Sunday, June 24, 2007

Random Weekend Thoughts

When Barry Bonds hits homer #756, baseball fans everywhere should go out and buy Ken Griffey Jr. jerseys.

Speaking of baseball, Braves' manager Bobby Cox got ejected from his 131st major league game recently, tying the record. He should totally shoot for 162. That'd be a whole season of asshattery.

Why do people think Drive-By Truckers are a jam band? I'm kinda glad they do, though, because there's a shitload of live shows available for my listening pleasure. Stupid hippies. DBT = Punk As Fuck. OK. Maybe not. But they rawk, and jam bands do not rawk, by definition. If you disagree with this, you do not know the rawk.

Speaking of music, Russian Circles sounds like Slint playing metal. This is a Good Thing.

Why isn't Birmingham radio playing The Dexateens? Oh, yeah. Because Birmingham radio sucks big burlap bags of cocks.

6 comments:

Sam Ford said...

Hey, I wanted to contact you re: your blog. My name is Sam Ford, and I'm from the Convergence Culture Consortium at MIT. If you can, give me an e-mail at samford@mit.edu.

Bitter Old Punk said...

WTF?

OK, I'll bite.

Anonymous said...

"Because Birmingham radio sucks big burlap bags of cocks."

Sadly, the Birmingham listeners are big fans of the burlap contents, as well. All the local shows that have ever run -- Samford's radio station, Mark at Night's metal shows, Coyote J.'s local hours -- have all failed because of listenership (or lack thereof).

And yet I still love this town...

Bitter Old Punk said...

I agree, Kenn, with both your frustration with and perverse love for the Tragic City.

And it is to some degree a self-fulfilling prophecy. I mean, if there were a cool local radio show that played bands like The Dexateens or Through The Sparks, how would I know? I've given up on Birmingham radio. If I'm not listening to NPR or a baseball game, I'm listening to my iPod.

Maybe we're entering an era where local music can flourish without local radio. I hope so. I guess it always has. But the thing that dooms Birmingham is simply this: most of the smart, talented people leave town as soon as they can, because Birmingham is no place to be smart and talented. I hope that's changing.

Sara Leah said...

It seems to be changing little by little. It's actually changed a great deal since I moved here 7 and a half years ago. There are more people going out to shows, to support the local music. Having these national acts come through more often is giving the scene in Birmingham confidence, helping it flourish.

Anonymous said...

DBT...because many of the first people to tape them were also fans of bands commonly referred to as "jambands," whether they really deserve that title or not. That's why the label is so lame. A DBT album was also originally funded, in part, by a jamband musician, hence more of those type of fans too I'm sure.

Also, taping doesn't always equal jambands.