To Kill a Dead Man

Unofficial word: Bandoppler is going down for the third and final time. I wrote a review of the most recent Half-Handed Cloud album for them, which may be published on their site in the near future before it's all over.

Um, also, this is real: Portishead on MySpace. Geoff Barrow, on his blog there, goes on about how bands like Moby and Gorillaz are awful because they're "mass marketed." I guess Portishead was never mass-marketed and that's why they have 14,000 friends on MySpace. Moral: mysterious bands from Bristol should stay mysterious. There are some new song sketches on there, though, and some beautiful live videos of the band. Beth Gibbons always looks like she's about to die whenever she's singing -- in a good way. When we saw her at the EMP she didn't say a word to the crowd for an hour except at the very end, when she said "OK, now, let's get to the jokes" and sang one more song. (She didn't tell any jokes.) Oh, also they've finally admitted that Adrian Utley is in the band which is good because HE TOTALLY HAS ALWAYS BEEN IN THE BAND.

I'm sorry I don't have too many new insights on things, I just have links. (I am procrastinating finals right now.) I'm listening to and thinkning about the Weakerthans a lot, so read this (old) great piece of writing by John K. Samson of that band.