GUITAR NIGHT Song List

• Wipe Out
• Johnny B. Goode
• Pretty Woman
• Roadhouse Blues
• Jumpin Jack Flash
• Summertime Blues
• Honky Tonk Women
• Mony Mony
• House of the Rising Sun
• Wild Thing
• Gloria
• Louie Louie

Why aren’t I this clever.

Jam Band Fan or Taliban?

- White male
- Mid 20’s
- Shaggy Hair
- Red t-shirt that reads “Got Culture?”

as I walk by he tells his similarly attired compatriot…. “Dude, we’ve totally got to find a sports bar.”

I fucking love this city.

So I’ve recently made the decision to re-acquire my LP’s in digital form, instead of converting them myself. Naturally, I’m starting with the things that I miss the most. Today I bought the re-issues “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” & “The Gilded Palace of Sin / Burrito Deluxe”. Which after a first listen I am marginally happy with, I just miss the vinyl sounds of hiss & pop. Don’t get me wrong… they are still some of my favorite albums ever, but there is just something lost in the analog to digital conversion and I can’t really put my finger on it.

On a whim I decided to pick up Another Side of This Life: The Lost Recordings of Gram Parsons, 1965-1966.

For the most part, the reviews of it that I had read were not overwhelming. But I am actually quite surpised at how really good it is. It’s a lot more folky and less soulful than his later solo stuff, but the songwriting and performaces are very solid and it provides an interesting contrast to an artist that I thought I knew almost everything about.

Parson’s ability to exists in the worlds of Folk, Country, and Rock is expertly displayed here in it’s infancy as he moves easily from soft melodic phrasing of Brass Buttons…

my mind was young until she grew
my secret thoughts known only by the few
it was a dream much too real
to be leaned against too long

…which appears on his later solo efforts, to the chunky acoustic riffs of blues rock masterpieces Codine & She’s the Woman I Love / Good Time Music, this is Gram Parsons at his absolute best. The album itself has a very intimate feel to it, every track features a lone guitar / vocal track recorded live which makes it feel oddly like looking at early family photos of someone you met in college, and realizing how much growth and experience can be packed into the years since.

This record is perfect for longtime Parson’s fans, as well as fans of the Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers, but could serve as a poor introduction to his music. If you are unfamiliar with his work I recommend starting with the re-issues of his later solo works GP & Grevious Angel.

Let me start this by saying that this morning I saw the new Ryan Adams album “Easy Tiger” on display at the Starbucks next to my office, which confrims earlier sightings by both Kiala and Josh.

This is depressing for more than one reason, but since I was actually IN the Starbucks buying things, my credibility in this matter is already suspect, so I will allow you to decide what these reasons are… on your own, while I suck down my tasty mocha.

Now I love Ryan Adams (watch me), I’ve loved him since I heard “Heartbreaker” for the first time in late 2000. So watching him slowly self-destruct over the past few years has been fairly hard for me to swallow. He’s gone from “Post-Winona breakup - Ryan” also known as “Heroin - Ryan” to “I’m going to be bigger than Springsteen when ‘Gold’ comes out - Ryan” to “Ok… so that whole bigger than Springsteen thing really didn’t work out - Ryan” which leads us to his current incarnation “Fuck this… I need to pay my bills - Ryan”.

It’s not like he went on a reality show or anything… He’s simply made the safe (read: sober) choice this time around and put out something that will hopefully garner him mainstream recognition, sales, and possibly a track or two on the soundtrack for the next Drew Barrymore & Hugh Grant romantic / comedic romp.

“Everybody can’t be cool. Somebody’s gotta be the fucking dork. And I’m the dork. Or the asshole, or whatever.”

-Ryan Adams

Depending on the tightness of your jeans, this may be a dealbreaker.

The album as a whole is not a complete throw away, there are some very decent tacks on here, but there is nothing that we haven’t seen him do better in his earlier efforts. The best track on the album “These Girls” is just a more polished and yet somewhat less spectacular version of a unreleased track that appeared on “Destroyer”.

Here is the chorus of “Mrs. Lovely” as it appears on “Destroyer”:

Hey there Mrs. Lovely are you coming out to play?
I’ve been stranded on your doorstep every night and day
and I want you so bad
but when you cry
I get scared
wanna dry your eyes with cinnamon and pears

and here is the (in my opinion) lyrically inferior chorus of “These Girls” from Easy Tiger:

The late night girls are anxious and they’re coming out to play
and i’ve been stranded on their doorstep for every night and day
I only want them more
it’s so sad but when they smile
God, i’ve been had
I get hypnotized and i wanna go to bed

What this album does do well is make me nostalgic for the old Ryan Adams, every time I put it on, I find myself opening iTunes and switching to “The Suicide Handbook”, “Love is Hell pt. 2″, or even “Demolition”.

I guess what I’m getting at here, is that “Easy Tiger” is like “Ryan Adams for Dummies” it feels like he’s just holding his cards very close to his vest… chest… vest… ummmm whatever. If you listen very carefully you can tell that a genius is trapped in there somewhere, but maybe this time it just didn’t try hard enough to escape… or maybe it just made a calculated decision to hold back on this one.

So…. I threw together a really simple website for my friend Josh’s alt-country band, Donerail.

Check it out and let me know what you think of both the design and the functionality.

LINK: http://www.thedonerail.com

…is 16 year-old Jesse Lange, for nailing Bill O’Reilly on his own show with his own book.

You can also read more about Jesse @ Radar.

So… I’ve been goofin around with the ActionScript 3 Flickr library, and so far I am able to retrieve pictures based on an email address and resize and display them… here, check it out.

The Consumerist points us to this gem:

Toddler served margarita in a sippy cup

Am I the only one who blames the kid? Clearly he’s got a problem, and if I learned anything from Lindsay Lohan and Britney its that when it comes to rehab, its better to be safe than sorry.

Ruby Isle is the capitalizing on the awesome news that Sonic Youth will be performing Daydream Nation in its entirety during a select few shows this summer. So they’ve posted an electro pulse cover version of Daydream classic “Teen Age Riot.”

For our Los Angeles friends:
Sonic Youth :: Daydream Nation
07/20 :: Greek Theatre
Los Angeles, CA