She Wants Revenge stopped by the office today. Their record sounds like rejected demos Interpol threw together during experiments into goth territory. It is the photo-negative version of Ringside’s self-titled record, in that the two have similar forms, only where Ringside is light, She Wants Revenge is dark. It comes out on Tuesday.
It’s always strange when an artist visits our office. They’re usually there to plug an album or make themselves known to the people selling their records, but the employees who come to these things are mostly there for the snacks.
Occasionally, but not often, we’ll get an act like Nickel Creek that’s talented and well known enough to make everyone forget how absurd it is to play a show in a generic conference room in the middle of the day. More often than not, though, an unknown artist strums and sings to an audience who, if the artist is lucky, will stop mowing down their sandwiches long enough to clap politely once the playing stops.
She Wants Revenge didn’t even play for us, though. They just played their new video and talked for a bit about how they met and how weird success is. What’s especially impressive is that they were humble and charming enough to make me reevaluate my opinion of their music, which is no easy feat.
The Killers stopped by a few months after Hot Fuss came out to meet us, thank us for selling their record and eat some pizza. Most likely, their label tricked them into attending (or visiting Sacramento at all), so the event amounted to little more than sixty minutes of uncomfortable shyness and awkward silence with some marginally famous people. Good times.
Whenever anyone visits, though, I always wonder what they think of this sort of thing. I imagine they look at it as part of their job, but that doesn’t make the whole affair any less humiliating. Then I think about all the humiliating things I’ve done for work over the years and how they won’t be heading back to a cubicle after their performance and suddenly I think they don’t have it so bad.
About a month ago, I said I’d break up with the NBA for a while if it didn’t happen. It may just come to that.
Everyone said the window had already closed by the beginning of last season, but they scrapped their way to fifty wins and kept that window cracked. It’s been clear since the first weeks of the 2005-2006, though, that these Kings would not seriously compete for a title anytime soon unless something changed. Something almost changed in a big way today.
Peja Stojakovic for Ron Artest seemed like the ideal deal for everyone involved. I’ve loved and defended Peja. At some point, though, the faults became too much to take. Whether it was his reluctance to rebound or his outright refusal to defend or his inability to create his own shot or flashbacks to his tendency to disappear during the postseason or his tendency to miss several games at a stretch for something like a sprained pinky, something snapped and I was just finished with Peja.
I don’t hate the guy by any means, which is why the possibility of him going to Indiana of all places pleased me. Back when he made a brief MVP run in 2003-2004, a lot of people, foolishly or not, compared him to Larry Bird. Maybe being around Mr. Legend, plus having the privilege/duty of filling the long-range-shooter position Reggie Miller left behind might make those flashes of greatness Peja gave us during his time in Sacramento more than just flashes.
Then there was the tantalizing possibilities of bringing someone as talented and as totally fucking insane as the illustrious Ron Artest into the Capitol City. He has the scoring ability to hang with Peja (whose scoring, his one dimension, has fallen way off this year), plus Ron Ron gives you rebounds, three-plus steals a game and lockdown defense, something Sacramento simply hasn’t seen in years.
Of course, there’s also the fact that he’s crazy. Now, the shenanigans at the Palace last year cannot be condoned– that’s obvious– but I implore you to take a look at this timeline of Artest craziness (which happens to be one of the most entertaining documents I’ve read in a long time). You’ll see that Artest is fun crazy, not dangerous crazy.
If you follow the Kings, you’ve seen how eighteen months took them from being one of the most fun-to-watch, winningest teams in the league to a group of dudes who occasionally, for 48 minutes at a stretch, do something completely joyless that someone somewhere might call basketball. Top-twenty talent and an injection of entertaining crazy might just right the ship.
He’s been called a cancer before and, well, there’s considerable evidence to support that. People have said the same thing about Bonzi Wells, but he’s been a model citizen during his time in Sacramento. Plus, before the groin injury, he was one of the most productive and exciting Kings. There is a chance that, when paired, Ron Ron and Arthur Bonzarelli could turn into some sort of uber-cancer. If that were to happen, the team should just go with it and start plundering other teams for their cancers and change the name of the team to The Tumors. What’s scarier than a tumor? They’d surely top a basketball mascot power ranking poll.
But something happened. Either Ron or his agent decided he wouldn’t be interested in playing in Sacramento, so Petrie nixed the whole thing. Done. Finito. Maybe.
There are rumblings that Ron might be convinced to reconsider, but if he doesn’t, the Kings are screwed even worse than they would be if Peja walks at the end of the season without giving allowing the team to work out a sign-and-trade.
If Peja comes back to the Kings, there’s no way he plays at full capacity. The trade rumors wore on him just as much as all his aches and pains. You don’t think he’s going to be a little off after the team tried to get rid of him, especially since the Maloofs were apparently somewhat indelicate when they informed him of the deal?
Basically, they’re going to have to trade him quickly, which means they will get, at best, fifty cents on the dollar for him—certainly not someone as talented or insane as Ron Artest.
