tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61858052011-07-08T07:52:33.272-04:00this againTom Breihannoreply@blogger.comBlogger2761100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-72509951421237445562010-04-15T16:54:00.002-04:002010-04-15T16:57:44.196-04:00

I started a Tumblr, so I'll be dropping my wisdom-bombs over there these days. There's already half of a Quarterly Report up. Don't expect to see me back on Blogspot unless I get really sick of Tumblr or something, which is always on the table.So I guess this is my grand farewell to Blogspot? This blog did a lot of things for me, stupid name or no. I feel kind of bad about leaving it, even if I'm

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-41500767491164070562010-03-04T16:03:00.002-05:002010-03-04T16:09:04.916-05:00

The Quarterly Report: SinglesHey, I'm finally getting around to doing this! I didn't have to. Don't bitch. Next time I do one of these, I'll probably do it on the Tumblr that I've been meaning to start for a minute now. This is less long-winded than I usually run with this sort of thing, if only because I now have way less time to be long-winded. Oh, and because my ridiculously lax posting

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-25181507474049732272010-01-11T14:55:00.003-05:002010-01-11T15:08:58.864-05:00

The Quarterly Report: AlbumsHey, I'm not too terribly late this time! You guys know what it is. I was working on this around the same time as the Gucci Pitchfork review that ran today, so there's some recycled sentiment here. Apologies to Bear in Heaven, Young Money, Miranda Lambert, the Flaming Lips, and Fuck Buttons. Singles when I get to them.1. G-Side: Huntsville International. It's tough to

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-77585870047865762162009-11-24T14:44:00.003-05:002009-11-24T14:52:46.649-05:00

Hey, two months late! That's a new record. But I said I was gonna finish this Quarterly Report shit, and here it is. Hopefully I'll get the fourth-quarter shit done quicker. And just because the whole chronology is so massively fucked up, I'll clarify: These are my favorite songs that came out between July and September. Some of them are old as hell.The Quarterly Report - Singles1. Thom Yorke: "

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-38748280934160916602009-10-09T14:29:00.001-04:002009-10-09T14:37:40.632-04:00

The Quarterly Report: AlbumsYou know what's getting hard? Finding time to do any sort of writing that I'm not getting paid for. I thought about just stopping doing these quarterly reports, but I guess I'm addicted to my own opinions or some shit. Apologies to M.O.P., Memory Tapes, KD, Baroness, Dizzee Rascal, and the TrapsNTrunks Huntsville tape. As always, singles when I get to them.1. Girls:

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-89435108626381248722009-08-20T14:39:00.005-04:002009-08-20T16:15:43.356-04:00

Hey, I still have a blog! I don't have to just post inane shit on Twitter all the time! I'd do well to remember this.There's this one part in Tyson where he's giving a press conference the night he gets out of prison, and some onlooker yells that he should be in a straightjacket. Tyson looks out in the crowd, finds, the guy, and then just screams terrifying stuff at him for a couple of minutes. "

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-37927989068988478242009-08-05T14:43:00.003-04:002009-08-05T14:54:00.924-04:00

Quarterly report: SinglesWell, here it is, what, five weeks late? Having an infant at home is time consuming! Just to be clear, the cutoff point here is the end of June; I've ignored everything new I've heard since then.Anyway. Good songs coming out right now! really kills me that I couldn't find room for "You're a Jerk" or Gucci Mane's "Awesome" or Basement Jaxx's "Raindrops" or that "Who's Real

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-87874410456123054182009-07-20T21:12:00.002-04:002009-07-20T21:13:09.159-04:00

So uh my kid met the GZA.

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-70726870054664398332009-07-01T14:06:00.002-04:002009-07-01T14:11:35.483-04:00

The Quarterly Report: AlbumsHey, it's time for another one of these! Lots of good albums in the past three months. Apologies to Lee Fields & the Perfect Expressions, Rick Ross, Cam'ron, Dirty Projectors, Extra Golden, Passion Pit, Wu-Tang Chamber Music, Grizzly Bear, T-Rock, Phoenix, Isis, the Field, Two Fingers, Juicy J, and DJ Paul. Singles when I get to them.1. Playboy Tre: Liquor Store Mascot

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-78675580581594243092009-06-27T17:09:00.002-04:002009-06-27T17:12:34.276-04:00

I was in line at the falafel place near my office yesterday, listening to "Rock With You" on my iPod. When I took my headphones off to order, I realized they were also playing "Rock With You" in the falafel place, and it was almost at the exact same part of the song. It took me a minute to figure out what was going on. And that got me thinking: One of the incredible things about Michael Jackson's

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-56434260781711304672009-06-15T15:12:00.001-04:002009-06-15T15:12:55.071-04:00

I caved.

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1466172761678201612009-06-13T19:04:00.002-04:002009-06-13T19:07:22.897-04:00

So He's Just Not That Into You is supposed to be set in Baltimore? It is not any Baltimore I've ever seen. Everyone is rich and clean and generally comfortable and sober. And attractive. Nobody has their lights shut off. The only black people are motherfucking Frangela. Maybe it's supposed to be Canton? I guess it could be Canton. That place is a total mystery to me.

