Caught in the Carousel

Letter from the Editor - July 2009

Here It Is Tomorrow

**The big winner on American Idol? Queen. Looks like they've got themselves a new lead singer. Adam Lambert may not be Freddie Mercury, but like Mr. Mercury, he's got charisma to burn. The newly vacated post would be a perfect place for Lambert, who has the necessary combination of bravado, showmanship and vocal chops to fill Mercury's shoes. It's too perfect. Which means it probably won't happen.

**The big loser on American Idol? American Idol itself. It's a franchise that's slouching towards oblivion...

**But back to the actual winner: Kris Allen. He seems nice in a kind of non-descript, generic white guy way and his talk show rounds revealed him to have absolutely nothing to say. The big question is, will his (yawn) debut outsell Taylor Hicks' debut?

**Taylor Hicks was the guy who won American Idol a few years ago.

**Salt and pepper hair, Soul Patrol...Not ringing a bell? Not even a little?

**One more note on Queen. Before they showed up on the finale to share the stage with Allen and Lambert, they had just announced they'd parted ways with singer Paul Rodgers. Interesting timing. Looking back, That Lambert/Allen performance is seeming more and more like a job interview.

**Who's singing for INXS these days, by the way? That job is rumored to have opened up recently.

**Speaking of new flesh for old bands, Adam Green could easily front The Doors. Before you protest, listen to "Gemstones."

**And Ben Harper could lead a retooled Sublime.

**In late May, Morrissey turned 50. Here's to another 50 years of avoiding double-decker busses and ten ton trucks.

**Jessica Biel in "Easy Virtue": Winceworthy. Nobody has ever vandalized Noel Coward so thoroughly. This is what happens when being pretty just isn't enough. UnBIELevably bad.

**And speaking of "Easy Virtue," the movie closes with Billy Ocean's "When The Going Gets Tough (The Tough Get Going)" recast as a jazz standard. Easily one of the most batshit ideas in recent memory. Turning Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone" into a thrash metal number wouldn't have been half as stupid.

**Blink 182: I never liked them; the terrible lyrics, that awful singing, those cocky smirks...But during their two night residency on The Tonight Show, drummer Travis Barker showed everyone he was the heart, soul and the rest of the vital organs of that band. He was absolutely jaw-droppingly good. Mark Hoppus and Tom DeLonge couldn't keep up with him. It was like watching Michael Jordan playing one on one with eighth graders.

**The Libertines are playing secret gigs around England. I'm not so secretly very fucking excited.

**Lee Mavers is rumored to be plotting the long-awaited second La's album, using members of Babyshambles and players to be named later. To put it in literary terms, this is like J.D. Salinger announcing he'll be publishing a new book with McSweeny's. In other words: it could be the coolest news of the year.

**Speaking of rumors, it turns out the report that singer Bryan Adams and Pamela Anderson are a romantic item was false. Had it been true that certainly would have changed my interpretation of "Summer Of 69"

What gets me through the night?
The Church—#23
David Gann's The Lost City Of Z
Wheat—White Ink, Black Ink
Expedition Africa
Kaya Oakes'—Slanted And Enchanted: The Evolution Of Indie Culture

Write, call, you're so skinny....

Love and Rockets,
Alex Green
Editor, Caught In The Carousel
Alex670@earthlink.net