Neko Case’s Fox Confessor Brings the Flood is a great album. Since she released it in 2006 she’s recorded a live album and toured with The New Pornographers. And apparently she’d recorded a new album. Middle Cyclone is due out next March, but her label has put together a video preview. It features Neko in her windy barn/recording studio, with her piano orchestra. Check it out:
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Ask Julian Koster how long he’s been playing the singing saw and he’ll gently correct you. He doesn’t play the saw at all, he says. He only coaxes it to sing. His saw, Badger, does all the work. You may or may not agree with him, but I’m sure you’ll agree that the singing saw adds a distinctive, taciturn touch to whatever songs it sings. Koster has been making saws sing for years, first as a member of legendary indie band Neutral Milk Hotel, then with his current band Music Tapes. Now he’s released an entire album of Christmas music entitled simply The Singing Saw at Christmastime.
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It’s an iconic image in the baseball card world, and one of the most well-known cards outside it. It’s quite possibly the only area where Bill Ripken’s fame actually outshines his brother Cal’s. And until recently the story behind it was something of a mystery. Well, almost 20 years after he made “Fuck Face” a household term among teenage boys, Billy Ripken reveals how that phrase got on his 1989 Fleer baseball card.
Turns out it was a simple mistake. Ripken got a shipment of bats from Louisville Slugger that he wasn’t happy with. Rather than waste the whole batch he decided to use one of them for batting practice. To tell it apart from his game bats he wrote “Fuck Face” on it. Then one fateful day in Fenway Park, during batting practice, Fleer’s photographer asked to take his picture. Not thinking twice about it he grabbed his bat and posed. Amazingly the photographer didn’t see the writing. Neither did whoever developed the photo. Nor did anyone at Fleer, or the printing plant. So the card made its way into normal packs of 89 Fleer cards.
Once they hit store the shit hit the fan. What should have been an eminently forgettable card instead became hot commodity and a lighting rod of criticism. Instead of just admitting it was a mistake Ripken blamed his teammates. He told the Baltimore Sun’s Tim Kurkjian (now one of ESPN’s top baseball reporters) “It appears I was targeted (by teammates). I know I’m kind of a jerk at times. I know I’m a little off. But this is going too far.” That’s pretty low if you ask me.
But Ripken’s admitting to the mistake know, which is commendable. And he’s apparently got a sense of humor about the whole thing. He got copies of the cards from Fleer, signed them, and gave them out to his groomsmen.
Despite the fact that there’s simply no way the year could possibly have gone by so fast, Santa is setting his GPS, the Elven sweatshop is wrapping up operations, and Rudolph is starting his bender (what else makes a nose that red?). Meanwhile, tepid, lifeless Christmas music assaults us in every store, on every radio station, and at every imaginable bend. What better way to get cleanse the aural palette and get ready for a great holiday than Run-D.M.C.’s “Christmas in Hollis”?
It seems like forever ago that The Decemberists released The Crane Wife, though in reality it’s only been two years. This year’s EP Always the Bridesmaid helped fend off withdrawal, but it feels like time for a new album. Lucky for us relief is on its way.
The band has completed their new album, Hazards of Love, and is set to release it March 24th of next year. Here’s the tracklist:
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In honor of the season this week’s cover is a Christmas tune. Not just any Christmas tune either. Possibly the best of the breed: Vince Gauraldi’s “Christmas Time is Here”, from A Charlie Brown Christmas. Here’s a great arrangement of the tune for jazz guitar done by Rob Bourassa.
Bishop Allen is cool. But you already know that. When I saw them last month they were just starting their tour and playing material from their upcoming album for the first time live. One of the songs that stood out was called “Shanghaied”. It’s got a great sing-along section (“La la la la la la la la laaaaaa! SHANGHAIED!”) and a classic 80s-ish vibe to it. Here’s the band playing “Shanghaied” on FuelTV:
If this is any indication, their new album, due out in the spring, should be every bit as good as The Broken String.
via YANP
Buckle up, this is going to be good. 20th Century Fox has released the first full trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine and it kicks a fair bit of ass. I wouldn’t typically describe myself as a “fanboy”, but when it comes to X-Men in general, and Wolverine in particular I think the term fits. Growing up I bought a ton of Wolvie and X-Men comics, and only handfuls of anything else. I always thought the concepts and themes of the stories were head and shoulders above most other comics. The struggles between mutants and humans, between man’s refined nature and his animal instinct, and even between mutants who agreed on the problems, but disagreed on the solutions. These struggles, and the storylines they led to, made X-Men transcend mere “comic books” and crash the incredibly stuffy cocktail party of serious literature like the whole school crashing Bogie Lowenstien’s party in 10 Things I Hate About You. (Yeah, I like that movie. You got a problem with that? Wanna fight about it?)
Ok, maybe I didn’t get all that when I was 13, and maybe mostly liked them because Wolverine kicked serious ass, but those things are certainly all there. The two previous X-Men movies examined many of the mutant vs. humans and each other themes (What’s that? There were three X-Men movies? Really? I remember seeing two pretty good movies, and I guess I kind of remember seeing commercials for a third one, but there seems to be 104 minutes of my memory missing. Must be some kind of inner defense mechanism…). It looks like this one will cover the man vs. his inner nature and ass-kicking portions. Check out the trailer, then we can discuss:
So, what did we see here? In my in-no-way-an-expert estimation we got to see Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber), Gambit (Taylor Kitsch), a brief shot of Silver Fox (Lynn Collins), a bunch of The Blob (Kevin Durand), a really quick glimpse of Deadpool (Van Wilder Ryan Reynolds), and probably a couple I just don’t recognize. We also see Logan as a soldier pre-adamantium skeleton. All it all it’s pretty goddamn awesome. Right up until he flips over a Hummer and jumps at a helicopter. Come on, is that really necessary? Wolverine is awesome enough without giving him ridiculous abilities (aside from the incredibly powerful healing factor, badass claws, and indestructible skeleton of course). Overall though I’m psyched.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine kicks off the summer movie season May 1st. What’s your take on the trailer? Does it make you want to rush out and see the movie? Or does make you hesitant?
On the surface the name Noah and the Whale seems to be a mashup of biblical stories. In reality it’s an homage to Noah Baumbach’s film The Squid and the Whale. If you only listen to Noah and the Whale’s single “5 Years Time” you’ll think they were a sunny quirk-pop group. In reality their music is a tasty cake made from many ingredients, from twee to shoegaze. What’s that old expression about judging a book by something? (and when real books have inevitably been supplanted by their digital counterparts, or wiped out in an Bradburian blaze, will the phrase still have meaning? I’m guessing it will, since “roll down the window” is still valid, when you’d be hard-pressed to find a car with cranked windows anymore. But I digress…)
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Well, kind of. Warner Bros is giving you the opportunity to watch The Dark Knight via BD Live, the brand-spanking-new Blu-Ray feature that lets you connect to other people watching the same movie. So you won’t be in the same room as Nolan, but you’ll be able to hear him talk about it, and presumably ask him questions and stuff.
The screening is set for December 18th at 9pm EST, and is open to the first 100,000 people to register here. So, if you have the Blu-Ray version of the movie, and one of the few Blu-Ray players that supports BD Live (or a Playstation 3), head on over and register.
via Gizmodo
