Crib Notes

Do you have a question for The Black Lips? A comment? Would you like to berate the band for urinating on you last time you saw them live? Would you like to berate the band for NOT urinating on you last time you saw them live.

Now’s your chance.

From the band’s blog:

we got a new phone and don’t know what to do with it so we started a hotline. It’s inspired by CB and Hamm radios, because people don’t use those anymore, and we think truckers are cool. It’ll give us something to do in the van. The minutes will probably expire, and i’m not paying for that shit. give us a ring if you are in trouble, need advice, or are just plain lonely.
949 836 7407

(photo by Joeff Davis)

Elvis Costello is only releasing his new album, Momofuku, on two formats: vinyl and digital download.

No CDs.

The Atlanta band Spy did the same with their terrific, self-titled debut in 2005, produced by Steve Albini. Unlike Elvis Costello, Spy didn’t charge for the download — only the vinyl.

After a line-up change, Spy changed its name to East Orange. They plan to record again with Albini this year.

Spy’s Mark and Jon Skinner with Steve Albini at his Electrical Audio recording studio in Chicago in 2004. (photo by Andisheh Nouraee)

Because they were never a favorite of critics, even music trivialists don’t realize the second most popular band from the original British Invasion wasn’t The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Yardbirds, The Who or even Herman’s Hermits.

With 17 Billboard Top 40 hits between 1964 and 1967, The Dave Clark Five were The Beatles’ closest British Invasion chart rivals in the U.S.

Mike Smith, the group’s lead singer, died Thursday. He was 64.

Here’s one of DC5’s biggest hits, “Glad All Over.”

For the 10th anniversary of Neutral Milk Hotel’s landmark album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Slate has published a story about the defunct Athens group’s leader, Jeff Mangum.

If you’re a longtime CL reader and the story rings a bell, that’s because it covers much of the same ground covered in CL’s popular 2003 cover story, “Have you seen Jeff Mangum?”, written by former staffer Kevin Griffis.

And for those of you wondering what happened to Kevin Griffis, he left journalism in 2004 to become a political consultant. Last time I looked, he was with the Obama campaign.

(photo by Jim Stawniak)

Illustrator Richard Krolewicz, aka boyshapedbox, has started a Flickr group devoted to famous songs rendered as charts or graphs. It’s open to the public.

The contributions are hit-and-miss, but when they hit, they’re hilarious.

For example (click to enlarge):

and

The Evita one is my new desktop.

I had some free time yesterday, so I made my own, too:

If you contribute any, let me know.

Thank you to everyone who participated in our first and last annual Gordon Lightfoot Singing Contest.

The response was overwhelming.

OK, maybe overwhelming isn’t the word. It was whelming. Six people participating — seven if you count the backing vocalist on the last call.

Click here to listen to five CL readers and two CL staffers singing the songs of Gordon Lightfoot.

I’m not sure who’s getting the tickets. I called three winners, but none have called me back yet. My great-grandfather used to tell me, “Andisheh, never trust a fan of Canadian folk-rock.” I finally know what he meant.

For reasons I don’t entirely understand, there are six tickets on my desk to Gordon Lightfoot’s concert at Cobb Energy Centre Friday, Feb. 15, at 8 p.m.

I can’t go to the concert, so you can have the tickets for free.

All you have to do is call my office voicemail and sing me one of the following three Gordon Lightfoot songs: “Sundown,” “If You Could Read My Mind” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

Sing me at least 15 seconds of “Sundown” and, bam, you qualify for two tickets. Sing me at least 15 seconds of “If You Could Read My Mind” and, bam, you qualify for two tickets. Sing me the first three verses of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and you qualify for two tickets. Sing all three and you may get all six tickets.

Be sure to tell me your name and how to reach you. You can pick up the tickets at our office.

In the unlikely event that more than one person calls me for this contest, I’ll divide up the tickets between my favorite entrants.

My office phone is 404-614-1888. The deadline is 9 a.m. Friday.

