Comfest 2008 is over. Discussion going on in our message board.
Pictured above is Hugs and Kisses (dressed as Scooby Doo characters), who put on an amazing set. Backed by The Slide Machine, I love the new recorded/live performing hybrid that they’re doing. Hopefully they’ll keep it up.
Reviews are popping up in our message board for Saturday’s Tom Waits show in Columbus.
In the Alive this week, I joked about not trying hit on girls at the Hatebreed show. I guess the other thing you shouldn’t do is sieg-heil and love Hitler. SXE Columbus Hardcore made it a retro crica 90’s CCS by beating up a Nazi. For more accounts and photos check out Weedsteeler.Blogspot and That Quik Flavor in a Hardcore Kids Eye.
Like seemingly every third big studio movie this summer, Wanted is based on a superhero comic, a 2003 six-issue series of the same title.
In it, thinly-veiled versions of DC Comics supervillians have conquered the world and rule it from behind the scenes, lulling us into thinking that superheroes are just things in comics, movies and bad TV shows from decades ago. Perhaps due to legal reasons—I’m talking some thin, thin veils over those DC characters—the movie adaptation takes practically nothing from its comic source: The title, a couple of characters’ names, two lines of dialogue and…that’s about it, actually.
That in and of itself wouldn’t really be a problem, at least not as problematic as where director Timur “Night Watch” Bekmambetov gets his inspiration instead: The Matrix movies. You would think that Matrix Revolutions would have been the stake through the heart of Matrix mimicry, but here we have a guy with extraordinary superpowers in a business suit jumping through an office building, gun-fu, bullet time, a sleepy-eyed office drone recruited into a war he’s never heard of, and on and on. (more…)
Fun feature put together by The Dallas Observer.
Much print has been spilled in the most recent flurry of Liz Phair news, and a lot of it just clearly misses the fucking point.
As an artistic piece I still think Exile In Guyville is an amazing piece of emotional honesty. I could care less what motivated Liz Phair to write the songs, and from what I can tell she was an artist first and foremost, but she wanted validation from Nash Kato and that crew, so I think that supplied the drive to actually get her stuff released. I think the “potty mouth / slutty blowjob queen / Exile On Mainstreet / priveleged rich kid going bohemian” thing is an angle that lazy journalists employed then, and still employ. One watch of the Guyville Redux DVD that comes with the reissue is paints a much better representation of the indie scene at the time — Chicago in particular — and the way she actually fit into things at the time.
But I think she was/is an artist with a limited well from which to draw. There’s a reason the good songs on later discs were mostly reworkings of stuff from the Girlysound tapes. I think she hit upon a bright burst of inspiration at a certain point in her life and after that was gone she didn’t have anything else unique to say.
Another journalist and I were having an argument recently over whether or not Guyville is even a feminist work. I argued it wasn’t philosophically, but understood that since it empowered so many women some folks just lump it in as a “feminist work.” And I think that’s the most important thing, and one that gets severely overlooked since almost everyone that’s ever written about the album is male, and they totally fucking miss this point just about every single time, but when that disc came out there were a LOT of girls that were suddenly like, OH my GOD, I think those same things too. And it’s O.K. I’m not alone!”
Who cares if Phair never writes another decent song, or that her career nowadays is one naked grab for attention after another? That’s her business, and I don’t hold it against her one whit, and I think it’s idiotic for people to hate on her for trying to make a career within today’s totally fucked up music industry. What matters is that, once upon a time, she created a piece of art that gave a lot of people courage by shouting universal truths previously held behind closed doors. For that Liz Phair will always have my respect.
Okay, here’s two things I didn’t know today.
1. Amazon.com is selling vinyl records. Say what? Makes sense, considering lots of people are moving away from CD, but still this totally went under my radar.
2. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is reissued on vinyl? Say whaaaaaa? But I can’t seem to find any info on the web. Help me out, people.
Both of these things learned thanks to Each Note Secore.
Here’s the 2008 logo for Comfest by Jayna Wallace.
Comfest discussion still raging in our message board. See you in The Other Paper tomorrow.
I always have a huge pile of discs to review, and I hold them in a queue in the tankPOD to remind me that I haven’t gotten to this disc or that disc yet. Well, some of these keep getting pushed aside by newer or more high profile, or simply more deserving releases, and I never get around to doing them. And a few are just lousy. What follows is a mixture of both.
Less Than Jake - GNV FLA
There are still bands playing that mid-’90s punk/ska thing? Really? Why?
