We can't promise you backstage passes, limousines, or groupies, in fact, we can't even pay you, but we can guarantee two things - someone will read what you've written, and someone will disagree with what you've written.

We are looking for a few good writers who want to blog about the alternative and indie music scenes from a variety of locations, perspectives, and genres. Applicants must enjoy music (of course) and be able to write good well.

If you're interested in blogging here, drop us a note and let us know where you're located, what kind of music you like, and what your background with music and writing is. Like we said, this is not a paying gig, you have to do it for the power and prestige alone.

I believed Apple when they told me I have to take all my music with me everywhere I go, and thus have taken on a Herculean task: Putting all my CDs on my iPod. Daunting though this may seem, it does have its payoffs, one of which is now and then hearing music as if for the first time. And that happened to me last night when I decided it was time to load up all my Velvet Underground.

I originally discovered the Velvet Underground around 27 years ago, listening to a bootleg of Patti Smith singing "White Light, White Heat" live. My friend said, oh, that's a Velvet Underground song, and I said, the who? So she played the original of "White Light/White Heat," and I just lay on the floor and thought: This is unbelievable. Who knew? And then she played "Pale Blue Eyes" and I was lost, lost, lost.

The Velvet Underground got their start as proteges of Andy Warhol, who designed the cover of their first album, 1967's The Velvet Underground and Nico. The lineup was Lou Reed on vocals, guitar and songwriting duties, John Cale on crazy electric viola, Sterling Morrison on guitar, Maureen Tucker on drums (girl drummer in 1965, how cool is THAT?), and for their first album only, Nico singing on three tracks ("Femme Fatale," "All Tomorrow's Parties," "I'll Be Your Mirror") of the cool dark pop Reed was writing then - if you can write pop songs about heroin and sadomasochism, which he could. And did.

Nico didn't stay with the band, Warhol lost interest, and in 1968, with Reed handling all the vocals, they released their second album, White Light/White Heat. And this time, they unleashed something primal and hard and cacaphonuous, that got rough in a way that still sounds modern today, unlike the music of many of their contemporaries who were, at the time, better known. They used feedback and distorted sound, and "Sister Ray" clocked in at SEVENTEEN AND A HALF MINUTES LONG - not even the most Ecstasy-drenched, mindnumbing electrotrancedance song gets away with that. This stuff was just weird and out of step with the 60s and anything remotely acceptable or marketable back then; this is the song that gave birth to punk rock.

Cale left after a huge feud with Reed, and was replaced by Doug Yule. The group released their third album, The Velvet Underground, in 1969. This one was more muted and less "anti-beauty," with a couple of standout rock tracks and a handful of chiming pop songs ... "Pale Blue Eyes," "Candy Says," and "Jesus," three of the best songs Lou Reed ever wrote. And of course, "Sweet Jane," possibly one of the most covered songs ever.

It made me absolutely crazy to see Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" listed on a "One Hit Wonders" playlist on iTunes, although I suppose the real problem is that "hits" are a piss-poor way to define the impact of a musician or a group on the music world. Reed and the Velvet Underground could have never had a "hit," and they'd still be more important than groups that churned out top forty hit after hit during the 60s. They influenced Patti Smith, Brian Eno, David Bowie, and so many others it would be impossible to list them. (Eno is supposed to have said that almost no one bought their first album, but everyone who did went out and started a band.)

If you have never heard them, and you're a fan of punk, post-punk, indie, lo-fi, or any other possible genre or hyphenation of alternative music, go find their stuff and listen to it. Then see if you can believe this music is forty years old. I was in kindergarten when it came out. You might not have even been born. Then tell iTunes to choke on their "One Hit Wonders."

Via WiredBlog from News.com:

For the last few years, a coalition of technology companies, academics and computer programmers has been trying to persuade Congress to scale back the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Now Congress is preparing to do precisely the opposite. A proposed copyright law seen by CNET News.com would expand the DMCA's restrictions on software that can bypass copy protections and grant federal police more wiretapping and enforcement powers.

