RIP – Leroi Moore

#34 – Dave Matthews Band

Things for Wednesday

- Roy Peter Clark teaches you about the serial comma. Read it and learn, friends and scribes.

- It annoys me that I have missed the Newport Folk Festival four years in a row. I’m going next year, damnit! Stereogum has pictures.

- Best iPhone app: I am rich. It costs $999.99, and doesn’t do anything but display a glowing red ruby. Genius.

- Today’s horrifyingly stupid product: Eyelid jewelery! Yes folks, now you too can dangle miscellaneous things from your contact lenses.

- Hey hipsters: How about this for vintage? A pair of Levi’s from the 1890s.

- Skip business school and earn the “personal MBA” by reading the books on Josh Kaufman’s 77 best list. Sweet. Seems I’m already on that track. Oh wait, Pitchfork’s News and Iris Murdoch aren’t on Kaufman’s list?

- Horrifying chart showing how much Americans have changed the daily diet since 1970. [NYT via kottke]

- Cool music video from Bat for Lashes [thanks, mikefro]

- Perfect performance of Blue Ridge Mountains by Fleet Foxes, if you can stand Letterman’s terrible introduction:

Considering the inconsiderate

Yesterday I had a bizarre altercation on Boston’s Green Line. Given that they have no real standard for boarding people since introducing the CharlieCard two years ago, I walked in through one of the doors and selected a nice, sunsoaked seat in the rear of the train.

Of course, two minutes after all the doors closed the siren from Revere operating the train demanded that I come forward and tap my card to prove I’m an upstanding citizen, yada yada.

So I do this, leaving my leather messenger bag on the seat. I beam a tellingly apologetic smile at the conductor, who responds with a cough that sounds like motor oil mixed with Carlton 100s, and mosey on back to my warm spot in the sun.

Upon returning, I watch a girl my age throw my messenger back to the floor and plop down right where I was sitting. She gave me a look that said nothing and everything all at once: “What?,” simultaneously installing her headphones as I stood next to her, suited and lightly perspiring.

So the lesson here is: one idle messenger bag does not a person’s seat make, at least if you live along Beacon Street.

Music notes

- Fleet Foxes are dominating the interwebs. Stereogum offered its praise, and Pitchfork put up a few videos on P4kTV. I prefer some home movies shot at Schuba’s:

- Howie Day is doing okay, if this performance from mid-July is any indication. Hopefully the new album is a bit of a return to form for him:

- As predicted, Ryan Adams & the Cardinals announced a small fall tour with nods to a new album due out “at some point” during the fall. I’m catching them at the BofA pavilion in Boston, but you should try to see them at one of the more obscure venues.

Also, in case you were wondering, Ryan is still culturally relevant and alive:

Regardless of varied judgments as to my cultural relevance, i am thankfully alive and exercising my joy in creating. i only hope anyone who hears, reads or sees any of my contributions will permit the work to speak where i cannot.

via the dot com

Dear Chicago – Ryan Adams & the Cardinals (7/29/07, Chicago Theater via archive.org)

- Sasha Frere-Jones has a piece in this week’s New Yorker with a near-perfect subtitle: “Coldplay’s expanding gas.” Settling comfortably somewhere between cautious praise and exhaustion, Mr. Frere-Jones hits Chris Martin and cohorts square on the head when he reflects on the band’s recent free concert at Madison Square Garden:

There Martin was, onstage in his Little Bummer Boy outfit, skipping around and waving his fists. Except the crowd wasn’t going wild, and the music wasn’t calling for a celebration. Though the audience was obviously delighted to see Coldplay appear, the energy in the room remained fairly controlled throughout the set, even dipping to indifference at points. Which made Martin’s moves seem that much more canned. It felt as if he’d done the entire show in a mirror, down to the self-deprecating wisecracks. In one of his increasingly suspect apologies, Martin told his American fans, “We come over here, we steal your women.” That’s right. If anyone in the audience had forgotten, Chris Martin is married to an actress named Gwyneth Paltrow. She’s American. Maybe you’ve heard of her. No? Well, did you know that “Viva la Vida” went to No. 1? No? It’s O.K.—Martin told us, by way of thanking us.

No, dude, thank you.

- Daytrotter has an interview with and the requisite perfect performance from Bon Iver. Please read and listen. Here’s a bit of their praise for Justin’s work:

If you hang a dirty, stinky shirt or pair of pants in a closet for long enough, they don’t stink anymore. It’s the same principle – in a way – that’s incorporated into the touching and heartrending work that Vernon wrote and recorded for For Emma, Forever Ago, a record that is as stunning in its natural grace and shape as any that’s come into this world in the last five years, maybe longer.

Also in the New York Times.

Goodbye The Dark Leaves, welcome back matt pond PA

Mr. Matthew Pond

So I have to correct my previous post about matt pond PA, my favorite band. They are not going through any kind of pseudo breakup, but rather fighting the good fight as plain old matt pond PA. This according to the affable Mike at Altitude Records:

I have been fielding calls and e-mails from nervous fans wondering about the status of matt pond PA. MATT POND PA HAS NOT BROKEN UP! In fact, the band is in the studio this summer working on new material, of which there is plenty! The band is doing all of their own recording and mixing this time around (guitarist/keyboardist Chris Hansen is a seasoned studio engineer), and the songs I have heard so far are bright, clear and gorgeous, if I may say so myself. If all goes according to plan, you can look for some new songs as early as this fall!

Great news! The Dark Leaves did have a MySpace page, but it has since been removed. Glad to hear it. I didn’t like the name The Dark Leaves, anyway.

Measure 3 – matt pond PA