yentell - adventures in shagedelia

NEW ERA OF BLOGGING

hi everyone,

so yeah, i dont blog here anymore. go figure. ran out of things to say and/or interest in shouldering peoples criticisms. i also found it quite difficult balancing the conflict of interest that was being an indie music publicist and a blogger. so i gave up the part that wasnt paying.

for anyone that still remotely cares (yes lucy, im talking to you), i blog as often as possible (read: almost every week, holy productivity!) over at my myspazz page. www.myspace.com/karenplusone.

feed the urge.

love to all.

xx

BRING ON TOP CHEF

this time of year, two (two????) years ago, roddy gave me a copy of the newly mastered idlewild fifth and asked me to mull it over. i walked with it to and from work, soaking in something very different than "the remote part." i ended up falling in love with that record, though even i was shocked when the NME gave it a 9 out of 10. i love idlewild, but i dont think "warnings/promises" was a 9/10 record. so this morning left me wondering, can the NME ever give a retraction? not that i want them to tear down the last i-wild offering, but if the last one was a 9/10, i dont see where the fuck this forthcoming one is gonna fit on the scale. it may very well be their 14. "make another world" is exactly the record idlewild had to make for 2007. it has rock jams that will find similar favor to shit like "paint nothing" and "i am what i am not" while also being entirely modern and dare i say, a tad DISCEMO in parts!!!??? maybe all those nights of dragging roddy to the dark room paid off.

anyway, while i would like to say that listening to the new record has been keeping me from updating, that would be a lie - i only started with it this week, refusing to pay attention until allan left new york (in my mind, listening to a bands new record in front of a band member is like opening a gift in front of the giver. what if it sucks? you can totally read my reaction on my face, and i didnt want to risk it).

its been a busy time chez me. following the mets is proving to be an olympic brain sport. i went to game one of the NLCS and have otherwise left a butt-impression on the chairs at reservoir on university. ive gone to see a few bands - built to spill rule hard when youre stoned, and young love, how youve grown! ive drank a kings ransom in zygo. ive all but denied the fact that art brut have arrived in new york and i have to have that kind of fun again (denied in that im going to game six tonight - if i make it to warsaw after, all the better). ive had takeout margaritas. ive played with monkey. ive seen "little miss sunshine" which was so fucking good (though i swear one of the girls in the beauty pageant segment is really a little person in a big world).

oy va voy what else. i cant even think yet. i need my iced coffee. everyone needs to be at the annex tomorrow for the art brut fete....

for those of you who prefer flyers to reading:




***** PLEASE ADD THE TARTS OF PLEASURE ON MYSPACE!

OMFG SBT, JET

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

*please note the publicist part of my brain was all, woo-hoo! the mystery jets review is listed on that page, so now loads of people are gonna read about my bay-beeeeeez!

****please note even harder:

THIS THURSDAY

THE ANNEX (stolen transmission)

ASH. IS. PLAYING.

there is FREE SOCO.

RYAN HEIL (nightmare of you) is bartending.

more to come tomorrow.....

I SEE LONDON, I SEE SAMS TOWN AND CRISPY STRIPS

leave it to the killers to whip me out of my scene funk. sarah and i went to see them play at the mtv studio last night and oh hell i felt 22 again. (yeah, fucknuts - in your 20s, 3 years constitutes a lifetime). they played stuff from the new album (which the critics can bash all they want - its not like hot fuss was particularly well-received either and you know how that went), and "mr brightside" and "all these things that ive done." sarah covered most of this on her blog, but there was really something so special about being in brandon and mark and daves sightlines again, singing every word to brightside. three years ago, sarah and i were parked in front of every stage serving as human karaoke monitors. the venues have only gotten bigger and bigger and our biggest lament was always that we couldnt connect with the guys anymore. so last night was a happy throwback. i even got the chance to obnoxiously scream "I LOVE THAT SONG!" when brandon announced theyd be playing "bling" off the new record. that got a laugh out of everyone - including mark (who, contrary to sarahs theory of being the most miserable man in showbiz is actually quite funny, and surely has a secret stash of clown outfits back home). however, when we went back to the green room after the show, sarah asked brandon if he had heard me scream. "that was YOU????" he asked, as if disappointed. WTF??? "i thought it was really funny," he added, "but damn, i thought it was someone...." sarah and i stared at him, waiting for the inevitable finish to the sentence. i guess weve been fans for too long, sar. whatever, ill forgive him, if only because carlos is ganking his look and i feel for him. were gonna toast them all at our party tomorrow, so come on dowwwwwwwwwwwwwn.

(fyi - hello same look!)

