Wednesday, April 20, 2011

It is settled

  After long and careful consideration, I have landed on "Six-Sided Dice" as the permanent blog title.  I know this has nothing to do with music or anything I write about.  However, it is the greatest nerd litmus test ever.  What I mean is - if you take two of those little white or red cubes with dots all over them, and you hold them out to someone and ask, "what are these?"  You will get one of two answers.  Most folk are going to say, "dice."  But certain of us know that is far too vague, and we will inevitably narrow it down to "six-sided dice." 

  Y's tonight.

Friday, April 15, 2011

X Offender to Xylophone Track

"X Offender"  Blondie  No Thanks! The 70s Punk Rebellion
"X Rewrites 'El Paso'/Because I do"  X  Under The Big Black Sun
"X.Y.U."  The Smashing Pumpkins  Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness
"Xandinha"  Cesaria Evora  Cesaria
"Xplosion"  Outkast  Stankonia
"XR2"  M.I.A.  Kala
"Xxzcuzx Me"  Crystal Castles  Crystal Castles
"Xylophone Track"  Magnetic Fields  69 Love Songs

  So this is it for 'x' songs - eight tracks, and really one of them shouldn't even be here.  The X track is an out-take/cd-bonus that happens to start with the band name.

  I saw X live once on a recent reunion tour - 2005 or so, I think.  It was a great show, and Billy Zoom in particular has kept his chops.  D.J. is dead bald.  John Doe looks about the same - like he has been hanging around bars in SoCal for the last 25 years or so.  Exene still wears the same kind of thrift store mom dresses she was wearing in the early '80s, but instead of looking like a young punk in thrift store mom dresses, she just kind of looked like a mom.  I have seen the same thing, only worse, in late video performances from Debbie Harry and Mick Jagger - it is hard to pull off coquette at 50, and at nearly 70, whatever Mick is doing now is more than a little creepy.

  The best track of this set is the Outkast one, followed closely by M.I.A.

  No excuses for the delay.  I will do better.