picture: 

About a week ago, The Onion's AV Club website syndicated an article about the top 10 songs a survey of men said made them cry:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/these-are-the-songs-most-likely-to-make-a...

For those of you too lazy to click, here is the list:

1. R.E.M,"Everybody Hurts"
2. Eric Clapton, "Tears In Heaven"
3. Leonard Cohen, "Hallelujah"
4. Sinead O’Connor, "Nothing Compares 2 U"
5. U2, "With Or Without You"
6. The Verve, "The Drugs Don’t Work"
7. Elton John, "Candle In The Wind"
8. Bruce Springsteen, "Streets Of Philadelphia"
9. Todd Duncan, "Unchained Melody"
10. Robbie Williams, "Angels"

When I saw this list, I had two thoughts -- which are echoed by many folks in the AV Club comments sections: 1) these songs don't make me cry, 2) who cries at songs?

Well, yesterday, I listened to the 2008 album by country singer Jamey Johnson, That Lonesome Song, for the first time, and when it came to a song called, "In Color," I got chills. It's a little obvious and sentimental, but it's not extraordinarily cheesy and expresses something that moved me deeply in what I feel was an evocative way. Read more »

picture: 

I've taken it upon myself to now and again write little reviews of various awesome items in the OJ distro that might get lost in the immensity of it all. My first entry can be viewed here: http://bit.ly/acP1sM

In a just world, there would be no fame and every piece of art would be appreciated purely on its inherent merits. But, even in this unjust world that we live in, it seems particularly egregious that brother-sister duo Double Deuce have not reached even the moderate fame of other sibling musicians like The Fiery Furnaces or ... I don't know... The Osmonds.

Double Deuce is a supergroup consisting of the mind-bogglingly prolific Toby Goodshank and his sister Angela Carlucci (aka Little Cobweb). They have put out only two CDs, one home-recorded and one in the studio. The latter, Camp Candy, ranks as one of the best albums I have ever heard. Focused largely around Goodshank's guitar and the pair's vocals, although augmented occasionally by a full band (including cello parts by Carlucci's bandmate in The Babyskins, Crystal Madrilejos), Camp Candy is full of memorable songs that catch in your brain even if it's hard to decode their literal meaning. Read more »

picture: 

Long drive to Stockholm from Copenhagen, listening to the Moth, This American Life and finally as we arrive the amazing “Private Press” band The Dandelines. “We’re the children of Sunshine, we come from god the father, we come on down from heaven, to seek our looooove”
Sung by a group of what sound like three 10 year old girls.
(“Private Press” is the newest “inside-tour-joke.”)
During the drive I spot a moose in a field. “Moose! Moose!” I yell. Waking up Jeff in the back who gets to see it as does Dave, who pops his moose-seeing-cherry (he’d never seen one before)

Stockholm is beautiful, but of course we have no time to see any of it. There’s a marathon happening. We’re playing another Debasser club, like we did in Malmo but this one is very stinky. But the food they serve is a lot better. Back in Debasser in Malmo we were served a classic Swedish dish, “The Sandwitch cake” Look it up online. Smörgåstårta. “Like a very big multi-layer sandwich. Comes with many different fillings and toppings” it was not for us. Read more »

picture: 

German author Martin Büsser died on September 23rd, after a short illness, at the age of 42. Büsser was a founding member of the Ventil Verlag publishing house and an editor of the critical pop culture magazine testcard for 15 years. He continuously championed strange, weird and uncomfortable musics and artists, and was one of the very few voices in the German music media who introduced identity politics into the political left and music scenes. His 2005 book on Antifolk was the first work that historicized and theorized the NYC community's output. He was a big fan of Huggabroomstik and Dufus, regularly attending their shows at Darmstadt's Oetinger Villa, and featured many Olive Juice Music artists on his Trikont compilation "Side Walk Songs. New Urban Folk". His intelligence, sympathy, and enthusiasm will be missed.

Obituary from Ventil Verlag