Pop Culture Press CD & Mag

The Spoon guys are on the cover of the latest issue of Pop Culture Press. Not the most flattering picture. Singer Britt Daniel is smooshing down his ear in a sort of mock-scratch. He's scrunching his face, his eyes are closed, face turned away from the camera. Message: I don't even care about this photo shoot. But by making such an obvious dog-and-pony-show about not caring, he has proven that he cares about trying to look like he doesn't care! A-ha! Zing! The next one of us who sees him should singsong, "Britt Daniel cares about looking cool" until reasonably confident that he feels silly for striking that pose.

Behind the silly cover: interviews with Spoon (naturally), Son Volt, Graham Parker, Olivia Tremor Control, Nic Armstrong, Githead, Kinski, The Makers, Big Star, The Posies, Detroit Cobras, Band of Bees, and Volebeats.

Also, in a chat with The New Pornographers, Carl Newman waxes poetic about his taste in music ("I love songs that are strangely catchy"). He also explains the "yeah" thing, "I think I decided early on that was going to be one of the things I did - throw in stupid nonsense words just to fill up the space. It seemed funny to say c'mon' and 'yeah' and 'hey' in a song. Now I do it all the time and I don't even blink and nobody ever calls me on it. Nobody ever says 'Why do you say yeah at the end of sentences so much?' Because it's cool to say yeah at the end. It's like the exclamation point... Let's go downtown, yeah!" Now, sure, at that point, Brian Baker, who wrote the piece, added an exclamation point after the "yeah". He could have been making a subtle dig at Newman, as if to say "Without adding an exclamation point, this sentence would have had none. That 'Yeah'? It just fills up space, man. In all contexts." Or perhaps "yeah" only works as a verbal exclamation point.

Elsewhere in the mag, an interview with Michael Penn, who says of Mr. Hollywood Jr., "I conceived this record in two sides. One of the big things that CDs fucked up in the music listening experience is they presented too much music in one sitting... When I made my first record, I had long conversations with the tech guys at RCA to find out if there was a way that I could actually get the CD player to stop halfway through, so people would have to get up off their asses and hit the pause button to get to the second side."

There's a bit of cool news in this issue: for the first time in Pop Culture Press' 18-year history, they are offering subscriptions. The rate is $9/one year (2 issues), $17/two years (4 issues), $25/three years (6 issues). If you're interested, e-mail the mag at subs[at]popculturepress[dot]com or send a check or money order to:

Pop Culture Press
c/o Subscriptions
PO Box 4990
Austin TX 78765-4990

Pop Culture Press Fall & Winter 2005 Track Listing:

1. The Willowz - Tricks and Cons
2. Morcheeba - Lighten Up
3. Dipsomaniacs - Syd Barrett
4. Tribeca - Hueponica

5. The High Dials - Strandhill Sands

6. Moonlight Towers - I Sleep Alone

7. Parallax Project - Track A Whole Different Mary

8. Ken Michaels - So So (from Sit In the Sun)

9. Volebeats - Like Her

10. Michael Shelley - I've Been Trying (with Laura Cantrell, from Goodbye Cheater)

11. Doug Hoekstra - Giving Up Smoking
12. The Redneck Manifesto - I Am Brazil
13. The Morning After Girls - Run For Our Lives
14. Dr. Pepper Family - Million $ Bill

15. Friends Of Lizzy - If It's Wrong (from Perfect Little Pieces)

16. The Living Blue - Tell Me Leza
17. The Unrequited Loves - These Are The Unrequited Loves
18. Mannikin - Face the Wall
19. The Len Price 3 - A Christian in the Desert

20. Jack Stafford Foundation - The Hard Way (from Exes)

21. Hitch - Opposites Direct