A few days ago, over on Boingboing, Rob Beschizza shared his new writing setup. A planck keyboard, an old iMac, and some beautiful vintage speakers, tucked away in a corner of his abode.

I send out a semi-regular newsletter. Durring the warmer months, I tend to manage about an issue per week. You can sign up for it here. I just sent out today’s entry, which contains a couple of bits that I wanted to share a little more widely.

Earlier today I wrote about a 1980 album “Music for Parties” by the fake band Silicon Teens. This reminded me of the 1997 album Pulsars by The Pulsars (another band that doesn’t really exist), and their song “Silicon Teens”. Have we gotten meta enough yet?

Musically and culturally speaking, I find that there is something particularly special about early 80s minimal synthpop. I am fascinated with it in much the same way I am fascinated with modern bedroom-pop. It seems primitive, personal, and not quite fully formed. In 1980 the album Music For Parties was released, (allegedly) by a band called Silicon Teens. It’s mostly a collection of synth covers of 50s and 60s rock, with renditions of Chuck Berry’s Memephis Tennessee, Manfred Mann’s Doo Wah Diddy, and a particularly stellar performance of The Kinks’ You Really Got Me Now.

While I was putting together that piece on Jandek, I was reminded of a review I read that said that Lewis’ 1983 release L’amour sounded like Jandek covering Twin Peaks, and honestly, isn’t that something we all want in our lives?