Of course, the Arcade Fire is arguably the most anticipated album of 2007 and is currently #5 at Amazon, but hey! To each his own.

XOXOX

Oh, and it's fabulous. Really cathartic, big-build arrangements of challenging, complicated chamber pop/rock. Inventive and totally not ironic or snotty. As good as the first one at least, which is very good indeed. They are also a blistering, rollicking, glorious spectacle live. Anybody catch them on SNL?

I certainly mean no disrespect to this Arcade Fire band. I've never heard them. Indeed, I'm not sure if I've heard OF them, even.

Brother West, perhaps you might slip me a coupla choice mp3s and relieve my ignorance.

it will take more than that to relieve your ignorance considering your comments about The Stooges. I'll take the opinion of Alice Cooper and Jack White over yours.

Arcade Fire on SNL - definitely not you run of the mill pop stars - don't see a lot of women grinding a hurdy gurdy to death, bullhorns moounted on mike stands and live guitar trashing on late night comedy shows anymore.

You don't like the Stooges? Awww..... give 'em a second chance, 'specially those first three bazookas. It's possible to like both the Shaggs and the Stooges at the same time - I figure they were never in competition for gigs at any point in time... actually, that would make a good battle of the bands back in the late '60's / early 70's.

Lincoln, Alice Cooper and Jack White are both pretty big names with me. But I'm not going to substitute their judgment for my own. I've owned I think two of the three original albums, and repeated listening says to me that there's nothing substantive there. Even smart, talented people can talk themselves into liking crap sometimes.

Al, there have been massive leaks of the Arcade Fire album, which is the talk of the indie rock world. You can also visit salon.com and their fantastic Audiofile column (Thomas Bartlett is an amazing writer) and get the single for free.

And honestly, I have no idea why someone who hasn't heard of the Arcade Fire would be doing a "new albums" column. Shouldn't a prerequisite be that the person follows current pop and rock music?

nothing substanstive to the stooges? it's all substance! (well, i'm no big fan of the first album, but that's beside the point.) the stooges kick the pants off any rock band today! "raw power" is the greatest fuckin' rock album ever made!

("fuckin' rock" is its own genre.)

and al, just go to elbo.ws, type in arcade fire, download "no cars go" and be amazed.

I like the first Stooges album myself but why bother listening to that crap when I can listen to great composers like Mary Chapin Carpenter or Ry Cooder. Their songs are timeless.

Interesting........ I would've thought you would've been interested in the Stooges on a historical basis. That first abum was produced by John Cale (he of the Velvet Underground, not JJ Cale, who made a pile o' cash when Clapton did a couple of his tunes). Raw Power had David Bowie behind the console. And the Stooges' bootleg concert Metallic KO is one of the greatest arist vs. audience confrontations ever caught live on tape ("I'd like to thank the person who threw this glass bottle at my head. You nearly killed me, but you missed again. Try again next week!").

As for Cooder & Carpenter - it's possible to like them AND Iggy st the same time. Maybe not if you were all sharing a room or something, though.

Iggy, at least, should have some bucks from "Lust For Life" being used in Carnival Cruise commercials.

"The Neon Bible" is also the name of the first novel be John Kennedy Toole of "Confederacy of Dunces" fame.

never heard metallic ko... am intersted... but have you heard 23 minutes over brussels by suicide? the audience actually riots, takes away the mics and ends the concert. fucking great. the singer is up there screaming "give me back my mic!" and the crowd cheers... it's magical.

anybody who doesn't like the stooges needs to... seriously evaluate their priorities.

I'll send you a coupla my favorites from the first AF disc, Mr. Barger.

Zinger - you HAVE to track Metallic KO down - Iggy just baits the audience like no one else - some random comments:

"Here's a song I cowrote with my mother, it's called 'I got my c**k in my pocket' - Ah one, two, f**k you pr**ks!"

"Thanks for the egg... waht else ya got - bottles? Light bulbs? What am I bid for a dozen eggs?"

"AAAWWWWW... don' go, laydies & gennel'mun..."

