Berkeley Place

1. NYC Taper has a recent live show by Black Mountain, whose recent psychedelic Americana hard rock album is one of the best this year has offered so far, and may be one of the best of the year period.

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3. Silence Is A Rhythm Too has some new wave covers, including The Flying Lizards doing Curtis Mayfield.

4. Not to be overly biased by a title, but doesn’t this rock? Wolves in the Throne Room - I Will Lay Down My Bones Among the Rocks and Roots from “Two Hunters”

5. Blowin’ Your Cover has a collection of Mountain Goats covers. pretty nifty!

6. I’ll throw a shout-out to Saturday Night Live, because I watched the one with Ellen Page and it didn’t totally suck, which is a tremendous improvement over the past, oh, 20 years or so. But I did notice that Amy Poehler as the new weekend correspondent just seems to be imitating Tina Fey (who, perhaps coincidentally (not!) hand-picked her for the job). I noticed it in her delivery almost right away. And then I noticed something even more disturbing. The dude, Seth Whatshisname is also imitating Tina Fey! I used to like Weekend Update more than any other part of the show, but not this time. This time, I liked the weird nightmare skit, the mock debate, that Dakota Fanning sketch . . . but the funniest line was when the fat chick asked the skinny guy to lift her up over his head and he says, “I can’t,” and she says, “Well, how about just my lower half.” That joke is still making me laugh. I also liked when she said, “I gotsta get outsta here.” I dunno if the fat-black-girl is a regular on the show, but it’s my first time seeing her/him. (Of course, if they do this bit every week I’m sure it’s as tired as every other character SNL plays to death.)

P.S.: Tina Fey isn’t half as sexy as she thinks she is.

7. Indie quirkmeisters Takka Takka are still offering their three-song EP for free download here.

8. I’ve been thinking and researching doing a big Neil Young covers post, and then all of a sudden two great covers blogs beat me to it! Cover Lay Down did folkiechiippies covering Mr. Young, and Ray over at Cover Me did a song-by-song reconstruction of On The Beach. Both are worth checking out. I still might do a post of my own, but some of the momentum is gone.

9. In a Cave-Tokyo Police Club. It’s seems like everyone’s posted this already, but I’m a big fan, so I’ll join the bandwagon.

10. Aw, whom’I kiddin’. You should read my blog. I am the king of all bloggers.