Album Review: Jason Collett "Here's to Being Here."

Above: "Unofficial Video" for Out of Time

Jason Collett is one of the masterminds behind Broken Social Scene. I can hear why he doesn't add the "Broken Social Scene Presents...." prefix to his albums, unlike Kevin Drew. Collett's traditional southern rock could not be further from the chaotic mess of the full BSS. (e.g. "Ibi Dreams of Pavement" from BSS's 2005 self titled release.) Collett's vocal delivery will inevitably draw comparisons to Bob Dylan, but only in a good way. Here's To Being Here is an album of buttoned down, straightforward rockers. Get it.

Video: NO AGE: "Boy Void"

Don't think just rock. Loudest two piece evar.

New Funniest Blog Evar

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

It's funny to make fun of white people. And this stuff is totally true. Particularly acutely funny for this white guy are #72 Study Abroad:

By attending school in another country, white people are technically living in another country. This is important as it gives them the opportunity to insert that fact into any sentence they please. “When I used to live in [insert country], I would always ride the train to school. The people I’d see were inspiring.”

If you need to make up your own study abroad experience, they all pretty much work the same way. You arrived in Australia not knowing anybody, you went out to the bar the first night and made a lot of friends, you had a short relationship with someone from a foreign country, you didn’t learn anything, and you acquired a taste for something (local food, beer, fruit). This latter point is important because you will need to be able to tell everyone how it is unavailable in your current country.

And #70 Difficult Breakups:

Once breakup proceedings have been initiated, a white person is immediately thrust into the center of attention in their circle of friends. During this time, they are permitted to talk at great lengths about themselves, listen to The Smiths, and get free dinners from friends who think “they shouldn’t be alone right now.”

It is imperative that you do not attempt to kick them out of their misery by saying things like “get over it,” “there are other people out there,” or “I don’t want to read your poem.” Implying that there things in the world more important to you than their breakup is considered one of the rudest actions possible.

Particularly because those things are 1) true, and 2) happened in my life recently.

Laugh til you cry.

Thanks BA!

WKUK: "Dino Rap"

An allosaur in the corner trying to pack the bong!
Hotboxin' in the john with a pteradon!

You're welcome, internet!

Thanks to Dr. G!

Ms. Pac-Man: Feminist Hero

Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Sue (the Ann Coulter of Pac-Man).

Retro Track Review "I'll Believe In Anything" by Wolf Parade

Above: The French Film "Duels with Cannons"

So sometimes you put your iPod on shuffle and you run into an old friend. "I'll Believe in Anything," was clearly the standout track from Wolf Parade's 2005 debut Apologies to the Queen Mary. This song features His Yelpy-ness Spencer Krug (of Wolf Parade, Frog Eyes, Sunset Rubdown, Swan Lake, others) on vocals, backed by a droning bass, and a sort of noodly guitar hook. The song starts with apparently randomly chosen laptop-y bleeps and bloops, and then gets into the dense lyrics:

Give me your eyes
I need sunshine
Give me your eyes
I need sunshine
Your blood
Your bones
Your voice
and your ghost

The song builds to a crescendo in the second verse, where the repeated

If I could take the fire out from the water
I'd share a life and you'd share a life

breaks it down into quicker, more insistent Wolf Parade rock outro, with:

I said nobody knows you
and nobody gives a damn either way
About your blood
your bones
your voice
and ghost

This is a song that you shout out loud. Perfect. 11/10

Changing it up

As requested by RKM, comments are now open! Post to your hearts content, without fear that your intrepid FP will forget to approve your comment! Anything that sucks runs the risk of getting removed, earning you your own Dis Post Response, or getting you banned. I'm looking at you Anonymous!

Your Head A Splode!: Sonic Youth to play festival in Fayetteville!

Charlie Daniels, Shooter Jennings, .38 Special, Little Feat

and Sonic "Daydream Nation" Youth.  April 25-26.  $30/$50. Walton Art Center Parking lot.

