Central Village

I dunno

This has been a long and exhausting week. I have the next 5 days off and am looking forward to getting out of the city for a few days. Some things:

This is just about the coolest thing I've read all week.

I don't want a goddamn iPhone. When it gets chat, more storage and faster internet, we'll talk. And I'll have to play with it enough to be sure the touchpad keyboard works. My sidekick contract runs up at the beginning of next year I believe. March, maybe? I will re-evaluate then.

I am VERY happy with the Knicks trade last night. I think Randolph will be a beast in the East, and he and Curry will be untouchable in the paint. What team can match up with 2 guys like that? Yeah, they'll be slow and bruising, but that's how the East is supposed to be! Goodness. For anyone asking, the key to the NBA's popularity is getting the Knicks good again. They're the one team that can singlehandedly change public perception of the league. I bet if the Knicks get good, you're be reading all these magazine articles about how the NBA is back, etc, etc. You'll see. If the knicks get good again.

Don't care about Wilson Chandler one way or the other. Would have preferred Someone with a better shot...IE someone for Z and Eddy to kick it out to when they get double teamed. Can Q and Crawford hit that shot every time? I dunno.

Finally...

(Via All Together Now)

Superbad is Good

I went to a screening last night with medium expectations and left really happy. This is a great summer movie. Just perfect.

Remember American Pie? Well this is like American Pie, except replace the big gross out gags and obvious humor with subtle, awkward Roganesque dialog.

Interestingly, I thought the only parts that dragged were the scenes with Rogan himself playing the zany cop with Bill Hader. Not that they didn't have their moments, but you get the gag early on and they kind of just level out and drive it into the ground. At times it almost seemed like they were improvising their scenes. And not in a good, Curb your Enthusiasm way, but in a way where you sit there thinking "Wait a minute, are those guys just making this up as they go along?" But honestly, they're still pretty funny. Just not up to the standards the rest of the movie set.

Michael Cera may play the same character over and over for the rest of his life, and I'll be fine with that cause he got this role out of the way early on. He was great. Jonah Hill was even better. They nailed just about every scene. You care about these guys by the end. You root for them.

This movie left me with a better feeling in my gut than I've had walking out of any movie in a really long time. If you remember liking American Pie 8 years ago (even if you can't imagine why, today), and think Knocked Up and 40 Year Old Virgin are pretty much the two funniest movies of the last few years, you'll LOVE this. If either of those two things are true, you should really really like it. It's the best of both worlds. I give it my highest summer movie recommendation.

Wow...Wilco, pretty good

I've officially seen Wilco live twice, but neither should really count. Once was at Pianos, the night before they headlined Madison Square Garden on New Years eve. That was fun, tho it was just a couple covers as an interlude to David Cross, etc's old Tinkle show. I also saw them very briefly, from afar, at Coachella 200...5? But this was the first time I've actually set out to take in a full Wilco set. Color me impressed.

All the praise is worth it. Since I've never been before, I can't compare it to previous shows or tours, but it stood on it's on. Just a good, old fashioned rock show! Something I'd be proud to take my father to. (That's a compliment.) Two and a half hours of ridiculously good music played by a ridiculously tight band. Pretty straightforward. Most impressive live was probably watching Nels Cline goto town on the guitar. Him and Tweedy were both stellar. Those solos that I've always felt drag a bit on the last 2 records really come alive in person. Just great stuff all around.

Here's my absolute favorite song off the new album. Taken from a recent AOL Sessions. (via Culture Bully)

Wilco - You Are My Face (AOL sessions)

I am now a proud member of the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Fan Community

And I have a bunch of confirmation emails to prove it.

Presale for their show at the Gramercy Blender Whatever Theater in September is going on now (And will probably be done by the time I get around to posting this.) Can you believe this is their first straight up, regularly priced and scheduled show in New York City since New Years Eve. And does that really count as regular? So...since Summerstage? That's just crazy.

