Franz Ferdinand live were, as in February, incredible (last Wednesday I saw them). Since their album hadn't even come out when I saw them the first time I didn't know as many of their songs, and this time it really hit me how many great songs they have. The album is terrific, but live everything becomes amazing. In February they seemed taken aback by how much people were into them at TT's, but I thought by now they'd be expecting a rapturous reception. Still, as much as their stage presence had improved (bassist Bob even walked around the stage this time and looked at people), they still seemed thrilled about playing for us, at times even humbled by the crowd's enthusiasm. It was very cool to see; like the Rapture, a band whose appreciation for the audience made their overall performance that much better. My camera's juice was gone so no pics. Sad.

Also very good were the openers, Sons and Daughters (also Glaswegians). Their sound is very cool; in terms of tempo, their songs have a similar structure to, well, this might sound strange, but "The Devil Went Down to Georgia." Very steady, simple guitar parts that they then grace with vocals and the occasional break-down. They don't have an old fat guy who plays violin though. But their songs do have this great intensity, most directly from their guitarist/vocalist. He looks like a normal, decent-looking young guy, clean cut, dressed in a black button-down shirt and black pants. But when he plays he gets the most intense look on his face as he alternates with their female keyboardist/main vocalist. He also does these great "silent screams" where he stands away from the mic and kind of yells at the audience. Luckily they're very good so you don't mind his pushing to cheer and clap along (which everyone does when he asks). Their bassist/mandolin player looks kind of like Maggie Gylenhaal, and kind of balances out his intensity with a very chilled presence. They list Johnny Cash as one of their influences, so not surprisingly they have a song named after him. Their album will be released in America in August. Download "Johnny Cash" from SXSW. It doesn't really capture how good they were live, but hopefully their full-length will.

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The Killers' album Hot Fuss finally came out on the 8th, and is as good as I had hoped for. There's no time needed to let it grow on you...right out of the box this CD is fucking great pretty much straight through. They wear their influences on their sleeve, but it's not just a nice little mishmash of styles. Brandon Flowers sings about bizarre subjects (being held in suspicion of murder, stalking a high school football star, and whatever you want to make of the phrase "Somebody told me/That you had a boyfriend/Who looked like a girlfriend/That I had in February of last year") but wills it into coherency. "Midnight Show" has a guitar riff straight from a Duran Duran song that must have been written at some point, while "All These Things That I've Done" has a Pulp-like backbone and miraculously manages to throw in a gospel choir for good measure. The previously released songs I'd heard are slightly reworked, but remain good or sometimes sound a little better. I'll immediately throw it right behind Franz Ferdinand for best album I've heard in 2004.

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Another contender for my ultimately irrelevant best of 2004 list will be !!!'s Louden Up Now. So here's the deal with !!!. Their name is pronounced as any three repetitive sounds, so "Chk-Chk-Chk," "Pow-Pow-Pow," and "Unh-Unh-Unh" are all acceptable. Practically speaking the first of those is most commonly used because you can't search on the internet for "!!!" which I'm sure their A&R people are thrilled about. It took me a while just to find their official site.

The album is quite possibly the coolest, most badass music I've heard. I guess their sound is towards the Rapture end of the indie spectrum: it's basically dance music performed by a real band with punk vocals. I'm not too well-versed in old-school dance/punk music, but they definitely have a vibe similar to the Stereo MCs as well. If you're familiar with some of the Chemical Brothers' more guitarish stuff ("Star Guitar" comes to mind) then there's some of that too. !!! have some of the deepest, most kickass bass-guitar parts you'll hear, and around that they build long, meandering songs employing everything from skitterish punk guitar, bongos, the odd cowbell and of course driving drums. Their lead singer has the perfect voice for their sound, which he uses to dispense lyrics that have been alternately described as "insipid" and "asinine." He likes to swear a lot, hence the refrain from "Pardon My Freedom"--"Like I give a fuck/Like a give a shit about that fuck." This song also has my favorite lyric of the moment, more for the hilariously dismissive tone in which it's said than meaning behind it: "You can tell the president to suck my fucking dick." Really, you kinda have to hear the song.

Because the songs are so long, I'm probably going to try and make a mix of the best parts from a few songs. I don't plan on being able to transition well between songs, but that way I won't have to jump around as much between songs. For instance, in "Me and Giuliani Down by the School Yard (A Tre Story)," the part from about 4 minutes to 5:30 is among the best music I've heard in...a long long time. But the part after kind of sucks. And the part before it isn't quite as good as the middle.

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I love the Burger King office commercials. Has there ever been a series of commercials that the captured hilarious minutiae of everyday life (especially in an office) like these? Well probably not, because noble as it may be, on paper it's kind of a pointless way to sell value meals. But I think there's a lot there...not shocking given how much I love "The Office."

Sure, we love the "I'm Spicy" guy, but the whole sexual tension created by the presence of the token hot brunette chick is great...somebody's having way too much fun with these. First off, no woman working in an office looks like this. The best one is where she tries a bite of the dorky guy's (OK, they're basically all dorky guys) sandwich and then he basically makes out with the part she bit. Do we need to see this? Absolutely not. Nothing to do with the quality of the food. Kind of creepy. But you know that a guy like that might actually do something like that. And when, another episode, she licks the spot of mayo off the guy's cheek...fucking great! It's all about the awkward moments right after, which I guess is the kind of smart stuff you really never expect to see in commercials. She's just toying with these dudes. That shit ain't right.

In any case, I set about to seeing if they had the commercials online somewhere but they don't. Bullshit. AdCritic went all corporate. But I did find this link to a short people's advocacy website where someone complains that one of the commercials is degrading to short people. Actually, bitching and moaning about funny commercials is degrading to short people's advocates, but there ya go. Some nice unintentional comedy.

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Tonight I bought an 8-pack (8? what?) of Coke's new C2--the 70 calorie coke. Seriously, this shit tastes just like regular coke. Regular coke has officially become obsolete. Which I kind of expected, because regular coke mixed with diet tastes basically like regular coke. Pepsi, always the laggard, is introducing their mid-calorie cola later this summer, which will be called Pepsi Edge. Tale of the tape:

Pepsi Edge: 50 calories, 13g carbs
Coke C2: 70 calories, 18g carbs

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Added some pictures to the "Newer Pictures"/May-June album from our going-away lunch for my boy Mukul at work. The pictures prove that I do indeed work with a lot of white men. Especially now that Mukul has sadly left us to go to Columbia Law.