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-59057499332602010152009-06-02T14:37:00.001-04:002009-06-02T14:38:34.667-04:00

There's a new Rancid album out today, first album in six years from probably my favorite band ever. Lets up in the last third or so but otherwise just a really, really great blast of broken-teeth pop-punk. More ahhh-ahhh backing harmonies than usual. Ska is back in the arsenal again (a good thing!). There's one great jerky kinda-rapped song that somehow doesn't carry massive Transplants overtones

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-43961396282642630432009-05-27T14:04:00.003-04:002009-05-27T14:06:19.135-04:00

This guy.

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-70929698921419690472009-04-26T10:09:00.000-04:002009-04-26T10:10:17.568-04:00

Looks like I was wrong about this. Good!Also: I'm a dad now.

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-70032283274802081022009-04-22T14:08:00.001-04:002009-04-22T14:09:49.714-04:00

The Voice's regular Idol person is out this week, so I did this for old time's sake.

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-85426457272585887512009-04-12T23:04:00.004-04:002009-04-13T14:51:24.684-04:00

I guess I should put some sort of caveat here that Soulja Boy's "Turn My Swag On" and Kid Cudi's "Day N' Nite", both really old songs, have totally been peaking for me in recent weeks, to the point where I listen to both pretty much all the time now. These here Quarterly Reports are pretty unfair to growers like those. Some of these track below ("I'm the Shit" and "Half a Brick" especially) might

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-37654396427638130332009-04-06T20:29:00.003-04:002009-04-06T20:31:35.881-04:00

Yes, I'm still doing this. For the past couple of months, this blog has maintained a sort of nagging existence at the back of my mind; I want to jump on every so often to say that, like, Watchmen was way better than anyone wants to admit. But when I haven't been working, I've been putting cribs together and stuff like that, or I've been hanging out with my wife because we won't have too many

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-38796327617255542992009-01-02T12:54:00.006-05:002009-01-02T13:52:57.415-05:00

The Quarterly ReportApologies to Devin the Dude, Deerhunter, Illa J, and really nobody else. This is the first Quarterly Report I've done in forever where I wasn't being paid full-time to write about music, so I didn't hear as much. I still haven't heard, for instance, those new Plies and Fall Out Boy albums. Plus I was trying to get my year-end lists in order for like the past month. And beyond

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-56315425163354649422008-12-31T17:47:00.004-05:002008-12-31T18:46:03.518-05:00

Another thing: I got a new job! Eat shit, recession! Starting Monday, I'm going to be a Staff Writer for the Pitchfork news division. And in late January/early February, I'm moving out to Chicago, which hopefully will not result in death via frostbite. So shout out to Pitchfork for keeping my family out of the poorhouse. And get ready, Chicago. I am about to come eat all your pizza.Happy New Year

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-8599178829346525412008-12-30T18:02:00.002-05:002008-12-30T18:18:47.664-05:00

It's not online, but Louis Menand's early history of the Village Voice in this week's New Yorker is making me happy today. Turns out that Status Ain't Hood was actually perfectly in keeping with the traditions of a newspaper that always hired younger writers, not paying them much but giving them a place to publish, and then unleashed them on the world without editing them hardly at all. And

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-57841502367157809302008-12-12T11:07:00.007-05:002008-12-12T11:38:41.732-05:00

Well, this is interesting. Yesterday, Pitchfork ran my review of the new Clipse mixtape. And then someone from the Clipse camp responded, not sounding too happy about it. From the way this entry is written, it sure looks like it's either Pusha or Malice rebutting my review. And I have to say, it's sort of a thrill that one of my favorite groups is reading stuff I wrote about them and taking it

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-25020284681692203022008-12-10T16:51:00.003-05:002008-12-10T16:53:06.027-05:00

If you've been reading the internet in the last couple of weeks, you probably already know that the new Scarface album is really good. Here's a review where I say that same thing again, except better, and with typos! (Rap-A-Lot mainstay instead of Roc-A-Fella mainstay, kiss on ya instead of piss on ya.)

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-41386529220581101932008-12-06T00:28:00.002-05:002008-12-06T00:41:11.384-05:00

Mongol is a good movie. Although if I was Kazakhstan trying to reboot my national image post-Borat, I probably would've gone with something other than the sweeping epic about motherfuckers running around drunk on fermented milk, stealing each other's wives and horses.Slumdog Millionaire is a good movie, especially if you go see it with your wife and in-laws who have all spent years in India and

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-2592090137322773662008-11-26T14:13:00.002-05:002008-11-26T14:16:06.776-05:00

Hey, I wrote some more stuff! Here's my Village Voice review of Kanye's 808s & Heartbreak, and here's my Pitchfork review of the Gaslight Anthem's The '59 Sound. Hey, that's two of my year-end top ten right there! Now I'm going to go drive for a very, very long time.

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-46469425005514095382008-11-24T23:05:00.002-05:002008-11-24T23:07:36.850-05:00

This has to be a joke, right? I hope not. Poly Sci was a pretty good album.