Previously quoted: "I'd like to thank the person who threw this glass bottle at my head. You nearly killed me, but you missed again. Try again next week!".

"Do you want us to do our progammed set and look real slick[?!?] or just lay back and do a 45 minute Louie Louie?" (Iggy's rewrite of the classic has to be heard to be believed).

Actually, Iggy's improvisations of his own material has to be heard to be believed. It's a testament to his standing as the Godfather (maybe grandfather?) of punk rock.

And Mr. B - I saw a review in Rolling Stone years ago for an 8 CD set of every single noise or conversation the Stooges recorded while making Funhouse - about 10 hours worth of CD listening pleasure. Maybe for your birthday if you ask nice.

JC, if your primary interest is in some ignorant moron trading verbal hostility with an audience, and doing dumb shit like 45 minutes of 'Louie Louie,' then you're certainly welcome to do so. It's a free country.

For my part, however, I'm interested in MUSIC, which doesn't relate to anything you're describing here. Why would I want to waste my consciousness on such ignorant shit when I could be listening to, say, the Who? See, those guys are musicians and composers.

Whereas Iggy seems to be merely an extremely limited performance artist with one dumb line of mindlessly hostile audience-baiting shtick- but no real songs or substantive musical skills or vision.

Oh, that's right. He's got "raw power." Puh-leese.

actually, iggy played drums in a free jazz outfit before joining the stooges, if i am correct. and he could improvise with the best of them. the stooges were pretty much an improvisatory group for a couple of years before they signed to a label. they CHOSE to go in the direction they went in, and they created the basic template for punk rock. none too shabby i think.

and to say the stooges had no musical talent is totally missing the point. they most certainly did have talent, and they played simply (some of the time) for maximum emotional impact. there are no frills, to be sure, but they didn't want any frills. and you've obviously never heard "1970" if you think there's nothing musical there. that song rivals hendrix for its visceral qualities.

(of course, "raw power" rocks harder than any album has any right to rock, and sounds completely timeless, classic yet STILL confrontational after almost 35 years... and even hendrix's stuff has aged.)

face it al, you just don't like punk rock. but your argument sounds like something rick wakeman would have said in 1977. you're the dinosaur. one day you will see beyond your argument that simplicity means a lack of talent, when i'd argue it's minimalism they aspire to, in spite of their talent to do more if they choose. (and they did choose to do more plenty of the time, and the only reason you don't know that is because you haven't really listened to the albums.)

Zing, "to say the stooges had no musical talent is totally missing the point." No, that's exactly my point. If it's not in the music, I ain't interested in the shtick, or the "raw power."

I have mixed feelings about "punk rock," at least in the narrowest sense of the term. On the one hand, I do appreciate the idea of the 70s punk rock movement as a kind of rock and roll Protestant reformation. It was in some ways a needed corrective to some of the dissipation of spirit and focus by the likes of Rick Wakeman.

On the other hand, punk rockers made a point of pride out of their incompetence. If you could actually playing your damned instruments, that alone would make you suspect. That's stupid, and extremely self-limiting. It's kinda DUMB that Elvis Costello legitimately and understandably felt the need to hold back several years into his career before putting out "New Lace Sleeves" because he feared that the sophistication of the composition would undermine his punk/new wave credibility.

Which is not to say that I'm prejudiced against simplicity in style and performance. I listen to Little Richard all the time. I'm all about Elvis Presley's Sun Records, and Scotty Moore certainly was not a fance picker. Likewise Hank Sr and Sun era Johnny Cash, and a whole bunch of blues and folk records.

In short, simple can be just fine, if you've actually got something musical to say and are competent at saying it. But merely being loud and belligerent does not impress me. That's not in fact "raw power," but merely worthless stupid hostility. If I wanted that kind of dumb animal-level crap, I'd get some guys to start a fight club and we could beat each other up out in the yard. But that's nothing to do with music, is it?

The Who are without a doubt musicians and comopsers of the higest order, and Townsend spent countless hours & interviews trying to explain the band's relationship to its audience. Of course, a classical music fan might be of the opinion that the Who are limited performance artists whose guitar trashing antics were mindlessly hostile audience baiting schtick disguised as pretensious performance art, mocking the very audience that put them there.

