Click here for a good hearty, ironic, nudity-related laugh.

Via Majority Report via Wonkette via Radosh. Whoopsie!

Since I don't have anywhere to be Wednesday morning, I went out & caught a midnight screening of Spiderman 2. It's a big, fun summer blockbuster, though a lot of time is spent on Peter Parker's whining about the stress & indecision of being a comic book superhero. Hopefully Spiderman's more wiseass nature will return in the third chapter. Also, Tobey Maguire makes some pretty terrible faces on a couple occasions when he's pretending to really-strain himself physically. Still, the action & effects are great (blows away the original), Alfred Molina does a great job as Doc Ock (a much more subtle job than Willem Dafoe's scenery-chewing last time), and as a whole it's a much better movie, IMO. It also does a great job of setting up the next sequel, which will hit theaters in summer 2007.

MP3 Tom Waits - "Cold Cold Ground"
Once again, it's Waits Wednesday. Today's cut from 1987's Frank's Wild Years, though I think I first heard this song on an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street, long before I first stumbled across some Tom Waits cd's in the cheapo bin @ Tower Records. The slow guitar strumming & accordion playing help set the tone for this somber musing on death & related topics. Tom seems particularly heartfelt w/his vocals on this song, IMO.

MP3 The Tragically Hip - "Bobcaygeon"
And Tragically Hip week continues as well. I had a request from Caley for this track, and frankly it's a pleasure to honor it. From 1998's Phantom Power, which I think is the band's best album, "Bobcaygeon" is one of the Hip's more popular slower songs, and rightly so - it's a beauty. 'Nuff said.

can you feel it intensify

Monday nite's !!! show @ the Triple Rock was a blast, as expected.



While waiting around for !!! to come on, I was chatted up my some random girls who thought I looked a lot like local hero Har Mar Superstar, which (thankfully) I had never heard before. I couldn't tell if these girls were f**king w/me, drunk, or both. I didn't let it bother me too much. There was too much dancing yet to be done.



!!! went on around midnite & played for a little over an hour. They mostly played stuff off of their new album, Louden Up Now, but they closed with "Intensify" from their self-titled LP (via iTunes) after the guy upfront in the green shirt insisted that they do so. Groovy frontman Nic Offer said that mr green shirt, "had the right idea."



Of course, things nearly got out of hand when mr green shirt & several of his friends (including the two potentially drunk girls mentioned previously) jumped on stage & danced there throughout the song. The band managed to work around them just fine, and Offer didn't seem to mind - he even joined the crowd at one point. Much like fellow NYC'ers The Strokes, !!! don't do encores, so the show came to a screeching, sweaty halt as audience members finally left the stage.

I picked up a very cool Aesthetic Apparatus poster for myself on the way out & continued to groove out (via iPod) during the late nite drive home.

This weekend I managed to get my hands on Canada's own The Tragically Hip's new album, In Between Evolution - which will be in stores tomorrow (6/29). The Hip are one of the biggest rock bands in Canada & have been for more than a decade, though they've never been able to crossover here in the U.S. I listened to them a lot while I was in college, and I discovered that their albums all get better & better the more you listen to them. I haven't gotten a chance to listen to the new disc that much yet, but I'm willing to bet it ages similarly as well. I spent much of Sunday nite importing my old Hip albums into iTunes, and I still like them quite a lot after not having listened to them for almost two years - when I saw them summer '02 touring in support of In Violet Light @ First Avenue, which had no air conditioning that nite (the hottest, sweatiest show I've ever been to, btw).

MP3 The Tragically Hip - "Grace, Too"
I was introduced to The Hip in 1994 through my brother Alan, around the time they made a valiant attempt to find an American audience w/their Day For Night LP. The less-sad-back-then Dan Aykroyd introduced them on SNL, and they substituted the opening lyrics of this song with: "she said I'm tragically hip..." This song is still often a set opener at The Hip's very solid live shows - frontman Gordon Downie really knows how to work a crowd.

MP3 The Tragically Hip - "Tiger The Lion"
From 2000's Music@Work, this song was kind of a departure for The Hip at the time. Initially I was turned off by it, but I came back to it after seeing them perform it at a free Canada Day show in Central Park NYC & now it's one of my favorite Hip tracks. Downie's odd lyrics about John Cage's views on art backed-up by The Hip's heavy instrumentation finally clicked for me somehow, & I'm certainly glad that it did.

BTW: If you're reading this Juhi, do you remember keeping me company at The Hip's fall 2000 show @ NYC's Town Hall? I remember having a good time, but I just hope you weren't too bored.

I may post some more Hip tracks as the week continues, as long as I'm still feeling that it's still a worthy enterprise. I hope y'all enjoy...



Today, I felt kinda like Nate (played by fellow native-minnesotan Peter Krause) towards the end of this past sunday nite's episode of Six Feet Under, minus all that widower-single-dad-sexaholic stuff. I can, however, empathize with his desire to MOV curl up in the fetal position (6.2mb) & forget about the rest of the world. Unfortunately, I think I end up feeling that way a bit too often. Anyway, enough depressing nonsense.

Hopefully tonite's !!! show @ the Triple Rock will help to brighten my spirits.

BTW: You may need the 3ivx video codec for that 6FU video.