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-71879699875467811512008-11-24T10:43:00.006-05:002008-11-24T16:08:54.804-05:00

I've got more new shit out there: me on Lil Wayne, me on Statik Selektah. Seriously. Freelancing means you need to listen to Statik Selektah albums. And I liked the Statik record way better. Wonders never cease.Also, the Pitchfork book, The Pitchfork 500, is out now. I've got a whole lot of stuff in there, and so do a lot of other good writers. Just about everyone associated brought their A-game,

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-56054911880652369672008-11-19T14:19:00.002-05:002008-11-19T14:27:10.332-05:00

Imagine how my nerves feel.This video is just incredible. Like, "Ruff Ryders Anthem" meets the first ten minutes of the Zack Snyder Dawn of the Dead remake, except with more dry ice and a part where people chase emus. Cathartic. I'd probably write a ton of shit about this if I wasn't freelance-grinding, but this guy already did, so fuck it. (Good to see So Many Shrimp back in business.)This is

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-26422709657383032702008-11-14T15:18:00.000-05:002008-11-14T15:19:28.469-05:00

AC/DC last night: Oh my god. Review up here.

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-5954576214545032202008-11-13T08:28:00.007-05:002008-11-13T14:18:31.926-05:00

Notes on this year's CMAs (because old habits are hard to break):-No Obama jokes! That's a good thing, I think.-Holy shit, the dueling guitar solo is totally back. Thank you, video games. The Tad Kuebler/Mike Cooley moments at the Hold Steady/Drive-By Truckers show last week were a big highlight, and the Brad Paisley/Keith Urban opener here was way better than anything either one of those guys

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-20175574775456313522008-11-10T20:57:00.000-05:002008-11-10T20:58:30.286-05:00

Motherfucking Wallace Shawn is on Gossip Girl, so things are looking up, huh?

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-52066039475874414052008-10-29T15:18:00.005-04:002008-10-29T15:46:56.037-04:00

Notes from last night's big show, Power 105.1 Powerhouse. (Thanks for the hookup, Clear Channel!) - The whole point of this Jay-Z/Lil Wayne co-headlining show, I thought, was that Jay and Wayne were supposed to appear onstage together and do a couple of songs. It didn't happen that way. Wayne had no-showed in Boston the night before, and I guess Jay was still salty about it. Their sets never

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-91770561151516386292008-10-28T10:10:00.003-04:002008-10-28T10:23:37.002-04:00

The Renaissance isn't top-ten material or anything; it's mostly just a pretty solid exercise in diffuse stoner-rap formalism. But this morning it made for a pretty great soundtrack for an absolutely miserable rainy commute. Q-Tip's obviously not the rapper he once was, but these days he's working with this enormously likable halting, awkward flow. Even when he's talking all this vague stuff about

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-80157532932435166132008-10-13T10:03:00.003-04:002008-10-13T10:30:03.949-04:00

Notes from Saturday night's big Diesel 30th-anniversary circus party thing:-Here's a riddle I thought up.Q: If this is supposed to be some kind of fashion industry party, why does everyone look so fucking stupid?A: You just answered your own question.Zing! Yeah, I took it there.-Someone told me this party cost Diesel five million dollars. I wonder if they're going to wish they had that five

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-66978468518577489692008-10-10T14:01:00.005-04:002008-10-10T14:09:13.249-04:00

So it's been like a week and a half since I posted here, huh? I'm guessing things are going to be pretty dead around here for a while. I can finally talk about this in public now: Bridget, my wife, is pregnant. I am going to be a dad. She's a couple months in, due next May, and we're all kinds of amped about it. But this means I'm not really doing anything except working, cooking dinner sometimes

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-17182322771031035882008-10-01T10:54:00.004-04:002008-10-01T14:33:11.685-04:00

Quarterly Report - SinglesNew rule: if I've seen it on at least a couple of mp3 blogs, it's fair game.1. Pink: "So What." What a weird career this chick has had: great liquid Destiny's Child synth&B into confessional sub-Indigo Girls dogshit into Try This, the amazing third album that nobody bought, the one where she wrote half the songs with Tim Armstrong and came closer to nailing an

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-63303999128414720762008-09-30T10:06:00.007-04:002008-09-30T15:51:22.579-04:00

The Quarterly Report - AlbumsYes, I'm still doing these. Apologies to Nachtmystium, Sugarland, Heltah Skeltah, Wire, Brightblack Morning Light, Rex the Dog, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, Harvey Milk.1. The Gaslight Anthem: The 59 Sound. Holy shit, I love this type of band. The straight-ahead belty raw-throated grown-man punk bands. The bands who don't sound like they're playing all that fast

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1913929156802638272008-09-23T17:44:00.004-04:002008-09-23T17:56:24.538-04:00

Does everyone else know about this? A black comedy where Jean Claude Van Damme plays himself as a washed-up straight-to-video action star? And then he gets taken hostage in a bank robbery? These are amazing times to be alive, and JCVD just catapulted right up next to Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler on my can't-wait list.Best line on the new Heltah Skeltah album: "My gun game crazy, when the fifth

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-72776105166392337682008-09-18T10:05:00.005-04:002008-09-18T10:24:10.317-04:00

The end-credits music to Lost Boys: The Tribe, the new straight-to-video sequel, is the Hold Steady, "Cattle and the Creeping Things" I think. I have no idea why that's the case. It just makes no sense at all, and it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. All the other songs on the soundtrack are unbelievably shitty and cheap nu-metal tracks, including one super-obvious and lame remake of

