I shall now bash an easy target for 15 minutes

I've come to the conclusion recently that I really hate the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

In my teen years, I ranged from being mostly indifferent to them to kind of liking them. That kind of evolved into a nice period where I mostly forgot about their existence, save for every now and then when I would hear "Californication" or "By the Way" or whatever that song was called, and say to myself, "Well, it sounds like the Chili Peppers... but more like a corporate recreation of the Chili Peppers." (You could substitute "Foo Fighters" for "Chili Peppers" in that last sentence and it would work just as well, by the way.)

Now, though, I can't stand them. I think something snapped in me when Billy Preston died and I read that the last recording he played on was the latest Red Hot Chili Peppers album. Whatever happened, I can't stand them. Old Peppers, new Peppers, it doesn't matter.

Older Chili Peppers albums are like hearing what a George Clinton band would sound like if Clinton had been brainwashed by a bunch of idiotic frat guys and sodomized with a broomstick. Braindead white boy funk? They got that down! The worst rapper in the world, thrown in the mix? Check and mate!

Newer Chili Peppers albums are like hearing what would happen if some Armani-wearing douchebag with slicked back hair said to Anthony Keidis, "We'll give you a billion dollars if you water down your sound as much as possible." So now instead of moronic raps and preschool melodies about having sex and shooting heroin, we have moronic raps about... what the hell is this song about anyway?

Of course, more recently, we don't even seem to get the moronic raps. Only lazy vocals that just drift in and out of nothingness, yet seem to trigger some deep-rooted urge in people to spend money on crap. The outrageously flashy bass-playing has been similarly diluted. Flea was probably the best thing they had going for them. Now all they have is their mountains of cash, their generic songs about nothing, and that drummer who looks eerily like Will Ferrell.

This turned into a kind of formless rant, but I'll admit one thing: "Breaking the Girl" was a cool song. I'll give them that. Don't try to throw "Under the Bridge" at me as an example of a good song, though. Choirs of children are a cheesy crutch that's been overused at least since "Across the Universe" (which is a good song despite that, and really, that was only two girls or something, right?), and definitely since "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2."

For music dorks only

Today I sat down and actually read a review at pitchforkmedia.com. I usually eschew the reviews (unless they really rip something to shreds) and go to the news and interviews and whatnot, but today they reviewed a box set of Tortoise songs that I haven't heard yet. And since Tortoise is one of my favorite bands, and they gave it a 9.2 out of 10 (although I'm still not sure how they decide that it's a 9.2 and not, say, a 9.3), I sat down and read it.

And what do you know? I actually enjoyed it. It's the kind of review written by and for dorks like me. Which means that it's probably utterly useless to people who won't get references to Miles Davis' On the Corner (which this blog is actually named after!) and Can as "dance music you can't dance to." Another dorky music nerd reference: "Casey Rice's 'Cobwebbed' sounds a bit like an Aphex circa Selected Ambient Works II DAT discovered a few decades later in a storage unit out by the highway." If you actually know what a DAT is, you're probably a step ahead of most people. If you have Selected Ambient Works II, you're golden.

My personal favorite, though: "And though bookish indie heartthrobs can now make a mint singing about the Cook County chamber of commerce over Steve Reich pastiches, Tortoise offered no such easy ins."

Ouch! Take that, Sufjan! I love Sufjan Stevens as much as the next person, but the writer's got a point there, I guess... listen to your copy of Enjoy Your Rabbit and go out and buy yourself a copy of Reich's Music for 18 Musicians and see if Reich shouldn't be suing Sufjan right now.

So what's my point here? I have no idea. I do know that there are probably few things more infuriatingly stupid than writing about writing about music (Would Frank Zappa say that's like dancing about dancing about architecture? Another nerdy reference for you.), so some people are probably reading this and rolling their eyes so far back into their heads that they can see their own brains. But I'm bored and killing a half hour, so indulge me today and I swear I'll write about Snakes on a Plane tomorrow.

OK... Go watch this

Up until today, I've been fairly indifferent about OK Go since I first heard them. Decent power pop, I suppose. Not really anything special, but not by any means bad either.

Today, I just became a huge fan of OK Go:



I like bands that don't seem to take themselves seriously while doing just that at the same time, and I can't think of a more perfect example than this. Think about the time and effort that had to have gone into that.

Mostly, though, it's great because it's unbelievably fun and inventive. I haven't had this much fun watching a music video since I first saw Bjork's "It's Oh So Quiet." My personal favorite part is the move that starts right at 2:19, but it's all fantastic. I also like when the guy in red pants almost falls over at about 1:00.