Late last nite, I stumbled across an amazing speech by former Vice-President Al Gore over @ Alternet.org. The speech was given on June 24 for the American Constitution Society at Georgetown University, and it deals with how the Bush administration is exerting too much power through the executive branch, which is exactly what this nation's founders were trying to prevent when they set up the governmental checks & balances in the U.S. constitution. It is kinda long, but I think it's worth a full read through if you have the time. Click here to check out a transcript. Recommended.

Last nite I also went with some peeps to see Fahrenheit 9/11 for a second time. The 7:20pm showing we went to actually spilled into a second theater, and there was an unusually (in my estimation) long line before the movie let in. I even ran into my parents, who had a much better spot in line than we did. While I don't think F911 is a film that requires more than one viewing, most of the issues I had with the film were cleared up upon a second go-around. I was able to see the structure of Moore's arguments more clearly & was able to better make sense of the points he brought up during the movie's facts-and-figures heavy first hour. Personally, I'm glad I saw it again, although Rachel said she couldn't eat afterwards.

Lastly, & thankfully, the New York Times has now reported on the Hitler-themed web video on George W. Bush's official campaign website, which I stumbled across late last week thanks to Air America's Randi Rhodes. I think I can rest a little bit easier (barely) knowing that such craziness didn't go completely overlooked. Notice that the Bush spokeswoman defends the ad.

I just got back from a late nite screening of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 at my local multiplex, where I ran into my aunt Dobie, my cousin Carolyn and her son Mickey - who I mentioned the midnite show to last weekend. The screening had a decent audience, despite the fact that somebody screwed up & forgot to include it in Thursday's movie listings.

My immediate take on the film is mixed, probably because the film was hyped up so much, and also because I had heard a lot of the "Bush-bashing" material before in other formats. The film starts off great, but goes a little all over the place when Moore starts discussing the Bin Laden-Bush connections. Moore retrieves his focus when the film's turns its eye toward Iraq, where it remains for most of the second hour. Moore succeeds in showing a more personal side to the war, and leaves you with the general impression that too many lives have been lost in the pursuit of who-knows-what, and that the war is just plain wrong.

Fahrenheit 9/11 really is quite powerful, though it does throw a bit too much information at you sometimes. I'd say it's more likely than not that I see it again w/some friends this weekend. I think I may get a clearer picture the second time around. I wish I had a better review in me, but it's late.

torn apart by idle hands

MP3 Beck - "Paper Tiger"
A couple days ago I posted a link to Spoon's "Paper Tiger", from their acclaimed 2002 album Kill The Moonlight. Another acclaimed 2002 album, namely Beck's Sea Change, also featured an amazing song of the same title, which I thought was a pretty random coincidence at the time. If I had to choose between them, and that's a tough choice, I would have to go with the Beck track, because it is just so damn beautiful & epic.

MP3 Spoon - "The Fitted Shirt" (live)
Speaking of Spoon (again), they are all that I've been listening to since seeing them the other nite. So here's a live version of one of my (already stated) favorite tracks, "The Fitted Shirt", which comes from the Stuck on AM 4 compilation put together by the kind folks over at the great local college radio station, 770 AM Radio K. Besides being a great rock track, I love both the nostalgia & the simplicity of singing about your "dad's old used shirt." The original version can be found on 2001's Girls Can Tell.

BTW: For those that are interested, the release date for the season one dvd of HBO's incredible The Wire has been pushed back yet again to October 12, according to TV Shows on DVD. Re-mark your calendars.

Anybody remember a few months back, when MoveOn.org got in a bit of trouble with their "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest? Hundreds & hundreds of ads were submitted & put on the website for people to vote on, and one (not a finalist, mind you) compared the Bush administration to the nazis. When this was pointed out to MoveOn.org, it was removed from the competition, but of course that didn't stop right-wing pundits from using it to rail against democrats & the "liberal" media.

BTW: CBS refused to air the winning ad during the Super Bowl, choosing instead to show their support for men who can't get it up.

Hipocrisy knows no bounds. As pointed out on the Randi Rhodes show (streaming 3-7pm ET on Air America Radio), a new video ad on the front page of Dubya's official campaign website shows clips of Al Gore, Michael Moore, Dick Gephardt & John Kerry intercut w/clips of Hitler in an attempt to compare the angry statements of "John Kerry's Democratic Party" to fascist nazi chants, while championing George W. Bush's "optimism".

In-f**king-credible.

Go check it out before they get pressured into taking it down. If it is taken down & you don't get a chance to see it, let me know - I downloaded the thing because I am in such disbelief. Wow.

I'm going to a midnite screening of Fahrenheit 9/11 tonite, which I'll try to report back on tomorrow. And tomorrow nite: Dave Chappelle, bitches!

It's the triumphant return of Waits Wednesday...

MP3 Tom Waits - "Big in Japan"
Matt Meyers, who taught independent producing back when I was @ NYU, once said in class: "Like Tom Waits, I'm big in Japan." I think he was talking about how some actors draw larger audiences in foreign markets than they do in the U.S. (Peter Gallagher of The O.C. fame apparently does well in Europe), but that's besides the point. "Big in Japan" is the lead-off track from Waits' late-90's comeback album Mule Variations, and it sets the tone nicely for the rest of the insanity that follows. It stomps around, uses lots of weird & random noises, and features Tommy-Boy growling & grunting better than any man alive. It also does a suprisingly decent job of expanding upon the point of Matt's lesson, fwiw.

