Quick and to the point

These news items are all about a month old, but let's tackle them anyway:

-- The full lineup for MUTEK 2008 is AWESOME, probably the best in the history of the festival. Christian Fennesz and Tim Hecker playing back-to-back? A dubstep picnic? Underground Resistance?!?? I won't be there for the fifth straight year, but someday ... I will.

-- I kept away from it for a few weeks, but upon viewing the new Black Kids video once again, I'm still disappointed that they didn't understand that so much of the warped magic of the song was wrapped up in burying the vocals deep into the mix with a generous helping of echo. So I guess the sound on the demo was just a case of being too poor to record and mix the vocals "properly" (read: a radio-friendly manner).

-- If it was possible to place and enforce a worldwide ban on cover versions of particular songs, "Heroes" would rank near the top of my urgency list. The Magnetic Fields' version is great, but every other version I've heard tries to turn it into a straight-up rock song instead of an FX-laden ambient prog-rock song, and is thereby embarassing and an insult to the original. The latest offenders: The Arcade Fire.