last week's jams:

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NEW LINKS COMIN' SOON

Best Week Ever
Gizmodo
Brooklyn Vegan
You Ain't No Picasso
Music (For Robots)
videos.antville.org

i uploaded the three songs i've done this summer thus far to macjams.com
if you want to check them out, click here to see my MacJams user profile complete with all of my crappy, crappy songs and their ratings. you can hear the three newest songs streaming or download the mp3s on pureVolume
while you're there, both mal and jacob have cool new songs up, both of which apparently will appear on their new split cd "Awkward Songz" which i have great anticipation for.
also, please register on MacJams.com and give me some good votes and good comments. the more/better comments and votes i have, the better i feel about my crappy hobby of being a terrible pop musician.

they might be giants rocked the hizzy tonight. anyone who didn't go is a sucker.

me and jesus don't talk anymore
dead man
resurrect
radio edit

you may remember that about a month ago, Pitchfork reviewed Asobi Seksu's debut LP (if not, its just a few posts down)
well, today they reviewed "I'm Happy But You Don't Like Me" as a single. i'm assuming its the second single since the video for "Walk on the Moon" is apparently blazing up MTVU, the college-oriented music television channel for digital cable in large campus areas.

"What do you get when you cross breathy Japanese vocals, Daniel Johnston-style percussion, and prototypical 80s guitar jangle? Two things: Asobi Seksu's I'm Happy But You Don't Like and a nominee for Happiest Fucking Song Ever. Fortunately, Asobi Seksu know from cloying, and they balance their bubbly vocalist with hyper-distorted guitars buzzsawing straight through a cacophonous chorus that features a melody as irresistibly charming as the song's fragmented title. If this is just one pocket of sugary genius, give me more; if it reflects a greater phenomena of musical trends being distilled through other cultures decades after the fact, then let's lock the last 15 years in a closet and move the hell to Japan. I mean, New York."
- Jason Crock; July 26th, 2004


"Asobi Seksu" was probably my favorite album spring semester 2003 and i proudly emblazoned the Asobi Seksu sticker on my plastic art box. I'm still waiting for the next album to rock my socks some more, but considering they have since changed their bass player, rereleased the album to wider acclaim, and taken on a whole new style of japanese influences photo/graphic art identity, i bet they're a bit busy.
still, i hate that i haven't seen them play in over a year and that i didn't buy that t-shirt when they were offering it last semester. i think i'll email kieth when i get some more disposable income and see if its still available.

the Unicorns' video for "Jellybones" is finally online (17.7 meg, .mov)

i have totally been ignoring this thing and that's not fair.

anyways, the new song, "second flight," is up on pureVolume
this one was kind of written with a full album in mind as the drums cut off abruptly at the end to allow the next song to just totally take over and take control.
fourteen years ago today men 19 and 20 years of age had to register the draft. i think that's interesting as i'm hanging at dan's right now. he's 19 and i'm 20.
one week ago today i shook hands with and got new books and sketches from both Craig Thompson and James Kochalka. i bought the last copy of Punky Brewskis that James had with him and we agreed that while most people prefer Don't Trust Whitey and Monkey Vs. Robot, we think Kissers is his best album. Craig was his usual polite self despite the fact that his hand was obviously in tremendous amounts of pain. i didn't ask for a sketch from his, just his signature on his new book Carnet de Voyage (which i finished the following morning and i thought it was brilliant and inspirational). Heather was surprised Craig remembered her and, after we both read the book, she was mad at me for not telling him that she loves him and wants to do things with him.
the next day, i went back in to see the Unicorns in Williamsburgh. after waiting on line for a few hours, we realized that Maria didn't have sufficient identification, so, with the group rule at concerts and events being all-or-nothing, we ditched. i got mad not at her lacking ID but at her indecisiveness at picking a place to stop and eat later on. she wandered up to random bars, cafes, bistros and eateries like a wide-eyed tourist, stood in front of all the hipster patrons looking around and thinking fora minute and then sauntered out to do it again at another 30 places. it seemed like a waste of the atmosphere to me, especially when we finally found an awesome little book store and she left prematurely. sick of it all on the train back to penn station, i washed away my troubles with headphones full of Mirah's You Think It's Like This, But Really It's Like This
two days later we ventured out to Coney Island for the Siren Music Festival. we only really went to see TV On The Radio and they were fan-freaking-tastic. after a long lunch from Cosi in Union Square, i urged a pit stop in H&M on the way to Penn Station. Heather started calling me gay based on my cute notebook cover, pretty hair, and the fact that i like clothes shopping and have good taste in clothes. this doesn't make me gay, its just makes me awesome.
coincidentally, Nova's favorite hip new magazine Bust had a "is your man a wimp?" quiz, which scored me as a metrosexual. odd...

on monday, the fine folks at Ringling informed me that my FAFSA is not on file for this year, meaning no financial aid whatsoever. i proceeded to fill out the entire FAFSA for the third time in six months (this time it only took two hours because i actually had my dad right there to answer money questions). my mother and i decided that it must have simply been that my dad didn't type in his PIN number last time, signing off on the whole form and sending it out. i should have revised figures on my bill next week.

yesterday i actually reviewed all eight incarnations of this blog, looking over each layout and each color scheme and each set of graphics and i've got to say that i like them all except the ugly grey one (#7) from this past fall. i also think it was stupid to ever put my face in the banner (#6 & #7) also, the grey and purple star layout (#5) was ahead of its time by like five months and i just didn't appreciate it. i'll take screenshots of them all sometime and post them somewhere for a retrosepctive.

which makes me think the Speed of Boredom needs a new look. anyone who reads this is free to make suggestions. email me at dkcohen@rsad.edu

jam of the week: Of Montreal's "Lysergic Bliss"

here's a pretty lousy Newsarama interview with Bryan Lee O'Malley about:


on a non-Mal related note, i started another new song this morning which currently resides in my mind under the headline "kickass!"
it is the result of too much Ratatat
whenever i do get around to that album i'd been wanting to work on (none of the people who said they'd work on it with me this summer have done so) i think it'll be at least half instrumentals as i have more fun with them.

i was just reading an article on presidential theme songs in the new york times.
my mother was amused that george w's theme in 2000 wasn't even an american song.
i was amused by the sensational irony that the song was the who's "won't be fooled again"

honestly, that is the definition of sensational irony

for those of you who aren't as obsessive with mal updates as i am:










Scott Pilgrim is going to totally be the most fun series of grapic novels in the history of words and pictures.
which reminds me, i still need to buy Mal's "Horrible EP"...i've been putting it off for months because...well...i'm poor. i loathe this economy and i hate places that say they're hiring but don't want to hire me. what's wrong with me? i'm a likeable guy with a friendly disposition. i'm well groomed and reliable. all i need is a few paychecks! i barely even feel right paying for the train so i can see Craig Thompson and James Kochalka in two weeks, then TV On The Radio and Death Cab For Cutie the following weekend, then They Might Be Giants two weeks after that, and all three of those are FREE events, i just need to pay for the train.

oh yeah...and i need to go to a MoCCA Art Fest Post-Mortum meeting on monday to explain the sensational failure of exhibitor check-in saturday morning. i hate paying for something i use so often as the train.

MoCCA hosted the benefit for Dave Cockrum last night. not a bad turnout, though it would have been nice if Neal Adams had stayed for another twenty minutes, but i'm sure he's got lots to do.

my song for the week is The Plastic Constellations' "Evil Groove"
everyone go download it or buy the album or something.