The Morning News

Friday, July 25, 2008

Currently: publishing summer-style
Today’s Feature: “The 11:11 to Penn Station, or Exodus” by Emily Meg Weinstein
Digest: “Mp3 Digest” by Mike Smith

Stories

Monkee Wives

Record companies build bands on trends, hoping their musicians will rise to the top of the newest! hottest! sound. Not every band, though, can have an exclamation mark. THE EDITORS inspect the rejects.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack are the founding editors of The Morning News.
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a memo of proposed musical outfits, found on the desk of a recently fired music executive

Pepperoni Pizza Party
Concept: Five eight-year-olds, five small guitars.
Flaws: Everyone wants to play drums.
Solutions: Five small drum sets.

Dirty Rotten Jerk and the L.A. Stories
Concept: Band members represent Steve Martin at different points of his career. (First single: ‘Roxanne’)
Flaws: Goldie Hawn wants to sing back-up.
Solutions: Martin Short volunteered ‘to move stuff, or whatever you guys want, seriously.’

Freezer Burn
Concept: Ski-pop. Members wear blue spandex bodysuits and goggles, kind of a Ziggy-Stardust-in-Gstaad thing.
Flaws: That snowboard fad.
Solutions: Mountain Dew commercials.

The Monocles
Concept: Nineteenth-century detective rock. Band wears Sherlock Holmes-style gear, complete with deerstalker cap and accessories.
Flaws: Halfway through the summer tour band members complain of, alternately, ‘whooping cough,’ ‘consumption,’ ‘typhoid,’ ‘dysentery,’ ‘scarlet fever,’ and ‘the white plague.’
Solutions: All-weather tweed.

The Dumped
Concept: Spoken-word by Gwyneth Paltrow’s ex-boyfriends in front of a Greek chorus of agents and publicity assistants.
Flaws: Show likely to exceed 14 hours.
Solutions: US Weekly already signed to sponsor tour.

March ‘n’ Roll
Concept: Band wears marching-band uniforms and marches in place on stage. Songs can be a combination of contemporary covers and originals, all done in a new signature sound: Drum and Brass.
Flaws: Limited appeal outside Texas.
Solutions: Expand Texas.

The Strikes
Concept: Garage-rock quintet with Teamsters agenda.
Flaws: Converse is anti-labor. Also, the name ‘Julian Casablancas’ sounds like a mobster.
Solutions: New single, ‘Hoffa Wasn’t My Man,’ should move us in the right direction.

Insane Clown Posse

Concept: Rodeo clowns craft metal songs.
Flaws: None.
Solutions: Everything is going according to plan.

—Published August 15, 2002