Free Camels

I guess this has been up since May, but I haven't checked up on them for a while:

Unbuttoned-button-up and deep-cut-V-neck-loving French band Phoenix has posted a new instrumental track from their upcoming album Twenty-One One Zero for free downloads on their MySpace as well as on Cartier's. The tune is apparently part of a collaborative promotion with Love Cartier and humanitarian group Action Contre La Faim.

You can also watch the accompanying video which features black and white shots of Phoenix, just being really cool and using really cool stuff. Like curly phono cables. Awesome.



What does this track say about their new album? Probably nothing at all, given that all three previous Phoenix full-lengths have featured some sort of long instrumental track that doesn't necessarily have anything to with the rest of the release's aesthetic.

If I was going to be pessimistic, however, I would say that the track does sound a little more like the work of certain of Phoenix's Paris-based colleagues than does their past offerings. Certain colleagues who like to dress up as robots and go on certain tours featuring certain giant pyramids. And that Phoenix may be doing this because they have wrongly taken their subtle similarities to said-colleagues to be the reason for their earlier success, and are making the mistake of trying to pull a Hogyssey. Hey. Phoenix. That didn't work out to well for the future members of Arckid, and it won't work for you.

Nobody got that reference. Don't worry, that makes you better than me.

But I'm actually pretty optimistic and look forward to Twenty-One One Zero's eventual release, the date of which is not on Pitchfork's Summer Release Guide, (man I cannot WAIT for Thr33 Rings) and thus does not yet exist.

I just hope they tour. Those Versailles boys can rock it live.

Robot Rock Was Nothing

I just uncovered some shocking information about English "poet" Mike Skinner AKA The Streets!

Check out the incidental music at the 31 second mark in this Al Gore speech from the South Park Season 10 episode "ManBearPig":

(Apologies in advance: This was the least retarded-ly spoofed-clip of it I was able to find on YouTube)




Now, carefully listen to the production on early Streets track, "Same Old Thing":

Oh Mike Skinner, you thought that separating the "pom pom pom" and the "blaaaaaaaaaaaaah," as well as the fact that that South Park episode came out 4 years after Original Pirate Material would save you from exposure. But I've got you now!

Just wait till my "The Streets Source Material Montage" video hits YouTube! It will completely eradicate your reputation as an innovative and original artist! Or lead to resurgent fame and an incredibly successful tour a few years after a lackluster third album...

She Wrote Me A Lullaby

Utada Hikaru - Boku Wa Kuma



I listened to Heart Station a bit when it came out, and then stopped because - as we all can agree - nothing on it could touch "Easy Breezy." At the time, the meaning of this kindergarten song flew right over my head, which is odd given that 70% of the song's lyrics consist of the word "kuma." Kuma means bear, so the song essentially goes "something something bear, bear, bear bear, something something something bear." Which is pretty much what my daily life sounds like. So I join with Japanese school children, never-mauled-Hollywood-large-animal-trainers and Brian Bell (not that Brian Bell. Kuma-teki Brian Bell!) in support of this single. I'm in proud company.

I'm Chocolate

Annie - I Know Your Girlfriend Hates Me



I totally relate to this song. Almost none of my friends' girlfriends have ever liked me. Ever. So thanks Annie, it really makes me feel better to know someone else out there has the same problem. And I'm just so glad you're back!

Be warned: this is the most irritatingly catchy song-sung-by-a-Scandinavian-girl since that Lykke Li Little Bit business. Although this one might be slightly more racist. Not really my problem, though.

The PRC Still Wants That BAPE Store...

Cindy Sui just published an excellent article in The Asia Times looking at the different impressions of recently departed Taiwanese President Chen Sui-Bian's possible legacy amongst the Taiwanese polulace. It takes a careful look at the talents and contradictions that defined the man throughout his time in power, and finds that Taiwanese people, at least at this early date, view his time in office as a mixed-bag of historic accomplishments and broken promises. Sadly, the one success that both critics and fans have attributed to him, creating a government with zero-tolerance for in-house corruption, is about to be sullied by some shocking events including the discovery of his son-in-law's insider trading, his wife being put on trial for embezzlement, and accusations that he faked an assassination attempt on himself in an attempt to gain sympathy votes for the 2004 election.

Regardless of how history comes to view Chen, it's incredible to think how different the Taiwan-China world (or China world, depending on your politics) is from the world we imagined/feared back during his early days in power. Sure, the future is generally impossible to predict accurately, but when it comes to divergence from expectations, there are degrees of seperation. When the U.S. invaded Iraq, for example, some predicted that it would ensure U.S. security for all eternity and provide Bush Jr. a spot in the ranks of presidents with infinitely high approval ratings, while others were sure the opposite would occur. Suffice to say, while no one person on either side may have been absolutely right about everything, only one of those groups was really in the ballpark.

When it came to this whole Chen business, however, pretty much all of us were way off. I remember sitting in a classroom at the People's University of China in Beijing back in the summer of 2004, joining American and Chinese students arguing about the probable events of 2008. This was around the time that Beijing Olympics were ceasing to be a date in the distant future and becoming a fast-encroaching, city-renovating reality. While we disagreed on many things, everyone seemed to believe that something drastic was going to happen. We were primarily arguing about who was going to take the leap first - China or Taiwan - and what the sensible act of recourse would be for the other side. When we talked about other issues (Tibet, the American public's perception of the games) it was always in the context of how Chen and the PRC would interact.

Fast-forward 4 years and not a lot of that makes sense anymore. Chen never made that "independence" announcement of his. (Oh..) The KMT is back in power. (Huh?) And China kind of digs them. (What?) And Tibet is the one drawing attention away from the games. (Those guys?) But then there was that accidental publicity coup with the earthquake, which came right after that cyclone (Natural disasters? Those only happen in India and places that end in -istan. Who's FEMA? What's a "Live Strong" bracelet?)

At the time we didn't know any of this would happen. We were focused on one thing: The Status Quo. Nobody wanted Taiwan or China to do anything to change the status-quo. Lots of smart people wrote lots of long papers on the need to avoid revisionism. It was very important that nothing changed. Of course we were all imagining that if the change came, it'd be big and it'd be drastic.

This was also an era when the force seen to be countering Chen's personal Taiwanese nationalism was a grassroots nationalism on the mainland. There were anti-Japanese protests and anti-American protests, but these were inextricably tied up with the Taiwan, the clear and present issue. These were two big, unstoppable forces that were about to collide, and would surely make a big mess in the process.

In retrospect, I think we all thought it would depend on who broke first: Chen or China. We didn't see anyone else in the equation. But in the end, it was a different player - the Taiwanese people - who made a move. Back then we believed that people on the island were kind of ambivalent about the whole China thing, they just wanted a fresh face that would stamp out corruption and keep economic growth on an upward path. Even those who didn't agree with his nationalist stance on independence per se might be won over by his efforts at localism, such as his use of taiyu and the promotion of hakka.

But things worked out quite differently. True, China played a role by sitting back and waiting to see how things worked out, but in the end it was the Taiwanese who got fed up of the whole thing. The economy wasn't getting any better, and many blamed Chen for denying Taiwan access to China's growing economy (a charge that may be unfair, in retrospect) and spending money on ridiculous personal projects like eliminating Chinese names from street signs. Chen's one unshakable accomplishment - stamping out corruption - has now been undermined by these financial scandals involving his family members.

Meanwhile, the once hated KMT ( and hated by both Taiwanese and mainlanders alike) was holding historic meetings with the PRC, despite not being in power. They soon took the legislature back from Chen's DDP, however, and the KMT's Ma Ying Jeou beat out the DPP's candidate in this year's presidential elections. The party that got the rest of the world involved in this business by escaping to Taiwan (and not being swiftly thrown in the ocean) in the first place is back in power, and seems far more moderate and sensible than Chen to both the PRC and the Taiwanese populace. (Or at least the minimum-majority)

As Sui points out, Chen has left an odd legacy. Instead of provoking an all-out breach with the mainland, Chen's policies have probably made the mainland more willing to compromise when it is dealing with other, less-belligerent representatives of the island. In Taiwan this "theory of relativity" has worked in the opposite way, as Chen's extreme positions have accustomed the middle to a certain sense of nationalism, one felt a little more strongly now than in the era before Chen took power.

Situations like the Tibet protests and the Sichuan Earthquake were impossible to predict, despite their enormous impact. With Chen, however, maybe the signs were there if we had chosen to look for them. Personally I was too busy reading papers about 2008 doomsday scenarios (and listening to KMT-hating-70%-hakka-by-blood friends) to realize that there are other major actors besides political parties and presidents (human populations, for example). There's still plenty of time for sh@t to go down - it ain't August yet - but it looks like Taiwanese and mainlanders alike will be watching the mind games. (Alright, seriously, this has moved even further down on Google. What the f@ck?)

Robotripping/Mind Games

Some interesting news items today.


