party girls

LA interjection:

This article on dance party gangs in LA has been much discussed in my household over the last few days. I find it profoundly disturbing, but I also feel a little hypocritical for my shock, since I know I was carousing at houseparties and raves in high school too. What is different here? One is perhaps an age thing, barely teens (like the Seattle rave murders last year), and another might be the marketing around these girls - less the playful feel-good sexuality of 90s rave days and more explicitly sexual. The flyers look less like high school parties and more like b&t meathead club flyers, advertising the women more than the party atmosphere/experience. Then there's the bartering to holdoff gang violence, which is something my newly LA-brain still can't really comprehend.

On the other side, here's a Mr. Roger's-esque peep into the LA school district's instrument repair shop.

Byrning

Just read Will's piece on David Bryne and wonder if there has ever been a time since beginning of Talking Heads that he WASN'T an influence on up-and-coming bands? It has less to do with his collected works and more with the fact laid so bare at the end of this piece - Byrne has never allowed his celebrity to warp the scale of his ambitions, or rather, his ambitions were likely always bigger than his singular reach, and that is appealing to young musicians (and artists). Byrne is the lovable dilletante.

jackin' pop

This picture is from the Gibson factory in Memphis, TN - was there a few days ago on my cross-country drive to LA, where I'll be living for the next eight months.

You may have seen my essay for the best album as voted by the Jackin' Pop poll. Check out this NPR story on the end of P&J to see what all the fuss about the JP poll has been this year.

Will post more in the near future, after I unpack.