Outside Counsel

If I wanted a U2 album I'd have gone out and gotten a U2 album. And I think it is a little weird that Apple can just put stuff on my phone. I mean, Thanks for the U2 album, Apple, but stay out of my stuff from now on, okay?

UPDATE: I'm not sure when I last listened to a U2 album straight through. Maybe Joshua Tree? I just don't need that much soaring pretention spiritual idealism in my life, you know? Anyway, this U2 album, which is called Songs of Innocence, god help us, sounds pretty much like every other U2 album I've ever heard or imagined. There is a song (it may be the single) about Joey Ramone, and that seems odd to me: what did Joey Ramone make of Bono, I wonder? If Bono had predeceased Joey Ramone, would Joey Ramone have written a song about him? Is there really any need for another song about Joey Ramone when Amy Rigby has given us this?

Also, while we are on the subject, I'd like to propose a few rules for bands. Rule One: Only one member may be barefoot on stage. (We can call this the Abbey Road Rule.) Rule Two: If you have a chick singer she is either the singer full-time, or she plays an actual instrument. Tambourine is not an instrument, Betty. Rule Three: If one member has a nickname, or a stage name everyone else must either adopt a nickname or a stage name, or no-one else may adopt a nickname or a stage name. So Ringo is fine, or Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, but either Bono and The Edge agree that one of them goes by the name on his Baptismal Certificate, or Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr. adopt nicknames. I'd pay money to see Bono and The Edge in a steel cage match over who gets to keep their nickname (both of which are stupid and pretentious), but it would probably be easier for all of us if the other two just assumed names. For years I thought that Clayton's name was a weird homage to the late Harlem congressman, Adam Clayton Powell. If it actually is, then we are already nearly there, and if it isn't he should add "Powell" and wear Black Power tee shirts. The die is cast for Mullen-- he is Junior Mullen from now on. (And by the way, what's up with that guy from the Eagles, Timothy B. Schmidt? Was he getting a lot of mail for some other Tim Schmidt?)

A final U2 note: I should mention that I have seen them live. They were at the Tibetan Freedom Concert on Randall's Island back in 1997, along with Noel Gallagher, Foo Fighters, Sonic Youth, Biz Markie, Alanis Morissette, Patti Smith, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Radiohead, Yungchen Lhamo, Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals, A Tribe Called Quest, Beastie Boys, Rancid, Björk, Pavement, Blur, Michael Stipe & Mike Mills, Taj Mahal and Phantom Blues Band, De La Soul, Dadon, Chaksam-pa, Nawang Khechog, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Eddie Vedder & Mike McCready, KRS-ONE, Porno for Pyros, and Lee Perry featuring Mad Professor & the Robotiks Band. Patti was great, A Tribe Called Quest was-- not my sort of thing, I guess. I don't recall a lot of the others-- there were multiple stages, but I absolutely remember that U2, who were in their Zooropa phase, were dreadful.