Of course, I would never say that about the Who, nor about the Stooges' & Metallic KO. I think MKO is about a lot of things, but basically it's about the relationship between the audience & the artist when all the facade is ripped away (another line from the show - "You paid five bucks to see me and I'm making ten thousand!") Iggy confronts the audience on their worship of their idols, thier heroes and their legends - why see a guitar sacrificed for the sake of rock and roll when you could see a human sacrifice? Why are the Stooges up on the stage anyways, they of they limited skills and abilities? Well, why not? Or why not you, the audience?

I know - that's all about the nature of art or maybe performance art, and mostly those conversations chase tails - maybe for another day. As for the music on MKO? Well, it's a boot - poorly recorded, but the performance was decent, and the four (turns out not to be forty five) minute version of Louie Louie at least gives you an idea of what the FBI was looking for back in the '60's. It's likely the version Iggy thought he heard as a kid, come to fruition at Cobo Hall in Detroit in the mid '70's. I guess we shouldn't be surprised - stuff that sits growing in kids' heads for years sometimes comes out all prickles instead of flowers.

al: "Zing, "to say the stooges had no musical talent is totally missing the point." No, that's exactly my point. If it's not in the music, I ain't interested in the shtick, or the "raw power.""

read the rest of what i said. no cherry picking. that wasn't my point. my point was that they had PLENTY of talent. they didn't get lucky, they fine-tuned every note. they played as a group, with very few overdubs, but they strove for a certain perfection with every take. when they got it, you can hear it.

"On the other hand, punk rockers made a point of pride out of their incompetence. If you could actually playing your damned instruments, that alone would make you suspect."

that's true of the initial burst of punk rock. but listen to just about anything made after the early days of '77. punk "died" because those musicians who started punk learned how to play, and some learned how to play very well indeed. in fact, some of the best players of the past thirty years got their start during punk, and were peaking by '79-'80.

"That's not in fact "raw power," but merely worthless stupid hostility."

...you haven't listened to that album ("raw power") have you? it's damn obvious that you haven't. it's white-hot psychedelic punk with grating guitars and the spookiest vocalist singing some of his best lyrics (which are anything but dumb or "animal-level crap"), produced (in the 1998 remastering) with this incredibly in-yo-face quality that slaps you about before pummeling you in the gut. it is most certainly one of the most visceral albums to come out of the 70s. it's most certainly got everything to do with music.

it's become obvious from your comments that you haven't listened to the stooges with much of an open mind. when i was 16, they sounded a bit raw and simplistic for my tastes, and it wasn't until several years later that i figured them out. sometimes it takes a few years. i'd go back and check them out again, because you are missing something fantastic.

big Al sez - "I have mixed feelings about "punk rock," at least in the narrowest sense of the term."

Tearing me Apart - Rollins.

Iggy - Wild America.

nuff said

how could i have forgotten this one!

St. Lemmy sez - R.A.M.O.N.E.S.

gabba gabba hey!

Zing, I have listened to the Stooges with an open mind - but not an empty one. I'm not going to listen to ANYTHING determined to like it no matter what is actually on the record. I listen to all music with the intent of seeing what value or substance it might have. I want to understand what people see in stuff, even if it's not necessarily my thing.

Now, it's certainly possible that I'm just not getting it sometimes. That's certainly the case frequently with more challenging jazz or European classical music. I just don't quite have the vocabulary sometimes to understand things. Sometimes Miles or Coltrane is whizzing over my head.

But that generally doesn't apply to punk rock, or any kind of American style pop music. It's not like I'm not smart enough to get Iggy, I'm just not buying it. There's no THERE there.

Plus, invoking his pre-Stooges history as a jazz drummer to prove his musical bona fides seems like an admission that the stuff that he's actually (semi) known for is not musically legitimate.

I appreciate very much how the proud incompetence of full-fledged "punk rock" got buried - and became the seed for a lot of great "new wave" acts. That seed of punk minimalism and passion has been an excellent guidepost for Elvis Costello, for example.

