Loquacious Music

I just spent $130 on a brick. Well, on this brick. I actually found it on Overstock.com after discovering that Geico was willing to give me a coupon to Overstock.com for 10% off. The coupon expires tomorrow, so you’d better bet that box set was MINE NOW.

N.P.: James | “Born of Frustration”

Whose tip made it onto one of the biggest, coolest, most important political blogs in all of creation? Yep! I did!

Of course, I wasn’t talking about politics. I was talking about Butterstick the Panda. You don’t know about Butterstick? Read on.

“Butterstick Hearts Fruitsicle” (via Wonkette)

Let’s recap some music news that you all should know about.

- New Babybird album due out in early 2006. Go to the website to find out more information directly from Stephen’s mouth.

- According to ICE, Talking Heads’ reissues are going to be out in digipak format early next year. Of course, I’ll probably still end up paying the $119.98 for Brick over at Amazon.com. Wouldn’t you?

- XTC’s new box set contains two digital downloads of new songs. The Apple Box, which contains both Apple Venus albums and their home demo counterparts, will be available on 31 October from the Idea Records website. The price? The box set alone is only £13.61 (but if you buy the box set plus t-shirts, badge, and a special treat the price jumps to £42.54, which I don’t feel like paying…just yet).

- Billy Bragg has a new live album available for download from his website. I haven’t checked it out yet, but you should!

- The Sundays are still defunct, according to Wikipedia. That’s a shame, don’t you think?

- Speaking of box sets, that new Eurythmics box set is pretty hot, huh? But for £62.99, I’m going to have to wait until Christmas. Or never.

Never is a long, long time from now, isn’t it?

(A political aside…)

I’m trying to find out about the other judges who might be nominated to SCOTUS. Hugh Hewitt, over at his blog, suggests that Michael McConnell would be Bush’s first choice. You can read what McConnell thinks about Roe v. Wade here and can find out more information from ConfirmThem.com, a project of the conservative blog RedState.org.

Aaah.

I never thought I’d say this, but I’ve just bought a Robbie Williams album. There’s a reason though: the album was co-written by none other than Stephen Duffy, formerly of The Lilac Time. As all true British pop music fans know, TLT’s album “And Love for All,” produced by XTC’s Andy Partridge, is a masterpiece of the highest order. I doubt that Robbie Williams will live up to this standard, but we shall see.

UPDATE: Robbie Williams. Robbie Friggin’ Williams. Robbie “Teen Idol” Williams. After the boy band, after the allegations of drug abuse, after the self-congratulatory cack comes a true pop album. Like I said, listen to Duffy if you haven’t already; like I hoped, listen to these tracks from “Intensive Care” to start:

“Ghosts”
“Spread Your Wings”
“The Trouble With Me”
“A Place to Crash”

Just fine. Just damn fine.

In honor of the weird dude that Andrew, Hannah, and I met tonight at the coffee shop, I present this mix.

The Police | “One World (Not Three)”
The Verve | “The Drugs Don’t Work”
Blur | “Chemical World”
Talking Heads | “Drugs”
Huey Lewis & the News | “I Want a New Drug”
Roxy Music | “Love is the Drug”
Yo La Tengo | “Drug Test”
Morrissey | “Interesting Drug”
Michael Penn | “Long Way Down (Look What the Cat Drug In)”

That’s all the “drug” songs I can think of right now. More later.

This has been the worst day I have suffered through in a long, long time.

I managed to offend or piss off nearly everyone I talked to. Conversations I had with one person were repeated to another without my original meaning or intentions intact. An e-mail that I sent to inform one colleague of a situation got another colleague yelled at. I covered not one but two other people’s classes today. I found out that, instead of eating lunch with my dad tomorrow as I had planned three weeks ago, I am going to have to go to Providence tomorrow instead. And the boys in my dorm, who are supposed to be going to bed right now, have moved all one kid’s stuff out into the hallway so they can rearrange his room. I just told them they have five minutes to clear out the hallway, and one of them said, “What are you going to do if we don’t?” The only song I have wanted to listen to all day is “Axilla (Part 2),” but I can’t find my copy of Hoist so I had to download it from iTunes.

Ian wrote this on his blog today:

“I hate to point fingers in the present but this is one of those cases where I think the key players in my life really need to take care of me…Y’know? It’s tiny but it plays into the bigger picture.”

I couldn’t agree more. All I want to do is go to bed.

UPDATE: (12:34am) I have the most wonderful friends ever. Sometimes, as Ian says, all you need is to feel wanted, respected, and taken care of. My friends fulfill on all three counts. Do we ever really acknowledge how lucky we are?

“One” might be the loneliest number, but my favorite number is “0.00.” Oh yeah.

(Click here for a larger version.)

Eat me, CitiBank!

I was walking down the dorm hallway the other day when I heard this song blasting from one of my students’ rooms.

What the…? Is he stealing my music, or what? Seriously, though. I love it.

Last week, I sent an e-mail to the webmaster of NileRodgers.com asking for an 8 x 10 photo of Nile for the “Wall of Fame” here at the Loquacious Music studios. Today, I received this in the mail:

Can you believe it? And it’s signed in silver permanent marker. Of course it is.

It’s going up on the wall tonight!

UPDATE: It just occurred to me that occasional readers of this blog won’t know who Nile Rodgers is or aren’t aware of his contributions to popular music. Some of those contributions include:

“Le Freak” | Chic (writer, producer, band member, performer)
“We Are Family” | Sister Sledge (writer, producer, performer)
“I’m Coming Out” | Diana Ross (writer, producer, performer)
“Roam” | The B-52’s (producer)
“Material Girl” | Madonna (producer)
“In Your Eyes” | Peter Gabriel (guitar)
“China Girl” | David Bowie (producer, guitar)
“Hungry Like a Wolf” | Duran Duran (producer)
“Sensation” | Bryan Ferry (guitar)
“Original Sin” | INXS (producer, guitar)

Right now, Nile is working on video game soundtracks (no kidding!) Visit his website, NileRodgers.com, to find out more information about this incredibly innovative guitarist and producer.