the fyrehaus

p. 24 - Lipstick Killers - SPIN visits the Killers in their “purple-rose-strewn dressing room” packed w/ clothes at SNL. They compliment him on his lipstick and Brandon corrects them. It’s gloss.

30 - Surviving the Hot Fuss - It’s an article on Coachella, but catch the title.

32 - Ben Gibbard’s “Records that changed my life” - This thing is going to make Megan cry. If anyone can steal her away from Pete Doherty, it’s Ben. One of his picks is Teenage Fanclub. He also confesses that just the cover of Afghan Whigs’ Gentlemen breaks his heart.

40 - Noise: Bloc Party - Megan’s been on lately about how pen-and-paper correspondence is dying. SPIN says that it was Kele Okereke’s sincere letter that drew Franz to give them a gig. So there’s someone else that appreciates correspondence. Kele says, “We all met in prison. We played together in the cell. Did I mention that none of this is true?”

44 - Louis XIV’s “Finding Out True Love is Blind” is in MVP Baseball 2005 for PS2.

48 - I was sort of ticked at Danny Masterson’s interview (it’s all about how he runs this hip exclusive club night) until his Indie 101 playlist. Okay, actually, the first part was pretty annoying (Coldplay is not INDIE!), but further down, I spotted included “Beetlebum”. The fastest way to Sarah’s heart is apparently through Blur. Also on his list, “Sister Christian”.

50 - Maybe Nick Hornby is crazy. It seemed like a bad idea when he let John Cusack take his ode to British rock (High Fidelity) and make it be about Chicago. But now they’re releasing an adaptation of Fever Pitch, his book about footie fans, that is set in the States, about baseball fans & by the Farrelly brothers. No idea what to make of that.

54 - There’s a Smart Rock quiz from the writers of The Rock Snob’s Dictionary. I got a lot of them wrong. Turns out that I don’t know Jim Steinman from Kool DJ Herc. But I got the Sylvester question right.

58 - The SPIN 20
#11: “The Subtlety of Spanish Tabloids - Quien es una lesbiana?” Oh! I know this one! Apparently I hang out around the same subway newsstands that SPIN does. “Penelope Cruz y Salma Hayek son lesbianas.” I think. Seventh grade Spanish was a long time ago. After that weird experience (Jimmy Buffet-esque teacher, all Destinos curriculum), I switched to French. “Penelope Cruz et Salma Hayek sont lesbians.”
#13 “Pete Doherty Freed - This just in: Pete Doherty arrested.” (I include this one to make Megan cry.)

60 - Chuck Klosterman - Here’s the thrust of his argument: We hate Ashlee Simpson because she tries too hard. We want everything else to be hard, but music to be cool.

62 - Night Falls on Manhattan: Interpol - Re: Paul “His parents were obsessed with Yes, and that can screw you up for life.” Paul also recites the lyrics to “The Humpty Dance”. They also attribute a quote to “Mattie Safer of the Rapture (the band, not the catastrophic biblical event).” It’s an altogether odd article. The writer (Brian Raftery) interviewed each band member individual, mostly tooling around Manhattan. They come across as decadent, incredibly introspective, and slightly messed up. It reads like therapy. I feel like I know more about Interpol, without actually liking them more. But I’ve always had that relationship with Interpol, where their music is mind-blowing for me, without me actually wanting to learn the band members’ names or see them live.

69 - Coachella ad - SPIN, why do you do this to meeee?? I want to go, but am too scared. But there’s going to be Autolux!

72 - 66.6 Greatest Moments in Goth - Fun fact: Tony Wilson coined the term gothic to describe the direction of Joy Division. Also, SPIN gets a bonus point for including the premiere of “Goth Talk” with Azrael Abyss.

86 - The Royal Family: Kings of Leon - Andrew Beaujon writes an article that makes me like the band way more. They turn out to be naughty, hard-partying, pot smoking boys. They sound like they’d be a lot of fun to hang around with, even if two of them can’t legally drink in the States. No matter, they’re way way bigger in Europe anyway (where being Southern is so in).

90 - Living Things were weird openers at Roseland. Every opener is weird. They were booed by VR fans. Who isn’t?

100 - The Fiery Furnaces’ EP gets A-. The new Beck gets an B. I’m pretty sure that I read their reviews every month, but this month’s seem really vicious and biting, yet no one gets that bad of a score. I can sum up the Beck and Daft Punk reviews thusly: It sounds like their old stuff.

103 - In the Download suggestion box for this month, Martha Wainwright’s “B.M.F.A.” I only sort of like her music, but she’s witty and incisive, and that’ll get you places.

112 - Real Life Rock Tales: The Killers Encounter a Real Killer - The drawing of them is less scary than last month’s bizarre Franz Ferdinand rendition. But Brandon has very little in the way of features, in a style that borrows a lot from manga. He actually looks a lot like the puppet in Interpol’s “Evil” video. The story is about them flying on this doomed Australian flight with a notorious serial killer, and it’s pretty cute. Especially the little gray suit on Brendon.