MP3 Britt Daniel - "Let The Distance Bring Us Together"
Here's a fun track from Spoon frontman Britt Daniel. It's off of the fourth volume of Home, a split-cd series from Post Parlo records. Home IV features two tracks apiece from Britt & emo-mainstay Bright Eyes (O.C. viewers have heard of him, I'm sure), who I believe are semi-frequent collaborators. Naturally, it sounds a lot like a Spoon song, which is always a good thing.



I had the pleasure of catching Spoon play a sold-out show @ the 400 Bar last nite, and thank god for JRDN, who had the brilliant foresight to get advance tickets. Thanks again, pal.

Britt & Co. played a solid set & two encores, performing 4-5 new songs (including the recently posted demos) which may appear on their next LP, tentatively titled The Beast and Dragon Are Adored (according to Pitchfork), which should be out later this year. BTW: JRDN thinks the next album is going to break them, and he might be right. JRDN was also delighted to hear "30 Gallon Tank" among other things during the show, while I was happy to hear MP3 "Car Radio" during the second encore. Other highlights for me included "Small Stakes", "Everything Hits At Once", MP3 "Paper Tiger", and the closing "Jonathan Fisk" - oh, so many great moments.



It was all good times until the very end of the main set, when two lame kids, who looked about 15 to JRDN & I (though 400 Bar is 21+), pushed their way to front row center & were completely obnoxious. The girl was screaming & flashing the devil's horns repeatedly, while the guy was flailing about like an idiot & getting in the way of those around him. They were pissing a lot of people off, and a Spoon crewmember even told the guy to calm down after the first encore. Just before that, Britt had been looking down at these two w/an annoyed glare, which the girl later squealed about (thinking Britt was really connecting with her, I suppose). At the time, Spoon was playing "Take A Walk", and I wished Britt had told the guy to do just that. JRDN & his buddy Nick (who joined us upfront in a much more courteous manner) took initiative & pushed forward, doing their part to contain the guy's moronic behavior. Thankfully, we didn't let any of this ruin what was a fantastic show.

For those interested, there are some live recordings of some new Spoon songs at this website, which I found through catbirdseat.



Oh yeah, Spoon also played another of my favorites, "The Fitted Shirt". It even included a little sing-a-long by the audience that was actually quite nice. The song always reminds me of the simple-yet-great concert poster by the local guys over at Aesthetic Apparatus, which is pictured above. That poster is sold out, but check out their website for other cool designs, etc.

Matt from Heavy kindly sent me this link, which should amuse any fellow Laker-haters out there. Enjoy & be merry - I'm off to see Spoon tonite!

Nope, you aren't seeing things. I guess it's 99 problems, but Trey ain't one.

Last weekend, Vermont's jam legends Phish began what has been announced as their final tour together w/back-to-back nites on Coney Island, NYC. The 2nd show apparently featured a guest appearance from NYC-native, Beyoncé-lover, & current reigning king of hip-hop Jay-Z, who used Trey & Co. as his back-up band on renditions of "99 Problems" & "Big Pimpin". Bizarre? I'd say so, but Phish have done much weirder during their long & storied career on the road.

For the Jay-Z completists or the randomly curious out there, downloads from the show are already available for purchase over at the Live Phish website. I suppose it shouldn't be long now before somebody takes the Jay-Z construction set & combines it with Phish's A Picture of Nectar for yet another remix album. I can't think of a decent name for it, so I'm not going to even try. Any suggestions?

I'll try to post some new music and/or perhaps a belated weekend update sometime today. Thanks for your patience - you're all solid gold dancers.

I'm going with a change of pace as the weekend is upon us & providing some music video links for y'all to check out. It might help to have high-bandwidth, but then again it always helps to have high bandwidth.

SWF The Rapture - "Sister Saviour" (29.7mb)
Here's a live concert performance by NYC dance-punks The Rapture.

SWF The Walkmen - "The Rat" (19.7mb)
NYC garage-rockers The Walkmen go black & white on your ass.

MOV The Thermals - "How We Know" (7.8mb)
Portland OR's lo-fi punks The Thermals buy a projection screen.

MOV The Shins - "Kissing The Lipless" (7.1mb)
I'll be seeing The Shins this weekend. This vid features a figure-skater that seems to have studied Jason Priestley's famous SNL appearance.

MOV Weezer - "El Scorcho" (29.8mb)
Here's a little seen Weezer vid from One Hour Photo director Mark Romanek. Wasn't Pinkerton great? Don't the green album & Maladroit kinda suck? I hope Rivers & company do better the next time around.

RAM The Hives - "Walk Idiot Walk" (stream)
Sweden's indie-punks The Hives play scrabble w/the first single from their upcoming LP, Tyrannosaurus Hives, out July 20.

WMV Kanye West - "All Falls Down" (stream)
Hip-hop producer extraordinaire Kanye West gives a first-person goodbye to actress Stacey Dash, who you might remember from such films as Clueless, Mo' Money or the borderline softcore Illegal in Blue.

Thanks to Sub Pop, Heavy, & Global Pop Conspiracy for links, etc.

I gotta tell ya Ted - I love the shoes. Where can I get a pair?

As reported today by the fancy-pants-elitsts over @ Pitchfork, Ted Leo has announced an October 19 release date for Shake the Sheets, the follow-up to last year's outstanding Hearts of Oak. Here's a tracklist:

01 Me and Mia
02 The Angels' Share
03 The One Who Got Us Out
04 Counting Down the Hours
05 Little Dawn
06 Heart Problems
07 Criminal Piece
08 Better Dead Than Lead
09 Shake the Sheets
10 Walking to Do
11 Bleeding Powers

Ted is going out on tour w/his band the Pharmacists, but he's not stopping by my town. Urgh. Anyway, be sure to catch them if you can:

6/18 Silver Spring, MD - Silver Theater
6/19 Chicago, IL - Taste of Randolph Festival
6/21 Toronto, Ontario - Horseshoe Tavern
6/22 Montreal, Quebec - El Salon
6/23 Portland, ME - SPACE
6/25 New York City, NY - Seaport Music Festival
6/26 Long Branch, NJ - Brighton Bar*
6/27 Philadelphia, PA - The Whiskey~
7/03 Hoboken, New Jersey - Maxwell's (solo show)
7/10 Pittsburgh, PA - The Brew House
7/11 Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop#$
7/12 Covington, KY - Radio Down#
7/13 Milwaukee, WI - The Cactus Club#@
7/15 Iowa City, IA - Gabe's Oasis@
7/16 Manchester, IN - The Firehouse
7/17 London, Ontario - Call the Office
7/18 Buffalo, NY - Xtreme Wheels
7/19 Albany, NY - Valentine's*
7/21 Farmingdale, NY - Downtown%
7/22 Washington, DC - The Black Cat*%
7/23 Wilkes Barre, PA - Café Metropolis%
7/24 New York City, NY - East River Amphitheater*&
7/25 New Haven, CT - Bar Night Club*

*=w/Tigers & Monkeys
#=w/The Reputation
%=w/Radio 4
@=w/Just A Fire
$=w/Machine Goes Boom
&=w/The Natural History & Sea Ray
~=w/Mazarin, Capitol Years, South Congress

MP3 The Decemberists - "Odalisque"
Just one track for today, partly because my .mac account is a little full & partly because I couldn't decide on a second song to post. However, this Decemberists track, off of 2002's Castaways & Cutouts, has been stuck in my head the last couple of days & I had to do something about it. "Odalisque" has all of the fanciful lyrical turns you come to expect from Colin Meloy, but it also seems to go all over the place - it feels epic. My lousy prose really doesn't do the song justice, so listen & make your own assessments. Leave a comment if you like - they are always appreciated.

mark your calendars

Some selected upcoming dvd releases:

8/24 The Girl Next Door (unrated)
8/31 Slacker - Criterion Collection
9/07 Law & Order: Criminal Intent - Season 3
9/14 The Ladykillers
9/21 The Wire - Season 1
9/21 Mr. Show - Season 4
9/28 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

This is a brief list of discs coming out that will most likely work their way into my vast dvd library. Okay, maybe not The Girl Next Door, which I never got around to seeing, but I can't help my crush on Elisha Cuthbert. BTW: I disagree with those calling for 24 producers to kill her off the show. I heart Kim Bauer, even when she's being chased by cougars (that's funny sh**). Slacker is an early indie flick by Richard Linklater, being done up Criterion style - always a good thing. Also on my checklist is the Coen Bros' latest w/some guy named Tom Hanks, as well as several quality tv shows, including the most recent season of the D'Onofrio L&O franchise (my fav), Bob & David's final season, and the amazing first season of what I consider to be the best show on tv, HBO's The Wire. However, I am most looking forward to ESOTSM, IMO the year's best film to date. Hopefully the home video department over @ Focus Features will put together some good extras (nothing much announced thus far). The above links direct you to my online store of choice DVD Planet, who offer 35% off of Criterions - always.

MP3 Ten Years After - "I'd Love To Change The World"
Yesterday I was over at Casa de Punk, who identified the rockin' song at the end of the Fahrenheit 9/11 trailer as this track by 60's psych-rockers Ten Years After, which can be found on the A Space in Time LP. It's great hippie, "what's wrong with our country" stuff, with a searing guitar solo that works really well with the quick-cutting visuals from Michael Moore's new documentary, in the theaters shortly. I'm looking forward to it.

MP3 Wilco - "Kicking Television"
Last summer, Wilco played "Kicking Television" during one of the encores @ Rock The Garden 2003 at Mpls' Walker Art Center (currently under expansion), and I recall it rocking myself & the garden quite effectively. So when I saw that the track was absent from the band's upcoming A Ghost is Born, I was a bit miffed. Despite Amazon's alluring offer to stream the track after pre-ordering online, I decided to "seek" out & "acquire" the track for myself. The recorded version isn't quite as good as I remembered, but I'm happy to hear it nonetheless. A Ghost is Born comes out a week from today.

Perhaps as a result to Google throwing down the 1GB gauntlet in regard to storage space for their Gmail service, Yahoo! Mail has upgraded to allow for 100mb of storage (up from 4mb) & 10mb messages (up from 3mb). Since my Yahoo! account was at 95% (and I had 6mb because my address is so old), this should allow me to hold onto that account for a while longer. However, I am still liking my Gmail account & it's "conversational" format, not to mention it has ten times the storage. I can't wait for it to get out of beta-testing so it will work a little more seamlessly w/my Safari. Still, it's nice to see Yahoo! make a little effort.

