Attention wealthy benefactors, wherever you are: LPTJ needs this. It would be an exaggeration to say that it's a matter of life and death, but LPTJ is known throughout the English-speaking world for its love of exaggeration. So, it is totally a matter of life and death, insofar as I am gonna hold my breath until this thing shows up in my living room. I understand that insane impulse purchases are generally not outwardly-directed affairs, though. Fair enough. At the very least, anyhow, click on the playfield pictures and marvel with me at the half-obscured-for-legal-coverage band names across the field. Completely, completely awesome. Somewhere out there may be an early-eighties equivalent celebrating the bold new music coming out of the South Bronx. One can dream.

Now on the one hand you might say. I have heard enough grind to last me a lifetime. Or again you might say. What is grind. Or yet again you might say. Can we just talk about The Crane Wife. No no we cannot. The members of Swedish goregrind band Regurgitate. They are coming down your street. They get the funniest looks from. Everyone they meet. Hey hey, we're Regurgitate. And people say we monkey around. People are lying sacks of shit though, dog. They will kill you for a dollar. They want the dollar to take down to hell with them. Somebody actually said that to me once. He was right.

I don't do this much, but Chuck Berry changed my goddamn life, even though he stopped writing songs before I got to high school. Happy birthday, Chuck. You are one of the greatest songwriters who ever lived, and I'd give my right arm for you to write a new album's worth of material.

Last Plane to Jakarta is at a loss to explain why this bullshit isn't lighting up the indie newswires & blogosphere. Do we gotta get all brain-damaged-righty-pundit on that ass? OK, cool: where is the outrage, people? Have the mellow reverbed tones of cheap strats so placated us that we can't make at least a little stink when a policeman assaults an alt-countryish band onstage, is caught in the act on digital video, and starts tasering 14-year-olds? Are we afraid that people will make fun of us if we talk about how something like this affects our community?

I don't know, you know, we all got stuff to do. But we also all spend staggering amounts of time in front of keyboards. Use five minutes of that time to write to the Houston PD and tell them respectfully that you hope there'll be a thorough investigation into this incident. When policeman are attacking musicians, something's awry. Maybe I missed the memo about how alt-country dudes are now assumed to be armed and dangerous or something. I don't think so, though. This is unacceptable and merits a passionate but reasoned response.

Thanks to Matt at HoustonSoReal for holding it down as usual. Good man in a tight corner, Matt. Condolences and love to Pam at Walter's on Washington, a good person running a good club who doesn't need this kind of nonsense.

update: Pitchfork's Amy Phillips is now reporting on this. Good on you Amy.