Y'all mind if I drive?

The weekend's all gone. It's Monday night, so here are my/your editorial favorites for the next week:


1. The Neko Case interview at Pitchfork. I'm kind of over the 'Fork -- it's not them, it's me -- but it seems like Neko really lets loose in this one, although it ends too quickly for my tastes. Here's a sample:

Pitchfork: Still, there are lots of traditional elements to the songwriting. It's not like a Brian Eno record.

Case: That's totally true. I'm a huge Brian Eno fan and Taking Tiger Mountain is one of my favorite albums of all time. But when I think about songwriting my mind goes first to things like Roy Orbison or Dolly Parton or any classic songs by the Platters or Jackie Wilson. Or old r&b songs like "Nothing Takes the Place of You". They're really simple structurally and they don't adhere to a time or place, and that's very powerful. I think of all songwriting as high art, but that's what I instinctively think of first. Not that more experimental artists aren't just as valid. I'm sure lurking under the surface in my mind are people like Brian Eno and Roxy Music wearing giant sideburns and leopard skin pants going, "You can put a saxophone on it!" In my sleep, I'm tossing and turning. Bryan Ferry's going, "Neko, wake up. You don't have to do it that way." [laughs]

Pitchfork: That's quite a dream.

Case: I've had a waking dream like that but not a sleeping one.

(Read it all here: http://pitchforkmedia.com/interviews/c/case_neko-06/)

2. The Alternative Press Expo. Rogue Reporter and I went on Saturday and, though it was totally overwhelming, and I think the goodly geek overload actually rendered her physically ill, I came home with some new comic wonderfulness, all of which is serving to inspire me in my own wannabe graphic novelling. One thing I bought was "Locas in Love," which collects the first four Penny Century comics. Wotta phenomenon! I also got "Fortune's Bitch," a local comic that follows a luck-obsessed sex worker around the Tenderloin. (Sorry, I can't find a link for it.) And I got the first volume of "Hopeless Savages," a sort of Anglophile Locas Lite meets Spy Kids. It's cute as a button: http://www.onipress.com/store/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=223

3. Bunnywith: My Book of a Thousand Bunnies. This didn't come from APE -- Ross brought it home and I think it's funnier than a seven-arm chickenshaped ticklebot. Or something. There is definitely something wrong with me. http://www.eyesuckink.com/Bunnywith/BunnyBook1.htm

4. Having a friend who works at a record store. My friend/favorite ex-boyfriend ever took me out to lunch today and gave me a huge stack of vinyl:
The Kinks, "Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneyground"
The Billie Holiday Story Vol. 1
The Stone Poneys, "Evergreen Vol. 2"
GWW "John Birch Society Blues" (A Dylan bootleg, apparently)
Tim Hardin Golden Archive Series
John Prine s/t
Merle Haggard's/ tribute to Bob Wills
Ella Fitzgerald sings the Duke Ellington songbook

... and two more that I already have, which he instructed me to pass on to others. He also gave me two new boxes of tapes for my car. It all does my unemployed heart SO much good. We also frolicked amongst the junk sculptures of the Albany Bulb. Let's hear it for bicycle wheels!