there are several interesting things

about transferring your iTunes library from a PC to a Mac. but I'm going to have to tell you about them later because I want to see the Sex Pistols on The Tonight Show (is that surreal? ironic? just plain odd?).

I do, however, want to point out today's Possibly 4th Street posting of former Dream Syndicate leader Steve Wynn performing within Dog Run 105 in Riverside (I actually typed Roverside at first) Park.
it was a great location and performance, and good enough audio (don't miss the mp3 of "Bruises"), video (two of 'em) and accompanying prose. definitely my favorite of the 4th Street posts thus far.
thanks Steve.

porter wagoner 1927-2007

porter wagoner passed away yesterday at the age of 80.

playing right now: The Wagonmaster

yet another baseball season ends with a whimper instead of a bang

unless you count Scott Boras' attempt to upstage the World Series with the "look at me" exploits of a single player a bang.

(2007: Red Sox over the Rockies in four
2006: Cardinals over the Tigers in five
2005: White Sox over the Astros in four
2004: Red Sox over the Cardinals in four)

the reasoning for A-Rod's declared free agency?
according to Yahoo, "Boras said during a telephone interview that Rodriguez made his choice because he was uncertain whether Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada and Andy Pettitte would return to the Yankees. Boras said it became clear that the others wouldn't make a decision by Rodriguez's deadline to opt out -- 10 days after the World Series.
"'Alex's decision was one based on not knowing what his closer, his catcher and one of his statured (?) pitchers was going to do," Boras said. 'He really didn't want to make any decisions until he knew what they were doing.'"

"his closer" and "his catcher," etc.

yeah, I'm sure that was the reason.

and the timing of the announcement (Boras couldn't reach Yankee GM Brian Cashman on the phone, so he left him a voice mail before alerting the media) couldn't wait either.

I really don't see more than the Angels, Red Sox and Mets making serious bids for A-Rod's services. and if the Red Sox re-sign Mike Lowell, that'd only leave two (though A-Rod could obviously move back to shortstop; goodbye Julio Lugo). and where would A-Rod play on the Mets with David Wright at third and Jose Reyes at short? if the Angels are the only team willing to part with $30 million a year on a long-term deal, that won't make much of a bidding war.

though I have no problem with A-Rod leaving the Yankees, I really hope the free agency route ends up costing him money (can you tell?).

an excerpt from Scott Plagenhoef's If You're Feeling Sinister (33 1/3), a.k.a the last book I ever read:

"With the loss of need for listeners to follow a narrative slowly over time comes a resistance to having previously learned and banked knowledge challenged. So, too, with consensus opinions on records catalogued and archived on sites across the internet there is less willingness for young fans to approach a group with fresh ears - every response and reaction to a band's artistic output can't help but be filtered through the opinions of others. Hearing a band for the first time without an idea of how one is meant to react to it and where it fits in the pantheon and lineage of rock history is difficult, if not impossible."

(feels particularly relevant after the recent post-mortems on this most recent CMJ, eh?)

your entertainment tax dollars at work, cont'd

(and yes, I realized that Game 7 of the American League Championship Series is still on, but I find Cleveland's collapse more than a little disheartening. in any case, I'll be root root rooting for the Rockies once the Series starts.
speaking of, Rockies World Series tickets go on sale in approx. 12 hours and fifty minutes (call it noon Eastern))

an enjoyable Bloodshot Records party at Union Pool on Saturday (we caught sets by The Silos, hahatonka and Centro-Matic, plus a couple of fresh grilled cheeseburgers), the Auburn-LSU game a little less so. yeah, it was a tight, hard fought game and we could nitpick more than a couple of officials' calls and spots, but I thought both teams played well and, yeah, LSU's probably the better team.
but what gripes my ass (and what I'm sure will continue to gripe my ass for some time to come) is the unbelievably irresponsible time management and play calling by Les Miles and staff in the last twenty seconds of the game.
and the fact that they got away with it.