If anybody is still using a Hotmail account, give it up already.

director Richard Linklater & Winona Ryder on the set of A Scanner Darkly

The official website for author Philip K. Dick has a production update for Richard Linklater's upcoming adaptation of A Scanner Darkly, including further casting news & photos from the set. In other Linklater news, be on the lookout for Before Sunset, his real-time sequel to 1995's Before Sunrise, which will be coming to a theater near you later this summer.

Thanks to Dark Horizons for the heads up.

MP3 Iggy Pop - "Louie, Louie"
Start your week off with a bang with this version of the classic "Louie, Louie" by Iggy Pop, from the Coffee & Cigarettes soundtrack (it plays over the end credits, btw). It seemed like a fun, simple & relatively carefree way to cure that case of the "mondays" that's lurking around the corner.

MP3 KC Accidental - "Them (Pop Song #3333)"
My obsession with all things Broken Social Scene and/or Emily Haines continues with this track, from 2000's mostly instrumental Anthems for the Could've Been Pills. For the uninitiated, KC Accidental is Broken Social Scene, and this track features Ms. Haines lending her vocal talent for the betterment of all mankind. It doesn't have the pop hooks of some of the material on You Forgot It In People, but it does feature BSS's dense production & should please you drone-pop fanatics out there.

weekend update w/o kevin nealon

After the Franz Ferdinand no-ticket-having fiasco from last Friday, my weekend woefully regressed into Cameron Frye territory. Yes, yes...it was quite pathetic. But if I did nothing else this weekend (and I did very little), I am glad that I stumbled across a blog that I really liked, the Winnipeg-based Pop77. Blogger Chris features mp3's (including downloads from his weekly radio show, "The New Synthetics," which is currently spinning on my iTunes), along with other pop culture musings & random artistic wonderings. Seems like my kind of blog.

bonus MP3: If you haven't already heard, Austin TX's Spoon has posted two demos from their forthcoming album up at their website. These are must-hear IMO, much like those new demos from Jersey rocker Ted Leo that were put online a couple weeks ago...

MP3 Spoon - "I Summon You" (demo)
MP3 Spoon - "Sister Jack" (demo)
MP3 Ted Leo - "Me & Mia" (demo)
MP3 Ted Leo - "The Angel's Share" (demo)
MP3 Ted Leo - "Congressional Dubcision" (demo)

The old saying goes: "Defense wins championships."

Of course, the Detroit Pistons are a great defensive ballclub. But they weren't championship material until they went out mid-season & traded for Rasheed Wallace. When they made to bold maneuver to go get 'sheed, I went on record stating that Detroit would come out of the East & provide serious competition for the NBA title. If the Finals had featured the Kings, Spurs, or a healthy T-Wolves squad, I think it would have been a pretty good series. But fate has delivered these infamous Lakers instead, who are rapidly imploding just as I expected they would. The Pistons play great team defense, match-up at every position (no one's gonna intimidate Ben Wallace, Shaq), have solid bench play, and sport one of basketball's best coaches (despite his lack of a NBA championship) - which is why they lead the Lakers 3-1 in the best-of-seven series to the surprise of those in the media, but not me. Rasheed had 26 points and 13 rebounds in the Pistons' 88-80 game 4 win Sunday nite, and he can help close out the series on Tuesday. It's just about time to break-up the Lakers...go Motown!

I bet the archduke will even be at the Fine Line tonite. Darn.

MP3 Franz Ferdinand - "This Fire"
So tonite's Franz Ferdinand show @ the Fine Line, which I had really been looking forward to, is sold-out. Guess who didn't bother to procure himself an advance ticket? I honestly didn't think that the Glasgow indie-rockers had crossed-over enough to sell out their first gig (I think) in Mpls, but perhaps I shouldn't have underestimated the drawing power of actual quality music. Shocking, no? JRDN & I may go w/plan B & catch Dillinger 4 @ Triple Rock instead, but I am still pretty disappointed. Urgh. I'm almost mad enough to burn this city, burn this city...

MP3 Feist - "One Evening"
Yesterday, my long-awaited copy of Leslie Feist's new solo album Let It Die finally showed up at my door (courtesy Arts & Crafts). Some of you may have already heard the Broken Social Scene vocalist's excellent "Mushaboom", which was blogged by somebody a while back & got me excited about this disc. "One Evening" is apparently one of the album's singles, which makes me wonder what audience Leslie is targeting here. This is by no means my favorite track on Let It Die (which I've only listened to once or twice), but I keep coming back to it. It sounds like 70's soft rock. It really, really does. I can't tell if there's any tongue-in-cheek going on here, but there's something cheesy going on in Denmark, and I can't tell whether or not I actually like it yet. So confusing.

RAM Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy - "Afternoon Delight"

If you haven't seen this video yet, I will fight you. That's no lie. Thanks to stereogum for the original heads up (have a good time @ Bonnaroo, Scott).

BTW: Today, The Big Ticket reaches the three month plateau. It's the longest relationship I've ever had. Wow, that's sad.

Electric Fetus is having a 20% off sale. Ah, new music.

MP3 !!! - "Sunday 5:17am"
The first batch of !!!'s new album Louden Up Now are coming with a bonus EP, featuring three remixes & this non-LP track, which is a little more funk-oriented than much of the more house-driven material on the main disc. The cool, more downtempo shuffle that drives "Sunday 5:17am" is very groovy, and I like the heavy use of angry-sounding horns & weird sounds at various points. I could've used more cowbell, but then I can never get enough cowbell. !!! will be @ the Triple Rock in a few weeks (see "mpls shows"), and I look foward to gettin' down.

