The Post-Rockist

This week brings us two new releases by Detroitish-based bands, as the album release season continues apace.

The first is Friendly Foes‘ Born Radical, of which I had a few words to say until I read Jeff Milo’s Deep Cutz feature on the band, which will tell you everything you need to know about the Foes’ power-pop music electric revival.

I do have one extra word for the album, though, that Deep Cutz refrained from divulging: jamburgers.

Friendly Foes - “Couch Surfing“
from Born Radical

The Friendly Foes’ record release rawk romp takes place at The Berkeley Front on Friday, Sept 26. (Continued)

Around 9:25 in the pm, Friday night, I was feeling a bit lethargic and thought about making my way to The Belmont a little late. “Eh,” thought I to myself, warily, “bands probably won’t even start until 11. I’m just going to hang out here and do nothing for awhile” To pass some time, I thought I’d listen to the Jason Croff’s solo stuff on his MySpace page, which I had been putting off for no other reason than laziness. Croff tickles ivory for The Dead Bodies (a Post-Rockist fave) and Four-Hour Friends, and would be playing his original songs at The Belmont that night under the moniker Croff Family Band.

And after just one minute of listening, I was off my ass and in action. (Continued)

Todd emailed me on Friday proposing that we “liveblog” the MTV Video Music Awards. He was joking, but I couldn’t tell, and shot back a long email about why we shouldn’t. He responded to let me know that he was joking.

But just now, my girlfriend was just flipping though stations and decided to take it upon herself to tune into the Christina Aguilera performance.

It was ridiculous. Terrible song. Terrible performance concept (was she supposed to be Batwoman or something?) Worst lip-syncing I’ve ever seen. I’m sure it’ll be on YouTube or something by tomorrow and I’ll post the video for your viewing pleasure, but I personally won’t waste another three minutes to watch it again, that’s for sure.

And to prove my point, Todd, the underwhelmingness of this post is proof enough why we should never, ever liveblog anything, ever.

UPDATE:

Here’s the video:

I wasn’t really surprised to find that the Xiu Xiu show on Tuesday night was moved from the large Crofoot Ballroom to the much smaller Pike Room.

First, it was a Tuesday—worst day for a concert or for anything fun ever. Second, Xiu Xiu is one of the most unlikely bands to bring people out of their comfortable houses. Their intense, abstract, and aching art noise rock isn’t the kind of music that draws large crowds on a weekday. So it ended up being me and 30 other people, many of them surprisingly young. (I wasn’t the winner of the oldest person at the show award, but I definitely placed)

I don’t know anything about the bands that opened for Xiu Xiu. Sorry–didn’t do my homework. But if I had, I probably would’ve tried to show up just as Xiu Xiu was starting instead of arriving way early. We don’t like to be negative here at Post-Rockist central, but I’ll say two things about my pre-Xiu Xiu experience: (Continued)

Now that the Democratic National Convention is over, ending triumphantly with Barack Obama’s historic acceptance speech (one of the best in recent memory), I thought I’d look ahead by focusing on a little song that you’ll probably be hearing at the Republican Convention next week (if you’ll be tuning in at all, that is).

John Rich of the country duo Big & Rich (you know, the guys who brought us that terrible “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy” song and brought me the shame and embarrassment at a recent wedding of learning that my mother and aunt know the lyrics by heart) has written and recorded a song called “Raising McCain,” in support of the Republican presidential candidate of the same name.

Here it is, in all its red hot American glory:

Wow. OK, there are several ways go at this. (Continued)

Hello, and welcome to The Post-Rockist’s very first Inter-Review. The format is simple. We will gather a panel of interesting personalities to review some of our favorite new albums, in the hope to create a constructive dialogue that will help us better understand the work of art in question.

Our first album is Pleasure Mountain by Detroit’s Champions of Breakfast. The album can be purchased via the band’s MySpace page.

Pleasure Mountain is a rip-roaring mock-epic thru vast tracks of electro-pop and pop-culture nostalgia. It’s a sexed-up celebration as horny as anything by Prince or Beck’s Midnite Vultures period. The band’s raucous live show consists of live vocals with the music played as backtracking. The band, consisting of members Val Hundreds and Moses Jackson, play makeshift instruments made of 2×4s and cardboard, designed to look like guitars or Moog keyboards.

To discuss this album, The Post-Rockist has assembled the following expert panel: (Continued)

One of my favorite music news/reviews sources is Tiny Mix Tapes, a site that also offers something called the Automated Mix Tapes Generator, a service to site users where you can enter in a theme or topic for a mix tape and they will produce for you the proper tracks. Some good titles of recent memory:

Songs to make my dad shut up about how Iggy Pop was the last great hard rocker

Songs robots listen to when they’re alone

Mixtape to Help my Painfully Reserved Boyfriend Learn How to Dance Alone in his Boxers

I thought I’d miss you, but I really don’t

But while these are frivolous and fun, the news headlines and informative, frivolous, and fun. Here are some of my favorite Tiny Mix Tapes news headlines: (Continued)