(Not so) Simply put, this book is so amusing I couldn’t allow myself to read it in public after a semi-embarrassing display in Atlanta Bread Company involving me sitting alone in a corner laughing to myself. The scene was moved to the public library where I continued to sit alone, silently chuckling and turning red from keeping my laughter in.

Chuck Klosterman’s latest contribution, IV, is a three-part book including “Things That Are True”, “Things That Might Be True”, and “Something That Isn’t True At All”.

The first part is filled with excellent pieces concerning topics from U2 and Led Zeppelin (Bono is crazy/awesome, Robert Plant is hilarious) to McDonald’s (”ronald mcdonald is the harvester of sorrow”).

Part two is filled with insightful hypotheticals and opinions on everything from pirates to VH1 Classic.

Faithful Klosterman followers will probably be familiar with many if not all of the essays featured in IV, as they are reprints of articles that appeared in the likes of SPIN and Esquire magazines. However, Klosterman has annotated and/or expanded several of the essays, allowing for a fresh take on them. One of my favorites is in reference to a piece written in 1995 about Fargo’s rock scene, in which he responds to his own writing by saying “Fuck. I was a really, really wretched person.”

IV ends with a piece of short fiction about a journalist whose day is interrupted when a body falls from the sky onto the hood of his car. The plot reminds me a bit of something Chuck Palahniuk would come up with, though the style and tone are clearly that of Mr. Klosterman. The story, You Tell Me, contains the most memorable line from the entire book - “You lose, Anne Frank.” I’ll let you have the pleasure of finding the context from which it came.

You can befriend IV here.

Here is a new mixtape for your listening pleasure. It’s kind of a cheat as it’s 1.25 years old, but most of you have never heard it before. It’s called Fall Asleep With Your Headphones On and I made it for my friend Tim (though it is about someone else entirely). It is an excellent breakup playlist.

Fall Asleep With Your Headphones On
01) Death Cab for Cutie - Marching Bands of Manhattan
02) The Postal Service - Brand New Colony
03) Frou Frou - Let Go
04) Brand New - Jaws Theme Swimming
05) Matt Pond PA - The Summer Is Coming
06) Between the Buried and Me - Colorblind
07) The Honorary Title - Everything I Once Had
0 Dashboard Confessional - Remember to Breathe
09) Rocky Votolato - Suicide Medicine
10) Colin Hay - I Just Don’t Think That I’ll Ever Get Over You
11) Motion City Soundtrack - My Favorite Accident (acoustic)
12) Fall Out Boy - Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner (acoustic)
13) Saves the Day - Take Our Cars Now
14) Ted Leo - Since U Been Gone
15) Rhett Miller - Your Nervous Heart
16) Ben Lee - How To Survive A Broken Heart
17) The Beatles - You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away
1 Jamie Cullum - High & Dry
19) The Format - A Mess to Be Made
20) Dog’s Eye View - Umbrella

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Tracks 1-10

I didn’t get everything done this week that I’d like to, and now I’m jetting (well, carpooling) off to Minneapolis for the weekend.

Here are a few teasers:
-The Shins’ new album is excellent, just like everyone else has already said.
-Fall Out Boy’s new album confuses me…I need to sleep on this one. I think I like it though.
-Don’t read Chuck Klosterman’s IV in public unless you are extremely adept at containing your laughter. I think the kind people at Atlanta Bread Company and the Madison Public Library believe I’m insane.

Finally, here are my favorite valentines ready for your perusal. I particularly enjoy numbers 1 and 18 for humor and 15 for true friendship.

More updates next week.

xo.

It’s artists like Christian Williams that have made it so I can no longer truthfully say “I hate country”. Previously I wouldn’t have touched anything close to country music with a ten-foot pole, but my hardened heart has found a place for the “classic country” sound. I blame Walk the Line.

Williams’ latest release, Built With Bones, is a “gothic country” album filled with earnest songs that tell stories of love, death, temptation, murder, execution, and the end of the world.

The first track, “You Ain’t Exempt”, sets the tone of the record. A battered baritone, an acoustic guitar, and a story from Death’s point of view reveal Williams’ knack for clever lyrics (”I’m the end of the line / the caboose of your life…”) and engaging stories.

Each track on the record tells a new story, with Williams using everything from saloon-style piano, six-stringed banjo, and an autoharp to transport the listener to the Old West without ever becoming hokey.