According to iReport and CNN, L'il Wayne has just released a second avant-garde video for his single "Lollipop." The video is meant to simulate the experience of being inside Weezy's head. Or at least the experience of drinking a bottle of Nyquil.


omgloljk

In other news, China has announced that it will be playing Mind Games. And no that doesn't mean this, this, this or any of the other trazillion pages that came up on google before the thing that happened TODAY and which I'm actually talking about: this.

The Olympics and the Paralympics won't be the only global multi-sports events held in Beijing this year.

The Chinese capital will host the first World Mind Sports Games from Oct. 3-18, featuring five events and - yes - doping controls.

About 3,000 competitors from more than 100 countries will be competing for 35 gold medals in chess, bridge, draughts (or checkers), Go and Xiang Qi (or Chinese chess), the International Mind Sports Association said Wednesday at a sports conference in Athens.

In the wake of the late announcement, ESPN and Spike TV are naturally sprinting to be the first to gain US broadcasting rights.

Album Cover Of The Day

Yu by Jesse Cutler.

I didn't even know where to begin with this. The artist's pre-pornshoot photo on the back? The inexplicable Asian theme, featuring a Thai model and Chinese characters for an album that sounds like new-age meets calypso? The fact that Yu is the mandarin pronunciation for the largest chinese character, which means fish? I was overwhelmed. Little did I know these were the least of the surprises I would receive about Mr. Jesse Cutler.

Before this album cover prompted me to Google him, I'd never heard of Cutler's vast media empire, spanning music, books and inspirational videos. According to his website:

Jesse Cutler has spent an illustrious career, beginning at age 12, as a musician, composer, actor, producer, entrepreneur and even a Playgirl centerfold

Well that explains the photo. Yes Cutler goes deep in the industry. He's even an acquaintance of Mr. Paul Schaffer (that guy who dances at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies)! In fact, Schaffer has actually written the foreword to Cutler's new book StarLust™: The Price of Fame (Morgan James, 2008), which 'asks would-be celebrities and their parents, “Are you willing to pay the price?” ' Someone needs to ask that question, surely. And JC is the man to do it.

Cutler will also release a CD entitled Test Of Time, a greatest hits collection to compliment the book. This will be the latest edition to a music catalogue that already includes such notable titles as the aforementioned Yu, as well as Cutler's Music Of The Stars collection (12 releases, one for each sign of the Zodiac). Recommended as another-release-you-might-be-interested-in by people purchasing Yanni Cd's on CDbaby.com.

Cutler runs some other enterprises, including The Cutler Edge, a webcast where Jesse Cutler interviews the movers and shakers of the entertainment industry. As he warns us: "This ain't no Mickey Mouse Ball Club! At the Cutler Edge™, we get down to the nitty gritty." As of June 2nd 2008, The Cutler Edge has interviewed approximately 1 celebrity, a well-respected industry veteran by the name of Jesse Cutler.

Another interesting feature of his site is the Jesse Cutler Sphere Of Influence, which name checks and gives links to the websites of JC's extensive list of celebrity friends, a large portion of whom are currently deceased (Hey! John Lennon has a website?) Carrot Top and Drew Barrymore's ex-boyfriend are among the living.

Below is Jesse's introduction to Starlust. It's awwwwesssooooome:

The Voice of Our Generation

To celebrate winning the Generation Award at last night's MTV Movie Awards, Adam Sandler sang "Nobody Does It Better," dedicating the Spy Who Loved Me theme song to his greatest inspiration - himself.


Afterwards, Sandler claimed "that was probably the most arrogant thing I've ever done." Oh but would that were true Sandler, if only...


This is a subject I have pontificated endlessly on over the past few years, but last night made me want to hash the whole thing out in unnecessary detail one last time. So here it is.


Adam Sandler has, over the past fifteen years or so, gradually increased his power over the American movie audience to the point that we will believe ANYTHING he tells us. Even if that "anything" includes his improbable irresistible-ness to the opposite sex; his possession of an Olympic-competitor level of athletic prowess; or his ability to beat up any living human besides Bob Barker.


It all began with his first couple of hit movies: Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison. I never really watched Sandler on SNL because I don't really watch SNL. (And don't tell me it's not fair to judge Sandler when I'm not an SNL fan. That's like saying I can't judge Wyclef Jean because I'm not a shitty-fake-Bob-Marley-rip-off fan. Oh you think that's equally unjustifiable? Seriously why should I respect a guy whose greatest contribution to music was chanting "one time" over a frat-party-band level cover song. And now those bands actually cover that version. Jesus, we've got that to thank him for as well. But OK for the sake of cogency, let's say its like not judging Hitler because you're not that big a fan of formalized genocide. OK? And anyway Wayne's World and Night At The Roxbury were watchable, the SNL thing makes no difference. Whew!)


Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison were typical, harmless comedies about a regular guy with some special ability (great hockey/golf skills or having a rich dad), triumphing over evil elitist snobs. The approach was relatively humble. Sure Sandler could hit the golf ball a million miles, or jet ski in a fountain. Sure he was already beating up everyone in sight, but he still had drastic short-comings that he acknowledged, like a lack of maturity that he needed to correct, or the inability to beat Bob Barker one-on-one. He was larger-than-life, but he was mortal! In those days, he was willing to present himself as a slightly better looking Rob Schneider, and that was something everyone could believe in.


For his next few outings, Sandler seemed, if anything, to get less arrogant. He appeared to mature in the way that many comedians - other than Dennis Leary - do as they become grown-ups. His two standout movies of this era, The Wedding Singer and The Waterboy highlighted this short-lived tendency in different ways. Wedding Singer featured Sandler as an average guy who has to really exert himself in order to win an average looking girl (sorry Drew, but its true) away from a richer, more successful rival. He even lets the rival beat him up! And then in Waterboy, he presents himself as, well, a retard, stymied even further by a lack of education, whose only skill and outlet is physical dominance. Sure he attracts an good-looking girlfriend, but she's also a redneck jailbird. The whole movie is so silly and fun that its impossible to imagine Sandler is trying to prove anything about himself.


But then things took a horrific turn for the worse. 1999 saw the release of the most beloved/god-awful Sandler movie to date: Big Daddy. This was the last real attempt by Sandler to hide any of the arrogance that was beginning to consume him, but it was the sign that such hubris was to become unavoidable. It was when he committed the worst possible sin - letting his personal vanity start interfering with the comedy.


On the face of it, it was a typical Sandler underdog story (the kind Rob Schneider still gets paid in Purina to star in). A useless, do-nothing twenty-something learns about responsibility by raising a child, and surprises everyone (INCLUDING HIMSELF!) with his ability to do the right thing. Unfortunately, nothing bad actually happens to Sandler. He just spends his time teaching the kid to endanger fitness skaters and rob older middle-class citizens who actually worked for their money, and instead of going to jail he ends up becoming a successful lawyer with a lovely wife. His ex-girlfriend, who had serious, specific ambitions and goals, ends up working at Hooters. What a message for the kids. Meanwhile, in Theater 2, Rob Schneider was pleasuring fat chicks and desperately trying to win the love of an amputee. Things had changed.


The next few years saw the arrogance grow, even as things became a little odd. There was Mr. Deeds, a film in which Sandler plays the nicest guy in the world, who likes to beat people up with John McEnroe. (Also, the jaded Wynona Ryder is reduced to tears by his unbelievably fantastic wonderfulness. WHAT!?) Then came Eight Crazy Nights, which hopefully I shouldn't have to say anything about to anyone. Around this time, Sandler gained a lot of attention for Punch-Drunk Love, a movie which was supposed to be his Truman Show moment, but was notable mainly for featuring Sandler's last average looking love-interest. It was even less funny than Deeds (suffering from a lack of John Turturro) and he beat just as many people up. This was all while playing his most "authentic" character to date.


Anger Management was the last hope for redemption. Fans and foes alike were familiar with with Sandler's characters' tendencies towards physical violence by this time, and it seemed like the perfect way for him to attempt a little self-deprecation. Unfortunately, it only received mixed reviews, being merely kinda-funny, and it was obvious that most of the humor was coming from Jack Nicholson's side of the screen. Ironically, it being Sandler's big attempt to mock his own issues, his character in this movie is wrongly forced to undergo Anger Management treatment, as he doesn't actually beat anyone up. And he still has a hot wife. And he rejects Heather Graham.

Yep. Keeping it real.


After this middle-of-the-road feature, Sandler started making movies in only one of two styles. The first of these is the serious-but-feel-good sub genre. Spanglish was the first of these, featuring Sandler as (what else) the perfect man. The next was Reign Over Me, in which Sandler plays a man whose family died in 9/11. The film received mix reviews, being praised for its treatment of the subjects of family and depressions, but criticized for its casual use of 9/11 as a sympathy-grabber and some clumsy moments. Despite a respected overall performance, Sandler drew criticism for being unable to resist using his famous "baby voice," a trademark that works well in the comedic Channukah song but not so much in a study of chronic depression.


