I’ve heard that it’s nuts over at HBO right now. Total “reorganization”, firings, and lots of people jumping ship. Looking at SHOwtime’s current lineup of Californication, Dexter, This American Life, Weeds, Bullshit, The L Word and now british export Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, I can see why. With the recent finales of The Sopranos and The Wire, and Big Love MIA, I gotta wonder what HBO is doing on the sidelines? Get into the game so I have something to design!
There are hundreds of Billboards for Weeds and Secret Diary around L.A. but I didn’t even realize that the star of the latter was Billie Piper from the first two seasons of Doctor WHO (2005). Rose Tyler as a classy hooker?…sure I’ll check it out! The first 2 episodes of the british version are online right now, i suggest you do the same.
I still love you HBO. But when are you bringing back Tales from the Crypt?
My first exposure to Priscilla Ahn was through sheer coincidence. Early Last year I was working for a band who happened to be playing a little benefit show in an exotic home interiors store in Eagle Rock. The opener was the featherweight Phoebe Cates (or yes, Winnie Cooper) stand-in Ms.Ahn. With her guitar and handful of toys and gadgets she made the space her own little world. Her songs transported me into to a place that you’d think only she’d been. But what really slayed me was the delicate orchestra coming off of one small person. With the aide of a Boss loop station pedal she made enough music to fill 3 coffee houses. So of course I’d wondered what it would sound like if she actually had a full band behind her.
Flash forward a year to the night of the release of her debut album A Good Day, where Priscilla and her parlor full of band members took the stage of the Hotel Café. The house was packed with a surprisingly high contingency of asian fans (role model?) and some buzz seeking industry and media reps. I joined a photo pit of about 7 packed into the small corner off stage left and prepared to be destroyed with a feather.
Priscillas stage persona is a tiny ball of artisitic elation, at once nervous and as comfortable as if she were singing to herself…which she eventually did (in loops). The room was stuffy but a cool breeze flowed from the opening numbers of Priscillas set with “Wallflowers” and the Dylan/Lennon Harmonica infused “I don’t think so”. She beamed as she announced the albums release and proclaimed that she was going to “play the whole damn thing”. Which she nearly did… minus the albums’ title track. Her co-penned song “Astronaut” stuck out of the middle of her set just as it does on the album with a storytellers jumble of The Ditty Bops meets “Mr. Kite”.
Even the smallest band would feel crowded on the Hotel Café’s Stage, but veterans such as bandleader/producer/mentor Joey Waronker played to perfection and drove songs like “Red Cape” beyond what the very capable Ahn could do solo. As I was debating the merits of her work with a band and solo Ahn broke out her ukulele for “Find My Way Back Home” and proved how absolutely powerful she could be with just 4 strings and no accompaniment.
But what makes a Priscilla Ahn show is the personality transferred through her storytelling. Debatably the most beautiful song in her cadre is “Lullaby” which comes with a wonderful story about small town escapism and unqualified local policemen; sealed with her Joni Mitchell to Delores O’Riordan vocal outro. As the set was winding down she also shared her story of Willie Nelson’s reaction to her cover of “Opportunity to Cry” before launching into the song with folk swing.
The evening was capped with her “Dream” of a new single which builds to a peak with a looped armada of perfectly harmonized siren calls from Ahn. The added layers of Upright Bass, Drums, Keys, Electric Guitar and Two Cellos pushed this showstopper to the brink of spiritual enlightenment.
The assumed Encore and closer was the kazoo soloed “The Boob Song”, an older fixture of her set with more great storytelling and playful teenage introspection. A fun close to a great set, Priscilla Ahn is full of promise and potential. She radiates a joy in creation and performance that you won’t see too often in bitter, navelgazing hipsters on dark stages in Silverlake. Although my shirt was sticking to my back and the Hotel Café had to be its typical high 80s climate, I felt refreshed by this show as if i’d just walked through the rain.
Rock and Roll has lost “the Originator”. The man who put the thump into the blues, master of the call and response and the creator of the “Bo Diddley Beat”.
Wootie woo! Its time for another AvantTrash contest! This time we have teamed up with Filter Magazine to bring you into the world of The Republic Tigers! Hailing from Kansas City, the Tigers emerged from the ashes of Golden Republic and have been adding steam to their buzz train with a performance last Thursday on Letterman and an upcoming tour with Nada Surf! AliUptown herself of this very blog will be catching them June 8th at Ribfest in Chicago we suggest you do the same should they meander into your areas*.