Chromeo: Dave 1 (who, may I point out, goes to Columbia), is wearing a long sparkly goiter wrap. He is having a ball all by himself, even though there can’t be more than 100 (maybe 150, guesstimating is not my strong suit) in the room. As Pee Thug brutally abuses the vocoder, I conclude that I have not had enough alcohol for this. Dave 1 has a crazy look to his eyes, they’re huge and glassy and he looks like the murderer in a B-grade film. But he was amiable enough, chatting with an audience that had mostly wandered back to the bar. I think he had friends in the crowd. They played the single, waited while we clapped, and then continued playing it for another 3 minutes. I only clapped for it once. It wasn’t the closing song either. You should always close with a single. They included a song that namechecked both themselves and Rhythm Nation. They’re actually not bad, but there’s so much vocoder. (Use in moderation, like alcohol, or Madonna records.) It was at this point that I looked over and Megan looked up like she was completely innocent and I noticed that she had ripped her plastic drink cup into something that looked like a sea anemone. It’s a bad sign when your audience has turned to handicrafts.

The Ponys: I was actually looking forward to them. Robert plays a lot of their music over at RadioIoRock. They had absolutely no audience interaction. I got the impression that they were scared of us (the bass player was a slight girl who looked like she was intentionally hiding). It was almost creepy. But Jered’s guitars were lovely, one pale blue and one pale yellow. They played “Let’s Kill Ourselves” and “10 Fingers 11 Toes” back to back, which only serves to emphasize that they’re practically the same song. Though, on the album, they are back to back, so maybe the similarity is intentional. I couldn’t hear the vocals. There’s some kind of rule at the Bowery against ever being able to hear what the opening acts are saying. Jered’s vocals (which every reviewer says is patterned after Richard Hell) are the best thing about the band, so it’s a shame. Instead of being loud rock, the whole thing begins to take on a hypnotic, mesmerizing drone. I spot Bloc Party’s Kele in the front row all the way to the left side of the stage.

Bloc Party: Bloc Party are tiny little virtuoso boys. They spent a good chunk of the show romping about on stage and doing things that I didn’t know guitars could do. Gordon was rocking a pale blue bass and a white calculator watch that speaks aloud the time in French. Kele had a Felix the Cat badge sewn onto his shirt. Russell’s guitar strap is covered in buttons. Matt took his shirt off during the second song. Kele had a whole lot of fun with the audience. He just laughed and made jokes and was completely charming. He opened with “No matter what magazine you’re from, we’re going to have fun tonight.”

I maintain that BP writes the best dance protest song ever. The material is deep and heavy, but the band is having fun, so you have fun. Best sort of concert experience. Kele also suggested early on that they do Bloc Karaoke, just play other people’s songs. Russell took this to heart and played snippets of other songs between theirs. The first was Interpol’s “Evil” and Megan clawed the bejeezus out of my shoulder. As she is wont to do. They did The Killers and Radiohead and Franz Ferdinand. I’m pretty sure they played the beginning of “The Rat” by the Walkmen, and also a tune by Coldplay. People booed and Kele said, “Hey. Coldplay’s awesome,” and then asked if anyone was going to Coachella (the poor Party have the slot opposite Coldplay). He said he had heard it would be hot and the audience lied and said it would be fine. In the desert. In summer.

It was the sort of show that was just good because the music was good and everyone was having a good time. It wasn’t the hit-by-a-truck feeling I get from Franz shows, but rather a sort of “Nothing’s going to ruin my mood now, even though it’s raining and I’m 45 blocks from home” feeling. Ace all around.

Note: I was behind a huge man. I was worried about this, but it turned out okay. Because the huge man was really into Bloc Party. He started dancing and I started dancing and that sort of excitement is just infectious. He was a lot less hard to deal with than the girl next to me who didn’t move or show any enjoyment at all.

Special Guest: The Dears

The Dead 60s Riot Radio: Jim introduced them by making a Kaiser Chiefs reference. I love Jim. Meanwhile this band is really angry 15 year olds. They’re trying to be the rockabilly Clash.

Elefant Misfit: This is a sign from Jim to Megan to come and watch. Megan says: “He’s just so androgynously pretty. And I really like the format of the video a lot. It’s just really good editing.”

Kasabian Club Foot: Hey, I’m even more excited to see them live now. They’re all bouncy and such! They’re at Brixton Academy and there are an insane number of people in there.

Interpol Evil.

Damien Rice The Blower’s Daughter: I think Damien is already going to cry. Really. There are lovely landscape shots interspersed with a close-up of Damien’s face and he looks teary. And then he’s sort of on the beach, being teary. This is so sad. But then it goes on *forever*. And he starts staring at this girl on the beach. It’s getting stalker-creepy.

