Cigarettes and Coffee

Required Reading: Your Spam Folder

Jeff Kocan — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:59:11 +0000

Are you guys aware of the spam emails that are going around in the guise of breaking-news updates from MSNBC? I was just skimming my Gmail spam folder for misidentified messages when I saw these:

BREAKING NEWS: World Leaders Gather To Roast Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
BREAKING NEWS: [audio] Church Group Offers Homosexual New Life In Closet
BREAKING NEWS: Bush Sells Louisiana Back to the French
BREAKING NEWS: McDonald’s Happy Meals In San Francisco To Include Gay Marriage License

Funny spam? I feel so conflicted.

EDIT: Someone already has a Tumblr blog going to collect the phoney MSNBC headlines.

Back to School!

Jeff Kocan — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:49:18 +0000

From 1995-1999 I worked at WWVU-FM, attending college in my spare time. U92, as it’s more commonly known, is the college radio station at West Virginia University. The first day of the fall semester was always our biggest day of the year - we’d set up a big tent in front of the student union and broadcast all day long, trying to pry the student body away from their Dave Matthews and Garth Brooks CDs and into the world of Jeff Buckley, Catherine Wheel, Pulp, Tom Waits, the Stone Roses, XTC, Morphine….

So yeah. Today is the first day of classes at WVU, and I’m feeling painfully nostalgic. The big show is going strong and I wish I could be there. I’ve been listening all morning, and you can too, via the Listen Live link at the U92 site.

Bruce Springsteen @ Giants Stadium, July 31

Jeff Kocan — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:18:01 +0000

Sorry about the crappy shaky-cam footage, but it should at least suggest the kind of energy Springsteen shows can still generate. Bruce is 58 now, and his shows still stretch past the three-hour mark. “Badlands” closed the main set, so this was shot after about two and a half hours of solid rocking, and nobody seemed the least bit tired.

Bruce went into the crowd a couple times to grab signs from fans who had written their requests on sheets of poster board, and at various points in the show he would hold one up for the band - the rock version of calling an audible. I never thought I’d hear “Incident on 57th Street ” played live, but that was one of the first signs he grabbed. Phenomenal. Or “Jersey Girl,” one of my favorite Tom Waits songs, and one that Bruce has made his own. Or “Rosalita,” which the band just recently started playing again, and which closed the show.

Check out Bruce’s site for the remaining tour dates. You owe it to yourself to see these guys play at least once.

Full setlist:

Summertime Blues
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Radio Nowhere
Prove It All Night
Two Hearts
The Promised Land
Spirit In The Night
Light Of Day
Brilliant Disguise
Pretty Flamingo
Blinded By The Light
Cadillac Ranch
Candy’s Room
Night
Because The Night
She’s The One
Livin’ In The Future
Mary’s Place
Incident On 57th Street
The Rising
Last To Die
Long Walk Home
Badlands

Jungleland
Born To Run
Bobby Jean
Dancing In The Dark
American Land
Jersey Girl
Rosalita

In Which My Worlds Collide

Jeff Kocan — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:13:45 +0000

My geekier hobbies - comics, video games, “speculative fiction” - rarely intersect with my job, but when they do, holy crap. Gaze in adoration at the cover of the October 2008 edition of Racer X Illustrated:

Craig Schulz, son of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, was nice enough to write a feature for us about the series of 1970s strips that ultimately led to the animated special You’re a Good Sport, Charlie Brown. We’ve done some exceptionally cool things at the magazine in the ten years I’ve been a part of the team, but this is by far my personal favorite. If you want to get a better look at that cover, pick up the magazine on newsstands soon…or stop by my place and check out the giant poster-sized version. We are getting posters made, right, guys?!?

One More Day ’til Rock ‘n’ Roll Church

Jeff Kocan — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:17:17 +0000

Between preparations for a vacation next week and a big move in September, blogging time has been scarce, but right now, I can’t even think about those things. My mind is focused solely on tomorrow night’s big Springsteen concert at Giants Stadium - the last show of a three-night stand in his home state. I’ve seen Bruce and the E Street Band once before, in Pittsburgh in 2003, and rock ‘n’ roll church comes as close as possible to describing what it’s like when they really get going. There really is nothing like it. Also, The Boss? Way underrated as a guitarist. Check out this insane “Prove It All Night” from ‘78:

And then there’s this classic, with Bruce in full working-the-crowd mode:

And rest in peace, Danny Federici. It won’t be the same without you.

