Jason Thompson: March, 2001

The Grammys came and went. Did I care? Are you kidding? Last time I watched them regularly must’ve been back in 1985 or so. Same old shit winning the same old shit. No surprises over U2 or Eminem. Look, can we finally get over this stale phenomenon of latter-‘90s music that contains about as much nutrition as a pack of Pez?

Jim Slade of Nixon’s Head contacted me after reading my article on Lou Reed last month. He sent me a copy of their latest, Take It! that I wrote up for Sarah over at popmatters. I told Jim his band is the shit. I highly suggest you check this album out if you really enjoy power pop (see for yourself at http://www.groovedisques.com/). Nobody does it better. Someone sang that in a song once. Was it Judy Garland? Or was it Judy Davis playing Judy Garland? (Yeah, I know who it was, so don’t correct me. This is my brain in the AM.)

I’ve been writing things for this Australian site for fun over the past month. No cash involved, just credits earned for member reads which are then exchangeable for gift certificates given by online retailers. This was fine and dandy. I could write whatever it is I liked with no worries about someone saying the big "No". That is, until recently when the site admins caved to the Big Advertisers who decreed that they couldn’t handle pieces with adult language and content in them. I say "fuck that" to that mentality. It seems that the Internet and all its money still cannot handle certain four letter words. And people talk about how the printed page is going to vanish one of these days. Well, if this shit keeps up that’s never going to be true. With this kind of idiotic Big Money blacklisting, we may as well just go back to the caves and paint the walls with our stories once again.

One of my wishes came true. I finally scored a Playstation 2 on eBay. It’s on its way across the country to my home as we speak. I actually had trouble sleeping last night just thinking about it. Felt like Christmas twenty years ago all over again, which was nice because I’ve come to forget what that feels like over the years since my youth. Now if I can just get my ass in gear and finish up those music tracks for my next release. Seven years ago, I would’ve been recording like mad and had lots of great musical ideas. The ideas are still there, but these days they are less frequent.

New music which I have heard that excites me a lot. Not too much, unfortunately. Hopefully that will change soon. I see that Napster and BMG offered one billion dollars to the labels in exchange for their preservation. One billion dollars. Amazing. And they still get told no. It’s kind of moot to me anymore, seeing how there are plenty of other alternatives out there. Just let it go. Which brings me to Bill Clinton. Leave the man alone already, will ya? Jesus. I know that Dubya is a big bore and about as newsworthy as a dried yam, but Bill needs to go live his life now. More power to him.

Did I leave anything out? Oh yeah, I did. I enjoy paranormal stuff a lot, so it was nice to hear Art Bell return to the airwaves with his late night talk show. For those who didn’t know, Bell left his great show quite a while back due to personal family traumas and legal issues. I pretty much stopped listening when he left. But he’s back again and there’s nothing better than tuning into the late night A.M. static and hearing the weirdest shit in the world. Now that’s good radio.

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Jason Thompson: February, 2001, January, 2001, December, 2000, November, 2000

Jason Thompson's Reviews: March, 2001 January, 2001, December, 2000

Jason Thompson's Reviews: November, 2000

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