I thought that this album put Ardent out of business, but apparently it just turned it into a contemporary Christian label. They got signed by... A&M, I think, went to Memphis to record at Ardent Studios, home to their heroes Big Star (and Jody Stephens even had some role in it), made a really terrific album, and then A&M dropped its rock division! Ardent decided to buy it from A&M. Like his idol Alex Chilton David Gray made some killer music for Ardent & sold a few hundred copies of it. Unfortunately since the label had to shell out a bunch of money for the Idle Wilds they couldn't afford to wait for them to become cult heroes like Big Star. I lost touch with them & our mutual friends years ago. I really dug the record, & I bought it for a bunch of people, but it went nowhere. Its lasting legacy was what it didn't to Ardent. Glad the label survived, even if I'm unlikely to buy any of its current product. It now dawns on me that I should have pitched this one for your book, David.

the Unrequited love song isn't the Midge Ure song you meniton but Vienna, but Ultravox

I'm really confused. I know that a couple of tracks on the bonus Australian release CD burnt out of the order that I put them in but I thought that the first CD was right. The Vienna switch was deliberate and last minute as the burn had said that No Regrets was a little too long but I really can't explain what happened between Paul Kelly and Billy Bragg, unless I possibly sent the penultimate copy by mistake.

Anyway, I'm glad Vienna was the way to go. I'll update my online listing later today.

And Aimee have you seen the Verbatim DVDs. DVDs

moonlit, I hadn't. Those are awesome.

Oh yeah. When I googlebate I now get this online:

JEFF TWEEDY (MUSICIAN, Wilco)

I recently read a collection of essays: BUBBLEGUM MUSIC IS THE NAKED TRUTH: THE DARK HISTORY OF PREPUBESCENT POP, FROM THE BANANA SPLITS TO BRITNEY SPEARS, edited by Kim Cooper and David Smay. If an anthropologist from the distant future came back to our time, *NSYNC would tell him more about our culture than any Will Oldham record—definitely more than a Wilco record. People have this misperception that if something's easy to listen to or easy to read or easy to understand, then it was easy to do. I think the opposite is true. The circuit between Justin Timberlake and a fourteen–year–old girl is what's really important about music, and I definitely would argue that that connection is more profound than the one between an Interpol record and a fifty–year–old rock critic. Me? I'm just trying to connect with myself.

That's excellent.

That's excellent.

It's from Bookforum a while ago, which I had mentioned. But still, now it's online where everybody can see it.

Check it out, The Daisy Bang made the Rocklopedia Fakebandica.

I'm on the same page with Ape Sex (Love and Rockets comic) and The Paranoids (Pynchon).

googlebate

Ooh, I have a new favorite word!

Sweet, David. I love that Daisy Bangs article.

Btw, do all the vinyl fetishists know that Sundazed has released a number of desirable recordings as LPs? Like...

Wilco
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
180 Gram Double LP Set
Letting their firmly-planted roots grow wildly deeper down into thefirmament of rock and pop. Now, the racket will be raised another few notches with the debut of this exquisite album on double-LP, 180-gram vinyl, pressed in a very limited edition.
• NOW AVAILABLE!