Who knew unemployed people could be this busy? I've been flying around all over the place lately, which has cut seriously into not only my blogging time but also my lying-around-the-house time, which is even worse. Since I last wrote something here I've seen Jim White perform, which was great. The "Drill a Hole..." record is really good and his "Jim White - Alone with Machines" versions of the songs worked really well. He was also nice enough to hang out for a bit afterwards and answer questions about his lyrics, his background, and his model/surfer background.

I also DJed at a concert with Danish band Souvenirs. They are very Danish, so I really don't know how to describe them other than say that they're a married couple consisting of a cute, young wife and a bald, old dude and they perform earnest songs about pets dying, visiting Grandma, and jealousy. I really had no business playing at that gig, but it's surprising what'll you do for a few bucks and an open bar. Saturday, I hung out at The A-List, where Danish songwriter Mikael Simpson was scheduled to appear as a guest DJ. He had performed earlier that night at Voxhall, but no one seemed to have given him directions or gotten his cell number. So I ended up hauling ass in the middle of the night down to Voxhall to pick him and his entourage up, which ended up working out just fine. And he played a pretty good set and people were excited to see him, so everyone was happy in the end.

Today's a pretty busy day as well. This morning I once again held a lecture on weblogs at the Danish School of Journalism - this time though for people with different educations, who already have jobs and have come back to school for specific courses/seminars. At first I figured they'd booked me because I spoke out there a few weeks ago. But in a surprising turn of events it turned out that one of the teachers is actually a fellow Arsenal supporter, who at some point had noticed my weblog through Arseblog. So not only did I get to debate weblogs for almost two hours with a group of journalists and business people I also got to talk footie for a bit. It went really well and it'll be interesting to see if weblogs suddenly start appearing on more Danish company and media websites.

And later today we're off to Eindhoven for the Arsenal game. I haven't really packed yet, because I'm not sure what to bring on a hit-a-run trip like this. But I'll definitely bring my camera, so hopefully in a few days I'll be able to post pictures of us partying after a massive Arsenal win. There are two busses full of Gooners leaving Denmark tonight, but primarily I'll be going with my brother and Anders, who are bound to write about the event later this week as well.

Speaking of sports I watched the Ravens - Jets game on tv and it was one of the most exciting games I've ever seen. The defense still kicks major ass, but it was nice to see Kyle Boller make some plays in the fourth quarter (which he then followed up nicely in last week's game against the Bills). The now have to face the Patriots on Sunday, which thankfully also will be broadcast on Danish tv. The Ravens have so many injured players that it's not very likely that they'll win. But I'm hoping for the best and it'll be interesting to see the defense up against a great QB like Tom Brady.

As a result of a misguided confidence in my economy I've bought an excessive amount of CDs this month. It's a combination of CDs hyped by NME and old stuff that I felt was missing from my collections. Of the new stuff I prefer the albums by Razorlight and The Secret Machines, but I still haven't really gotten into The Zutons and Dogs Die in Hot Cars yet. But the coolest CD so far has been the three track single I got through Ultragrrrl's Stolen Transmission project. It's a CD by Louis XIV - a band I know virtually nothing about. But the songs rock. When it comes to music my motto is: "You can never go wrong with handclaps and tambourines", which Louis XIV seem to agree with, so next month I'm definitely ordering the album and one of these hot shirts.

Speaking of Razorlight I recently decided that if we ever get The Cracker Ass Crackers back together we're changing our name to Sharin Foo Fighters and recording the song Dalston. But we'll record it as a tribute to Katie 'Hottness' Holmes and call it Dawson (But don't go back to Dawson/Don't go out with Dawson). It's gonna rock!

I'm not sure I've mentioned the Lazyboy project here, so here goes. Lazyboy consists of Johnny Douglas and Søren Rasted - the latter who was one of the geniuses being Danish pop sensation Aqua. At some point their track Underwear Goes Inside the Pants was the most downloaded track on iTunes, which is fairly amazing. Apparently, they've played the hell out of it on Danish radio, but I didn't hear it until I found a link to the video. The song and video are funny and in case you're wondering who's talking on the track his name is Greg Giraldo. I thought a lot of the stuff he says is reminiscent of things you'll find on Denis Leary's records, but that doesn't make them any less funny.

