Inexcusable Internet Void: List of Bands Touted as "The Next Smiths"

I am now on my 16th Andorid phone.* I think, I don't have time to do an exact count. But I have long since abandoned my old XM/Sirius/Sirius XM in favor of just streaming Pandora through my car stereo (Rock and Roll Astronaut if you want to check out any of my stations.)

During a recent drive to/from work I heard a James song I wasn't familliar with. I clicked the info button to see if they said what year the album was from, but Pandora just gives you their bio blurb from AllMusic . The first line of which makes the claim for them as being poised to ascend the throne of Angst-Ridden College Rock. Since this power vacuum is a period I have been trying to explain to Red, I did a Google search trying to find all of the mope-lettes that Spin, Q, NME,120 Minutes, or any other quasi-reliable source declared as viable pretenders to the seat of Poet Laureates of Woe.

In all the Interwebs ain't nuthin' turned up except this great article about Marr's prolific post-Smiths projects, which is fun but not exactly close to the mark. So now it is up to me, as a Salford Lads' Club-certified Smiths authority, to compile this totally-not-just-pulled-out-of-my-ass, semi-comprehensive list to which all future search queries can be directed. Ladies and gentlemen-who-could-use-a-little-more-sun, I give you 20 years too late...

THE NEXT SMITHS:
-James
-The House of Love
-The Sundays
-The Ocean Blue
Oh, and probably the winner for all intents and purposes...
-The Stone Roses

Wow. I thought there were more. I wish I would have written something down in 1988, or made a mix tape, or saved some magazine clippings. My memory is shot. No wonder there wasn't anything devoted to this before.

Since that was so anticlimactic, let me share this clever 8 Bit Smiths clip my friend J sent me. I assume he made it because he is awesome and I did not read a single word on the associated website.

*By-the-by, although I have posted from one or more of my aforementioned 15 other Android phones, this overly-hypenated, linked, and photo'ed post was made possible by my so-cool-it-can't-be practical Lapdock do-hickey. If you haven't heard of these things, it is a dummy netbook you can plug certain phones into which turns it into a mini computer. If your immenantly-doomed workplace will expense one for you, you should totally get one. Otherwise, no need to bother.

Don't get yer knickers in a twist...

...sure this is a new post, but it ain't like I am going to be blogging on any sort of regular basis again. I just wanted to put something up to let everyone know I did some housekeeping. I got around to moderating the 600+ comments that had piled up. About 12 were legit. But my sincere thanks to those 12!

More importantly, I cleared all those [lovely] wedding photos out of my Picassa account to make room for Blogger images. So as you can see, at least some of my priorities are straight. This was vitally important to the honeymoon post below. At this point I can't even tell you how I got some of those images, but they come together so beautifully I could not let them vanish into cyberspace. (I love this so much I have already scrolled through it 3 times in another tab while I have been writing this.)

And since it will probably be months before I post again, above is my new graphic of me and Red entitled "come rain or come shine." I have been sucked into bootleg graphics software that is 2 or 3 generations out of date. If anyone is interested in donating to help me buy a fully licensed current version, I will set up a PayPal button.

Honeymoon Photos

Of course I am not going to post ACTUAL photos from our honeymoon, but if you read between the lines, the following pictures put together a pretty accurate story of what went on...

Introducing...

...for the first time in the blogosphere, Mr. & Mrs. Evil Genius!

Operation: Start Again

Why have I not been blogging? Do you not remember that I have been planning a wedding? Oh, you think this is the 1950's when the guy is asked to help pick out the china pattern and then all he has to do is show up? [wrong answer buzzer]

I have been busting my ass for the past however many months. I have spreadsheets like you never seen. I have picked out individual coloring books for each child that will be at the wedding, I have an usher assigned to pay off the homeless guys that hang out on the church steps. I have put 248 stupid labels on 124 stupid bottles of water to go into 62 stupid welcome bags. I have downloaded numerous fonts for the wedding program until finding one Red did not turn her nose up at. I created a save-the-date card that was so brilliant that a lot of people did not understand it. I created an awe-inspiring website and secured a pretty decent domain name for it. I have color-coded seating charts and reformatted them twice so my 70 year-old mother can see that I did not seat my aunt in some dark corner.

So now that we are at T-9 days, I have a few things which I have compared to being less involved than planning a wedding:

• Mounting an amphibious assault campaign on Guatemala.
• Earning an advanced degree in robotics.
• Creating an exact replica of a medieval tapestry that can be carbon dated to no later than the 14th century.
  
• Training cats to ride unicycles.
• Making a stop-motion movie of Tess of the d'Ubrvilles using Lego.

Which is why I have named this campaign, Operation: Start Again. Though the folks at Zazzle uncoolly pulled some copyright bullshit on me when I tried to have tee shirts made.

I have my nieces taking video of the reception on Filp cams that I bought them, so I should be able to post some raw footage once we get back from our fabulous honeymoon in Bermuda! (Footage of the honeymoon will not be provided without credit card information.)