MP3 A.C. Newman - "35 in the Shade"
New Pornographers frontman & chief songwriter Carl Newman's new solo disc The Slow Wonder is getting some rave reviews, so I'm jumping on the bandwagon by featuring the album's close-out track. For all the obvious reasons, the new record sounds a lot like New Porn's brand of indie power-pop. But that is by no means a bad thing. I need to give The Slow Wonder a lot more listening time, but it should more than fill the void while I wait for Carl to gather his Canadian supergroup back together again to create yet another pop masterpiece.

Yet another Waits wednesday...



MP3 Tom Waits - "Kommienezuspadt"
This week has been feeling very weird to me thus far, so I thought I'd whip out one of Tom Waits' stranger moments, from 2002's Alice. I have no idea what he's saying, and there are no lyrics provided in the liner notes (though every other song has them). However, this song conjures up an image of Waits as a maniacal factory foreman, his menacing laugh frightening hordes of oompa-loompas or doozers or smurf-like little things as they brew up some nasty evil marshmallow stew, or something bizarre & other-worldly like that. It's strange & fun & great.

MP3 The Outlaw Four - "Million Dollar Legs"
What, oh what to go along w/nonesensical Waitsian rantings? How about old-school Connecticut hip-hop? This is my favorite track from the very solid & entertaining Third Unheard compilation [read the Pitchfork review]. For some reason, I can't help but think of that old "Bulletproof Legs" sketch from Late Night w/Conan O'Brien. I know, it's odd - but that's my mood.

Apparently, Time & Newsweek were only able to find one photo of deceased B-movie star & former-president Ronald Reagan. How embarrassing.

Wow, it took me way too long to get this post up.

I'm still recovering from the weekend, which tuckered me out more than usual. Friday nite was spent celebrating my father's 60's b-day @ the very good, very posh Cosmos restaurant, in Block E's Le Meridien hotel downtown. It was good, yummy times. Following a tasty brown sugar spice cake, I dropped by the final moments of Rachel's graduation party, where further deserts were foisted upon me. I was helpless to defend myself. We capped off the evening by playing the home version of Pimp My Ride, causing Rachel to cry tears of joy. You would cry too, if it happened to you.

Saturday nite began w/a mostly civil game nite over @ Roni & Mike's, after which I headed down to JRDN's for drinks & revelry. After several hours of nostalgic hilarity, I wasn't pleased to find my passenger-side tires had been slashed, preventing me returning home to the comfort of my own bed. Urgh. The kind folks over @ AAA were nice enough to tow my vehicle closer to home, and JRDN & Joe extended their hospitality & let me crash on their couch. Thanks again guys, and thanks again AAA.

Unfortunately, my lousy sleep habits prevented me from getting much rest, which made Sunday a bit exhaustive to get through. Evan came by in the morning to do a photo shoot, which was my first time on any set in quite some time. The shoot went until mid-afternoon, which made us a little late in getting to the Grand Old Day street fair/festival in St. Paul. We missed local-fave Mark Mallman entirely, but managed to catch a good deal of a fairly sloppy/drunken set by Guided By Voices. I had never seen GBV before, and this was probably my last opportunity since Robert Pollard is laying the band to rest shortly. The rock was decent enough, but the soundman may have been more hungover than the band seemed. A really terrible mix, imo. Still, it was a beautiful day & it was fun to be outside. JRDN partook (is that a word?) in some cheese curds, which I tasted despite my better judgement. After finally getting home, I remained conscious long enough (barely) to catch the AD season finale, after which I collapsed at an unusually early hour.

I get my car back tomorrow. Woo hoo.

I got an interesting heads-up re: internet privacy this weekend from my ol' pal, former Bostonite & current Cali-phile Nancy Q:

Google has implemented a new feature wherein you can type someone's telephone number into the search box. Google will then give you the name and address of the telephone number's owner and the option of creating a map to their house. Before forwarding this, I tested it by typing my telephone number into www.google.com. My number is unlisted in the telephone directory and therefore did not come up. However, I then typed in a friends telephone number and her name and address came up, and when I clicked on the MapQuest link, it actually mapped out where she lives. In today's less friendly world of identity theft this is worthy of concern, especially for those with small children who are so proud of themselves for knowing their telephone number. If a child, single person or ANYONE gives out his/her phone number, someone can actually now look it up to find out where he/she lives. MapQuest will put a star where your house is located on the map that is created. This is not a hoax, but basically an on-line reverse directory.

In order to test whether your phone number is indexed, go to www.google.com. Type your phone number in the search bar with dashes (i.e. 888-555-1212) (the dashes are very important) and then hit enter. This will divulge your name and address. You will see a link option to the right for Mapquest. Click on it and Mapquest will use the address to provide a map to your home or place of business. If you want to request that Google not divulge your private information simply click on "Phonebook Results" above your name and phone number. On the next screen click on "Phonebook Removal Form" When the form comes up fill it out and click on "submit". It takes approximately 48-hours for the removal to take place. If you have an unlisted telephone number that is not in the phone book, you probably have not been indexed by Google, but it is a good idea just to check.

I tried it, and it's for real. If that sets your american paranoia off, you might want to do something about it.

Weekend re-cap on the way...

