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Download: Poni Hoax "Budapest"

Lord knows I love me some Facebook, even all the nasty messages I still get from "rap heads" over my Roots The Tipping Point review from a thousand years ago. It's a shitty album! Get over it! Leave my shit in your mouth!

As I've said elsewhere, we've reached the point where people take the service seriously for the most part, or at the least not skeptically, no fear of being too too fucked with, etc. People list their real interests, at worst interests they think would be interesting to have, because they know they can put all their fake interests over on Myspace. So all you perverts who gave up pretending to be 13-year-olds in the Britney chatroom after all the ABC 'dangerous internet' specials, get back on your grizzly. This new batch of 13-year-olds totally haven't seen The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes.

Facebook connoisseurs will remember the service's failed Wirehog p2p initiative, where (generally speaking) your computer was HTMLized and turned into a searchable, downloadable filesharing juggernaut so all your Facebook friends can grab your sweet 15-disc Deep Purple discography or the Lost in Translation Ass Ass Titties Titties song wherever and whenever they need it. The prog was buggy, but for a second the prospect of mixing Facebook--a thing with faces and favorite books and your classes and stuff--with FREE DOWNLOADABLE MUSIC, seemed pretty good. There was a lot of Guster I hadn't heard yet, and I looked forward to hearing every last bongo hit.

Anyway Facebook is usually the last place I turn for new tunes, but the last two weeks Face Zuckerbook and friends hooked up a ridiculously great deal with iTunes: 25 hot new downloads each week, and each week a new genre. Inexplicably, the selections are pretty solid too. Two weeks ago was indie rock, which included selections from Maritime, Phoenix, Granddaddy, Dirty on Purpose, The Twilight Singers, The Rakes, Mates of State, and Goldfrapp. The Phoenix song "Consolation Prizes" has this Belle&Sebastian vs. Cure vs. "Footloose" feel to it that earned itself a few extra clicks and a trip to my iPod. Dirty on Purpose's "Light Pollution" isn't a half-bad attempt at writing a "Maps" so guess what--I listened to it for more than fifteen seconds. Goldfrapp's "Fly Me Away" is already on my harddrive AND iPod but guess what, I'm deleting both and keeping the Facebook version.

This past week--dance music--blew me the hell away. I think Justice's "Waters of Nazareth" is total dogshit along the lines of every other heavy metal disco song I've ever heard, but I'm shocked--shocked--to see it among the Facebook 25, and now I might even like it a little. Audion's "Kisses"--this is on here too? And did the Facebook guys put the Ursula 1000 & Cristina track on here because they knew Cristina spent some time at Harvard, or because they know that I unsuccessfully pitched an article about her to Harvard Magazine? I never would have bothered with Daedelus's new album but "Sundown" is on here and the Books w/Four Tet drumsound shit he's on now is gorgeous. Junior Boys' "In the Morning" is on here too--what?

So applause. Can't wait for the Facebook/iTunes weeks on College Rock '99--every track is a different version of Dave Matthews' "Crash"--and Smooth Jazz '06--25 photos of me writing a Boney James review.

79/100 RIFFS

With Moustache



Without Moustache



"There's nothing wrong."

Riff Market Presents:
"Status Ain't Hood Quarterly Report: Riffs"
July 2006



SWEET/AWESOME TIMES IN RIFFTOWN 07/06

96 RIFFS: Zach Baron's review of the David Lee Roth concert. A fantastic ending to a promising start. Hear hear, all is not lost.

95 RIFFS: MC Hammer's Blog. The new Brooklyn Vegan?

90 RIFFS: Fam-Lay [ft. Pharrell]: "Beeper." Too bad this won't catch on. At least it made the Hood News.

90 RIFFS: Japanese Pop Culture Is At Its Nadir. Says Momus's more legible nemesis.

89 RIFFS: Falafel Star. First Avenue, 7th Street, the middle-aged, middle-eastern guy with the red hairdye.

78 RIFFS: Ott on Indie Rock. "I stand on one side of a great divide..."

68 RIFFS: Kids Air-Guitaring To Nirvana's "Aneurysm." They only air-guitar to bootlegs and b-sides.



NEW CLOWNS AND ENEMIES OF THE REPUBLIC OF RIFF

44 RIFFS: People Who Think "Baba O'Riley" Is Called "Teenage Wasteland." Enemies also include people who like and/or respect the song "Baba O'Riley."

33 RIFFS: APT. Overpriced, too far away, too difficult to pronounce.

23 RIFFS: Sex Columnist Joanna Angel Gets Canned From SPIN. She didn't answer my questions, nah. She just went straight back to gamefacing.

