23 January 2009

It's Official

Animal Collective are officially my Favorite Band at the moment.  It's been unofficially true since I saw them in late 2004:  their show that night was one of the best I've ever seen, and it was the perfect way to celebrate my successful dissertation defense earlier that day.  But this song seals the deal, and represents the first time I've even come close to tears of joy:



It's not as if I haven't been deluged by great music lately.  I lived inside of that Grizzly Bear album for a couple of months this fall; after that, I practically married the mathro-pop of Dirty Projectors--an understandable desire, if you've ever seen their bassist and second guitarist ('eerily corn-fed', as a Pitchfork reviewer had it).  And while I'm at it, their album's been out for a while, but have you ever heard Battles' 'Rainbow' song?  Gives me those old 'Peaches en Regalia' warm fuzzies.  (Check out this hilarious vid a fan did for another of their songs.)  It's a deluge, I tell you:  just a few weeks ago, one of my neighbors in Bushwick handed me a DVD he'd just put out; one song, nine remixes, and I still can't seem to stop listening!  But AC is still my official fave.

19 January 2009

Minivan Moms, Move Over


Speaking of felicitous combinations (well, a month ago, anyway), here's my current favorite combination of author name and title/subject matter. As if the surname 'Blow' and the topic (cocaine use among teens) weren't enough, in the title there's also the irresistible echo of the Grandmaster Flash and the Furious classic in the phrase 'white teens'. Sing it with me! 'White teeeeeeennnnns, going through my mi-iiiiinnnnd...'

It's almost as perfect as the tandem of sociologist James Aho and his 2002 book, The Orifice as Sacrificial Site.