New stuff from me coming soon, but don’t hold me to it. Look at my Twitter feed if you want to hear some loser incessantly snark.

1. “You need to see them live!”
Why would I want to see songs I already don’t like live?

2. “They are really nice guys!”
This is what happens when you can’t survive on talent alone. The only exception to this rule is Dave Grohl.

• Cold Cave: OK, American Nightmare dude, we get it. You’re an artist and these days you like Joy Division more than Earth Crisis. I loved Some Girls, but you totally blew it with the Ian Curtis impression. Not to mention, the music’s terrible. Even harder for me to digest is the dork-blog appreciation this band gets.

• Guided By Voices: Since, oh… 1995, I’ve been getting GBV and Yo La Tengo mixed up (what an alt-rock faux-pas! [clicks suicide shotgun]). Anyway, I totally hated some GBV songs and really liked a few, or so I thought. Turns out out the song/s I liked were actually Yo La Tengo, and now I can fully express my dislike for the writers of “Bulldog Skin.” That song is fucking horrible.

• Flaming Lips: Speaking of “Artists,” here we have Wayne Coyne And Some Other Dudes. Still with the giant bubble Wayne? We get it. You are weird. Second only to Radiohead on the Unjustified Popularity & Respect Scale.

• Dirty Projectors: I guess they’re not really that bad. They did do a record of semi Black Flag covers, which is a huge plus, as long as you’re not Creed or The Goo Goo Dolls or something. Again, puzzled by their acclaim.

• Grateful Dead: Old habits die hard. As a young “punk,’ I made a shirt (ripped off from Kurdt Cobain) that said “Kill The Grateful Dead” to bum out the hippies, and it worked. Hippies did in fact yell at me (as a side note- kids are lucky to have so many cliques to antagonize in highscool- hippies, jocks, white trash rednecks). Anyways, The Grateful Dead were always Public Enemy #1, and being a guitar nerd, I remember getting several guitar magazines with Jerry Garcia on the cover, which I promptly defaced via Sharpie, even though no one but me would ever know I had it. I got a new guitar mag in the mail the other day with that fat dork on it, and guess what my first instinct was?

I’m not all dislike and distaste, only mostly. Here are the few records I’ve been listening to in the past month or so.

• Japandroids, Post-Nothing: I certainly was skeptical of these dudes based on their positive reviews, but I guess music blogs can’t have bad taste all the time. Very cool guitar sound and lots of good melodies. “Young Hearts Spark Fire” is my favorite song on the record.

• Girls, Album: I was hooked the first time I heard “Hellhole Ratrace” (which I subsequently put on the “Dinnertime” playlist at my wedding. Ha!), which is undeniably their best track. I’ve also been known to repeatedly sing first few lines of Lust For Life over and over again while making dinner, much to the puzzlement of my wife: “Oh I wish I had a sun tan, I wish I had a pizza & a bottle of wine…”

• Beatles, In Mono: My aforementioned (& wonderful) wife was kind enough to get me possibly the best (and definitely the nerdiest) birthday present ever when The Beatles In Mono Box Set arrived last week. I don’t really need to write much about it other than I much prefer the o.g. mono mixes contained within to the stereo mixes that I’ve always had, especially on Revolver. [Side note: I also had to buy the reissued version of Abbey Road, Yellow Submarine and Let It Be, which were always in stereo and thusly not in the box. That brings the total version of Let It Be that I own to 3.] I’m listening to them all chronologically at the moment.

• Nirvana, Bleach remaster and Live At Reading: I got the Bleach remaster on wax from Sub Pop and listening to it super loud in my room made me feel like I was 13 again after a trip to the K-Mart in West Covina. Not my favorite Nirvana record, but I still love it, of course, and the remaster is very good- murky without being muddy. I’ve had a video bootleg of the Reading concert for a few years and have always loved it (along with the Live & Loud performance they did on MTV with Pat Smear after In Utero came out). I got the official version of the DVD when it came out and realized that not only is the whole show great, but the covers they did were fucking unbelievable. There’s no other way to describe the Fang cover, “The Money Will Roll Right In” than “Fucking Menacing.” Of course, the version of D-7 (by the Wipers, dorks) is rad as well.