13 RIFFS: Zidane Headbutt. Missed opportunity for Zidane/Shawnna "Gettin' Some" mashup. Somebody get Catchdubs on the redphone.

5 RIFFS: Melanie Martinez Butt Sex Saga. Butt sex, I've found your Pee-Wee.

5 RIFFS: Coolfer Talking About Himself in the Third Person. This didn't used to bother me so much but with each passing day he gets more out of control.

2 RIFFS: The Rain. Too much.



FAVORITE ALBUMS 2006:
The Knife: Silent Shout
Sonic Youth: Rather Ripped
Belong: October Language
DJ Drama and Pharrell: In My Mind, The Prequel
DJ Drama and Lil Wayne: Dedication 2
Man Man: Six Demon Bag
Boris: Pink
Sunset Rubdown: Shut Up I Am Dreaming
T.I.: King
Ghostface Killah: Fishscale
Excepter: Alternation
Tokyo Police Club: A Lesson in Crime [EP]

FAVORITE SINGLES 2006:
Clipse [ft. Pharrell]: Mr. Me Too
Delia and Gavin: Relevee [DFA Remix]
Heartthrob: Baby Kate
Fam-Lay [ft. Pharrell]: Beeper
Herbert: Something Isn't Right
T.I.: What You Know
Yung Joc: It's Going Down
Escort: Starlight

FAVORITE MUSIC 2006:
Boredoms in Philly with Kiptok
Breeders: Last Splash
Black Dice: Broken Ear Record
Magnetic Fields
Moodymann 12s
Monoton reissues
Harmonia
Girl With Keyboard

RICK ROSS 2006:

Eyeball Skeleton
Cake Shop
July 30

Download: "Eyeball Skeleton"

Last night me and all the big kids showed up at Cake Shop a/k/a Pleasure Island to see two elementary schoolers and their puppetmaster dad play Pixies songs with bad singing, shoddy basswork, and Cute Kids Lyrics about "bouncing apes" and "sharks on fire" and, ahoy, the "eyeball skeleton" which are so fucking cloying no elementary schooler in the age of Mortal Kombat 21 and the Zidane headbutt could have written them. Half the time I wondered, who's doing who the favor here? Is the dad taking the kids on tour, or vice versa? The other half I thought about the light-skinned black kid who used to play drums around the Harvard T-stop and the kid's "manager." The kid would drum, then switch to piano, then to saxophone, then to keyboard, whatever the people want, whatever Papa said the people want, I'm tired papa, please, I'm hungry and tired and cold and my drumsticks are giving me splinters.

But Eyeball Skeleton are just young kids! Didn't you read their website? Didn't you read this sentence?

"EYEBALL SKELETON is the name of our band.It started when I was in Kindergarten and Charlie was in the 1st grade. We thought of the name cause Charlie thought of the name eyeball & I thought of skeleton."

They're just having fun--it's "honest and, most of all, FUN!" So why would anyone say something that might possibly dissuade them from making music? What's the beef? Sure there's something kitschy and gimmicky in that primal rock&roll& sorta way to have two untrained kids trucked around merely as believable visuals, and the whole "you're just trained to think that their singing's not in tune, you got to free your ear from Western music inhibitions dude, get down with the future!" is the same crockstock noise kids gorge themselves on between visits to that record store near me where bands actually bag up their own shit, call it LIMITED EDITION and people actually buy the shit.

BUT: The kids totally love it so what's the big deal! They get to stay up past their bedtime and drink coffee so they can stay awake! And isn't that what this world needs anyway--less bloggers, more music? They're just kids, leave them alone!

Well those people over there are just black people, that guy taking it up the butt is just a homo, and that lady covered in her own shit and piss and vomit is just a singer-songwriter-rapevictim isn't she! Let's just leave everybody alone, god forbid they read something you write and dedicate half a newspaper profile talking about how much they hate you.

Meanwhile, Ripitup Reynolds blames, among other things, the music, the overspecialization that requires needless jargon and a cool, calm head, the shorter inches. Which is true but he's merely listing symptoms for a scarier prospect. Critics--ostensibly music's biggest fans--don't listen, they just consume, categorize, top-ten and onto the next year. There's no room for love or hate, no room for writhing in anger or ecstasy or both, when the big question is Listen or Don't Listen, three stars or four. It's no longer a genre, it's a trade, and there's no trade in the world that will let me speculate what Eyeball's mother thinks of Eyeball, whether Eyeball is (as J thinks) just an elaborate way for Eyeball's dad to get back at Eyeball's mom, whether these kids get drunk on a night-to-night basis or only when they play sell-outs. Apparently that stuff's not important.

51 RIFFS