The Kills Good Ones.

The Dears Lost in the Plot.

The Futureheads Decent Days and Nights: I think this is my favorite Futureheads song.

Hot Hot Heat is the band featured in “The Leak” this week, meaning I have to watch a clip from “Goodnight Goodnight” every other commercial break. And then they’re showing commercials for Elevator, which means I have to watch the same clip again. I like the song, and the video looks okay, but this is pushing me.

Murray is talking about how he wants to make a video where he hangs from a helicopter. And in the background, they’re playing the beginning of “Step Into My Office, Baby”. I like Murray.

Moby Beautiful: This seems to be about furries. Or, maybe it’s a world where giant anthropomorphic animals give cocktail parties. And wear pearls. On the TV, Moby is dressed like Rivers Cuomo in that Muppet video. I think the animals are swinging. The deer is hitting on the fox. I think the (is that a chipmunk?) is pushing the rabbit further than he’s ready to go. But his wife is making out with a tiger in the bedroom. It’s the Ice Storm, but with animals. Oh, the chipmunk just shot a moose! And then himself! That was hard-hitting. But also fuzzy.

Le Tigre TKO.

Brazilian Girls Don’t Stop: I really like this song. In the video, the actual band is in fezes and tiny cars and such and they go to a club to see the lady sing. The lady, as far as I can tell, she is dressed entirely in crepe paper lamps from Ikea and Adam Ant-style eyeliner. Then they eat some wieners. I swear. It’s all her fancy dancing at half speed. It’s quite nice.

A-10 Domino: Cheap hipster video washed a sort of rust color.

ESG You’re No Good: Apretty good live local video. Four (five?) women. It’s old jazz with tribal drums. I dig it.

MIA Sunshowers.

The Organ Brother: All girls. Odd halting singing. They look about fourteen.

Interpol Slow Hands: Aww. I was just having a bit of trouble with the internet, and here’s Carlos and Paul to cheer me up.

The Thermals How We Know: Slightly more expensive hipster video. But only slightly. The lead singer looks a lot like Connor from Angel. I bet he’s a lot more fun. I like their stuff, but his shouty-singing would probably get old by the fifth or sixth track on a CD. I do like that it’s bass driven.

Ladybug Transistor Brighton Bound: Another live video. I like his voice. Sort of children’s-music-pleasing.

Suburban Kids With Biblical Names Rent-A-Wreck: Best band name ever. Cute touring song. Brightly colored video about how hard it is to get everythhing done in a day. It’s sort of “I Love You ‘Cause I Have To” with three fewer people and a tenth of the budget.

My Favorite The Happiest Days of My Life.

Burnside Project Only Ordinary: This sounds vaguely like “Such Great Heights”, but annoyinger.

Jens Lenkman - You Are The Light Best. Video. Ever. Jens is vaguely yellow, in that deceased way. And he’s been arrested. He goes on singing his Burt Bacharach-y song while cars drive along beside with an entire marching band (the local old guy kind). And Jens looks completely unaffected by it. Also, while he’s singing, parts of knight’s armor just show up.

Sparks The Rhythm Thief: This is the second time they’ve shown it. I think they’re showing it again because we were teasing each other with it on Friday. It’s catchy. Catchy and completely fucking bizarre. I can’t even describe it. This guy with a long coat and a black line painted across his eyes comes and steals the “rhythm” (big inky black dots) from dancers and wind-up toys. But it’s weirder than that. Let me excerpt the lyrics, so you can see why it’s fun to tease your roommates with it: I am the rhythm thief / say goodbye to the beat / I am the rhythm thief / Auf wiederzehn to the beat /.

Arcade Fire: They didn’t list the name of the video, but it’s whatever video is current, because I’m pretty sure I saw it on MTV2.

Shout Out Louds Very Loud: He tromps through some snow, then a lamp appears (a standing lamp, not a genie lamp) and he carries the lamp around, and some other people show up and they play music. That’s about it.

Saul Williams List of Demands.

Mando Diao God Knows: I actually really like this song.

Adam Green Emily: He looks pretty depressed, plus he has a cat. It, like the lamp, appears out of nowhere. Bad hats, low-fi special effects.

Devendra Barnhart A Ribbon: Michel Gondry. Peaceful stop-motion about the travels of this red ribbon. It feels like 1970s children’s programming. The ribbon goes to the home of a lonely woodcutter and then goes in his mouth and makes him light up inside. I guess.

Death From Above 1979 Romantic Rights: Lite Brite is so in.

Pitty Sing Radio: Standard cheap hipster video. the lead singer looks like the guy from Dogs Die. It’s a lot like the video for Radio 4’s “Absolute Affirmation”, but with less color.

John Butler Trio Zebra.