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-20756364453741714172008-09-15T10:05:00.003-04:002008-09-15T10:20:23.148-04:00

I can't believe this. I really can't. I have no idea what to do with it. Suffice to say that this will be fucking me up for a long, long time.I've always had a complicated relationship with David Foster Wallace's fiction, his way of concealing these beautiful glimmering gems of soul-expanding human insight and empathy in artfully arranged layers of total showoffy confusion and obfuscation. Those

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-9297484009831999922008-09-10T15:15:00.003-04:002008-09-10T15:19:55.005-04:00

I had no idea and nobody sent me a gally copy, but apparently the anthology Rock and Roll Cage Match is out and has been out for a couple of weeks. This is the book where different rock writers say someone is better than someone else. Unless someone cut it out of the book, I wrote the Nas vs. Jay-Z chapter. (Spoiler: Jay wins.) And unlike my Brand Nubian entry in Marooned, I though this piece

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-20945157198796018292008-09-08T20:42:00.002-04:002008-09-08T20:44:04.481-04:00

Things I learned watching Gossip Girl:Tanya Donnelly has meetings! Isn't it a little late to try suing Hype Williams for rights to the word "belly"? (Um. That's it.)

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-62199637216183700022008-09-08T10:54:00.004-04:002008-09-08T12:05:15.364-04:00

Notes on the VMAs:- Pretty good this year! Or better than last year's hotel-suite clusterfuck silliness, anyway. The whole thing moved fluidly, most of the performers got to do complete songs, and not one single performance bored me. Judging by last night's performances, virtually all of the non-Disney pop universe seems to be trying to make stuff that'd fit on the soundtrack to The Crow: Rihanna

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-78512340719700300222008-09-05T11:13:00.001-04:002008-09-05T11:15:32.608-04:00

So no, you can't use "community organizer" as a dis. It doesn't make any sense, and someone will call you on your bullshit. Thanks.

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-32480253799467481292008-09-04T09:50:00.002-04:002008-09-04T09:59:03.415-04:00

The general absurdity of the whole Sarah Palin thing might be a lot of fun, but there was one moment during her speech last night that just made my gut seize up with revulsion: when she told parents of kids with disabilities that they'd have a friend and an advocate in the White House. She has a kid with Downs Syndrome (currently being held up as evidence of her anti-abortion cred), and that's a

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-5070024760441465582008-09-02T14:22:00.003-04:002008-09-02T14:36:16.551-04:00

This Sarah Palin thing gets more amazing and insane by the hour. Seriously, I'm sitting in an office full of people constantly watching the political blogs, and every fifteen minutes or so someone pipes up about some new absurd shit in this lady's history. At this rate, we're going to find out by Thursday that she bathes in moose blood and has a rapture-shelter in her backyard. If you haven't

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-77628984290995627392008-08-25T13:37:00.004-04:002008-08-25T13:49:05.259-04:00

Have you guys been keeping up with the leaks from the new Jeezy album? Do you know how much this album is going to rule? I mean Jesus Christ, this morning's one-two punch of "Welcome Back" and "Circulate" is just pure unalloyed disgusting confidence, Jeezy flexing a much-improved flow over these huge mythic instrumentals. Plus there's "Put On," my favorite single of the year. And looking at the

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-15887836003482653062008-08-21T18:05:00.002-04:002008-08-21T18:17:54.589-04:00

Somehow I'd never heard of the Gaslight Anthem before reading what Jon Caramanica wrote about them here, and I have to say I feel like a tool right now. Because The 59 Sound is absolutely kicking my ass right now and I can't believe I was missing out on something so completely up my lane. I'm pretty much going to like any punk band who does that burly grown-man belted-out quasi-folk Bouncing

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-2127887600495279292008-08-18T09:44:00.003-04:002008-08-18T09:45:41.476-04:00

You know why Obama shouldn't pick Joe Biden as a running mate? Delaware. I drove through that motherfucker yesterday, and it somehow gets worse every time I have to do that. If I can't drive through your state without wanting to stab myself in the neck, you shouldn't get to be vice president. It's really that simple.

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-80375628417423096162008-08-14T17:34:00.002-04:002008-08-14T17:48:58.502-04:00

Here are some things that happened at last night's Rancid show: They played one Op Ivy song: "Knowlege." They opened with "Radio" and then went straight into "Roots Radical," no pause; it ruled. At least a couple of people jumped off the ten-foot-high speaker-stacks into the crowd, but nobody seemed to get hurt. Somehow I got marked as the guy to talk to if you wanted to crowdsurf (I'm guessing

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-63164226220313885062008-08-13T14:30:00.003-04:002008-08-13T14:43:37.013-04:00

Never Back Down is basically the Drumline of pitfighting movies, and it still manages to kind of suck. But apparently nobody told Djimon Hounsou he was in a total piece-of-crap movie. He's got the Orlando Jones role, and still he gives this really intense and focused performance, and he looks better doing the UFC stuff than most of the younger folk in the movie. Good villain, too, but the people

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-2364156096912101142008-08-13T11:17:00.002-04:002008-08-13T11:24:56.280-04:00

