Stephen Merritt documentary: [link]

Strange Powers, a documentary which took directors Kerthy Fix and Gail O’Hara ten years to make, provides an intimate look at both Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields. While the focus is on Merritt’s relationship with longtime pal Claudia Gonson (Magnetic Fields manager and keyboardist), the film also chronicles his music-making process, with observations from well-known fans such as Peter Gabriel, Neil Gaiman, Carrie Brownstein, and Sarah Silverman.

For fans of the Magnetic Fields, highlights include footage from the band’s early years, rare firsthand stories from Merritt (a rather reclusive songwriter), and plenty of screen-time for his beloved chihuahua, Irving Berlin.

The link has a three-minute clip, and links to screenings, etc. Damn, I gotta see this!

Oh man, that sounds great.

I saw Merritt do an in-store at Amoeba, just him with an acoustic guitar. Man, you haven't lived until you've seen him sing "Come Back From San Francisco" in San Francisco.

Yeah, I'm really regretting not seeing them tour for 69 Love Songs when it came out....

I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this (no) but I'm going to ask on my mom's behalf anyway. She's got a bunch of LPs she wants to digitize. She thinks this process should be more automated than it has been in my experience. Is there anything out there that will digitize an LP and handle the editing for you as well?

In my own experience, I can digitize but I can only record as many minutes as I have free RAM space. Which usually ends up being about 10 min. Then I have to stop, name the file, save it, and start recording again

Lykki Li has a free download of her cover of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" at her site. [link]

Spidra, there are lots of audio programs that record direct to the hard drive (thus bypassing any RAM limitations). I'd be shocked if Audacity did not do this. I've heard of programs that attempt to do the editing by listening for silence in the recording, but I've never tried any of them.

ION, any Bay Area indie-pop music fans not busy Wednesday night should head on over to the Rickshaw Stop to see two great bands. I've seen both of them and can't recommend both highly enough.

Eux Autres are francophiles living in SF by way of Portland, OR, by way of Nebraska. "The band sounds like the unrequited love song Doug Martsch would have penned for Francoise Hardy, had the time/space continuum conveniently collapsed." Here's a cute & bittersweet video: [link]

Allo Darlin' are from the UK although the singer/songwriter/ukulele-ist is originally from Australia. They write love songs about cooking and Woody Allen films. The burly bass player jumps up and down while the rest of the band sings "Sha-la-la". Here's a video.

There are rumors going around that Reg King of The Action has passed away.

There are rumors going around that Reg King of The Action has passed away.

Now Vince Noir truly is the King of the Mods.