So anyway, if they did stuff like this at their live shows, I would go see them. But the music, catchy as it is, isn't the best part.

Tom spouts opinions about a ton of new music in ten minutes

The title is pretty self-explanatory, right? Let's get this thing started...

Sufjan Stevens - The Avalanche - Holy hell! An avalanche is right! Sufjan continues his onslaught of music with yet another loooooooong-ass album about Illinois. You may remember that I was very much a fan of Illinois, but this is what we call overkill. I don't need or want another three versions of "Chicago," and every time I hear Sufjan work his "Stereolab-via-Chicago (the band, not the song, but the song too)" magic, it starts sounding a little more formulaic. Ditto for the historic-observation-via-family-story songs. Illinois was long enough as it is. This is just too much for me to stay interested in.

The Futureheads - News and Tributes - I guess these guys liked XTC's Drums and Wires so much that they decided to record a sly tribute album to it. I didn't hear the first Futureheads record, so I can't say whether or not their, um... "homage" is a new thing. I also haven't listened to it enough to really get a strong impression of anything on more than a superficial level, so if I'm missing some mind-blowing lyrics or something, forgive me.

Six Organs of Admittance - Sun Awakens - Ok, NOW we're talking. I wouldn't recommend this to everybody, but if you have the patience for a 23 minute drone of a song, check it out immediately, because it's worth every second. Side A is good too, if a little scattershot.

Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out of This Country - I wanted to be the first person ever to write about Camera Obscura without mentioning Belle and Sebastian, but what's the point? Besides, if I did that, I wouldn't be able to point out that Camera Obscura actually made a better album this year than Belle and Sebastian did. The apprentice has become the master! Or something like that.

Matmos - The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast - I like Matmos. They look like NASA technicians from the 1960s. They're pals with Bjork. (On the Bjork live DVD I have, she performs in outlandish outfits while they sit at computers onstage in white suits looking somewhat bored.) Plus there was that infamous thing where they recorded sounds from a liposuction to use in their music. And now here comes the weirdest concept album of the year (step aside, Liars!), audio portraits of gay and lesbian figures, from Ludwig II to Joe Meek. It's occasionally unsettling (the sound of "shit" is interpreted rather literally), but always fascinating. Plus, Bjork makes a brief appearance, which means a million bonus points for Matmos. It's mostly music to be appreciated on an intellectual level, but I have no problem with that.

Lily Allen - Alright, Still - I didn't want to listen to Lily Allen at first because her MySpace page described her genre as "Pop/Hyphy/Ska." I don't know what "hyphy" means, but "ska" is about as big a red flag as I could ask for. Plus, why should I care about the music of a spoiled daughter of an actor/comedian and a film producer? Well, I'm going to grudgingly admit that she's actually pretty good. Her album drags toward the end despite being only 36 minutes or so long, but considering that she's my younger brother's age, it's still pretty damned impressive. There's enough there to warrant repeated listens, especially to songs like "Smile" (which was apparently a #1 hit in England) and "Everything's Just Wonderful."

Bobby Abreu, we hardly knew ye...

It's been a weekend of mixed emotions for the die hard Phillies fan such as myself. First, David Bell was traded to Milwaukee for nobody, which is a shame because it came right as he finally got on my good side for the first time since 2004 by playing like a competent major league third basemen.

The big shebang was yesterday, of course, when the Phillies traded Bobby Abreu and Cory Lidle to the Yankees for four people of little consequence. Finally, Rheal Cormier, who, like Bell, had finally gotten back on my good side after a disastrous 2005, was traded to Cincinnati for a prospect of middling talent.

So holy crap, where do I start?

First of all, I'm sadder than anybody to see Bobby Abreu go. We sports fans of Philadelphia like to pride ourselves as being more knowledgeable than the average fans, but the way we treated Abreu never really reflected this. He's been one of the best hitters in all of baseball for almost a decade, and what do we do? We rag on him because he doesn't dive into the right field wall like Aaron Rowand would (apparently we'd be better off with more players who play hard-nosed defense and have an on base percentage of .322 and less players who play average defense (and yet have an amazingly strong arm) and have an on base percentage of .427 and also hit 100+ RBI every year). Any team in the league would be happy to have Abreu, and any team would be better with him than they are without him.

