Memorial Day...

Memorial Day...

Hey y'all, hope you're enjoying BBQs, friends / family and / or vacations but let's take a minute to remember the men and women who have served or are serving in our armed forces who have made today possible.

If you really want to know what I think, you probably don't really want to know what I think.

If you really want to know what I think, you probably don't really want to know what I think.

FRIEND: She didn't seem too happy with your critical evaluation of her writing.
ME: She asked for my opinion!
GALPAL: I guess she didn't realize you'd actually be honest.
ME: But I was right! Right?
FRIEND: Oh yeah.
GALPAL: Yup.

Le sigh.

Here's the thing about people in the media.

Here's the thing about people in the media.

It may not seem like it, but us media folks really do like each other. We take swipes at each other, we diss each other, we make fun of each other, we criticize each other, and sometimes we basically beat each other bloody with words, but in the end we all sort of feel like we're on the same team. There's a base competitiveness there, sure, but in the end I kind of feel like we're mostly on the same side. I hadn't really realized this until I started getting rocks thrown at me by upstarts and friends first got all up in arms about it and then asked me why I wasn't responding to the minor assaults. My response? I didn't care. It was like one of my brothers punching me in the arm. When they do that I could not care less ... but if someone else punches me in the arm or (God forbid) someone punches one of my brothers in the arm? Game over. They're going down.

So when you peer through your Twitter feeds / FB stati / MSM TV smackdown you should know this; we look like we hate each other but if you throw us all in a room I guarantee you we're all doing shots and laughing together.

What is that on your head?

What is that on your head?

It never fails. The day I get a new haircut I think it looks O.K., but can't wait to get home so I can style it myself. The day after my new haircut I usually wake up, look in a mirror and think it looks pretty damn good. On day three I wake up, look in the mirror and think I look like the lead character from an early Farrelly brothers movie.

Ah vanity, not only are you never satiated, you are whiplash cruel.

Of course I know all it will take is a bit of water to get my head looking right again, but it is humbling to know that even a reasonably decent looking guy like myself can be completely incapacitated in the physical charm department by willfully goofy acting hair.

Helps keep me in my place, I suppose.

I went to go see this band last week...

I went to go see this band last week...

...you might have heard of them. They're called The Dead Weather and they played a private show to 500 in a Chicago warehouse space. The booze was free, the crowd was cool, and the show was pretty awesome. The video below gives a taste of what the overall event was like but you should probably go and read my review and see my pictures of the show. (And if you like those shots, I have a ton of other photos from the evening here.)

Happy Bloggiversary Tankboy!

Happy Bloggiversary Tankboy!

So this incarnation of Tankboy writing has been around eight years now. I count the "technical" start of this whole thing as being in 1995 since that's when the first Tankboy e-mail went out to a small list of subscribers, but my first Blogspot / Blogger post was on this date in 2002.

So thanks to all of you that were there way back then and even more thanks to all of you that have stuck around for the ride so far!

How do I find the time?

How do I find the time?

It's gonna be another busy Friday. Things are poppin' at the 9-to-5 and after work we're having a going-away party for a gal I'm truly sad to see go. Once that wraps up I have to hoof it up to join GalPal / Mich at Metro for the Gapers Block 7th Anniversary show* (make sure you get there in time for openers Lasers and Fast and Shit). THEN, I have to rush to Darkroom to DJ my friend Vee's birthday party; a bash including an amazing array of terrific local band playing rapidfire sets and generally going wild.

So to recap. Boozin' with work buddies and then this:


Before I run to DJ at this:


And then finally go home and collapse!

*Out-of-towners: Gapers Block is similar to Chicagoist in that it's a citywide blog and Mich writes for their music section.

Guess who I'm going to see tonight?

Guess who I'm going to see tonight?

I can't wait!

Sweet Treat Wednesdays begin tonight!

Sweet Treat Wednesdays begin tonight!

GalPal / Mich (notice how I'm trying to transition one name to the other here?) and her DJ partner Lisa are kicking off a new Wednesday night weekly residency at Beauty Bar! They spin from 7 p.m. until 10 p.m. (when I notice my other friend Monika curates the rest of the evening) so strap yourself in for a long night of great music!

Here's what Beauty Bar says about the night:

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Old classics, new indie favorites, and a good dose of not so guilty pleasures. Just good music. Trust us.

Sounds abut right to me. Maybe if you're lucky they'll play your jam!

Dance yrself clean!

Dance yrself clean!

The new LCD Soundsystem is finally officially out today, and if you can't decide whether or not you should add it to your music collection perhaps my review can convince you to pick it up!

So how do you feel...

