I have yet to start a lecture with "Hi kids! Do you like violence?/Wanna see me stick Nine Inch Nails through each one of my eyelids?", but I swear it'll happen one day. But I did actually give a lecture today on weblogs at the Danish School of Journalism, which was cool. I talked for about two hours about what weblogs are, what people are doing with them, and how they've influenced politics and the media in the last few years. I've been doing a lot of research over the last week or so finding info on who went after Trent Lott, Dan Rather, Sinclair Broadcasting Group, and who else have had the entire blogging corps on their backs lately. And while doing that I found this Wiki, which tries to document the impact weblogs have had on American politics.

I'd actually expected the future journalists to be a lot more sceptical about weblogs, but they seemed to really think it is a fascinating type of media. Obviously, they have concerns about the trustworthyness of bloggers, but then don't we all? Seriously though, they seemed really into it and I think the whole thing went rather well, so chances are I'll get invited back for similar events, which would be cool.

Besides working on different projects I've actually mainly been busy getting my party on. Thursday night was the Devendra Banhart/CocoRosie gig at Voxhall (reviewed at Frekvens), where the Voxhall people were still raving about the Jesse Malin show the week before. There were a lot of people there and although CocoRosie was a tad pretensious for my liking it was still a fairly interesting show. The two sisters both sing and that sounded swell until one of them started going all operatic on us. But the other one kept going in her old-blues-lady/Billie Holiday style, which wasn't half-bad (oh, and she was a bit of a hottie as well, which works for me).

But obviously the main event was Devendra Banhart, who has a surprisingly large following in this backwater town. I wasn't that familiar with Mr. Banhart's oeuvre before the show, but it seemed clear that people had expected him to play a bunch of acoustic songs and be all mellow. Instead he'd brought along a backing band called The Queens of Sheba (featuring at least one guy from Vetiver), who wanted to rock out. Apparently, that meant the songs weren't that recognizably to the fans (and people didn't dig the fifteen minute reggae jam at the end of the show at all), so I think a few kids were a bit disappointed. But I honestly thought it was a pretty cool introduction to the music. I'm not sure I would have been as impressed had he just sat on a stool doing acoustic songs I'd never heard before. But I'll definitely have to look into his records at some point as people are raving about them like he's the next Nick Drake. I couldn't really make out any of the lyrics at the show, but I really like these lines I found in his bio: "There once was a man who really loved salt/ So he tied his nose to the sea/ And then God came down from his silver throne/ And said, 'Honey, that water ain't free'".

Friday night the hottest band in the country - Nephew - were playing at Voxhall and since the thing had been sold out for months I didn't have a ticket. But that doesn't mean you can stop me from showing up at the after party. So I went down there and hung out and just as I was on my way home the party moved to Sway and I was persuaded to come along by a buddy from Spleen United. So I ended hanging out there for a really long time, which meant my Saturday consisted of getting up, showering, and then heading down to Bridgewater for the Villa game and then pretty much nothing else.

I'm currently reading Eleanor Rigby - the latest from Douglas Coupland - and so far it doesn't suck. I liked Hey Nostradamus! as well, so it seems like he's gotten his game back after a couple of less than brilliant books in the late 90s - early 00s. I'm less than halfway through at this point, so I guess anything can happen. But so far I like the story, the characters, and the tone is unmistakingly Couplandesque, which works for me. Also, I got my Ltd. Edition of the new Duran Duran record today, but until I've given it a lot more spins I'm not going to say anything about it.

We've got some fun stuff planned this week as well. Tonight, it's Arsenal vs Panathinaikos and tomorrow it's The Datsuns at Voxhall. I was really disappointed by their debut album (Datsuns', not Panathinaikos - theirs rule!), because they hadn't included their best materiale (namely Hoochie Mama and Super Gyration) on it. So I haven't listened to it a lot and I haven't heard their new record. So why am I going? Well, they have a reputation for putting on a kick ass show, so I'm going down to see if it is well deserved. Saturday night is an A-List night and Sunday it's the Man United game, so as the philosopher Calvin once said: "The days are just packed".

Here's a bunch of stuff I've come across lately (some which has made its way over to Frekvens):

Download The Shins and The Lips from the SpongeBob soundtrack.

Listen to the new Kings of Leon record.

Listen to the new Jimmy Eat World record.

The story of Live Aid.

The Clark County campaign and the reaction.

The Jon Stewart Crossfire appearance.