The other sub-genre is more important because it consists of the films actually written and produced by Sandler and his Happy Madison production company. It includes 50 First Dates; The Longest Yard; Click and I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry. This is the genre of Sandler-as-an-amazing-womanizer/husband/athlete where all jokes are based around either the irony of his having to do things that go contrary to his own awesomeness (go after one girl/act gay/be in jail) OR the deficiencies of those around him (usually physical, or in Rob Schneider's case, racial).


Sandler's new philosophy of I-just-can't-help-but-be-awesome is best exemplified by the existence of The Longest Yard. Sandler already made a funny football movie, but it was one in which he played a buffoon. The Waterboy was a big hit for Sandler, and if Kevin Costner can make money by sticking to a sport, then why shouldn't others. The only problem is that Costner looks more or less like a baseball player, with the added advantage of the typical baseball player being one of the more average-looking physical specimens one sees as an athlete in the US. If Randy Johnson is one of the game's best, no one's going to blink twice at Costner on the mound. Sandler, as a supposed peer to Brady, McNabb and Manning, is a little less convincing.


And that's the real problem. When the humor is based on a character acting out-of-type, it just isn't funny if the character isn't believable in the first place. 50 First Dates' trailer featured a montage of women talking about the amazing man who swept them off their feet on Hawaiian vacation, only to reveal that man as...Adam Sandler. If this was a Ben Stiller movie, THAT ALONE WOULD BE THE JOKE. We would laugh at the idea of the uber-Don Juan just described being revealed as an average-looking Jewish guy . But with Sandler, who ain't any getting any closer to the "Sexiest Man Alive" title than Stiller, you're not supposed to laugh just yet. The joke is supposed to be that the only women he has trouble getting are those with retrograde amnesia. The reunion with Drew Barrymore in this movie only serves to show how much things have changed since Sandler's underdog wedding singer had to work up the courage just to make a pass at Barrymore's waitress.


In Chuck and Larry things get even worse. Again, Sandler plays a guy who picks up any woman (or women, like twin-sisters) with ridiculous ease. It then is supposed to be hilarious that this Christian Troy of the firehouse has to pretend to be gay. I mean come on! He can't even remember women's names he's had so many! It must have taken so much effort to say "Yucky!" while groping Jessica Biel's boobies!

If I were being generous, I would say that perhaps Adam Sandler really was a bit of a ladies man in real life, and so it was natural for him to try and express that in his movies. But doing so ignores two important facts.

1. The real Adam Sandler is rich and famous, which cannot help but make whatever experiences he has with women vastly different from those of the amazing-but-regular joes he usually plays.

2. No matter how charming or irresistible Sandler might be in real life (again, being generous) it doesn't matter if that doesn't come across on screen. "Fratire" hero Tucker Max is currently making a movie based on his life as a party-animal and ladies man. This is a guy who is famous for actually having the specific characteristics that Sandler is writing into his characters. And yet, Max has refused to play himself in his movie, because:

I want the person playing Tucker to be attractive on camera; the way te character plays, he needs to come off as charismatic and likable...That's just not me on camera. I know--how ridiculous is it that I am not hot enough to play myself. Welcome to the movies...

...(to play myself) seemed like the height of hubris. Yeah, I am arrogant, but I really REALLY want to make this movie as good as possible...In order to make the best movie possible, I'm
willing to put my ego in check.

Hear that Adam?

The other problem is that the lack of jokes at the expense of Sandler is made up for by endless jokes at the expense of other people. And somehow those people never quite seem to deserve it. There's the jug-eared cop in Longest Yard who pulls Sandler's QB over for drunken-driving. "Things happen," he tells Sandler, who replies "Yeah, kind of like what happened to your ears." Wow, good job Sandler, way to stick up for the underdog. Way to hire someone with a physical defect and then use him as a joke. Actually it's not a joke. It's just Sandler pointing out the ears. No humorous use of metaphor or irony. Just some ears.

Or there's the kid in Click, a pre-teen bully who the brave middle-aged Sandler brings down by putting in the path of a fastball using time travel. Let's beat up some kids! Or the endless racial incarnations of Rob Schneider. (He's half-white and half-Filipino people! That's it! Thats all he is!)

I used to laugh at Bobby Boucher mistakenly implicating himself as a fan of incest, then cheer for his come-from-behind victory at the Mudbowl. Now I just watch Mr. Deeds beat up a photographer and silently curse my suite-mate's tiny DVD collection.

