Conor Oberst is now officially more overexposed that Lindsey Lohan

http://www.mackron.com/random/fliers/thingy.jpg
ihttp://www.mackron.com/random/fliers/brighteyes.jpg

YESSSS.

(all the addresses, numbers, and links don't exist anymore.. Koo's is now in Long Beach, CA.)

is ANYONE worth the 'hype?' Better Oberst than Hoobastank. don't hate for the sake of hating, especially on such easy, ILM-SAFE targets

Every Bright Eyes song I've heard sounds exactly like THAT song. I'm just sayin'.

Ha-ha. And what part is the equiv of Simon going "I just pooted"?

Anyhow, there's a double page centrefold of Mr Oberst, complete with '100 things to see and do in Des Moines'special to continue their craft at always get something fundamental completely bolloxed.
You also get 'cut- out -and- keep'Conor masks complete with bottled tears.

Wow, I love that mag.

They also give .....Trail of the Dead's new one, 3/10. Now here, they just could be right?

I hope not . I haven't heard it yet.

(NB: I don't think, nor do I think my dad thinks, that I actually look like Conor -- that was just his way of nudging me and showing off that he's hip.)

Fuck that guy.

I thought it was horrible. No redeeming qualities whatsoever.I tried playing it , I dunno half a dozen times, as I do when I fall for hype that I fail to understand.

The Desaparacedos(yeah ok, spelling, right?). Well that is something I have played a lot and enjoyed. I can't imagine the hipsters liking that either.

Whatever floats one's boat....

the name of the gay bar is Blazing Saddle.

you can just imagine some boardroom, with all these old men sitting around like "hmm lets give that sad kid a push now"

im sure ill love the records regardless.

A POX ON HIM AND HIS STUPID DOE-EYES!! WAHH WAHH WAHH

quote from the RS article: "pretty girls are great. i mean, they're right up there with music as things that make life worthwhile." or some such.

29 Thoughts about the apparent sexiness of Conor Oberst

"1. You can't walk five feet anymore without someone going nuts about Conor Oberst. Just today the girl at the bagel shop called him "the next Bob Dylan," and my mailman said he was "blown away" by his "trenchant, gut-wrenching lyrics that make him seem like a precocious mix of Joan Baez and Leonard Cohen."

2. Okay, I'm making up the thing about the mailman, but still. People won't shut up about the guy.

3. I have to admit it: I'm having a tough time getting on the bandwagon. I think he's pretty inspiring as a story, genuinely decent as a human being, and he's got a neat haircut, but he strikes me as a bit of a guitar-pounder who never met a lyric he couldn't overwrite, and you can find a lot of those at an open mike near you. Something tells me without the neat haircut, he'd just be Conor, the guy serving me a Mochaccino in Omaha.

4. I feel evil saying these things. I mean, pop music is truly terrible. We should be bending over backwards to thank guys like Conor Oberst for existing. Who would we rather have, Ashlee Simpson?

5. I mean, really, it's probably just me. I can't handle young genius of any kind. I'm a huge jerk. Really.

6. Still, if some guy showed up at your house party and started playing heart-tugging songs like Conor Oberst does, you'd be like, "Who is this clown?"

7. Which is to say: musical genius is all about the context. Put Conor Oberst on Austin City Limits and it's like, "Wow, guy's a genius." Put him on the subway, and it's like, "Shut up, dude! I'm trying to read Harry Potter."

8. I'm probably just envious. Conor Oberst has done more by the age of twenty-four than I'd do with five lifetimes. When I was twenty-four I spent most of my time trying to watch porn on scrambled cable channels.

9. When Chopin was around, was there some idiot like me writing stuff like, "I don't get all the fuss!"

10. One thing that's cool about being Conor Oberst is that the girls who like you aren't those cheesy bubbleheads who are into Sugar Ray and Maroon 5. The girls who are into Conor Oberst are more like those long-legged, purple-haired girls you see on the train who are so comically pretty and stylish you can't believe they actually exist, and by the time you get to your stop you've actually courted, dated and married them in your head.

11. The reason some guys don't like Conor Oberst as much as girls is because every guy has had a girl leave him for a guy like Conor Oberst – that is, a smart guy who pays attention to stuff.

12. But it's not like guys don't have their Conor Obersts, either. Guys are the worst – we'll fall in love with any singer who's smart and cute. Who's that harp girl? Joanna Newsom? Geez Louise. I love her, and I have vacuum cleaners that sound better than that.

