As I went through this slideshow of photos, a *romantical* photographic history of the relationship of Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal, was struck by how many pictures (3/22-11/22!!) there are of the couple with director Gavin Hood. If these pictures are any indication of the amount of time (the hug prone) Hood spends with them, he may legally be considered their son in some states.
Going through Rolling Stones' Forum for Best of 2008, So Far I was surprised at the number of bands that I hadn't listened to yet. There were however several heavily endorsed S.O.G. names that popped up repeatedly:
-NIN Ghosts
-Radiohead In Rainbows
-Black Mountain
-Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks
-Vampire Weekend
-R.E.M.
-British Sea Power
-MGMT
-The Raconteurs
-Hot Chip
And a few unexpected nominees/wild cards:
-Why?
-Fleet Foxes
-The Kooks
-Fireflies
-The Re-Up Gang
-Atmosphere (and their charmingly named album)
and Blind Melon!?
British Sea Power: No Lucifer.mp3
This is the kind of review I like: "Seven Reasons Why Rupert Can't Stop Listening to The National's Boxer."
A lot of times reviews of albums come out after a writer or reporter was forced to listen to something quickly, before deadline, maybe 4 times max and come up with something clever to write and offer a snap assessment. I've been guilty of it a few times on here myself. (Well some might argue about the "clever" part.)
"Boxer is the album equivalent to the Cable Guy, or as I like to call it, the “Mustache Movie.”
I can't vouch for Cable Guy..but agree with the sentiment. There should be some statute that requires reviews to come out a year or two after the album. Sure it wouldn't be any help whatsoever to buyers, recording companies, media or the bands themselves. Still, there oughta be a law! Someone do something about something!
Yay! The video for the Caribou song that I've been talking about for the past few weeks!
Who loves ya Subterranean!
I like the way the new Ratatat song, Shiller, (find it here) starts off, like delicate parlor music, and then flows into the usual synth heavy Ratatat sound we've come to know and love.
Their album LP3 will be released on July 8, 2008 by Beggars Group.
Fun fact: I'd always thought or someone once told me, that the wildcat scream on their song Wildcat, one of my favorite songs in recent years, was a sample of James Brown's scream sped up. That's not what it says here, under trivia. I'm going to continue to believe what I believe because it is Wikipedia after all...and my story is muuuuch more interesting and better fodder for party small talk.
Not So Fresh Fun Fact: The second most popular image for a Google Image search for James Brown yields a picture of him in his casket. What's wrong with all y'all searchers? Sick-os!
I understand that Sean Penn is the President of this year's Cannes Film Festival, a temporary position, but when will his term as President-of -Sounding-Off-On-Everything -Political-All-the-Time end?
Though he is "interested and excited" in Obama he still manages to get in a dig. [Penn] "went on to accuse him (Obama) of a “phenomenally inhuman and unconstitutional” voting record."
In another equally confusing statement he complains: "I hope that he will understand, if he is the nominee, the degree of disillusionment that will happen if he doesn't become a greater man than he will ever be.” Maybe Obama should stop trying and just phone it in so we don't eventually get disappointed?
Oy. If the acting thing doesn't work out he can always go into high school guidance counseling.
You'll have to trust that this was a funny and clever post before Firefox cruelly erased it.
You're not "sorry for the inconvenience" Firefox, spare us both the charade.
Sniff.
Sigh, well here are parts of the post that once was...
Via Buzzfeed:
"Some of their songs remind me of the mellow epicdom of broken social scene, while others reminded me of the fun, electro-pop sounds of the postal service. the band is comprised of a cute boy-and-girl duo, with a few talented friends backing them on an assortment of instruments."
Brooklyn duo Savoir Adore
Savoir Adore: The Scientific Findings of Dr. Rosseau.mp3
Savoir Adore: We Talk Like Machines.mp3
Savoir Adore: In_the_Wooded_Forest.mp3
And a fantastic video found under the sidewalk square of this guy's left foot.
-Moby has some thoughts on who Obama might pick as his running mate. Wes Clark? You're on crack, Mobes.
H: "He's (Clark) got crazy eyes.. the kind where he might start laughing or crying at any second." Sounds like the tattoos you see everywhere when you go to a SoCal swap meet on a hot day.
Delegate scorecard: Gravel is still in it to win it, people.
