As if having new Coalesce material wasn’t reason enough to change your pants, the ability to own said material on vinyl certain is. That’s why someone should pre-order the OXEP 12-inch for me, today being my birthday and all.

The only crappy part is that you can’t order any of the clear version of the record. Don’t know why, they just said so. I’m assuming those might be for the band to sell, but that’s just a guess. Anyway, here’s the breakdown of what was pressed:

• 100 Clear
• 500 180GM Black
• 500 White/Silver Split
• 500 Silver

And speaking of vinyl that might make a good birthday present for bloggers with horrible taste in music, you could also purchase:

• Guided By Voices – Suitcase 3 12-inch
• Cave In – Planets of Old 12-inch
• At the Drive-in/Burning Airlines split seven-inch picture disc
• Young Widows – Old Wounds Strawberry Dipped Sky 12-inch
• Mount Eerie – Pts. 6 & 7 10-inch and book
• Ted Leo/Zach Galifianakis – Fiona Apple split seven-inch
• Country records circa 1965-1974

The list of bands on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon just keeps getting better and better. I don’t know if Fallon consistently has better musical guests than Conan did, but it’s at least neck and neck this early on in Jimmy’s late night career.

Obits – Fake Kinkade

This is a toughy. Morrissey recently kicked out a fan for saying “fuck you” after Moz made a joke about Hamburgers (i.e. citizens of Hamburg, Germany, the city he was playing) should be called Hamburgists. Why is this tough? Well, if you’re going to tell such a horrible joke, you should be ready for some heckling. So I don’t know who to feel sorry for.

That’s why I’m always read for hecklers when I do my prop comedy at coffee shop open mic nights and for bums on the street. They call me Potato Head, because instead of having long, bright red hair, I have no hair and a lumpy head.

Melt Banana melted my banana, or something like that. Of all the acts I saw at Fun Fun Fun Fest, I think these dudes were the most awkwardly engaging. I’d always heard that their live show put their recordings to shame — and sure enough, it did.

Melt Banana – Last Target on the Last Day

I always wondered what happened to Japanese businessmen who were looking for love. Now I know.

Casting Crowns – Until the Whole World Hears
Release date: November 17, 2009
[amazon.com]

Nice colors and theme communication. No idea what city that is — something tells me that it might be comped. It’s probably easier and quicker for an illustrator to cobble a city together rather than trying to find the right photo for their idea.

Their site has some more images in their AJAX header, though it doesn’t look like they’re from the album. I didn’t want to stay there too long because I get easily tired of Christian worship bands implicitly asking me to throw money at underdeveloped, pre-Enlightenment nations.

A Grand Design: M83
A Grand Design: Dave Matthews Band

That monster dude’s head is weirding me out. Why does everybody want to do a Tool video these days?

But on a more positive note, if you ignore the chorus (which isn’t all that bad compared to the majority of pop-punk garbage out these days — but it still typifies that sort of thing), this Motion City Soundtrack song, Disappear, from the band’s upcoming album is pretty legit. I even get hints of Guided By Voices, and you know what that does to me.

So it makes me wonder if My Dinosaur Life might pique my interest more than their first album — and the only one I dug — I Am the Movie. Depending on the direction other songs take, this could be a hook-laden guitar rock record that transcends the Alt. Press ghetto instead of just another derivative fourth-wave emo album. Or maybe not. We’ll see.

Motion City Soundtrack – Boombox Generation

I don’t remember selling my life story to The Swell Season to use in a video. Oh well, at least I’ve still go the pop-up book rights.

:: But there’s no question about the friction between Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford and Varg Vikernes of Burzum/Mayhem/arson/prison fame.

:: It seems like everything has to be NSFW these days. Tsk tsk tsk, Yeasayer.

:: The Showdown recently had to drop off of an upcoming tour with Oh, Sleeper, Impending Doom and A Plea for Purging due to “some serious family issues” involving the band’s drummer.

:: Go ahead and pre-order that Royal Edition of Mastodon’s Crack the Skye. You know you want it.

:: Epitaph just signed Alkaline Trio. Hopefully that’ll necessitate some more shoes and merchandising deals — and maybe even a series of Alk3 frozen dinners.

Finally, someone else in a position of power had the balls to say something. In Spin’s latest issue, they debunk 33 rock myths. The number one rock myth? Radiohead can do no wrong. Writer Chris Norris makes what I imagine will be millions of enemies by asserting that, in fact, they kinda blow.

Unafraid to question the unquestionable, “revolutionary” band, Norris does a great job of debunking their übertroß status and tells the legion of fans (of which I’m not, past The Bends, anyway) to stop drinking the Kool-Aid. It all pretty much boils down to his last paragraph:

Radiohead opened their headlining set at the Reading Festival with the rarely played “Creep,” the song that started it all. Sixteen years ago, this outsider anthem’s refrain, “I wish I was special,” stated an irony that has engulfed Radiohead their whole career. A band that can make iconic songs that stretch across a fractious culture, that can weave them into an even greater whole, and that have a unique, haunting musical voice we will remember for decades, is plenty special. As special as it gets. If only they’d settle for good.