None More Black

_{ALEC SOTH
Two Towels, 2005}

Today was one of those days where I just felt like a rock star. I can't really get into the whys and wherefores, but suffice it to say, I was in top form . The air was crisp, the tiny spring buds about to burst, and I, in my sunglasses, was doing something that I love and doing it quite well, if I do say so myself. Add to that fact that I survived some potentially undercooked yet very tasty homemade ravioli last night, polished off a decent bottle of wine, slept a handful of hours, and still felt on par with the rest of our Olympians, and you'll understand what I am talking about.

After doing the thing that I love quite well--and despite the fact that my computer along with, oh, all it's precious documents and archives, may be DOA--I came home and, like a true rock star, listened to music that I love . Gee, you might ask, what kind of music is the kind of music that Casey loves? Well, lemme tell ya. Today the album was That Skinny Motherfucker with The High Voice? and the artist of the aforementioned album is Dump. How can I articulate how much I love this album? How much it means to me? Well...I can't.

You must love Prince. I mean you really would have had to have grown up listening to those early formative albums over and over until the record wore out, until your throat was hoarse, until your thighs ached from pulling all those Prince-like maneuvers. This is an album of Prince covers. Covers you know well. So you have to like covers. You have to be able to appreciate them. Especially when they criss-cross genres. Especially when they criss-cross ones like pure pop genius (Prince) and pure indie rock eclecticism (yo la tengo) and arrive at something as special and brilliant and surprising and sweet as this album. But really for me, it's just one of those albums I can completely sing along with--unabashedly and unapologetically--shit-eating grin plastered all over my face, hips a rockin', toes tappin'. Talk about rock stars.