Aimee Mann coming to Avalon June 29. I've never seen her live. Sweet.

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A band you'd think I'd like but I actually HATE: Keane. These guys are a fucking sack of wusses. They apparently like Starsailor and Coldplay but are concerned the guitars make them a little too masculine, so they scrapped that and put the piano center stage. And then there's their lead singer, who looks like he's 12 and, though he has a good voice, you just want to beat his face in with a baseball bat. These guys are BritPOP at its most heinous.

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Lollapalooza 2004 is going to be amazing. Blah blah, Jane's Addiction will be there, but more importantly THE FLAMING LIPS and BRMC will be among the headliners, plus some great support acts--The Killers, Broken Social Scene, and the Walkmen among others. Problem is they're being a bitch about officially announcing stuff, so I have no idea if they're coming through Boston. But I imagine Tweeter will be one of their stops. GIDDYUP.

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Not sure why it took me so long to get the Google toolbar. I'm slowly becoming a Google bitch...I even signed up for a Gmail account yesterday. Since it's still the beta version it's not that user friendly (and not integrated into a personalized page like My Yahoo unfortunately) but with a whole gig of free storage space, you gotta respect it. And for some reason the idea of Google reading my emails doesn't really concern me.

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As Nina and Mulldoggey can attest to, the new Ratatat CD (eponymously titled...sorry, I try to use that word as much as possible) is choice. We all knew "17 Years" and "Breaking Away" (previously untitled) were great songs, but there are quite a few more on here ("El Pico" being my current fave). I'm not sure if I ever made this comparison in this space, but in trying to describe their sound I always come back to the idea behind some of Daft Punk's Discovery vintage material. I once read that DP's idea with their last album was to bring an emotional texture to electronic music, which certainly comes through more clearly on songs like the instrumental "Veridis Quo" (best song on the album IMO) than the "One More Time" type stuff that was released as singles. And as mechanistic as the isolated sounds on Ratatat's album are--crunching electric guitar, distorted bass, carefully-machined beats, and keyboards that dive and swoon, not too mention a complete lack of vocals--the effect is a surprisingly gripping, emotive sound. If Daft Punk was electronica trying to transform itself into something closer to rock by using more guitars, then Ratatat is coming from the opposite side: two white guys playing guitars, opening for rock/indie bands, but all the while flowing more towards the electronic end of the spectrum.

Sometimes you hear someone sing and it just doesn't seem right...you listen to the notes, and it's not a matter of lacking range or having an ear for tone. But aside from the physics of sound, something more intangible has to happen to weave everything together, right? Someone might be able to hit all the notes, but that doesn't mean they can sing. And even without a "human" touch I'm struck by how Ratatat's music can build and fall and ebb and flow in a very human, compelling way.

In this morning's Pitchfork reviews, they lead off by calling Ratatat "Like an indie rock Daft Punk"--sweet validation in my book. But more importantly, they give a great review, 8.4/10.

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Kevin and I had a rock-out Saturday night last weekend. Based on my love for Ambulance Ltd I was planning on going to their opening gig for the French Kicks, and when Kevin made the trip up I dragged him along (OK, so he was a more than willing accomplice) too. Four bands were on the bill, the last three of which (Laguardia, Ambulance, and the French Kicks) were all very very good. Kevin even bought the Laguardia and Ambulance albums. The French Kicks' new album comes out May 4...I'll probably pick it up.