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Hey there, friends and nieghbors.


Short post today, still fighting the lovely bug I picked up in the aeroplane. Weather is gorgeous (for this time of year) in MPLS. Tomorrow is Friday, super excited for that after an exhausting week. Been reading on the bus a lot (and my lunch break when I can sneak it in) and working my way through the stack of books my loved ones were kind enough to impart on Christmas. Shows you how busy I've been and how many books I received if it's April and I still have a few left. I don't want to just chew through them though, blindly flipping pages and glossing over developments in a desperate quest for completed titles. To quote The Simpsons "I would be morally remiss to display these books on my shelf if I hadn't read them, all". So in the interest of encourage more torrid affairs with the written word, secretive nights with reading lights and hardcovers, I offer these posts I've written in lovely ode to the written book:


Sleepwalk With Me - In which Mike Birbiglia breaks our hearts and funny bones with personal anecdotes.
Calvin & Hobbes - Hands down the funniest, smartest strip to emerge from the newspaper.
A Dirty Job - How the gift of this book introduced me to this amazingly funny and twisted fiction author.
The Stand - King's magnum opus, an American Lord of the Rings, inspiration for the amazing Lost.
Fluke - Another of Moore's insane, funny and astounding novels, this one about whales in Hawaii.
Norwegian Wood - Murakami blowing my mind with his touching, nostalgic work about (not his) youth.
Wild Sheep Chase - Another amazing Murakami work, this one a hard-boiled detective story.
The Long Halloween - The best Batman you'll find, other than Year One. An crazy good tale, inspired the Dark Knight.


That's all for tonight, folks. I'm gonna cut loose here. Gotta rest up and get plenty of fluids and rest. Tell you what - I'll make a deal. You read some of these and I will too. How's that sound? Good? Cool. See you tomorrow.

Film On The Surface

Hey cats.


100 posts. Has a nice round ring to it, huh? I think so, but maybe that's just our human nature to attach significance to even integers with zeros after them. Either way, I'm glad I've gotten this far and am so appreciative of the audience I have. Just knowing there's anyone out there reading about the awesome things I'm excited about makes me happy - that's the whole point, just to let other people know about some particular thing that is excellent but has little recognition nowadays. So, having hit a nice round, distant number (and once again feeling like crud after being crammed into an airplane twice in less than a week) I thought instead of simply taking a brief sabbatical I would compile some of the similarly themed posts for a few days. Nothing too long, just enough of a break to recharge my batteries and enable me to give you the best of my rambling brain. Today, then? Today we have the posts I've done about movies! Look at them:


Brick - see Joseph Gordon Levitt make his presence known in a great modern noir.
Monsters - a great indie film made for unbelievably little, very cool.
Cloverfield - why 'The Blair Witch Eats Manhattan' is actually pretty rad.
Fan Edits - In which I show my apologist leanings in favor of The Phantom Menace and the Matrix Sequels.
Spirited Away - one of my favorite movies, full of gorgeous, quiet moments.
The Matrix Trilogy - say what you want, but these were amazing to see on Blu Ray!
The Goonies - my secret love of Cyndi Lauper's black-sheep hit.
Moon - the most poignant, sorrowful and above all lovingly done sci-fi film of the last five years.
Mystery Team - the twisted take on Encyclopedia Brown/Hardy Boys starring Donald Glover.


Take a pass through these excellent movie-centric posts and get an idea for what to watch this weekend. I know you can find more than a couple of these online, ifyoucatchmydrift. I'm gonna go overdose on fruits and veggies. See you with another roundup tomorrow!

Mile Stone

Hey kids, what do you know? I'm back in Minnesota and glad to see I brought just a little bit of the warmth home with me. My flight got in just after midnight - consequently I'm dragging today. To boot, this is post number 100. I should be doing cartwheels and lighting off fireworks. Instead, my head's bobbing and I'm thinking fondly of pillows. I got nothing. While I had sworn up and down that today would bring a wondrous return to form, instead it will be just one more slightly truncated post. So what can I evangelize about when I'm feeling so foggy? 

Girl Talk. All Day. 

That's what's up. 

I've talked about mash-ups here at great length, from the artsy compositions of Kids & Explosions to the meta-contextual jokes of the Hood Internet. The golden boy, though, is the massively popular Girl Talk, also known as Gregg Gillis. Gillis has been making music for years, at this point having put out five albums of remixes and mash-ups. His latest salvo, All Day, was so popular and hotly demanded it basically broke the internet when it came out in November of 2010. His site and any other that hosted the album were crushed under the overwhelming surge of traffic seeking a working link. I'm guessing the odds are pretty high that if you're even reading this then you have at least a passing familiarity with this ridiculously talented DJ. Alternately available as either one massive track or 12 separate songs, the album is, in my opinion, even better than his previous release Feed The Animals, even though the All Day hasn't received as high of marks as Animals. 

