OK so, I'm turning this in by the deadline tomorrow night. Scrapped my above options (though I'm still interested in Op Ivy or Rancid) and decided on The White Stripes' "White Blood Cells," as a way to examine how exactly a band "breaks" and makes it big.

I had a front row seat to them going supernova while I was living just north of Detroit (with one very special interesting nugget) I like the band and it's shaping up as a totemic record of the 2000s and one of two from the neo-garage movement. Basically lots to talk about on top of the music, which the series seems to take a shine to.

Anyone wanna read this thing after I finish it tonight? It's short - under 2,000 words - and I'm gonna revise it tomorrow (Wednesday) before I send it in.

Thanks in advance.

bring it on over, i'm making more pasta.

Still pounding it out. I'll call when I'm done to see if you're up.

Damn you and your culinary skillz... yer makin' me hongry.

I'll be up, deena is watching the fellowship of the ring trilogy.

dana, you making it back down to sxsw or no way?

I'll take a crack at it.

great choice, chadwick!

Doubtful, but never say never.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, the carrier pigeon has flown. I put together what I feel is the best outline and pitch I'm capable of, so win, loseor draw I gave it everything I had. They hope to decide on the lineup by March.

Thanks to Phil, GAR and Rads for the food, feedback and words of support. It sounds corny but I'm really grateful to have fallen in with the lot of you. It takes the Obner to raise Thee Chad. Or something.

Happy new year, everyone.

John Peel heard the White Stripes at a Dutch music festival. Invited them to play live on his show, they blew the house down and every show on their first UK tour sold out as a result. Then the UK media started taking notice, 'White Blood Cells' was a hit in the UK and then the US followed up on the interest.

It took more than a year for them to get traction in the US. They got press, yeah, but even in Detroit they were pretty much weirdos outside of the scene geeks. The Gondry video was what really did it - maybe the last time you can really point to a video on MTV as the reason a band "made it."

(and Peel didn't see them at that festival. He saw their record in a Dutch music shop while he was there for the festival and picked it up because he thought they looked interesting.)

I keep meaning to read "The Manual"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manual

OK, so the complete list of submitted proposals (all 597 of them) has been posted here: http://www.33third.blogspot.com/

As noted in the roundup, short list of 100 or so semi-finalists will be selected in the next couple weeks. In the mean time, muse on what in the world seven different people could've had to say about Slint's "Spiderland."

Stay tuned.

Some very interesting submissions in that list - 3 for DbT Southern Rock Opera? Britney?!? And good luck dude, The D needs more representation in this series.

guess it's a good thing you didn't go with that

I'm still looking forward to a song-by-song comparison with Mainstreet, though.

Motherfuck

Not only did a different White Stripes proposal get picked
Not only did a proposal for Operation Ivy's "Energy" (the album I was heavily leaning toward pitching until a month out) get picked
But a proposal for goddamn Vampire Weekend made the cut.

Sonofabitch.

Hello Mr. Bottle of Wine, so nice to see you. It's been a while, no?

this series has jumped the shark.

these are just semi-finalists, but yeah, that raises some eyebrows.

So is your submission still in the running?

Nope. Got the "Sorry to inform you" email this afternoon.

They'll offer about 20 contracts from the semi-finalists listed here:
http://33third.blogspot.com/

disagree. i think it'll be a fairly interesting read.

more importantly, this will be awesome...

2 Live Crew – As Clean As They Wanna Be

and...

Jellyfish – Spilt Milk!!!!

fuggit. there's always next time man.