He's developed in a whole bunch of directions, and actually learned to read and write sheet music like a professional musician. But when he gets extended out making Bacharach records and such, he guides it back toward his beloved Clash records (and Hank Sr) and such before he loses the focus and passion, and dissipates.

This is all very good - but it still doesn't make Iggy Pop's songs any good.

JC sez: "a classical music fan might be of the opinion that the Who are limited performance artists whose guitar trashing antics were mindlessly hostile audience baiting schtick disguised as pretensious performance art"

Thing there is that the classical music fans would simply be WRONG. They'd just be snobs who did not understand what they were hearing. The author and performers of "The Real Me" and "Baba O'Riley" are highly skilled and sophisticated musicians with a lot to say. If someone doesn't see that, then they're just not getting it. It ain't "pretension" if you've actually got the goods. The trashing of guitars was not all that they were about. Those kind of things were just gravy.

"Plus, invoking his pre-Stooges history as a jazz drummer to prove his musical bona fides seems like an admission that the stuff that he's actually (semi) known for is not musically legitimate."

if you would listen to the stooges again, you're likely to hear some of that in the stooges. it's not all simple 2 or 3 chord punk. some of it is. but a good half of it is not. from what you said, i think that you've just missed "it." "it" is most certainly "there." iggy is a LOT smarter than you are giving him credit for.

"He's [costello] developed in a whole bunch of directions, and actually learned to read and write sheet music like a professional musician."

all well and good for elvis costello, but learning to read and write sheet music is not a measure of an artist's worth. in a lot of people's cases, learning too much technical mumbo-jumbo strips them of their power. in costello's case that may have helped him (although i think that his later stuff doesn't hold a candle to most of his early stuff), but in iggy's case, that would just destroy his ability to make an impact.

compositional complexity works for certain genres, not so much for others. to make all genres play by the same rules makes it hard to appreciate what makes each genre work. you can't approach beethovan the same way you approach reich, or the same way you approach roxy music, or the sex pistols. you can't even approach the sex pistols and pil the same. nor "the clash" and "sandanista!" you're just putting limits on what you can and can't appreciate.

"They'd just be snobs who did not understand what they were hearing."

classical snob: the who :: al barger: the stooges.

Jaz makes a good move in defense of punk rock by invoking the sainted Ramones. They would be regarded as the original definition of "punk rock."

But the Ramones had actual SONGS. They use relatively simple musical and English vocabulary, but they wrote a pretty good number of memorable compositions. There's a real melody under "I Wanna Be Sedated."

Also, they were philosophically committed to simplicity of style, but they were more sophisticated and nuanced players than the careful facade of "punk" that they presented. There's a difference between minimalism and incompetence.

original definition?

i dunno...i tend to think

Won't get fooled again is the "birth" in many ways

your mileage may vary

Zing, the fact that you can posit an analogy or syllogism [classical snob: the who :: al barger: the stooges] does not mean that it has any validity whatsoever.

A classical music snob who doesn't even want to understand the appeal of rock music by even such great artists as the Who does not compare to a devoted connoisseur of the rock tradition who gets but does not buy the actual incompetence and artistic vacuity of such as the Stooges.

Mr. Barger has is correct.

For example, I have to click the 'next' button when "Fell In Love With A Girl" comes around on that White Stripes cd because, man, what a load of simplistic crap that is.

I agree - the guitar trashing was not what it was all about. Neither were Iggy's performances. I listened to those first three albums long before Metallic KO was even available. And since we never did get as lot of any acts (major or not) touring through here, it's always had to be about the music - heck, a picture of the artist on the album cover and a lyric sheet were gravy too. And the Stooges ignored the gravy & got to the meat & spuds as often as the Who did for my money. Sure, Iggy wrote lyrics that reflected his world vision and threw in occasional bits of his childhood experiences - just as Townsend would do in songs like "Pictures of Lily" - and who really wants to hear a song about how a guy got caught wanking by his parents (actually, that sounds more Ig than Towser)?