All Day is (to me, at least) the quintessential party album - it's high energy, full of huge hooks and varied enough to keep anyone's attention for a solid hour. Seriously - the choices Gillis makes when playing Dr. Frankenstein are good enough to just listen to it straight through, let alone putting it on for a ripper with your friends. I love the way it opens, kicking immediately into high gear with Ludacris rapping over Black Sabbath. We can all have a good laugh over the trials and tribulations of the dreaded rap rock but when you hear it done right (as it is several times on this album) it absolutely makes sense. It just takes the right DJ to make it happen. There are some absolutely sublime pairings here, like Jay Z's 'Can I Get A...' rapped over some General Public, the swagger of Jigga unexpectedly complimenting the indie-pop of 'Tenderness'. Even better is hearing Beyonce's infectious 'Single Ladies' sung over the raucous exuberance of M.O.P.'s 'Ante Up'. I don't tire of either if those songs on their own, so cutting them up and stitching them together is like making a sandwich from your favorite foods. Just goodness all around. Some of my favorite mid-90s alterna-Gods make surprise appearances here, as well. Portishead, Spacehog and Jane's Addiction all turn up in hilariously solid ways. There is no cognitive dissonance like hearing ODB rapping 'Shimmy Shimmy Ya' over 'Creep' by Radiohead and actually having it turn out better than one could ever think. There's a staggering array of material Gilllis draws from here, from the Jackson 5 to Bananarama, Rhianna to Toad The Wet Sprocket. This is the kind of excellent remix album where, if you find yourself not enamored with a specific track, you can just wait for about 45 seconds and something awesome happens. I've played it for friends who cried blasphemy over the use of 'Where The Streets Have No Name' only to smile and start bouncing their shoulders at the genius reworking of 'Killing In The Name' under M.I.A. It's nuts. 

Like I said earlier, the reviews for this album weren't as high as previous efforts by Gillis. I have no idea why, though - I think this album is absolute gold, start to finish. There's no lags in it at all, for me. You're getting ready to go out on a Saturday night, getting dressed in the morning, going for a drive on a sunny afternoon, I don't care. You can put this album on and straight up rock out for an hour. There's something so fun about listening to a mashup album and feeling that moment of recognition when you hear something familiar come flying through the ether. There are combinations here that make me laugh out loud every time I hear them. For real, if you haven't heard this yet go over to Girl Talk's site and pick it up. No iTunes this time, kids. I'm afraid the good people in the record business are a little wary about artistic license in this case. I'd write more about this awesome, super fun album but I'm struggling to make cogent thoughts at this point. I'm glad to be back in MPLS, if only for the signs of spring. See you tomorrow when I'm better rested. 

Sit Down & Shut Up

Day five, I'm just finishing my travels, currently on the way to the airport. A little rushed but mostly alright for time. I've had a phenomenal time in AZ and eaten way too much sinful food, including Black Sphinx dates - I honestly wanted to weep when I ate them, they were so good. Made a crazy ice cream Sunday like a child at the Road Runners show because apparently 60s radio hits necessitate a full ice cream bar. Chocolate covered blueberries were good but too much chocolate, not enough blueberry. Honey roasted peanut butter fresh pressed at Whole Foods was unreal. Sad my local store has no peanut butter press. Got too much sun and feeling fried still, just tired and dumb from all the vitamin D flooding my system.


Since time is a bit of a factor here I'll just throw a short bit up here on a popular but oddball music group, Das Racist. Hailing from New York, this meme-tastic hip-hop outfit first made waves with the dada-esque viral song "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell". Soon after, to establish their legit rap cred, they released a pair of mixtapes: Shut Up, Dude and Sit Down, Man. These two mixtapes are not only super awesome examples of modern hip-hop and the humor it can wield but they're also totally free. While critics may dismiss it as joke rap or absurdist, they'd be missing out on awesome beats and surreal lines these guys create. My personal favorite track - the bobbing weirdness of "hahahaha Jk?" that sample the theme from Days of Our Lives. The refrain: "we're not joking, just joking we are joking, just joking - we're not joking." Sounds weird but it actually is a great line. 

There's a ton more I could dissect here, the songs and lyrics are intricately woven and strange. Unfortunately I'm at the airport now and am having to face the reality of checking in and dealing with crowds. Cringe. Shudder. Here we go. Tomorrow I return to the usual sturm and drang of my normal schedule, so these posts will be a little more fleshed out. Until then, kids. Until then.