But it makes you think...if you're a band and you're reached a very high point of success early on...where do you go from there? How do you keep going? The members of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah seem like relatively down to earth people. Yeah, they've got some really great songs, but they just rock em out pretty straightforward. Nothing fancy. And that's cool. But what do you do once everyone's seen you play once or twice and doesn't need to see you again?

For a band like Clap, playing clubs like Gramercy rather than trying to push it to bigger and bigger venues, it just shows a certain understanding most artists lose once they break. This is what people want when they see them live. This was, really, their only play (aside from maybe playing McCarren pool for free...or as a co-headliner with someone else awesome.) You see the Clap guys around, in bars and at shows. They KNOW nobody WANTS to see a band at Webster Hall or Roseland, so they avoid it. They know a concert is more fun when you're up front. They know everyone groans when a ticket costs more than $20. Their friends are their fans, and their fans are their friends. They don't seem to want to disappoint any of them.

At this point they're really playing on house money anyway. They've already won. They had nothing left to prove a year ago. And that's not a bad place for a band to be in. They can just go out and do what they want. That was always their thing anyway.

Or maybe they're just not popular enough to play anything bigger anymore. Whatever.

I bought two tickets.

I like the new Pinback album

In an effort to post every day again (NOT every day over the weekend...those were flukes) I find myself often unprepared to talk about something completely or with a full understanding. So you'll have to forgive me when I say I like the new Pinback album, but can't really go into detail as to why just yet. I'll say this, though. I loved their last album, and still greatly enjoy listening to it today. I'd go as far to say that it might be one of the top 40 albums of the decade. Maybe top 30. That may not sound like much, but think about it...

Anyway, this one is VERY listenable as well. At least the first two times through. It's pleasant stuff. Sunny day road trip music. It's weird too, cause I couldn't come around to Rob Crow's solo stuff, disliked The Ladies album with Zach from Hella, and never bothered with Goblin Cock. But this one's good. A return to form, of sorts.

I'm shocked to see that there's nothing from this on Hype Machine yet, and it appears Touch and Go is keeping a close eye on this one since I've now had the album for about a week. If I was gonna post an mp3, I'd pick 'Good to Sea'. Big big fan of that one.

Curious...

Did HBO do this upcoming Robert Whul thing so that people would stop bitching about how bad Arli$$ was?

Also...how long to I have to watch John in Cincinnati before I can openly admit to not liking it? The whole season? Or is 4 or 5 episodes enough?

It's Saturday Night!!!!! Woooooooooo!

I have a bit of a sheltered life. Despite living in New York City, the capital of the world, etc, etc, I often never get to experience what the rest of the country enjoys. So when I stop into Virgin Megastore in Union Square coming home early on a Saturday night and hear a song that makes me SERIOUSLY bob my head while waiting in line, I make a point to find it when I get home. So...here we are. Cascada. Who knew? Hope the neighbors don't complain...

Cascada - TrulyMadlyDeeply (Styles Breeze Remix) (mp3)

(Props, Popbytes, for not making this too difficult.)

I'd buy it today...

But I'll wait and see how I feel next Tuesday.

Concert t-shirts and band t-shirts are a tricky fig. I own a lot of them, I like to buy them, but I usually gravitate towards the ones that don't look like a band t-shirt. You walk down the street with a t-shirt with the bands name in big letters (or worse, with the tour dates listed on the back) and you're giving a lot of information out to anyone who walks by. Everyone who sees you automatically knows one thing about you. For better or for worse, I suppose, but usually it's not a good thing. I like to maintain a bit of mystery about myself to strangers.

So I pick band shirts that you at least have to look at for a second to see what it is. Ideally, it's a cool design that doesn't make the band name prominent at all. Furthermore, if they ever drop way out of vogue or you no longer want to imply that you're a big enough fan to parade around as a walking billboard, you can still get away with wearing the shirt without implying all that.

The trailers for the new Transformers movie show Shia Lebouf running around in a "Is This It" era Strokes shirt. You can take a lot about that character looking at that shirt. It's an effective tool to frame movie characters, because you only have 2 hours or so to get this guy across. Put someone in a Strokes shirt and it says something about the character. Put them in a Metallica shirt and it says something else. Put them in a Blood Brothers shirt? It says something interesting. But nobody would get it. Not for this movie, at least.

