Hi Sinister, Yup. That subject line is quite a doozy. But look here: my roommate and I had been talking, some weeks back, about the sort of pseudo-academic taxonomy that are genre names in music, and how it might be fun to just try to come up with a few of our own to propagate. So, Stine's post reminded me of one of the names we had tossed back and forth- date-rape rock. And the main practitioner of said genre? John Mayer himself. It works like this, I think (and, by the way, I just wanted to disclaim about a few things here- I'm not intending this in any kind of elitist condescending way. I enjoy JM, if mostly by merit of his insane vocal similarity to Dave Matthews + looking like he could be Matthews' younger and skinnier brother. Etc.)- Take your average frat-boy who likes JM a whole pantload. He likes to play him both to chill and rock out. Also, John Mayer can turn a phrase here and there, maybe at a level of wordplay the frat-boy hasn't quite worked himself up to. Said F-B can play John Mayer (or even some of the lighter Dave Matthews, see "Crash"), and by doing so, show some proximal girlie that he is sensitive enough to appreciate not only John Mayer and his gentle brand of smooth rock, but also is savvy enough to exhibit his endorsement of John Mayer by playing him in public, thereby somehow admitting his allegiance to such sensitivity. Our little F-B is endorced by and endorces John Mayer, and the barre-chord drunk chica has no choice but to fall for this little trick. Or so me and my roommate would like to think. I'm constantly on the lookout for some Post-Mayer practitioners of Date-Rape Rock, so let me know if you all find any. Besides that, huh. I almost set fire to a large residential complex the other day by trying to barbecue with charcoal for the first time in my life. Before anyone starts questioning my manhood, let me just add that I know how to work a *gas* grill as well as your average suburban father. But charcoal- whole nother story. I had some trouble using the matches that were provided, and it was almost scarily windy outside, so I decided, heck, why not use my cigarette lighter to get these briquettes in the mood. I picked one up in my hand, and had it cupped in my hand off to my lee side, and had just gotten the lighter to spark barely, when the thing was blazing, right there in my palm. Instead of just letting it go, I kind of threw it. Unfortunately, I also managed to adrenaline-propel that little sucker into a trashcan full of paper and other crap, and, uh, that started to catch fire too. Luckily, one of the girls who works for me was far less hypnotized by the flames (and is far less prone to saying things like 'whoa, that's awesome' when things break or are immolated, unlike myself), and grabbed some of the ice we had handy for the picnic, which had melted, and put out my (if I may say so) bitchin' refuse-fire. And for the rest of that night, I smelled like a combination of charcoal powder and meat, which hey, I hear that's like the equivalent of catnip to the ladies. Anyway, it's raining lightly here, and I'm listening to the new Ted Leo disc. It's good. I needed to buy another guitar album after such a long period with an aural diet of Matmos and Jan Jelinek. This is the last day of classes at the college that I work for, and all the students are wandering around drunk. I can't even begin to do it justice. Hope you're all well, Kevin +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+