But to each his own. For me, the three and four chord simplicity of "The Real Me" and "Babs" coexixts with the five chord "Gimme Danger" or the two chord "1969." It's not that I'm indiscriminate - I like it all - I can even dislike it and like it at the same time.

Jaz is further onto something by tying the Who to punk rock. They were patron saints to a lot of the punk rock movement, including particularly the Clash.

I'm not so sure about using "Won't Get Fooled Again" as the case in point, however. That's getting pretty far afield from the more narrowly focused idea of "punk rock." "My Generation" would be a more obvious example, or maybe "I Can See For Miles."

"My Generation" is the cusp between "mod" and the kind of "punk" exhibited in the "New Wave" by the Talking Heads, Blondie and Elvis Costello

a different animal than Black Flag, Motorhead, Ramones...

who are themselves a different stripe of beast from Iggy/Stooges and their performance Art aesthetic

"A classical music snob who doesn't even want to understand the appeal of rock music by even such great artists as the Who does not compare to a devoted connoisseur of the rock tradition who gets but does not buy the actual incompetence and artistic vacuity of such as the Stooges."

ok, al. turn around what you just said. look at the syllogism, compare relative complexity stooges to who to classical, and tell me there isn't a connection. it's a very valid syllogism. you just said about the stooges what a classical fan would say about the who.

don't get me wrong, i love the who. but i also love pussy galore, who (sometimes) take the stooges simplicity and confrontational qualities and up them to ridiculous levels. their drums were made out of trash cans! their guitars were never tuned! every song (on certain albums) sound EXACTLY the same! the lyrics are incomprehensible! the song titles are uniformly offensive and trite! it's fucking marvelous!

you seem to have built a shell around yourself when it comes to punk rock. you're not going to properly appreciate it until you break that shell. it's just not going to happen. punk created a wide world of different sounds, most of which still reverbate today.

you're the one putting a "narrowly focused idea" on punk rock, when there's nothing further from the truth. the idea of punk was to stip rock to its core and build it back up refreshed and vital again. there are relatively few bands who were at the flash-point (i.e.--the stipping of rock to its basic elements) and even then, none could decide what that was. girl groups without phil spector? the stooges? rockabilly? was it simplicity, or anger? there wasn't one definition of what punk rock WAS. there was just an idea of what punk rock WAS NOT. no bloat. that's the idea.

from the velvets to the stooges, to mc5, the ramones, television, talking heads, sex pistols, clash, crass, pil, wire, minor threat, husker du, minutemen, pussy galore, napalm death... that's just 1987... to today's wolf eyes and excepter, punk rock has grown and changed, disappating at the same time it consistently pulses at its pure core, which, for all intents and purposes, is the stooges and what they created by "dumbing down" their sound. they fired some of the first and some of the best shots of this revolution (a few years too early).

have you heard wire's "pink flag?" there's minimalism in that, and simplicity, and their playing shows no more traditional "skill" than the stooges showed. yet, they were considered "art rock" by the other punks, even while those punks were putting 16-20 guitar tracks into each song (that's the sex pistols if you didn't know).

oi.

"The greatest rock 'n roll record ever made."

-Jack White on The Stooges album Funhouse.

big Al sez - "That's getting pretty far afield from the more narrowly focused idea of "punk rock.""

well now, that could be because there is NO "narrow definition"

Elvis Costello playing "Radio, Radio" on SNL and getting banned for 10 years by NBC WAS a True Moment in real Punk

but so was the Moment of Anthrax and Public Enemy joining forces, reminding us to "Bring the Noise"

it's about the Ethic and Content...not simple musical styles

nuff said?

"A milestone in rock 'n' roll so overlooked it's despicable."

Refers to: The Stooges' Funhouse

Who said it?

Jack White

oh SNAP!

game, set and match to "Elvis"

First of all, "Elvis," damn you to heck for sticking my hero Jack White up my ass.

