dig it

Tom Petty's first big band was called MUDCRUTCH.
SO weird that name didn't stick, such a nice RING to it...

Summer Friday jamtimes, guys.

some bands I like to name check

DID YOU KNOW:
When I was in the single digits, MTV used to play music videos almost exclusively? True story!
This song was HUGE.



Did you also know that Michael Stipe used to have hair? A LOT of hair?
Well, now you do.
SIDENOTE: I am wondering how many of you had to Google "Michael Stipe" (Don't tell me).

I used to really dig REM! Is that TMI? Who knows anymore.
You know who else likes REM?

PAVEMENT!
This song says so.



Time to dust off NO ALTERNATIVE (Why am I lying, I never stopped listening to this.)

I was so into this record!!! Iris by The Breeders, Glynis by The Smashing Pumpkins. Such key songs to my teenage angst.

Steve brought up doing a deejay night where we only play this &DGC Rarities Vol 1 (I say WE because I invited myself to be co-DJ). You guys would come, right?!?!?!....right? WHATEVER, we can hang out ALONE and sing along to Jamie:



Aaaaaand that concludes 'Another Trip Down the Rabbithole of Youth Jamz with White Lightning'. Thanks for playing along.

HAPPY FRIDAY.
ALSO!!!!
COME TO THE HESTER STREET FAIR ON SUNDAY!!!! 
Hester & Essex, 10 AM-6 PM.
I'm selling vintage clothes/bags/shoes and some designer stuff (Marni, Chloe, Doc Darcies), copies of First Kiss.
See you there!
EDIT: I canceled due to the fact that it's sposed to rain ALL DAY LONG. Bummertown USA.

come hang out with me!

Free show tonight, you guys!!!

Black Keys + free entry + open bar 

= 

win/win/win 

9pm

Classic Car Club

250 Hudson St. (Hudson & Broome) 

18 & over (oh, so i JUST made the cutoff, GREAT!)

Early birds get the booze, brahs.
I will probs be wearing my gold platforms..come say hello!!!


xo
WL

never been too good with names but i remember faces

Remember when Johnny Depp did music videos?
I would say that his role in The Lemonheads It's A Shame About Ray is nowhere near as epic as his role in Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers' Into The Great Wide Open although Evan Dando's dreaminess in the former makes it almost tie for overall hotness with the latter.

...What?

When's the last time you watched this?
I must admit...not so much happens. Dando is a babe. The girl looks like an Urban Outfitters catalog model. Depp is a ghost? STILL...so great!



IMPORTANT:
If I could only listen to 5 albums for the rest of my life, this record would be one of them. It is 12 perfect tracks (fuck that added-later "Mrs Robinson" shit). The puzzle piece behind the couch that makes the sky complete!
Listen and love, young grasshoppers who were born when I was buying this at Sam Goody with a gift certificate from my rollerskaing birthday party, listen and love.

Nostalgia Bonus, deeper into the rabbithole:
The song that made Ben Lee (then in Noise Addict) famous, I Wish I was Him. It's about Evan Dando and my favorite line is "He's got 6 different flannel shirts, Airwalks not thongs, he even understands the words to Pavement songs." He was 13! This video is a sort of revamped version of the original, and I don't like it as much, but it's still pretty rad.



And for all you newly minted riot grrrls, here is a cover the aforementioned ode to my early teens years love by Kathleen Hanna.


Are you having a 90s braingasm yet?
HAPPY FRIDAY!

i was thinking about your record collection

SOMEONE IN THE UK HAS GOT GREAT TASTE IN TEE SHIRTZ !

THE SCEPTRES

Yesterday I got an email from a reader named Bryony (pictured above!!) telling me that I might like to know that my tee made it to the "english punk rock dingy pub DIY scene". Why, YES I would like to know and I am DELIGHTED. That's her in the pic! With her band The Sceptres! In my tee!!! EXCLAMATION POINTSSSSSS!!!!!

Seriously...HOW COOL IS THAT?

I checked out their site and I am reallllly feeling it. My favorite song is Flatline Generation..Bryony, send me some 7"s!!!! 

Listen to them here..come play in NYC!

awesome news alert

I am melllltinnnggggggggg you guys. MELTING.
Trying to wrap my brains around another NYC summer (I ditched it last year for my Vision Quest and I didn't miss it ONE SECOND)...the only thing getting me through it right now (besides Jamba Juices and my torrid love affair with my AC unit) is summer concertsssss.


Just heard abut a free Black Keys show coming up...getting the full details soon, STAY TUNED BRAHS!!!



