You've Got My Attention. Gimme Back My Nose!
by Your Diva, Robin Pastorio-Newman

Readers - that's you - wrote Your Darling, Your Diva, Your One True Love about songs stuck in brains. One, whom we'll call "Red," observed:

One thing i notice is that i always get a bunch of cd-quality songs playing in my head whenever i've got an exam. whenever i try to think the hardest on how to solve some problem, "island in the sun" by weezer materializes for about 10 minutes, then it becomes "girlfriend in a coma" and then on to less favorable material, like "more than a feeling" by boston. crazy stuff.

His brain is a scary, scary place. Perhaps we dated.

Another reader's brain played a continuous loop:

In my head this week I am singing Slick Rick and Doug E Fresh's "Ladi-Dadi" "Ladi Dadi/we like to party/we don't 'cause trouble/we don't bother nobody/I dilly/I dally/I ran into/My old girl/SALLY/From the/VALLEY"

Easily explained, I'm sorry to say. You see, next Friday is my 10 year HS reunion. That song is triggered by memories of my limited social interaction with the herd.

High school reunions aside, one song playing in one brain for a week suggests worry. Fret not, Reader #2! Your Juicy Lamb Korma predicts former classmates bought trailers and lost their teeth. And that's the Key Club!

But enough about you, let's talk about moi. Last week, a reader asked Your Lusciousness to review a CD. Like a too-tight corset, the title "CD reviewer" pinches. Reviewers often present opinions as factual. Hmm. Music has nothing to do with fact, except for the physics of sound. What one loves or does not love, what one needs from music - too personal to take anyone's word for. I have terrible CDs I wouldn't part with because they're useful as exercise music. Some CDs I listen to once, then five years later listen to obsessively because that's what I need then. So much for other-ear-witness testimony!

Consulting my demographic (I have one, his name is Mike) we learn that virtually all of us (shh! it's science!) want to read scathing reviews in which perfectly good bands and nifty CDs take a good shellacking:

If the CD is good, then find something else to hate about them.Their eyes are too close together...you hate guys who play pink guitars...they're obviously racist as there are no native americans in the band... Or, use this review as that one-in-six reviews that you like, to lend just enough credibility to yourself as a critic to continue on hating the next five.

While I respect his disposable income, we disagree. Every sentence in reviews ought to start with either:

1. [I think]; or
2. [In my opinion].

That's how we should read them. Is this oversight ours?

An interesting conversation with an acquaintance about the Prosolar Mechanics/Landspeedrecord! CD mentioned in last week's Ordinals. I bought him a copy, he listened to it. He was not thrilled. We'd seen bands together, so his words were circumspect. Averting his eyes, he said Landspeedrecord! didn't sound like that when we saw them. My brain went into overdrive.

1. Do we expect live music to sound like the fussy confections we purchase in CD stores?
2. What did he find at the show and miss on the disk?
3. We didn't see Landspeedrecord! that night.

Oops! We may be looking for horses of different colors in music, and who knows which one's Secretariat? Perhaps reviewers should mention exciting elements we find, and if you're looking for them too, so be it. Your Soft Chewy Center reiterates: go see for yourself, buy what you love, trust your own ears.

I do. For instance, my own ears are certain. When confronted with the Dave Matthews Band song "Everyday," I recommend scrubbing out the singer's sinuses with a toilet brush. He needs that. In my opinion.

©2001 Robin Pastorio-Newman

All material ©2001-2006 Sean Carolan, except as noted.

Today's NY/NJ Shows That Matter

Thursday, April 10, 2008
 
Tristan Prettyman and Whitley at Gramercy Theatre
 
Kathleen Edwards and Dan Wilson at Irving Plaza
 
Ginger (of Wildhearts) & Scott Metzger (of American Babies) at Pianos
 
Juggling Suns at Stanhope House
 
Tower Of Power at BB King's
 
Gnarls Barkley at Highline Ballroom
 
Kaki King at World Cafe Live, Philly
 
Mike Doughty's Band at Music Hall Of Williamsburg, Bklyn
 
Kathy Mattea at Highline Ballroom (CANCELLED)
 
Shawn Mullins at Joe's Pub
 
Jason Collett at Mercury Lounge
 
Katt Williams at Radio City Music Hall
 
Green Tag Sale at The Saint
 
 
More NY/NJ Shows That Matter