The Current Music Blog: August 8, 2006 Archive

Writer's Block? Or Producer's Constipation?

Posted at 10:27 AM on August 8, 2006 by Hans Eisenbeis (2 Comments)

Portishead, the celebrated "trip-hop" band we all knew and loved ten years ago, is allegedly in the studio working on a long-awaited third album. (The second was "Live at Roseland NYC"—a great if flawed record. Terrible, depressing, even hurtful version of "Sour Times.") According to the band's MySpace page, lovingly pecked on a keyboard without caps lock or punctuation by Portishead-maestro Geoff Barrow, "Things aren't going too well." When one fan offered some free advice regarding bringing in a star producer to help piull it off—like, say, Danger Mouse—Barrow finally lost his cool.

"id rather poo in my mums suday roast than have danger mouse produce a portishead record............no offence."

Okay, then. Next time we're at the Barrow's for Sunday Dinner… uh, pass the horseradish sauce, if you please.

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Happy Monday: The New And Notable

Posted at 11:55 AM on August 8, 2006 by Hans Eisenbeis

Lambchop is releasing its eighth album, "Damaged." Folks are buzzing about a song that singer/songwriter Kurt Wagner constructed entirely out of quotes from a call-in show on Tennessee Public Radio. At least in theory, the song captures the uneasy tension in which Lambchop exists in its hometown of Nashville. Here, Wagner says,

"We're just a bit too weird a notion for Nashville. It's not a city that exactly relates to oddity."

That, of course, is a little like saying Las Vegas is a city that doesn't relate to money. But we know what he means.

Continuing Thread: Band Names That Are Complete Sentences, Sweet!

Posted at 4:01 PM on August 8, 2006 by Hans Eisenbeis

A noble obsession is the effort to find and celebrate rock bands whose names are entire, gramatically feasible sentences. You know the drill--noun, verb, complete thought. Not being nit-picky jerks about it, perfect grammar is not a requirement. The latest and perhaps greatest addition to this rarified world is, of course, the band called I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness. A wonderful, complex sentence with a conjunction--actually two complete sentences! Let's think of some more, shall we?

-She Wants Revenge

-They Might Be Giants

-When People Were Shorter And Lived Near Water (not technically a complete sentence, but a prepositional phrase!)

-The Teardrop Explodes

-Be Your Own Pet (yes, that's a complete hortatory sentence. No, they're not, like, my new favorite band)

-Y Can't Tori Read (Tori Amos's first band is an interrogative sentence. Loses big points for spelling, and you kinda want that question mark on the end, don't you?)

Now it's your turn.