Monthly Archives: June 2007

Music/Memoir: “Love Is a Mix Tape” by Rob Sheffield

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This book sounded so much up my alley that I was wary of it at first. Then I read this review and I KNEW I didn’t have to worry about being disappointed.

An elegy to his dead wife. An elegy to the music they discovered and loved together. A tribute to so many bands, some disbanded, some moved on. A foundation for his future. A hopeful look ahead.

The writing is lovely, the music discussions are wonderful. I’m now obsessed with checking out bands I never listened to at the time (Big Star, Pavement), and revisiting ones I did listen to but haven’t in ages. I’m replaying mix tapes from high school and college and thinking about old friends and breakup songs and drinking songs and roadtrip songs….

I loved it. LOVED it.

This joins “High Fidelity” by Nick Hornby and “The Wishbones” by Tom Perrotta as my favorite music books.

In Concert: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

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Wow. I really had no idea what to expect going in. The first time I listened to these guys was last year when a few of their songs kept popping up on shows I watch (one of them made my favorites list last year). I remember reading reviews that said those songs were really a departure from their former harder-rock style. Their new album came out and the reviews said it was trying to be a mix of their old & new styles (and not necessarily succeeding). I got it. I like it.

So, on to seeing them live: OK I go to a lot of concerts, but not necessarily that many rock concerts. More singer/songwriter, acoustic, indie, alternative. This concert? ROCKED. Total hypnotic oral assault = awesome. Freakish torturous visual assault (light show) = surely dangerous to any epileptics in the audience! Music sounded great. They’re better musicians than I would have guessed from the albums. Good stage banter, great lyrics, nice acoustic touch in the middle. Loved it.

I am officially bonkers about this band.

Big Screen: Waitress

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Disappointing. Some great performances, Keri Russell in particular. But I thought the plot, the characters, their motivations, and the general “story” were all convoluted. I’m all for adultery in the movies, but in this movie it was the only fun and/or meaningful thing in any of these characters’ lives but for only one or two characters did we actually know or get any clue about the motivation behind it.

Very disappointed. Did not live up to the hype.