Sunday Night Cartoon

Day four of writing while in AZ, and I'm fairly confidant that the sun has fried my brain. I'm feeling stupid and burnt. In retaliation I will write about something both simple minded and charmingly intelligent despite it's basic appearance. Something I have been really enjoying since it's debut, whose smiling disposition and jaunty soundtrack are a breath of fresh air in a television landscape that is too often grim, dour and unnecessarily dramatic.


Bob's Burgers! How have you not been watching this show? Starring Jon Benjamin, Dan Mintz, Eugene Mirman and Kristen Schaal, the series was created by Loren Bouchard. Bouchard is the genius behind such animated treasures as Dr. Katz and Home Movies. The show has the fairly standard premise of a man and his family trying to get by while running their burger joint - pretty standard stuff. Where the show shines, though, is it's witty writing, pacing and sense of humor. Many great shows use a pedestrian backdrop as a means to tell a bizarre story, the concept just being a launchpad of sorts. 

Jon Benjamin is an awesome casting job to serve as the well meaning, long suffering father. His wife Linda, voiced by John Roberts, is a rare animated sitcom wife in that she is both enthusiastic and semi intelligent, not a nag or wet blanket or empty sex pot. Secret best characters, though? The kids - Gene, Tina and Louise. Tina is oldest and creepiest. When it comes to light the family has all been reading her diary behind her back, bob asks why and hears in response: "she comes across a lot better on the page" Gene is the adolescent, proxy version of real life Eugene Mirman, his cartoon self being only younger and more idealistic. I love Mirman's absurdist standup act and this character is like a jovial teenage version of that. The ensemble dark horse by far, though, is Louise, the rabbit-ear hat sporting youngest daughter. Voiced by the hysterical Kristen Schaal, she's a sneaky, snarky little girl who both loves her father and loves to mess with him. There was recently a great episode about how she dealt with the jealousy of her brother and father bonding over terrible westerns. It was really poignant and touching in the resolution to a bizarre tale of betrayal and school yard bullies named Choo Choo. 


The series is a standout this year among Fox's Sunday night lineup, easily filling the spot King of the Hill left behind. There's something so real and natural about the dialogue that just makes the show. The voice acting is phenomenal and super funny. I really can't say enough about this charming, outrageously funny show. If you can't catch it on Fox find it on Hulu, I guarantee you'll find something to strike you the right way. This is the best thing about Sunday nights by far

Going AWOL

Alright, day 3 of writing while away from home. It's a little easier this time than when I was in San Francisco, I think, due to the hectic nature of that trip's itinerary versus my kicking up my heels in AZ. Saw a great live show last night by The Road Runners, or as their frontman affectionally dubbed them, the Flab Four. The band is all involved in a great studio and production company, but thats a post for another day. Today I want to write about a fantastic single that you need to hear. Another short post, sure, but I know as soon as I'm home the regular schedule will kick in once again.


Awolnation is a solo project of Aaron Bruno, formed from the ashes of Under The Influence of Giants and Hometown Hero, both based in LA. In the lead up to the release of his debut album the band released the single "Sail", a dirge of a tune that gets under your skin and digs it's claws in as soon as it starts. Initially a sparse affair with plucked strings opening the song, a massive, bleeding synthesizer sweeps in and breaks it wide open. The song is an grand, epic tune that lurches along between heavy notes, breaking your heart with every refrain. The accompanying video is just as moving, with Bruno evading abduction from aliens in an abandoned house and wailing the lyrics into a tape recorder. It's a haunting combination of audio and visual, in the vein of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". Check it out on YouTube.


Awolnation's first album is out, fresh on the heels of this magnificent single. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but based on what I've heard so far, I've got high hopes for what this band can do. It's a great example of the state of modern music, a mish-mash of classical instruments and electronic elements, with passionate lyrics and heartfelt singing. I really love the song, head over to iTunes and give it a listen.

Blinded By Science

Day two of being on out of town. AZ is absolutely gorgeous - even if you divided the temp in half it would still be warmer than in MPLS. The sun is shining and it's hot as blazes. In other words, I'm very happy. Due to this excessive happiness I will truncate today's post. Short post means short release, right? So how about a quick look at the most recent EP by one of my favorite bands of yesteryear, The Get Up Kids.


The Get Up Kids had actually called it quits a few years ago, having toured extensively during their careers in support of fantastic music that was essentially the front line of the dreaded emo descriptor that dogged them. After four phenomenal albums, a slew of EPs and even a live album, their personality differences and divergent desires left them in a rut. After a finale show, they hung up their gear and said "that's all!" yet not fully accepting the demise. This past year the group slowly began the process of rekindling the connection. In late 2010 they released their first studio effort in over six years, Simple Science. This short but sweet release was both a return to form and a breaking of new ground.