Auburn, by the way, is the only three loss team currently ranked in any of the major Top 25 polls (somewhere around 22, 23 in most)


the last movies I ever saw:

The Passion of the Christ - yeah, it was brutal as hell and the major players spoke Aramaic. but then what?
2 stars out of five

The Black Dahlia - not that Aaron Eckhart or Josh Hartnett were any great shakes in this one, but I never thought I'd see a movie in which Hilary Swank annoyed me as much as Scarlett Johansen. believe me, it was a close call.
2 stars

The Fabulous Baker Boys - the ratio of attractive reformed/recovering prostitutes in the movies versus attractive reformed/recovering prostitutes in real life: about a 1,000,000 to one.
two and a half stars

your entertainment tax dollars at work

okay, so possibly I'm having Sopranos withdrawals.

for those of you keeping score at home, we watched Season Three, then Season Four. and then there was some confusion with the library and Blockbuster and yet we still managed to circle back to Season One, then Two (and this was the exact moment when we began our Netflix membership).
and then Season Five and Season Six (both 6A and 6B).

and then it was over.

but after a couple days off (mourning?) we moved onto An Inconvenient Truth (and I checked out Sopranos: The Book from the library), actually watching on the day that the former Vice President's Nobel win was announced.
and I was reminded of those educational filmstrips (filmstrips) we were shown in elementary school immediately following lunch which magically (if memory serves) created an unscheduled naptime out of thin (or more likely thick) air.
so perhaps I should say (it would be more accurate) that we started watching An Inconvenient Truth on the day of Gore's Nobel win. I didn't make it all the way through until the following day.

and then there was Hollywoodland, which I'm pretty sure we watched because it was about to depart HBO On Demand).
which is kind of like eating the apple that's been on the counter for nearly a week (rather than placing it in the compost pile we don't have because we live in an apartment building) just because you don't want to be wasteful.
(if you're actually hungry for a week-old apple, then fine. be my guest)

and somewhere in the mix we saw Albert Brooks' Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (which may be - at least offhand, without giving the matter any thought at all - my least favorite Albert Brooks movie ever), and then Fur, the "imaginary" Diane Arbus movie starring Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr (which wasn't nearly as bad as I'd been led to believe. actually enjoyable).

more you say?

last book I ever read: Ben Ratliff's Coltrane: The Story of a Sound (which was kind of the opposite of Fur in that my high expectations weren't quite justified)

and I may well be the only writer in New York City who receives so much as a whiff of payment for musical discourse who has not been out and about (and out and about and out) in the numerous bars hosting (too) numerous bands (both night and day) for what we call CMJ Week.
but don't cry for me, Argentina).
while CMJ does bring an excess number of bands to the city, CMJ brings an excess number of bands to the city (and you can only see one at a time). and it's not like we don't get, you know, good bands on pretty much a nightly basis. but CMJ also brings hundreds if not thousands of college radio types. and while I have nothing against them individually, and am more than happy for them to come to NYC to spend their hard-borrowed money, collectively they tend to jam up the works.
yep, there's so, so many more potential audience members for these excess bands, that it's harder to gain list access, bigger crowds at the venues, making this, for a claustrophobic misanthrope such as myself, not a bad week to stay home.
which I've done.
including skipping Springsteen at Madison Square Garden last night (Jon Stewart didn't) and tonight (Rob Harvilla didn't). but that's okay, I've seen him before. and even before that (and yet I'm still, several days later, near stunned by Arcade Fire's appearance onstage at the Boss' show in Ottawa last Sunday).

(I'll break my streak of homeboundedness tomorrow afternoon, and most likely again on Saturday afternoon (but rest assured I will be back at the residence in time for the 9 p.m. (EST) kickoff of Auburn at LSU) War Eagle)

a very strange all-star team in ottawa

Bruce Stringsteen and Arcade Fire - Keep the car running
Uploaded by trendwhore

more free stuffs to read and see

so, after much preparation and planning and discussion (up until the last minute with all of those actually), we began posting episodes (?) of Possibly 4th Street this week.

a walking tour with Matthew Friedberger of the Fiery Furnaces posted on Tuesday (and linked back to my original Voice print piece) and our (first ever) busking trip with Rachel Cox and Patrick Sullivan of Oakley Hall posted early this morning. and while we're proud of these two starts, the series will only get better (we've already recorded another five with folks like Steve Wynn, Jim Lauderdale, Black Lips, Phosphorescent and Michelle Shocked (speaking of, our new iMac (yep, a new iMac) is currently anchored down in Anchorage. we're hoping for Monday delivery)).

also, I took the photograph of the Mekons' Tom Greenhalgh that ran alongside Rob Harvilla's column in this week's Voice, and more Mekons pics are up at last concert I ever saw (really? new pics at last concert I ever saw ? yes).

in sporting news, we'll be cheering for the Indians and the Rockies in their respective League Championship Series (and for the Rockies to win it all; how cool was it of them to vote Mike Coolbaugh's widow a post-season share? (very cool, very cool indeed)), but tomorrow night we'll be watching, intently, as Arkansas hosts Auburn. though given last year's result when we blogged the game, we will refrain from doing so this season.

album to commute home by at the end of the week: John Prine's Pink Cadillac (and I bet I'm the only person in the whole New York City subway system that that was true for)