Hooo nelly! Are we flying by the seat of our pants! The records showed up mere hours ago!

I’m proud to annouce the newest installment in the "record-as-a-ticket-to-a-show" concept. This time we’ve paired Athens mega-band Dark Meat with DJ maestro Diplo for a single of epic proportions!

….ain’t it purty?

On one side, Dark Meat cover Iggy Pop’s classic jam "Success" and, on the other side, Diplo deconstructs it on a track entitled "Unsuccessful Space Jam."

As with the two other singles in the series, it’s only available (at least until after the show) if you go into Criminal Records in Little Five Points in Atlanta, Georgia.

And as with the other two shows this was celebrating, it’s being held at Whirlyball Atlanta in Roswell, Georgia next Saturday, July 12 with Noot D’Noot supporting.

Dark Meat and Diplo hit Athens at the 40 Watt the night before with Future Ape Tapes in support.

Get on it now!

Lists, lists, lists, we all love lists. You can’t exhale anymore without some magazine having a list, countdown or some numerical declaration of some type or another on the stands. 100 greatest this, 50 most overlooked that, the 25 most well groomed genital areas of the Cleveland Parking Department Staff, blah, blah, blah. As we know not all lists are created equal and if my suspicions are correct some lists are not created at all – they are thrown together by lazy slugs who do nothing but bump around the inter-webs for ten minutes and then maybe make a phone call to their buddy who’s “an expert”.
 
Recently a list of “coolest record stores” made the rounds in some disposable rag and well, I cannot hold my tongue any longer. As Godard said, "The only way to critique a film is to make another film."  So I am going to make my own list of what does and does not make a “cool record store”. And to answer that question: yes I AM a goddamn expert on the matter, trust me. I’m talking Antiques Road Show-Weirdo Effeminate Twins-talking about furniture- kind of expert. I’ve been across our great lands and that is basically all I do – go to record stores, not to mention that the field has paid for the house I live in, the car I drive, and the degree that does not hang on my wall (where’d I put that thing?) Ironically about the only thing the vocation of record stores has not paid for is a lot of the music I own (ah, perks) and the 1 of 643 free t-shirts I’m wearing right now.

I’ll just kick things off with three samples for each department and let you take it from there (in the comment section, of course):

*It should be duly noted that many of the shops on the list mentioned were genuinely great and well deserving of their props.     

The thing that is most disappointing about George Carlin’s career and his death is that the mainstream media will only remember him for his "Seven Words" material and not the inarguably brilliant and venomous nuggets that have spewed from him since the 80’s. You can read anything you want about him on the internet, but I think it best to know Carlin as one of the only comedians (possibly only comedian?) that got better as he entered his senior years. I saw him perform a lot, and he was always top notch. Although I’d like to think he’ll be missed, he certainly wouldn’t care. A nihilist philosopher, oh, and he was funny to boot. He died at 71 and was one of my great personal inspirations.

I’ve included his final in-depth interview conducted by Jeni Matz.

To prove my point about his later material, I’ve included bits about God, Americans, germs and the stupidity of human life.

George Carlin – Free Floating Hostility

George Carlin – Why We Don’t Need 10 Commandments

George Carlin – Extreme Human Behavior

George Carlin – Dumb Americans

George Carlin – There Is No God

George Carlin – Fear of Germs

"Of course My Morning Jacket and (insert band here) sound the same. Everybody sounds the same when they have a dick in their mouth."

Think you know who the band is? I will warn you that it’s a bit of a stumper.

First answer correct in the comments section gets a free "We’re All In This Together" t-shirt.

So today starts a gargantuan summer for Harvey Milk. Six weeks. Two continents.

And The Pleaser on double album gatefold just showed up and looks freakin’ amazing.

That’s my shipping department sleeping on the job with The Pleaser!

The first show is here in Atlanta. Tomorrow night is in Charlotte with what I would call the "Henry’s Dream Line Up" for 2008. Major Stars! Torche! Harvey Milk! Bam! Here’s the rest of the confirmed shows:
Jun 17, The Earl, Atlanta
Jun 18, The Milestone, Charlotte
Jun 19, Canal Club, Richmond
Jun 20, Knitting Factory, NYC
Jun 21, Great Scott, Boston
Jun 23, Europa, Brooklyn
Jun 24, Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia
Jun 25, Otto Bar, Baltimore
Jun 26, Soapbox, Wilmington
Jun 27, 40 Watt, Athens
Jun 28, Bottle Tree, Birmingham
Jul 6, Felerwerk, Munchen
Jul 7, Club Schocken, Stuttgart
Jul 8, Festaal Kreuzberg, Berlin
Jul 9, Hafenklang, Hamburg
Jul 10, Worm, Rotterdam
Jul 11, Recyclart, Brussels
Jul 12, Supersonic Festival, Birmingham
Jul 13, Stereo/ABC2, Glasgow
Jul 14, Ruby Lounge, Manchester
Jul 15, Underworld, London
Jul 16, La Maroquinerie, Paris
Jul 17, FZW, Dortmund
Jul 18, Dour Festival

West coast (and Texas/Arizona dates) will be announced real shortly.

One of the four twisted Stephen Tanner t-shirt designs

And here’s one of four t-shirt designs I worked on for the tour. My personal fave is the Women and Children shirt, but I don’t wanna ruin anything. You just have to see it.

My good buddy Sloan has posted live recordings from the last few local shows. All worth downloading.

That is all.

I feel so slighted. Massive blood match this fall. Their blood. Our match.

I should add that I’d put Death Cab For Cutie at the top of the whirlyball teams we’ve played along with The Arcade Fire and Les Savy Fav.

And here’s a photo of us with our most recent victims….Vampire Weekend. We won 16 to 12. Not too shabby. That puts us now at 45 and 0.

And a big 7" announcement is coming next week. Diplo. Dark Meat. Mmmmmm….

Thanks Curt!

And Team Chunklet is playing the nationals this weekend. No, I’m not kidding.

So the old lady and I went to Bonnaroo this past weekend. Pretty fun. Got to hang out with funny people and some friends that were playing.

One fun thing is I got to let two of the three people at the ‘Roo that were contributors to the book check it out. Here’s a photo of Dave Schools from Widespread Panic taking a second out of his hot yoga session to pose with the book.

“Hey man, can I smoke this?” asks Dave Schools….

Due out in September on Quirk. More information forthcoming.

Due to a job I had working at a greeting card store years ago, I’m not even remotely sentimental about holidays. Birthdays, anniversaries, everything. Blame the greeting card industry. Combined with that, my dad was never around. So when Father’s Day rolls around, I don’t think of him, but rather my mom who always did everything.

Anyway, with that bit of treacle out of the way, here’s Daddy’s Curses. A recording of a man working on fixing a piano with his l’il cuss of a son quietly recording his dad’s tirades far out of sight.

This recording, with its flurries of nonsensical profanity always make me smile.

Daddy’s Curses

Or high art? I can’t tell. David Byrne’s a genius.

"Holy shitty. I feel like Chevy Chase’s character in Caddyshack landed a record deal, wrote some lyrics and called Paul Simon to make the music all on a goof."

I practically bust a gut when I got that when she was at a rock show earlier tonight.

First person to name the band gets a free "We’re All In This Together" t-shirt.