva Opens Her Arms", which conjures up Lou Reed and Bob Dylan greatness. The vocals in this song are so uncharacteristic of Smith! I love these lo-fi gems.


Here's another newly-unearthed gem, "She Won't Look at Me". This one is more attune to the well-known Smith style.

New painting-- Eudiamonia

"Keats and Yeats are on your side..."

The semester is finally over with and I'm free to do as I please...well, sort of. While studying for my Victorian Lit exam, I had to watch a series on Charles Dickens as a part of an exam review. I thought it was going to suck, but lo and behold, I was wrong. Dickens of London was an anglophile's wet-dream and the actor playing the mid-twenties Dickens was pretty awesome (see above). I will spare you the girlish gushing over Gene Foad's greatness.

Another great piece of film is the 2003 documentary, Bukowski: Born Into This. Talk about inspiration! I watched this beauty on Netflix a few days ago and it has renewed my appreciation of Bukowski's work. It contains loads of exclusive, in depth interviews with the writer himself and his closest confidants. If anyone knew how to use expletives artfully, it was Henry Charles Bukowski.

Freak scene, just can't believe it

Dinosaur Jr. - Freak Scene by jar0

This video makes everything better! J. Mascis has the best teeth ever.


Speaking of great teeth... David Bowie is the king of awesome teeth. This song is hot as hell.

Doing time in the Universal Mind

^ New illustration for a club I'm in!

I just finished an essay on Robert Browning's poetry and I'm wiped out. I've got a craving for some English psychedelia

tooooo good.

I love Belle and Sebastian, especially Stevie Jackson. At 3:42 my heart melts, as cloying as that sounds. I want to dance with Stevie and Stuart!



I think I met J. Mascis's long-lost twin today

men's fashion in the sixties= the best.

Love it. Long live black oxford shoes and pea coats.

I was wrong.. Jarvis Cocker should be poet laureate!

This is excellent!!! I'm slowly turning into an anglophile.

And now for some USDA Grade-A melodrama ala moi...

I’m on the cold precipice of March, just wavering between the frozen Chaos of winter and the balmy stillness of spring. Tonight I feel agitated, excited, stressed and buzzing with a thousand competing ideas. The neurons and synapses are buzzing with the electricity of deadlines, dreams, exaltations, caffeine and also dread. The dread is invested in the fast-approaching essays and presentations that will come after spring break. Unfortunately many things ride on these tangible demonstrations of academia, and this scares the living hell out of me. The Machine of OCD and its incessant static thrives off the fuel of insurmountable pressure. I always feel like an intruder on the halls of academia—a farce, a clown under intellectual guise. This feeling of inefficacy makes scholarly writing that much harder because I’m constantly grappling with myself.

Ray Davies should be the poet laureate

I love the Kinks, especially Autumn Almanac and Dead end Street. Screw Wordsworth and Colleridge, Mr. Davies is where it's at.


Speaking of Wordsworth... I am SO tired of hearing about him in every class I take. Yes, I realize as an English major that I need to be well versed in his works and those of his contemporaries, but can't we modernize things a little bit? Wordsworth and John Milton are killing me.
How about some Dylan Thomas and James Joyce? What about those awesome Russians Chekov, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky? Samuel Beckett anyone? I won't even ask about the Beat writers because I know that would be too good to be true. Come on Kean, get it together.

"hooray for tuesday!"

I've been playing Elliott Smith's cover of the Minders' song "Hooray for Tuesday" nonstop. It is just that good. This is a great contrast in mood after reading Albert Camus' The Stranger, which was excellent, but really stark and depressing. Anyway, here is the absolute and total happiness that is "Hooray for Tuesday".


















Lastly, Meditate on this! ^ (My preschoolers have various theories concerning that red "glove hat" and the hermeneutics of its existence).

A "Chune" tune

I'm really getting into 1960's british (and american) pop. Back then the word "pop" was not synonymous with homogenized aural shit, it actually signified expert craftsmanship in both songwriting and producing. Thanks to my copious (and obsessive) re-readings of the books written about Elliott Smith, I am finally finding out about the Zombies, The Left Banke and Box Tops. These guys knew how to use harmony and complex instrumentation to their advantage.



Beautiful piece of baroque pop! I totally see where Smith was influenced when it came to chordal structure and lyricism. (disregard the smelly pictures in the video haha)

Alex Chilton= excellence

I cannot believe that he was sixteen when he sang this! I love the terrible lipsynching job in this video... seems intentional!

amazing cover

ballad of el goodo

Alex Chilton is an excellent musician, and I can't believe that I didn't listen to Big Star sooner. Very many kudos to Elliott Smith for referencing Chilton, because I have found a hidden musical gem. I'm bracing myself for yet another snow storm and the copious amounts of shoveling that it entails. Thank ye gods for Stolichnaya, cranberry juice, space heaters and Big Star!

love my space heater

I'm listening to some Bob Dylan, Evan Dando and Elliott Smith to get my owl painting in gear. I finally finished James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which was really good. I think that every Irishman should read this, it totally sums up the Irish-catholic guilt to a tee. I don't know if I'm ready to start Kierkegaard's Either/or... its really esoteric

Syd Barrett world.

This song makes me happy. Barrett's writing is so playful and ethereal (even when writing about men who like to wear women's panties). Jugband Blues is probably my favorite right now, even though it is really sad. I just put Syd Barrett's discography on my laptop and it has been getting me through this horrid snowstorm and my never ending car troubles. I love the outtakes and hearing the banter in between tracks.