What were you doing 10 years ago? Well, for Mr. Benjamin Gibbard, who turns 30 this week (happy birthday, dude!), that would have been playing the band Pinwheel. Mr. Gibbard, then performing under the moniker BenjaminD, shared lead vocal duties with Justin Kennedy, who now fronts L.A. popsters Army Navy. I'm having trouble tracking down the last names (and current band activites, if any) of bassist Brian and drummer Sean -- anyone know? Listening to this is a serious nostalgia trip -- really, really dated mid-90's proto-emo/powerpop, but still charming nonetheless. (Actually, it's kind of like listening to The Wrens' 1994 album, Silver.) Pinwheel also makes me think of Blake Nelson's novel Girl -- perhaps this is what Color Green, the band in that book, might have sounded like. [Thanks to the lovely person who ripped this to mp3 from cassette and put it out on the p-to-p networks!]



Pinweel, s/t, 1996
Pinwheel -- Honey And Acetylene
Pinwheel -- Idled Drivers
Pinwheel -- Phase Shifter
Pinwheel -- Pabst
Pinwheel -- Grape Juice
Pinwheel -- Malcom McDowell
(To the kids coming from the Death Cab board -- sorry, I had a problem with my hosting service and had to take these down. Hope you can find them elsewhere!)

In other news, to answer a question posed by Travis at This Big Stereo, I am totally lovin' on the new Christina Aguilera, Back to Basics. It's one classy pop record all around, and I mean that in an utterly sincere way. I think it's really neat how there's something about the production that makes it already sound mashed-up. I mean, it makes me think of DJ Food's Raiding the 20th Century. Which kind of makes my brain explode, since the lynchpin of that piece is, of course, is Freelance Hellraiser's seminal mashup "A Stroke of Genius." (In a testament to the ephemeral nature of digital music, I seem to have misplaced my file of that track, so stream it over here.)

Some quick hits:

Shocker! Lollapalooza was well-mannered and hardly rebellious. 'Cept maybe for Patti Smith on the kid's stage. Also, we're all for convoluted, mannered writing, but what does "the buoyant, la-la-filled, cheerfully inexplicable pop-rock of the New Pornographers" mean, exactly? Is the band cheerfully inexplicable, or the music? Perhaps that was the point... Anyway, would people stop hyping Anathallo already? The last thing the indie rock sphere needs is a bunch of marching band nerds from rural Michigan with a bizzare fetish for Japanese mythology trying to be The Next Sufjan Stevens, Andrew Lloyd Webber Style. Just. Please. Stop. Already. Good thing I don't have to see them open for new TRGAW darlings The Format.

Robbie Williams' new single "Rudebox" isn't a joke. We swear, it's really good -- if you have a sense of humor about it.

Robbie Williams -- Rudebox (iPop has the Riton remix...)

Is venture capital funding for overblown rock albums the wave of the future?

And, it would seem to be Goth Week over at Stylus. (I'm sure Pinkie will have something to say about that...)