A victory for the mighty Sampler last month, as Seattle Weekly's 3/9 Metro Gnome column was devoted to owning up to some of its past blunders. The misnamed column also duly noted several deserved shots taken at it, but the worst retribution it could muster was to note that it's been running a few weeks longer than one of our columns here in The Stranger. If you can't go for quality, how 'bout quantity?
"She's a highly ranked singer and percussionist who's taken tambourine playing to new heights." -- I'm sure the woman in question in Ron Nachmann's review in the San Francisco Bay Guardian is a fine tambourine player, but this just sounds too much like the punch line of a joke. What do you get when you cross Linda McCartney with Yoko Ono? "I want to take tambourine playing places it's never been before!" And how do singers get to be "highly ranked"? Is she lining up to fight Holyfield?
Q's John Aizlewood describes Fiona Apple as "sufficiently physically attractive to avoid scaring horses, and beneficiary of a marketing budget that would keep Poland afloat for a few months." -- Congratulations, John, you just came up with her next album title!
"Your mind and body are taken over and you don't know what to expect, but you know there'll be a climactic conclusion that leaves you completely satisfied." -- While making a facile comparison between jazz and sex in LA Weekly, Lina Lecaro manages to contradict herself nicely. "You don't know what to expect, but here's what you expect...."
"Everyone knows how much I love Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee that I've stopped apologizing. I love their witty banter at the opening of the show. I love how Kathie Lee ribs Reeg and tries to get his goat all the time. I love how she's so nice to the people who lose the trivia contest and is always ready to send out one of her Winnie the Pooh records. And I love that she's got enough moxie to quit her day job to become a Broadway star. She's a gutsy broad, and I will send her a glowing crown she can wear for her remaining shows this season." -- This may not seem music related, but Tina Plottel decided to wrap up her Rock Stars Hate Me music column in Washington's City Paper with her own dead-on take of The Onion's I'm-so-pathetic A Room of Jean's Own. She also gets bonus points, not only for working in "moxie" and "gutsy broad," but also for being kind enough to term the shrill duo's banter as "witty."
