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2007:10:22:14:41. Monday. DODD'S SHRILL HIPPIE ARMY. This month's Daily Kos straw poll is happening today, and as it stands Chris Dodd is up to 21% from 7% in September, running second to John Edwards at 31%. His gains appear to have come largely at the expense of Edwards (down 8%) and Barack Obama (down 5%), and are almost certainly reflective of fundraising gains as well -- I threw him another $25 at our last wireless sit-down in Vancouver. This isn't a particularly surprising result, and it's a welcome one; Dodd's the only candidate that's actually strongly pushing for the agenda that the Democrats ran on last fall, and he's in a position to do something about it as a sitting Senator. Perhaps not coincidentally, approval polls for Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have also been posted today at DKos -- they're at 12% and 10%, respectively.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2007:10:20:13:01. Saturday. DODDMENTUM. About a month ago I gave $25 to the Chris Dodd campaign, and added support for Dodd to my Facebook profile. The reason is that he started to be extremely vocal about getting us out of Iraq right away, and also started to make waves about it in the Senate. Unlike Bill Richardson, who has the same approach to Iraq but the worst campaigning style in history and a tendency to sell out domestic Democratic principles, or Dennis Kucinich, who is an elf and a flip-flopper on reproductive rights, Dodd is right on basically all the issues (I hate his national service proposal, but I'm sure it would be a legislative non-starter). He's showing it now by placing a hold on the completely unconscionable bill to retroactively immunize telecom companies for working with the Bush Administration to illegally wiretap American phones and computer networks, and he may get some more money from me for it, depending on how much this Vancouver trip winds up costing. I'm not the only one to fall under the sway of the senior Senator from Connecticut -- he leapt from 2% to 7% in the latest Daily Kos straw poll, and got some public support from Kos himself. This has yet to translate into real world polling support, however, as Richardson's online support eventually did. I have to wonder if there's still time for Dodd -- Richardson broke through into double digits after the bloom was off his online support rose, and he's still there in some polls. With any luck, his pushback on the telecom thing will be enough to break him into some mainstream attention, or at least get him more free airtime on Sunday mornings and in the horribly structured "debates." I'm not prepared to say I'll vote for him yet -- he may not even be in the race anymore once it gets to Wisconsin -- but he's the only candidate that doesn't have a big strike against him in my book, and maybe the only hedge against me writing in Al Gore.
2007:10:20:08:00. NO!: THE BOX SOCIAL (#334, OCT 12 2007).
Of course, the times the Box Social sound most like Nirvana playing Tom Petty covers is when they're actually playing Tom Petty covers. They play "I Need to Know" fairly regularly, but at this show it was "Refugee," to show off their friend and album organist Ryan Lynch, whom I believe was sitting in live for the first time. During his part of the set, they also played (perhaps for the first time live, since it needs the organ part) "Galoshes," which Emily got to do handclaps on for the record, and a synthed-up version of their cover of the Talking Heads' "Life During Wartime." At the end of their set, with another band still to come, they got called back up for encore and played the Ramones' "Rockaway Beach" to huge cheers. They play next at the Annex this coming Thursday, and should be seen if you haven't already had the chance.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2007:10:19:08:00. Friday. NO!: THE BOX SOCIAL (#333, OCT 12 2007).
The Box Social sometimes describe their sound as being like Nirvana playing Tom Petty covers, and it think that description is most accurate on this song. The shimmery, dropped sound and dripping bass of Nevermind can be heard throughout the tune and makes me wonder what Madison resident Butch Vig might've made of their record. On an album full of guitar pop, it's a big rock that grows on you the longer you stick with it.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2007:10:18:08:00. Thursday. NO!: THE BOX SOCIAL (#332, OCT 12 2007).
It's a sure sign of the Box Social's growing prominence and popularity in Madison that a handful of fans belted out the "Fuck M.O.!" rejoinder in the last verse of this tune. While shooting the documentary of this album's recording process, that was probably the best bit as well -- looking to get a good echo effect to emphasize that line, producer Dave Rieley sent the band halfway down a concrete stairwell and had them shout it out several times, then layered it way back in the mix. The effect sounds pretty great, and it's apparently a hit with the fans.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2007:10:17:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: THE GRIZZLIES (#331, OCT 12 2007).
