a chewy issue of the Wire, the current one (August)... Sherburne on Villalabos (hilarious that his forthcoming Fabric mix-CD consists entirely of... his own tunes eh); Rob Young's primer on the British psych-folk tradition; invisible jukebox with Jonathan Harvey "the British Stockhausen"; Epiphany from Dead C's Bruce Russell on hearing the Dolph acetate of The Velvet Underground and Nico (so apparently the thin, reedy, crapness of the production wasn't the band's choice, wasn't a deliberate aesthetic, but came about because of botched decisions by some executive at Verve, which means that the entire history of indie is based on a false premise)...

and a profile of Whitehouse, who, considering they've dedicated almost three decades of their lives to utter idiocy, come across as pleasant and intelligent fellows. Funny, too, especially the bit where Bennett, talking about the new album's title, Racket, says it came from some noise musicians who didn't like the band's recent direction and said, accusingly, "you're not making noise, it's just a fucking racket". Heh heh! Later it occurred to me, the other meanings of "racket":

2/ A dishonest business or practice, especially one that obtains money through fraud.

3/ An easy, profitable means of livelihood.