The world is always stranger than I think....

http://tinyurl.com/2edbfg

Album Review: Bon Iver "For Emma, Forever Ago"

Bon Iver ("pronounced: bohn eevair; French for "good winter" and spelled wrong on purpose") is the recording moniker for Justin Vernon. Apparently, according to his bio from his page on Virb, Justin went up into the woods of Wisconsin to his father's cabin and lived alone for three months, working and recording music, exorcising all of his fears and regrets. All of the songs were recorded by himself in his cabin. Jagjaguwar has re-released the album, which gives it a special seal of approval in my book because I love pretty much every band on that label.

What does it sound like? I hate defining someone in terms of someone else, but it's hard not to compare Justin's voice to TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe. Many songs contain multitracked harmonies of his voice on itself, creating a haunting, ghostly soul sound. The guitar has a sort of sameness to it, what you'd expect from a lonely singer songwriter. But occasionally the music swells, and the voice becomes transcendent.

The standout track for me is "Skinny Love" (with "The Wolves (Act I and II)" as a close second). It's rapidly becoming my favorite track of the year, and constantly on repeat on my iPod. Video of a live recording above. Justin's oblique references to lost love come into sharp focus here, with a chorus of:

I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind

In the morning I'll be with you
But it will be a different "kind"
I'll be holding all the tickets
And you'll be owning all the fines

and ending with:

Who will love you?
Who will fight?
Who will fall far behind?

Bon Iver is currently on tour with Black Mountain. The tour just started this evening in D.C. and hits Little Rock on March 11. Do not miss this show.

NPR's All Songs Considered Bon Iver/ Black Mountain Show.
Bon Iver page at Virb
(Five tracks for your sampling).

Update: The first video came down. A new one is up. Hopefully with no interruption of your service. As you were.

Why I Didn't Vote For Hillary Reason #92 (Collect 'Em All)

Ok. This is a little unfair, since Jermain is Huckabee's boy. But. How is Hillary going to turn her back on Arkansas like this? Just for Ohio's delegates? Remember The Pride of Arkansas?

"Hillary Clinton held up a pair of boxing gloves inside the General Motors assembly plant in Lordstown Thursday, making it clear that Ohio is a fight she must win.

"We need a fighter and a champion in the White House," she said, referring to area boxing hero Kelly Pavlik.

Clinton was on the first stop in a two-day swing through Ohio that will also include Dayton, Columbus and Lyndhurst."

It's OK, Hillary fans. We can make up after the convention....

Link to Cleveland Plain Dealer's Blog

The Two Best Sites on the Internets

You might disagree with me. But you will be wrong. You will hear Baby Cakes flow during group therapy, or hear the legend of the Cat People. You will witness David Bazan from Pedro the Lion cover "The Man in Me" by Dylan while walking around in San Francisco and you will change your mind.

Take Away Shows at La Blogotheque

I've featured videos from here before, but this site cannot be promoted enough. Vincent Moon captures the most intimate perfect performances by a wide variety of indie rockers. Even bands I don't know become new favorites. Do yourself a favor and spend an afternoon here.

Brad Neely's Page on Superdeluxe.com

Arkansas native Brad Neeley broke onto the online video scene with the one-two punch of "Washington" and "JFK". Sweet electro beats back up the knowledge-givers the Professor Bros. And man-child Babycakes busts out sweet flows about life as a misunderstood lovable giant. And huge rpg fan. I featured "Be Agressive" on these pages a few months back. Just start at the beginning.

If there are sites better than these, put 'em in the comments. I appreciate hearing the opinions of people who are Obviously Wrong.

Update: The Takeaway Shows link is fixed.

Horrible Motherboard Box Art

Lots of you won't think this is funny, but, hey! I'm a dork. I thought you knew.

Anyway Joel Johnson is my favorite tech writer over at Boing Boing.

Check it.



Oh, hey. Didn't see you there. I was out flying this steel-belted radial out to farm some sweet space nugs. This may sound crazy, I know, but maybe you could come back to my hanger and we can... Oh, sure. No, I understand.
Boing Boing Gadgets

Clinton hamstrung by her own meta-narrative

This a great little piece in New Yorker magazine about the over-arching stories told by the media about Obama and Clinton's respective campaigns. I realize completely the seductiveness of these simplistic, broad-brush profiles. Do I support Obama because of the swell of pride I feel in the media's portrayal of him? I hope not. Welcome to Elections 2.0

All these theories contain at least some truth, but it’s the last one that edges closest to what I think has actually gone on. Campaigns are, at bottom, a competition between memes: infectious ideas that gather force through sheer repetition. The most powerful of these memes are what Just refers to as meta-narratives, the backdrops against which everything plays out in the media. “Clinton’s meta-narrative,” she says, “is that she’ll do anything to win; she can’t be trusted, she’s ethically challenged; she’s manipulative, calculating, and programmed.” Obama’s meta-narrative is decidedly otherwise. “It’s the same, in a way, as John McCain’s,” says Just. “He’s authentic, honest, free of taint. Then you add in new, charismatic, and an agent of change.”