Michael Phelps is from Baltimore and all, so go Michael Phelps, but I have to say this whole thing where you can get multiple gold medals for swimming is kind of bullshit. So the best basketball players from every country all come together, and the most that one team can hope for is one gold medal. Meanwhile one guy can win like ten of them just for swimming really fast because he wins a bunch of

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-341256826253891472008-08-12T17:38:00.003-04:002008-08-12T17:51:45.297-04:00

I was pretty drunk during the Boredoms lots-of-drummers thing last year. I still remember it as one of my favorite events of the summer: amazing location, beautiful day, hordes of amped-up music-writer compatriots, free beer. I wish I could remember more about the music. All I can call up is Eye, trident upraised, smacking these horizontal bars and making these huge bwaaaaow noises while all the

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-52648588032464882182008-08-12T16:21:00.003-04:002008-08-12T16:33:18.434-04:00

So I can finally talk about my new gig now. CBS Interactive (the thing that bought CNET) is starting a new music blog, and I'll be writing for it. Former Spin and Blender editor Craig Marks is running it, and the other writer they've hired is Andy Greenwald, who wrote the emo bible Nothing Feels Good, so you know this shit is legit. The site's called Juke, and it'll launch in the fall. This won't

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1035893306665297032008-08-11T09:56:00.005-04:002008-08-11T10:15:34.527-04:00

I'm reeling from the idea that we lost Isaac Hayes and Bernie Mac in the same weekend. Both way too young, both basically geniuses, both captured at the absolute height of their powers headlining great documentaries (Wattstax for Hayes, Kings of Comedy for Bernie Mac). Hayes played a free show at the Prospect Park bandshell just a couple of months ago. He was definitely looking pretty frail, to

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-14128297533065879182008-08-09T10:42:00.000-04:002008-08-09T10:43:33.931-04:00

Bernie Mac RIP. This fucking blow.

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-371393175955996872008-08-06T15:23:00.005-04:002008-08-06T15:43:06.827-04:00

Erykah Badu really put it down on Monday night at Wingate Field out in Flatbush. I really love those Wingate shows. Out of all the free-concert series that take over New York every summer, the Wingate one is probably my favorite, even though they don't sell any food inside the venue and it takes forever to get out of Flatbush at night. It's a huge venue, basically high-school football field with

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-64134737262867501052008-08-04T17:20:00.002-04:002008-08-04T17:29:50.434-04:00

So Doomsday. How did the guy who made The Descent, probably the best horror movie of the past five years or so, manage to fuck up his big post-apocalyptic set-piece so completely? Seriously, I'm not exactly a hard guy to please with this stuff. If you make a post-apocalyptic movie, there's a pretty good chance I'll like it. I liked Waterworld, you know? I liked Reign of Fire and the last Resident

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-53579301694994530572008-07-28T16:02:00.003-04:002008-07-28T16:21:45.044-04:00

I was as amped about the beginning of Generation Kill as every other Wire-obsessed dork, but so far I haven't made it through more than one episode, and even that was a chore. I really don't need David Simon to tell me for the billionth time how fucked up the Iraq War is, you know? We all know it's fucked up, and I'm not going to learn a whole lot more by having every cynical war-movie cliche

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-14271201742971945612008-07-22T16:10:00.006-04:002008-07-22T16:47:55.831-04:00

So Pitchfork was a blast, once again. Its booking flawed but interesting and sometimes transcendent, its crises well-managed, its beer free and plentiful. Since my David Banner review, my last ever for the Fork, ran on the day before the festival started, this was my first-ever Pitchfork fest as a Pitchfork non-staffer, but everybody still treated me real nice. And since I wasn't even trying to

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-66130267222442052592008-07-22T14:38:00.006-04:002008-07-22T14:54:32.608-04:00

R.I.P. K-Swift. This is just devastating. Since the whole white-kid embrace of Baltimore club music has already happened, already been discussed to death, it's important to remember that that first K-Swift H&H warehouse party, the one where a real serious credible Baltimore club DJ played her music to grubby punk dudes and MICA kids for the first time, was one of the dizziest and most cathartic

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-67018346009364993042008-07-14T13:41:00.003-04:002008-07-14T13:44:34.236-04:00

My Favorite Album From Every Year I've Been AlivePeople are doing this, huh?1979: Specials: Specials1980: AC/DC: Back in Black1981: Agent Orange: Living in Darkness1982: Bruce Springsteen: Nebraska1983: New Order: Power, Corruption & Lies1984: Prince: Purple Rain1985: Pogues: Rum, Sodomy & the Lash1986: Metallica: Master of Puppets1987: Michael Jackson: Bad1988: DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince:

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-315333045529989212008-07-12T08:44:00.002-04:002008-07-12T08:59:42.768-04:00

Wow, that link bar is one goony-ass time capsule. How many of those blogs do you think are still active? Two? Three? Still. Promise kept, belatedly.Ed Park's Personal Days is one of those comedies about the inhumanity and insanity of office life, about how this absolute dread creeps into your soul if you stay around those places long enough. Except the book doesn't go for the easy joke the way

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1124147939634944682005-08-15T19:17:00.000-04:002005-08-15T19:18:59.640-04:00

And we're live!

