Egad, I've taken another whole week (plus) off. Crappity, sorry 'bout that. While I've had multiple posts semi-prepared since Monday (and before), I just haven't finished them off to my liking. Since I don't have time to polish those off this morning, here's some random musings to help fill the gap:



MP3 Gogol Bordello - "Sally"
MP3 Gogol Bordello - "Not A Crime"
Despite the fact that they played my favorite show of 2004, I somehow managed to miss out on this past April's visit from NYC's Gogol Bordello (which naturally was a blast, or so I hear). Ridiculous, no? Well, I've somehow been given a shot at redemption, because they are coming back this way on August 14th, just after their brand new Albini-produced LP, entitled Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike, drops on August 9th. Holy moly, that's great news. I hadn't realized that this past spring's release of the East Infection EP was merely a taste of what was to come, as frontman (and potential movie star) Eugene Hutz & company have prepared the full length follow-up to 2002's Multi Kontra Culti vs. Irony at long last. "Sally" is the album's lead-off track, and comes courtesy of the Simple Mission, while "Not A Crime" is a free download from their label Side One Dummy.

Remember - think locally, f**k globally.

Thanks to the good folks at Insound, I've finally gotten my hands on that self-titled CYHSY disc that seemingly everybody is talking about. While the flavor-of-the-month has drawn raves from Pitchfork & many others, I'm not so sure how much I love it just yet. It sounds good enough upon first listen, but thus far I haven't been all that blown away. Perhaps it resonates more after seeing them live, which unlike certain non-carnivores, I have yet to do here in Mpls, though they (and their hype machine) will be dropping by the 400 Bar in September. Or maybe I just need to listen to the record more.

In case you haven't already heard these, go ahead & decide for yourself:

MP3 Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - "In This Home On Ice"
MP3 Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - "Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood"
MP3 Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - "Over & Over Again (Lost & Found)"

I finally met Kyle More Cowbell last weekend (more on that in a future post), but I also found out that the big cheese over at the excellent Tiny Mix Tapes is also a fellow employee at the relatively new jobby-job. How 'bout that? I won't reveal his name, lest I knowlingly leak classified info.

Bill Scher provides the heads up re: this morning's Democratic hearing (as they can't call a congressional one) about RovakTreasongate. It begins at 10am ET & should be streamable via C-Span. Unclear on what this is all about? Let Jon Stewart catch you up & start paying more attention.

The Daily Show has been oh-so-fantastic since its return last week (new studio & all), but apparently next Monday's (7/25) edition will feature a visit from a certain Senator "Man-on-Dog", who is out shilling for his new book on "family values." If our esteemed Jon Stewart cordially confronts Mr. Santorum, as he did so skillfully last week with conservative author Bernard Goldberg (who has a horridly stupid animation on his website, btw), it could make for some truly must-see-tv. Some folks over at Daily Kos are already discussing what Stewart's line of questioning should be. Tune into Comedy Central on Monday at 11pm ET to see how it all goes down.

Today brings a couple movie releases of note, the first of which is the latest shlockfest from "blow-it-all-up!" director Michael Bay, the Bruckheimer-less sci-fi cloning flick The Island. While normally I might not be too interested, I do loves me some Ewan and, oh my, Scarlett, wow. Anyway, The Rock looked like it was going to suck, and it ended up kicking serious ass. Receiving somewhat more favorable buzz is the remake (ugh) of Bad News Bears. Typically, I would have zero interest in this, epsecially with Billy Bob fronting it (I've really dug him only once), but I may give it chance anyway since it was helmed by Rick Linklater, who I give the benefit of the doubt.

Yes, I've got some opinions on last week's Emmy nominations. No, I don't have time to get into it now. Where's Angie when you really need her?

Finally, last week's issue of Entertainment Weekly had a feature article about the late Mitch Hedberg, whose untimely passing this spring shook myself & a whole lot of others. The article is online now & it's worth a read.

ETA: Holy moly. The Sunday NY Times documents a nite out with Leslie Feist & former classmate/director Patrick Daughters. Wow. Lucky, talented muthaf**ka. Can't wait for that new "Mushaboom" video. Via LHB.

I forgot to mention that Sean Michaels e-mailed the bloggeratti:

[Friday, July 22nd], Said The Gramophone is debuting a new series of bi-weekly guestblogs. That means that every two weeks, someone other than Dan, Jordan and I is going to contribute a post. Rather than just pulling in whichever of our friends is available, we've invited some of the most exciting people we could find - musicians, critics and artists - and asked them to share some words about music that they love. We've had "celebrity" guest-blogs before - people like Damon (of & Naomi), The Arcade Fire / Hotel2Tango's Howard Bilerman, Sasha Frere-Jones, etc - but this is a much more regular, long-term series (at least hopefully), certainly extending into the autumn.

The inaugural post will be [Friday, July 22nd] by Annika Norlin aka Hello Saferide, a new Swedish artist who's loosed one of the year's most infectious indie-pop singles, "High School Stalker". Future guestbloggers include both similarly up-and-coming acts and much more high-profile folks. The slate I have lined up for the next few months has made me delirious with excitement.

Sean knows what he's doing, obvs. Check it out, whydoncha.

MP3 The New Pornographers - "Use It"
Matador posted another New Porn track from Twin Cinema (out 8/23). This one features more Neko, which is always a good thing. Via Catbirdseat.

This entry was posted by mr gilbert at 7/22/2005 06:15:00 AM.