So how do you feel...

GalPal / Mich and I have been on a heavy INXS kick, so this is kind of hilarious.

Something lighthearted to kick off your week?

Something lighthearted to kick off your week?

If your coming week is anything like mine you will probably find yourself consuming mass quantities of coffee and ingesting large doses of upbeat pop to keep the motor revving. I went from thinking I had nothing going on this week to realizing I have events planned every single day! Them Crooked Vultures, Conan O'Brien, Mich's new weekly DJ gig, other various shows and fundraisers ... man am I glad I took it easy yesterday because the next couple of days will be a doozy!

So, let's start things of silly...

For once, I really screwed up!

For once, I really screwed up!

Watching this video, and non-stop listening to the new album, has made me severly regret missing Sleigh Bells when they were in town a few weeks ago. Dammit!

Girls who are boys, who like boys to be girls , who do boys like they're girls who do girls like they're boys...

Girls who are boys, who like boys to be girls , who do boys like they're girls, who do girls like they're boys ... always should be someone you really love!

I am DJing at Old oak Tap tonight! But I am not alone! DJ Shellster will be joining me in the teensy tiny DJ space and the two of us will do our absolute best to ensure your evening is soundtracked by only the finest tunes. Notice I said "absolute?" I am not abusing the actual meaning of that word, I am stating that we mean to personify it. Be there! (We start at 10 p.m.)

If you get there and want to say hi, we look like this:

Google O'Brien.

Google O'Brien.

This does nothing but reinforce how terrific i think Conan O'Brien is. However it's interesting to note that while we're used to seeing O'Brien make his guests look good, when he's the guest he has no problem tormenting the interviewer. (And I have zero problem with that because the interviewer makes the huge rookie mistake of trying to be funny when he should just be getting the fuck out of Conan's way.)

A lot of hot air.

A lot of hot air.

I’ve noticed something interesting about my critical writing lately and it is this: I seem to spend more time devoting negative ink to other music critics than I do to blasting bands. This would probably explain the teensy uproar yesterday when I sent out what I thought was a funny tweet about DeRo’s replacement at the Sun-Times.* It was misread as being critical of the new pop critic as a writer when it wasn’t meant as such. (An aside must be offered: I only knew one of what I was sure quite a few names being bandied about the S-T office for sure, but I was honestly holding out for the paper to make a gutsy move and bring in someone super talented and sharp, continuing the honest voice of their predecessor, like Jessica Hopper. Not that she would have probably even taken the job, but I think it would have been interesting to see where she took the music coverage.)

ANYWAY, after all that I realized that in the past few months I have become less and less tolerant of other music writers, and that has probably been seeping into my own online conversations, ultimately fueling the perception that if I even mention another writer it is probably because I find their output to be faulty in some way. Now it is true that while I like just about every music writer I’ve gotten to know over the years there are very few whom I actually enjoy reading. Big whoop-de-do. They, if they are smart cookies and not out there for fame and glory (which would immediately mark them as delusional), shouldn’t give a flying fuck what I think of their writing. But the truth is, some people do care what I think. Why?

I’ve given it a lot of thought and I think the main reason, the biggest reason, is that I reach a wide audience. Most music writers write exclusively for music sites and therefore are kind of already preaching to the converted. Most of my professional writing has been in papers or for sites that reach a wide general audience. This means I actually get to turn people on to music they may have never encountered otherwise. I’ve had people I’ve never met before come up to me at a show and thank me for recommending it because they had an awesome time and just bought all the merch they could. I write honestly and directly and sometimes even artfully and I think people appreciate that. I think.

Or, maybe, I’ve just been doing this for so long that people have been fooled into thinking I have some idea about what I’m doing. Either way works for me.

*DeRo’s editor is replacing him, and my tweet tried to make a funny corollary between that and Dick Cheney’s heading of the VP search team for George Bush that resulted in Dick Cheney choosing Dick Cheney to be Bush’s VP. C'mon, admit it, that IS a LITTLE funny, no?

For the record, the Carl Wilson book pictured in this post? It's an excellent example of music writing that surfs high- and low-brow, being intelligent enough to flatter the reader following along without resorting to high-falutin' lexical tricks in order to prove its intelligence. In other words, a pretty damn fine piece of music writing. I just wanted to make that clear since I didn't want anyone to think that the accompanying image was meant as a slight considering the surrounding text.

TankSter129 Night at The Burlington is TONIGHT!

TankSter129 Night at The Burlington is TONIGHT!

Lizz / SuperBird can't make it tonight so GalPal a.k.a. Mich a.k.a. @shellster129 will be DJing with me at The Burlngton instead! I know, a boyfriend / girlfriend DJ team? Bleccch! I hope no one gets cooties!

