To watch:

July 18, 2008 Earworm

After the song and dance extravaganza Richard Kelly whipped up for Timberlake and The Killers' "All These Things That I've Done" in "Southland Tales", the band should probably lock their own video in a vault but, regardless of how brilliant that celluloid marriage was, this song is forever etched into my brain as a missed opportunity for a backdrop of swirling bats and the new dawning of The Dark Knight. A confused anthem for a confused anti-hero hiding behind two masks while soldiering on into the darkness of the world around him and within him.

Guess what I'm doing tonight. Yup, I've got a date with some joker...

July 17, 2008 Earworm

The second thing I love most about The Fratellis is that every song seems to take place at the best parties. Not the finest, most glamorous parties, but the ones where something(s) inappropriate is bound to happen not by design but by nature. While I've had the good fortune to have attended many of this type of events, it's often hard to explain why it was such a great time without finding yourself resorting to "you had to be there" and that brings to the thing I love most about The Fratellis: they open a song with lines like, "Well, the room was pink and the signs were serious - paperback dolls being slapped delirious..." and you instantly understand the setting, the crowd, and the hi-jinks to ensue.

The bands new album - "Here We Stand" - is a welcome relief from the sophomore jinx which is a relief because I was sure that they weren't going to be able to match the brilliant snot-pop of the first and "My Friend John" definitely adds to their already potent cast of musical characters. Let's hope that this band doesn't become huge so that we never have to be subjected to a jukebox musical.

Although... it would be interesting to see what would happen if John met up with Chelsea Dagger.

July 16, 2008 Earworm

Before S-A-W spun Dead Or Alive a hit record (baby), club kids knew them for an audacious cover of "That's The Way (I Like It)" complete with bender Pete Burns prancing around a gym-full of female bodybuilders which may have accidentally said more about LaBurns than he'd intended. Even while strutting, pouting, and leering, it was obvious that this wasn't your typical drag queen: no coy giggles ala Boy George, Pete looked like the sort of gal that would help you fix a flat and then beat you up and steal your car because you wouldn't blow him. Linda and I were completely entranced by this creature; she to the point of shivers as he growled, "it should be okay, if you try it in my way", declaring herself ready for anything if he'd only do it now.

I wasn't ready to go that far but I did go to the record store when the US finally got the debut, "Sophisticated Boom Boom". I've loved/hated the thing ever since depending on my mood and what year it is when I revisit it. One song, though, has remained constant in my adoration and that is the musical self-help thesis that is "Far Too Hard"; a shimmering Studio 54 throwback that could have been a Philadelphia International track until you realize what this guy is on about and begin to feel as you might upon learning that your grandmother is a lesbian serial rapist. The fact that Pete actually sings this instead of utilizing his usual snarl and bark delivery makes it even more intriguing.

And about that singing... does anyone else hear Morrissey? And doesn't that shine an interesting light on that Smash Hits interview that left so many of us scratching our heads...

Dead or Alive would have their bigger moments - some of them featuring Pete giving us a preview of Cher's look circa '89 - but to my ears, he's never topped the five minutes he took to honestly explain the crux of his personality while linking the hedonism of the disco era to the goth kids to the alternakids to the...

July 15, 2008 Earworm

Now that the (not much of a) mystery as to the real identity of The Foxboro Hot Tubs - Green Day, in case you weren't there when those meddling kids...- I move on to figuring out just which Kinks record it is that "Red Tide" emulates. Calling in Inspector Kmatt for clandestine conferences in the opium lounge helped to narrow the list to "Tired Of Waiting For You" and "Set Me Free" with "All Day and All Of The Night" as the opening shot. Still, there's something else in there and it's right on the tip of my stylus...

Turning to lyrical content and "Baby's hour of darkness", I hope that red tide is a crafty play on chemical based depression as algal bloom and not the more obvious, and therefore sophomoric, monthly upheaval. If it's all three, well... then it gets an A+ for doing it's science homework and passes on to begin junior year and a seat at my lunch table.

July 14, 2008 Earworm

Supergrass' latest, "Diamond Hoo Ha", finds Gaz and gang reclaiming the T-Rex records they were playing during "Life On Other Planets" without leaving the wide open sonics on "The Road To Rouen" and for two and a half glorious minutes "When I Needed You" offers up the not as messy as it reads "Sweet Bolan Oxygen Love Fueled by Buckingham". I am dead in love with this song and like a pubescent teen, I can't stop thinking about it.

Six albums - and fourteen years into their career, it's obvious that Supergrass will never be anyone's pick for the best band in the world - and I'm sure they are thankful for it - but I agree with Erlewine's claim that "The world is a better place for having Supergrass in it."