CARLOS:



BRANDON:



just sayin. COME TO THE ANNEX TOMORROW:

NOT FOND OF ASKIN

you know when you really hate a band, but a song of theirs reminds you of a fun time so you kinda give it a chance and end up listening to it far more than you should, and ultimately end up really liking the song and thus really loathing yourself? yeah, thats me and "naive" by the kooks. man i hate that band. but dang do i really kinda like that song. im gonna hope that the only reason i like it is because it makes me think of kimmerley and david the playboy trying to explain why the accent is put on and therefore entirely retardo.

that said, lets recap my week. starting with sunday. casa de ultramidge. not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg here, but it was johnny from kill hannahs birthday and coincidentally they were playing acoustic in sarahs living room. before anyone paid attention to the notion of a free, intimate, rare acoustic set with everyones favorite gothy midwesterners, we had to play with the dogs. duh.

here matt becomes acquainted with monk (dont really know whos cuter):



ellen and michael fight for camera time with piper and monkster:



ok enough animals (though, to be honest they spent the entire set running around and being so damn cute, KH had to work extra hard to gain our admiration. they did though. kudos to them).

this is what it looks like to have a band play a show in your living room:



after they played a few songs, it was time to turn the gathering into a birthday fete. here is handsome greg lighting candles for his bandmate:



and here is the lovely johnny blowing out said candles. blow, johnny blow!



people started getting good and drunk on cupcakes and smiles and therefore, it was time to break out the..... BOARD GAMES!!!! HOLLUR!!!! yeah thats right. we sent the rockstars on their way and assembled the greatest teams of intoxicated amazingness (FEET FEET VAGINA FEET! QUEER GAY FEATHERS! INCREDIBLE HUMDINGERS!). here is captain brian demonstrating how to play cranium to the masses. what you cannot see in this picture is that jenny is very very very very ninth grade drunk:



piper was not amused:



so that was sunday. we played cranium til 3 am and i have no recollection of getting home but its a good thing i did, because monday night was the big return to shea for my new york mets in which they planned on clinching their division after deliberately losing the series in pittsburgh. my old coworker dave invited me to join him and his two buddies adam and josh in checking out david wrights cute, cute tush. scenes from shea:





i really like the mets cap visible in the above photo. i know its blurry, mets logo bud lights will do that to your camera hand, but i like the effect of the logo versus the crowd. here is me and dave getting super stoked after cliff floyd made the final out:



yeah. thats stoked. and you know what was funny? THE HAPPY RECAP!!!! hahahahaha:



the happy recap! amazing. we stuck around for a bit watching the postgame footage broadcast on the jumbotron before heading home. because my usual mets date alex was not involved in this excursion i did not make any ill-informed ebay purchases. thanks cobra starship for being in philly that night! the rest of the week was kinda anticlimactic after all that excitement. i mean, id say loads about the bands that played annex for us last night (thank you sugar report and blacklist, and thanks most of all to mohair for being so fucking nice and understanding - no band should ever go on after 2 am!), but alas i spent the night on a happy cocktail of xanax and dayquil and am pretty sure i dont remember a damn thing clearly.

now its time to repent... happy new year to all my brethren!

IM GONNA HAVE TO ASK YOU TO MOVE YOUR DESK

lets count sunday as a real day for once. on sunday there was this rando party at happy valley (now i know why id never been there before). the highlights were naturally juniors presence, ash's amazing performance, and my badass buddies foreign islands (in no particular order). jenny and i got good and sauced on homemade cocktails upstairs...



and before i knew it i was crosseyedrunk downstairs taking really crap photos of mark and tim and rick:



so if sunday was friday, today is monday (or i guess sunday, shit, for the sake of argument lets call it monday) and its a momentous occasion because my workmates and i have finally moved into temporary office space! no more of this working from the floor of my bedroom crap. the backpain was getting unbearable. so thanks to a super amazing friend, we have moved our tiny little operation into this ridiculously immense office (sorry, these are going to be really boring to most of you, but for those people who IM with me on a regular basis you will understand my excitement and get as much of a kick out of this setup as i do):



[CUE THE SPECIALS]



one of many spare rooms that will undoubtedly house art brut.



see guys? its mad comfy.



conference room! yay!!!!!

LAUGHTER SMILES BACK IN YOUR DIRECTION

before i get to the whole "what i did at the end of my summer vacation" saga (dont worry, its good saga, picture saga, low attention span theater), i need to acknowledge my darling mets some more. im watching the game as i type, and they just showed this dugout exchange between mr willie (were close like that) and jose reyes. and found myself getting misty eyed. i swear this is reaching pathetic levels, with me sitting and WEEPING watching the new york mets because this team is so damn good. its like, its not even just a stats game (though, to all you fuckers who insist on pointing out that as good as they may be in the NL, that the mets may have trouble against the AL post-seasoners, ill have you know that the SNY bros just likened the current mets lineup to the best of the AL). so anyway, its not just the stats. its a team of players, of brothers, of personalities. at first i was worried about my boyfriend shawn green because he seems so silent, i wasnt sure if hed be able to mesh with the characters already established in the club house. but i see him smiling more and more. hes feeling it. im certainly feeling it. I LOVE THIS TEAM.