BEST USE OF A DOPE BAND EVER: THE BLACK KEYS ON EASTBOUND & DOWN.
Informal poll: How many people have Kenny Powers shamelust, raise yr hands.

this wasn't supposed to happen

..I am talking about being sick as hell.
Bjork is talking about being in love.



HER EYEBROW GAME IS WITHOUT EQUAL.
I NEED TO GO TO THERE.

PS I had this on cassingle.

forever in debt

Everyone was having giant ALL CAPS heart attacks about the (flimsy) rumor that RPattz was set to play Kurt Cobain in a Courtney Love approved Nirvana biopic. As far as I have read, the talk is just talk..but that didn't keep it from being a topic of debate last night at Scratcher while Hunter, Kat, Andrew and I got whiskey drunk. I feel sorta Switzerland about it, Hunter thinks it's so terrible it might be fascinating, and Kat was undecided, as she has major RP throbs.

Then we starting talking about the Heart Shaped Box video... I think I have to post it.



I have a theory that my generation has a speciality in darkdarkblack humor & a twisted view of the world precisely because of stuff like this being firmly entrenched in our pop culture history.

You could NEVER make this video today!
I mean...one of the biggest bands in the world at this moment (1993) and their top single's video is a supersaturated dream of white-haired child KKKs, a wizened Santa on the cross, abortion trees and a fat lady in an anatomy suit.

As Hunter was saying...pretty intense shit to watch after school (over and over and over again on MTV).

oh, PS? This video is SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD. Put that in yr wherethefuckdoestimego container.

you just can't fake it with me

Why you tryin ta front like you JULY, April?
88 degrees today?? Really? I am sooo not ready to go there.

WHAT DO I DO WITH THIS KIND OF HEAT???
I am gonna take Ben Lee's advice and lay in the grass and talk about daydreams.

 I AM the ultimate Pop Queen, what..no one told you?



Remember when Ben Lee was so cute and sang about Evan Dando? And then he dated Claire Danes for 400 years? Now he has a baby with Ione Skye and wears dashikis. I swear, I saw it on the internet.

new for you

Let's ease back into this BLOGGING THANG with some Wednesday morning musical love. I have so much to catch up on..I've missed you guys!

Hunter has filled my iTunes with a TON of music recently..This is one of my new favorites. Although there is something weird about naming your band Happy Birthday, I mean really.



I am usually an ardent follower of my own strict rule which is: I don't really dig on things that I find slightly embarrassing to say (this is usually the case in restaurants with goofy ass names for dishes). But rules are made to be broken, amirite?

Points for some boss song titles: Perverted Girl, Pink Strawberry Milkshake, Zit

i call her red

Monday night Christine invited me to be her +1 for Karen Elson's sold out solo show at Le Poisson Rouge.

REAL LIFE DREAM WEAVER

She was...luminous. Magical. Incandescent? I may not know the right words. I died more than a few times.
I don't think I will have a day where I am like, I NEED to listen to a Karen Elson record today; it's the only thing that will get me through; it isn't exactly my thing..BUT- her voice is gorgeous. I was taken aback at how incredible she sounded.



(I forgot my FLIP! ADM*! Here is a tiny clip from my Lumix, twill have to suffice)

SPEAKING OF INCREDS, let's discuss how she LOOKED: That long peachyglowdress (with matching fascinator AND microphone fringe) and her unbelievably hypnotically gorge orange flame pennylocks. Superjelz x 100 millzbillz.

I am sorry to gush, but she is a VISION. And my hair idol. And so pretty I want to CRY.

Oh and no bigs, my second hair idol and Head of the Pennylocks Hair Association, Grace Coddington was there, front row and center. Amaze.

*ADM is AY DIOS MIO! Obvi, it's the new OMG. PASS IT ON!

i like you, you like me

I woke up today and thought..where IS my that dog. record?

Ugh, the perils of having moved about 12 times since high school. I mean, where the fuck is ANYTHING, really ??? (Haven't seen a yearbook in about 10 years, I have a feeling you would all get a good giggle outta that piece of nostalgic embarrassment...must find!)

 THE 90S HAD SUCH A SICK EYEBROW GAME

Anyway.
Here is a song I really really liked when I was 16, I think you'll dig it too (my other favorite was 'Old Timer').


"We do whatever is really cool."

the agony & the irony, they're killing me

Sometimes you just want a 90s radio hit, you know?
How about a little Wednesday afternoon FLAGPOLE SITTA?


Harvey Danger - Flagpole Sitta
Uploaded by FabCure. - Explore more music videos.

Please note the SUPERIMPORTANT line:
"I want to publish zines and rage against machines"

Remember, this was 1998 and so this was considered an ironic "retro" joke.