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1124137174820323102005-08-15T16:14:00.000-04:002005-08-15T16:19:34.826-04:00

Here's me on John Cena, Cowboy Troy, and the Transplants in the City Paper, with its own sort of hilarious illustration and everything. Hey, remember that promise I made about keeping this blog updated? Still going to keep it! Eventually! This move has been totally overwhelming, and I'm still wrapping my mind around the fact that I live in New York now. In the meantime, check here for the mammoth

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1123216806620636432005-08-05T00:33:00.000-04:002005-08-05T00:48:32.510-04:00

I am drunk.Here's something I wasn't expecting: the new Young Jeezy album is amazing, best rap album of the year so far. Huge monolithic regionless epic production, Jeezy all larger-than-life on that "I am the trap" thing, not afraid to be a huge resonant figure. "My Hood" is a perfect summer jam. Nobody agrees with me about this shit. Whatever.Here's something I was pretty much expecting: Me,

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1122513345534349782005-07-27T21:03:00.000-04:002005-07-27T21:39:17.670-04:00

This isn't one of those "I'm ending my blog" blog posts. I'm not ending my blog (not that anyone could tell the difference lately).I started doing this thing a year and a half ago one day when I was really bored at work. I picked "Dip Dip Dive" as a title because my first two choices were already taken (I don't remember what they were), and I've fucking hated the name since Day Two. Even with a

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1121874972161548872005-07-20T11:54:00.000-04:002005-07-20T11:56:12.170-04:00

Oh shit! It's finally here! The article four years in the making! The main event! Breihan on Kidwell! Watch as I lamely attempt to stuff six years of one ridiculously convoluted career into 1800 words!

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1121703584638779202005-07-18T12:02:00.000-04:002005-07-18T12:19:44.643-04:00

The big test for bands at Intonation was whether these little indie-rock bands could carry themselves in front of a huge crowd, whether they'd come through with the sort of transcendent moments that only happen at big shows or whether they'd look scared and stranded. The Hold Steady, as much as I love them, didn't come off the way I was hoping they would - they sound better as fake arena rock in

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1121585154473091292005-07-17T03:07:00.000-04:002005-07-17T03:25:54.480-04:00

Day one of the Intonation festival is in the books, and I'm sort of amazed at how much fun I'm having. Last night, I got way, way too drunk at the pre-festival meet-and-greet, all the Pitchfork writers who could make it awkwardly introducing ourselves to each other, trying to get drunk enough fast enough to keep it from seeming weird, partying with dudes you only know as pixelized names and still

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1121197056290392432005-07-12T15:27:00.000-04:002005-07-12T15:37:36.296-04:00

Here's the problem with a movie like Dark Water: you already know there's a ghost. You've seen the commercials on TV, and even if you haven't, you can tell just from the sickly green lighting in every scene that this is a ghost movie. So you, the person in the audience, have to sit around for an hour while Jennifer Connelly slowly figures out that, hey, maybe there's a ghost. These "psychological

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1121114170034855242005-07-11T16:30:00.000-04:002005-07-11T16:36:10.040-04:00

We have entered the flux stage. I am three work days away from not having a job anymore - hire me, New Yorkers! - and we've got our apartment all set up, casting decisions made, Park Slope as Our Hood and DIW Editor Andrew Parks as Our Roomate. After a weekend in Chicago for The Pitchfork Thing, I'll be spending a couple of weeks ineptly putting tape on boxes and trying to find someone to take

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1120583926512069762005-07-05T08:40:00.000-04:002005-07-05T13:18:46.576-04:00

Quarterly ReportThis list is necessarily compromised because I'm writing it the day after the 4th of July, which means that towering psychedelic beast stuff like Sleater-Kinney and Caribou lost out to T.O.K. and Fannypack, possibly because T.O.K. and Fannypack make better barbecue material - for the barbecue in my head, not the one I went to, where they played the same goddam Gram Parsons record

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1119898458684432992005-06-27T14:52:00.000-04:002005-06-27T14:54:18.690-04:00

Funny things happen when you talk to famous people on the phone. Like here's Ian MacKaye on his plans for this week: "Fugaz... um, I mean, the Evens are playing at Fort Reno on Wednesday." Or here's David Banner on his favorite book: "The Art of War. Or no! The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I love that shit."

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1119891781030390722005-06-27T12:48:00.000-04:002005-06-27T13:11:18.630-04:00

The only really interesting thing about this Transplants/Paul Wall situation isn't that it'll be the first time a rock album is legally screwed and chopped (whatever). It's this: when was the last time a rapper who collaborated with a rock group was way, way dorkier than that rock group? Look at those pictures on HoustonSoReal and tell me Paul doesn't look like he's about to get his head stuffed

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1119825688562498392005-06-26T18:25:00.000-04:002005-06-26T18:45:59.883-04:00

Baltimore club music has been a part of my life on some level for years and years; "Doo Doo Brown" used to make dance floors go nuts like Kris Kross at my sixth-grade dances. Al Shipley wrote something recently about people in Baltimore not realizing that this wasn't something that happened everywhere, that there was nothing weird about rap radio playing an hour of intense, low-tech, jacked-up

