"Dirty is the angriest album Sonic Youth has ever recorded." (review by Adrien Begrand at PopMatters)

That is probably why Dirty is my favourite record of Sonic Youth. It is the most aggressive, the most punk. I never understood the fuss about the boring, almost progrocky, meandering Daydream Nation. Additionally the 1992 Lorelei concert was one of my favourite shows ever. I did not know one of the songs they played but especially Thurston was like a Hendrix of the Nineties. Tickling the noise out of his guitar as if there was no tomorrow. After the Slanted & Enchanted deluxe treatment another one I need desperately. Unfortunately they are both quite expensive in Europe.

Im Quell deiner Augen leben die Garne der Fischer der Irrsee. Im Quell deiner Augen hält das Meer sein Versprechen.

Hier werf ich, ein Herz, das geweilt unter Menschen, die Kleider von mir und den Glanz eines Schwures:

Schwärzer im Schwarz, bin ich nackter. Abtrünnig erst bin ich treu. Ich bin du, wenn ich ich bin.

Im Quell deiner Augen treib ich und träume von Raub.

Ein Garn fing ein Garn ein: wir scheiden umschlungen.

Im Quell deiner Augen erwürgt ein Gehenkter den Strang.

Paul Celan in Mohn und Gedächtnis

There are quite a lot of blogs out there which I enjoy reading but which are not in my freshblogs watchlist as they do not seem to provide freshblogs with correct timestamps. If your blog is in this list and the freshblogs timestamp is correct by now please feel free to tell me.

• said the gramophone: Sean from Montreal likes similar music off the beaten track as me. Four styles: Americana, indie rock, singer/songwriter and a wee bit of prog. This is his personal music weblog.
• Tangmonkey music: A lot of album reviews are by Sean again. Recently there was Wilco, The Flaming Lips, many Grateful Dead records and The New Pornographers.
• I Love Music Blog: I got a little bit bored of this by far most active music forum on the web which is available in blog form now. Probably there are too many people (far more than a thousand) posting questions now than in the earlier days when I used to know at least the names of the posters. Too many mainstream and vanity threads now for my liking. Still the best place if you have an interesting pop music subject to discuss about.
• sequential randomist: Not too much happening here lately but still some good writing on pop music. Someone who (re)discovers Wire is ahead of me anyways. I feel that I didn't yet give them the listening time they merit.
• Nude as the News: This used to be my favourite music webzine. Called after one of the greatest songs by Cat Power. Recent articles on the new Blur and Smog albums and a show by Bright Eyes.
• strangefruit: Quite calm in this part of the web too recently. But a very solid indie rock taste with a penchant for Americana.
• Fimoculous: Something like a pop culture link log. The quality of the pointers is top notch. Recent discoveries are a Murakami short story, Google stuff, Salam Pax & the NY Times and a Scorsese-Bob Dylan interview.
• planing lakes: A great name and many interesting links (incl. quotes) on pop culture and the likes.
• the null device: Out of the many high-quality aussie weblogs probably my favourite. Focus on indie rock, left-wing politics, tech stuff and movies. Very busy.
• Travelers Diagram: Another culture weblog with many nice pictures and artwork. Music wise it is the usual mix of Americana and indie rawk I have got a faible for too.

This record, the second Dandy Warhols album from 1997 has not left my different CD players for the last couple of days. I must say that I do not understand at all that this album apparently did not impress anyone when it came out. It is a record without one second of filler, perfect pop hooks, extremely relaxed and droning on and on. I have listened to two other Dandy Warhols releases, the new one and 13 Tales of Bohemia or how it is called. Those two are totally disposable in comparison. If someone asked me which album I'd take to an island MBV's Loveless or The D.W. Come Down right now my answer would be clear...

I prefer people saying some intelligent things about smoking (and giving up smoking) with a cigarette in their mouth than to people not smoking and only uttering bullshit on smoking like that it is really unhealthy and that it stinks. I prefer irony to consequence.

Though I like when people tell me that I have a good taste in music I also feel ashamed. I much prefer when people tell me that my taste is wide and that I like loads of very different heterogenic stuff. That I have a broad perspective. Because I know that I haven't. There is too much music out there I hate with every fibre of my body.

I am number one for the Google query velvet undergroun. Weird. I did not misspell the name of one of my favourite bands once in that review.

It is no problem to smoke a couple of cigarettes once in a while after you have stopped smoking. The problem is that those cigarettes do not taste good. So you say to yourself let's smoke a cigarette I like. You smoke some more and suddenly you start liking them. That is exactly the point of no return when an ex-smoker has started smoking again. Cigarettes only taste well when the lung is already covered with a thin layer of nicotine. Whenever the cigarettes start tasting good, it is already too late. That is one of the countless tragedies of my life.

P.S. I did not smoke yesterday. The battle is not decided yet.

Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen den Beiden:

• Sie hatten beide einen Bruder, der früh verstarb.
• Sie liebten beide Sils-Maria und verbrachten dort viel Zeit.
• Se wurden beide hauptsächlich von Frauen erzogen.
• Sie hassten beide philosophische Systeme.
• Ihre wichtigsten Werke waren jeweils Aphorismensammlungen.
• Sie waren beide praktische Philosophen.
• Sie haben beide einen exzellenten und dichten z.T. poetischen Schreibstil.
• Sie haben beide an vielen verschiedenen Orten gelebt, fast ein Vagabundenleben geführt.
• Sie waren beide sehr musikalisch, haben komponiert, über Musiktheorie geschrieben, sich mit Richard Wagner auseinandergesetzt.
• Ihrer beider Philosophie war sehr eklektisch und ihrer Zeit voraus.

I was just listening to this 30 seconds snippet of the third song on the Dandy Warhols debut Dandys Rule O.K. and I immediately thought that it really sounded like the shoegazer pop of Ride. Later I found out that the name of the song was Ride.

Tonight chez Bernard Lenoir I listened to the dronerock band par excellence of the moment, the Dandy Warhols from Portland, OR on France Inter on the long waves, 165 KHz. Courtney Taylor's voice sounded like he had just been amputated of his larynx. So hoarse that it was hardly discernible. Very touching. "Heroine, it's my wife and it's my life" must be written on his forehead. I'll give him another five years if he goes on like that. It took about one song to get into the music. But then I was hooked. Mesmerizing repetitive guitar drones. No way to resist the descent into the maelstrom. The last time I was as excited about a similar kind of music was in 1991/92 when My Bloody Valentine had just released Loveless. Promise to myself: I should see them at Nuremburg the first week-end in June and I should probably not get their new album Welcome to the Monkey House (just listening to it, it is pretty pop and almost soul [which is a bad thing] compared to the concert). By the way the banana with the zipper is so Andy, Lou & Nico that it hurts.