Not Music: Aqua Teen Hunger Force Trailer

Yay!!



tags: [Aqua Teen Hunger Force], [ATHF], [Trailers]

The Never @ SXSW

Reverbnation.com is running an interesting SxSW contest: based on traffic, song plays, and registered fans, two bands will get slots to play at the Reverbnation SxSW party. My own pick is The Never, from the strength of last year's remarkable multimedia CD Antartica. It's a good opportunity to play with Reverbnation's various tools, too, which are intelligently designed.

So . . .register for Reverbnation.com, become The Never's fan, listen to The Never--and a deserving band will play at SxSW!

tags: [Music], [mp3], [Reverbnation], [SxSW], [The Never]

Flotsam & Jetsam

There's an interview with Richard Edwards of Margot & the Nuclear So-and-So's over at Things I'd Rather Be Doing; like most interviews about music or with musicians, it suffers from the dancing about architecture problem, and solves this by talking about things peripheral to the actual music: the band's living arrangements, the band's name, and "scarf rock." It's certainly not a bad interview, but I'm not sure it's about music.

Explosions in the Sky is touring later this winter--tickets for the March Boston show went on sale three days ago. Am I wrong, or is that an unusually long lead time for the Middle East Down?

Largehearted Boy has a list of lists: the best-of-2006 from everywhere. I'm no good at remembering the difference between the music that happened to me this year, and the music that happened this year; if I get inspired maybe I'll make a best-of for that.

It seems that Stephen Colbert has counter-challenged the Decemberists? I may have to make an effort and watch that.

Not music-related, but the on-beyond-superlative comic Preacher is finally to be made into an HBO series; I don't know if I'm ecstatic, or terrified. Both, I suppose; if it's bad, I'll have to hunt down and kill Mark Steven Johnson--or get in line to, anyway.

Imogen Heap has done a bit about what she's listening to now on NYT.

tags: [Music], [Music news], [Margot & the Nuclear So-and-so's], [Explosions in the Sky], [Colbert], [Decemberists], [Preacher]

Scream and Run Away

Lucky me, I got to go see Stephin Merritt and Daniel Handler play songs from The Tragic Treasury and read from--I don't know which book it was, possibly A Bad Beginning? (So unfortunate that Mr. Snicket himself couldn't make it, but he seems to have briefed Mr. Handler most thoroughly--and clearly, their shared habit of formality is catching!) It may scandalize but it can hardly surprise my audience that I have never actually read any of his books, and I went entirely to hear Stephin Merritt.

I can't imagine two more suited artists: Mr. Merritt's lugubrious, sonorous voice and dropsical face (not to mention the ukelele) compliment Mr. Handler's mournful bearing and dispassionately terrible stories very neatly--and the kids (and the grownups) lick it up. There was a bit of interactive theater that accompanied Scream and Run Away, and it was impossible to tell who enjoyed it more: the children, the parents, or Mr. Handler himself.

The Tragic Treasury is very Magnetic Fields-sounding indeed ("In the Reptile Room," for example, features that squishy percussion that will sound very familiar to Magnetic Fields listeners--and of course there's the ukelele), which reminds me to say that there's a new, actual Magnetic Fields CD being recorded and supposed to be released next spring. Mr. Merritt didn't sound very enthusiastic about touring in support of it, though, so if you haven't seen Magnetic Fields live already, you may have missed your chance. To which Mr. Handler, on behalf of Mr. Snicket, would no doubt have something very apt to say.

tags: [Music], [mp3], [Stephin Merritt], [Gothic Archies], [Lemony Snicket]

Soundtrack to Jennifer Banash's Hollywoodland

Hollywoodland doesn't sound particularly interesting to me; but it is interesting that Jennifer Banash has thought enough about the music in the book to write something as extensive and interesting as this.

tags: [Music], [Books], [Music in books]

Idolator

Gawker's new music blog Idolator is finally up--it seems to be premised on music blogs sucking? It's got a little more variety than most music blogs (it doesn't cover just music but music hardware, too), and it's got the Gawker Media connections going for it so it'll probably come up with its fair share of scoops, but . . . so far at least, it's neither unique or interesting. I think I'm subscribing to Johnny Triangles' aversion to snark: is saying all the music blogs suck just the hipster-ironic excuse for jumping on the bandwagon and starting one? Unless it means you start one that's somehow non-sucky, it doesn't actually help.