Look See Proof - Between Here And There
Another English band probably signed because they sound vaguely like Futureheads. Not bad, but not really original or particularly memorable.
Kylie Minogue - X
This didn’t sell that well, and has since been viewed as sort of a disappointment because of that, but I think it’s a pretty good album. Minogue continues to deftly blend club beats with an indie-pop sensibility to create a varied and fun piece of work. Artistically, Madonna would do well to follow her example.
Ladytron - Velocifero
I have a weak spot for this sweet gothy electro-pop. Ladytron sound like they’re never going to leave the ’80s behind and I’m totally thankful for that. (See also: the latest from M83.)
Phantom Planet - Raise The Dead
Phantom Planet continues to travel the Radiohead-lite road illuminated by The Bends, and end up turning out a pretty good pop-rock album with some slight art leanings. Bonus points for the children’s choir they include on “Leader” since it kills me every time. (more…)
Ahmed has had a crazy year. His band, Sinkane released their debut album. And then he joined Caribou as the drummer to rescue that tour. Details here.
Now he’s about to join Of Montreal as their drummer. Dude is on a roll.
From Ahmed:
im in columbus for one more week and then i leave to athens, georgia where i will be meeting up with of Montreal. i will be playing drums for them. we’re doing a photoshoot and then ill be going to phoenix for a month to visit my parents before i have to meet up with of Montreal again for rehearsal starting august. tour starts in october and im pretty much going to be with the band for a year or so. i dont know what the specifics are other than their next record ’skeletal lamping’ will be released this fall.
Former Little Brother’s talent buyer Ben Hamilton recently started a new company in Columbus, Ben Co Presents. He’s had some good shows over the last few months (Silver Mt Zion, John Vanderslice), but his upcoming slate of shows is really impressive:
7/16 Titus Andronicus - Bobo (or somewhere else)
7/17 Asylum Street Spankers - Rumba Cafe
7/20 Someone Still Loves you Boris Yeltsin - Ruby’s
7/24 Patrick Sweany - Rumba Cafe
7/26 Southern Culture on The Skids - Skully’s
8/13 A Place To Bury Strangers - Bobo or Skully’s
8/18 Bodies of Water w/Port O’Brien - Skully’s
8/19 Handsome Furs w/ The Witchies - Skully’s
8/28 Silver Jews - Milo Arts
8/30 Xiu Xiu - Milo Arts
Keep reading for full press release about Milo Arts shows. (more…)
MP3: 88 Keys: Adam Case Files Mixtapes
I was in the honorable DJ Detox’s automobile, and out the speakers Cleveland R+B singer Kid Cudi’s croons.
“She pretty pretty. But she dumb as a rock.
But honestly see she is all I got.
She is very genuine. Very feminine.
But when we are on the phone I think her brain is sleeping in.
I tried to tell her friends. But they are as dumb as her.
Birds of a feather. I guess. But that makes makes it worse.”
I am like what the fuck is this bee. He is like this is “Wasting My Minutes” on the new 88 Keys mixtape.
I am like that dood who used to produce Mos Def, Grafh and Wordsworth makes funny music?
So I go home and google dood. 88 Keys has an album coming out called “the Death of Adam” in October overseen by Kanye West. The premise is that his boy Adam died in pursuit of humping girls. This is 88’s tribute to Adam.
The above mixtape download has 88 Keys previewing some of Adam’s encounters with the women as told by Grafh, Cudi, Tonya Morgan, and Guilty Simpson.
Imagine neo-soul/Native Tongueish Hip Hop mixed with iono ,pitched up Yacht Rock, and funny as fuck in the humor of Kanye’s Gold Digger.
Miranda Sound celebrated the release of their fourth and final album last Friday, and you can see a bunch more photos right here.
Purchase the new album here.
MP3: Play Your Part (Pt 1) by Girl Talk
Girl Talk has released his new album, Feed the Animals, and you can pay whatever you want for it on the Illegal Art website. Vinyl coming this summer.
While listening, be sure to follow along on the Wikipedia page, it’s good for many “OH YEAH! THAT’S WHO IT IS!!!!” moments.
I’m reviewing Liz Phair’s Exile In Guyville reissue for another publication and got the digital version of the album a week or two ago so I could hear the bonus tracks. I just got the physical version in the mail today since I needed that to review the DVD that’s included. (Which, just from this brief bit, already looks pretty awesome.) However I noticed that the CD no longer includes the bonus track “Wild Thing,” a playful rework of The Troggs tune.
I wonder what happened?