The Meme Prisoner Link

Thanks to K.B. for reminding me of this article.

The New Pornographers- "Myriad Harbor"

If you don't like this video, I think that you may have a real psychiatric "issue." I say that as a Frontier Psychiatrist.

Dan Bejar is absolutely perfect here, man. I want to crawl up in that beard.

Graphic Novel Review: Essex County Volume 2: Ghost Stories by Jeff Lemire

If you had told me one week ago that I would cry upon reading a comic book classified by Top Shelf as "Farm Life/Hockey" I would have probably punched you. But. This comic is one of the most emotionally charged books I've ever read. From the back matter:

"Now the tale continues with Ghost Stories, the second volume in a trilogy of graphic novels set in a fictionalized version of Lemire's hometown of Essex County, Ontario.

Ghost Stories follows the lives and relationships of brothers Lou and Vince Lebeuf over the course of nearly seven decades.

Eldest brother Lou, now a deaf and lonely man, lives out his final days on his farm, full of guilt and regret for the decisions he made that tore his family apart. From their childhood on the farm to Toronto in the 1950s (where he and Vince played professional hockey), Lou revisits his life, a silent observer haunting his own memories."

Lou, now a demented deaf man, spends his last days recollecting his glory days as a hockey star and the regrets of his relationships with his brother and mother. The story cuts back and forth between Lou's current state of losing his autonomy to his lamentations of his failed relationships in his life. Jeff Lemire, both writer and artist, won a Xeric grant for this trilogy, and this volume really seals his place as a master of the juxtaposition of words and images into an emotionally affecting work. The images of Lou reminiscing of his life with his family becomes intertwined into his narrative of his loss of autonomy in a nursing home. Jeff Lemire is a giant who you should watch in the future.

Excerpt from New York Magazine: Link

Page at Top Shelf Comix Link

Freakangels

I trust Warren Ellis because he is the From the Internet and is basically The Internet Jesus. He made me tell you about this. So go there.



To quote from the Avatar page:

"23 Years ago, 12 strange children were born in England at exactly the same moment. 6 years ago the world ended. This is the story of what happened next. Young, gifted, and aimless, the Freakangels gang have built some sort of life for themselves in Whitechapel. A life that starts to show its cracks when a girl called Alice from Manchester turns up with a shotgun and a grievance, having met the lost, prodigal, last Freakangel, who had very different ideas about what they should do with themselves and this flooded future England. Freakangels is a free, weekly webcomic."

www.warrenellis.com

http://www.avatarpress.com/category/freakangels/

So You Wanna Vote For McCain: Yes We Can Parody

I think 10,000 years is a reasonable amount of time to plan for. Usually politicians are only concerned with the next election cycle. McCain = Forward thinking.

Also: bombing Iran is a great idea. I hope we are there for a billion years.

BONUS: Another parody. Totally inspiring.

Don't Worry. Senate says ATT is Defending Our Freedom by Spying on us. Patriots basically.

So.  Lincoln (D-AR) and Pryor (D-AR) both voted to give telecom companies immunity from civil litigation for breach of contract and other complaints related to illegal domestic wiretaps. (Clinton (D-NY) didn't vote). I pulled this up from a post from mcjoan at DailyKos a few days back, in case you want this issue summed up simply.

• "The telcos are not patriotic heroes. They broke the law. And when they stopped being paid for it, they stopped being "patriotic." They don't deserve protection.
• If domestic spying was really so critical to the nation's security, the government would have kept paying for it.
• The administration is hellbent on protecting the evidence of their illegal spying on American citizens by not allowing lawsuits against the telcos that helped them.
• The administration is still hellbent on spying on American citizens with or without cause."

