The First Amendment Project is hoping to raise some scratch for free speech via an Ebay auction. Winners get to have their names included in upcoming literary works by Stephen King, Rick Moody, Dorothy Allison, and many more. This sounded like a great idea until we read what the staggeringly pretentious Dave Eggers was offering.

[Via Gawker] The winner will be featured in a strange illustrated story I’m working on called The Journey of the Fishes Overland. The winner, or someone of her/his choosing, will be encountered by the traveling fish in question, as they travel over land. It could also be a family, a house, an address, whatever. I get to decide why the fishes see this person/place, and what’s said by/to or done by/to the person/place. This story will be finished and published in the fall. That name/s have to be tasteful and undisruptive to the narrative. I reserve the right to refuse using a name I find offensive.

Would it be an affront to free speech to bar The Journey of the Fishes Overland from being written? Check out the auction here. Sounds like a cool and creative way to raise money for a great cause.

CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll:
58% Disapprove Of Bush’s Overall Performance
59% Call Iraq Invasion A Mistake
67% Dissaprove Of Bush’s Handling Of Iraq War
41% Chance Christopher Hitchens admits he was wrong about the war and/or overdoses on pills

Sure, the incredibly talented — and, incidentally, incredibly nice — Anton Newcombe has a notoriously short fuse (see Dig!), but getting your van and equipment stolen is enough to piss anyone off. Give the band their shit back. We were hoping to see Brian Jonestown Massacre play an all acoustic show tonight at Pianos. Hopefully, the show will go on. More on the theft via Brooklyn Vegan. (We tried to catch BJM at Northsix for CMJ on Saturday, but when we arrived at the club at 1am some Wiccan, Black Sabbath obssessed band named Witch who was slotted before them was still setting up. We were too drunk to hang around and were afraid of Witch’s drummer who looked like a cross between Garth Algar and a professionally certified chaotic evil D&D dungeon master with infinite hit points.)
Drunk fans love to heckle Anton, knowing he’ll lash out. Warning: he may kill you if you heckle him Tuesday night if the show goes on as scheduled. In the mean time, be on the look out for these things on Ebay and in pawn shops.

Interview by Monte Holman

Giant Drag is slacker noise-pop duo with a propensity for shrugging satire. Annie Hardy plays the guitar, spread thick with effects pedals. She drawls the vocals with a permanent half-smile and half-shut eyes. Micah Calabrese plays drums, saving his left hand to ring out the synth bass lines. The final product is fuzzy pop in slow motion that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
The duo just released their first LP, Hearts and Unicorns (Kickball Records). The songs on the record have a nice mix of low-fi warmth and polished production, which is evidenced in a huge wall of sound.
We chatted with Annie and Micah while they were here for CMJ. Things started off poorly when, a couple questions into the interview, the bouncers at Northsix kicked everyone out of the club to check for wristbands. Annie was starving, and the band had nearly rumbled with a sound guy the night before, so prospects for conversation looked shaky. Luckily, Annie and Micah have a sense of humor and are as friendly and upbeat as you’d imagine after hearing their record.
Stream Hearts and Unicorns here. Despite the band’s ironic, self effacing name, it’s a great debut. Check them out October 6 at Irving Plaza with Stellastar.
*****
FREEwilliamsburg: Some songs on Hearts and Unicorns, particularly “Cordial Invitation” have a certain My Bloody Valentineness to them, which is surprising coming from a band made up of two people. How do you translate that lush fullness live?
Micah: We turn up the delay pedal a little more. (laughs)
Annie: We don’t really try to match the album. It’s like the album and the live show are two different entities. Live, you get to establish a relationship with the people in the room.
FREEwilliamsburg: How do you try to establish that relationship?
Micah: Usually Annie’s on the mic telling jokes.

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This rules.
[via Catch.com]

There are a ton of them coming soon. Here are some highlights:
This Sunday, September 18, Ryan Adams & the Cardinals, Ted Leo & Pharmacists, Jesse Malin, Debbie Harry, Joseph Arthur, Butch Walker and Marah headline Mojo Aid benefit at Irving Plaza.
Tuesday September 20 -The Vision Festival featuring Matthew Shipp, Yo La Tengo, Jazz Passengers with Deborah Harry and Elvis Costello, William Parker and dozens of jazz greats
Brooklyn Responds, Sep 21 and 25 at Southpaw. Two nights of music featuring The Wrens, Radio 4, The Cloud Room, Pela,Au Revoir Simone, Domino and many more.
And tonight at Club Exit, Todd P presents Japanther, Bad Wizard, Love as Laughter, Two Gallants and many more. Click here for info.

LA band Goldspot is in town for CMJ tonight
Our friends at OneLouder introduced us to Goldspot. They rule. You can listen to them on their myspace page here. And while everyone else is at the overated, melodramatic Arcade Fire show tonight, check Goldspot out at Pianos at 8:30. We plan on swinging by right after the New Pornographers show at the Bowery. The NPs new record isn’t that exciting (despite what the typically braindead Pitchfork has to say about it), but they usually play lots of shit from their masterpiece, Mass Romantic. Plus Neko Case is hot.
As a nightcap, we highly recommend seeing Of Montreal at The Knitting Factory. The don’t come on until 1am, but are one of the best live acts we’ve seen. Ever. And their new record is one of the best this year.