Anyway, point is, I don't want to show off. I'd rather the people who quietly pass me on the street not think of me at all.

(pic via Joystiq)

This is pure crazy!

How did Usher get all mixed in with R. Kelly's fucked up world??? He had a pretty good streak as like the biggest pop star in the world only a couple years ago. Now he's got sloppy seconds in some asinine concept video? The only logical explanation is that this conversation actually happened between these two and R. is some sort of Nixon/Scarface paranoid and secretly records all his phone calls. I don't think it's too big a stretch that these two just sing back and forth to each other when they hang out.

There are many, many highlights of the video, (How much Usher sweats during the basketball scene, R.'s entire b-ball getup, the random waffle house mention, the Georgia Tech/TBS line, the Three's Company ending...I could go on.) but I think the best is when they finally agree on how to "get" her, and they get really excited for a bit, do that giddy flying handshake thing and burst out no-nonsense lines like "She gonna be looking so stupid when she see us together!!!" Oh man, I'm telling you...it doesn't get any better than this.

R. Kelly - Same Girl (feat. Usher)
Uploaded by yardie4life

(Via R.'s #1 fan, Aziz.)

Tegan and Sara

I'm sleepy today. I've been getting up early the last few mornings and I think it's starting to catch up with me. I'm sure I'll adjust.

Today I want to talk about Tegan and Sara, who I declare will release one of the best albums of the year next month. I'm serious! It's at least in the top 5 so far, maybe as good as top 3. The only album I can comfortably say is better this year off the top of my head is the new Of Montreal. But it's not just the music that makes me like this. The product is incredibly listenable. Yes, I think nearly every one of the 14 songs are excellent, but this is not the first album to put together a bunch of great songs.

For one, I like that these songs are short. See, my main music-listening time is on my commute to and from work. Since I only travel for about 20 minutes or so each way, this is not a lot of time to digest my music. This album tho, I can almost get through track 10 before taking off my earphones at my desk. (In fairness, I usually skip partway through track 9, "Burn Your Life Down." Nothing against that song, but track 10, "Nineteen," is my favorite on the disc.)

So that's quite an accomplishment for me. I can usually finish it up once at work if I'd like, or on my way home. (the final song, "Call it Off", is in my top 3 on the album with Nineteen and "Knife Going In", so I usually wanna hear that.) It just makes listening to the album so much more enjoyable. This is part of the reason why I love EPs so much, and why stuff like The Upwelling's EP from a long time ago always find their way back on my iPod.

It helps, of course, that the music is really really good, but the experience of listening to music, be it recorded or live, really only partially has to do with what you're actually listening to. Most of it is the circumstance surrounding the music. Your emotions when you first hear it, what mood you're in that particular time. That's why reviews are always subjective. Why CocoRosie will always have their fucked up fans and why the biggest selling record of the year is rarely your favorite. So if I factor in "being able to listen to it in my most comfortable setting" into the mix, of course that makes me like it more.

One more thing about Tegan and Sara. I always thought I was a huge fan of their last record, "So Jealous." Over time, however, I think I realized that there were only a handful of really great songs on that album, a couple OK ones and a bunch of filler in between. The opening track is truly great, then a few above average, yet memorable tracks like "I Know I Know I Know" and "Where Does the Good Go?" come a few down. After those, there's "Walking With your Ghost" and "So Jealous" about 2/3's through, back to back. And by the time you get past those 2, you look back and think that it was a great listen (cause you just hit the highpoint and it's been properly supported in the right spots.) But that's really it. Maybe, above all else, Tegan and Sara are just great at constructing an album. At least at constructing albums that perfectly fit my listening habits. But all that said, I still think their new album is probably one of the top 3 of the year.

I didn't upload any MP3's, but you can get most of the album by now on Hype Machine, I'm sure. Obviously, however, I'd recommend getting and listening to the entire thing in order.