If it's true that he was traded to free up the money that we would pay him, which it seems to be, this reflects extremely low standards by the Phillies' GM, Pat Gillick. Remember when he vowed not to trade Abreu unless he could get a top tier starter in return? That standard sure dropped. It seems like these days all he's worth is a shortstop who might someday hit in the 8 hole for a team like Pittsburgh. And hell, let's throw in Cory Lidle too! It's not like the Phillies have any problems with starting pitching...

So here's what to expect from Bobby now that he's joined the Evil Empire: he'll be rejuvenated, find his power stroke again, be a 30/30/.300 guy again, and win a World Series or two.

Are we used to seeing former Philadelphia athletes win elsewhere yet? Curt Schilling sure didn't mind leaving. Scott Rolen doesn't have a ring yet, but does play for one of the most consistently great teams in the league. And we didn't get anything of value in return for those guys either! (Placido Polanco excluded, but we traded him for a relief pitcher who's currently in jail in Venezuela.)

So with the Phillies having emphatically declared themselves "sellers" and not "contenders" (check back in '08, says Gillick), here's the shortlist of teams with old allies to root for during the remainder of the 2006 season:

- Detroit Tigers - They have the aforementioned Placido Polanco, plus they're the feel-good story of the year, considering how badly they've stunk for quite a long time. They now have the best record in the league.
- Cincinnati Reds - Another story of a rising underdog, they also have former Phillies Eric Milton and Rheal Cormier.
- Boston Red Sox - Curt Schilling, Mike Timlin, and manager Terry Francona are the old pals here. But they all were with the '04 team that won.
- New York Yankees - It's time to think the unthinkable. The Yankees have Abreu and Lidle. They have Phillie fan favorite Sal Fasano, who's not quite the same without his hair and fu manchu, but is still the same Sal Fasano who busts his ass for every single foul ball and who used to drink 30 beers every day. Their third base coach is former Phillies shortstop (1970-1981) and former Phillies manager (2001-2004) Larry Bowa. And on top of all that, I find myself almost feeling sorry for Douchebag Supreme Alex Rodriguez, who really, truly has no way to stop fans from booing him. He could hit .400, and people would complain that he still got out 60% of the time. In other words, he's a little like Bobby Abreu was in Philadelphia. Except that Bobby Abreu wasn't a pretty boy douchebag, no matter what some people said. But still, with all that, let's put it this way: if the World Series comes down to the Yankees and the Mets, we have a clear choice.

Finally, one more note on Abreu: did anybody see his post-game interview with Harry Kalas and Chris Wheeler yesterday? Bobby proved himself a man of utmost class and dignity, and deserves all the respect that any of us can possibly give to an overpaid professional athlete. I'm going to miss him, and even knowing that he'll be playing for the Yankees, I'll still root for him.

Fiery Furnaces & Man Man update/the one-year anniversary of tomsmashblog

A month ago today, I saw the Fiery Furnaces and Man Man at the Theatre of Living Arts in Philly. I wrote about it on this site a couple days later.

Well, guess what! Now you too can feel some of the immeasurable insanity that I experienced that night, thanks to National Public Radio! Here is your link. You can download or stream live sets from both Man Man and the Fiery Furnaces, played live at the 9:30 Club in Washington three days after I saw them.

I tell you what, that stuff is going straight onto the ol' mp3 player.

In other news, my own blog turns one year old today. For nostalgia's sake, here is the somewhat uninteresting first post here. As you can see, the idea to post on a regular schedule fizzled out almost immediately. Oh well. Let's see if I make it another year.

Ever wonder how on Earth you got to where you are?

Sunday night was an interesting night for me. I know I said when I started this here blog that it wouldn't be an account of my day-to-day life, but I promised to several people that I would post this.

I was at a friend's house with some other friends on Sunday night. It was normal partyish thing with normal partyish activities. Then, suddenly and without warning, and as far as I can tell, for no reason whatsoever, people's clothing started coming off. Look:


That was before the gals' pants started coming off too. There are plenty more pictures where that came from, all taken with my shitty camera phone (and many of them by other people who commandeered my phone, so I'm only sort of a creepy voyeur or something). Suffice it to say that there are more than half a dozen people who are going to have to pay me a lot of money to keep quiet if they ever plan on running for a high-profile political office. Especially Alex:


So now if anybody asks whether I have a picture of myself in my underwear, I can answer yes. Because people ask me that all the time, apparently. But I'm not posting that one.

Anyway, to the people who asked/demanded that I post this stuff on the internet, here you go. You may revel in your shame(lessness).

Final side note: the Blogger spell-checker recognizes "shitty" as a word, but not "blog."