“Red” is the most memorable track on the album, telling a tale of adultery that leads to murder. The banjo creates an eerie and uneasy feeling which is further added to by Williams doubling himself in whisper with each use of the word ‘red’. If I had been listening to this in the dark I would have had to turn on the light, and I mean that in the most complimentary way.

Another standout is “The Long Drop” which juxtaposes the story of a man’s execution with beautiful chord changes that clash with the story that’s being told. The song ends with the clap of the trap door swinging open, leading to the narrator’s demise at the end of a rope. The effect was as sudden and unsettling as the end of Ambrose Bierce’s An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge.

Built With Bones is not entirely built on the matter of scary campfire tales; “Never the Widow” tells of a woman’s unfaltering devotion and “Something Like Love” could easily be altered into a set of non-traditional wedding vows.

If you’ve previously sworn off country, this is a good album to get your feet wet with. If nothing else you’ll hear a few good stories you haven’t before.

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Built With Bones dropped 01/2007.
You can learn more about Christian Williams’ style of gothic country here.

If you’re looking for a sound that you’ve never heard before, you aren’t going to find it on Locksley’s latest full-length album Don’t Make Me Wait.

If you’re looking for extremely well-crafted and catchy garage-pop that will remind you of The Mooney Suzuki, a bit of The Strokes, and more than a little of The Beatles, this is your album.

You may have encountered Locksley already without knowing it. Their title track is featured in the latest Cingular-now-AT&T commercial, and the band is responsible for the title theme of MTV’s thankfully short-lived ode to stalkerdom, Why Can’t I Be You?.

The album is heavy with jangly pop hits, the best of them being “She Does”. It is without question a great rock song, extremely catchy, and the highlight of the album. “Up the Stairs” offers a slightly darker sound, and “All Over Again” is more rock than pop.

Throughout the album the listener is bombarded with Beatles-esque vocal harmonies, which is no surprise if you’ve ever seen the band live. Shaggy hair, Beatle boots, matching outfits and synchronized bows are par for the course at any Locksley show. The fact that the band openly embraces being influenced by The Beatles is what allows them to succeed where Oasis failed. The best example of Locksley’s use of harmony is on “All of the Time”. The EP version is even more convincing - if played for an average listener under the premise that it was a previously unreleased Beatles tune they would most likely be fooled.

The first song on the album to sound like it’s not channeling another band is “It Won’t Be For Long”, but it’s not one of the album’s better tracks. Directly following it is “For You (Part I)” which is a complete departure in that the vocals sound like Coldplay’s Chris Martin as opposed to one of the Fab Four and the music is acoustic and hollow, leading up to “For You (Part II)” which kicks back in with the typical Locksley sound.

For what this album lacks in originality, it’s made up for in what it set out to accomplish. The album is full of great rock songs that you can hum along to and will have in your head for days to come. The band can play their instruments and can sing in tune, which is more than many can say. Also, they have a passion for what they’re doing and no one can fault them for that.

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Don’t Make Me Wait dropped on 1/16/07.
Find out more about Locksley here.

The question that’s been on my mind for the last two days is this - Mickey Avalon: genius or worst thing i’ve ever heard?

A couple of weeks ago I heard his single “Jane Fonda” and thought the lazy, country-ish guitar hook was mighty catchy but the lyrics were terrible.

I still feel the same way.

However, I can’t get the damn song out of my head. It laid dormant for a couple of weeks until two days ago when it inexplicably popped into my head and I CANNOT GET IT OUT. So I looked into it little bit. According to allmusic.com, Avalon is an ex-drug dealer/addict who comes from a hard knocks background and was in a rap group with Simon Rex. Yes, Simon Rex the MTV VJ. Avalon’s MySpace pictures reveal him to be a willowy, tattooed, punk kid, which somehow makes the inane lyrical content of “Jane Fonda” acceptable and even funny.

So I don’t know. Is “Jane Fonda” great due to it’s catchiness and presumably satiric nature? Or is it actually one of the worst songs ever written and my sad, pop-hungry brain just can’t get enough? If I figure it out I’ll let you know, until then I’ll be jazzercise-ing to the tune of “one, two, three, four - get your booty on the dance floor”.

Yesterday my coworker Bob asked me if I had ever heard of Peter, Bjorn & John. I shook my head no, immediately associating them with Peter, Paul & Mary - style fare, simply because there were three names and an ampersand involved.

When I got home from work I went onto the M|H MySpace and saw a bulletin by a girl named Anne with their video for “Young Folks” in it. I watched and fell in love.

It’s super chill, the whistling part is damn catchy, and the art is pretty sweet.

Check it.

Real updates soon.