Top 10 Reasons Why The Pixies Still Rule, As Pondered on the Bus Home Yesterday

1. Black Francis, inevitably
2. Complete invisibility on commercial radio, so they are thereby guaranteed to avoid the edge-blurring sameness of classic rock oldies, forever and ever, amen
3. Kim Deal. Kim Deal. Kim Deal
4. Surf music guitar
5. Cod Espanol a la Peggy Hill
6. Loudness
7. Short songs. I cannot emphasise this enough. Leave them wanting more. Do you know how long 'Allison' is? One minute and seventeen goddamned seconds! Intro, verse, chorus, guitar solo, and they're OUT. I second that emotion!
8. Incest, incomprehensibility, and aliens
9. Singalongability
10. No image problems, because they didn't have one. David Lovering is the biggest dork-dresser of all time. And no one has ever given a fuck, and that is completely awesome

My Hero

Oh man, am I shamefully fucking late on this shit. For some reason Brent and I were overcome with some kind of weird tastefulness for the entire recent New Zealand run of this show on MTVNZ, and we didn't record it. Yet we managed to catch the reunion show and woooooowwwww. Yes, I too love New York. What a thoroughly horrendous, stupid, mean-spirited, crazy, wonderful woman she is.

Bless all Cantabrians

You know, I've said some pretty mean things about Christchurch in my life, and I feel ashamed of those mean things right now. Even if you hate the game and attendant hoopla more than life itself, this shit is pretty heartwarming on a basic human level. Thanks for your maturity, Cantabrians, because I was starting to think this whole country was pretty damned mean-spirited. And it turns out that no, it's not, and I can feel OK about us after all.

And shit, while I'm squeeing, let's take a moment to be happy about the Big Day Out. January 18, 2008: Arcade Fire, Dizzee Rascal, Bjork, LCD Soundsystem, The Clean, Paul Kelly, Billy Bragg, The Phoenix Foundation, SJD! Wahey! (Please, please, please let everyone I like be on the Green and Blue stages, in a row, without clashes... unlikely, but... please.)

And another thing: I got a Justin Timberlake ticket, thanks to the beneficence of my mother. I am ridiculously squee about it. I am also mentally fourteen years old.

It occurs to me with horrifying clarity that Chutes Too Narrow came out in 2004. Didn't it? Which means I forgot 'Saint Simon'. And, uh, I also really like that Phantom Planet song, 'Lonely Day'. Does this make me... an emo?