C'mon by, it should be fun!

Transocean's legal team really take my breath away.

Transocean's legal team really takes my breath away.

I was listening to a story on NPR about how Transocean, the company that owns that oil rig that has completely fucked the Gulf of Mexico with its black emissions, treated the survivors of the explosion that set off this whole disaster. At first the most shocking thing in the story was hearing how one worker's wife, upon discovering he was still alive, took a cab to the airport for the first time in her life. It was the first time in her life that she ever took a cab. That's mind-blowing to me. And it's one of those little touches in a story that both catch your attention and set you up for a much bigger blow.

You see the lawyers sequestered the survivors in a situation not unlike a terrorist interrogation...

But before they could go home, there was one more form and one more attempt to get the survivors to give information. At the hotel, there were representatives for Transocean who asked [Christopher] Choy to initial a line that said: I was not injured as a result of the incident or evacuation.

Choy had seen men with open wounds and burning flesh. He knew 11 of his friends were dead. He felt he was among the lucky ones.

Exhausted and just wanting to get home with [Choy's wife] Monica, he signed.

The aftermath?

And when Choy sued his employer, Transocean wrote back and said: But you signed that form. You said you weren't injured.

Choy's angry, too, that it's being held against him.

"It shouldn't count, because I'd been up for almost 40 hours ... and just gone through hell," Choy says. "And they want to throw papers in my face for me to sign to take them, you know, out of their responsibility.

Despicable.

Photo: Reuters

Monday, Monday...

Monday, Monday...

...and we're off to see Shout Out Louds. I'm excited to finally are them play but bummed the show is on a Monday.

Dear bands, when touring through Chicago can to just take Mondays off so I can just veg out in front of the TV? Thanks.

Bob Lefsetz hates music.

Bob Lefsetz hates music.

Well, not all music, just yours. And your show. You see, if you're not already famous, and don't already have a studio album that has tickled his ears under your belt, he doesn't want to see you perform.

That is fucked up.

THIS is the guy music industry types follow and read and trust? No wonder the industry is in the fucking toilet. Look, part of his rep is his whole shtick that he loves music and loves telling it straight, but the sad truth is he's an aging baby boomer who wants what he wants. Does he have occasional instances of illuminated brilliance? Sure, but so would anyone who spits out thousands of words a day. The odds are in his favor.

Look, if you don;t like live music you don;'t already feel comfortable with and understand, you have zero business pretending your some kind of taste-maker. Though maybe that's why industry types love Lefsetz ... they both hate good music.

Photo by Jonathan Alcorn

Go read this NOW!

Go read this NOW!

GalPal has been toiling for weeks on her first full-length paid feature and it's finally up and live!

Read it!

Seriously, it's great.

Uadulterated CoCo.

Uadulterated CoCo.

One thing I've found to be undeniably admirable about Conan O'Brien's actions over the last six months is just how positively he's tried to handle everything thrown his way. But what is he really thinking...



(h/t Vulture)

Feel my pain?

Feel my pain?

Now that I use a Mac at work and a PC at home I find that I keep confusing the keyboard shortcuts between the two.

I know, what a rough life I lead.

Quatro de Mayo.

Quatro de Mayo.

I have nothing to share with you today. I was hoping something would come across my radar and be funny enough to entertain you, but it's just not happening. So here is my default: if you're looking for something fun to do tonight a few of my friends are gathering at The Burlington to start celebrating Cinco de Mayo a day early. Why are they doing this? Hell if I know, but considering the group that's gathering there should be yucks a plenty to go around.

The return of Xtina?

The return of Xtina?

Me? I'm pleased the girl is back to being all Dirrty and stuff. Plus, those pipes can still not be denied.

(Mostly) unplugged.

(Mostly) unplugged.

So, yeah. We finally hired a new copywriter at my 9-to-5 so I actually took the day off Friday. Why? Because I finally could! And what did I do with that day? Well, actually I was pretty productive, ran a whole truckload of errands and ended up actually doing stuff instead of just laying around consuming DVDs on the couch (as I had originally planned). I saved the laziness for Saturday. And since we stayed in Saturday night, GalPal and I got an early start Sunday and were SO motivated I out together our brand new grill and had a few good friends over for an impromptu cookout! So, s unlike me. GalPal is a god influence.

The flip-side of all of this was that I was mostly offline for the last three days. I sent out a few tweets on my phone and checked my email once or twice, but for the most part I was unplugged. It was -- outside the fact that now I'm staring at hundreds of emails and thousands of feeds -- quite a wonderful experience.