• Sunny Day Real Estate, Diary and LP2 reissues: Also of these last week, bringing my 2-day album total to 16  which is certainly a record for me*. Anyways, I’m glad I lead the charge to remaster Diary- it was undeniably one of my best ideas yet. It does sound a ton better, like it was recorded in a recording studio in 1997 as opposed to a carpet factory in 1993. LP2 never sounded really bad to begin with, but I’ve always liked the songs on Diary more. And now I realize, like Dan Hoerner says in the liners, that there is a lot of Slint in SDRE, which is cool and I’d never noticed before.

[*Ok, so this dorky "record" only involved getting records legitimately for my personal collection, since I probably got more than this, in promo form, for free from my old job. But 99.8% of those records sucked. And, it's counting all the individual Beatles records, which I think is fair game.]

+ Going on vacation, obviously
+ Traveling with Dawn is the best
+ Fiji is almost annoyingly beautiful
+ Fijians are unbelievably nice
- The 10h40min plane ride there was super tough and everyone was noisy
+ &- the bus from the airport to the ferry marina was craaaaazy
+ The ferry to the island was ultra scenic and relaxing
+ The resort was super small (24 guests) and mellow and the staff was ridiculously cool
-  Only one of my 2 power adapters worked
+ The bed was comfortable
+ The food was great
+ THE FUCKING VIEW OUT OF THE BEDROOM WINDOW
- Frighteningly large spiders had to be walked under at least twice a day
- I got sick for 1 day and it was terrible
+ They had medicine, ginger ale, and specially prepared dinner for me
+ We made tons of international friends because all of the guests hung out together
+&- We had to be evacuated to the top of the island due to a possible tsunami! Unbelievable!
+ Drank kava, mouth numbed
+ The reef was crazy, there were tons of fish, and huge sea snakes!
- We didn’t see the mystical turtle
+ I now find the sound of small boats comforting
+ We are now expert kayakers
+ Coconuts
- Terrible ferry ride on the way back: high seas, terrible dvd selection by the crew [Pussycat (?!), Far Cry, The Eagles Unplugged), extra 2 hours due to a blown engine
+ Dawn convinced the guy sitting next to us on the plane to move
- the lines at LAX were a mess

Check out my pictures here.

It looked great (thanks to Dawn and our family/friends), the ceremony was great (thanks to Justin), the food was great (thanks to Cahoots Catering), the music was great (thanks to me, the great de-facto DJ Brett, my musical pals Jason & Justin, and Gabe’s PA system), and the party was great (thanks to our guests). Dawn and I both agreed that the biggest bummer about it being over is not having all our friends in one place- which NEVER, EVER happens, and which we really enjoyed and appreciated. It also kind of seems like we didn’t get to hang out with all the guests enough, but that couldn’t really be avoided, I think.

• So yeah, good times. Here’s a sampling of some pictures the great Jeff Newsom took. SERIOUSLY impressive.
• And here’s our rehearsal dinner. Note that my brothers and I have a boy band called “Just 3 Broz.”
• And lastly, here’s my bachelor party- which was held at a cabin quite literally in the middle of nowhere. You would be surprised how well actors, musicians, scientists and salesmen can shoot- at least when they have grown up in Paso Robles CA.

• Arctic Monkeys- Humbug: Ok, this is a pretty great record. I never liked this band before I heard “Crying Lighting,” and then I come to find out Josh Homme recorded it? Fucking great move, boys. A fucked up reverby desert carnival atmosphere was all this band needed to be able to tickle the balls of greatness. It’s kinda like is Morrissey was a teenager in the 90′s and met Josh and they formed the Arctic Monkeys instead of QOTSA and The Smiths.
• Drive Like Jehu: The more I listen to Jehu, the more I’m convinced they are one of the greatest bands of all time. When I was a sophomore in high school we used to have to do stupid ice breaker brain warm up exercises at the start of class. One was “Give yourself a foreign name and tell us what country you come from.” Having read about them in a magazine out of pure luck I said “I’m Jehu, from Israel.” The teacher made fun of me. Fuck him. Little did I know it would take another 5 or 6 years to again encounter Jehu’s greatness. Check out great live shit here: Do You Compute?
• Phoenix- Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix: There are so many things one could hold against Phoenix- they’re French, the singer is Sophia Coppola’s boyfriend, they’re French… But if nothing else, I will go to my grave loving “Lizstomania” and “1901″ (and the rest of the record). Great songs and good novelty-European production (compressors sidechained to the kick drum- I’m looking at you). The record that I will always link with Summer 2009.
• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds- Your Funeral…My Trial: The last of the recently reissued first 4 Bad Seeds records. I’m proud of myself for not buying them all at once and giving them each a chance to soak in. A good cross between piano balladry and noise. And the documentary special features on each cd are great, of course.

