Dead Like Me, the brilliantly quirky, but unfortunately short-lived Showtime series about the daily lives of a group of grim reapers, is set to return, if only briefly. Fans of the show (yours truly included) have been hoping for a return ever since it was canceled after its second season. MGM is reporting that the series will return in the form of a made-for-DVD movie directed by Stephen Herek. You may remember Herek from his Oscar-overlooked work on The Mighty Ducks. Um, maybe Dead Like Me shouldn’t come back after all…
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The White Rabbits are 6 friends from Columbia, Missouri who found their way to New York, pursuing the rock & roll dream. Alexander Even, Adam Russell, Matthew Clark, Gregory Roberts, Stephen Patterson, and Jamie Levinson live and play together in a Brooklyn loft, honing their unique sound. They’ve recorded their first album, Fort Nightly for Say Hey Records and it’s set to be released May 22nd. Until then they’re touring with Mystery Jets and showing a ton of promise.
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Love him or hate him, you have to agree Peyton’s hilarious in this skit from SNL:
The blue dudes put their unique spin on “Baba O’Reilly”, with Tracy Bonham on vocals. Love these dudes!
I just tracked down a radio rip of the title track from The White Stripes forthcoming album Icky Thump. Check it out below. To me it sounds like something I can’t put my finger on. Something crunchy and dirty, but with a little sophistication under the surface. Oh yeah, it sounds like The White Stripes.
The album drops June 19th, but you can preorder it from Amazon now.
Via The Rocksuckers via The Hype Machine
UPDATE: iTunes has the official version of Icky Thump. Buy it now. You won’t be disappointed.
Just saw a commercial for the Saturn Outlook and it feature the acoustic guitar riff from The Apples in Stereo’s “Energy”. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a rant about indie bands selling out. I’m happy for them. If I ever have the chance to sell out I plan on doing it. Quickly. My only problem with this is that the commercial is for a crappy car. But oh well. I’m sure Saturn’s money spends just like BMW’s would. Can’t find the commercial online anywhere yet, but I’ll post it when I do.
“Energy” is on The Apples’ latest album, New Magnetic Wonder (the best album of the year so far). Buy it at Amazon.
As usual The Onion has produced a dead-on satire. This time their target is the media’s need to report something immediately without bothering to find out what actually happened. Brilliant!
American Idol is on and through the miracle of modern technology they have Celine Dion performing with Elvis. This is enough for me to say we should abandon technology and go back to living in caves. And I’m not even an Elvis fan. Shameful. Atrocious. Horrendous. Scandalous. Words can’t express the horror. I’m sure Elvis would be rolling over in his grave if there was enough room in his coffin (and of course if he was actually dead…).
So you all can debate amongst yourselves who the best Batman is: Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, or Christian Bale. But for me the answer is crystal clear. It’s the unknown dude playing the Dark Knight in this epic fan film, Batman: Defenders of the Night.
This film features some of the finest writing, acting, directing, cinematography, and especially sound editing ever recorded. It’s simply stunning. For a more in-depth (and hilarious) review check out Chris’ Invincible Super-Blog.
And for even more excitement, check out the sequel, Batman and Robin: Dark Betrayals:
Fun Times Guide has an archive of what may be my favorite radio ad campaign ever: Bud Light’s “Real Men of Genius” (and it’s predecessor, “Real American Heroes”). You know the ones. A professional announcer guy extols the virtues of some kind of random person while a bad Steve Perry-esque vocalist chimes in. Here are a few of my favorites:
Bud Light Real Men Of Genius Mr Boneless Buffalo Wing Inventor
Bud Light Real American Heroes Mr Footlong Hotdog Inventor
Bud Light Real Men Of Genius Mr Jean Shorts Inventor
Bud Light Real Men Of Genius Mr All You Can Eat Buffet Inventor
Head over to Fun Times Guide for the rest (along with commentary on most of them)
Back to the Future’s Biff Tannen (whose real name is Tom Wilson) performs a song about the stupid questions he gets asked about the movie. Hilarious!
This is meant to be a PSA, but somehow it’s just creepy…
From the opening riff of “This Isn’t Farm Life”, the opening track of their third CD, Cannibal Sea, it’s obvious that The Essex Green knows how to craft a pop song. And they should, having been around for 10 years now. They formed in 1997 in Burlington, VT out of the remains of a band called Guppyboy, and relocated to Brooklyn. Since then they’ve built a loyal indie following the hard way: by winning over fans in small clubs all over the country. They were part of the Elephant 6 Collective, a group of bands including The Apples in Stereo, Neutral Milk Hotel, and of Montreal that spawned some of the biggest indie acts of the last decade.
Now at home at Merge Records, The Essex Green released their third full-length album in 2006. Entitled Cannibal Sea, it features the vocal and songwriting talents of all three members (guitarist Chris Ziter, keyboardist Sasha Bell, and guitarist Jeff Baron). It tells stories of life on the road and the quest for private moments in the hustle and bustle of modern life.
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I’m not personally afraid of clowns, but now I understand why some people are… And yes, that’s Willard Scott as Ronald McDonald.
Yep, it’s Fabulous Las Vegas made out of the greatest thing ever to come out of Denmark: Legos (no, not Helena Christensen, as you may have thought from the title…though with her work in Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” video, maybe she is the tops, but…wait, what were we talking about?)
LEGOLAND in California is the home to the world’s most faithful reproduction of the Las Vegas strip made out of Legos. The display include The Luxor, The Stratosphere (with working rides on top), New York, New York, Tropical Island (complete with the old pirate show out front), and many more.
For lots more photos check out Damn Cool Pics post about it, or check out the official LEGOLAND site.
What do you get when you take a cellist, a beatboxing flautist, and a subway station? Pretty interesting shit:
BTW, the tune they start out with is Charles Mingus’ “Fables of Faubus” from Mingus Ah Um. MINGUS!
Some industrious Star Wars fan built his own Darth Vader hot air balloon. I’m not sure about you, but I’d put Hot Air Balloon along with Parachute on my list of things I’m not making myself…
As Sean so eloquently wrote last night, those of us who are affiliated in someway with Virginia Tech are reeling right now. Words can not describe the pain and anguish I feel for those on campus who have survived this ordeal or for those whose lives were ended in a senseless act of extreme violence.
I spent three years at Virginia Tech in graduate school and I consider them to be 3 of the most enjoyable years of my life. Even in the proceeding 4 years when I was a student at the “other” University I spent a great deal of time in Blacksburg hanging out with my friends. In fact many, many of those happy moments were spent on the 7th floor of West Ambler Johnston.
I have had the honor of being affiliated with three wonderful universities in my lifetime and each of my experiences are special to me, and Virginia Tech is no different. My memories of my time there are vivid and enriching. It is where I feel I truly began to understand the profession I have chosen to pursue as a career. It was also a quiet, serene place that I love dearly. Football aside a crisp fall weekend on the Drill Field is about as perfect as perfect can get.
As we learn more and more about this senseless act of violence and the person who perpetrated this, my thoughts turn to the Virginia Tech of the future. Virginia Tech & Blacksburg are safe places, I still believe this despite what happened yesterday. I also know that Tech and the surrounding community will get through this and become stronger because of it. If I have learned anything since I left in 2001, the alumni are spread, far and wide and have the fervor and love for Tech that rivals all others. As I write students, and alumni are banding together to provide support for the grieving Tech community.
For those interested in donating to the university I direct you to this site for the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund
For those of you interested in seeing the stirring memorial service held this afternoon on campus I direct you to HokieSports.com
God bless Virginia Tech, the students and the families of those who perished.
I apologize for the break from our usual music, movie, and television stories, but I don’t feel much like writing about those things today. Both Aaron and I have ties to Virginia Tech (I’m a member of the class of 99 and Aaron got his Masters there). I lived in West AJ, the dorm where the first shooting occurred and two students were killed, my freshman year. As such the shootings have hit very close to home for me.
Blacksburg, Virginia is an quiet college town. When I was in school we used to joke that you can’t buy underwear in Blacksburg; you have to go to Christiansburg, a neighboring town a few miles away. Big news simply does not happen in Blacksburg.
This horrific incident has left many more questions than answers. Who was the gunman and what was his motive? For that matter, was it the same gunman in both shootings? It seems likely, but police haven’t confirmed it yet. How much planning went into this? The gunman at Norris Hall killed 30 people, and wounded many more. How much ammunition did he have? Police have reported that the doors of Norris Hall were chained shut from the inside and that the gunman was wearing a bulletproof vest. What does that mean as far as planning? If it was one gunman, where was he for the two hours between shootings. Were the decisions of the campus police and school administrators correct given the information they had?
When a tragedy such as this happens it’s natural for people to react in many different ways. Some become empathetic for the victims and their families. Some become angry at the people who carry out such acts. And some people see such situations as vehicles for change.
You can’t stop crazy people from doing crazy things. At this point it appears today’s shootings were the actions of one deranged individual. An isolated incident, not a pattern. This incident does not indicate a need for more security. It does not show that video games, music, or movies are adding violence to our culture. It does not indicate the need for stricter gun control. Or less gun control. It simply shows the capacity of people for evil. No amount of security guards, metal detectors, surveillance cameras, or other Orwellian measures will prevent all such incidents from happening.
I applaud Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum for his steadfast insistence on not releasing any information until it has been thoroughly validated. While I understand that individual reporters have a responsibility to ask him for information he cannot confirm, I am disappointed at the media culture that confers that responsibility. Modern media coverage of “big stories” involves an immediate scramble for any scrap of information, reliable or not. Good journalism practice takes a back seat to being the first to report information, or, less cynically, to give an information-hungry public all the answers immediately. Unfortunately the nature of incidents like these is that there is little reliable information available at the outset, and the media’s zeal for reporting anything they think may be credible leads to more confusion as people are left to sort out the fact from the fiction. I, for one, would rather information be slow and credible than fast and possibly incorrect.
My deepest condolences go out to the victims and their families. Also my thoughts go out to fellow Hokies everywhere. This is a difficult time for us all. Let’s hope that a return to normalcy can come swiftly both on the campus and around the nation.
Image via Flickr
“I guess Bob Dylan was sort of the Dan Bern of the ’60’s” says Dan Bern about the comparisons between him and the folk legend. Once listen and it’s obvious why there are comparisons. Bern is a raspy-voiced folk storyteller. And anyone like that will always be compared to Dylan. Bern is not Dylan, but he is a good singer, a good guitar player, and an excellent songwriter.
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“Black Horse and a Cherry Tree” was a guilty pleasure song of mine. Always liked it, but was always a little ashamed of it. But today I ran across a video of KT performing the song live. And she’s a looper! I had no idea. That makes her so much cooler in my book. I figured she was just another no-talent modern country ass clown. But lo and behold she can actually play. And loop. So I’m officially an out-of-the-closet KT Tunstall fan.
For more on looping read on…
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Stumbled across this video of Ben Folds improving a song based on an unintelligible yell from the audience. Amazing! Folds often does improvisational versions of “Rock this Bitch” during his shows (including the show I saw him perform with the Baltimore Symphony), and he works a little of that into this performance, but most of it seems to be original. And one verse is in German! I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats.
TV Guide is reporting than an upcoming episode of Lost (episode 19) won’t contain any of the show’s traditional flashbacks. According to TV Guide’s sources the episode will still use the flashback device, but not in its usual manner. Um…what does that mean?
In addition, TV Guide revealed the schedule for flashbacks for the rest of season three:
• No. 17: Desmond
• No. 18: Jin and Sun
• No. 19: Nontraditional flashback time
• No. 20: Ben
• No. 21: Charlie
• And the two-part season finale: Jack
There’s a new trailer out for Ocean’s 13 (in theaters June 8th), and I’ve gotta tell you, I’m getting excited. Very excited. The trailer has the wit and the visual style of the first movie. Looks like a return to form after the slightly disappointing Ocean’s 12.
Here’s a low-quality version of the trailer:
A bunch of industrious students at UC Santa Cruz made a four story high picture of Donkey Kong out of Post-Its. Maybe “industrious” isn’t the right word… It’s definitely cool though.
Via BoingBoing
Tonight marked the return of The Sopranos for it’s (supposedly) final season. Though the series was once HBO’s flagship, and in my opinion the best show on television, the last couple of seasons have left many fans frustrated and longing for “the good old days”. Would this season mark a return to form or a continuation of the frustrations? Well, if the first episode was any indication, fans should brace themselves for a disappointing final run. I don’t want to give anything away (though that would be difficult since not much happened), but let’s just say it was a bit of a snooze fest.
Is The Sopranos turning into the television equivalent of the aging quarterback who hangs on a few too many years, despite failing skills, a lack of interest, and doing damage to their legacy? Should the producers have wrapped up all the stories a few years ago instead of stretching them out to the point of losing viewers’ interest? Have the ridiculously long breaks between seasons disrupted the continuity to the point that I can’t possibly care what happens at this point? Sadly it seems the answer to all three questions may be “yes”.
After a couple weeks off (do to me being in China), the Sunday Music Spotlight returns this week with Camera Obscura (the band, not the optical device they’re named for).
Camera Obscura hails from Glasgow, Scotland (which is good, because if it’s not Scottish it’s CRAP!). Formed in bassist Gavin Dunbar’s basement in 1996, the band built a following among their fellow Glaswegians, building up to their 2000 debut Biggest Bluest Hi Fi.
In 2003 the band signed with Merge Records and released their second album, Underachievers Please Try Harder. Things really got interesting in 2005 though, when the traveled to Sweden (bork bork bork!) to record the follow-up to Underachievers. The result of the Swedish sessions was 2006’s pop gem Let’s Get Out of This Country.
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Anyone that knows me knows that I heart Björk. Even so, I’m slightly ashamed to admit that this makes me incredibly giddy: I was poking around The Hype Machine and found a link to Shameless Conspiracy’s post about my favorite impish little pixie’s new single, “Earth Intruders”. And it had the song! It had the song! Oh happy day it had the song! And what a song it is. For anyone that was turned off by the artiness of Medulla, rest assured that Björk has returned to her hip-shaking roots. Have a listen:
The single officially gets released on Monday, and Volta, the album that contains it, comes out May 8th in the States. Here’s the cover:
From CNN.com filmmaker Robert Clark and his 22 year old son were killed in a head on car crash early Wednesday morning. Clark, 67 a horror film director in the 70’s came in to prominence with 1981’s “Porky’s” but will most like best be remembered for his film “A Christmas Story” based on the short stories of author Jean Shepard. Christmas with my family isn’t complete without at least 1.5 viewings of the movie during the 24 hour marathon run on cable every year on Christmas.
So in honor of Bob Clark here is the wonderful “Santa Claus” scene…
and my personal favorite. The “Triple Dog Dare” scene….
We all of course remember the song “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas. There was a time last summer when you couldn’t turn on the radio without running into that song. While the song was a little bit on the catchy side it wasn’t until I saw this that I realized how unbelievably inane the lyrics were…… WOW….
Courtesy of the wicked satirical wit of Alanis Morissette we have her stripped down, piano drive “parody” of “My Humps” a great video too!
And for those of you in the mood for a flashback, lets take you back to First Year of college (1994 Yikes!!!!) when Miss Morissette floored MTV with “You Oughta Know” and “Ironic”. Has it really been 13 years?
Of course she was also on the 80’s Nickelodeon Classic “You Can’t Do That on Television”…. Now THAT was a show!
Wow, didn’t realize how very Monty Python-esque the title sequence was……
OK, I’m getting too random here….. I’m stopping now!
From the Washington Post today:
EMI Records, the home record label of such bands as The Beatles, (They’re gonna go places, they’re good!) has made an agreement with Apple & i-Tunes to begin releasing higher quality music files without the DRM lock. For those of you who don’t know DRM is essentially the thing that “locks” your music files from i-Tunes and prevents them from being played on any device you want. With in the next few weeks EMI will release and re-issue these DRM free tracks at 256K bps in the i-tunes AAC format. Normal locked i-Tunes files are 128K bps AAC format.
However access to these new files will come at a price. EMI will still continue to offer locked 128K bps files at the standard rate of $0.99 on i-Tunes but the new file format will cost you $1.29. But then again that’s a steal for twice the sound quality and total control over the file. In addition for those who already own EMI released song files there will an option of “upgrading” the song files by paying the additional $0.30. According to many in the industry they see this new file format as a sign of the impending release of the entire Beatles catalogue on i-Tunes in the coming days and/or weeks. And for that I say FINALLY!!!…… Then again I already own the entire Beatles catalogue on CD. (Maybe EMI could work on re-issuing remastered versions of the Beatles Catalogue as well!)
And for those of you not up to date on this new hot act out of England (The Beatles, silly!) Here’s a clip from a local live performance…. The kinda sounds like that 60s super group “The Monkees”!
(OK seriously, we here at PCWIE are HUGE Beatles fans, just having a little fun. The clip is from the Famous Rooftop “concert” in 1969 (I think)).
The Deli attached to our hotel was selling these sandwiches. In case you can’t read the little sign, they’re barbecue pork buns. Shaped and decorated like pigs. That. Is. AWESOME! There’s something a little twisted about it, which is what I love about it. What’s next? A chicken sandwich with a beak? Or maybe a cheeseburger with some udders or horns on top? The possibilities are endless!
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