in this town they love a drunk

Forget New York, Vegas is the town that perfected self-mythologising. It has everything: mafia beginnings, impeccable showbiz connections, obscene amounts of money being gambled on architecture and business schemes - not to mention on the official tables of its commerce. Showgirls, strippers, neon, 24 hour diners, 24 hour everything. Young Elvis romancing Ann-Margret, Elvis again in his Rhinestone years. Fitzgerald was wrong about American lives having no second acts - he was just born too early to bear witness to the post-war edifice that rose out of the Nevada badlands.
Vegas created a whole new visual language, a uniquely American mid-century vernacular with its skyline of glittering lights and advertising. Tom Wolfe celebrated its pioneering signage and dubbed it the "super-hyper-version", the epitome of a whole new style of life in America. Hunter S Thompson founded his personal legend there, emerging from the desert in his apple red convertible in search of the Great American Dream (attorney in tow). It is the city of pop culture conflations, grand illusions, Free Enterprise. You can't argue Vegas went commercial, that was always the point.

I know it's tawdry and glitzy and despite all the money flowing in and out it is cheap, and not at all the place I think of when I hear Gram Parsons lamenting his losses at its uncaring hands. I know gambling is not as glamorous as endless Bond films would have me believe (he got to have his own Vegas adventure in Diamonds Are Forever, trysting with the fabulously named Tiffany Case and indulging in other favoured vices: car chases and besting various alluringly dangerous girls) I don't really want to be married by an Elvis impersonator. But I do wish I could have seen Las Vegas in its early days of self-creation, when the Ratpack and their shady associates owned its fledgling dreams and the novelty of all those neon lights hadn't quite worn off.

some people really know how to have a good time

out past midnight

My internet connection is running on the kindness of strangers these days and is therefore kind of unreliable, as a result I've tended to come to news late. Alex Chilton (a man rightly immortalised by The Replacements) and Andy Hummel both died this year and it breaks my tiny heart. I heard about Alex's death pretty much immediately, because he was one of those legendary guys you can guarantee 9 out of 10 Pitchfork writers would have been fighting over for the right to pen his eulogy. Paul Westerberg wrote a fitting one.

Founding member Chris Bell died in 1978, having quit the band after their first record, so part of the Big Star idea has been long gone. But I only found out about Andy by accident, a week or two ago. And I while know that all good things come to an end, and that even teenage favourites aren't (particularly aren't) immune to mortality, the whole thing feels so damn final. Even for something that to all intents and purposes ended years ago, before I was led astray into the disreputable world of rock & roll, before I knew that Memphis produced more than Elvis and well before I had fallen in love with the opening chords to September Gurls.

Listen to this song and tell me it doesn't crush your heart a little that three quarters of Big Star are dead.

hey sweetheart

My dream 70s boyfriends, appropriately under-dressed. (Jonathan Richman is the obvious third contender, but I'm running with the half-nakedness theme here) Sam beat me to the punch in singing the praises of the Boss, but I guess a little extra adulation can't hurt any. When I was working in a convenience store a friend referred to it as the Springsteen Dreaming period of my life, which made it seem exciting and even enviable. It wasn't.

But that's the great charm of Bruce, he makes shitty things appear romantic. Like hokey amusement park rides and sleazy gambling cities by the sea. He understands desperation and restlessness and dead-end towns. He's sympathetic to the secret hearts of girls. 

Plus - he can actually pull off double denim, which is like some kind of superpower. He's not called the Boss for nothing.

Then there's Richard Hell. When he and Tom Verlaine were choosing their new names, Tom went for the homage and he went entirely as his own creation. He's kind of my role model, which may be cause for concern, and his list of achievements is both impressive and highly underrated: he accidentally invented some of the most enduring iconography of punk, indirectly influenced the forming (and fashions) of the Sex Pistols, and was the founding member of two of New York's most notorious bands of the 70s (Television and The Heartbreakers) both of which he quit before they recorded their debut albums. He wrote the anthem Blank Generation and had a hand in Chinese Rocks. He starred as a version of himself in Susan Seidelman's first film Smithereens and was Madonna's doomed Atlantic City date in her follow-up, Desperately Seeking Susan. Lester Bangs loved him and thought he was full of shit. 

My love for him is equal parts hero-worship and lust. He's a dubious object of admiration, for sure. And he was more dangerously attractive and drug-addicted than I'll ever be.

then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name

I have a serious weakness for mid-century design. It has this perfect retro-futuristic look, where you can tell absolutely what time it's from and it still looks modern. Neat trick.

He received letters emblazoned with ten different sets of lips

I know it's been out for ages, but the video for this song is sweet as hell and brings out the summer feelings. Epic highschool fantasies - is there any other kind? - played out next to the lockers by way of Zooey's synchronised hallway dancing and certified dreamboat M. Ward coming over all Trip Fontaine. I'd like to think there's a bottle of peach schnapps hidden in his hip pocket (babes love it).

Best Fucking Friends

Shameless self-promotion! My BFF Sam has a mixtape blog, it's called Mixtapes For Johanna and it's pretty goddamn great. The self-promotion part (aside from the name, obvs.) is that I finally made her one of the million mixes I owe her and you can download it too! And then go buy some vinyl or a CD so your favourite artists don't go broke. Maybe even just a 7"? 

strange powers

talent show

When Katherine isn't posting visual representations of what's inside her head at As We Go Along, she is doing things like making incredible videos with her partner in crime Kate. Like this new one, for the super-talented and unfeasibly good-natured Cloud Control! Did I mention talented? During the course of filming there was approximately: 1 x near drowning, 1 x skinned knee, 1 x raid from the police, 2 x lovely assistants (who moonlight - daylight? - as makers of damn fine coffee) and 1 x inhumanly hardworkin' neighbour who made sure mouths matched words and feet matched beats.

Pretty good looking. (oh ya, the band too)

just want your extra time and your

"You've seen him before. He swaggers. He struts around campus like he's a live-action version of Trent on Daria crossed with Jess from Gilmore Girls." Elisabeth Donnelly's First Kiss story  lives out your teendream fantasies so you don't have to.

I'm pretty sure I had crushes on both those fictional characters when I was in highschool. Unfortunately for the tv-tinted daydreams of my teenage years I never got to make out with approximations of either of those boys. (Igby Goes Down-era Keiran Culkin might be another story) 

 

Saturday morning, zines in the mail brought over by my parents and flowers from the market. This is probably the best my room will look all week.