In the past two or three days I've had not one but two people ask me what I know about the Kindle. Which is weird because I've been thinking about posting about it after seeing an episode of The Martha Stewart Show last week in which Amazon founder Jeff Bezos appeared to talk about the device. (She also had a guest talking about tartans versus plaids who said the main difference between a tartan and a plaid is symmetry. You can turn the main pattern of a tartan over and it will still look the same. But I digress...)
I couldn't figure out why they would ask me since I'm not much of a technophile. I can barely run this blog. Maybe I should stop writing my things to do list on my forehead in big black lettering.
I told the last person who asked me what I thought of the Kindle to tune into Stop Okay Go today because I'd do a post on it and I've become one of those snotty blogger types that can no longer communicate interpersonally like a normal human being.
Anyway, the impression I left with after Bezos made his sales pitch on Martha's show was that I'm now more receptive to at least giving the Kindle a chance. I wish there was someplace I could go and give it a feel and test drive.
Bezos acknowledged that the Kindle will never replace the tactile aspect of holding a book, the satisfaction of hearing the page as you turn it and for me the feeling of forward motion as you're reading. There's something tremendously gratifying, in my mind, at being able to gage the thickness of the pages you've put behind you and looking to see how far you have to go. (Comparable to the moving circle that moves through the red bar at the bottom of a You Tube video, seeing where you are in a book gives you a feeling of placement and control.) Maybe there is something on it that addresses this issue, all I can make out from the demos and pics is a rolling wheel. They have worked hard on making the print and fonts more book-like and friendly to the eye.
The Kindle does have some terrific pros. One thing I love is that unlike the iPod, its wireless and you can download books wherever you are without having to go through a computer. I also like how thin it is. The other design elements make it look like something from a medical supply store to me. Maybe it can read my blood sugar. Who knows.
One of Bezos' main big selling points is that the Kindle is environmentally friendly and he argued that this will mean fewer trees being cut down & less fuel being used to transport and house books. Which is true, but how disposable are the Kindles when we move on to the next thing? Am fairly sure the Kindle is not made of hemp. At $399.00 it is expensive, but with some of the Kindle books cheaper than print, for example Mary Higgins Clark's Where Are They Now is $25.95 in hard form and only $9.99 in Kindle, I'm sure you'll make some of the loss back quickly if you're a heavy reader.
The demo also shows that you can read newspapers such as the New York Times that are updated every morning, websites and even Wikipedia on Kindle. Then again I can do all that with what I have now. Sooooo, it just makes me wonder if Kindle and in fact, Amazon, won't one day be usurped by whatever company is dominating wireless communications and media...because what they are offering seems to dovetail with a lot of technology (am thinking Apple) that is already available.
Note: Video is nsfw. Lots of boobs, though artfully presented.
Here's an interesting band I found that hails from London and is big favorite of Big Stereo: The Black Ghosts.
The video that you see above meets all my interesting visual criteria. I know I'm probably the only one who watches videos anymore but I think that when an band or singer finds someone who can give an energetic visual representation of their music, I take it as a sign of mojo (and possibly juju) on the band's end and cause for further investigation. It doesn't even have to be elaborate (Fight For Your Right To Party comes to mind).
Anyway, MIssing Toof and Big Stereo will be premiering videos for each of The Black Ghosts' songs over the weeks to come. Am excited to see what the rest of the videos look like.
You can see more of the Black Ghosts' performances, including some in-studio guest spots they did on Indie 103.1 right here. Mixtape and I Want Nothing are out now and they have appear to have another album coming out on July 8th but I can't find the name of it anywhere. Oh here it is, it will be self titled!
Both remixes of the song I Want Nothing are decent. I prefer the Sinden remix, meeself.(source)
Man, everyone was in a bad mood at work today. I'm serious. Maybe its the recession. Or they might have been annoyed with the loud buzzer.wav file.
More likely it was all the War songs from Songza played at full blast.
War: Why Can't We Be Friends.mp3
War: Ballero.mp3
Definitely a possibility.
-????? ??????
What are these figures? Anyone feel like explaining the origins of Satoshis to me??
Something to do with a Japanese video game or Pokemon? I'd looove to have one of these.
??? indeed.
-Eyejammie: "Hip-Hop Activist & Media Assassin Harry Allen's "Part of the Permanent Record: Photos From the Previous Century," is a show of rare images from a crucial period of hip-hop history."
Below, one of many interesting and funny ads found on Soft Citizen.
("Hey you canklebandits, knock off the pumpernickel!")
The girl was totally picked for her bug eyes!