Attribution Link

American citizens - 0, Patriotic security theater - 1

The Antipode of the Last Post

If anyone ever tells me that they like The Black Eyed Peas in general or, worse yet, (Professor?) Will.i.am in specific, then that person should be prepared to be shanked with the nearest improvised weapon.

Witness the worst song ever:


P.S. I realize that I posted a new Will.i.am post on this very blog a week or so ago. But I swallowed it because Obama actually wrote the words.

10 Years of "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea"

And she was born in a bottle rocket, 1929
With wings that ring around a socket
Right between her spine
All drenched in milk and holy water
Pouring from the sky
I know that she will live for ever
She won't ever die

It's hard to believe that it's been 10 years since the world first heard Jeff Mangum's impressionistic ode to Anne Frank (well, to Jeff's emotional response to reading The Diary of Anne Frank for the first time). The sound of this record has launched countless indie rock careers (The Decemberists, Beruit, Of Montreal, The Microphones, others). Other albums come and go, but this album has really stuck with me as my favorite since I've heard it. Jeff's plaintive voice, the singing saws, the noisy, fuzzed-out folk, and the oblique, beautiful lyrics all emotionally affected me from the first time somebody shoved a burned CD-R into my hands. There is not much more I can say except if you don't own this record, well, we can't be friends anymore.

Coverage over at P4K:
Interview with NMH
Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over the Sea

Software Crush: VLC

VideoLAN is an ugly piece of software. Simple little cone with bare bones interface. But under the hood, this little dude has it where it counts. Ask it to open any type of media, it complies. I get the impression every time I offer it some obscure video file with a goofy codec type, VLC asks me: "Are you sure boss? Looks like a text file. If you say so, we'll give it a go..." I've never found a file that VLC would not play. According to the wikipedia article, it works by using codecs and it's own "muxer and demuxer" which I'll assume is some type of spellcasting ability or artificial intelligence. Best thing is, you can throw this guy on a flash drive (either in it's full blown state or in the version from portableapps.com) and use it to run video files for a presentation.

I love this program more than a man should be allowed to by law. I think I'm going to ask VLC to be my valentine.

Get it here:
www.videolan.org/vlc/
or
www.portableapps.com

Don't ask questions. Do this search.

1.  Go here:  www.google.com
2.  Type "Find Chuck Norris."
3.  Press "I'm Feeling Lucky."

The Onion: Is the Government Spying on Paranoid Schizophrenics Enough?

In The Know: Is The Government Spying On Paranoid Schizophrenics Enough?

I think what would be great would be a recorded voice on a loop, saying "Everyone around you wants to get you." In reference to help.

We already have the ability to make everything that's the color red signal data and images back to the government's underground bunkers and we should be using this technology to help these people.

"Riding on a Jesus Horse, you and me."

If you live in Arkansas, you have roughly one hour left to not vote for Huckabee in the primary.

Super Tuesday Google Thingie

Super Tuesday: Vote!

Hey guys, seriously. Get out and vote tomorrow. Although it does burn me that by the time Arkansas's primary rolls around, my candidate is usually out of the race, this time that's not the case. I'm going all in for Barak Obama. The guy has a message of hope, and doesn't seem like party of the oily political machine of the Old Democratic Guard. So here's the viral vid, because everyone's posting it.



Other endorsements (besides the most important, obviously yours truly):

John Hodgman Link
David Rees Link

Best New Band: Vampire Weekend

If you haven't heard them, please go here:
www.myspace.com/vampireweekend
or
www.vampireweeked.com

These guys have been blowing up the music blogs (I'm looking at you Stereogum), for about a year now. The self titled "Vampire Weekend" just dropped 1/29/08.

How does it sound? In their own words:

'The name of this band is Vampire Weekend. We are specialists in the following styles: "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa", "Upper West Side Soweto", "Campus", and "Oxford Comma Riddim."'

Unpretentious, professional, African-laced pop. Sounds like? Talking Heads, I suppose, but also like the Shins. But really they just sound like themselves.

I've been sick this past week (still a bit delirious) and this album has been the joyous soundtrack to carry me back home.

This is a CD you can put on and listen to for a year straight.

Bravo, gentlemen of Vampire Weekend.

FP