tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-218427932024-03-19T08:35:27.568-04:00Stop Loving EverythingAndy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.comBlogger319125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-26072854067350329342016-07-06T15:03:00.001-04:002016-07-06T15:04:08.529-04:00
go here
stoplovingeverything.com
re-route soon
Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-56525710852724632502016-07-05T17:47:00.001-04:002016-07-05T18:54:34.184-04:00Goddamn That Singer Saved My Life: Nine Rock-Star Samaritans, Ranked
For someone in
the world, the following statements are true:
I was
defibrillated by David Lee Roth.
Anthony
Kiedis saved my baby.
9) We’ll begin
with composure. Bryan Ferry didn’t save anyone on a flight to Kenya in 2000,
but he did insist his son cease swearing as the plane plummeted. No small feat:
such was the near crash that other passengers later required literal changes ofAndy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-3576875839767559552016-06-24T14:12:00.000-04:002016-06-24T14:23:43.607-04:00A Total Debridement of the Heart: Other Music
Deerhoof released a new record, "The Magic," today. Shelve it with their focused, non genre-tributary releases. Under Deerhoof: Rawk.
In 2003, I bought my first Deerhoof record, "Apple 'O," at Other Music, which closes tomorrow.
Opposite to interstellar alignments, rock-bottoms will sync. Trenches intersect. Lows coincide. Namely, my plum, writerly day-job of nine years ended Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-26297444192468986062016-06-21T00:31:00.000-04:002016-06-21T01:40:18.949-04:00Autopsy for the Record Industry
Stephen Witt's superb "How Music Got Free" administers a bone saw to the music industry's corpse and details the official cause of death with a pathologist's detail. It's a slow, circuitous death, and every corner is set in fascinating detail, from Karlheinz Brandenberg's use of research on the possible spectrum of heard sounds in order to develop the specific compression innovations of the mp3Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-61429689444502870532016-06-15T15:29:00.000-04:002016-06-15T15:29:03.207-04:00That Time Sandy Denny Sang for Crazy Horse
woah
Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-82831076432837752942016-06-06T16:51:00.002-04:002016-06-21T01:46:19.969-04:00The Books I Can't Shake: Speculative Fiction
You read a little of this, a little of that. The celebrated prizewinners deliver as expected, but the majority of their books fall away from memory. Those that stick aren't the technical best, oddly. Maybe technical prowess is only a superficial concern when it comes to lasting art. Maybe this is how Kate Atkinson's "Life After Life," for all its timeshifting narrative skill, can still be a Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-59942676838126659542016-05-26T13:49:00.002-04:002016-06-21T01:46:42.875-04:00 Make America Drunk Again
Not so unusual to have a madman close to running our country considering America was founded upon the abuse of alcohol. Susan Cheever's slight but pleasing "Drinking in America" clarifies our major malfunction, beginning with the Mayflower's decision to put in at Plymouth only because they'd run out of beer. Those Revolutionary War stories of political and strategy meetings? In taverns, Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-88735702350127320302016-05-22T21:02:00.000-04:002016-06-21T02:07:32.926-04:00Elena Ferrante Vs. "KO" Knausgaard: Texas Style Cage Match
After word of mouth drove me to the killer first of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels, frustration with a library waiting list longer than a movie theater concession line necessitated my cash forkover for the next three (shout out to the Mysterious Bookshop, NYC). To say they didn't disappoint understates overstatements. Sadly, a fifth volume is impossible in a narrative sense -- taken togetherAndy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-75096945310010418022012-09-17T10:30:00.001-04:002012-09-17T10:33:03.443-04:00Seven Ways of Thinking About "The Art of Fielding"
Chad Harbach's Art of Fielding via My Laziness. Overused poetic trope, I know, but for book reviews? Maybe novel.
1.When amazing-hitting infielders lose their ability to throw to first, they become outfielders. See: Chuck Knoblauch, Gary Sheffield, etc. The book gives no reason why this change isn't made. Henry Skrimshander is the best hitter on the team. Which means someone else can Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-76225081293912045912012-09-08T10:51:00.003-04:002016-06-14T13:29:33.137-04:00
Last week: big for indie music geeks.
And the winner is:
Deerhoof - "Breakup Songs." Short and to the boogie-woogie-point, the point being your butt.
Runner-ups:
Cat Power's "Sun." I saw Chan Marshall in concert in 1997, and I saw her on the street last year near my home. Better-looking through chemistry. Better albums? Maybe. "Sun" departs from the soul formula of her last two albums, Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-23522199969802796472012-08-30T19:28:00.000-04:002012-08-30T19:37:59.200-04:00My Arms Are Open But My Hair Is Thin
Heard myself some Arcade Fire today, and realized I hadn't listened to them much since 2006 because they make music that lends drama to those young lives that lack any real drama of their own. And now I'm too old for drama. Thus: the music of people giving up. Like Nico's Chelsea Girl, or any Hank Williams. Codeine. Alex Chilton pre-1985.
With maybe the exception of this.
Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-62409414923906115192012-08-21T16:49:00.002-04:002016-06-14T13:32:04.400-04:00Ariel Pink, and Why
Ariel Pink first flashed across my radar maybe in 2003? A video on the defunct New York Noise (a tear falls): low budget, washed images of a live band, as inchoate as their impressionistic song, less a tune than pulses of noise, as if the Partridge Family had been embedded in a warped, chip-damaged Atari 2600 console.
And then I forgot about him. Until some years later, maybe in New York Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-39188362672307269672012-08-20T19:18:00.000-04:002012-08-20T20:07:40.674-04:00Crying Like a Car-Struck Cat
By everything, I didn't also mean writing.
Forgive me, oh blog. My separately occurring lows (parental death, physical injury, cyclical thinking requiring chemical adjustment, etc) outnumbered my highs in 2011 and 2012.
But whatever happens transforms into never-again. How about that?
The music never left. There were taste changes. There were hate changes. New loves. One of my Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-30517833157175661242011-01-10T11:52:00.001-05:002011-01-10T11:54:27.044-05:002010: Faves and DudsThe swirling drain owned 2010: Chilton, RS Howard. None is the number. And yet, Swans & Three Mile Pilot came back from the beyond, so, hey.(not proofread. Like you care.)Singles:"Troublesome Houses" - Bonnie Prince Billy and the Cairo Gang (off Wonder Show of the World)Oldham will never top this. So have sympathy for this album's other songs; while nice, none approach the melodic Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-57444075793689461922010-10-18T10:11:00.010-04:002010-10-21T10:43:02.689-04:00semi-never roundup of newish album releasesBut first, a word from Otto, our literary editor, on Franzen's Freedom: As usual, NY Times critic Michiko Kakutani's intern was reading a different book than I read. A surprisingly trashy (in comparison with The Corrections) 800+ pages of gossip following mostly unlikeable people as they fail or succeed despite their personality flaws, Freedom's only defense could be as a comedy, in the vein of Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-25517713691337831942010-03-19T10:33:00.002-04:002010-03-19T10:39:48.969-04:00New Release Roundup: Alex Chilton Took a Piece of Me UpstairsNew Orleans, you stole something from me, and I want it back.Here We Go Magic - PigeonsNot a turn for the better, but: moments. Less collage&mood and more Eno-ish pop than their still-unassailable debut. But - did Luke Temple injure his voice? On some tracks, he misses.Aloha - Home Acres What can I say? I just flat-the-fuck-out dig the emo Genesis (Gabriel-era, thanks). Darker, this one, but Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-46379568610892408702010-03-14T18:28:00.007-04:002010-03-14T19:40:16.077-04:00Beyond their Greatest Hits Comp, There is no Reason for the Existence of the Following::1) The Smithereens2) The Foo Fighters3) Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers4) The Cars5) The Rolling Stones (not one album a masterpiece all the way through, not even Exile)6) Belle & Sebastien (do they have a hits comp out?)7) Any of the solo Beatles8) The Four Tops9) The Pretenders10) Orange Juice11) Ultravox12) The Bee Gees13) The Jam (tho it pains me; but yeah.)14) Madonna (pick one) 15) Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-79811913884754313712009-12-04T10:55:00.009-05:002009-12-07T14:18:34.515-05:00I'd Rather Be Bob Stinson in His Coffin than Lou Reed in his Limo: Top Albums & Tracks of 2009Goodbye to the Sextape Decade.Albums, no order:The Clean - Mister PopThe greatest band formed before 1980 and still making music.Wilderness - (K)no(w)hereReally an EP, but I'll take anything. Pre-attack music for pirates.Future of the Left - Travels with Myself and AnotherMcClusky can be made a dim memory if FotL's records continue to be this angry and catchy.Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou - Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-57233191286767276772009-09-23T16:31:00.002-04:002009-09-23T16:36:09.053-04:00Mini Music Reviews: New Release Roundup Vol 1Don't call it a comeback. More coming, too.Reviews for the time-challenged:Big Star - Keep an Eye on the SkyThis kicks any record off any desert island list I've made in the past. There's so much on this collection that I hadn't heard, all of it good -and I call myself a fan -- that my skull cracked open from such pop delicacy. These guys threw away demos and songs most bands would suffer Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-90346906889396662912009-03-23T09:07:00.002-04:002009-03-23T09:11:53.464-04:00new release roundup: Oh, the Underwhelm-mentPeter, Bjorn, & John - Living ThingD.O.A.Super Furry Animals - Dark Days/Light YearsWelsh supervillians glass-blow ELO-meets-Elephant6-collective magic pop. They release oodles of albums, so I just picked this one. The others might be as good, or just marginally different depending on your mood. Best moment: "The Very Best of Neil Diamond," with its Bollywood-meets-Love nuttiness, tops most of Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-55279311659057072962009-03-22T09:24:00.002-04:002009-03-22T09:30:25.814-04:00the Mummies - Uncontrollable urge (live 1991)
#3 in Bands I miss Most from the 90s: The Mummies.
"This next one goes out to fuckin' me"
Maybe the best cover song of the 90s.
Good freakin' God I miss the Mummies. They get my vote for the greatest song title ever: "Sooprize Package for Mr. Mineo!"Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-65773828233046339282009-03-17T15:35:00.001-04:002009-03-17T15:35:48.648-04:00skywave -don't say slow#4 in the "Bands I Miss Most from the 90s"While all you neu-shoegazers were still wearing Garanimals, I was scooping up Skywave seven inches without reading the price tag. Ackerman went on to help form A Place to Bury Strangers, which is alright, I guess, but Skywave had the songs. "Don't Say Slow" is not at all Skywave's only high point. Good luck finding their output - all of it was Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-33877891008186270672009-02-05T10:04:00.001-05:002009-02-05T10:04:09.391-05:00Gang Starr - Mass Appeal#5 in the "Bands/Artists I Miss Most from the 90s"Gang Starr might have dropped their debut in '89 and a decent - actually excellent -- album in 2003 ("Ownerz"), but they're of and by the 90s. Most of their product still makes the likes of fitty, snoop, etc, sound like punks.I represent /set up shit like a tent, boy / you're paranoid/ because you're my son like Elroy"Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-70282612289960887382009-01-27T13:32:00.002-05:002009-01-27T13:35:51.919-05:00We interrupt this list for a translated album reviewPitchfork's review of the new Franz Ferd album (7.3):More so than stoking the band's current commercial prospects, Tonight is an exciting record for what it could potentially spell for Franz Ferdinand's future-- from here, you could just as easily imagine the band further exploring electro-house productions, or stripping their sound down and making a folk record, or delving into tropical Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21842793.post-50155117771426332792009-01-19T08:25:00.001-05:002009-01-19T08:25:39.073-05:00Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet#6 in my "Bands/Artists from the 90s Whom I Miss Most"Known widely for their theme ("Having an Average Weekend") and incidental music for the Kids in the Hall show, SMOASP made three of the best - maybe the best ever -- albums of surf-rock. And I'm counting the Ventures, Dick Dale, and the Mermen in that statement. I think one member's death undid any chances of a reunion following their Andy Fenwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09405125509428023640noreply@blogger.com0