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1119461945463782542005-06-22T13:34:00.000-04:002005-06-22T13:39:05.466-04:00

This is an open invitation. If you play for the Detroit Pistons, and you're reading this, I will buy you a beer. You could be Darko, I don't give a fuck. Want a beer, Darko? Want a beer, Elden Campbell? Cool! Beers all around! If you're a starter or Antonio McDyess, I'll get you drunk. If you're Rasheed Wallace, I'll buy you weed or shrooms or whatever you want. This offer remains good even if

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1119376197959106192005-06-21T13:40:00.000-04:002005-06-21T13:49:57.966-04:00

Assateague Island is a thin strip of sand near the bottom of the DelMarVa peninsula, right between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. It's sort of famous for the wild ponies that run around there and will walk right up to you (also: weird little deer), and there's a national park there. You can camp there for just a few dollars, and if there are any rules against building bigass beach

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1118861799733439982005-06-15T14:46:00.000-04:002005-06-15T14:56:39.740-04:00

Let's talk about Kanye for a minute. I've been getting sick of this man for a minute, and I haven't made any secret of it. He's been acting like a complete ass since roughly the three "Jesus Walks" videos, and it seemed like everything he'd done since then had gradually edged into uberentitled celebrity megalomania. Plus I'm one of the two people in internet-land who isn't in love with Be (Will

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1118780395469367482005-06-14T16:16:00.000-04:002005-06-14T16:19:55.473-04:00

I don't really get the Pixies. I mean, they have songs I like, but the whole thing about them being the greatest-indie rock band ever and making Nirvana possible and all that - I don't really see it. I was going to go see them last night, and maybe that would've clued me in, but then it looked like it was going to rain all night (it didn't), so an outdoor show wasn't really the look. So I still

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1118682088258530832005-06-13T12:34:00.000-04:002005-06-14T16:16:37.410-04:00

Matos just passed me a meme (I learn new words everyday!), so you know I'm going to answer.Total volume of music files on my computer: Zero. I do all my blogging at work, and I can't download music here. I have a computer at home, but it's my college computer, bought at the Syracuse University bookstore in 1998, covered in weird sticky dust, no internet connection, busted speakers. I had Napster

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1118259181927036812005-06-08T15:24:00.000-04:002005-06-08T15:33:01.933-04:00

Fuck it, I like this new White Stripes album. I like this new Coldplay album too. Fuck it.So Game has restarted his beef with G-Unit. Hey Game! I stopped caring months ago! Dis Yukmouth again! That was funny!The new Four Tet album opens with this total cheez-techno bassline that could've come from the Crystal Method, and then it dissolves into cymbal splashes and jazzy drum curls and bleeding

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1117813243348777252005-06-03T11:39:00.000-04:002005-06-03T11:40:43.353-04:00

Here's what I hope is about to happen: I hope Lil Flip is recording a freestyle over "Wait" where on the hook he goes: "Wait till you see Lil Flip." That would be adorable.

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1117725745959839532005-06-02T11:15:00.000-04:002005-06-02T11:29:56.816-04:00

Every once in a while, a song comes along and just completely destroys me, rips me to pieces, has me staggering around, lost in thoughts, tripping over cracks in the sidewalk, and I can't even explain why. Right now, Sufjan Stevens' "Chicago" is that song. I got the promo in the mail a few days ago, and I've tried to listen to the entire album a bunch of times, but I always stop on "Chicago" and

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1117559821026622292005-05-31T13:06:00.000-04:002005-05-31T13:22:10.956-04:00

In my world, Ludacris is a dazzling supernova of a star whose every public move demands intense scrutiny, whereas Matt Lauer is someone whose name I think I heard one time who is maybe on TV or something. Memorial Day is good for learning how out of step with the actual world I am. On yesterday's Ellen show (great for hangovers!), Matt Lauer got about 4 times the screen time that Luda did (and

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1117218518162407472005-05-27T14:18:00.000-04:002005-05-27T14:28:38.193-04:00

So we're doing it. We're moving up to New York City. Set an extra seat at the table, music writer dudes, because homey over here wants to set it off. Also, if you feel like giving me a job, please give me a job. Or, failing that, rent me an extremely cheap one-bedroom apartment.I'm going to go ahead and assume that like 90% of the people reading this have already seen Star Wars 3, but if you

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1117123493762673162005-05-26T11:52:00.000-04:002005-05-26T12:04:53.766-04:00

American Idol's first cracker-cracker showdown is over, and the right cracker won. I'm curious to see how Carrie Underwood does in the outside world and how her success or failure will plug into what I was saying recently about the mainstream's persistent ignorance of country music. Carrie Underwood is pretty and likeable and marketable and, with the right song, there's no reason that she

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1117050535804061372005-05-25T15:40:00.000-04:002005-05-25T15:48:55.810-04:00

New York was a crazy whirlwind of a blast, and I am so tired that I can barely move my toes. I ate a ridiculously huge and opulent Italian dinner, ran through Prospect Park in the rain, dropped $17 on Get Ya Mind Correct at Kim's, left my Baltimore Dodgeball T-shirt on the train. Someone in Greenpoint asked me how tall I am in Polish. I bought the magazine with my first-ever cover story at Barnes

