Sunday, May 24, 2009

Spencer Krug

your beauty pulls and thrills the way catching someone unaware of their own reverie always does. the glimmer and burn of sunshine on dancing water. gorgeous lights that burn, stay, dance. such a tiny thing. that traveled across mountains to show (some)one that light is still there.

Gore Vidal, my darling Gore, wrote that trying to describe another person's (Italo Calvino, with Invisible Cities) gorgeous work is the "most difficult, and perfectly irrelevant."

because the words are already there.




New Swan Lake here.

Sunset Rubdown official site here. LA Record show review by yours truly here.

and, of course, Wolf Parade here.

Dragonslayer from Sunset Rubdown out 6.23.09. Update! The great kids over @ Stereogum have given Dragonslayer a preview listen and guess what, it slays. Duh. You can pre-order and then immediately (immediately!) download the LP from Jagjaguwar (actual British pronunciation of the animal) here. Instant gratifuckation.

Read Stereogum insights and worth-their-salt commentashunz here.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Dear Portland,

I still hate your guts.

Love,

Chesney

OK so this girl I know is I guess going to visit up there, and as you know I studied Econ there (you do not know that, probably) so I was like oh, I should tell her to go here & here, and then I'm all wait wtf is that *one*, ONE fucking place I liked called? So I go to yelp portland, which is in and of itself the stupidest fucking place in the world (pdxers talking about, or, sorry, yelping pdx) with the fucking worst 'english' and spelling (?) but anyway after ten (10), TEN pages I still can't find this MAJOR BAR in downtown portland even after filtering "downtown" and "portland" and "full bar" and "happy hour", because after all those filters we're still only talking about five fucking bars, max, still can't fucking find it. so now just remembering the name is driving me crazy & then i'm like oh wait, it's supposed to be connected to the tunnels, SHANGHAI TUNNEL*! ah ha so I yahoo it and then i click on the webpage and the webpage, of fucking course, because this is a major thing that all people do all of the time, load webpages for FUCKING BARS that's totally what I do, for bars, instead of just fucking going there and fucking walking in and ordering a drink, I GO TO THEIR WEBPAGE FIRST, the fucking webpage takes TWENTY FUCKING GOD DAMNED MINUTES to load to what? to do what. to show the darkest, most underexposed fucking photos of a bar that is smaller than my last apartment and the page says this:

oh wait I can't just ctrl fucking c, ctrl fucking v the copy on the page, because OF COURSE YOU CAN'T it's a webpage for a bar in PORTLAND but it says this:

and I quote:

"This place is to bars what Bruce Campbell is to horror films. Simply put, we will kick the hell out of your old watering hole. If you're trying to find that warm and fuzzy feeling from this place...move on.

Located on a dark street corner in Old Town, Shanghai Tunnel grips your sole the second you walk in."

YOU MEAN SOUL. YOU MEAN GRIPS YOUR SOUL.

It is NOT located on 'a dark corner' of 'old town'. It is located in the busiest, fanciest, most expensive part of DOWNTOWN on a perfectly well lit and high-end corner of a very busy intersection where you will go downstairs and everyone will be drinking their fucking pint of their faaaaaahvorite hoppy micro-brew ale (not lager) or PBR to fucking slum it with their god damned beards and fucking "ironic" fucking tee shirt and the girls trying really waaaay too fucking hard - either with the heels and the silky, slutty cut top OR the tattoo sleeves and black hair and red lipstick - will invariably be drinking fucking appletinis like every other fucking downtown bar in the fucking world, that is what you mean. AYFKMWT? You are not. You are not fucking kidding me.

AND THEN I think omg this song on Pandora is driving me literally fucking crazy why won't it stop and I go to Pandora but it's paused (pause.) and I LOL because it's not what Pandora is playing but the FUCKING GOD DAMNED WEBSITE. FOR A BAR.

FYI, take notes here, the Bruce Lee of martial arts bars, or whatever tough stupid fucking metaphor you want to use is fucking Fern's in Long Beach. Probably circa early to mid-90s but still not exactly your friendliest bar. But they don't need a fucking website to advertise that because IT'S FUCKING FERN'S and part of being tough is actually just, you know, knowing that, and not having to wave a fucking knife around screaming "I'm so fucking dangerous, Mommy! Look at me!"

Die. Already. Hate. Portland.

*they do have delicious drunk tofu & noodles and it is as far as PDX goes, probably one of the better bars. Of which there are like, 3.
[Urgent fucking update! There is an actual fucking review of Fern's, and it is hilaaaaarious.]