U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York [From Reuters]
This pretty much sums up his presidency.

CMJ begins tonight and one of our favorites, the publicity-challenged Ox, is playing The Knitting Factory at 7:30. He’s huge in Canada. His originally self-released alt country ode to America, Dust Bowl Revival, debuted at #1 on the Canadian college radio charts. We’re usually suspicious of everything Canadian, but Ox (aka Mark Browning and his band) is the real deal. His hauntingly beautiful debut is one of our favorites this year. Check out these MP3′s L.A. City , Carolina then be sure to catch him live if you can.
1. Why Ox?
KISS was taken. Honestly, it was a magic type of thing- the name just came to me one day and it resonated right… at the time I was very much a solo singer/songwriter type and I recognized that I wasn’t ready for the name so, over time I grew into it. With the Dust Bowl Revival album I knew it was Ox.
2. As a Canadian, why’d you decide to record an album about the American heartland?
The record isn’t really about the American heartland… it’s about America- but a twisted reflected variation of it- as in, the image of America through glass- a windshield even… the glass is the border and I’m Canadian. It’s about the 70′s- skateboards and banana seat bikes, summertime romance that doesnt go anywhere… the hot highway and fast cars that guzzle fuel.

3. You’re a rock star in Canada. Any thoughts on why you’re yet to find a major American audience?
I’m patient and I don’t really care. I just do what I do and sometimes people like it- sometimes they really hate it. Hopefully, nothing in between.
4. We’re always curious to know people’s first concerts. What was yours?
I did a festival gig at the Northern Lights Festival in Sudbury, Ontario- my hometown. I was 16. I can’t remember the show at all and later that night I threw up in bed from the stress. I was way freaked out. Since then, I’ve never really been nervous again.
5. What’s your most cherished record? Most embarassing?
cherished: JULIAN COPE, peggy suicide
embarassing: REO SPEEDWAGON, hi-infidelity
6. Have you ever driven a Trans Am?
My mom used to drive one. She sold it when I was 13 and bought a fucking Honda Civic.
7. Anyone you strongly admire? Anyone you hate?
I don’t really like ‘people’. It’s more about the things that people ‘do’. I like Julian Cope a whole lot cause he’s manic and driven and crazy- and that’s reflected in everything he does. I like P.T. Anderson (the director). I admire my bandmates cause we’re a family. I guess I hate Madonna.

8. Has your music ever gotten you any action?
Of course.
9. Canada or America?
If it’s for cigarettes and movies- America. if it’s for donuts and moosemeat- Canada.
10. What’s next? Any plans on an American tour?
I’m touring the USA in November. Next month we’re finishing the new Ox album which will be a double- and released possibly next summer.

An interview with the dreamy one, Taylor Hanson
by Monte Holman

The eyebrows are back! Former boy sensations, Hanson, are storming the music industry with the passion of proselytizers for the cause of independent music. A struggle to survive in the pick-of-the-day major label system in which bands are discarded like non-recyclable take-out boxes drove Hanson to drop Geffen and start their own label. They now fervently preach the Good News of independence.
But their Starbuckian jargon sounds awfully suspicious. Discussing the band using terms like entrepreneurship, brands, markets and models seems to transplant the evil concerns of the big labels into a new setting. An increasing familiar setting in which indie bands capitalize off the OC and Target.
Thing is, Hanson are likable kids, er, young adults, who obviously love music but grew up under the thumbs of soul-sucking record execs. It’s impossible to stoop to the usual cynicism directed toward commercial bands when these three brothers are trying so earnestly to do something about it. Like really earnestly, man. So their upcoming album, The Best of Hanson, Live and Electric (3CG), may not be your cup of tea. But I’ll be damned if you could talk shit about these guys after hearing them out for a few minutes.
We were recently offered the opportunity to speak with Taylor. The dreamy one. How could we refuse? Via phone, Taylor explained the band’s philosophy, which when his awkward industry lingo was boiled away, amounted to keeping two things sacred: the music and the fans.
Hanson is Isaac, Taylor and Zac Hanson.
FREEwilliamsburg: The title of the new record is The Best of Hanson, Live and Electric. Why go with a “best of” at this point? What spurred the desire to put out a live album?
Taylor: It’s become really trendy to put out a “greatest hits” or “best of” too early. It’s spawned by a major label idea to try to put out hits. But for us, it’s more about the “live and electric” part. And it’s a “best of” because when you play shows and you’ve been a band for like 13 years and have released multiple albums, you’ve got a certain amount of songs that are the best of songs, the ones people know and react to live. It’s not as much a greatest hits package as a reinterpretation of what we’ve done for the last decade or so. It’s about framing who we’ve always been.

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