I'm not really sure

why I haven't posted in so long. I guess a lot's been going on in the last month (as of Jan 2nd, I've been living in Edinburgh until early June), but I stopped leaving posts well before that. Oh well. Beats me. I guess there wasn't a lot to say? Or maybe I've been saving it. Also, The Beatles' Love took up quite a bit of my time.

As I've posted before, Of Montreal were kind of on my bad side. I know they make stellar albums, on a pretty regular basis, too, but they stood me up for an interview and live mix at WERS last year, and then when I saw them at McCarren Park Pool last summer they just blew. Had so little dynamics, and I know that it's a hard music to recreate live, but jesus Kevin, take a step back. Start by making somone play drums, maybe? Anyway, that's neither here nor there. I downloaded yesterday Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? (I know that's a ridiculous title, but stay with me). The thing is, much as I want to hate this band (is it a band at this point? Apparently Kevin Barnes recorded most of it after he relocated with wife and infant son to Norway, beggin the question of whether this is a one-man-show type band) they keep coming out with really solid albums. It's just hard to argue with. So they suck live–I'll just stop checking out their live shows, I guess. From the album opener "Suffer for Fashion," which starts with a very Bright Eyes-esque distant-pianos-storms-and-babies-cooing sound, it breaks into the kind of deliriously dancable tune that we've come to expect since Barnes reinvented the group as an indie-disco-dance party. Overall the album kind of drops off towards the end, but even the twelve minute "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal" holds my interest with its spiraling keyboards and creepy backup vocals. Of course, as with any Of Montreal album or concert, you can't help but be confused at the dude's sexuality (Wife? Really? Like, a female wife?), but that doesn't really matter once you start dancing. I highly recommend this one.

Speaking of Bright Eyes, I also got my hands on a copy of his new Four Winds EP, and it also is very good. Makes me excited for whatever direction he's going with the upcoming LP Cassadaga, which apparently features Gillian Welch and M. Ward. The songs on here are fairly stripped down, and it sounds like he's finally finding the way to combine the country and electronic angles he felt the need to divide down the middle with his last simultaneously-released two LPs. How does this guy manage to make such unfailingly great records one after the other? Conor keeps me forever swooning.

Also yesterday I got from eMusic Meet The Smithereens!, a track-for-track cover of the Beatles' first stateside album, Meet The Beatles!. It plays alright, but really it just makes me want to listen to the original. There's not a lot you can add there, and these guys opt to not even try, just doing these faithful covers. I would, however, like to check out the tour they're doing in support of this release where they play the album start to finish. That would be fun to watch.

There's more, but I gotta save something for the next post.

I sell iPods at Dodger games.

Will Ferrell in some sort of Apple commercial spoof clip... I think it was in a keynote this year. Not sure. But either way:



And while we're at it,

Ooh ooh ooh ooh.

All You People Are Vampires

and all your stories are stale. I can't stop listening to this Arctic Monkeys. UK bands have really cornered the market on danceable rock with really rocking guitars. I don't want to keep trashing Of Montreal, because I really do like their albums, but the energy on the Monkeys' debut Whatever You Say I Am, That's What I'm Not is unbeatable. Combined with the slurred conversational vocals, the Arctic Monkeys have created this new kind of dance-rock. It's some kind of less embarassing danciness. These guys (I almost want to call them hooligans) could kick Nick Kapranos and Kevin Barnes' asses, but they still want to make people dance. It's kind of like a less boring Oasis.

I think I just heard

Of Montreal in an Outback Steakhouse commercial. It was a remixed "Wraith Pinned to the Mist" with different lyrics. It made me want steak. I don't care that Of Montreal are doing commercials (good for them! and good for the Outback!)... what bothers me is how much they suck live.


Update
Someone finally got this up on YouTube:

Last night I watched

the forgotten Pixar movie, A Bug's Life. Oh holy crap. Hadn't seen it since it came out in theaters years ago, and it really satnds up with the rest of the Pixar ouvre. These guys (and girls) can do no wrong. Its a bit formulaic, sure: you get a oft-forgotten world (i.e. Toys, Bugs, Monsters, Fish) populated with real characters, not one dimensional trick ponies like Madagascar or Ice Age. Flik, and Dot, and Princesss whatever her name was (Julia Louis Dreyfuss, perfectly cast) and all the others are deeply emotionally complicated characters that rival anything on "adult" film or TV. The world is also always so real, so well designed, so textured, so full of life and hustle and bustle. The amount of leaf drawings and sculptures the Pixar team must have done for that one... it boggles the mind. People complain that they're too cute, but these are children's movies. And I'd argue that they're smart and clever enough that the cuteness has enough insight in it to keep me, at the very least, entertained and not oversugared. David Hyde Pierce plays a walking stick who complained of being constantly typecast as, well, a stick. The queen had this adorable little animal that apparently has a symbiotic relationship with ants, and the whole thing was loosely based on the food cycle. Less than two months 'til Cars. Check the trailer... they stepped it up again.


ZOETROPE

My blog's not

looking so hot. I should really start writing in it more. Then I won't feel like as much of an ass when I tell people I have a blog. Peter Shippy told me today I could be in a blog, I feel like that's a face-for-radio type compliment, but whatever. I didn't tell him about this little operation. Maybe once it's a little more.... fleshed out.

I can't believe I wrote a blog post about blogging. sick

Blogspot

I just switched the blog over from .Mac to Blogspot. It makes it look more like a blog, lets my dear readers (both of you) post comments, and generally makes it more streamlined and better to read. I still can't figure out the photo posting though. Hope you like it. Narf.

Snakes on a Plane!

There’s a trailer online now for a little flick called Snakes On A Plane. Samuel L. Jackson stars. It looks to be all that the name implies. Snakes in cleavage, snakes eating cats, snakes being whipped around by Sam Motherfucking Jackson. This is news to me, though I guess its been making the rounds on the internet for a while. They wanted to change the title to Pacific Air 201, but Jackson made them change it back because “that’s the only reason I took the job: I read the title.” Right on, man. Don’t try to dress this shit up: it’s snakes on a plane. You get what you pay for. Bravo.

The Fugees Still Hate Each Other.

Don’t get me wrong–I’m just as glad as you are that they got back together. But their performance in the Block Party was just alright, and I think Ms. Hill is still crazy. I mean, maybe she’s a little bit less crazy, but you don’t bounce back from the crazy depths she reached in two years. I don’t think. It’s not that she didn’t have reason to go crazy, but still, bitch was craaaaazy. The single was pretty good, but the new album keeps getting pushed back, leading me to wonder if it even exists. Perhaps this explains the undesirable January release date originally announced. One thing’s clear though: if they ever make it far enough to do so, the Fugees reunion tour is going to be one of the most spectacular train wrecks in years.

Here we go

Everyone else has a blog. Now it’s time for me. The idea here is to absorb culture–film, books, TV, theatre, comics, music, whathaveyou–and then ramble on to the good people of the internet about it. I don’t know who’s going to want to read it, other than my friends, but they have to hear my bullshit all the time anyway. Oh well. Stay tuned, I'm hoping to make it bigger and better as I go.