Salon delcares "Irony is dead! Long live irony." But not true irony, but rather that cute, shallow, smartass irony. Long live irony that digs at perplexing paradoxes. My favorite quote: "The ironist is ironical," declared Bourne, "not because he does not care, but because he cares too much."

Eleven days since my last blog entry... and I'm still tired. I've commented about the recent terrorist attacks on the mediageek page, even getting a little uncharacteristically personal (hey, I only said a little) so I really don't want to comment here. But like most folks, I suppose, this tragedy has kind of dominated my life for the last week, so I don't know what much else to post.

I did buy some CDs last week--that was fun, especially since I've been really trying to curtail my CD purchases. I was inspired by the second night of the Great Cover-Up , where my favorite local band Temple of Low Men did their covers of Wings. And, damn, did it kick ass. Their versions were spot-on, and yet sounded completely modern and original in their hands. They reminded me how much I love those songs. And due to my general avoidance of mainstream rock and classic rock radio, I haven't become completely tired of them, either (too bad I can't say the same for 75% of the Led Zeppelin oeuvre). So I was moved to get the recent Paul McCartney & Wings greatest hits collection, Wingspan. I also picked up two metal discs that I'll probably post capsules of in the sidebar soon.

The local alt. weekly, the Octopus, published a summary review of both nights of the Cover-Up last week. Check it out and see what you missed.

Last night I went to see night #1 of the Great Cover-Up, an 11 year tradition here in Champaign-Urbana where all the big local bands come together for two nights to each cover the songs of a favorite band. Pretty much every band last night rocked and put on an entertaining show. Some highlights included Terminus Victor--guitar, bass and drum machine--doing the songs of Def Leppard. To their credit, they chose songs from the "two-armed drummer" era, like Photograph and Rock of Ages, which oddly went well with the mechanized beat. The guys also had the chops to carry of the music, revel in the cheese, but not let irony drain the fun from it. The Blackouts did a killer set of Tom Petty, putting their own spin punkified spin on Full Moon Fever material like "You're So Bad," and "Running Down a Dream." And the Beauty Shop did a too-genuine rendition of Leonard Cohen, with an amazing version of "Everybody Knows" the highlight of the set. The singer has a great gravelly deep voice ideally suited to the material, but without sounding like he's doing a Cohen imitation.

For those looking for some history, here's a fellow blogger's review of last year's Cover-Up. Apparently there's a similar event know held in Tuscon, AZ that is inspired by the Champaign Cover-Up.

Lately I've been feeling more interested in the Champaign-Urbana scene, partly because it seems somewhat reinvigorated lately. On the surface it seems like the alt-rock explosion and major-label-sign-a-thon that happened in little college towns across the country in the early and mid 90s took its toll on the local scene. Bands like Hum and Menthol got signed by majors but also it seems used up in the process, since yesterday's hot big thing easily becomes yesterday's news. But now the scene seems again to be a little more self-sure. Local bands now have a variety of venues to play and there looks to be a growing audience showing up, too. There's also a little more diversity in the scene, with alt. country, punk, straight-ahead rock, power-pop, stoner rock and other indie rock sub-genres being played, often together in the same bill.

I do want to qualify this assessment by making clear that I'm someone who has only half-heartedly followed the scene for my eight-year tenure here in Champaign-Urbana, though I have gone to see local bands throughout my time, especially when I've had friends interested in going, too. By volunteering at local community radio station WEFT, I've been able to keep up with things nonetheless due to the station's in-studio live music program and general concentration on local music. It is also possible that my assessment is a direct result of going out to see bands more often lately--though I'd swear that the number and quality of them has improved.

Before I wrap up this long-ass blog entry, I just want it to be known how lucky Champaign-Urbana is to have a venue like the Highdive--where the Cover-Up is now held--which has to be hands-down one of the nicest independent music clubs I've ever been in. That list includes clubs in NYC, Philly, Portland, Chicago, Dayton and NJ. It's a beautifully and tastefully decorated place, that's consistently clean and well cared-for, with a good selection of reasonably priced beer and booze and an amazing sound system and sound guy running the ship. As frosting, most shows are less than $10 even when nat'l bands come through. The Highdive is definitely one of the reasons folks get stuck in Champaign-Urbana--the cities as a whole may not be as cool or active as Chicago, but things are easy and cheap here.

Napster's dead, but there are even more alternatives waiting for your trading time. This means I have to actually go and configure my home router/firewall to let all those crazy ports pass through.

Those wacky Estonians. Pravda reports that "A 21-year-old Estonian who is believed to have the longest penis in Estonia, has failed to set a world record of “satisfying women.” A young man dubbed Sexy Max was poised to make 100 women happy during 3 days, thereby beating the former world record (90 girls for 2 days) set earlier by some American. But the record failed to come about, because the marathon’s organizers failed to find for the Sexy Max the needed number of partners."

KOMPRESSOR says Destroy Mass Media...
"no Dave Barry, no Ann Landers..."