I have to provide one last reminder to tune into Fox this Sunday for the Arrested Development season one finale, which will air at its new timeslot of 8:30pm ET/7:30pm CT. The excellent pilot episode will also be shown at the show's old timeslot, 9:30pm ET/8:30pm CT, for all those who want to catch up on re-runs over the summer. Tell your friends.

The good folks over @ AD fansite The O.P. have posted a couple promo clips from this weekend's finale. More amusing is a short press video with Jason Bateman (Michael) & Will Arnett (G.O.B.) discussing the show's renewal, amongst other things: RAM hi-res lo-res WMV hi-res lo-res

MP3 The Decemberists - "The Tain" (17mb)
Despite feeling kind of lousy last nite, I still dragged my sorry ass out to the 400 Bar to catch Portland OR's The Decemberists in all their weird, indie pop glory. They were great...I'm glad I went (despite the over-priced PBR). They closed their impressive set with their giant 5-part opus, "The Tain", which I finally got a chance to hear. So in honor of my dad's birthday (today), here's the song-cycle in its entirety to take you into the end of the week.

I'm going to keep this track available over the weekend, but will be removing it early next week - so get it while it's hot.

Since I'm posting all of The Tain, I want to encourage everyone out there to check out The Decemberists on their currrent "Never Send To Know With Whom the Van Rolls, It Rolls With Thee" tour:

6.04 @ Metro - Chicago, IL
6.05 @ Shelter - Detroit, MI
6.06 @ Lees Palace - Toronto, Ontario
6.07 @ La Sala Rossa - Montreal, Quebec
6.08 @ Maxwell's - Hoboken, NJ
6.10 @ Bowery Ballroom - New York, NY
6.11 @ Bowery Ballroom - New York, NY
6.12 @ Paradise - Boston, MA
6.14 @ 9:30 Club - Washington D.C.
6.15 @ TLA - Philadelphia, PA
6.16 @ Cat's Cradle - Carrboro, NC
6.17 @ Echo Lounge - Atlanta, GA
6.18 @ City Stages Festival - Birmingham, AL
6.19 @ Exit In - Nashville, TN
6.21 @ Trees - Dallas, TX
6.22 @ The Parish - Austin, TX
6.24 @ Plush - Tucson, AZ
6.25 @ Casbah - San Diego, CA
6.26 @ El Rey Theatre - Los Angeles
6.27 @ Great American Music Hall - San Francisco, CA
6.28 @ Great American Music Hall - San Francisco, CA

w/the Long Winters and the Places

The one-track The Tain cd is available through the Hush Records online store, or also through Amazon. If you like what you hear, also consider picking up their fantastic (and more pop-oriented) LP's, 2002's Castaways & Cutouts & 2003's Her Majesty, The Decemberists. Read their respective Pitchfork reviews here & here.

Much has been made of the speech former Vice President Al Gore made last week @ a MoveOn PAC event at NYU last week. Well, now that the entire speech is available to watch online, so you can make your own informed judgements. Go on w/yo bad self, Al. Big thanks to J.Jolly for the heads up.

ETA: Gore speech victim #1: CIA director George Tenet

Michael Moore's award-winning, headline-grabbing, much-discussed-here documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 now has a distributor (a joint venture between Lion's Gate, IFC & the Weinsteins), a release date (June 25), and an online trailer for you to watch. Have a nice day.

Once again, it's Waits Wednesday...

MP3 Tom Waits - "Jockey Full of Bourbon"
The opening sequence of Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law, which co-stars Tom Waits, moves throughout the streets of New Orleans LO set to the thumping, shimmying beats of "Jockey Full of Bourbon". It's hard to start out a movie better than that, I must say. Those interested may want to pick-up/Netflix/whatever the outstanding Criterion Collection dvd edition of the film. Those unfamiliar w/Jarmusch's pacing may want to prepare themselves to be a little patient, btw. This song can be found on 1985's excellent Rain Dogs LP.

MP3 The Fever - "Artificial Hearts"
When I saw NYC's The Fever back in April, this song made enough of an impact on me that I recalled my reaction to it several weeks later when I heard it again on Red Bedroom, the debut LP that dropped mid-May. Maybe it's just all the synth (it certainly isn't the breakbeat), but parts of "Artificial Hearts" make me think of the classic 80's film, Real Genius. Was Val talking about this blog when he said, "It's yet another in a long series of diversions in an attempt to avoid responsibility." Sounds accurate enough.




I finally got to see Jim Jarmusch's Coffee & Cigarettes when it opened here in Mpls last Friday. The film is a collection of black & white short films, shot over many years between features, featuring actors/celebrities in various scenes, each of them involving said cancer-sticks & caffeine-juice in one way or another. I saw the first couple of shorts back when I was at NYU, as instructor Melody London was Jarmusch's early editor. I really liked the shorts back then, so I was pretty excited to see more of them.

I really enjoyed the film. It may not have a cohesive story, but that's kind of inherent in its structure. I liked Jarmusch's leisurely pacing, clever dialogue, and high-contrast cinematography, as well as the performances. The first short got things off to a good start w/a weird, yet funny exchange between Steven Wright and Roberto Benigni. Other highlights for me included Cate Blanchett pondering the trappings of stardom w/herself, an awkward meeting between Waits trying to slyly corrupt Iggy Pop, and Bill Murray suffering from "serious delirium" diagnosed by GZA & RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan. Coffee & Cigarettes is different, & personally I like Jarmusch's brand of different.