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1116532459712427972005-05-19T15:38:00.000-04:002005-05-19T15:56:45.036-04:00

I was driving Bridget's car around Hampden last night trying to figure out how to get to the G-Spot gallery for like half an hour last night. The edge of the neighborhood has all these twisty confusing woodsy roads, and it's hard to remember where you are at any given time. The building is an old logging mill or something, no longer in use, right in the middle of these woods. When I found it and

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1116442781002960502005-05-18T14:55:00.000-04:002005-05-18T14:59:41.006-04:00

I watched part of the Country Music Awards (or whatever) last night, and something struck me. How many country records were sold last year? A kajillion? And the biggest non-country-music celebrities they could get to show up (that I saw) were Ricky Schroeder and the fucking Blue Man Group? So what's the problem? Is country music a cultural juggernaut or a weird backwater subculture or both or

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1116271225704664102005-05-16T15:03:00.000-04:002005-05-16T15:20:25.710-04:00

There's no way to put a happy face on getting swept, losing game four to a Shaq-less Heat at home, dying without making a sound. It's a terrible ending to a great season. But for once it doesn't feel embarrassing to be a Wizards fan, and there's hope for the future. Here's hoping that someone watches the last few games and realizes that they need to keep Juan Dixon around. And we need us a center

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1115838561009201402005-05-11T15:08:00.000-04:002005-05-11T15:09:21.016-04:00

My brother Jim has a blog. He's a smart kid, so let's hope he doesn't fuck this thing up.

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1115832560180249752005-05-11T13:14:00.000-04:002005-05-11T13:29:20.313-04:00

I caught some wreck from some smart people a little while ago when I gave Edan's "Fumbling Over Words That Rhyme" a one-star review in Pitchfork. These same smart people recommended the album, so I bought it, and it's pretty good. Edan has a strong and nimble if generally unoriginal flow, and his production has a nice fuzzy cluttery Madvillainy shuffle to it. I never had a problem with him before

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1115663975920370732005-05-09T14:28:00.000-04:002005-05-09T14:42:22.580-04:00

I feel like Al could probably write a Lifter Puller song about Saturday night. I've seen Al (from Government Names/Narrowcast) at a bunch of shows in the area, but I'd never convinced him to go to a show or anything. But so at my urging, he ended up at the Hold Steady show at this art gallery in Hampden that was opening this exhibit of old pictures of punks from LA and that had free beer as soon

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1115392100286550542005-05-06T11:04:00.000-04:002005-05-06T11:08:20.380-04:00

T.I. was on The OC last night. Stuff like this needs to happen more often. I want to see Chamillionaire on Gilmore Girls, Three 6 Mafia in the next Wes Anderson movie, the Hold Steady and the Mountain Goats on 106 & Park, Ian MacKaye playing a crooked cop on the next season of The Wire. Worlds need to collide. Let's make this happen. (Too bad T.I. was just lip-sincing "Bring Em Out" while

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1115313554467852882005-05-05T13:09:00.000-04:002005-05-05T13:19:14.576-04:00

I haven't talked about the new Mountain Goats album yet because I don't want to get too personal or emo here. But it's an amazing album and it kills me. The Sunset Tree doesn't have many of the driving tooth-gnashing bangers that We Shall All Be Healed had, but the lyrics (about John Darnielle's past with his abusive stepfather) are endlessly sad and powerful and just fucking miles deep. They hit

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1115231102126987142005-05-04T14:11:00.000-04:002005-05-04T14:25:02.340-04:00

I probably shouldn't mention the Choices II soundtrack without saying a few words about the Choices II movie, but I've only managed to make it about halfway through that particular masterpiece so far, and even then I had to get up to get a beer or microwave a burritto every couple of minutes while the movie kept playing. I don't think this hurt my understanding of the movie; the plot would be

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1115149214227901472005-05-03T15:19:00.000-04:002005-05-03T15:40:14.230-04:00

I've spent the better part of the past week in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, a non-existant town called Stanley, VA, completely shut off from everything, watching basketball on satellite TV (Wizards tie the series! Juan Dixon reps B-More!), drinking Corona and reading the New Yorker on the rickety front porch, watching my dog chase cows away from the fence, getting unbelievably terrified

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1114628324244417202005-04-27T14:58:00.000-04:002005-04-27T14:58:44.246-04:00

Dead Meadow's new album is sleepy woozy nodded-out psychedelic woosh; there's pretty much no metal in them at all anymore, hardly even any Sabbath. Onstage at the Ottobar last night, they were even more oceanically blunted; they sounded like the screwed-and-chopped version of Jane's Addiction or someting, like kickass stomp riffs coming through walls of mud and murk and swamp, bending the air and

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6185805.post-1114179861084019592005-04-22T10:07:00.000-04:002005-04-22T10:24:21.086-04:00

Out Hud reminds me of Neneh Cherry riding a bike down some completely gentrified Brooklyn street on a breezy spring day, chewing Bubble Yum and blowing bubbles, gray hoodie halfway off her shoulder, the Trax box set on her discman, no helmet. It's almost too perfect. The new album is just about everything I want from a bunch of people who used to be in indie-rock bands and now make poppy house

Tom Breihannoreply@blogger.com0