13. My personal Conor Oberst is Aimee Mann. Totally embarrassing, I know. Fifty years from now people will be like, "What the fuck is this?"

14. I was going to see Aimee Mann in concert not too long ago, but I chickened out. I didn't want to be surrounded by my pasty kind, standing there in our ripped jeans and Howard Dean T-shirts.

15. My new Conor Oberst is that dancehall girl M.I.A. She's amazing. In my fantasy life we've just gotten a new apartment and some kick-ass paintings.

16. If you're Conor Oberst, it's not like Natalie Portman is some kind of unattainable fantasy. It's actually real. One night she's at your show, grooving out. Then the next morning she's smoking a cigarette in your kitchen while you're calling your grandma to get her buttermilk pancake recipe.

17. Or if not Natalie Portman, at least someone like Maggie Gyllenhaal.

18. Cool rock kids like to be snobby about celebrities, but when you think about it, everyone took it pretty easy on Jack White for going out with Renée Zellweger. That's like the 2005 equivalent of William Burroughs dating Charo.

19. I've kind of had it with cool soundtracks like The O.C., Life Aquatic and Garden State. It's like, "Okay, okay, the director has eclectic taste – would it kill you to pick a Bob Seger song?"

20. I told my friend I didn't like Garden State, and it was as if I told him his mom was fat. People are bonkers about that movie.

21. It took me a long time to warm up to the White Stripes, too, so maybe I'm going to have my Conor Moment later on.

22. Besides, it takes me a while even to listen to stuff. I finally got around to buying that Kanye West album. I haven't listened to a lick of Interpol, The Rapture or Franz Ferdinand. I did see a Franz Ferdinand T-shirt in Urban Outfitters, though, which really killed them for me.

23. It's exhausting to keep up with new music. Sometimes I think I should throw out everything except Stevie Wonder's Talking Book, and I'd be perfectly happy.

24. I wonder if some people pissed on Talking Book when it came out. If so, I would like to travel back in time and fight them.

25. For the longest time I thought Conor Oberst's name was Bright Eyes. I still don't get the distinction, even though it's been explained to me forty-five times.

26. And I actually wrote a whole draft of this piece calling him "Conor Oberest." What a duncecap.

27. I didn't go see the Pixies. Life somehow moved on for me.

28. No one did it better than Fugazi. Does saying that really date me, in an awful, pathetic way?

29. Do you think Conor Oberst really can make buttermilk pancakes? n°

This is the greatest thing ever.

the new 'wide awake' album is actually pretty good. fuck the overexposure. he's developed as a singer, the lyrics are cunning and even cheerful at times, and the melodies are really fucking ace. the album counts ten tracks, so obv. he's finally maneged to edit himself, as everyone has been crying out for.

the 'digital ash' album is not so good, tho. his flirt w. samples is somewhat cool, but the lyrics are really, really lame - about death, death, death. well, kill yourself, already, if you're so fond of that shit!

i would love to hear what geir has to say about conor.

these are the thoughts that are immediately revolting (alternately, totally hilarious and awesome) to me.

they have that there?

Well, if I'm forced to choose, then YES!

galang galang my arienette

Three years ago my friend took me to the house of this girl he liked. She was a first generation American - her parents were German and she talked about how she was playing the sims a lot. She said we should go with her to a concert that weekend.

We arrived at the Magic Stick and I asked her, "Who's playing again?"

"Bright eyes."

"Never heard of them" I said, figuring they must be some small local thing. My friend turned to me and said

"Yeah, I guess the guy cries at every show" my friend said.

"Every show?" I ask

"Yeah. Every show."

"Wow."

We saw the two opening bands, one was a generic guitar indie rock thing, the other had girls playing cellos, when the girl we were with received a call that she had to return home ASAP. We missed Bright Eyes. On the way home my friend said

"I wonder if he cried tonight."

Oberst is young and ambitious. He wants to have an actual career, not a set of war stories to tell the other clerks at the Wal-Mart. He has enough of a fan base to make it look like he could get there from here, but not enough to say that he's actually there. So, in conjunction with releasing two (count 'em, two) records, he is engaging in a publicity campaign. That is a time honored, and often effective, way to build awareness and get people to listen to you and maybe buy records and tickets.

He is not more exposed than Lindsay Lohan. Not even this week (in which, admittedly, the exposometer has reached "Over").

And "Mean Girls" does not hold a candle to "The Parent Trap". Lindsay Lohan has a free pass until 2008 because of how adorable she was in The Parent Trap.