Which brings me back to the question I ask periodically: what's the point of a music blog? Still don't have a good answer; most of 'em are sort of a circle-jerk thing.

And, because I'm listening to it, and because Jenny Lewis and Styrofoam don't suck, here's the Styrofoam remix of Nothing Better. I want another Postal Service CD.



Also, on a completely irrelevant note, Wikipedia has a list of the exclamations used by Captain Haddock. This is lovely. But what I really want is a list of the words used in the original French books, and the translated Flemish books. Translating those can't have been easy.

tags: [Music], [Gawker], [Idolator], [Music blogs], [Mp3], [Postal Service]

Mutual Appreciation

Mutual Appreciation, starring Justin Rice of Bishop Allen, opens 13 September at the Brattle and 22 September at Coolidge Corner. Since it's about a band trying to make it in New York etc, there's a fair amount of music in it, and it's all Bishop Allen.

Bits and pieces (the trailer, the opening scene, a painful performance of Quarter to Three at a painfully under-attended show) are up on iFilm. I don't know if Justin is a good actor, but he seems to be playing himself, or at least his stage manner. I suspect the movie'll either be quite good, or horribly self-indulgent and pointless. I hope it's good, partially because I intend to go see it and partially because I am morally required to wish the writer of Penitentiary Bound success in all endeavors. (As I don't know if Penitentiary Bound is relevant to the movie, it's Quarter to Three streaming below.)



tags: [Music], [Music news], [Mutual Appreciation], [Bishop Allen], [Movie news], [Movie openings]

Very Off-Topic: Screw-On Head

The Sci-Fi channel has posted the pilot for Screw-On Head (based on the comic by Mike Mignola). It is great fun. Adding firm timing to the flexible medium of comics makes them considerably funnier, Mignola's art doesn't suffer in translation, and the voicework is good--just what you'd expect of Paul Giamatti, David Hyde Pierce, and Molly Shannon, really.

Notable quotes:

"He was abducted by two horrible old ladies and a monkey!" "Ah . . . Emperor Zombie, then!"

"It's as I always say. . . all really intelligent people should be cremated, as a matter of public safety."

An informant is reduced to cockroaches about to be squashed by a vampire lady's heel, which is foiled by Screw-On Head's projectile arm. Need I say more?

Relevant tags: [Amazing Screw-On Head], [Sci-Fi Channel], [Mike Mignola], [Paul Giamatti], [David Hyde Pierce], [Molly Shannon]

Er. . .

This is really quite weird. Pela? Since when is Sally Forth on the cutting edge of up-and-coming anything?



Relevant tags: [Music], [Pela], [Sally Forth], [Newspaper comics]

Off-Topic: Brick

So I went to see "Brick" last night; I'd heard it was a high-school noir and very good, and it was both. As a noir it was meticulous and sharp, very well done.

But ten minutes into it I had a question that I've still not managed to figure out: why set it in high school? The film seemed very carefully to excise any atmosphere of high school, and unavoidable high school figures like a vice principal were rephrased to fit a more adult noir setting. This disqualifies most of the more obvious reasons for a high-school setting: it wasn't either using noir to make high school funny, or using high school to make noir funny, or using noir to say something about high school (that it's as dangerous and dark a world, or whatever). So what does the unusual setting buy the movie?

It's obvious that it's a good movie; it followed the rules of noir precisely--the roles of the characters, the slang, the assumption of a certain amount of violence as the price for information. So it seems unlikely that such a smart movie would use a lame gimmick like "in high school!" (which is the movie business' equivalent to the fortune-cookie suffix "in bed!") unless there was an advantage to it, or something to be said by it. But the fact that I can't figure out what the basic setup is for makes me feel like I saw a whodunit but missed the payoff.

