Elliott Smith Fans Declare Jihad Against Fans of Pink Floyd. I Smell a Sitcom!

A fading street mural which happened to be randomly photographed for the cover of mopey suicide-y singer/songwriter Elliott Smith's hilariously overrated 2000 album Figure 8 was "tagged" earlier this week by low-wage lackees hired by 84-year-old Pink Floyd kingpin Roger Waters to virally promote yet another tour of the flogged-dead-horse mainstay The Wall.

The viral marketing utilized by Waters and his publicists involves high-profile/big-budget underground guerilla-styled postings promoting the upcoming tour through the use of crudely prited stickers, scripted in an excessively ornate, barely decipherable typeface.

Although the marketing campaign is being seen throughout the greater Los Angeles area, when it left its mark on the hallowed ground that is this anonymous mural on Sunset Boulevard, fans of Smith's work were outraged. "Elliott Smith literally painted this mural literally with his own blood!", screamed Smith follower Glewanda Furklemier. "You can see his tortured soul in each random curve and swirl. Why doesn't Barack Obama do something about this instead of wasting time on that silly oil spill?"

When it was pointed out to Ms. Furklemier that Mr. Smith did not, in fact, actually paint the mural, and that, instead, the photographer hired by his record company merely posed Smith against already-existing street art, Ms. Furklemier replied, "It doesn't matter who painted it. Pink Floyd is going to pay for this, mark my words. There will be a bloodbath of epic proportions, and we will choke the rivers with their dead!"

Ironically, the success of both Pink Floyd and Elliott Smith have relied almost exclusively on compositions involving depressed whining about emotional isolation, but this irony has been lost amid the uproar.

Asked to comment by phone, Roger Water's response--given while counting huge wads of cash--was, "Elliott who?"

Play This at My Funeral (It Should Come On After Khia's "My Neck, My Back" But Not Before "Wind Beneath My Wings".

The strange little web doo-hickie Codeorgan allows your favorite website to be played as a nifty little ditty, using (as the website puts it) "a complex algorithm to define the key, synth style and drum pattern most appropriate to the page content." Is it any surprise that my Blogspot domain (http://discovery2005.blogspot.com/) translates into a dull monotonous dirge of minor keys played to a lackluster, unimaginative shuffle, devoid of passion and grace?

I wish I was dead.

[Update: the Codeorgan website seems to have vanished. Also, I am still very much alive.]

Bleakness on the Edge of Town

The all-dark-clothing urgency of Iron Curtain's music should make my eyes roll, yet they surprisingly stay firmly in place. Perhaps it's because the paint-it-black keyboard wash and echo-laden vocals of 25 years ago which drip over every track on Desertion 1982-1988 now finds itself in vogue once again. These tunes sound timely without being retro. Sure, some of the compositions push too hard at being seen as dangerous (the only reason to name a song Anorexia or Legalize Heroin is simply to ruffle the hair of the status quo, the same way I post anti-Poi Dog Pondering musings so as to receive threatening comments). But when the unknown pleasures of Love Can Never Die and The Burning begin their mesmerizing climb towards some mysterious ethereal target, you'll feel yourself being lifted off the dance floor into the heavens.

I've Seen Fire And I've Seen Rain, I've Seen Bloody Days Covered In Blood With Freshly Killed Blood That I Thought Would Never End

To hear the mighty/mellow tracks by folk fiends The You, one would assume the largest injury they'd sustain is Toe-Tappin'-itus, brought on by the mellow easy-going rhythms they conjure. Yet their My Space page shows a battered axe covered with splashes of crimson blood. Good lord, what hell hath James Taylor wrought??? I can't imagine a song such as I'm Going To Kill Myself--despite its morbid title--would lead to such violent mayhem. Perhaps producer du jour Brian Deck (Iron & Wine, Modest Mouse) slashed some skin trying to create a major label silk purse out of an indie-budget sow's ear. Or just maybe the guy on the far right of the photo above physically harmed someone after being told one too many times about his resemblance to not-a-homo thespian Tom Cruise. Either way, should they venture to perform in your hometown, bring plenty of gauze and surgical tape.  [Update: their MySpace page seems to have gone the way of...well, MySpace.]