I'm still going to Copenhagen the first weekend of December for a party, which I've now been asked to co-DJ. It should be fun and seeing as The Hidden Cameras are playing that same weekend I might check them out. Unfortunately, I have a feeling they'll remind me of Deerhof and The Fiery Furnaces, so I have to check out a few tracks before I pick up a ticket. I have another lecture, another DJ gig, and a John Cale concert happening in December, so there'll be some stuff going on next month as well.

You know how I rambled on about the American election the other day? The Daily Mirror say pretty much what I said, but a lot more succinctly

Stereogum has collected links to a bunch of interesting covers. While the Jason Falkner cover of Def Leppard's Photography is cool (try finding his version of Both Sides Now, which is great as well) the 'So Best' prize has to go to Local H's version of Toxic.

I thought this thing from Pitchfork about The Postal Service and (ahem) The Postal Service was pretty funny.

On occasion I'll rave about some movie with bit players from cancelled shows just because the soundtrack was awesome. But while watching Something's Gotta Give I was perplexed by just how shitty the soundtrack was. It opens with a bunch of hotties walking the streets of New York to the musical affront that is Crazy Town's Butterfly (come my lady indeed) and continues to drop some fairly atrocious tracks. But the real kicker is one of my all-time least favourite songs - You Can Get It If You Really Want by Jimmy Cliff. There's something about that song's super positive lyrics mixed an extremely annoying melody which bugs the hell out of me. For me it's definitely up there with Womack & Womack's Teardrops on a top five of songs I never want to hear again. But then they also played I Only Have Eyes for You by The Flamingos and a Paul Simon song I didn't know (Learn How to Fall), so I didn't completely snap. The actual movie was okay - Jack is a bit of a stereotype, but Diane Keaton is still every bit as charming as she was in Annie Hall. So although it could easily have been edited so it wasn't more that two hours long it was still fairly entertaining.

I've been listening to the Jim White "Drill a Hole..." record a lot this week and it's really good. Obviously, it's going to be lumped in with the alt.country/singer-songwriter crowd, but it's closer to a cross between Tom Waits and Grandaddy. He's playing here Sunday, but for some reason he's performing solo, so I'm very curious to see how he'll manage to transform those complex songs into solo pieces.
I've also been listening to the new Jimmy Eat World record "Futures". It continues the style from the last record, but seems to be even more corporate rock and less emo, which you'd think would be a bad thing, but I kinda like it. I've only listened to it a handful of times, but right now I've got the feeling that it could actually be a better record than the last one.

This week I also got a fairly crazy haircut. It's pretty much like a regular fauxhawk, which is also spiky in the back. But in the front the hair is pulled flat from left to right, which gives for a pretty weird look. Plus I've been growing my hair long, so the spiky hair goes up pretty high. But I needed a change, so now I'm going to have crazy hair for a while. I mean it's not like I have to sit in an office every day anyway, so who cares?

It has also been confirmed that we'll be getting tickets for the Eindhoven - Arsenal game on November 24th, which we're so stoked about. It'll pretty much be a hit-and-run type of trip, but we should get a few hours to hang out in Eindhoven before the game, so if anyone knows anything worth checking out there feel free to let me know. I also picked up my ticket for the Lou Reed show in May, which I'm very excited about. I see so many shows and buy so many CDs that sometimes it's a little tough getting really excited about the music. But Lou Reed is a legend and has been one of my favourites songwriters for ages. So seeing him indoors (I saw him with the Velvets on the comeback tour and solo at Roskilde in 2000) performing a non-festival show will most likely be absolutely incredible.