And what if the trade does go through? Fans here might be somewhat hostile to a crazy dude who apparently doesn’t want to be in Sacramento, whose refusal to play in Sacramento might permanently damage the franchise. Add in the fact that he hasn’t played in six weeks, that it might take him some time to play into game shape, that he won’t be The Complete Ron right away and he’s going to get savaged. That sellout streak at Arco (which I think is a sham anyway) might come to an end. We might see Kings fans’ breaking point, which could either mean empty seats and lower ticket prices (not likely) or the team gets more encouragement to move to Anaheim or Vegas (pretty damned likely).
So, either way, things don’t look too promising for the Kings right now, but at least change is on the way, which might just be exciting. Maybe I’ll stick around to see how things unfold.
Download: 4-ize - “Ron Artest”
Even though I own roughly a bazillionty CDs and I accumulate more on an almost daily basis, I have habit of leaving the same ten discs in my car CD changer for months on end. In an effort to motivate myself to refresh them more often, I’ve decided to write about what I’ve got in my stereo. Here’s what I’m listening to this week:
- Jamie Lidell - Multiply
Every year, there’s usually one or two R&B records I listen to way too much. In 2005, T.P. 3: Reloaded was one; Multiply was the other. On the vintage-sounding tracks like “What Is It This Time,” “Game For Fools,” he sounds like Creedence-era John Fogerty doing an Otis Redding impression, while he shows affection for Fela Kuti on “New Me.” “Yougotmeup” may be my favorite opening track of last year and never fails to make me spazz out. I really need to lay off of this record because the thought of growing tired of it makes me incredibly sad.
- Sondre Lerche - Two Way Monologue
It could be the cold weather or work-related stress but I am so in love with comfort right now. Comfort is boring and certainly not sexy, but I find myself drawn to warm blankets and big vats of mashed potatoes and records like this. It’s smooth and buttery and I know it inside and out and I’ll be damned if I don’t need that sometimes.
- Brendan Benson - One Mississippi
If man and property could legally marry, there was a time I would have proposed to this disc, but I somehow let over a year pass between spins. Hearing this now only reminds me how weak and lazy his songwriting has become in the years since—and I like his last album. Maybe it was his youth or his partnership with Jason Falkner or the fact that major label machinations hadn’t yet crushed his spirit, but the songs here spark and pop in a way that none of his newer material does.
- Elvis Costello on Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz
I only seem to catch Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz show on NPR when I’m driving back to Sacramento from my mom’s house, but I should make it a point to listen more often because I always enjoy it. Several episodes of the show have been released on CD including this one featuring Elvis Costello. Elvis is interesting and entertaining during the interview segments and sounds elegantly melancholy during the songs. I’m especially fond of their versions of “At Last,” “Gloomy Sunday” and “The Very Thought of You.”
- Diana Krall - Love Scenes
After listening to Elvis sing some intimate, gentle jazz, I figured it would be appropriate to listen to his lady do the same thing. I would have most likely never listened to or liked this if it hadn’t been one of the only English-language albums we had available for in-store play when I worked at The Nature Company in high school. I’ve got nothing against foreign-language music, but this record became a welcome oasis when sandwiched between several hours of New Age bullshit and terrible World music comps geared towards aging hippies. I still have warm feelings for Love Scenes because of this.
- Michael Jackson - Thriller
Has anyone else noticed how Eddie Van Halen’s guitar on “Beat It” is so magically awesome it masks how completely WTF this song is? I mean, “show ‘em how funky strong is your fight?” What does that even mean?
- Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
You can hear me say nice things about Bloc Party by clicking this here link.
- Andrew Bird - And The Mysterious Production of Eggs
So perfect and wonderful and cathartic and slightly offbeat and so far away from where he started his career and and and and and. My second favorite album of 2005, trailing only Late Registration.
- Sam Phillips - A Boot and a Shoe
This may have officially overtaken Rufus Wainwright’s self-titled album as my favorite rainy day record of all time. The songs are concise, the arrangements spare and the lyrics resonant. I would murder upwards of seven hobos to have her smoky voice or the ability to write songs like “If I Could Write,” “I Dreamed I Stopped Dreaming” and “How To Quit.” You might remember the gorgeous “Reflecting Light” as the song playing when Luke and Lorelei had their dance at Luke’s sister’s wedding on “Gilmore Girls.” Then again, you might not. You, unlike me, might actually be a man.
- The Gap Band - IV
I love the production on this album and the songs sound like they were given to us as a gift from generous aliens from Planet Awesome, but I have a problem with how the album’s sequenced. I mean, if you start an album with a six-and-a-half-minute sweaty dance party bonanza like “Early In The Morning,” how the hell do you expect anyone to have enough energy to make it through the rest of the album? I know “Outstanding” and “Lonely Like Me” are coming up, so I don’t want to stop listening, but I usually feel like I need a shower or a sandwich after the first track. On an unrelated note, if I ever make it to the major leagues– I HAVE MY FINGERS CROSSED!!!—”You Dropped The Bomb On Me” will be the song you’ll hear on the PA as I walk to the plate.