Relevant tags: [Movies], [Brick], [Brick Movie], [Film Noir], [High school]

Off-Topic: Flight 3 Rules

Flight 3 came out last Thursday; it's edited by Kazu Kibuishi, one of my favorite writer/artists--he did Daisy Kutter, which is the most nuanced recent book I've read both in scripting and art. Flight is an anthology of short stories done by various young artists, most of whom have either webcomic or illustrator presence.

Flight is the series I look forward to the most--despite the fact that there's about one a year. The art is lovely, the stories are quirky and unsimple, and both are sweet without being twee or forgetting edge and shadow; the artists' different styles give the book a diverse touch that makes it all the more enjoyable, even though I usually end up wanting more of everybody. Everybody should read Flight. And there should be more.

To get the proper juices flowing, here is a sample page from Johane Matte's story "Hunter." All of the animals are wonderfully drawn, maintaining a stylized, Egyptian grace while still being expressive in every line. Closest thing it reminds me of is Blacksad, but without that watercolored softness--more stylized in line.

Not Music

Saw V for Vendetta last night. Trailer notes first.

A Scanner Darkly-- Was styled so drastically (filmed in live-action, and somehow transmogrified into flat, semi-impressionistic animation--looked kind of like a schizophrenic's art, with all those emanating lines and stuff) that it's hard to think about the content and its package at the same time. Content is yet another Philip K. Dick story, package may or may not be annoying and superfluous.

Silent Hill--By the look of it, just a there's-something-evil-out-there horror movie.

X3--Can't tell how Angel does himself, but it looked good. And there's Magneto! That'll go a long way.

Poseidon--A remake of a 70's movie about a cruise ship flipped by a great big wave. Looks execrable, not to mention unneccessary; dialogue includes Deep Blue Sea-like exclamations of "Ships weren't meant to float--upside down!" Dunn dunn dunn! And what was meant to be a touching, urgent line--"I need you to tell you that you love me" in extremis--got a big laugh, and a good three minutes of mocking imitation from the guy behind me.

And one other that I've forgotten, and suspect I actually liked.

V itself. Brilliantly done, I thought, with a few weak spots and one major weakness (one of which I bet is what--other than general cantankerousness--caused Moore to get his name taken off it).

First weakness: That scene where V comes out of the fire and roars. Unnecessary and silly--kinda like newly Darth'd Vader's howl in the last Star Wars. Intercutting it with Evey in the rain just pointed out how unsubtly both were done.

Second weakness: That fight with Creedy's men. Too much fake-looking blood flying, and too many demonstrations of what a cut throat looks like and does to the person it belongs to.

Third and most important minor weakness: The flood of Fawkes-masked people to Parliament, and Evey's confrontation with Finch at V's exploding-train pyre. Sentimental, not credible, and beside the point. The inclusion of characters already killed in the Fawkes-mask-montage was a particularly mawkish touch.

Major weakness: The whole anarchy thing was pretty much gone; maybe in the interests of making V a sympathetic character? Like they toned down (or didn't show, at the least) Evey's torture. It meant that in the book V was a difficult character to sympathize with, and I guess you can't have that in a movie.

Besides the unfortunate ending, a couple of weak scenes, and the overall weakifying, it was a brilliantly-done movie. Hugo Weaving gets mad props for voicing V so credibly and expressively that the unchanging mask became just what it was supposed to be--a cipher, a stand-in for a complex person. Natalie Portman was a good choice for Evey--the right combination of vulnerable and tenacious, uninitiated into the world she happens upon; Finch also was well-cast, with a bloodhound's look and a bewildered patriot's instincts.

One thing I do wonder, though: with what thought was the art in the Shadow Gallery chosen? Van Eyck's The Marriage of Giovanni Arnolfini with Giovanna featured prominently behind V in at least one shot, and granted it was radical at the time, but it could hardly look more bourgeouis and unthreatening now. Why that painting?

I'm not sure if this was imaginary or accidental or what, but it seemed to me that Party or Government members had very dilated pupils, while people outside the Government had very constricted pupils; maybe interesting to think of in terms of arousal, but maybe not.

Oh, another thing that didn't please me: the digs about "America's war" and that flag in Dietrich's secret bit with the words "Coalition of the Willing" around the swastika. V's England is supposed to be a little fantastical, not directly connected to the present, even though it was written as a protest.