Hi -- I picked up this book used last week, and was wondering how many rocker Buffistas had read it. I'm finding it extremely funny (it's where my new tag comes from), and some of the biggest jokes seem to be about the Greil Marcus school of Big Damn Mythmaking as Rock Criticism. Any thoughts?

I do have a lot of cool covers in my collection. It's an easy hook to pull me in. Morrissey covering Graham Gouldman's "East/West" as a b-side? Yup, I'll bite. Senor Cocoanut's latin dance band versions of Kraftwerk? Yep. Nouvelle Vague? Mmmmhmmm. Kozelek doing Ac/Dc? Hell, yeah.

I might try to talk my minion (who is a fantastic singer) into doing a set of glam ballads. Just the slow songs, (space) baby. "Lonely Planet Boy," "Lady Stardust" or "Main Man" (T. Rex) or "Sebastian" by Steve Harley. Stuff like that.

Two other easy hooks I fall for: songs about interesting film actors (Pier Angeli by Comet Gain; Gene Hackman by Hoodoo Gurus) and songs about baseball.

Tina, I have drunk the Kool-aid and gone for the free emusic trial, which is a drag on dial-up, I must say. I wonder how much they would object to legal downloading at work.

My favorites from the familiar cover mix (now, near the end they lose the whole extremely deconstructed criteria a bit - but I just started on it last night so there is much pefecting to be done):

"Ocean Size" (Jane's Addiction) - Bobby Bare Jr.
"One More Cup of Coffee" (Bob Dylan) - The White Stripes
"The Sign" (Ace of Base) - The Mountain Goats
"Round-n-Round" (Ratt) - Lou Barlow
"Mr. Grieves" (Pixies) - TV on the Radio
"Down By the River" (N Young) - Low and Dirty Three
"I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" (Sinead O Connor) - Bettye Lavette
"The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul" (XTC) - Rueben Blades
"Waitin' for a Superman" (Flaming Lips) - Iron & Wine
"Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" (Zeppelin) - Devil in a Woodpile
"Powderfinger" (N Young) - Cowboy Junkies
"Against All Odds" (Phill Collins) - The Postal Service
"We Will Become Silhouttes" (Postal Service) - The Shins
"Knives Out" (Radiohead) - The Flaming Lips
"I Wanna Destroy You" (The Soft Boys) - Uncle Tupelo
"Green River" (CCR) - M Ward

ETA: There is also "Peng!33" (Stereolab) covered by Iron & Wine. Which is great too, but nothing beats that Flaming Lips cover. And I can't put two I&W songs on there.

Tina, I have drunk the Kool-aid and gone for the free emusic trial

It's delicious and cheeeap Kool-aid, Sue. You won't regret it. I could go on and on about how emusic has stretched my music-collecting dollar but I'll sum up instead: The package I've got (95 downloads a month) equals out to about .17 per song. They are regular old mp3s, no special formats, no limits on how many burns or who can listen. At all. And their already-great collection is growing every day. I hope I convince a million people to sign up with them cause, so far, I like how they do business.

I should go format that previous post, huh?

"I Wanna Destroy You" (The Soft Boys) - Uncle Tupelo

I love this cover.

ION, I need to pimp Solex again. From eMusic:

Named after a small, Hungarian-made motor scooter, Solex is the project of Amsterdam-based record-shop owner and songwriter Elisabeth Esselink. Formerly a member of Dutch indie pop group Sonetic Vet, Esselink wanted to express her musical ideas more completely; after purchasing an 8-track recorder and a vintage sampler, Esselink began recording songs on her own. Combing the racks of her own store for kitschy records, Esselink took snippets of old records to make new ones, creating her own style of lo-fi techno-pop.

If ya wanna download a few tacks from eMusic or iTunes, I'd recommend "Comely Row," "Low Kick And Hard Bop,"Good Comrades Go To Heaven," "Chris the Birthday." etc etc...

I've been reading, and occasionally arguing with, a survey of goth media. I just got to the part where the author claims that The Doors are the "most-influential proto-Gothic performers" (of the 60s, as the punk scene of the 70s was where goth really started to gestate).

I am not a music critic, and I'm really weak in the Doors-era stuff, so I thought I'd turn the discussion over to you guys. Jim Morrison was self-destructive, but I don't think that makes him a goth...and the musical sound of The Doors doesn't seem to lead into the goth sound, to me.

Thoughts?

Maybe some of it. Or maybe it's Morrison's death romance thing that makes that critic think that.

I can see Morrison's droning vocal style on some of his songs as being proto-goth.

If "The End" isn't proto-Goth, I don't know what is.

OTOH, "L.A. Woman" is about as Goth as ZZ Top.