About halfway through the Grizzlies' set, the left side of the stage inexplicably lost power, leaving one of the guitar players strumming away in futility. They borrowed some of the Box Social's equipment, I think, but it still took a few minutes to get things straightened out. As luck would have it, that's just when the other guitar player and bass player were going to switch spots anyway, which led into some more folk-rocky stuff than their earlier songs had been.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2007:10:16:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: THE GRIZZLIES (#330, OCT 12 2007).
The crowd was surprisingly strong for this show, even at the beginning of the evening. The Grizzlies seemed to feed off that a bit, and once they got into the poppier section of their set it really showed. Check out how into it (and possibly drunk) that singer is!
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2007:10:15:08:00. Monday. NO!: THE GRIZZLIES (#329, OCT 12 2007).
After a couple near-misses, we finally saw local folk-popsters the Grizzlies at last week's Madison Music Project showcase show, as they opened an all-local three-band bill. I picked up their record on our way out, but this song doesn't seem to be on it. I also can't find the lyrics online, so I assume it's not a cover. New material at the top of the set already? Perhaps -- only time and YouTube comments will tell.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2007:10:13:21:24. Saturday. QUALITY QUESTIONS. A couple weeks ago, Esther Thorson from the University of Missouri was here to give a talk about the decline of American newspapers. Like most such talks in the academy, it was full of concerns over structural changes in American political media and awful it is that nobody wants to have a civil discussion anymore, etc. In the Q&A, one of our professors raised the idea that perhaps we're not turning away from the traditional press because we want an ideologically-driven one, but because we don't really care about "the news" and we never have. This comment got me wondering something else -- why don't these discussions ever contain any suggestion that there has been a dramatic drop in the quality of American political reporting over the past two decades? There are perfectly understandable practical reasons for this, to be sure, the big one being that even the most scientifically rigorous analysis will be at least a little bit subjective, and thus open to being dismissed by partisan critics. But so what? Social science findings are frequently controversial, both inside and outside the academy. I'm posting this because a couple recent comments by Matthew Yglesias have really gotten me thinking closely about the quality issue and the extent to which journalists and the audience view it differently. As he notes as part of an ongoing debate about why cable news channels spend so much time on tabloid stories -- the common answer seeming to be that it's because they bring in ratings -- there is no allowance for the idea that these news organizations are doing nothing but produced lots of useless crap:
Given that the country adds over two million people a year to its population, the fact that the audience seems to have stalled for years at around 1.5 million hardly suggests a wildly successful programming model. Indeed, it seems to me that in some ways the worst damage financial pressures have done to journalism is to let so many people get off the hook by using it as an excuse. It's considered sacrilege in the business to suggest that low quality might be a cause of declining circulation for newspapers or audience for network news broadcasts. Instead, we're supposed to believe that it's the reverse -- problems are all caused by cutbacks which, in turn, are caused by the audience's stubborn unwillingness to cooperate and subscribe.
As for the news organizations themselves, they also like to place the blame on the viewers by occasionally doing stories about how much the public likes these tabloid affairs, so jeez, what else can they do? When anybody complains about the content of their rare political reporting, they point fingers in both directions and declare, "Both sides are complaining, so we must be right!" But then they do things like correctly quoting Fred Thompson claiming that Medicare Part D cost $72 trillion, rather than the actual figure of $72 billion, without noting Thompson's error. Yglesias:
Now you're walking around thinking a $72 trillion commitment was made. You read it in the newspaper, after all. Except it's wrong! But you shouldn't be un-learning things when you read the paper.
The problem here is that, as Yglesias says, people now believe the incorrect figure to be true, because a legitimate newspaper printed it without making note of Thompson's mistake. But the reporter would likely say that there was nothing wrong with her story because, hey, Thompson said "$72 trillion," and that's what she printed. Pointing out his mistake wouldn't have been objective, since it would mean, I guess, taking a position on whether or not Medicare Part D cost $72 billion or a thousand times that much. This inability to apply standards of truthfulness in even the most objectively supported situation is the number one problem with modern American journalism, and it should be a scandal in journalism education.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2007:10:12:08:00. Friday. NO!: EISLEY (#328, OCT 7 2007).
