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Archive for the ‘Smoking Popes’ Category

The Get Up Kids: 25 Years of Something to Write Home About / Smoking Popes (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, September 27, 2024) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Philadelphia, PA, Smoking Popes, The Get Up Kids, Union Transfer on September 27, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: September 27, 2024] The Get Up Kids / Smoking Popes

Back in 2022 I wrote

My friend Al got me into The Get Up Kids back in the early 2000s.  “Mass Pike” is a frequently played song on road trips.  My Get Up Kids album is Something to Write Home About.  I never really got that into Four Minute Mile.  So, even though this show could have been fun, it wouldn’t quite have been for me.

And here they are two years later touring for that very album.

But it was the same night that I was going to see Mannequin Pussy and Margaritas Podridas, who I was really excited to see.

So, once again I missed The Get Up Kids.

Smoking Popes seem like an unlikely opening act.  I didn’t even know they were still a band.  I enjoyed their Born to Quit album quite a bit.  And the one after that was pretty good too.  Apparently at some point in their career, someone in the band became a Christian and the band broke up.

Then they reunited about twenty years ago (!) and have put out a few records since.   I’m sure it would have been fun to hear the old songs again.  Maybe I’ll bust them out on Spotify.

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Jennifer Egan–“Archeology” (New Yorker, June 13 & 20, 2011)

Posted in AV Club, Biography, Essays, Jennifer Egan, Josh Caterer, New Yorker, Nostalgia, Smoking Popes, The Onion, Travel on July 29, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: JOSH CATERER-“Ask” (2011).

Josh Caterer is the main guy behind The Smoking Popes, whose first album, Born to Quit, Morrissey has said was his favorite –and which is also not only no longer in print, it’s not available on Spotify! (the first album that I have looked for which was not available).

Anyhow, this cover comes from The Onion’s A.V. Club’s Undercover series.  (The current series offers a list of 25 songs from which the bands can choose to cover–but each time a song is chosen, it is removed from the list.  Soon, bands will cover songs they may not even like!)

Anyhow again, this cover is delightful.  I was going  to say that “Ask” is one of my favorite Smiths songs, but I think they’re all my favorite songs.  Nevertheless, this one is pretty high on my list.  And this version is, indeed delightful.  Caterer is accompanied by a guitar, a violin and a viola.  The strings cover most of those catchy melodies, while the guitars keep the song propulsive (you don’t even miss a rhythm section).  Caterer’s voice, while not as distinctive as Morrissey’s is perfect for the song.

Overall, an excellent cover.  Watch it here.

[READ: July 20, 2011] “Archeology”

This was the first of five “Starting Out” pieces in the New Yorker’s fiction issue.  The Starting Out pieces are one page (or less) and are a look into the author’s childhood/adolescence.

Egan, who wrote  A Visit from The Goon Squad, talks about what she wanted to be as a child.  First, she wanted to be a surgeon.  She saw blood and that was the end of that.  Then she thought that maybe she could be an archaeologist.  She desperately wanted to become one, even sending her resume (which was: high school and a desire to dig) to every place she could think of (only one even bothered to write back). (more…)

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