Here's a link to the film's official site, as well as one to what appears to be the official french site. Over in Europe, Jarmusch is just a film director, not an "art-house" film director. I could care less.




In other film-related news, there are a couple new online trailers you might want to check out. In multiple previous posts, I've mentioned Zach Braff's upcoming directorial debut, Garden State. Well, there's a new internet trailer over at the Quicktime trailers site that you might want to watch. This time around, it's MP3 "Such Great Heights" by The Postal Service that the editors decided to cut to.

Also worth a look is a new trailer for Will Ferrell's Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, which looks hi-f**in'-larious, ladies & gents.

It was a rainy, dreary Memorial Day weekend here in Mpls, but alas it did not damper my spirits. On Saturday nite, we gathered some of the troops together over @ casa de Rosen for game 5 of Wolves/Lakers, after which we took the gathering downtown to join up w/some peeps who had been at Target Center for the victory. Most of Sunday got away from me, but I did manage to head down to the Fine Line for a Stills/Metric/Sea Ray triple-bill, which was good times indeed. Segueway-Steve, take me away...

MP3 Metric - "Combat Baby"
This was the first single off of Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?, which has been featured over in my "listen x 5" section for quite a while now. Metric is yet another band in Broken Social Scene's family tree, which can only be a good thing in my view. "Combat Baby" is a fun little ode to contentious relationships that frankly just makes you want to get up & dance. So get up & dance, dammit! What? Are you too cool for school, or something? Jeez...

MP3 Metric - "Dead Disco"
Metric closed out their set at the Fine Line with "Dead Disco", and they kicked it out w/much fury. It's another grooving, dance-oriented number, this time taking lyrical aim at dance-punk disco revivalists - so it seems appropriate. At the show, Metric's kick-ass frontwoman/keyboardist Emily Haines was doing her run-jump-and-kick thing on stage, to the delight of the masses. Wait a second, did I take any pictures...?



NYC's Sea Ray, who will be playing Mpls again @ the 7th Street Entry on June 22nd, opened the show with a 20-30 minute set of their dense, pop-oriented indie rock that was pretty solid. It didn't have me running to the merch table to pick up their latest cd, but I dug on it enough to be pleased w/seeing them.





I didn't really need to see headliners The Stills again. As documented briefly in a previous post, I was at their 3/10/04 400 Bar show where they opened for Broken Social Scene, who featured Metric's Emily Haines that same evening. Now, if you haven't heard Emily's lead vocals on BSS's "Anthems For A 17 Year Old Girl", then you're missing out. After seeing Emily sing it in person, I developed a kind of rock-star crush that should only be reserved for teenaged-girls & shiny guys named Chad. Okay, I may be exaggerating a little. Still, I loved the Metric cd I had picked up randomly from the Fetus a few months back, and the chance to see Emily strut around on stage again was not to be missed. So I drove down to the venue, paid my $12 & planted myself right in front of Emily's keyboards.





Emily & the rest of Metric did not disappoint in concert. It was their last nite of a three-week tour supporting The Stills, and both Sea Ray & the headliners expressed their disappointment/sadness that Metric would be leaving them. I suppose if Emily Haines were on tour w/me (and my fictional band), I'd be sad to see her go too. Miss Haines let her bandmates take the stage before her so she could make a dramatic, fashionably-late entrance, after which they broke into a hard-driving "I.O.U." opener (which also opens their cd). They drove a little too hard unfortunately, as guitarist (and fellow BSS alum) James Shaw broke a string & forced us all to wait for him to get it fixed. During the impatient break, Emily lightened the mood by suggesting that this quiet time was actually her ideal Metric show. Bassist Josh Winstead also chimed in w/some political banter, but luckily this did not go on for too long & the band jumped back into the set w/what may be my favorite tune, the media/Bush-bashing "Succexy" (which Emily seemed giddy to play, IMO).





The rest of their 50-or-so minute set featured several other tracks from the LP, as well as what I think were a few newer tunes. During "Combat Baby", Emily jumped down into the crowd & accosted the indie kid to my left, walking him into the middle of the audience while continuing to belt out the song. He was stunned, just as I would have been. When it came to the break-down section, she left him to go boogie-down w/some of the hotties in the front row, after which she collapsed to the floor (still singing, mind you). Emily remained on-stage for the end of the set, but her theatrical antics continued, thankfully. At one point, she wondered aloud about her inability to be Iggy Pop, since she was a female (which drew cheers), that was then & this is now, and she doesn't do drugs (well, not that amount of drugs, anyway). We laughed. It was fun. Go see Metric if you have the opportunity (I highly recommend it).





My attitude for this show was, "come for Metric, stay for The Stills." Emily Haines called The Stills "beautiful boys from Montreal," and I suppose they're good-lookin' enough. I really do like a lot of the songs on last year's Logic Will Brake Your Heart, but there's just something about The Stills that keeps me from really liking them. I ran into Jim from howwastheshow, who was on his way out after Metric's set & had no urge to stick around for The Stills. Their set was decent enough, but I left before the encore because I, too, had lost the urge to stick around.

I still can't figure out what it is about The Stills that continues to give me pause. Maybe it's because they sound like such an amalgam of lots of other indie rock bands, or maybe it's because they seem like the indie rock band your uncle may like. Can anybody help me figure this out? Your comments & analysis are much appreciated.