Although they didn't play much from their much-loved-by-me debut LP -- I thought "Trolleywood" would've made a superb closer -- they did play this terrific cut, which got them some decent radio exposure in their early days. It's one of my favorites, and it does a great job of showcasing the excellent vocal harmonies that are so prevalent on Room Noises. I had generally assumed that those were a product of the studio, but they were perfectly recreated live, revealed a kind of singing talent that I don't a chance to see too often.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2007:10:11:08:00. Thursday. NO!: EISLEY (#327, OCT 7 2007).
I was pleasantly surprised to hear the reaction to this old Eisley song, from one of their early EP's. I don't know what kind of fanbase they have -- I guess enough to have released a second major-label record -- but that there was excitement about this track gives me hope that they'll keep growing. I'm also glad that they're not just tying themselves down to only playing new material as an opening act. They've got a relatively deep catalog given their age, and I like that they're using it.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2007:10:10:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: EISLEY (#326, OCT 7 2007). I was, and still am, a huge fan of Eisley's first full-length album, but their new one is taking a while to grow on me. The lead single, "Invasion," is a nice burst of light psychedelic and synth lines, but the rest mostly isn't clicking. This track is one of the exceptions that I find myself singing along to when it pops into my ears, and its fragile, sing-songy melody would've fit in well with the best of their first record.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2007:10:09:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: EISLEY (#325, OCT 7 2007).
Despite the fact that I hate the venue, I was really excited about Eisley finally coming through Madison, even as an opener. They were the only opening band on the show, so they got to play a pretty decent-length set and seemed well-appreciated by the audience, hopefully enough so that they come back on their own soon. Now, being a Barrymore show, the usual caveats apply. Primarily, the sound is awful. The treble bounces all over the room in that place, and in an effort to offset it (and to sound like a bigger venue, I suspect), they crank the bass. Surprisingly, the sound in these clips is actually a little better than what got to my plugged ears, but it's still a bit too muffled and distorted on the low end. This song, the opening track from their new album, features a glimpse at the beautiful vocals they bring to most of their tunes, but suffers from the room's acoustics during the breakdown B-section.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2007:10:05:08:00. Friday. NO!: THE BRUNETTES (#324, SEP 25 2007).
About midway through their set, the band stopped to tune or something, and things get really quiet. So Emily shouted out for "Mars Loves Venus," the title track from their previous album. So naturally, they played it. But not only that, they used it to kick off a two-song dance contest, the winner of which would get a free CD or shirt or whatever. And we danced the shit out of it -- seriously, we were awesome, and almost nobody else in the audience really threw themselves into it. So naturally, some dude in a red shirt won. A dude that happened to be part of the opening band! A bit fishy, I think. Anyway, they also played this fun little number about hairstyling.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2007:10:03:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: THE BRUNETTES (#323, SEP 25 2007).
This was the song that woke people up when we saw the Brunettes in 2005, and it did it again this time. The makeshift horn section, the posing, the handclaps, all of it goes together to form a superb pop symphony, which helps to kick off the slightly darker and fuller sound of their new record. One of the top tunes of the year.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2007:10:01:08:00. Monday. NO!: THE BRUNETTES (#322, SEP 25 2007).
Emily and I first heard of the Brunettes when we went to see the Shins in Milwaukee about two and a half years ago. They were completely new to us, and we were surprised to see an oversized New Zealand indie pop band as the only opener -- I believe they may have had even a couple more people than the six they have on their current tour. From start to finish, they blew us away -- I immediately regretted having not brought my camera to the show -- and they absolutely stole the show from the mostly lifeless Shins. We weren't the only ones, as it turned out. Having impressed audiences all over the country, they landed a deal with Sub Pop to distribute their then-current second album in the US, and to eventually release its follow-up. This is the title track to that follow-up effort, a slightly darker and fuller-sounding take than their first two albums, though it would just about have to be given the incredibly twee lightness of the Brunettes' sound.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra |
