Tag Archives: mastodon

Poetic Memory: Buzz Osborne (List)

MP3s: The Melvins – The Bulls & The Bees EP

Roger “Buzz” Osborne may be The Melvins‘ sole remaining founding member, but he pretty much is The Melvins, so it doesn’t really matter anyway. Continue reading…

Album Review: Lou Reed & Metallica – ‘Lulu’

Lulu, the new collaboration between Lou Reed and Metallica, opens with a sparsely strummed acoustic guitar, Reed’s distinct voice, and a question: Will this misaligned collaboration surprise with unexpected merit? Once James Hetfield enters with his amplified chin-rock croon over a wall of guitars turned up to eleven and Reed sings the charming lyric “I would cut my legs and tits off when I think of Boris Karloff,” you have your answer. No. No it cannot. Continue reading…

Poetic Memory: Cougar (List)

Cougar

Cougar, Madison Wisconsin’s all-foxy-grandma-instrumental-post-rock band, just released their sophomore effort, Patriot. Along with it came two starkly different—yet excellent—singles,”Stay Famous” (MP3) and “Foil Épée Sabre” (MP3, EP only). “Stay Famous” plays with old-school indie dynamics, while “Sabre”, a meandering folky piece, may or may not have something to do with fencing. You can check out their catalog at iTunes, as well as other places.

We recently got together with Cougar to talk Poetic Memory, and after listening to the two songs above, it should be no surprise that their influences range from Timbalada’s “boobs” album (whose cover is NSFW, by the way), to Bach, Hendrix, and Tortoise’s TNT. If you are surprised, it’s all explained below.

They have one gig in their hometown of Madison, Wisconsin before they embark on a European tour. Tourdates are at the bottom of the post. Continue reading

Pitchfork Music Festival 2007 (II)

Note: Photos in this essay depict re-enactments of actual events, not the events themselves.

Thursday, July 12
McCaskill picked me up at my folks’ house at 9PM. We weren’t planning to leave Jackson until about 1 or 2AM, but we’d decided to hang out a while and say goodbyes because, naturally, we may never come back.

Instead of going to the bar, for obvious reasons, we opted for dinner. Regardless, as with alcohol, we are both bottomless pits for food. The meal was uneventful, save for the fact that our waitress had apparently served McCaskill once before, and had taken offense to a conversation about foreskins. Despite this, the food was palatable and (hopefully) spit-free.

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