Note: I may record your singing and put it on this blog. Naturally, I will not include your contact info in the podcast.

Good luck and God speed!

(Gordon Lightfoot, you are not eligible to participate.)

Today is the 72nd anniversary of Elvis Presley’s birth and the 62nd anniversary of him getting his first guitar for his 10th birthday. He wanted a gun, but his mom was worried he’d hurt himself, so she opted for the guitar.

Celebrate the special day with this grainy bootleg footage of Elvis performing at the Omni in December 1976.

Or if you prefer, here’s a user-made Elvis slideshow soundtracked by my favorite Elvis-inspired work art, “Elvis Ate America” by Passengers.

Passengers was a pseudonym for Brian Eno, u2 and Howie B. It’s the smartest, funniest lyrics Bono has ever written.

Dear Rodney-

I used to love making year-end, top 10 lists of the music I listen to, but this year I can’t.

Here’s a list of reasons why.

1. The iPod has destroyed my ability to listen patiently — When I listened to music on vinyl, cassettes and CDs, I used to listen to albums from beginning to end. Now I skip around like mad. Even if I’m enjoying a song, I’ll skip to the next one halfway through. I’m an impatient person and iPods enable my impatience. I listen to music constantly, but I don’t think I’ve listened to 10 albums from beginning to end this year.

2. A lot of musicians I adore put out lousy records this year — Since about 1973, Bryan Ferry has been peppering his solo albums with great Bob Dylan covers. This year, he put out an entire album of Dylan covers, and it sucked. Seriously fucking awful. Brett Anderson (formerly of Suede), Crowded House and Björk all disappointed me as well.

3. My sinuses have been bugging me — For the past six months, I’ve been fighting a war of attrition against a sinus infection. Being in smoky bars, the kind where music is often performed, makes it hard for me to breathe. I’m a civil libertarian and don’t think Atlanta should outlaw smoking in bars. If the city did, however, I’d certainly see more live shows.

4. My ears have been bugging me. I photographed Deerhunter at the Earl last summer for CL and forgot to bring earplugs. My right ear has been ringing ever since. The ringing gets worse if I’m exposed to loud noises for extended periods of time.

5. I live in a townhouse now — After six years of living in single-family, detached homes, my fiancee and I moved to a townhouse in Decatur. I’ve got a decent stereo, but I’m reluctant to play music too loudly because I don’t want to annoy my neighbors. The result is that a lot of the music I listen to lately is just background music.

6. I have a loud car — I own a 1973 Mercedes-Benz 220D. It’s a lovely car, but there are two things wrong with it. Thing 1: The transmission is stuck in third gear, which means I can’t drive it right now. Thing 2: When I can drive it, it’s so damn loud that music cannot be heard over the car’s tiny, single dashboard-mounted speaker.

7. Instrumental music — Since I started working at CL full-time in March, I’ve started listening to instrumental jazz and ambient music on my iPod. I can’t make a list of it, though, because I’m not really sure what I’m listening to. Without lyrics, I have trouble remembering names of songs.

THE PIPETTES AT VINYL: Singer Gwenno Pipette can’t believe how much parking costs in Midtown. (Photo by Perry Julien)

The Pipettes are a British group whose sound and matching polka-dotted look harks back to the era of the so-called girl groups — artists like the Ronettes and the Crystals whose popularity peaked after Elvis was drafted, but before the Beatles played “Ed Sullivan.”

In support of their debut album, We Are the Pipettes, the Pipettes played a proper gig at Vinyl in Midtown on Friday. A couple of hours earlier, though, they marched into Criminal Records in Little Five Points and played a fantastic three-song acoustic set to a roomful mostly of men – many of whom were, presumably, like me, there to find out if they would look and sound as good in person as they do on YouTube and CD.

The answers: yes and yes. The Pipettes are cuter than puppies in toilet paper commercials and their three-part harmonies are as lovely live as they are in-studio. They sounded so good, I almost bought a second copy of their CD. No joke.