Everyone ripped off The Fall. You know this because your favorite indie record store clerk explained it to you back when Pavement was around the first time. Screw that Malkmus guy, listen to Mark E. Smith talk about drugs in "Mr. Pharmacist."

You thought about naming your zine "Gold Star For Robot Boy," but you went with "Kicker of Elves" instead. Well, pump up "Game of Pricks" and let Guided By Voices continue to inspire your personal rants and sardonic doodles.

Local rockers Greenland may not have been putting out records in the '90s, but their tunes evoke the same "I don't give a shit" vibe. The messy but golden pop sensibilities in "We Are Clipper Ships" should keep your pen moving and your ideas fresh. Be sure and hand them a copy of your self-published poetry this Friday when they open for Olivia Mancini and Birdlips at the Black Cat.

The new Ken Loach film, Looking for Eric, was set to open this week at E Street Cinema. Now we learn it won't be coming to D.C. after all, which means there's no point to running my review in this week's issue. For posterity, here it is:

There’s a socialistic current running through the filmography of Ken Loach—his movies, like Bread and Roses and The Wind that Shakes the Barley, often pit human dignity against human institutions, and it’s not hard to guess which side usually wins. Looking for Eric is a bit of a turn, then. There’s some dignity at stake here, but the institution isn’t industry or Her Majesty’s Government; it’s another august British construct—football culture. A step from Loach’s usual grainy, gray-hued naturalism, Looking for Eric is of a slightly more fantastic persuasion—a sort of Charlie-Kaufman-meets-Charlie-Dickens fairy tale, snail-paced at first, later pranksterish and kinetic.

Its stars are surprising: One is Steve Evets, the former bassist of the post-punk band the Fall, as Eric—a jittery and defeated single father who works for the postal service, loves the Manchester United, and, in the first scene, suffers a panic attack and drives the wrong way into a roundabout. This leaves him shaken and then apparently stirred, because in one moment, he’s staring at the life-sized poster of French-born ManU star Eric Cantona that hangs in his bedroom, and in the next, at Cantona lui-même, who's suddenly standing in his room, though only he can see him. Eric (the magical, bearded Frenchman) is there to spout homilies and help Eric (the disheveled everyman) take control—to re-woo his ex-wife Lily, to re-earn the respect of his teenage kids, to fend off a local gangster who has pressed one of Eric’s sons into hiding a revolver beneath his floorboards.

It’s a film chiefly about manhood and the group dynamics that affect our perceptions of it—a man and his mates, a father and his kids, a hooligan and a footballer. Because this is a Loach film, no turning of the cheek will do: In the end, Evets’ Eric confronts real danger head-on, albeit in a pleasing, unexpected way. This is Loach at his most playful: At first, Cantona’s portrayal seems to be of a piece with recent, very Zen depictions of athletes like Zinedine Zidane (in Douglas Gordan and Philippe Parreno’s documentary) and Kobe Bryant (in Spike Lee’s). That Loach soon proves willing to have fun with Cantona’s real-life philosopher-athlete persona (he’s kind of like a Gallic Yogi Berra) is a great boon. You’re just a man, Eric says to his idol halfway into the film. “No. I am Cantona!,” the striker retorts, before flashing a mischievous smile. Still, if the film stumbles, it’s because Loach wants it too many ways: There’s the drab urban landscape of Manchester and romantically hazy flashbacks (involving flowy skirts and blue suede shoes), along with a zany humor that becomes more pronounced over time, and not with nearly enough haste. If you’ll pardon the sports analogy, it’s like how some low-scoring football matches must feel to nonfans: Hardly worth it—that is, until the final, game-winning goal.

But tonight we're manufacturing a rivalry—because there are no worthy basketball games to watch, because I wanted a reason to change out of my pajamas, and because Mark Williams invited us to do so. Malitz and I will square off over a set of turntables at Gate 54/St. Ex as part of the monthly DJ night Procedure.

If we can figure out how to work them, that is.

You are invited to have a beer and sit in close proximity to this epic showdown. You think that two-hour Joanna Newsom record is pretentious? We'll see how you feel after hearing Malitz play three straight hours of Felt b-sides. Did I mention there's no cover?

Procedure ft. David Malitz & Aaron Leitko
10 p.m., Free
Cafe Saint Ex
1847 14th Street, NW

(Photo: Valerie Paschall)

Abba—The Album

Not my favorite Abba record, but my first. Arguably, Abba was a singles band, they didn't have a lot of deep cuts, and apart from "Take a Chance on Me" (the song that I bought the record for) and "The Name of the Game" there isn't a whole lot of love here. I suppose "Eagle", Bjorn Ulvaeus' take on Jonathan Livingston Seagull, is a cultural artifact of the '70s, entertaining for the same reasons Brady Bunch re-runs remain watchable. Anyway, when my college job ended, I left this CD at the warehouse and never came back for it. But it was an important purchase for me at the time, mostly because I would have been too intimidated to buy it until I got to college. In Salt Lake City, Utah, where I grew up, you generally got the stink-eye if you bought anything that even remotely resembled a disco record (but somehow Mormons seem to love Elton John, go figure). I recall that when I brought home a copy of Blondie's Parallel Lines my own mother asked me "Isn't that a gay album?" Obviously, this was not an accusation being leveled with any frequency in Dupont Circle, so I took a, er, chance.

Various Artists—Cold Blue: The Complete 10" Series

After college I spent some time writing scores for a local choreographer. I'll be honest, Phillip Glass I was not. Bang-On-A-Can runner-up, third class is a little closer to the truth. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out creative ways to skirt around my lack of formal technique and compositional training. There were many desperate times when I fled from my room—at that time a comically unhappy place that contained only a single-size bed and a few giant boxes of burned CDs— to rifle through the Olsson's classical section in search of inspiration. Usually I found something that helped me mop up my anxiety a little bit. One of those purchases was this three CD set collected a series of 10" records put out by the New Music label Cold Blue in the early/mid '80s. Some of it's pretty cheeseball–soothing tones from the Steve Lillywhite school of air pudding and yearning atmosphere. But the Chas Smith tracks are pretty chill. At the very least the music's simplicity made me a little more confident that I could follow a similar trajectory and at least not get laughed off the face of the Earth.

The Fall—"Perverted By Language"

My first Fall record. Like many other Fall records that I own, I listened to it exactly twice.

Deerhoof—"Apple O"

Typically, if I wanted something contemporary, I went to DCCD to buy it. But Olsson's generally kept the indie bands that I liked in stock. Also, at the Dupont Circle store they kept a copy of Orthrelm's Norildivoth Crallos-Lomrixth Urthiln on the staff favorites wall for nearly 10 years. Respect.

Elvis Costello—"Armed Forces"

Another Rykodisc re-issue. Probably my favorite Costello record. I listened to this record constantly until one day when I found his biography in the City Paper promo bin, read it, and decided that his whole rage thing was kind of a sham. Regardless, "Green Shirt" is a tight song. The keyboard parts always remind me of the Dawn of the Dead soundtrack.