Failed Pilot

I’ve been making some fraudulent posts. I claimed that our Matador Records debut, Earles and Jensen Present…Just Farr A Laugh Vol 1 & 2 (The Greatest Prank Phone Calls Ever!!), was delayed two months due to the need for “extra time to promote” or some such applesauce. This is the real reason. Both the label and our lawyer suggested we stay quiet about the situation until Matador made an official press release. If you care at all about the future of comedy, you’ll keep your fingers crossed….for us. I’m still stunned. More on this later.

I’ve been repeatedly watching this disturbing YouTube nugget since Friday afternoon, when I heard that it had caused a car accident. That’s right, a friend had viewed the slide show before leaving for work, then during his daily commute remembered a particularly hilarious ten-second montage (maybe it was the beginning with the Burning Man pic), and took out the sandwich board locating in front of Square Foods, a local health food eatery. He has been charged with remembering the 82 different organic food items that previously accented the “special” - a slice of cheese pizza.

This was the cause.

Visit the Earles and Jensen official Matador site.

“Friend” us on MySpace.          
   

     This is no grounds for complaint, but my jaded, apathetic bitterness towards music has undergone a substantial decrease. I had become one of those guys. I despised more than I loved. The pathetic asshole that I made fun of at age 23 - “I’ll never turn into that” - took over. Now, by way of a lifestyle change (I’m trying and generally succeeding at living by a strict “No Bullshit” policy…..some people that haven’t heard my voice or seen my face in a while might be confused by its positive outcome on this end) and several weeks of strong productivity have somehow resulted in a return to music fandom, exploration, and a good refresher course.

     Soulseek has helped greatly, and you’ll read no words of guilt here. The past seven years have been punctuated with sporadic phases of downloading/file-sharing fury, but not since the glory days of Napster have I so fully embraced these evil acts. I refuse to pay money for joyful curiosity. My curiosity about, or desire for, the 3rd In Flames album, the Tank box set, the Paris 1942 album I was forced to throw on eBay during tough times, the Green River albums that I never wanted to buy used, the marginal SST and Homestead bands that were not even worth a buck a pop in the cutout bin (trust me, these people are not seeing royalties anyway), the third Wishbone Ash record…will not set me back a cent. Obviously, these items fall outside of the promotional fare that (so often) fouls my PO Box and inbox, and amazingly, even more of that stuff is getting played and absorbed. Remember, I love music again. Plus, plenty of money will be spent over the next year researching a particular long-term project I’ve climbed into bed with…extra scratch cannot be thrown around. I still become incensed shortly after opening a magazine (I’m the last person on earth that still consumes at least eight different music magazines with any regularity) or five lines into a Pitchfork review. The music industry has indeed lost its mind, and creative dilettantism/bankruptcy has reached a new and troublesome level, but for the first time in several years, there’s a little optimism balancing things out.

     I’ll leave you with this line from a Wooden Shjips review that ran in Wire Magazine (entering the music writing game, I used to trip over myself trying to copy this scribe’s once vibrant style, and today he will remain unnamed on FailedPilot.com):

“Tight-wound repeato psych guitar raunch with spoony (maybe even imaginary) percussion, surprisingly Rev-like keys, and vocals buried under burning driftwood.”

Going forward, if I write anything similar to this, you, reader, are allowed to throw me in a ditch with the rest of the sick and dying livestock.