Everything looks perfect from far away

Ok, I know that I've said over and over again on this blog that I am over my stupid teenage rightousness over artists "selling out," and I really mean it. I don't want to hate someone or some song just because it is in a commercial or gets played on the radio or is featured in some movie. Sometimes, these advertising uses of music actually work on me. For example, I am now more impressed with that stupid movie, "The Wedding Crashers," now that I've fact checked a piece on its soundtrack (which features Bloc Party and Rilo Kiley). As opposed to being less impressed with those great bands for being involved with that dumb movie. However, some things are beyond forgivness.

Case in point: the new M & Ms commercial featuring Iron & Wine's cover of "Such Great Heights." What does that song have to do with M&Ms anyway? And why use this specific cover, which is so delicate and subdued? It seems anachronistic. It doesn't sell the candy--happy, peppy pop songs sell candy, not emotional folk music? And it doesn't sell the song either. And I'll I'm left with is my 15 year old self and her rightous indignation. How could Sam Beam or Ben Gibbard sell this song that means so much to so many people and is so rife with feeling and emotional clarity to sell candy?

I ain't no damsel in distress and I don't need to be rescued.

My shrink asked me the other day if I realize how often say, "I went to an all-girls school." Apparantly I preface many stories with this well-known tidbit of personal information. The thing is, though, I've been out of said all-girls school for 10 years now (which is, it is worth noting, still not as long as I attended that school--that would be 12 years!) and I don't actually think about it all that much anymore. I have vague recollections of the uniforms and the AP classes and my fear of being caught smoking in my uniform and getting suspended (a fate that befell two of my friends). But I don't really think about what it was like to be in a totally boy-free environment 100 percent of the time. However, it has forever colored my thinking. The "all girls school" is like a pair of rose colored glasses through which I see the world. I don't even realize that I'm wearing them, but I see everything the way they taught me to see. I guess that is why I say, "I went to an all girls school" so much.

I bring this up because on Thursday night I went to Sleater-Kinney with Bill. It was an amazing (like pee-your-pants-uncontrollably amazing). Never have they owned their status as a "power trio" more. The new songs rock with honey-dripping, Led Zeppelin heaviness and live they are especially potent. Everyone at Roseland was impressed by how rousing the new songs were, how Carrie's playing managed to be sludgy and sharp, how Corin makes noises that don't sound like "singing" but that are, and how Janet Weiss' drumming, which was always great, is now virtuosic. The screaming crowd kept calling them back for encores and, in their second one they came out and played a kick ass version of "Mother" by Danzig. The night was pretty close to perfect. And then, as we were walking out of the venue, I heard two groups of people (one of which featured women) say a variation of, "They rock pretty hard for girls." That just makes me so mad. If we still think, in 2005, that girls don't rock hard or that all women musicians should be floaty and feminine like Tori Amos or sexy pop tarts like Britney or hairy butch acousitc guitar players like the Indigo Girls, that makes me terribly sad for the new millennium. Women have been rocking hard since the invention of the art form. (Just ask Elvis, who had a big hit with Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog.") And, while there has been an embarassing dearth of woman guitar heroes, there have stars with personalities, appetites, and voices as big as the boys (Janis Joplin, Siouxie Sioux, Exene Cervenka anyone?) and this late in the game we should be used to them. In fact, there should be MORE of them. So it makes me so mad to hear people say "they rock pretty hard for girls," especially since I defy any band made up of dudes to rock as hard and as well and as originally as Sleater-Kinney.

So I'd like to thank my all-girl education for my knee jerk feminist response.

PS: Having said all that (about SK urgent and dense rock), my favorite song on the new album (and perhaps my favorite song live) is their sweet, joyful, mid-tempo tune "Modern Girl." Isn't it the best?

I've been a bad, bad girl.....

Wow, does anyone even read this anymore? It has been an embarassingly long time since I've written. In fact, lazy bitch that I am, I thought about getting rid of the old blog rather than bother to start writing again when so much has happened since my last post. I think the most embarassing part is that (as the three regular readers of this blog already know) I work as a freelancer (which is P.C. way to say sits at my computer in my pajamas perusing gawker all day while soap operas are on in the background) so I have no excuse as to why I've been MIA.

As you can see, I've given retown a little facelift. I blame her old pink template for my lack of dilligence in updating. It was hard to look at something so cheerful. I quite enjoy her new look. Whaddya think?

Back when I started ye old blog, she was a collection of lists. So, in honor of her (and my) return, here are some lists that will catch you up to date with what I've been up to.

THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS

1) My new apartment. Oh Lower East Side how I've missed you!
2) The Pedigree puppy food commercial. The puppies in this commercial are so cute that it should be illegal. Especially the little english bulldogs. They look like stuffed animals. They totally makes me want to go all Lenny on them.
3) My favorite game while watching tv: Name that voice-over. For example the aforementioned puppy chow commercial is clearly David Ducovney.
4) The new Sleater Kinney disc, "The Woods." Corin Tucker's voice is so cool--she and Karen O are the second comings of Siouxie Sioux. Plus, how cool is it that her son's name is Marshall Tucker Bangs. HA! I like when people have senses of humor when naming their kids. But maybe I just say that because I'm stuck with a boring biblical name. My strangely named kids will probably not find it so amusing.
5) Speaking of biblical names......Best new Swedish band (with the funniest name): Suburban Kids with Biblical Names. Download their kick ass, kind-of-anti-folk jam "Rent a Wreck" before some car commercial steals it up here. If you have windows media player (and I don't) you can even watch the homemade looking video.
6) I hate to out myself to a whole new audience as a total musical theater nerd, but I can't contain my excitement about this. I'm counting the days until November 11th. When you watch the preview, you can think about 18 year old Retown and what a geek she was and how, when she saw this preview almost 10 years later she almost cried and definitely got goosebumps.
7) I know that the new White Stripes album has gotten good reviews, but everyone of my friends who I talk to about it is over it. That makes me kind of sad because I'm really enjoying their transformation into a stripped down, yet proggy version of Deep Purple for the new millennium.
8) Banana pudding at Sugar Sweet Sunshine, the bakery across the street from my new apartment. I can't get enough of it. Everything over there is yummy (though the skinny girls who work there are terribly unpleasant. Maybe that is because they are so hungry and they work around buttercream all day.) but the pudding is the best. I've had three of them in a week. I'm going to start bleeding pudding out of my veins if I don't get a hold on my newest obsession.
9) "Feel Good Inc." by Gorillaz. I really thought that I was over this fake band in like 2002, but this track has fucking hooked me again. It combines the best of all of the group's elements: Damon Albarn's smooth British croon, De La Soul rapping, and a hot beat courtesey of their new producer Danger Mouse. It makes me long for the rollerrink, but still sounds terribly modern.
10) The new Love as Laughter album, "Laughter's Fifth." It is the perfect summer album, although I'm strangely intregued as to why, when the band lived in the groovy pacific northwest, they made New York style garage and now that they are based here, they've embraced a lighter and looser (a more West coat, if you will) sound--like a power pop Pavement, with more handclaps and less irony.

Now, in the interest of trying to see the glass as half full, instead of my usual pesimisstic world view, here is a MUCH shorter list of stuff that sucks:

1) Those mothertrucking Jamster commercials. I don't know what is more annoying the Sir Mix Alot ("Pick up the phone cuz you want this call and you just can't lie....") or those ridiculous wallpapers that say "Dirrty South" or "Queens" in stupid fonts. Who buys this nonsense? And why am I being inundated with these commercials?
2) "You Gonna Luv Me" by Da Backwudz. I caught this video the other day and omigod, I don't know what to be more angry about--the appropriation of one of my favorite Broadways songs, the irritating high-pitched singing voice, or the unintelligible and dirty (so far as I could understand the lyrics are like: "You beat your meat at home while I bone your freak.") lyrics. Seriously, I know it's been ruined by this song and by countless American Idol auditions, but "I Am Telling You I Am Not Going" from Dreamgirls is an amazing song and Jennifer Holliday's version is timeless. Check it out. It's like brilliant soul music, even if you HATE musical theater.
3) The Game. Ok, I know that everyone is flipping their shit because he's so "authentic" and "real," but just because you've survived a gang shooting doesn't mean that you are a musician. My gangsta rap fan friend (a/k/a Jon) claims that the Game has great lyrics and that I'd like him if I gave him a chance, but DUDE there are no hooks in the songs. It's like there is no music in his music. I've heard like 4 or 5 tracks now and I can't tell them apart. He surely has street cred and he's very tough and I wouldn't want to cross him, but I just don't get what the big fucking deal is about his music. Sorry.
4) Lindsay Lohan. I totally take back what I initally said about being on her side versus Hillary Duff. Yeah, Duff is annoying (and frankly her new teeth are fucked up looking. she is not looking so cute these days) and squeaky clean, but Lohan seems crazy. She's too thin, too blond, and too fake. I just can't relate to someone who is making such an old fashioned movie like a remake of Herbie and then goes on all of the talk shows with her whiskey and cigarettes voice and protests when other guests tell dity jokes, saying, "You guys, I'm promoting a kids movie." A) What kid is up watching Leno? B) If a kid is up watching Leno whatever is being said isn't shocking to them. C) If a kid is up watching Leno they certainly don't give a rats ass about Herbie. D) How concerned was she with appearing like a good role model when she was dancing on tables all coked out and chain smoking the week before? I'm over you Lohan. Why don't you disappear for like 4 years, eat like 4,000 sandwiches, dye your hair back to normal, and come back with a quality indie film that proves you can act......
5) MTV. I thought, after 3 months without cable, that I'd be psyched to have all of my video channels back. And while there are some great things on that I'm glad to finally see ("Beverly Hills" Weezer, "Wild Orchid" White Stripes, the premiere of the new Killers video on MTV2 on Tuesday, the new extra slutty season of the Real World), most of the bands and songs I've NEVER HEARD OF BEFORE. Christ, that makes me feel old! And I write about music for a living!! Who the fuck is Pretty Ricky? Since when do the Pussycat Dolls sing? Who are these girls on TRL like Brie Larson or Brooke Valentine? Why does every song sound the same!! Not that I've ever been a TRL watcher, but in three months without cable I've literally never heard of any of the people on it. I guess that is what the cultural critics mean by, "accelerated culture."

Well....I hope you've enjoyed the return of Retown. Please stay tuned for more posts. I'll be more dilligent about updating this summer. Also, I'm encouraged to write when I see comments....hint, hint.