"Shut up, dude! I'm trying to read Harry Potter."

come one, that's funny!

COME ONE
COME ONE LOAD

This one (er, two) was (were) my favorite(s):
23. It's exhausting to keep up with new music. Sometimes I think I should throw out everything except Stevie Wonder's Talking Book, and I'd be perfectly happy.

24. I wonder if some people pissed on Talking Book when it came out. If so, I would like to travel back in time and fight them.

I have been to 6 Bright Eyes shows and have yet to see him cry.

You were blinded by your own tears. (Mine were tears of pain.)

B. Years ago I got a promo copy of "Blowing Up The Happiness," or whatever that Bright Eyes record was called. I think I made it maybe 5 minutes in then couldn't take it anymore and sold the thing. This is the extent of my Bright Eyes experience.

hahahaha!!! come one come all, it's a hoot! (i'm not usally feeling the funny with a lot of interweb stuff, so it's nice to see the exceptions.)

one of the best shows I ever did see was Bright Eyes and the Faint in Columbia in '99.

He does need to get off the drugs. :(

depends. new album 'im wide awake, it's morning' is very decent, juvenile singer-songwriting (he's 24, so he has to move on, though). emmylou harris almost brings an almost cohen-esque feel to some of the songs on that record.

other than that, he can be very hard to listen to. quite shrill and whiney. but sometimes with some self-distance, verging on self-irony. and 'lover i don't have to love' from 'lifted' is a very good, almost sexy, faux self-loathing pop-rock indie song.

who i really feel for in all this is Tim Kasher, who is making those more grown up records with two different bands, and getting significantly less attention for them.

how far we have fallen:-(

I don't understand the constant comparisons between Oberst and Robert Smith beyond the "poster boy for the darker side of the underground music scene" schtick. Obv. they can both be perceived as whiners, but the aesthetic is totally different: '80s post-punk/goth embraces dark romanticism/camp (Fat Bob's glam makeup = emphasis on human beauty/perfection); Oberst-stylee emo/singer-songwriter crap seems to be more concerned with highlighting imperfection and ugliness (young Mr. Oberst's bedhead shag = emphasis on human foible). (I say this as a huge Cure fan/Saddle Creek detractor, so maybe I'm missing the whole point of Bright Eyes!)

That's cool you were there too, considering it was maybe 30 people in the whole place. And he does slip into "self-pity = I'll play shitty" about 50% of the time. I think he'll grow out of that eventually.

anybody remember that kids show?

http://www2.wi.net/%7Erkurer/toontracker/simon.html

seems like someone told me that "simon" kid became simon gallup of the cure....
m.

Is it all the Good Life from now on? Not heard. Any good?

Cursive were a cut above . No longer?

Oberst is of Omaha, that's like two hours from Des Moines. hstencil, you from around here or just know of the gay bars? All said, I doubt Oberst knows shit about Des Moines.

I read a review of one of his shows in the guardian a while ago, and I think I saw him on the cover of an nme in w h smith's, apart from that, I've only ever read about him, here.

There is none more emo!

Even the NME know he's from Omaha. There was a double paged spread of the main man Oberst in said comic, so let the NME hyperbole role.

I went out with a girl from Osage, Iowa. Near Waterloo. NE Iowa. She didn't know the Obe, but had a friend in Omaha. This was in '89 though.

The Iowa Beef Experience were big at the time. Huge.

Every Bright Eyes song I've heard sounds exactly like THAT song. I'm just sayin'.

I may have to give Bright Eyes a second chance, then!!

He has publicists (Press Here Publicity), who put together a couple weeks of interviews in Oct/Nov, which are seeing fruition now with the album releases. I talked to him for Paste Magazine - on behalf of people over 30 - and I think I was his last interview before he went to Europe, to do even more press. He hates doing press, and he was really fried when I got to him, but he was unfailingly polite and insisted on buying the beer.

Of course, even publications that didn't interview him are falling all over him now, including the Boston Phoenix, which has put his pic on the cover twice this month ...

"Hey. It's Conor. You know the drill."

BEEP!

who's ani difranco for then?

Except a few of them are in Tilly and the Wall now. So i gotta represent and hope they blow up.

Mostly suburban rural people who fall into that subcultural zone where hippies and punk converge due to a mutual fondness for leftism.

24. I wonder if some people pissed on Talking Book when it came out. If so, I would like to travel back in time and fight them.

Indie rock meets Jack Handey