Jaz, hell yeah on Elvis' infamous performance of "Radio Radio." That was certainly one of the top all time glory moments any idea of "punk rock." Got hundreds of pictures of that performance, alphabetically sequenced such that they would make an outstanding slide show/screen saver if'n you wanted to save them.

However Jaz, there is a narrow definition of punk rock, or there wouldn't be any definition at all and the term would be utterly meaningless. The Dead Kennedys are punk rock, Billy Joel just ain't. It's a bit murky though, as there are perhaps a couple or three slightly different definitions or ideas.

There are numerous godfathers or precursors to punk rock, as commonly understood. The Velvet Underground, the Stooges, maybe early Jonathan Richman. As I've heard it explained, ground zero of "punk rock" is most commonly considered to be either the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, or the Clash. The glorious destruction spreads outward from there.

But of course, there's all the difference in the world between the Sex Pistols and the Ramones. They're fellow travelers, but very different not just in style, but in philosophy and emotional intent. It's so complicated.

Regardless of definition, there's good punk rock and bad punk rock, just like prog rock, metal & whatever else styles you wanna throw in there. But there's lots & lots of everything, and sometimes you just miss it first time 'round -sometimes the second or third. The first time I heard the White Stripes, I just though "Ho humm, minimalist sloppy lo fi rock - been done before." It wasn't until about two years later that I realized it was BRILLIANT minimalist sloppy lo fi rock - with BRILLIANT songwriting. And that Meg & Jack could make a hell of a glorious noise. Nowadays, I have to listen to the White Stripes in small doses because I'd probably listen to nothing else ever again (Jeff Buckley's #1 in that category).

Really, Mr. B - you should run those Stooges albums once more - Funhouse and the remixed Raw Power. If nothing else, the Stooges knew how to make a glorious noise too.

big Al sez - "It's so complicated."

Quoted for Truth

Al, the link i put above is to the actual clip of the entire performance on SNL, it's a flash player...small stream, even your antique connection should be able to handle it once it caches for a minute into your browser...same with the rest of the Performances i've put in this Thread

ain't much else i can say on the Topic. but since all yer Taste is in yer mouth...

heh

:::scampers away into the Night:::

Punk it up.

"if your primary interest is in some ignorant moron trading verbal hostility with an audience,"

Then you've come to the right thread.

oooh, snap, part II.

al has some good music taste. he likes prince, and for that, he is a good man. i think he likes prince anyway. anybody who likes prince gets a pass in my book, questionable politics or no.

but he needs to listen to the stooges.

I think it would be cool to BE Prince & live at his studio complex in ... Minnesota? or whereever? Does he still live there - well, he did years ago anyway. Just imagine - waking up in the middle of the night & phoning security at the reception desk - "Wake up the cook & have him make me a bacon sandwich & bring it to the studio in 15 minutes - and get me a bass player with a purple bass - I just got a great idea!"

i think i read somewhere that he's living in toronto now. but paisley park is in chanhassan, which is a suburb of minneapolis.

the best bass player prince ever had was prince himself. all prince needs is himself (and maybe that bacon sandwich).

Brother Jaz, I've got a commercial DVD of the "Radio Radio" performance, from which I got the captures linked above. I highly recommend the 5 DVD set of SNL musical performances, which can be found as cheap as around $23. Among other things, this also has the famous Sinead O'Connor pope deal, which still gets me all tingly every time I watch it.

Judging by some stuff he's written in recent years, like "Animal Kingdom," I would take it that Prince is a vegetarian - so I'll have his bacon sandwich.

Now, if you come up with an endorsement where PRINCE says that the Stooges are great, THAT would impress me. He made a couple of the best songs of 2006, most recently.

Super Bowl MVP Prince is as good at almost every damned instrument as almost anyone he could hire to come in. More importantly, his multi-instrumental talents make it easy for him to work on impulse or on the fly. If he comes up with an especially gloriously freaky idea at 3 am, he can just pick up an instrument and go with it.