These days, when I come across the older Sandler material, I can't help but see the signs. Remember his character in Airheads? Remember Hugh Frasier saying he got more ass than a toilet seat? I begin to wonder who wrote that line, or whether a certain SNL actor's agent made it a pre-condition of the contract. I also look over that list of annoying things that he might have written and think "wait a minute, turning down the radio when looking for an address in the car likely helps if being aided by a friend in the passenger seat or on the phone." Well I guess that list wasn't arrogant but it wasn't funny either.


In the end, though, it doesn't really matter how many sharks Sandler choose to jump. As his receipt of a lifetime-achievement award might indicate, the era of Sandler has had its "Golden Age," and is starting to be replaced by the young princes of the Appatow dynasty. Even if Sandler's plot's weren't getting progressively worse, he still couldn't compete with a new and fresher breed of comedy. He's simply older and less relevant. Let's put it this way: it might be kind of funny to see James Franco and Seth Rogen as firemen pretending to be gay, but I don't think anyone would have found Sandler humurous as a guy who accidentally knocks up a girl who's hotness and career successes put her way out of his league. Of course the "way out of his league" part would never see the pages of a Sandler script in the first place.

Of course, this Zohan business is already marching towards our theaters with ill-deserved confidence - and it'll probably do alright at the box-office, the man still has fans.

I just hope I never live with anyone who owns the DVD. Thank god I graduated.

Wait, Ricky Gervais DIDN'T do this?! - I'd Like To Have Been In That Meeting...

These guys have been around for a while, but they've gotten some attention lately thanks to this spoof on the production of the Lost opening credits.


This one's pretty good too. Even if you don't know anything about Des'ree post "You Gotta Be."

Album Cover Of The Day

Mississippi Woman by Sherman "Moody" Thomas

"Moody" on Digstation

There are some Track Titles of the year on this thing too...

1. Dirty Old Man
2. Dip My Dipper
3. Mississippi Woman
4. Dirty Sheets
5. Cheated Myself
6. Buttermilk & Cornbread
7. God's Gift
8. Back That Thang Up
9. Damn Fool Ain't My Middle Name
10. She's Your Wife (But She's My Woman Tonight)

11. Another Man's Name
12. Banging The Headboard

That's Awesome!

Just days after being used as a joke by some minor model in Maxim's Top 100 special (seriously, I can't believe the average Maxim reader knows these high-fashion models by name) Tripper Harrison is back in the news. His wife of 11 years is filing for divorce, and judging by her stated grounds, it sounds like Bill Murray's role in Lost In Translation wasn't too much of a stretch:

The complaint, which doesn't specify instances of Murray's alleged marijuana or alcohol use, alleges he would often leave without telling his wife and says he "travels overseas where he engages in public and private altercations and sexual liaisons."

Haha, Bill Murray is SO AWESOME! Oh...wait...

It also alleges Murray physically abused his wife and last November "hit her in the face and then told her she was 'lucky he didn't kill her.' "

Wow, Steve Zissou a wifebeater...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...that's not awesome...Not awesome at all...

Glow In The Dark in Chicago

"Sure it was an ego-trip, but goddamnit he pulled it off; the best time ever; regained my faith in hip-hop/music/god; NERD/Rihanna/Lupe was way better than expected, but we're here for KANYE!; concert of a lifetime, cause this is in the Chi baby!!! "etc.

The hot dogs at United Center are really, really good. Seriously. Maybe not $5 for-an-unadorned-dog good, but close. The beer selection was lackluster, although the plastic lids were a clever move. Fries were crispy, salty, and came in generous portions. A steal at $3 a box. Seating was comfortable and clean. Until the girl in front of us threw up. Location was a little hard for those planning to find a cab, but entrance was swift and restrooms were not overly crowded.

Good times, great sausages

It's So Brilliant It's Retarded

Apparently this has been out for a while but I just saw it for the first time on AS tonight.

Wow.

Unlike a lot of people, I don't mind the newer Family Guy episodes because:

a. In many ways the show has evolved and become funnier, even if certain aspects are different (Stewie, for example).

b. I haven't had to watch these episodes a million times on DVD while at my friend's dealer's apartment, waiting for them to finish haggling in the kitchen.

Unfortunately, I do have to agree with the complaint that the show has gotten overly self-referential. I'm so bloody sick of calm, mustached, gay-guy. And Peter always hurting his knee. And the Chris-loving-old-pedophile. And Chris Griffin. Just Chris Griffin, as a character in general.