Here is your chance to pick up their lovely new album Keep Color** as well as an awesome DAKINE Messenger Bag. This isn’t Target stuff, this is fancy bag you want to throw your iPods, Obama Buttons and Moleskine SketchBooks in and strap to your bagless vegan/indie/hipster butt.
There will be 2 winners for this contest:
- First Prize gets and autographed copy of the CD Keep Color along with a Republic Tigers T-Shirt.
- Grand Prize takes a copy of Keep Color as well as the DAKINE Medic Street Series over-the-shoulder travel bag, a favorite of The Republic Tigers. It retails for $60 if that makes you want to win it even more.
So get ready to roll up your right pant leg and ride your fixie down to the Pure Luck cause here comes the CONTEST!
The last contest was easy, this contest is an education! We want you to be smart enough to put some books into your brand new bag. The Republic Tigers hail from Kansas City, close to our old neck of the woods. And knowing what Midwest pride is all about I have decided to show you 4 pieces of Kansas City Paraphernalia (spellcheck, are you sure thats how thats supposed to look?) and all YOU have to do is NAME WHAT IS PICTURED (click to enlarge) and you’ll be entered to win! Send your answers to contest@avanttrash.com and 2 winners will be drawn and quartered at random after the contests’ end at 11:59pm PST on Sunday, June 1st. Here we go:
1. SUBJECT: ARTS & HUMANITIES
2. SUBJECT: SPORTS
3. SUBJECT: CURRENT EVENTS
4. SUBJECT: HISTORY
BONUS: THE FUTURE
Good Luck and stay tuned for reviews and photos from a long Memorial Day weekend!
—– *Your geographic areas, not your other areas. Republic Tigers Tour Dates: MAY 28 Mt. Pleasant, SC - Village Tavern
29 Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506 w/The Helio Sequence
30 Athens, GA - Center Stage Theatre #
31 Jacksonville, FL - Jack Rabbits # JUNE
1 Orlando, FL - The Social #
2 Miami, FL - Studio A #
3 St. Petersburg, FL - State Theatre #
5 Nashville, TN - Mercy Lounge #
6 Memphis, TN - TBA #
7 St. Louis, MO - Bluebird #
8 Chicago, IL - Ribfest Chicago #
9 Indianapolis, IN - The Music Mill #
10 Columbus, OH - The Basement #
11 Cleveland, OH - Beachland Ballroom & Tavern # # w/ Nada Surf
**As heard on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic, Grey’s Anatomy, Gossip Girl and wherever modern alternative rock radio knows whats good for them.
Not many people can pull off purple but you both do so beautifully, Congratulations. I would like to know, Is bisexuality the fountain of youth? I think that if you two had a baby it would live to be 150 years old and would die looking 60 at the most. And if it held a guitar it would simultaneously give boners and moistness to everyone that laid eyes upon it without playing a note. Better yet, you should have a hot set of wonder twins. And tell them it’s ok to make out cause we will want to see that anyway.
Sincerely,
intr0vert
I was watching something really stupid on YouTube and in the video cue there was Joan Jett’s version of “Do You Wanna Touch Me” from 1982 so I had to watch it and she really doesn’t look that much different even though it’s been 26 years since that came out. Of course i had to Wiki her age because my internal calculations were telling me that she had to be a teenager when she was with the Runaways in the late 70’s and still doesnt look nearly 40 but logically had to be at least 45 and I found out that she was born in 1958! She will be 50 years old in September!
And It made me think of equally ageless Mr. Purple. AliUptown and I have had the pleasure of seeing both immortals live in the last few years and they of course have barely lost a step or forged a wrinkle. Prince Rogers Nelson, for the record will be 50 on June 7th. Were they dumping fluoride in the great lakes in 1958? Or has nobody reminded them that human beings typically age.
Sorry there was no insight to this post, just an observation.
I only watch TV one night of the week. I dont really have to watch it at all anymore thanks to Hulu. But if I’m at home, and its Sunday night then I’m watching The Simpsons, Family Guy, et all. So the worst ending to the week comes on after American Dad in the form of Los Angeles’ nightly news. In the meager 8 minutes i let FOX LA stay on in the background there were 4 violent stories, mostly involving the police and their incompetence. The best/worst one involving the Long Beach Police tasering and shooting a 125 lb. terminally ill lung cancer patient with mental illness. Of course the eyewitness testimony was completely different than the police spokesperson. It seems that the cop accidentally popped the guy tasered on the ground and the police made up a bullshit story that they guy had retard strength and withstood batons and tasers to grab a policeman’s nightstick and they had to take him down. In what fucking fantasy world are tasers ineffective? If you have muscles and nerves then they are going to fuck you up because thats what electricity does to you. Are they hiring out-of-work screenwriters as police spokesmen now?
Have you ever seen the 1988 John Carpenter classic They Live starring Rowdy Roddy Piper? It’s amazing! In the story Roddy finds these glasses that filter out what the media is telling you to its base element. For example, a Mcdonalds billboard would just say EAT or CONSUME and politicians are just telling you to OBEY. (Yes that’s where Sheperd Fairy’s mark came from…and they also see aliens in their true form). So what I see for that short period of time before I shut the tv off in disgust is that:
Your police are violent and will fucking shoot you and get paid leave and are never wrong so do what they say. Also, don’t leave the house, here are some car and food commercials. You’ll be safe if you have this car and won’t have to be a responsible driver. This fast food will make you a closer, more happy family; no home prepared meal can. Go into debt to afford things that are newer because that makes them better and that will make you a better person. Here are some tips to save a nickel or a dime off of a 3 dollar purchase as long as you don’t pay attention to how much of your income your many loan payments are. *click*
There are upwards of 17 million people in the Los Angeles-Riverside-Long Beach area. Of course crazy shit is going to happen but should I be watching a completely unbalanced “report” of it? There is no community catharsis or instructions on what you can do about having terrible public servants. There is no advice on how you can make your own community stronger. They are telling you that the viewing public doesn’t want to see that anyway. They’d show that stuff but they’d lose raitings and they’d lose sponsors. It’s bullshit and I’m not going to watch a second of it anymore, ever. I don’t see who it helps for that to be out in front of anybody if it doesn’t accomplish anything. The citizens of the Long Beach community should have beaten those officers critically with their own clubs and tasers and the anchors should have been the people to give them the order. “I don’t know about you Suzi but if some fucking redneck asshole cops killed my unarmed dying family member, I would beat the shit out of them and park their squad car on their throats.”
On top of that its been hot as fuck here. It’s summer, there are going to be a lot of crazy things happening and I know the news will only be painting a more desperate story. I know I sound like a hippie here but where is the Peace and Love, man? I though weed was legal in this motherfucker? And we can marry whomever the fuck we want! Lets fire the cops and fucking celebrate! Gah, its hot… I need a shower.
If you can say anything about Ladytron its that their style has always been constant. There will always be great vintage synth sounds, good beats, and some hot Bulgarian-Glaswegian tag team vocals. 604 and Light & Magic are unquestionably hipster masterworks good enough to make anyone dress in black and go to indie fashion shows. It’s certainly what kept me up at 3am sculpture and ceramics labs in art college. But in the last few years I as a fan have been questioning the potentcy of their trademark style. When Witching Hour came out I started noticing less and less scortchers like “Seventeen” and “Flicking Your Switch” leading me to think that Ladytron might be losing their cool. This is more apparent on Velocifero, which seems to work really well as background working music and not the dancefloor ragers of just a few years ago. Maybe one of the differences is that the songs have gotten so much longer. The music that used to seem like a glimmer for dj’s to build off of is now a drone to be swallowed by white noise. Velocifero is not unlistenable, just hard to praise. It comes out June 9th but if possible catch them on tour this summer with Norway’s Datarock. The highlight of the album may be their current single “Ghosts” now available on iTunes with a bevy of upscale remixes. I’ll say this about the simplicity of Ladytrons music, it lends itself very well to remixes. Sometimes, you can hardly tell which was the original.
Ladytron may just be what they’ve always been, an amazing band to shop to.
Ladytron’s Velocifero (Nettwerk) gets a 4/10 with hopes that the next album brings a bit of an overhaul to their sound (like more guitar).
Some albums get better over time. When an album comes out and you really like it you listen to the shit out of it and then you let it go for a while, and then if it’s really good you can come back to it and its just as great as it was. Sometimes those albums reach that “personal favorite” status by some magical form of musical inflation (even in a recession). Elvis Costello does that a lot (King of America, My Aim Is True). And sometimes I forget how good he is because he’s been making amazing music for so long. And I don’t think I’m being premature here but I’ve given his new record Momofuku (on Lost Highway) a few listens now and it’s pretty fucking good. You will hear a lot of that Attractions sound thanks to the keyboard work of Steve Nieve (see Vox Continental Organ in “American Gangster Time”) and the new addition that you’ll really like is the subtle backing vocals from the queen of Silverlake, Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis. (Perhaps most audible on “No Hiding Place” and the final track “Go Away”) When I’d heard they were working together I thought it would be like a duet album but really she is just a backing vocalist like it says in the liner notes. I guess they really couldn’t have called it just an Elvis album if she was any more prominent.
Momofuku has the right mix of moderate rocking in tracks like “Stella Hurt” and mellowness in the latin rhythmed “Harry Worth” and is super solid overall. Because of this, Momofuku has been added to my Saturday afternoon being-lazy-and-pretending-to-clean-my-apartment music. I never notice the lyrics in a piece of music first, I hear them and sometimes I note lines that stick out but I follow the melodies and let the music build in my head until after a few listens I hear the album overall as it is. This makes Elvis’ music last a bit longer to me because after you peel away all the layers of this bloomin’ onion of great musicianship and perfect songwriting there are some AMAZING lyrics waiting to find you. And the great thing about it is that when you get done with it, you can let it go for a while, come back, and it might be even better than now.
So I’m gonna give Momofuku an 8/10.
“…to the bridge”
And now the CONTEST! AvantTrash and Filter Magazine have teamed up again to give away Elvis Costello’s new album Momofuku on CD and VINYL to one lucky reader. Actually though, i think i’ll break this up and give the VINYL to the first place and the CD to the 2nd place winner.
So I’m gonna make this game easy. I’ll show you 4 Elvis’ and you just have to tell me whether its Elvis Presley or Elvis Costello:
1)
2)
3)
4)
Bonus dealbreaker question: What song did Elvis Costello interrupt on SNL to play “Radio, Radio” and with whom did he perform “Radio, Radio” years later on SNL?
Send your ANSWERS ONLY to: contest@avanttrash.com. I will ask for your info if you are a winner. Winners will be selected at random from the CORRECT entries. Dealbreaker is simply for my amusement.
This contest ends WEDNESDAY, MAY 21st at 11:59pm PST.
Oooooh…tight. As simple as this is I think it trumps the douche-owned Han Solo Carbonite desk. It looks awesome (very well crafted), can be used as very much needed storage for NESessories (i just made that up) and perhaps best of all, IT IS A FUNCTIONAL CONTROLLER! Snap!
Ok I got one more. It holds all of your NESessities. (hire me)
So with the detoonings of Mario, Homer, and Jessica Rabbit by Pixeloo, its about time someone else got involved. But as opposed to a photorealistic rendering, Essenmitsosse throws down more of a photo-esque re-tooning of Mario’s reptilian nemesis. Click the image and be magically transported down the green tube to see and read more.
I was at Sundance last year a few people we all atwitter about the movie “Teeth“, so i’m watching it now and its kinda boring, a little slow, but only half way through. At the part I’m at now she’s doing a web search for Vagina Dentata so I figured I’d do the same (at the least there will be some crazy tentacle hentai or something as a consolation prize). The first and last thing I found was a page selling The RapeX which is A BARBED FEMALE CONDOM TO THWART AND IDENTIFY RAPISTS. I guess you just put the thing in your hoo-hah and let your short skirt and a bad neighborhood do the rest. (Just make sure you don’t have it on inside out)
The next time I have consensual sex even, I will be checking. Nothing personal ladies, safety first.