There really isn't anything good to say about the American election. I was watching all day yesterday until 2AM and then got up again at 5.30AM to find out how things were going and have been watching since. Just like last time the election is a complete mess and although it does look like Bush has won it won't be made official until later this week. While watching this morning I thought of so many things that's messed up about the American political system that listing them would just be too much. But it is dishearting to read reports that there have been made attempts to direct people in poor, predominantly black neighbourhoods who wanted to vote to the wrong churches and schools, so they would waste time and not have time to vote during their lunch breaks. Also, there are reports that Danish OSCE observers have been denied access to the ballot count in Ohio, which is troubling.

But a thing that really creases me is that they've been talking about the record high voter turnout, which according to CNN is less than 113 million (with 98% of the ballots counted). According to the census bureau there are more than 290 million residents of the US out of which there are about 80 million in the 0 - 19 age group, most of whom obviously aren't eligible to vote. But that still leaves about 100 million people, who spent the day on the couch instead of voting. Isn't that insane? Isn't it nuts when it's cause for celebration that slightly more than 50% of the population bothered voting? Technically, that's there own business. I just think that means you can't call America the greatest democracy in the world any more and you probably shouldn't tell other countries how to run their elections as you can barely manage to run your own.

Not surprisingly I'm very disappointed that Bush seems to get a second term. I'm not huge fan of John Kerry and didn't particularly think him a strong candidate. But the way the primary elections work where you first have to drag your opponents from your own party through the mud and then afterwards have to endorse the one who gets picked I'm not sure they'll ever be able to find a candidate I'll be impressed by. Personally, I think that's why the two parties are so alike now. If you go all Howard Dean on people with strong opinions and passion you alienate too many people. So you go for the wishy-washy candidate who believes in God, is married, white, rich, and who couldn't possible offend anyone. I'm not sure Dean would have made a good President, but at least he seemed committed to the things he talked about and seemed more eager to take a stand than any of the other candidates on either side.

I think the thing that surprises me the most is that people seem to have elected Bush for two reasons. They seem to believe he's better equipped to keep people safe and they seem to have bought into the slogan about not changing horses in the middle of the stream. The fact that Bush got them into a mess they shouldn't have been in based on false information and that he has turned most of the world against them doesn't bother them though. This is so baffling to me. It's too easy to say that it's just ignorant hillbillies and rednecks in backwater towns, who've never left the county who voted for him, so they could keep their guns and their gays out of their churches. But with 58 million votes you know people from all walks of life have voted for him all over the country, which surprises me to no end. I guess it shouldn't, but I honestly thought people were smarter than that. Guess not and now they get what they deserve - four more years with Curious George.

In unrelated news I went and saw The Soundtrack of Our Lives Monday night and it was a pretty good show. I wasn't familiar with their music and it was a bit too straight forward rock 'n' roll to my liking. But it was a decent enough show and it was pretty cool, when singer Ebbot Lundberg got of stage to sing the final encore to a sitting crowd (much like Jesse Malin did recently). On Sunday I'll be going to see Jim White, which I'm really looking forward to. I've been listening to "Drill a Hole..." lately and I really like it. It's produced by Joe Henry whose "Fuse" album I like a lot and it's packed with guest stars. I guess the music is in the Lambchop/Grandaddy vein, so if that's your bag you should check it out. I also finally got the Decemberists album "Her Majesty", which is amazing. It's really hard to describe, but I think the closest I've come so far is to say that they sound a bit like I Am Kloot. I've actually gone a little nuts on eBay recently, so there should be a lot of new CDs on their way, which I'm very excited about.

In December John Cale is actually playing a show here, which I'm also excited about. Honestly, I'm not familiar with his post-Velvets work (except for the brilliant "Songs for Drella" obvs), but I'm enough of a Warhol-whore that I'll be at the show all the same. However, I am plenty familiar with the solo work of Lou Reed, so when it was revealed that he'll be playing a show here in May I ordered a ticket right away. The concert will be held at a venue where they usually have operas and musicals, so it's a seated show. But I got a first row balcony seat, so it should be pretty incredible. I think that's pretty much it for shows right now although I'll be DJing at a couple of Danish gigs and I might check out the Hidden Cameras show at Loppen.