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February 25, 2005
Born to Lose
Holy Historical Travesties, Batman! The legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studios has closed, and it is being purchased by a movie production studio.
Finally! The fat, bloated, self-aggrandizing jackass known as Danzig will tour no more. Could this be the result of the time he got his ass knocked out for talking shit? Methinks so...
In strange news, the guitarist for Korn has found God (and apparently some sense) and is quitting the band.
As previously rumored, Son Volt are back together and recording an album, as well as prepping at 2-CD set of the bands classic cuts for Rhino Records.
In the continuing stream of unlikely bedfellows, Mike Patton is releasing a new album recorded with Bay Area turntablists the X-ecutioners.
The Arcade Fire have a video for the song "Wake Up" here.
The stills certainly reveal a certain creepiness, but the Interpol's video for "Evil" sounds vaguely like "Prison Sex" to me.
Fearless Freaks, the Flaming Lips documentary, has been pushed back to an early May release.
Mark Bolan lives again—at least on DVD. Born to Boogie, the 1972 film directed by Ringo Starr, is soon to be released, and will include live footage of T. Rex in all their glam-rock glory (including the help of piano player Elton John).
Queens of the Stone Age have cancelled the remainder of the European tour because singer Josh Homme has been coughing up blood. Yikes.
Occasionally, all you really need is a reminder of a hackneyed '80s sitcom to make you laugh, but the outstanding stupidity of fellow humans helps.
Posted in A/V Dorkout | 25 February 2005 at 03:06 PM | Comments (0) | | Link
February 18, 2005
Get It All Out of the Way
Please, please say it isn't so, Ted. Please?
"My wife and I are both going to be 35 this year. If we're going to have a family, the window is closing. Things are amazing right now, and I can justify keeping things going. But there's just so many bands out there. And since I've decided not to go the route of a bigger label and radio hits and all that, (quitting) is something I'm going to have to face."
{Via largehearted boy}
A purportedly new Dredg song has appeared on Myspace, and yegads is it good.
The Cocteau Twins, whom some of you might remember as the band that had no lyrics, are reuniting to perform at this year's Cochella Festival in the hellish bowels of Indio, California.
The Stills have posted their video for "Love & Death" online, but I can give you the short rundown:
• Nerdy but adorably indie guy with Amish hair works in soulless corporate office environment.
• Nerdy guy with Amish hair has a crush on the foxy but bored receptionist with Ally-Sheedy-circa-The-Breakfast-Club hair who randomly attacks office equipment.
• Three bosses yell at Amish hair indie guy, two of whom explode into firey balls of singed hair.
• Artfully tousled band members play in stylish but subdued office environment. Drummer stabs symbols with drumsticks.
Two interesting pieces in the LA Weekly this week:
• An interview with Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs and Steel, about his new book, Collapse, about (what else?) the signs of imminent societal doom.
• An interview with Paul Westerberg, genius and former frontman of The 'Mats.
This should explain itself: "Practical Applications of the Philosopher's Stone. For drunks."
Posted in A/V Dorkout | 18 February 2005 at 03:46 PM | Comments (0) | | Link
February 16, 2005
Psssssh.
To the detractors, from the defenders (regarding Salon's woefully awful piece on Lovecraft):
Laura Miller completely misses the point when it comes to Lovecraft. His critics revert to the same old Freudian bromides and armchair moralizing when addressing his work, but completely overlook what his fiction is about. Writing in a century where a world of perceived order and comforting old ways had given way to social chaos and mass destruction, and armed with the amateur astronomer's assurance that human life is essentially insignificant, Lovecraft created a much more honest art than many of the more celebrated writers of his time. Lovecraft wrote about monstrous, impersonal forces that were tearing apart the world he once took for granted. Watching his family fall apart because of disease and mental illness and seeing the genteel environment he knew was being bulldozed by modern, predatory capitalism, Lovecraft responded with what was for a man of his background primal screams. Don't forget that in socioeconomic terms, Lovecraft was nearly a Marxist. The fish-human hybrids in "Shadow Over Innsmouth" and the Chthulu cultists became monsters out of greed. Lovecraft did subscribe to some odious Eugenic ideas, but don't forget that he married a Jew, and was quite comfortable in the decidedly non-Anglo-Saxon pulp millieu of his time.
Better than any other writer of our own sorry-ass times, he also put the numinous, elemental power of nightmare on paper. To read his best stories is to enter his dreaming mind. Of course his stories are often disjointed and inconclusive -- so are dreams.