We went to Megan & Morgan‘s wedding about a week ago and, damn, was it fantastic. It’s cool to be a a wedding for once where you know (and are friends with) almost everyone. Their wedding was great and we love them and we can only hope they have as much fun at our as we did at theirs.

Since this was on a Sunday night in Paso Robles, I had to be mellow on the wine intake and bust out a 4 hour drive back home afterwards. “It’s just like when I used to go to shows in LA and get home super late before working the next day. No Problem,” I told Dawn. Well, to everyone’s disappointment, I am not entirely still my young, dashing self.
For some reason I/We thought a Taco Bell meal and some Frappuccinos would be beneficial to keeping me awake as long as possible. Luckily, we were right- but only because the combo of midnight-on-a-sunday Santa Maria Taco Bell and gas station bottled coffee drink was absolutely horrible. I mean, I didn’t drink them concurrently, but jeeeeeeesus… Disgusting. I have no idea how people can drink those Starbucks things. I couldn’t find one redeeming quality.

I was so happy to get some natural food in me the next day at lunch.

Shit I’m Into:

• This Monsters Of Folk Song. I don’t really know why. The melody’s nice, I guess?
• Ted Leo’s cameraphone in-studio recording diary. He’s the greatest. Get this man a record label!
• The Girls track Hellhole Ratrace. Fucking great.
• Beck Hansen interviewing Will Ferrell. Lots of SoCal inside jokez.
• Reading Ars Technica’s Detailed (with a capital D, to say the least) examination of Mac OS X 10.6. I’m only about 1/4 of the way through it though. TGIF, huh?
• Actual (vodka) Martinis. You know, with Vermouth and olives.
• Getting the fuck out of work a little bit early. I guess, seeya…

If the worst thing about Pitchfork is their smug, self important “Look how we throw you a curve ball by liking this mainstream pop record and disliking this other beloved-by-blogs indie act” faux-trendsetting additude, then the second worst thing is their incessant need to objectively rate things by placing them in lists, a device pioneered by the other Great Joke Of Music “Journalism,” Rolling Stone Magazine. I can think of few bigger fool’s errands than ranking the degree to which one Arcade Fire song/album is better or worse than one Outkast song/album, except, perhaps,  deciding the “#1 Album Of The 60′s.”

However, that is not to say that I disagree with the majority of the choices on their latest listicle “The Top 500 Songs of the 2000s.” However loathe rock n’ roll purists are to admit it, there has been some undeniably great music recorded and released in the last 10 years.  (The fact that the last year of the decade is barely 2/3 over doesn’t seem to phase those know-it-alls, however. I’m sure they can look at the rest of the years release schedule and divine its hits and misses. Of Course.) Anyway- like I was saying: the worst thing about Pitchfork lists is not the songs they choose, but the order they rank the in. There should be no question whether or not the following should be on anyone’s list, based on their lasting influence alone: Mastodon, The Roots, Nick Cave, Fugazi, The Strokes, Little Wayne, Pulp, Alicia Keyes, Nine Inch Nails, Boris, QOTSA, Elliott Smith, Primal Scream, Jay- Z, Sigur Ros, Sonic Youth, Kanye, etc. etc. etc. But things get pretty fishy when you start saying that a David Banner song (ANY DAVID BANNER SONG), is better than Beck’s Lost Cause, or an LCD Soundsystem song is even slightly better than Jay-Z’s 99 Problems (or, for that matter, that a different LCD Soundsystem song is better than at least 498 other “great” songs. Even Radiogodhead).

So am I any better for commenting on Pitchfork’s seemingly arbitrary music rankings? Of course not. Am I playing into their hand by semi-publicly commenting on their articles? Probably (I’m sure they wouldn’t mind saying “We make these lists to piss people off!” because they’re insufferable).

To conclude: blahbitty blahbitty blah, I’m bored and Pitchfork is annoying.