Ahem. Absolutely Kosher rock cos they release all the music that I love (and you hate).

Also cos they got the best bird name band names in the book (Sparrow, Pidgeon, The Wrens, Rob Crowe… well, he is not a band but he is in one).

Dude - how you neither love nor understand Pinback, The Mountain Goats, Frog Eyes, The Dudley Corporation and the freakin’ Wrens is beyond me *but* I will say that eating celery is not good for you because it’s mostly water and gets stuck in your teeth.

They do noisy things as well. I thought you might have liked the noisy things.

Maybe I also love Absolutely Kosher, sometimes, for some of the reasons why I love www.cryingwhileating.com

Maybe you should try crying about something while eating the celery. Maybe that is what’s missing here.

:)

Gracelette
-x-

Posted by Secretary Gracelette on August 24th, 2005 at 4:48 pm

Well, obviously I want to understand it, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered asking Cory to send me some. And I wouldn’t be slightly worried about my inability to love it, would I? Am on a mission to distinguish *why* there is music that some hate and some love (and vice versa). That’s kinda my job.

I like the Dudleys and I love John Darnielle so much it’s embarassaing (but more as a writer than as a Mountain Goat, gotta say). I think my problem with these bands has nothing to do with crying, eating, cryingandeating, or anything like that. It has to do with guitar sound, vocal timbre, production and stuff like that. Not all noise is good noise.

Love the fuzzy felt seals though.

Posted by Frances May on August 24th, 2005 at 4:58 pm

Hmm… well, I can’t help you there cos the vocal timbre is a lot of why I love a lot of them. And also the production.

Um - which ones are you listening to? They do have an awful lot of bands.

Gracelette
-x-

Posted by Secretary Gracelette on August 24th, 2005 at 5:19 pm

So it’s taken me this long to lift the covers and sneak a peek into the mysterious Plan B blogs. Between the label and fatherhood, I suppose a four or five month lapse isn’t entirely shocking. Francis, I suppose your response isn’t entirely shocking either. Sometimes I feel like our albums are the recorded equivalent of ultra-violet light - invisible to much of the populace, yet brilliant, incandescent wonders to those with the appropriate vision.

Until I make it to the Plan B offices (or a lounge of my choosing) and am able to shift your context of our records (nothing heady, mind you, just a bit of wistful isolation and an abandonment of New York City and Chicago - both labels and bands - which is a shift of no small feat, just ask the press over here), I shall forgo discussing the virtues of our bands and their releases and instead follow your lead and discuss celery.

As a child, I had similar response to celery - healthy, crunchy, not bad in tuna salad, nothing to write home about, heck, it’s like chewing on a crisp glass of water. Even today, living on the West Coast, celery is misused as filler in mediocre Chinese food where it fails to do anything more than distract you from the dish you ordered. But celery cannot itself be blamed for the short-sightedness of certain Chinese-American chefs.

Celery is both bold and sublime in the right combinations. In Jewish cooking, it is relegated to the soup bowl, essential for its subtlety. How far out of the spice drawer can you go to find another vegetable with that quality? The carrot and the onion are far from subtle, the potato a massive physical presence even when cubed. But bold? You must think I’m nuts.

Let me introduce you to my late grandfather, Irving Wolner of Forest Hills Queens. Irving was a postal worker for many years and after securing his federal pension, he embarked on a second career working for OTB (Off-Track Betting), a business that allowed you to bet on horse races somewhere away from the track and closer to home. He retired at 65 and lived another 12 years. He wasn’t an active man in those declining years, but he found joy in three things outside of his family: television (this is pre-cable, pre-VCR mind you), food and Frank Sinatra.

He’d sit and cut me fresh plums with his pocket knife or shuffle into the kitchen , dressed in slippers and a robe, to make us sandwiches and pour us some ginger ale. The sandwiches were always good. Tuna, ham and cheese, scrambled eggs, pizza bagels, even the matzoh sandwiches (no bread!) during Passover, whatever. One night we went into the kitchen and he sprung upon me a simple treasure of his fliking. Celery and cream cheese on an Italian bread roll (like a baguette, but a little softer). He spoke of it with such wonderfully restrained exuberance, I was compelled to try it. Oooh. I’m salivating now at the thought of it. Celery, in my eyes, was reborn. Of course, as my father frequently says, anything is good with cream cheese, but that’s besides the point. Or maybe not. Maybe you’re not hearing all the cream cheese, Francis. If you stick with those records though, maybe even just keeping our label sampler in rotation, you’ll find it. I promise.

Thanks for taking the time.

best,
Cory

Posted by Cory on January 31st, 2006 at 12:54 pm