-- Chris Knowles
Posted in A/V Dorkout | 16 February 2005 at 05:59 PM | Comments (0) | | Link
February 14, 2005
Octaves Too High
Brendan Canty (of Fugazi fame) is hard at work on a new project, making video documentaries of soon-to-be-demolished houses interspersed with performances by bands like Ted Leo & Rx, Tortoise, Wilco, Bob Mould, Shellac and Q and not U.
Lyrics Born is going on tour with (who else?) Lateef and Gift of Gab.
Sometimes things are so asinine they aren't funny anymore. You know, like using real instruments because they sound more like a real band. {Via largehearted boy}
South San Gabriel, side project of the members of Centro-matic, are releasing a concept album—about a cat. Will Johnson's pet cat, to be exact.
Thanks to The Catbirdseat, I streamed all of the new Crooked Fingers album yesterday. It wasn't life-changing, but there are some really excellent songs on there, including this one.
This might be the point at which I reveal my true dork stripes, but I have to have a minor bitching moment about Ska for the Skeptical. The Specials? Awesome. Desmond Dekker? Great. Laurel Aitken, Madness, Delroy Wilson? Right on!
But dude, what's up with including The Skatalites, Let's Go Bowling, Bad Manners? The Slackers? Hepcat!?! I'm sorry, but any band that plays in Los Feliz on a regular basis hardly qualifies as a ska band that will change anyone's perceptions of the music. {Via largehearted boy}
iTunes has become the default media player of choice in Motorola phones and PDAs. Cool. {Via largehearted boy}
Hmmm. IFC has purchased a documentary about the early punk movement, entitled Punk: Attitude, which prominently features the opinions of such outspoken American "punks" as Henry Rollins, Thurston Moore and Jim Jarmusch—despite the fact that the documentary is being shown during a series called "British Invasion."
I know people attribute a lot of influence to the Sex Pistols, but this is just too much. Sure, it's being directed by Don Letts (video director for The Clash), but American punk, by and large, kicks the ass of British punk, which is an assertion I will gladly defend until the day I die.
Oh, man! I know I have a fairly gruesome bent to my personality, but I must say that these illustrations—by classic MAD artist Basil Wolverton—of the Apocalypse are awesome! {Via Eye of the Goof}
Posted in A/V Dorkout | 14 February 2005 at 05:23 PM | Comments (0) | | Link
Trouble Doll
25 years later, and Echo & the Bunnymen are in the studio recording a new album. Who wants tickets to the dinosaur show?
(An Echo & the B-men song just came on the iPod. Spooky.)
Mastodon will be on tour this spring...with the Burning Brides?
Hah! Apparently, the Microsoft campus is overflowing with employees who have grown little white headphones—little white headphones attached to Apple's iPod, that is!
Jesus H. Christ. HP Lovecraft has done more for modern horror in the American imagination than probably any other author, and the best anyone can do is pick on his abundant hyperbole? Please. I'd like to see any horror writer currently working come up with a story that has inspired as much interest as "The Call of Cthulhu" and then we can talk about Lovecraft's weaknesses.
Posted in A/V Dorkout | 14 February 2005 at 05:16 PM | Comments (0) | | Link
February 02, 2005
Very Idiot
From the Prefix piece on the significance of The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (remastered, of course):
Uncertainty is our uniting force, and a big fuck you to “the ‘60s” is the only way to give our generation any hope of contributing to the same tradition we must reject.
Mates of State are heading out on tour. They're almost nauseatingly cute, but a good live experience nonetheless.
Not to nitpick (much), but these 'rock band' fonts are not actually known by the bands that use them, which is a misleading way to label them. {Via largehearted boy}
More Cowbell! That's all my letter to Christopher Walken would say. {Via slatch.com}
I'd like to take a moment, in reflecting on what would be Ayn Rand's 100th birthday, to point out that objectivism is untenable and ridiculous—assuming, that is, you take the recorded history of philosophy to heart. {Via largehearted boy}
Posted in A/V Dorkout | 2 February 2005 at 05:34 PM | Comments (0) | | Link
February 01, 2005
Will My Warm Heart Ever Fail?
Dude! Now the iPod is becoming truly useful: check out the Podtender.
As a long-time Jay Ryan/Bird Machine fan, I have to say I'm glad he's garnering some notice. {Via largehearted boy}
opening for Interpol on their upcoming tour.
The ever-prolific Jason Molina will be taking Magnolia Electric Co. on tour, as well as releasing a new EP.
Point your browser to the Secretly Canadian site to download an entire EP from The Impossible Shapes, only available while they are on tour.
Posted in Quoi? | 1 February 2005 at 12:42 PM | Comments (0) | | Link
