OMFG! Sonic Youth on Gossip Girl!

Best. News. EVER.
FINALLY Gossip Girl, the CW drama chronicling the lives of Manhattan's super attractive, wealthy, morally ambiguous teens get a little "cred." (So you know, this show is just like my life--except that I am neither wealthy nor a teen nor a Manhattan resident.) But maybe all my too cool for school friends can appreciate GG for what it its: THE BEST SHOW ON NETWORK TELEVISION EXCEPT FOR MAYBE THE X-FILES WHICH WAS ALSO REALLY GOOD.

It seems that Thurston did a cover of "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker" on an episode last year, which obviously I totally never noticed. And now the band will be performing an acoustic version of "Starpower" on the fifth episode of the new season starting SEPTEMBER 14 OMG 4 DAYS AFTER MY BIRTHDAY SO EXCITED. Apparently one of the forces behind the TV show, Stephanie Savage, is a super fan of the band and noticed footage from the show playing behind the band. You can read more at "real" news sources, but I'm not linking to them because the Pitchfork story linked to a strangely condescending Entertainment Weekly story and I will have no one blaspheme my NY teens!!! (Also, should EW really be in the business of condescension, considering? I mean, they'd probably do behind-the-scenes reporting of Jaleel White's wedding.)

New ATP documentary helps you relive parts of my life you never wanted to know happened

Great news for anyone who received a drunken phone call from me at December 2007's All Tomorrow's Parties! ATP is set to release a concert film chock-full of footage from recent acts, including perhaps the very same Portishead set where BETH GIBBONS TOUCHED MY HAND. Not once, but twice!, did this happen. (Side note: many people also know my infamous "I was hugged by Beth Gibbons" story. But not EVERYBODY knows it, and therefore I proudly present to the internet this gem of information: I was hugged by Beth Gibbons. At her solo show at St. Paul's Fitzgerald Theatre in 2003. WOW. That was a long time ago. Gettin' old. YIKES.) Other acts featured on the DVD include Iggy and the Stooges, Battles, Sonic Youth, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Belle And Sebastian, Patti Smith, Animal Collective, Mogwai, Slint, Grizzly Bear, Grinderman, The Gossip, Daniel Johnston and The Boredoms. Warp Films is putting the thing out on September 23, which is just after my birthday, but I'm okay with that as long as you tell me on or before my birthday that you're buying me this and are just waiting for it to come out so that you can give it to me.


The film is an assemblage of cell phone video, camcorder, and Super 8 footage from fans, musicians, and proper filmmakers. Assembled by director Jonathan Caouette and cinematographer Vincent Moon, all these different quality-level shots should give you a pretty solid idea of what it was like to be experiencing ATP from the underfed and overpartied eyes of ME. Seriously, I can still recall the horrifying taste of those well-intentioned but revolting pineapple shots. Absolutely one of the Top 3 Worst Drinks in My Personal Life History. (The others being anything with SoCo in it that I drank at the last SXSW and the unholy potato liquor/Mountain Dew cocktail created by my friend and fellow SXSW/ATP attendee, Cian. A dubious honor, to be sure!)

Another day, another chance to make fun of the Sonic Youth Starbucks cd

There's something very Bret Easton Ellis novel meets Edward Hopper meets slick Manhattan advertising firm in the album art for the new Sonic Youth for Starbucks album, isn't there? At last! Here it is, in all its glory, the very zenith of bad corporate coffee-seminal New York band collaborations. The Sonic Youth cd put out by Starbucks. Hits are for Squares, premieres June 10 at a coffee retailer near you. Now a lot of people have a lot of 'why?'s about this celebrity-curated compilation. For example, why Starbucks? Why isn't Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore's past 20 years of royalty and touring money enough to send little Coco to college without signing this wacky deal? For me, though, the biggest WHY? is why is this album so clearly an homage to a Huey Lewis and the News song????

Well, here is the tracklisting, and the famous people who did the selecting.

Hits Are for Squares:

01 Bull in the Heather [selected by Catherine Keener]
02 Sugar Kane [selected by Beck]
03 100% [selected by Mike D]
04 Kool Thing [selected by Radiohead]
05 Disappearer [selected by Portia de Rossi]
06 Stones [selected by Allison Anders]
07 Tuff Gnarl [selected by Dave Eggers and Mike Watt]
08 Teenage Riot [selected Eddie Vedder]
09 Shadow of a Doubt [selected by Michelle Williams]
10 Rain on Tin [selected by Flea]
11 Tom Violence [selected by Gus Van Sant]
12 Mary-Christ [selected by David Cross]
13 World Looks Red [selected by Chloë Sevigny]
14 Expressway to Yr Skull [selected by the Flaming Lips]
15 Slow Revolution [exclusive]

And here are some dates these people are playing shows, as usual, lifted live and direct from Pitchfork!!

Sonic Youth

07.04.08 - New York, NY - Battery Park *
08.04.08 - Leucate, France - Les Méditerranéennes Festival
08.05.08 - Lokeren, Belgium - Lokerse Festival
08.07.08 - Oslo, Norway - Øya Festival
08.08.08 - Gothenburg, Sweden - Way Out West Festival
08.09.08 - Saint-Nazaire, France - Escales Festival

* with the Feelies


Thurston Moore

09.19.08 - Monticello, NY - Kutshers Country Club (My Bloody Valentine ATP)
09.27.08 - New York, NY - Stone (as Northampton Wools)

# performing Psychic Hearts


Lee Ranaldo

05.28.08 - New York, NY - Issue Project Room $~
06.11.08 - New York, NY - Issue Project Room (16 Channel Surround Sound Festival) %
07.19.08 - North Adams, MA - MASS MoCA ^

$ performing with Marina Rosenfeld, Zeena Parkins, Ikue Mori
~ with the Joshua Light Show
% performing with Leah Singer
^ performing with Bang on a Can