So whose brilliant idea was it to combine a show criticized for being too meta with the most meta-riffic franchise in history? I don't know. Probably Seth Green. He's a genius, let's give him creative control of things. (I'm not going to get into the whole Robot-Chicken thing. There version was better, and as such is a pretty compelling argument for why this should never have been made. But that would be complimenting Seth Green. And that I cannot do)

So basically it's an hour of watching minor Family Guy characters being arbitrarily crammed into various Star Wars roles (while hilariously utilizing their "well-fleshed-out" FG personalities...). Any "remember this hilarious guy"-free moment is taken up with plot-holes being picked apart, you know, the favoUrite hobby of15-year-olds-watching-Empire-Strikes-Back-for-the-first-time-since-early-childhood the world over.

The other big problem is that Chris Griffin, that guy who won the Most Likely To Be The Worst Part Of Good Things award back in high school, is the character filling Luke Skywalker's pearly robes, so there's a LOT of that to put with. (Seriously, why do all these people keep Seth Green around? They need his Hollywood good-looks? I guess genius loves company. I wonder if that Family Guy bit about Ben Affleck's contribution to Good Will Hunting set off any alarms in that ginger-frosted head.)

Actually, though, the most agonizing thing about all of this is realizing that those way-too-long Star-Wars-joke vignettes that have been happening like 18 times an episode for the past few seasons were even MORE ridiculously unnecessary than I previously assumed, given that they were given an HOUR-LONG episode to get-it-all-out.

But despite all that I must say one thing: Thank you for the Simply Red reference Seth MacFarlane. You brought something really special back into my life.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII. Want to fall from the stars...

Sway! Yoda!

Wow! Finally two British artists I couldn't care less about have come together to create something that's actually pretty...pretttty...pretttttttty good:

DJ Yoda Feat. Sway - Chatterbox

Favourite parts (that's right, its a U, calm down yankee):

1. Anytime Sway says hello. Its quick, because Sway has some important information to get to.

2. The breakdown where it sounds like Sway has just gone into the club's bathroom, where his computer is located(?) because he has to Google himself. Many different links come up. Some of these links are good, some of them are bad, some make him happy, but some make him...?

It's on FabricLive39, part of the FabricLive series of live sets at Fabric in London. The rest of the mix (by Yoda) isn't terrible either.

Album Cover of the Day

Gay Happening is a long running series of CD's and DVD's featuring compilations of gay-interest music or music frequently heard in gay clubs.

Vol. 17 is a pretty standard entry, containing a list of tracks from several contemporary gay trance and glam acts, and a cover depicting a mostly nude and well-toned male body. (There is generally not much variation, the inclusion of a disco ball or the model doing the slightly-scared-farmboy-in-overalls look being among the more common twists).

What makes this particular Gay Happening cover (and CD) so special are the words written on the little gold tag in the bottom-left corner:

That's right.


Yatta!


Who knew a camp video featuring Japanese comedians dancing badly to a nonsensical song while wearing nothing but Hanes and a giant leaf would become a cult-classic in the gay community?! If only that kid in high-school who really loved the Japanese shows on Fox's "Worlds Craziest Game Shows" - or the slightly more advanced kid who owned the first DVD of Neon Genesis Evangelion, played Starcraft on Korean servers, and knew that Yatta! was actually a joke - had known this was what the future held. Maybe then they'd have stopped forcing other kids to watch their stupid Japanese comedy videos - or forcing other kids to watch their stupid Japanese comedy videos then mocking those kids for not realizing that the stupid video was SUPPOSED to be for comedy. How's the JET program going guys?

Album Cover of the Day

The Rain Man

I just found this newly released CD by Rasaan J. "The Rain Man." Judging by his elongated name, this guy just can't choose between two different options that he thinks are both TOTALLY AWESOME!

And that's how Let's Ride goes for the most part. Producers DJ Boom and Scotty Beam rip-off every major producer of the last decade, from the Neptunes to Mannie Fresh, while Rasaan happily does his Flo-Rida/one-man-band thing over whatever they serve up. T-Pain HIMSELF even shows up for a bewildering two minute cameo. (At least I think it's T-Pain? You couldn't fake that voice right? It'd be impossible, right?) But the point is, despite it being an album featuring only a couple of producers, and one MC, it's all over the place, the artists refusing to commit to one sound or another.

It's harmless, faceless fun until everyone decides they want to spend the album's second half auditioning for G-Unit. Fifty does seem willing to hire various producers to rewrite "Magic Stick" for him over and over again, so who knows - maybe they actually have a shot.

Everything is redeemed, however by third track "Brazilian Shores." Apparently included amongst DJ Boom's 9,302 major influences is the Japanese shibuya-kei scene, and this track sounds like a DJ has taken source material popularized by a Fantastic Plastic Machine mix and mashed it with a dirty south club banger. Except it's an original track. Chron-didddly-on.