What does this have to do with music?

From WiredBlog:

If you're feeling guilty about all the music you're downloading without paying for it, perhaps reading about new attempts to double down on the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) will help assuage that guilt. The "Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006" includes some frightening expansions of current anti-piracy efforts, making it illegal to "make, import, export, obtain control of, or possess" anything that can be used to circumvent copyright protection. It also allows authorities to use wiretaps whenever copyright infringement is suspected (as opposed to in general, without permission?), doubles copyright-related prison terms, allows for the seizure and destruction of anything used for copyright infringement, and more.

From BoingBoing:

The new law would send you to prison for attempting to infringe copyright. It would make it even more illegal to own tools that could be used to remove copy-restrictions, like DVD-ripping software -- it could even bust Symantec for making software that removed the Sony rootkit malicious software that the company distributed with its CDs last year.

And why are they doing this? Back to WiredBlog:

According to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the problem is that the money made by infringing businesses is being used "quite frankly, to fund terrorism activities." Sure, buddy.

I'm trying to comprehend where the money comes in with peer to peer sharing .... but OK. Go delete Limewire from your computer right now or the terrorists win.

Via Dave at Line Out, a 2003 gem from the Onion (need I say more?):

(M)y mind has features your iPod will never have. Does your iPod have real-time remixing? No?! Well, if I don't like the original lyrics to Kansas' "Carry On Wayward Son"—zip, zip, zing—my mind can change them! Adding a cool bass line or a rocking keyboard flourish to any piece of music? No problem! Adding images of myself performing on stage with the band? Done!

From The Stranger:

Blame Thomas Dolby if cell-phone ringtones piss you off. Nah, he didn't write that egregious "Crazy Frog" tune. But the '80s synthpop legend best known for the international hit "She Blinded Me with Science" is responsible for the polyphonic squawking of mobile devices worldwide, thanks to audio software developed by his company Beatnik.

More here.

The last guy I'd ever expect to see without his synthesizers is Erasure's Vince Clarke, but their just-released Union Street is an all-acoustic remake of songs from earlier albums. They didn't touch any of their hits, and there are no dance songs, just lots of silvery guitar from producer Steve Walsh behind Andy Bell's vocals. (Walsh is also the owner of the studio in Brooklyn that gave Union Street its name.)

I was living in Europe when Clarke, an original member of Depeche Mode, broke up his wildly successful synth-band Yazoo and started searching for a vocalist for a new group. I caught one of Erasure's very first shows, at a small club in London, where Andy Bell managed to sound disturbingly like Yazoo's Allison Moyet, and they brought the house down - most especially when Bell sang Abba's "Gimme Gimme Gimme" in leather jacket, motorcycle boots, and a pink tutu.

Erasure topped the charts in the UK and had some pop success in the US as well, but have usually been seen as the lightweights of the holy trinity of surviving 80s synthpop bands (the others being Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop Boys). Certainly DM and PSB are musically more complex and topically darker, but while there's no shortage of critics who don't think much of Erasure as musicians, the real problem is that they write pure pop love songs, and that is just so not cool.

Union Street's first cut was also the first single, and if they wanted to set the bar high, they succeeded. "Boy" is killingly beautiful, and had been all but lost in its original version on 1997's Cowboy. I wondered, in fact, how I had missed it, and just put Cowboyin the CD player and thought... ok, that's how.

Is the rest of the album as good as "Boy"? No, it's not, but most of it's very good indeed. For instance, their little trip through the back catalog turned up "Tenderest Moments," a b-side I'd never even heard before and that almost hits the heights of "Boy." And the guitars in this one, by Clarke as well as Walsh, are almost as purty as Bell's vocal.

Will this risk pay off for Erasure? Reviews so far have been mixed, so maybe, maybe not. But as Mallory O'Donnell said over on Stylus:

Erasure have taken a chance with Union Street, but then their continued insistence on making music this purely honest, tender and revealing is in itself taking chances in the face of hipster irony and designer miserablism.

And don't we all need that now and then?