Thursday, November 30, 2006

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Chris Rock predicts future

I haven't posted anything about O.J. Simpson, because there's not much left to say about that or the Michael Richards fiasco. But I will post this video from a 1997 episode of The Chris Rock Show. Make sure to watch the end for the Nostradamus moment.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Mr. Manager gets his own show

Michael Cera, best known for his role as George Michael Bluth in Arrested Development and his work in indie rock band The Long Goodbye, will be getting his own show, on the CBS broadband channel Innertube.

The show will be web-only, and is the first of its kind for CBS. It will be shot mockumentary style with Michael and friend Clark Duke (who is also in The Long Goodbye) playing television producers. They're calling it "The Good Life", maybe because they're huge Weezer fans, and the episodes will be a few minutes long.

I imagine the show will look something like this:


You can find some more comedy from the Clark and Michael team at their MySpace page.

UPDATE:
Apparently, the show will simply be called "Clark and Michael" instead of "The Good Life", and will follow the two as they try to sell a pilot script. Hopefully, we'll get to see an episode soon.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Surfing the net



I spend so much time on the Internet, I'm amazed that there are still essential sites out there that I am just coming across.


Two new sites I've recently discovered I can't live without are
Pawky and Fimoculous.

Fimoculous is just a good quality catch-all blog for music, film, tv and misc., but I love it because of the
compilation of year-end lists. It's getting to be that time of the season, and I can't wait to roll my eyes about bloggers' buzzed out lists, which started with Information Leafblower's Top 40 Bands in America. (Sure, Girl Talk is the 36th best band in America.)

Pawky is downright awesome. For those who are sick of wading through YouTube to find any semblance of quality, Pawky is the answer -- a video site that highlights
award-winning short films. Actual filmmakers can submit films and if the powers-that-be deem it worthy, the site will give it a featured spot. Sure, users could still upload crap or stuff from TV, but it won't be lauded by the more discernable audience that Pawky attracts. I've found that even the user-uploaded videos are pretty cool.

So, yeah. Check out these sites. Also, tell me about some more cool spots, because I've got 16 waking hours to fill.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Brits agree! Ys is "astonishing"!


Two Joanna Newsom posts in a row? Yes.

Newsom's Ys is racking up rave reviews from pretty much every media outlet. In fact, the only bad review I found was from Rolling Stone, which gave Ys two stars out of five, called it an EP and said her voice makes Bjork sound like Kelly Clarkson. Normally I would be frustrated with reviewer Christian Hoard and chastise him for naming Brad Paisley's "Alcohol" his favorite single of 2005. But I'd rather Joanna not get the Rolling Stone audience.

Curiously, the three British reviews I read all called the album "astonishing," which I guess must be a very popular word over there.

From the BBC: "The orchestra compliment without intruding on Newsom's harp and astonishing range of melody..."

From Uncut:
"Uncut’s editor compares "Ys" to Nico’s "Marble Index", for its astonishing single-mindedness..."

From the Guardian: "The lyric book goes on and on like the Gobi Desert. It may well be the most off-putting album released this year. After playing it, there seems every chance it is the also the most astonishing."

If this album weren't so blatantly astonishing, I'd call plagiarism.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Songs: Peach, Plum, Pear

I think it's natural to get upset when a band you love during their relative anonymity becomes wildly popular. Zack Braff didn't make the Shins' music any worse, and they were already extremely popular, but he contaminated them by feeding them to the masses. I know it's immature, but I want to keep artists I love to myself. Or at least to people that I respect. When you see the Shins listed next to Audioslave on MySpace profiles, it's hard to only hear the music.

There's a chance that I'll get to keep Joanna Newsom, although she's already quite popular and her new brilliant album, Ys, is only going to make her more-so. Her voice, which is inexplicably called annoying, yelping, screeching and other expletives in any mention of her work, will assure me that not everyone will embrace her. Thus, I can continue to stand on high and look down on the masses who don't understand what I see as a singular, mesmerizing voice that may be alien, but is clearly part of a more advanced species than you or I.

The first time I heard the The Milk-Eyed Mender, "Peach, Plum, Pear" startled me. I stopped progressing on the album and listened to the song again. There aren't many songs out there capable of giving me chills, but this one did the first 100 times I heard it.

