We're like a full two miles out from authenticity at this point. Soon we'll hit international waters.

Some thoughts on Wolfmother (without going into their name):
Wolfmother rips off good bands and their singer has good hair. Really, wanting anything else from a rock band is pickiness.
That having been said:
No, music critics, Wolfmother doesn't sound like Zeppelin or Sabbath. The guitar lines they jacked from "Paranoid" are a red herring; the proper rock equation is "Jet trying to sound like the White Stripes" or the other way around. Confidential to NYC: And no, not "on acid". Probably on pot, maybe even on a lot of it, but their delay-heavy breakdowns lack the sort of frontal lobe sizzle and absolute pedalitrous conviction that mark the music of real acidheads. I'm not mad at Wolfmother, though. They're just the latest pencil tossed at the drop ceiling for an industry looking for an Important band to justify keeping rock at the front of the record stores. I can almost see groups of record executives kneeling together in prayer in a conference room in LA, trying to wish hard enough for a band that will eventually end up in the RnR Hall of Fame. If wishing doesn't work, then they bring out the checkbooks.

They're for when you're trying to sound smart, but then you realize that you're just making words up.

Portland is still the hipster "Big Rock Candy Mountain": the thrifting's good, the vintage-machine arcade serves beer, and everyone you meet is either a DJ or a band. There aren't any streams running with PBRtinis, but you can order one at a club with a tastefully worn-in modern design scheme, so it's all cool.
I came back from PDX with a bunch of photos of a half-dachshund/half-chihuahua named Carl Weathers and the beginnings of a new look. The look involves a camo parka, more jewelry, and possibly a ponytail. I've named it French Coke Dealer after Jessica's description of me the other morning. She meant it as an insult, but everyone knows that Eurotrash drug dealers are a total high-five among middle class white girls with parent issues. I'll take it as a compliment: that's an important demographic.
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Q: What are the most important tools for someone attempting to write an article after reading nothing but David Foster Wallace essays and Blender for a week or more?
A: The delete key and a bootleg video of The Self Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior.

One out of seven is actually pretty bad

One of my really awesome talents is how I can pick up bits of how a person is speaking to me, little touches of cadence and accent, and incorporate it into how I speak back to them. For instance, the guy selling women's hats on the sidewalk outside of the Bottle last night spoke with a Southern African-American accent, so when I turned down his proposition of gay sex I kind of draaawled it out, y'know? Just kinda letting the vowels run the show. It's the kind of behavior that you read about in the books about the habits of successful people, but I don't read those books. The shit just happens to me.

If I had to spell it out it would be like, "huurrggghhh".

"When it came time to record, it wasn't hard for Stipe to recruit the artists who participated in the project. In addition to the duet with Coldplay's Chris Martin, Justin Timberlake and will.i.am (Black Eyed Peas) contributed a remix of the song that will also be available for download. Also involved were Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger, who plays piano, and former Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha, who produced the song with Stipe and Arthur at Stratosphere Sound studio in New York City."

In a tribute to the destructive power of Hurricane Katrina, Michael Stipe has created the perfect storm of douche chills. I'm not going to say that this press release makes me fully understand what it is to be a bloated corpse floating around in murky sewage water, but I feel like I'm a lot closer to it than I was yesterday.
This is like the musical equivalent of that scene in Wayne's World where Garth's talking about someone vomiting and the puke chain reaction that it started.

That's money in the bank.

I was thinking earlier about Yacht Rock, and I was thinking about how Jack Johnson is like the Yacht Rock of now. Peaceful vibes, sort of just mellowing out and looking at the sunset with maybe like a pretty girl with a giant bowl of G-23 government-grown turbo weed, that kind of thing. And then I was thinking that Yacht Rock 2004 would be a really good project for the Chicago kids to do. I would play the part of John Mayer, because I have the same ladykilling eyes that he does, and we both play real middle-class blues. Jeff Tweedy could play Dave Matthews because they're both like "the king", and Rob Lowe would make an awesome Ben Harper, because it's either him or Damon, since they're the only black guys our scene pays any attention to. (UPDATE: Rob calls this idea both "hilarious" and "really sad".) I'm not sure yet who I'd cast in the role of Jack Johnson. My first thought is Rob from Pit Er Pat, because he has short hair and seems to be stoned all the time, but I'm totally catching a "peaceful easy feeling" from the idea of a Conor Oberst cameo. I heard that dude has the fucking chronic, and besides he can probably write a full-length off of the trauma of cutting his hair. That's money in the bank.

You can't prove that it wasn't.

I mean, odds are that it was the prad kra-prao I had for lunch, but I'm gonna hold onto my theory that listening to the new Jenny Lewis record will give you violent stomach cramps. Cuz I'm a dick like that.