• Arcade Fire – Funeral. So, I recently really listened to Arcade Fire for what might be the first time. Previously, I had only heard a couple of songs here and there and I thought they sounded something like Magnetic Fields. And that was enough to keep me from wanting to hear more. Then they did a couple of songs on The Daily Show last month; and while I didn’t really get into the songs, the fact that they didn’t sound much like what I thought Arcade Fire sounded like was enough to get me to give the band a second chance. And then I bought this record, and discovered that most new bands sound like Arcade Fire.

  But who or what does Arcade Fire sound like to me? I mean, as opposed to all the bands who sound like Arcade Fire. Well, after listening to this record a few times, plus seeing them play live (on TV anyway), two bands immediately come to mind: Broken Social Scene and the New Pornographers. All three of these bands are large (in terms of members), Canadian, and they all do a lot of dense, large-scale, multi-part anthems:

  Arcade Fire, Neighborhood #1.
  New Pornographers, Bleeding Heart Show.
  Broken Social Scene, Forced To Love.

  And since I like BSS and The New Pornos, and because I think Arcade Fire’s sound is close to those two bands, I obviously must like Arcade Fire, too. Right?

  Right. Mostly.

  But! I think Broken Social Scene is the more interesting of the three. And I think the New Pornographers’ best songs are better than anything I’ve heard from either of the other two.

  What bugs me about Arcade Fire is that I hear their sound everywhere. Probably 75% of the new bands I’ve heard in the past couple of years have songs that sound exactly like Arcade Fire songs. Here’s the formula:

  1. Moderately brisk drums, very straight, very steady.
  2. One instrument, strings probably, plays a simple and very slow moving melody, often using very long notes. Major key. Big dramatic resolutions.
  3. Another instrument might play a quicker, simple repeating melody in the background.
  4. The singer cries. (This is very important!)
  5. The volume slowly builds until the chorus when the whole thing explodes and the singer cries as loud as he can. (also very important!)
  6. Repeat.

  Three raquos: »»»

• Sam Prekop – Old Punch Card. Prekop is the singer and rhythm (non-lead?) guitar player for the Sea And Cake (and he also shows up on Broken Social Scene’s new record, which was produced by the Sea And Cake’s drummer, John McEntire – and the two bands are touring together this fall). Prekop has put out two solo records which sound a lot like stripped-down, mid-period, Sea And Cake records (while the solo stuff by the other guitar player, Archer Prewitt, sounds nothing like SnC). I love those Sam Prekop solo records. Love em. So, I was pretty excited to see a new Prekop solo record was coming out.

  I imported the CD into iTunes and played the first track – wide eyed, big smile, anticipating. And I hear electronic bleeps and boops and clicking and sweeping. And I think… my, this is a long intro… And four minutes later, that track ends and it wasn’t an intro to anything. OK, so he did a Musique concrète track. Track two will be a real song! Bazzztttt… booooop. Whirrrrr. OK maybe iTunes imported the CD incorrectly. Maybe the MP3s are corrupt. Maybe…? I play the CD directly, skipping iTunes. Same thing. Bad CD? Did Thrill Jockey screw up and send me a data CD ? check the printing on it, nope, says it’s Prekop’s new CD.

  I check the Thrill Jockey description of the record and…

  Old Punch Card is the third solo album by Sam Prekop with a completely unexpected sound unlike anything he’s created before.
  …
  The ideas and implementation of Old Punch Card (the album title alluding to the electronic, faintly mechanic origins of the music) were the result of an entirely new challenge: to do something completely different from anything else he’s ever created. To facilitate this end, Prekop implemented a series of strict guidelines for the recording of the album. No vocals, no guitar (though he slipped in this regard on one track), and no beats. Most of the sound material is generated by a modular synthesizer. By its very nature, it excels at some things and not at others. It’s very difficult to play a conventional chord, while on the other hand, it excels at creating completely unanticipated sounds and is rather effective when it comes to “chance” composing strategies.

  Yeah. Wish I’d read that first.

  As I said above, I love me some Sam Prekop solo stuff, but I just just can’t even listen to this.
  Zero raquos. (oh how that hurts to write).

MSNBC:
Homeless man calls 911 from hot tub, seeks cocoa

A homeless man who called 911 from the hot tub of a suburban Portland home and asked for towels, hot chocolate and a hug got arrested for trespassing instead.

Beaverton police say Mark Eskelsen called 911 from his cell phone, identified himself as “the sheriff of Washington County,” and asked for medical help. He later admitted he wasn’t the sheriff but informed the dispatcher he’d been “yelling for about an hour and a half.”

The man said in his Sunday morning call that he’d been in the water about 10 hours and his towels had gotten wet. As he put it, “I just need a hug and a warm cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows in it.”

Though that actually sounds a little sad.

A new report concludes that chief executives of the 50 firms that have laid off the most workers since the onset of the economic crisis in 2008 took home 42 percent more pay in 2009 than their peers at other large U.S. companies.

Yay!

“We often find CEOs are simply taking action in the face of an economic crisis to reduce expenses,” he said. “The thinking is that, in the future the company’s productivity will increase (and) that it will ultimately perform more efficiently, and this usually garners a positive reaction on Wall Street.”

I can think of a way to reduce expenses even more…

Clearly Yglesias is right that a party which is currently enjoying an energized base thanks to an ever-more-violent, and self-created, storm of nativist bigotry and religious hatred would never stoop so low as to play games with the economy for electoral advantage. Unthinkable! What a totally unfair accusation!

How could anyone say a party which routinely uses bogus “culture war” issues to keep the rabble roused and turning out during elections would ever take advantage of the tendency for people to vote against the President’s party during times of economic downturn ?

For a long time now, I’ve been thinking that a lot of new bands sound like Coldplay: Middle Distance Runner, Frightened Rabbit, Kings Of Leon, We Were Promised Jetpacks, etc.. I was wrong. As it turns out, 50% of all new bands sound like Arcade Fire.

That’s what I get for waiting so long to actually listen to Arcade Fire.

Carry on.

Let this week…

1. Blue Sky Boys – Let Me Be Your Salty Dog
2. Robyn Hitchcock – Rainy Twilight Coast (alternate version)
3. The Beatles – Piggies
4. Brandi Carlile – I Will
5. Beastie Boys – Shadrach
6. Minor Threat – Straight Edge
7. Modest Mouse – Truckers Atlas
8. Doc & Merle Watson – Freight Train Blues
9. Caribou – Melody Day
10. Bob Dylan – Bob Dylan’s Blues

… begin.

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The Obama administration, via the EPA, would like people to comment on its plan to ban lead in ammunition.

Will Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson make a back door move to ban lead bullets the day before the November 2 elections?

Several environmentalist groups led by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) are petitioning the EPA to ban lead bullets and shot (as well as lead sinkers for fishing) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Although EPA is barred by statute from controlling ammunition, CBD is seeking to work farther back along the manufacturing chain and have EPA ban the use of lead in bullets and shot because non-lead alternatives are available.

But here’s the catch: the alternatives to lead bullets are more expensive. A ban on the sale of lead ammunition would force hunters and sport shooters to buy non-lead ammunition that is often double the cost of traditional lead ammunition. A box of deer hunting bullets in a popular caliber could be upwards of $55.

Although the EPA could have dismissed the request due to a lack of jurisdiction, it is obliging CBD. The EPA has asked for public comment on banning lead in ammunition, and an EPA notice was published seeking public comment that closes on October 31.

Piss off gun owners right before the election? Give the NRA a real reason to attack you so it doesn’t have to rely on the unfounded scare tactics it has had to make do with up to now? Good thinking!