Every Wednesday, Boardner’s in Hollywood becomes Club Moscow to host a few bands and then a night of 18 and over clubbing. This last Wednesday the typical Hollywood “distressed to impress” set and their “no-longer-jailbait-but-not-yet-legal” girlfriends came out to see SacramentOakland’s 2-piece dance-synth-poppers WALLPAPER. The 2 opening bands of the night drew meager crowds and seemed genuinely bored as opposed to just projecting an image of disinterest. Very little energy was expelled and hence very little applause was given, a typical L.A. Show. And then as Wallpaper took the stage it was as if the crowd had been waiting for them all week. Fresh off a successful showing at the Filter Party at Coachella, Wallpaper brought their infectious retro-electro party A-game and for an athletic 30-45 minute set and proceeded to rock the seemingly unrockable Hollywood crowd.
I’d heard Wallpaper’s songs via their myspace so I had an idea what to expect but seeing them and hearing them became as different as night and day. The songs seemed shaved down to only the meaty goodness “we were told our songs have to stay under 90 seconds” and it made for a streamlined set full of energetic originals and some well selected covers. It was very refreshing to see a band unbridled by pretension and willing to drop some recognizable songs into their set. In fact, the night started off with a rendition of Bobby Caldwell’s “What You Won’t Do For Love” with Bell Biv Devoe’s “Poison” sprinkled further down the set. The musicianship rested squarely in the capable hands of drummer/iPod Maestro Arjun Singh with vocals/Vocoder Ninja/party startin’ compliments of the satin-to-sequined frontman Ricky Reed. There was also an appearance by T-Rex himself during their song of the same name. It was so in demand that night that they played it twice.
I think you will be impressed with the caliber of a good portion of Wallpaper’s music. Standout tracks such as “T-Rex”, “A Million Dollars” and “Everytime We Do It” have some of the best synth work that I’ve heard since Prince was hanging with The Time.
Rating: 7/10 for their live show and 6/10 for the songs. These boys show definite promise! Keep watching Avanttrash this week for a chance to take home some gear from Wallpaper!
Show of hands, how many people expect “Speed Racer” to suck? Come on, be honest, I read message boards, I’ve heard your podcast, you aren’t thrilled at all, are you? The print campaign with the cars on the track is messy and the trailer was lukewarm. It’s not nearly the campaign of say, Iron Man, which is already a sure thing summer blockbuster to be. But maybe all of this bad publicity could have let you down again; because there may be a lot of very satisfied uber-nerds on May 9th when the Wachowski brothers’ “Speed Racer” live-action living comic book candy fireball sensory orgy hits theatres. I expected to be underwhelmed by this movie, writing it off as effects laden fluff but I might have found a bit more in it than the rest of the public.
The story is sparse and plays 2nd fiddle to the technically awe-inspiring visual effects, but I should hope you didn’t expect a repeat of the depth of the Matrix from this Manga-to-Anime-to-Live Action film. I appreciated that the storytelling was delivered at times in a liquid form with visuals co-mingling with the narrators as the timelines wrapped and coiled into themselves. The film centers around the Racer family: Pops, played by John Goodman - a racecar builder devoted to his family; His wife, referred to only as Mom, played with beautiful sentiment by Susan Sarandon; Rex, the eldest brother who dies in a shady racing accident; Emile Hirsch’s Speed, the prodigal son; Christina Ricci as Trixie, Speed’s love interest and best friend; and of course the comic relief, Speed’s Kid Brother Spritle and his monkey Chim-Chim. During the story Speed shuns the corporate sponsors who have corrupted racing to stay in business with his family and has to race to save their reputation and the very sport of racing.
Casting was spot on as the actors held this movie together wonderfully through the effects. The females that I saw this movie with admitted to misting up during a scene between Sarandon and Hirsch. Christina Ricci seemed to get hotter in the grimier moments of the film and although the dialogue like everything else becomes saccharine to the point of aspartame, the perfomances are true and warm. Adding emotion to a primarily green screen movie can’t be an easy task but each of the characters indeed has their opportunity to shine. And Oh how this movie shines. Us designers had conferred that the movie was more of an animated film than live action. Stylistically the exact polar opposite of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
I mentioned that this movie is eye candy right? Can I maybe repeat that a thousand more times? Maybe thats not decadent or bright enough to describe its seizure-inducing effects and Japanese inspired hyper surrealism. Think of having neon injected straight into your brain through your eyeballs. Maybe if you just lined your skill with an OLED TV above your Pineal gland. You know that feeling the morning after you’ve been tripping balls and know you are still kinda tripping because stuff is still kinda melty and the walls are still breathing a little bit? I kinda got a little of that going right now after seeing “Speed Racer” this afternoon. This is the exact movie that IMAX was made for. Not so coincidentally, it will be released in said format as well. I recommend that venue but only if you want your brain to turn to a happy pile of overstimulated nerd mush.
My proper introduction to Speed Racer happened sometime around 1996 when a pre-Adult Swim Cartoon Network had a sort of marathon one stormy Saturday night. I’d only seen a couple scattered episodes but when I sat down in front of the TV that night I expected to see 1 episode but what happened was them showing literally hours and hours of the show, in sequence and seemingly without commercial interruption. I was pretty immersed in the story. And what I saw today was a pretty faithful translation of that. Sure the characters are simple, sure the production designers have blown everything out of proportions; but you will learn within the first 10 minutes of this movie is that the filmmakers consciously decided that if they were going to make an over-the-top living cartoon, then the only way to do it is to go WAAAAAAAY over the top. There are some disgustingly kiddie moments in this film. I have an aversion to the use of chimps in films anyway but to summarize (like i never do), there was monkey poo. And unfortunately it was in the middle of a pretty good 60’s Batman style “Bank! Crash! Ka-Pow!” fight scene.
Assuredly there will be doomsayers next week saying the movie is “unfocused”, “simple” and “confused about it’s demographic” but it’s just because most film reviewers think they should squash a movie that doesn’t appeal to them, well, news flash, IT’S PROBABLY JUST NOT FOR THEM! This isn’t a movie that you have to bring any more of your brain to than the part that WANTS TO HAVE FUN …And maybe the part that controls bladder function, cause this movie is 2 hours long and there aren’t many places you can safely wizz without missing something.
Some people have said that they are put off by the video game-like graphics of the trailers, well then maybe you won’t like the movie. But there is a much better chance that you will get totally sucked in by the ultra-saturated seizure inducting shininess of this movie that simply never lets up. Half of this film is on par in action with the Pod Race scene in Episode 1 with the inevitable final race that will surely rival its excitement. Remember how you gasped the first time you saw the 18 Wheeler-collision scene in the Matrix Reloaded? There are a couple of those moments in this movie for sure. And isn’t that what an overblown summer blockbuster is all about?
On the DeadLantern.com 10 point rating scale I give “Speed Racer” a 7.5 overall with a 9.75 for the effects.
How is it that I’ve been in Los Angeles for more than a year and have never been to the Vista Theater, I must have passed it a thousand times? The Vista in Los Feliz is a lovely place that normally shows some pretty good movies bordering on indie and/or typically the most watchable thing that you’d find in the Arclight down the street. The exterior resembles a Spanish mission with the interior more along the lines of Cleopatra’s bedroom. (inside joke: Joan in the north and Cleo in the south.)
So to fill this movie theater with concert-going patrons, a few of the rows of seats were removed and replaced with folding chairs. I guess that spaceland promotions figured that 2 rows of folding chairs could fit into 1 row of theater seats. This would have been all well and good if it didn’t mean that a certain percentage of said concert-going patrons wouldn’t be stuck in the seats right behind renegade rows of the aforementioned folding chairs. Needless to say, some of us instantly became very close friends with the strangers sitting next to us. (My neighbor was Anthony) The folding chairs were also at least an inch and a half taller, drag for me.
Obstructions and obstacles aside, The show was quite pleasant, very cute, but musically a bit under par. The venue’s sound seemed poorly mixed and hard to control. Neither those in charge of lighting nor live sound had much to work with as all of the sound came from a pair of speaker stacks on each side of the stage at the front of the house. The makeshift stage didn’t so much elevate the band as turn them into pinball machine bumpers for the PA and stage sound.
The openers Lavender Diamond bantered nicely with the crowd and were a complementary warm-up for She & Him; but the songs were far too simple to warrant the 6+ minutes that they seemed to drag on. Zooey joined the band for a song, but like I said lasted waaay too long.
