Free Neko Case show at the Poetry Foundation Open House

If I was going to be in Chicago June 25 this is definitely where I'd be.

A Robert Frost State of Mind

The Super Secret Project has gone and made a pretty faithful parody of "Empire State of Mind" by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, both in song and in video. Ordinarily this kind of thing wouldn't concern us here. But at about 2:30 dude throws Robert Frost into the mix. Can I get a snowy woods up in this bitch? Holla!



Via Boing Boing. Thanks, Laura, for the tip.

Drive-By Wonder Twins

The Wonder Twins, a.k.a. my sister Laura and I, went to a Drive-By Truckers show and wrote about it for The Metro Times. And the Drive-By Truckers have an insanely evil looking monkey on the cover of their new record. Coincidence? Well, yeah, but still.

Pop goes the poetry

I know no one in America gives a shit about The Waterboys, The Blue Aeroplanes, or Idlewild, but their projects setting poetry to pop music are still interesting.

"There's a high seriousness associated with poetry, but it doesn't have to be that way. We didn't feel the weight of having to sing these sacred verses; the intention was to make a good album. Beyond the fact that there were poets involved, it had to be something you'd want to put on in the car." - Idlewild's Roddy Woomble

Also, according to this article, "Rufus Wainwright has set three Shakespeare sonnets (10, 20 and 43) to music on his new album, All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu." Wainwright's last few albums really haven't made much of an impact on me, but I'll tune in for this.