OldStand: SPIN, April 1992

Take our ink-stained hands and join us at the OldStand, where Jon McMillan goes to remind everyone what an honest-to-goodness music magazine is supposed to look like.

A while back we excavated SPIN's 8th Anniversary Dando-fest; now, through the magic of the Oldstand, we'll slide back a year, to 1992, as SPIN attempts to dial up the seven greatest bands of all time. Well, no spoilers here. And really, nothing even remotely controversial. In '92 Spin was still not quite as "alternative" as it would later become (or pretend to become), and their top-seven is proof positive. In no particular order:

Sex Pistols
The Beatles
The Rolling Stones
Led Zeppelin
Public Enemy
The Ramones
Jimi Hendrix

Yawn. Rolling Stone wants its canon back! Although, in fairness to SPIN, the world would not become thoroughly listified for another fifteen years (thanks for nothing, blogosphere!), so at the time this must have provoked heated arguments among the slacker set. Some of the goofy, throwaway, "seven-based" humor pieces are much more entertaining (#5 on the list of "Seven Ways To Kill A Rock Star" is "Introduce him to Jeff Lynne." Huh?). There's also a surprisingly prescient "Guide to College Music," including featurettes on up-and-comers The Breeders, Manic Street Preachers, Swervedriver, Uncle Tupelo, and Moose. Well, four-out-of-five ain't bad.

But here's my favorite thing about this issue: buried underneath all of the self-congratulatory essays and chest-puffing argument fodder, tucked into the review section under the heading "Blue Light Special," Jim Greer's heartfelt defense of Queen:

What Queen did for me as a kid growing up in the suburbs in the 1970s was teach me the value of antisocial behavior. Meaning that none of my friends liked the band, but I stuck with 'em anyway (the band, not my friends)...In retrospect, it's easy to see what [they] didn't like. Queen was a bit off, wasn't it? Not nearly as one-dimensional or straightforwardly rock 'n' roll as our other heroes, Aerosmith, Boston, Sabbath, and Skynyrd, Queen introduced an element of uneasiness into the already-confusing world of adolescence, and was therefore taboo. Which to me was cool; I thought Queen was Art the way I thought The Lord of the Rings was Art. My love for the band was a way of placing myself above my peers, and of feeling misunderstood - essential for any budding misfit.

Also: NKOTB vs. Michael Jackson, TS Eliot vs. Lou Reed, and Gameboy vs. productivity.

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David Gilmour To Release Live Album In September

David Gilmour has announced the release of Live In Gdansk in September, 2008 on Columbia Records. The album was recorded during the last concert of Gilmour's 2006 summer tour, which was held in front of 50,000 people at the shipyards in Gdansk, Poland.[...] Read more!

Read The Full Article:
http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2008/05/12/david_gilmour_to_release_live_
album_in_s

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Cursive Visit Daytrotter, Debut New Songs

Cursive got a passing mention last week, and before that we were shrugging our shoulders at the bad video for "Bad Sects," but the Omaha quintet passed through Daytrotter so now they get an updated, more joyous post all to themselves. Tim Kasher & Co. recorded three songs including an impassioned take on The Ugly Organ's "Sierra" plus two brand new ones, the organ-drenched "Let Me Up" and airier "Donkeys." They deal with people behaving badly or sadly. Take a listen at Daytrotter. We're told Cursive's booked studio time beginning next week to get going on their follow-ups to 2006's Happy Hollow!, and that these two will be on it, so this at least offers a tiny idea of what to expect. They also have a few dates coming up during which they'll debut more new material (in fact, the folks at Saddle Creek say they'll play "almost all new" material). Just three dates, though, so spin the bottle and see if they're passing through your city.

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New Tokyo Police Club Video - "In A Cave"

TPC are masterminding the duration of their blog buzz in powerful ways so take notes, young bands. Start with a remarkable EP. Follow that with another. Then put out a video for practically every track, including one that predicts the apocalypse is coming next year. Record a fairly enjoyable debut album. Make sure to give away a free MP3. Use big words. Release a "remix one week, chase that with a proper video the next. Umm, duh?

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Hotel Documentary Recreates Nancy Spungen's
Murder

The fatal stabbing of Sex Pistols rocker Sid Vicious' American girlfriend has been recreated in a new documentary about New York's famed Chelsea Hotel. [...] Read more!

Read The Full Article:
http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2008/05/12/hotel_documentary_recreates_na
ncy_spunge

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New Kills Video - "Last Day Of Magic"

Most us agreed that the Kills performance on Conan was lacking something. Maybe it was the song choice ("Sour Cherry," eh), or maybe they just needed a healthy dose of sexual tension. After watching the clip for pent-up pop smolder track "Last Days Of Magic," we're saying yeah. It was definitely the lack of sexual tension thing.

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New Ratatat - "Shiller" & LP3 Album Art

Ratatat, the 12-stringed New York electro duo of Evan Mast and Mike Stroud, are releasing their third album and Classics follow up LP3 at the beginning of July. To sate appetites, though, there's a vinyl-only 7" single out now with album track "Shiller" and future album track "Mahalo." As they write on the 7" sleeve, "Yes, it's a B-side from the follow-up to a record that hasn't even come out yet. It's totally from the future, man!" Impressive guys. As far as "Shiller," it's a plaintive, purring down-tempo bit of noh drama that opens into a proggy wonderland, only to burrow further into the well.

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Metallica Are On A Mission

While we weren't looking, Metallica launched and immediately took down the beta version of MissionMetallica.com, a place where Lars says "people can kind of tune in every day, watch clips, contests, get updates for what's going on with the record and kind of watch the last couple of months of song titles, album titles, final mixes" (via Blabbermouth). The site's still down, but the project's trailer and teaser have been YouTubed. Said trailer is a little odd and (gasp) indulgent, featuring a let-it-be-written-let-it-be-done "Creeping Death" reference, followed by a few minutes of self-congratulatory highlights not far from the tomcruise.com site launch spotted on Videogum last week. Only this is somewhat cooler than the Tom Cruise thing, being that it actually has a point beyond sweet montage-masturbation. Also it features "Seek & Destroy" and "Battery" and not creepy Scientology music. So, double score.

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Beck & Danger Mouse Create Modern Guilt, Bring
Cat Power Along

From Black Keys to his own Gnarls B, Danger Mouse has been plenty busy. As previously suggested, his next high profile knob-turning job is Beck's 10th album Modern Guilt. RockDaily has the details:

"It was the most intensive work I've ever done on anything," Beck says.

Then he says more.

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My Morning Jacket's Bring Their "Amazed," "Evil
Urges" To SNL

This weekend's MacGruber-friendly Saturday Night Live episode featured Shia The Motherfucking Beef and musical guest My Morning Jacket. Jim James probably didn't want to scare America and so he kept "Highly Suspicious" on the sidelines. Instead MMJ catered to the jammier elements of Evil Urges, with southern rocking "I'm Amazed" and the Dead-inflected verses/Allmans-Skynyrd rapid-fire guitar harmonies of "Urges." Jim brought out his falsetto for the occasion, sounding smooth as it did in Indio, and he couldn't help himself to at least one bit of meta-showmanship (check the frozen-image pose at both performances' end). Here's "Evil Urges":

That shit was incroyable. We're still waiting on a benevolent YouTuber to upload "I'm Amazed" (UPDATE: streaming here) so instead here's the evening's other rock-oriented performance, featuring Shia and Samberg in their underpants.

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