Safe As Milk

The Alternative to Love came out back in the Spring but I only just got it a couple of weeks ago. His name has been in a lot of blogs I read but I didn’t hear anything that made me want to run out and see what the big deal was. Thanks to Subterranean I got to hear, and enjoy, “Spit It Out” enough times to get curious enough to seek him out. As usual, I’m glad I did.

Good power pop is good power pop, no matter if it’s coming from The Who, Matthew Sweet or The Buzzcocks. Brendan Benson makes excellent power pop songs. In fact, he especially reminds me (in feel if not style) of Matthew Sweet. That comparison is a fair one. Here, take a listen:

“Spit It Out” has enough of a hook to get you to go looking for it at Ye Olde Record Shoppe, where you might just get lucky enough to find it used, like I did.

I’ve been a long-standing proponent (pimponent?) for the fine folks at Tiny Showcase since they started back in February. 2 weeks ago I caught an email from them about a 12 Days of Tiny Showcase box of prints they were putting out for the holidays.

“The Twelve Days of Tiny Showcase is our Winter 2005 print collection. It is a limited edition of 50 box sets that feature the work of eight former Tiny Showcase artists and four newcomers. All of the pieces were created especially for the collection.”

I bought one straight away. When you click through to that page you’ll see why; there isn’t a bad one in the bunch. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that some of the best TS prints I’ve seen are in that box.

It’s been a while since I reminded you about them but if you like what you see you should really get on their email list, they send out an email each week about an hour before the prints go on sale.

Security consultant Howard Stapleton (of Wales) installs security measures for tores frequented by crime. Remembering an childhood episode of discomfort, he discovered a frequency audible to teenagers, but not oldsters like your Safe as Milk crew. He used that frequency to create an annoying chirp to drive away youthful loiterers and shoplifters, and dubbed it The Mosquito (”It’s small and annoying”):

So far, the Mosquito has been road-tested in only one place, at the entrance to the Spar convenience store in this town in South Wales. Like birds perched on telephone wires, surly teenagers used to plant themselves on the railings just outside the door, smoking, drinking, shouting rude words at customers and making regular disruptive forays inside.
…
[The owner] planned to install a sound system that would blast classical music into the parking lot, another method known to horrify hang-out youths into dispersing, but never got around to it. But last month, Stapleton gave him a Mosquito for a free trial. The results were almost instantaneous. It was as if someone had used anti-teenager spray around the entrance, the way you might spray your sofas to keep pets off. Where disaffected youths used to congregate, now there is no one.

From the NYT, via CNET.

Here’s his Wikipedia entry.

“Pat” Morita, often billed as “the Hip Nip” in his standup act, became a member of the Los Angeles improvisational comedy troupe The Groundlings.”

I had no idea he was a standup comedian. Cool.

Here is the CNN article on his death.

The best part of playing along at the Whiskerino is my awesome beard:

Another cool thing is getting to see what the cool kids are looking at on the internet. Yacht Rock #2 is awesome awesome awesome.

Thanks Herr Neas for sharing the love.

It apparently started at Dartmouth in the 50’s.

I’ve played much more than my fair share of beer pong (and I like to think I’m pretty good at it) but it’s hard for me to imagine it as more of a ‘pong’ game than a ‘beer’ game. Paddles?

Weird.

I need to get one of these.

“If you already have an expensive navigation system in your car, you’re already familiar with the generic woman’s voice telling you to turn left at the next light. The idea behind Wanderlust’s new offering is to give drivers something a little different, explains CEO Will Andre.”

This is the new must-have gift for Christmas!

And he should be. Arrested Development is a great show that was, unbelievably, never able to find or hold a large audience. Weird.

Here is David Cross swearing about it.

It’s not like AD is any weirder than Seinfeld was. Oh well, enjoy it while you can.

Do you know about the 33 1/3 series of books? The idea is to have a critic or musician write a short book about an album that means something to them.

Here’s a bunch of them at Amazon.

I’ve been meaning to start working through the series but you know how the reading queue can get bogged down. I just found a link to the 33 1/3 blog (which is a fun read) and I saw the spark that will get me into the series.

They’re doing one on Paul’s Boutique.

Sign me up for two.