Morning Shorts

iff is back from the campaign trail hepped up on victory. In other news...

Favorite Jennifer O'Connor recently contributed a blurb to a Bizarre Concert Experiences post at Marathonpacks, and lo and behold her taste is excellent: "Let me preface by saying I am a huge huge huge Mark Eitzel/AMC fan. A couple of years ago at SXSW AMC gave a most unusual, amazing performance...Mark was in very rare form: he kept talking about Viagra and there was lots of rolling around on the floor. He got out into the crowd a couple of times. He seemed very upset---and the show was indeed out of control---but it was truly amazing and completely riveting." My two favorite Eitzel experiences:

1) Mark crawling into the crowd on his hands and knees and headbutting me and others while singing "Help Me Make It Through the Night" on the Courage and Confidence tour. This was, I think, pretty enjoyable for both of us.

2) Mark playing the "If I Had a Gun", one of the most harrowing songs in his already harrowing ouvre, at the Magic Stick on the Caught in a Trap tour. There are pool tables to the side of the stage and you could hear the crack of the balls hitting loudly during this song. He adapts, singing "If I had a gun/I know what I would do/I would shoot some pool". (Cue laughter...) This is why Mark Eitzel is the greatest living songwriter. He can both sell a murder/suicide ballad and make light of it at the same time.

Speaking of great living songwriters, Pitchfork reports that Jen has a new eMusic-exclusive EP, Another Side of Jennifer O'Connor, with a cover of "To Ramona" and three previously unreleased tracks. I'm no fan of online-music-store-only releases - my old muddled mind can't help but want to pluck a disc with that cover off an actual shelf - but if you're gonna do it, eMusic is the way to go as the store is DRM free. No such luck for Decemberists fans - their new EP is only available in Sony Connect Rootkit Special Recipe.

::

The Village Voice gives a thumbs up to Gob Iron's Death Songs for the Living, the Jay Farrar/Anders Parker proto-folk collaboration that has completely snuck up on me. It's got Stephen Foster's "Hard Times"! They're even on tour now.

Election eve I posted For Stars' brilliant song of longing, "If I Could". For the afterglow, here's a solo live version of Clem Snide's "I Love the Unknown" (appropriately recast as "I Love The Onion"). Uh...Dems with power? What?