Ga ga ga ga ga

No, I didn't have a stroke over John's new guacamole obsession or synthetic division. That's the title of the new Spoon record.

John came home last night with four new cds: the aforementioned Spoon, a long-awaited Interpol, Mark Ronson and Ryan Adams.

After scarfing down some left-over pad thai (the TJ's mix is not half bad, but you have to bulk it up with carrot, red bell pepper, napa cabbage and cilantro) we listened to music and played Scrabble, pretending we are sophisticated grown-up New Yorkers and not transplanted cable-guzzling adolescents.

Well, to be honest, the tv was on, but it was just the All-Star game, and the sound was off. Besides, you have to have something to do whilst waiting your turn. I was embroidering a bicycle on a politically incorrect t-shirt to send to one of John's oldest friends, Nikki. John does not embroider.

This is the part of the post where you start looking for a review of the records.

Eh.

No, that's a bit harsh. They are all lovely. Nothing stands out yet, but this does not surprise me. I'll take them in the order in which we listened to them.

Interpol, Our Love to Admire
John got the special, limited edition, black-on-black embossed-paper version of the packaging and it's almost too pretty to listen to, just the way the perfect eggs florentine at Tartine defy you to actually eat them. (There's a luxe poster included, too.) (With the cd, not the eggs florentine.) I lied when I said nothing stands out, because I'm still swaying to the first song, Pioneer to the Falls. It's got a weird sexy exotic beat. Don't know how else to put it. The problem with a new Interpol record is that I greet it knowing it will never hit me with the same punch to the gut that Turn on the Bright Lights did, way back on an icy Austin night (yes, icy) when we risked life and limb to get to Emo's in spite of warnings to stay off the roads, because we had called and the message on their machine pretty much called us sissies if we were going to let a little sleet keep us from such a great band. It was worth every white knuckled minute on Red River. But back to the new record: it sounds like the first two records, which is good, because we have a fondness for those records here at the casa.

Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
This comes in a deluxe edition, too, so make sure you pick up one with the bonus disc. Then see if you can figure out where they have hidden that bonus disc. Does this cd unlock a door to another dimension? No, I won't spoil it for you. Suffice to say, it took longer than it should have for us to, um, locate the extra tracks. Like the Interpol record, it sounds a lot like other Spoon records, and we like the other records. A few of these tracks have been available on the interweb for a while, and we'd heard others when we saw the boys back in April. Like the Interpol, it's going to take a few listens before anything lodges itself in my head.

Ryan Adams, Easy Tiger
My favorite record of the evening: it totally got me shaking my rear end as I putzed in the kitchen. John was shaking his head in disappointment, but I like the clean and sober iteration of Mr. Adams. And that there is a song called Halloweenhead. And that there was a song that reminded me of America's Ventura Highway. Yay!

Mark Ronson, Version
I had heard the Stop Me cover in Forever 21 (blame it on the Black Apple) and it's so yummy that I got my hopes up for the album. And it's good. The Toxic cover alone is worth the price of admission; why didn't Britney think to drop the n-bomb in the original cut? I will say, though, that there was NO REASON to DO THAT to Maximo Park's Apply Some Pressure. Just saying.

Okay, so I guess a few things did stand out.

Who said I lied because I never, I never...