The rest of the album is great, but this song stands out for so many reasons. A new instrument, an electric harp, instructs you to listen. It sounds like a song from the future, from an instrument I've never heard and a voice I could never imagine. And then the voice magnifies itself at certain points, the song ascending to terrifying new heights.

It's at these points where the song becomes something I'll never get over. Doubletracking vocals is nice, but Newsom quadruple (or more) tracks to make the climax that much more intense.

For many people that annoying, yelping voice X 4 will be only that more unbearable. For me, it's transcendent.

And I am blue, I am blue and unwell.


Joanna Newsom - Peach, Plum, Pear

Final Fantasy - Peach, Plum, Pear

Monday, November 13, 2006

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man comes out tomorrow on DVD, and, unfortunately, I can't really say it's worth buying or renting.

The problem is there's only one performance from Leonard, and this isn't rectified in the DVD special features. Sure, Rufus Wainwright's "Chelsea Hotel #2" (possibly my favorite Leonard song) is nice, but then you've got to traverse through loads of Bono and The Edge rubbish to get to anything else worthwhile.

Instead, try YouTube for all your Leonard viewing needs.

Here's a classic live performance of Chelsea at Carnegie Hall, and here's Rufus doing it. For good measure, here's an ugly girl with a lisp doing it.

But this is the crown jewel of all things Leonard on YouTube, and it just popped up a couple days ago. Notice the amazing clothing on the choir, and the way Leonard so casually turns up to them, with hands in pocket.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Monday, November 06, 2006

Awesome "Ironic" Tee Idea


This poor dude, who has an innocent enough impulse to expose himself to young girls, was ordered by a Delaware judge to wear a new work uniform consisting of a T-shirt with the catchy phrase "I am a registered sex offender" on the front.

I'm sure this guy's business will go down in flames if he's standing out front welcoming families with his happy new shirt, unless he capitalizes on it and starts a new business. Sell this shit to BustedTees or put a Adobe Illustrated penis on it and sell it to Threadless! Not only will he make some extra cash from frat boys, but the market will be so flooded with these shirts that no one will be able to tell who's a real sex offender. So not only can he can continue his gardening business, but he can continue exposing himself any chance he gets.

Because what's the judge gonna do next time, make him wear a hat? That's only going to help him expand his business.





I really want this I 'heart' Lamp shirt.

Friday, November 03, 2006

Scatter-Shot at CMJ

Red Hot Chili Peppers at Northsix

I was walking by Northsix in Williamsburg last night around 3 a.m., coming home from the Annuals show (all hype, fyi), when I heard some monster bass lines making their way out to the street. I walked up to the unguarded door and peeked inside. About 20 people were standing around trying to look bored, but there were five onstage looking anything but.

The Red Hot Fucking Chili Peppers baby! Booyah!

They opened up with "Give it Away" and got the crowd, or at least me, really into an awesome rock mood.

The highlight of the show was when Anthony sent the band offstage, took an acoustic guitar and played a more spectacular version of "Under the Bridge" than I even thought was possible, and this is coming from a guy who has seen RHCP at least a dozen times. It was both earth-shattering and heart-shattering, which makes sense because those words use the same letters.

If I had to use any letters to describe the show it would be L-O-V-E. You guys have got to check out the latest RHCP, Californication. Hit after hit after #1 hit.

This is my favorite part of CMJ, when I catch a secret show from a band I don't expect to see. Last year it was Elton John, but this year was better.

Here's some video I caught of the show with my phone camera:

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Worst Website Ever


I hate having to use the grossly overplayed Comic Book Guy reference, but I really did find the worst website ever. And while I know this template blogger page isn't anything to brag about, at least I didn't try to make my own like Iris Lord.

I was watching music videos in the YouTube Underground contest, and came across one called "Screentest" for an experimental jazz singer named Iris Lord. I thought the video was pretty cool, so I checked her website to see who the fuck this crazy chick was.

At irislord.com, it's quite difficult to find out anything about the artist because of the red text on yellow background. You can click on what looks to be album covers, and that will take you to smaller pictures of the album. And then there's the page with her bio I found after half an hour, where you might absorb some info if you've got a couple hours to read a big block of text.

Simply terrible. Please check it out and click around a bit. And tell me about the worst website you've come across. Now there are over 100 million of them, so I'm sure there are some even worse than Iris Lord's.