Do we hate it when our friends become successful?  No!  We’re even happy when marginal acquaintances get a little love and affection.

Which brings me to the new Spin! Magazine, and their inclusion of not just one but two (count ‘em!) Columbus bands in the latest issue, with nice reviews and snazzy photographs.

It’s not the first time that c-bus has made it’s mark on these fine brooklyneers ears, but we usually don’t get much ink — a reference to the Royal Crescent Mob or the Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments in an interview, a little blurb in the “other releases” section — that sort of thing.  I was stoked (yeah, stoked!) a few years ago to find The Marbles before me as I enjoyed my morning throning.  And then pissed (yeah, pissed!) when I read the too-short review that didn’t even give them a chance.

But back to the now, you’ll find the fearless folksters The Black Swans on page 96 (topless, no less.)  And the avant-rock of Times New Viking on page 103.   Be blessed, and may your rock-n-roll dreams come true.

As is often the case, my favorite column in this month’s edition is “Listening To My Life” by Andy Whitman. Yeah, I know the guy and maybe that helps a bit, but his columns have been a consistent reason for me to revisit this magazine. I’ve got enough media hitting me already without it, but having a few writers on deck like Mr. Whitman and Bud Scoppa makes Paste worth my while. (And as a well-rounded, maturing sort of guy I need something to balance Spin, eh?) But where to keep up with the High-School Musical crowd? Apparently, the biggest song of the year is Rhianna’s Umbrella. I have never heard this song. Perhaps the grey-hairs are a misnomer no more.

Anyway, Andy writes about Joe Strummer. It’s like Chocolate and Peanut Butter. Pick it up. Share it with a friend.

Right now, K-Fed is asking me: “Why do you read Details?”

Well, Sir… Because they have articles that I can relate to (“Are you turning your kid into a douchebag?”) and articles that I can’t (“Enough already with the fake boobs!”) And it was part of a two-fer off-er.  But no apologies, no excuses.  I kinda like it…

Just barely made it through this month’s GQ. They ran their “best of the year” issue, which is just a lazy way of filling extra pages with recycled nothing. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a “Best of GQ 2007″ issue. There’s more than few well-written articles and interviews every month to fill that one. No, it’s just another top-10 of everything list. And if it hits the top-10 of magazine like GQ, odds are that you’ve already seen it or heard it somewhere else. Give me something new. And by the way, your cover shot of Daniel Craig is creeping me out:

(No matter where you go, his eyes follow…) At least I wasn’t sent the edition featuring Kanye West or Bill Clinton. I have no idea why Daniel Craig is worthy of a “Man Of The Year” nod, but at least it’s something new.

However, Fast Company tossed me something worthwhile on page 73 in Robert Scoble’s column “Stars, Stripes, and Social Media.” He took a quick look at the on-line strategies of various contenders to the title of POTUS and summed up that you could learn a lot by applying the same to your business. As I’ve been making my cheese as a tech-consultant, I’ve been thinking the same for awhile now. Seems the first step is doing it for myself. Step two is helping you…

But please Daniel, stop staring.

Spin, I love you man, and we’re suffering together here. We grew up together, ya know? Back in the 80′s, we started really listening to music. You were like the big brother I never had: a few years older, wiser, there to turn me on to what life was going to be like in high school, in college, in that really cool Slacker-meets-Singles experiment that my adult life was supposed to become.

We knew we had one up on Rolling Stone. Man, they just didn’t get it. For them, anything new was just a reflection of the past. If it was trippy it sounded “like a modern Pink Floyd” if it was heavy it was “a new faster Zeppelin” if it was poppy, “it’s further proof of the influence of The Beatles.” Jane’s Addiction reviews were like The Blind Men And The Elephant. But me and you, Spin, we were free, we saw the Now for what it was, then.

And we still want to be cool, we still feel cool, but we just can’t deny that we can’t keep track of the kidz these days. But still, did it have to come to this: (?)

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s true. The similarities are there. When I first saw the ‘Fire they were running fast and furious down a geeked-out E-Street. I felt the same way about the Hold Steady (quoted on page 66, ‘natch.) But do you have to pull a Rolling Stone? Do you have to publish Little Steven Van Zandt’s quotes (page 68) about new bands and their ignorance of their roots?

Did you have to write 5 pages on why emo singers sound like crap and will never be like the old good-old-boys (even if you got Chris “Dashboard” Carrabba to dis his own fan’s blank stare at the mention of Ian MacKaye?) (Page 99.)

I’m not saying you’re wrong, by the way. Not at all. I’m just saying that you’re making me feel old.

Conde Nast, in a continued effort to monopolize the monthly magazine before it hits its cyber-shocked death bed, publishes a largely disposable freebie rag bundled stealthily with subscriptions to Wired, GQ, etc, etc. Seems ol’ lucky me gets 3-5 at a pop.

And they’ve got a theme: Something Rocks.

“Rocks” is here defined mostly in relation to its opposite, which is “Sucks.” So therefore things that don’t suck, rock. You’d probably agree that being Rich, Sexy, Hip, Famous, Cool, or Hot doesn’t suck. Ergo, it Rocks!

Fashion Rocks, Celebrities Rock, Chicks Rock, Dudes Rock, Rockers Rock … and now Movies Rock. However, to my surprise they’ve dropped in two articles of depth and heft covering topics that never really rocked: Frank Sinatra’s tunesmith Jimmy Van Huesen and a the origins of Saturday Night Fever. Although rock (in some form or another) wasn’t too distant from either era, the concept of Rocking (as a verb, a lifestyle, a raison d’être) was. Not that these men didn’t rock, but let’s not judge the past through the narrow lens of the present.

In an effort to remember what I’ve read… here’s the first installment of an ongoing series chronicling the best of the deluge of printed media that crosses my desk daily.

Take a look at TapeOp. It’s free to those who deserve it. Not so much like me, as I don’t actually have a studio, but someday I’ll find enough space in my little life to get the home-recording setup back together the right way.

Anyway, great interview with Giorgio Gomelsky. Who? He’s the Russian-English Svengali fella who owned the Crawdaddy Club in the UK back in the day. The Rolling Stones were his house band. When they got big and took off he had to find a replacement. So he thought he’d give this little act The Yardbirds a try. Then he nurtured them through the line-up changes that replaced Clapton with Jeff Beck with Jimmy Page…

Rock ‘n Roll just wouldn’t be the same without him.