ok ok enough sports. lets talk trips to the UK, because i just had one. this year was my first year attending the leeds festival, as opposed to reading. the leeds site itself is an easier layout than reading, and the vibe is decidedly chiller. i totally get why bands prefer that half of the festival, though personally i found myself bored half the time (the one major pitfall of having friends with jobs to do). after the thursday night kerrang festivities in london, i loaded onto team TBS' bus to head to leeds. in the "file under rocknroll" category, matt and i stayed up in the back lounge til 5 am doing... wait for it.... a new york times crossword puzzle. yeah, i come prepared for adventure. angel spiced things up a bit with a vivid fascination about unmentionables, and when i finally passed out in my impossibly tiny bunk it was a really solid sleep. that is, til we got to leeds. the bus parked right behind the main stage just in time for the first band of the day to soundcheck (or something). and that first band may or may not have been... mastodon. for those of you unfamiliar with mastodons canon of work, they are very very loud. just what i needed at 10 am. but no bother. some smuggled coffee from catering and i was on my feet ready to take on day one of leeds.

this is what the main stage looks like through groggy 10 am eyes:



the day rolled on without much eventfulness. the TBS guys played a great set and had to take off for the rock en seine festival in paris. so i found my buddy nick in the signing tent and proceeded to terrorize the radio one tent for a good portion of the day. we dont know whos bus this was, but it ruled:



the only new band that stood out to me that day was klaxons, whos set gave me the feeling kinda like how the arctic monkeys did last year. i dont think theyll have quite the same impact, but youd be hard pressed to find a more exciting tent experience at this years festival. that night i head back to leeds proper with sean and deb from drownedinsound and spent the night drinking at some oddly middle-aged posh hotel with metric and klaxons. in keeping with the festival tradition, i crashed on seans floor wrapped in an amazing duvet, and woke only to answer the door for our finangled free breakfasts (way to go drunk balls sean!). saturday in leeds marked the arrival of my darling mystery jets.

have i ever mentioned how much i love mystery jets? i love mystery jets. i love that i can drag them with me to watch panic at the disco and that they actually humor me and tell me that "its not that bad." i love that they tolerate my love of emo strictly because im american. i love that they gatecrash their own interviews:



i love that they live in a place that looks like this:



(thats the foot bridge you take to get to eel pie island. yes, ive finally seen the island and it is just as magical as i ever imagined).

i love that william still uses a discman and cant understand why incessant blowing of a pennywhistle on a public train to reading would be annoying (as demonstrated here by my man kaps):



i finally made it to reading on the sunday and was reunited with my london loves kim and david (not to mention my new york transplant loves andrea and mark). the word was going around the guest area that hope of the states were going to break up after the festival, and seeing as their last album was part of our soundtrack to 2004, andrea and i made a point of attending their set. we stuck around the radio one tent for the start of goldie lookin chain but then i got the call from the amazing emmizzlevandizzle to meet her and team TBS in the signing tent. reunited with my day one gang, we head back over to the main stage to get good placement for the my chemical romance set. i gotta tell you, seeing a band get bottled from onstage is awe-inspiring. it looked like something straight out of the ten plagues. i have to give MCR all the credit on the planet for playing so amazingly well despite the shower. and despite eddie from TBS fucking with their sound before they hit the stage:



(ok, thats very staged). the crowd looked amazing as swarms of my chem fans tried to out-rally the angry slayer crowd:



later in the day, kim and david and i found ourselves in our usual day three position - standing in front of the main stage waiting for our yearly nostalgia trip. what started with the darkness years ago continued with green day, foo fighters, and now motherfucking pearl jam. drunk uncle eddie was so freegin amazing that even he started to cry onstage. he thanked the crowd for the reception and proceeded to play every song we wanted to hear. this is us during "rearview mirror." we really like that song:



my fun ended there (temporarily). i had left my bags in the TBS dressing room, expecting the kids to stick around til the bitter end of the festival. alas, they took off for heathrow before the final set was done. with my bags in tow. as in, with my passport. and all my clothes. and you see, the real rub here is that i was heading to edinburgh early the next morning. FROM LUTON. this is imran, kim and david trying to cheer me up:



i took approximately 2039840928 busses from reading to the heathrow area to get to the TBS hotel to retrieve my belongings only to turn right back around and start the journey to luton. thus began my scottish adventure.

roddy picked me up from the airport in edinburgh and took me to... the edinburgh book festival. this is roddy giving me the whistlestop tour of edinburgh, and me not listening to a word he said:



we drove to glasgow and went out drinking with ailidh and michael. roddy attempted to document "an american in a glasgow bar." please note the artsy drunken blur:



after a couple of pints we picked up some wine and head back to roddy and ailidhs place, where she proceeded to read mine and michaels tarot cards. i cried:



the next day, roddy and i drove to rosyth, a small town outside edinburgh where idlewild are currently in the studio. this is what idlewild look like in the studio:









and this is the amazing little house we were staying in:



the new material sounds fucking amazing. i cant wait to hear that record. since ive been home ive done a stolen transmission VMA non-after-party that had a lot of old faces (james, the killers, gideon, thursday, the cooper temple clause etc etc) stopping by, a lot of TCTC entertaining and a whole lot of catching up on the work front. im spent. but ill still be at the annex tonight.....

ps - kim and david - midtown. sweet 16.