Actually, he probably just thought "Hips Don't Lie" was a sweet jam, typed "senorita musica" into Soulseek and ripped this one off too. But whatever. I prefer more meta in my explanations.

Unfortunately this track isn't up on his Myspace, although there is a high budget, on-location music video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M45WGGtrQp8

What the f@ck, I can't embed?!

Oh...

Also, for no particular reason, Pes is my hero:

Review: Shibboleth - Experiment in Error

7/10

Experiment In Error is a title that set me up to be hoodwinked the first time I tried giving Shibboleth's debut album a listen. To be precise, it was the word "experiment" that got me into trouble, lending my ear the bias brought on by what the term has come to mean in our 21st century pop-music world.

The first notes of the album-opener "The 1912 Horsey Rebellion," with its easy Caribbean guitars segueing into a cantering Mexican ride through the desert, immediately brought to mind the Avalanches Since I Left You, (and the associations most people who've listened to that album have with horses probably didn't help either). After a couple more tracks that were reminiscent of El Guincho and Panda Bear respectively, I felt sure I was in for a pleasant review of the best "experimental" styles of the past decade, performed by a group with a thorough knowledge of how to recreate the technology-based achievements of their recent ancestors.

As the album progressed, however, some things began to nag at me. First, I was twenty minutes into this experimental odyssey and I hadn't heard a single vocal. More importantly, I hadn't heard a single sampled vocal. Then there was the song structure - every track flowed seamlessly from beginning to end in the most languid, gradual way possible. Where were the epic time-changes, the bursts of static, or the occasional free-flying leaps over suddenly low-fi backing beats?

Getting a little curious, I headed over to Shibboleth's My Space, where I experienced a shocking revelation. "Instrumental"? "Surf Rock"? Wait a minute, is Shibboleth...A JAM BAND!?

This is definitely a gross-over simplification, but to many music fans, the definition of "experiment" has changed over the past few decades. Today experimentation means samplers and Panda Bear. Thirty years ago, it meant LSD and the Dead. To a lot people engaged in the music scene today, groups like Animal Collective and the Avalanches are OUR jam bands. The same creative approach is used, resulting in a similar tone being set, despite the use of wildly different technological approaches. Jamie Lidell's live vocal-sample ziggurats are today's never-ending acid guitar solos. Oh god...

But the point about Experiment In Error is that to a member of Generation Y it will sound a hell of a lot like the Panda Bear or El Guincho. If this album gets a wide audience, you can bet we'll be seeing aspiring producers making Shibboleth-based mix-tapes in the hopes of getting signed to Star Trak.

What makes it great is that Shibboleth, like fellow sonic-landscapers Ratatat, does this using traditional rock-band instruments. It’s marvelous to realize that what you thought were cleverly used classic synth-line samples are actually the original creations of keyboardist Rich Martin. The rhythmic choices he makes are always unique - at times it sounds like he's trying to imitate a melody he created earlier on Fruity Loops or Cubase and he does a damn good job of it too. The versatility of bassist James Driscoll and guitarist Don Cento is also impressive, as they seem to find a unique way to approach most songs.

The album has a few standouts. "Meatballs" is the album's only real rocker, and it does a great job combining a little eighties-synthesizer menace with some T.Rex sex appeal. A mid-album double bill - "Knute," a lazy cruise down the strip at sunset with Steely Dan; and "Do Not Forsake Me. Billy Bremner," the only track with a surprise ending - is the high point of the release. The other tracks are consistently solid, although the fifteen tracks presented could definitely be trimmed down a bit. "Goats Across The Fire" is really just a rehash of "The 1912 Horsey Rebellion," and its inclusion, along with a few of the other weaker tracks, detracts from the band's otherwise impressive versatility. Again, it’s even more astounding in this day and age that such range is achieved using acquired technique rather than crate-digging.

Experiment In Error is a great album that will sound familiar to fans of this decade's sampler-using indie-stars. At the same time they might wonder, as I do, whether Shibboleth are just a very methodical band heavily influenced by groups like The Shadows or the Dead, or if they're a group trying to recreate their contempories’ Picasso-ed images using a conventional palette. Or both. Realizing Shibboleth was a band using regular instruments was kind of like hearing that Jamie Foxx was actually singing Ray Charles's bit on Kanye West's "Gold Digger." Except with Foxx my reaction was "Why? Necessary?" With Shibboleth, the value-added is clear to anyone willing to give Experiments in Error a listen.

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