Jarvis Cocker @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

Jeff Kocan — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:31:20 +0000

Jarvis Cocker put on one hell of a show last night at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg. Bill has a more detailed write-up over on Sound Bites, but I need to take a second to tell you how awesome this show was. The big music war in 1990s England was between Blur and Oasis, but I’ll take Pulp over either of them every time. For me, they’re one of the defining bands of the decade - I’m pretty sure albums like Different Class will still sound fresh twenty years from now.

Cocker has moved past his Pulp days, and as much as I love that music, I didn’t miss it at all last night. Nobody did, in fact, and it’s worth stressing that not one person yelled out a request for their stuff. The set list was a pretty even mix of material from Cocker’s solo debut, Jarvis, and new material, of which “Girls Like It Too” was a definite highlight. Main-set closer “Black Magic” just about leveled the room, and I’m not sure “Common People” would have gotten a better reaction from the 550 fans lucky enough to score tickets.

MP3: Black Magic

If you can get into tonight’s Terminal 5 show, make it happen.

Photo via Olga Bas @ Flickr

So Begins the Countdown

Jeff Kocan — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:31:15 +0000

Some Guy Named Matt Slightly Redeems Humanity

Jeff Kocan — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:30:13 +0000

This is the “big thing” on the web today. I try not to link to things BoingBoing posts (because I assume pretty much everybody reads BoingBoing), but I’m gonna have to make an exception for this. If you want to feel kind of good about our often-miserable species, the next four and a half minutes are for you:

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Via BoingBoing.

Summer Fridays and Brian K. Vaughan

Jeff Kocan — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:02:53 +0000

My friend (and fellow U-92 alum) Bill Pearis knows as much about music as anyone you or I have ever met. He covers new music and NYC shows on his blog, Sound Bites, and he also writes a column for the hugely popular Brooklyn Vegan, which is both a blog and a person. Bill just started a new feature today called Summer Fridays - he’s posting a new downloadable mix every week, complete with cover art and fancy segues. The first mix is fantastic, and not just because it features XTC’s “Life Begins at the Hop.” Don’t miss it.

Also, I skipped out of work early yesterday so I could go to Midtown Comics and meet Brian K. Vaughan, who was doing a rare signing (I think it’s actually his last for 2008). Vaughan is probably best known for his series Y: The Last Man, about a sudden, catastrophic event that kills every male on Earth but one guy and his pet monkey. He’s also a writer and executive story editor for Lost, and I’m not alone in believing the show improved tremendously as soon as he was brought in, late in season three. Other notable works include Runaways, Ex Machina, Pride of Baghdad, and a recent arc about Faith for Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8.

The line stretched almost a full city block when I got there, about 15 minutes before the 5:00 start. I turned into a blubbering jackass as soon as I got to the table where Vaughan was signing, but I did manage to ask if he had plans to return to the Buffy series, which picks up after the events of the TV series finale. He said there was nothing official planned but that he would jump at the chance if series creator Joss Whedon asked. (Whedon also took over writing duties on Runaways after Vaughan’s run ended, and Strangers in Paradise creator Terry Moore is set to succeed Joss.)

Vaughan is only going to get more popular and successful - he’s on my short list of People Who Will Rule the World - so keep an eye out (and pick up the first trade collection of Y, “Unmanned”, while you’re at it).

Why You Should Hire a Copyeditor

Jeff Kocan — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:55:27 +0000

As an editor, my primary function is to find and correct things that are wrong (examples: a misspelling, a factual error, a word that you “didn’t think was that racist,” a grammatical construction that makes you sound like a cannibal). I have to be observant, and I also have to continually educate myself to ensure I’m able to spot any potential problems. It’s often easy to overlook mistakes when you’re dealing with a 4,000-word feature or, say, your thirtieth document of the day. When your word count is less than ten, however, you don’t have an excuse:

Copyeditors are a dying breed these days, although that doesn’t mean they’re any less necessary.

First thing via Jeremy Parish; last two links via Bill Walsh. Box art directly from Amazon.