Pop Culture Press Spring/Summer Mag & CD

Built to Spill's on the cover of the new Pop Culture Press, and they're reading, setting a great example for the kids. And for all of us. It's like they're saying, turn off that computer, and-- actually, celebrities are pictured doing a lot of things on magazine covers we shouldn't necessarily emulate, like smoking and being anorexic. Let's not be too hasty in turning off the computer. Many books and magazines require the killing of trees, y'know. I'm just sayin'.

Yet within this particular awesome magazine there are many worthwhile items, including interviews with artists such as, naturally, Built to Spill, Billy Bragg, and Minus 5, a label profile of Yep Roc Records (home to The Minus 5, Billy Bragg, and Robbie Fulks), and a mixtape listing done by Built to Spill's Doug Martsch (with songs ranging from The Smiths to Captain Beefheart).

Also, Simon Reynolds, author of Rip It Up And Start Again: Post-Punk 1978-1984 offers his thoughts on five post-punk tracks that are "sprung on him". The songs are PiL's "Careering", Scritti Politti's "Lions After Slumber", Talking Heads' "Houses in Motion", The Durutti Column's "Sketch for Summer", and The Pop Group's "We Are All Prostitutes".

Reynolds' comments on Talking Heads' "Houses in Motion":

This is an interesting song. It was a single in England, but it wasn't a hit. It followed "Once in a Lifetime", which was a big hit in the UK, but not in America. "Houses in Motion" was sequenced on Remain in Light to follow "Once in a Lifetime" which is about someone who's suddenly estranged from his routine, his life, his possessions, his family, his wife. He's estranged from it and it all seems absurd, yet that realization hits him with this sort of a cosmic force. It's almost like a blinding epiphany: the idea that you cruise through everything without connecting with reality. And then, immediately, it goes into "Houses in Motion", which is back inside alienation. It's based on the same musical ideas as "Once in a Lifetime: but whereas "Once in a Lifetime" is a kind of mystical, oceanic funk, "Houses in Motion" is a sort of eerie, neurotic funk. The protagonist in the song is back inside neurosis. The key line is: "He's digging his own grave." He's trapped in routine, going round and round, just working for these goals and missing life. So it's almost as if the two songs are sister songs In the first one, the guy sees through everything and grasps the oneness of existence, in an almost mystical way. In the second one, he's like a prisoner. He's blinkered. He's working for ambition and goals, digging his own grave, going nowhere.

Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime (from Remain in Light)

Talking Heads - Houses in Motion (from Remain in Light)


Pop Culture Press Spring + Summer 2006 CD Sampler 24 Track Listing:

1. Built To Spill - Conventional Wisdom
2. Tommy Keene - Black & White In New York
3. Daylight Titans - Whistling In The Dark
4. Wes Mcdonald - Chinese Rug
5. Troy Campbell - Killing Time In Texas
6. Mark Bilyeu - Don't Need So Much
7. The Bellyachers - Heaven Is Blue (from 200 Lucky Feet Move the Dragon. A pretty tune...)
8. Cindy Woolf - In The Attic
9. Jules Shear - Do What They Want (from Dreams Don't Count. It can be a fine line between catchy and annoying... this just might cross into "annoying" territory for me, but decide for yourself)
10. Matt Keating - Who Knew
11. M+S - Plan Of The Man (from Future Women)
12. Tide - Never Knows Your Name
13. The Czars - I Am The Man (from Goodbye)
14. Ride Theory - Dead Radio, Love
15. Blue Cartoon - She's A God
16. The Weather Machines - Modern Text On Love (from The Sound of Pseudoscience)
17. Stephen Lawrenson - One More Try
18. Denise James - Promises
19. The Drown - My Francoise
20. Seth Kauffman - Get Your Love Stole
21. 13ghosts - Robert J