Here on WHITE LIGHTNING we are POST-IRONY and so we take that as TRUTH.
 We also support pre-Scientology Katie Holmes, and this was the trailer song for Disturbing Behavior, and she was so hot and normsauce back then..WE MISS YOU, JOEY POTTER!

your new favorite

I have new post up on FulFrontalFashion: Ten Minutes with MNDR.

You want to get into this like, NOW. SHE IS THE DOPESHOW !!!

I took some vids at her show at Coco66 last weekend, I wish you had been there, it was sooo fucking great.



Can't wait to see her again with YACHT next week at Bowery!

get up on this

OH, HAYELLLLLL FUCKING YES!

V MAGAZINE #65 // LILY DONALDSON & LIYA KIBEDE
PHOTOS BY JOSH OLIN // STYLIST CLARE RICHARDSON

NOW WE ARE TALKIN' SOME GOOD SHIT, BITCHES!!!

Platform sneakers taken to the lunacy level (I am finally doing this this weekend...), some of them lattice acid wash jean thangs (those are Ashish!!). THOSE SUNGLASSES in the opening spread (Nasir Mazhar otherwise known as LADY GAGA'S ORB DEALER)...this shoot is killing me! 

I have to have those sunglasses, there is no question. Imma also start stickin some curls to mah face, take that shit to the NEXT LEVEL.

I am also pretty psyched to see those Y-3 fishing net bodystockings making a cameo in my life, i would rock that thing like I was Miss Chicken of the Sea 2010, yeah. (what?)

Ladies, all the ladies, louder now:

My only qualm? To my eye, this shoot is way more early 90s and Let's Talk about Sex Salt n Peps than mid 80s and Push It S n P, but whatevs, mabes I am wrong.

This video will stuff your head full of so many reference inspirations (SCORPION CLEAVAGE TATTOO??) you might freak out. Beware!

every day i'm hustlin

It is criminal that I had to get out of my bed this morning. The snowflakes are superchunks and you can stream Magnum PI episodes on your boyfriend's laptop in your bed, did you know this?



THIS IS WHAT MOTIVATES ME, welcome to my life anthem WAH WAH WAHHHHH.
It's all good, soon all this hustlin' will pay off and I shall buy these and life will be BEAUTIFUL.

i'm kinda scared to dance

Yesterday at the office Lesley gave me a copy of her book, (which I remember stealing from an editor at work when it came out a couple years ago) and between last night's Pratt commute and this early morning's insomnia, I have already re-read it and I am so glad I did.

We're the same age and grew up in the tri-state errrea and so so many details in her early entries made me smile cuz they were so familiar- and when she mentioned in her diary at some point in high school that the band Weston stayed her house, my 16 year-old-self freaked out. I loved Weston!!! I used to go see them play in church basements and VFWs with my cousin Michelle in high school and now I have to post this song because it's been running through my mind all day..JUST LIKE KUUUU-HU-HU-RTTTT..



I wish they had a music video, but this shitty little gymnasium performance takes me back to 1995 and I like it.

veedee

A little late to post on the day, but I have been gone for the past 48, crunching snow under my wooden-heeled Docs (those are snow shoes..right?), sitting by a righteous fire and basking in the delicious SILENCE outside the windows.

But now we're back from the woods, dinner is almost done and I am running out for a fashion show in 1 hour. Still...it's a pretty groovy day. This song is dreamy times a millionzillion, I hope someone sings it to ya.



Happy Valentine's Day !
xo
WL

hearts

Today, my dear bloggyfriends, I would like to take a moment to say HAPPY ANNIVERSARYYYY to my parents.

DAD, CHILLIN. HE WAS A LONGHAIR!

MOMS! CUTIE MIDDLE PART HIPPIE PONYTAIL AND ESPADRILLES! I LOVE.

They've been married THIRTY FIVE YEARSSSSSS. 35!!!
Like...10 plus 10 plus another 10 PLUS another 5. I mean...Can you wrap yr head around that?



They have the best wedding song evahhhh...SUCH dreamy sixtiestimes (And bearded hippie singer!)!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOM & DAD!
Now please stop reading my blog, it makes me uncomfortable.

everyone is obsessed

I don't think I have ever had one band show up in my inbox/twitterfeed/brainspace/internethole/FACE as much as DIE ANTWOORD ! In the past 5 days, it is all anyone is OMG-ing about.

What in the WHAT?



Is Afrikaans the new dopeshow?

PS, I defy you to listen to this, even for just a SECOND, and not have "I-eeee-I-eeee-I am your butterfly" stay in your head for like, DAYS. Good luck with that.