But he still does well to keep other musicians playing on his records, cause he's adding more human creativity. Another keyboardist might not play BETTER than Prince, but they'll be DIFFERENT, which adds new flavors to the stew and gives Prince new things to play off of himself.

if prince is a vegetarian, that must be a recent development. although, i could be wrong, as the reference to "squirrel meat?" may have been a joke.

but i don't know about your assertion that prince is better with different players. espescially not on keyboards. no one quite gets that squeel. a majority of prince's very best albums have been solo or near-solo affairs (dirty mind, 1999, sign), although i must say that some of his band albums (black album(?), p.r., parade... and the best of the best, lovesexy) have been right up there.

okay... having thought about it, and wondering whether the black album is a band album... i don't really know... and how much of parade is really the revolution... i don't know... it's all convoluted.

it depends. lovesexy and sign are his best. after that, black album, parade, dirty mind... he's quite capable either way. I DON'T KNOW ANYMORE! ugh. prince.

Count me in for Black Album & Sign as numbers 1 and 2 either way.

Prince as Super Bowl MVP? Fer shure! Too bad they couldn't give him a trophy.

Prince endorses the Stooges..... you got me there. I dunno - at the Superbowl, just before his Purple Rain solo, he let out a big SQUELCH of guitar shreck - it sounded like the Stooges for a moment, anyways.

That this argument even went on to Comment #47 and involved so many "Oh, yeah? Well so-and-so said such-and-such!" and "But this thing ties in historically and aesthetically with that thing, and that's why it's better than you say!"...is absurd. Everybody's got different ears, there is no form of art or entertainment more subjective than music, and how could it possibly be such a big deal that somebody doesn't share your assessment of a band. So he won't buy the Stooges, and there'll be one more copy in the stores for somebody who DOES like them to buy. Big fucking deal.

But Al, editorializing aside, I was dropping a line to let you know that I ripped some Arcade Fire mp3's just for you, and for some reason my email ain't lettin' em through. My mighty heart is breaking.

fuck off, mike. you could say that about just about anything. you've been drinking.

p-thub. we come here to argue. so we argue.

ahem, mike, you're the one still arguing about cutting your kid's dick.

the stooges are far more important to a man's well-being. i think you know that. we are just trying to protect al from aids and smegma. so there.

oh yeah--new arcade fire is wonderful, eh? big old fuckin downer wonder! woo-ha!

Oh, I know all of that, Zingzing. And I agree, of course. In fact I readily admit that I didn't mean a word I said in the first paragraph of comment 48. (Come on - me? Of all people, disrupting a musical argument? ME?)

I was just bored and nobody'd said anything in 5 days so I figured I'd stir the pot...Oh, God! I'm a fraud! A fraud! A lying, conniving, two-faced, hypocritical, incredibly great-hair-having fraud! (breaks down)

i love your hair, michael. sometimes, it gets me so hot that i have to get off. i have a recurring fantasy about lobbing jeez into your hair in the middle of the night. it is so loaded with protein (this is in my fanstasy, you see,) that when you awaken, your hair is even more perfect than normal, and you struggle in vain til your dying day to relive that day of hair beyond-perfection.

muah, dear.

Zing [re: comment 53]- Are such fantasies inspired by listening to your beloved Stooges? And should I consider them an argument in FAVOR of the Stooges?

Perhaps it comes from the Stooges being so musically vacuous and boring that one's mind wanders like this.

nah, al. it's an old joke between mike and me. it's older than my love of the stooges.

nice try sucking me back into it. i will fall for it: you suck at liking music! hahahah. oh. ahem. you really seem to think that the stooges' songs all sound like "no fun" or something. in fact... other than a couple stretches on fun house, most every stooges song is strikingly different. they were quite the diverse group, but for some reason... you don't know that.

Oh, we're still here... apparently the bar is stil open at teh Stoogefest. I dunno... I figger if Mr. Al hasn't changed his mind yet, I'm willing to leave him alone for a bit (don't want him to have to watch another DC type thread stretch out for the next year).

What about Iggy himself? He made some pretty decent solo albums after the Stooges - The Idiot, Zombie Birdhouse & New Values I thought were all pretty decent & different from each other as well.

Oh yes JC, the bar is still open. Like the Hotel California, we never close.