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.