To get it out of the way Zooey Deschanel is adorable. Quite literally one of the most beautiful people to walk the earth. M. Ward is nearly equally fantastic. But the show was very ok to pretty good in the grand scheme of things. It had some nicer moments, like the vocal breakdown in “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?” and of course their beautiful cover of Smokey’s “You Really Gotta Hold On Me” but really, how could you fuck that up? Still the show fell very short in comparison to either the previous time i’d seen M.Ward perform or the maybe 2 dozen female fronted bands/singer-songwriters I saw last year working in the same style. The band seemed very loose. But to their defense the problem was probably that they couldn’t hear each other because of the room’s acoustics; which seemed to pit the bass and drums against each other in Mortal Kombat. Rough spots showed through especially in an uncomfortably hurried version of “I Was Made For You” which left Zooey stumbling on what should have been a very strong melody.
To toot my Nebraska horn I recognized the bassist as Stefanie Drootin from Tim Kasher’s Cursive side-project The Good Life. To my own credit, i knew who the bassist would be before she even took the stage when I saw Ward sound-checking her instrument. I’m that good.
Ultimately I feel a show like She & Him would have translated much better at a smaller venue such as Spaceland. That also would have spared me the pain of dishing out 8 bucks for a tiny whiskey drink. I know it’s L.A. but give me a break! I honestly didn’t think that the act as a whole had the confidence to pull of a show of that size, perhaps after a run of smaller shows they will be a much better live act. Not many bands in L.A. have paid their dues and on occasions like this, it shows. I don’t recommend paying $25 to see anything at the Vista, either.
I’m totally sickened that I’m even writing about this. Then again, I am pretty sick. And quite frankly, after the VaginaCam post, I needed a bit of fluff. Oooh, Miley Cyrus and her jailbait-y goodness! Her poor parents, they seem to be rivaling the Lohans in the “selling out our kids at the risk of their dignity/sanity for a buck” contest. Actually, I don’t think said picture is really worth all the controversy.
Now, the risque ones she took of her and her friends that have been popping up on the internet left and right-those are naughty. In all fairness, what 15 year old girl didn’t take naughty pics with her friends? (or was that just me?) But then again, I wasn’t Disney’s cash cow at the time.
Many people in the public eye felt the need to weigh in on the situation-Bill O’Reilly, Ellen, the ladies from The View…I didn’t give a shit until Stephen Colbert said his piece on it. Oh Stephen Colbert, never again will you win a gem of a role like the closeted history teacher on Strangers With Candy. I miss that show. Best after-school special ever. Anywhoo, this pretty much sums up how I feel about it:
The cliffsnote’s version of Colbert’s viewpoint: Who gives a shit? Am I right? I guess it’s a little hypocritical that I am writing about it, a fault of mine, I admit it. But the poor girl, being a teenager is hard enough without the media scrutinizing every move you make, innocent or otherwise. Oh wait, she’s worth a billion dollars, therefore I am physically unable to have sympathy for her.
Oh yeah, here you go, sickos. You know you want to.
The dude who runs pixeloo says untooned but I guess being around music forever makes me think that someone saying untuned is just trying to say detuned. So the 3rd in his series after Mario and Homer is Jessica Rabbit. I already know 2 girls in L.A. who, minus the disproportionately large tits, look exactly like Jessica Rabbit. I think he should have done a full body shot in this case. The people commenting on his site seem to think that Stewie from Family Guy is his next victim. I think he should do something a bit more expressive, like someone evil.
And perhaps a bit more interesting is watching him do it. Can you imagine having to work on photoshop like that everyday for like 10 hours? Man that would be hell…oh wait.
Technology, man. It must be the future. Here’s a nintendo shunk down to the size of a NES cartridge. Click the image for the google translation. Those crazy French-Japanese.
Hippie New Year everybody. I missed 4:20 today. Cause I was working… on a Sunday. I’m in California, it should be a state holiday. This makes weed nun very unhappy.
Here is a link to a previous Weekly Trashing about Pot. I’ll spoil it for you. It should be legal.
I’ve heard that it’s nuts over at HBO right now. Total “reorganization”, firings, and lots of people jumping ship. Looking at SHOwtime’s current lineup of Californication, Dexter, This American Life, Weeds, Bullshit, The L Word and now british export Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, I can see why. With the recent finales of The Sopranos and The Wire, and Big Love MIA, I gotta wonder what HBO is doing on the sidelines? Get into the game so I have something to design!
There will be 2 winners for this contest:
If you can say anything about 