The first track, "Your Petty Pretty Things", feels like a natural growth for the band - the guitars are unmistakably them and lead singer Matt Pryor sounds just as good as he did six years back. There is something new though, something intangible and elusive, just a shade of indie rock or hipster angst that had previously dissipated on their last album, Guilt Show. That seems to be the direction the band is headed for now, that mix of the familiar and the novel, as is evidenced in the other tracks. "Keith Case"' is full of fuzzy bass and building, buzzing guitars that feel aggressively in your face for this band. Not out of character, just a bit left of center for them. "Tommy Gentle" is another track that feels like perfectly modern Get Up Kids, messing with my head by playing in that tension-raising 5/4 time signature. It's a pleasant, punchy little pop song that's over almost as soon as it begins. The final track of the EP is a real stand out, the spacey and ambient "How You're Bound" showing definite fresh sensibilities for the band. It's initially a serenely sparse tune with just snippets of guitar and cymbals but it grows as it goes, gaining booming synth-keys that add impressive depth and weight. I really love this song and the melancholy air it creates.


On the heels of this excellent EP came a full album I admittedly have yet to hear. However this choice little release shouldn't be over shadowed by it's bigger brother - it's an awesome prelude to the next phase in thief career. Head over to Flyover Records site and download it, or head to iTunes if you prefer. Just give it a spin and see what grabs you.

Chasing Sheep

Here I sit, 38,000 feet above sea level typing diligently away about a book I finished for the second time. I'm on my way to carefree AZ to replenish my vitals and vitamin d levels. The book? Another fantastic piece of post modernism by haruki murkami, A Wild Sheep Chase.


The story functions in the most basic sense as a noir detective story. To summarize in a blatantly frank manner, a young man is tasked with finding a location and specific sheep within a photograph he used in one of his agency's ads. Sounds bizarre, I know, but I swear that in the greater context of the story it is quite engaging, to the point of my befuddlement even on a second read through. It's a story of this young, unnamed protagonist subjecting himself to the weirdness of the world at large while seeking an old, familiar (if forgotten) connection.


As I wrote in my article about Norwegian Wood I have concerns when reading murakami of whether or not I fully comprehend the context of what is being expressed. I get the literal action but worry about not understanding the idiosyncratic peculiarities of a foreign culture. Having had a chance to chew through the material once before, however, allows me the luxury of not worrying about plot as much as investigating the subtext. Having done so, I can safely say that A Wild Sheep Chase is indeed just as fantastic and weird as I suspected it was on my first read through. The retread afforded me perspective I lacked the first time around.

It really is a great gum shoe tale, albeit with a nameless Everyman hero. That is not a detractor, though, but a method and vehicle for the reader that works quite well for an incorporating effect. The story involves long periods of contemplative drinking, of which I am quite a fan, as well as carefully navigating peculiar  conversations with strange figures and the occasional metaphysical force. As our hero works his way north and out of Tokyo he comes closer to the core of the mystery and farther down into a strange world of men obsessed with a particular sheep, only to find a very inter-connected world of guided hands and lives. I know this all sounds very disjointed and off kilter but it really does hold together quite well in the end, to the degree that my second time through the denoumount brought a new found appreciation for just how fantastic and well constructed the tale is. All it takes is one good scare and a lonely cabin in a deserted mountain clearing to really grab you by the shoulders and make you sit up and take notice. 


Murakami is a killer writer, but you may already be well aware of that fact. Having read a handful of his books by now, im getting the sneaking suspicion that A Wild Sheep Chase may actually be his secret best work. I have a few more of his works to delve in to, admittedly, but this does stand out as a particular highlight. If you've never read anything by this phenomenal author I would highly recommend starting here - it's a quick and easy read that pays off incredibly well. 

Quintessential Underdogs

Yesterday I wrote a small piece about Spoon and their excellent single Written in Reverse. After digging in to my music I started to recall just how much I listened to Gimme Fiction when I first picked it up and why I recently put it back into heavy rotation.

Gimme Fiction is a thoroughly fantastic album, the kind that you listen to the point of exhaustion, then pick it up months or years down the line and it rings fresh with renewed vibrancy and resonance. Released in 2005, the album was a critical success across the board, getting enthusiast reviews from all concerned. Like I mentioned in yesterday's brief post, Metacritic titled them the act of the decade due to their consistently high marks. This album was another in a string of near-flawless endeavors put out by a band that seemingly could do no wrong. One could surmise that they were not long for the Indie-band label they'd been saddled with, yet they have not now nor then broken through to the mainstream in a massive way, which is curious. On the surface it would seem that they'd have no problem becoming hugely popular; they've certainly become a giant draw at festivals. Furthermore, there's no stand-offish nature to them, no sense of quirky-for-the-sake-of-quirky that keeps so many bands out of the mainstream. They were the quintessential underground band - massive following and just on the verge of breaking in a big way. 

Spoon is a band that is, at times, strangely normal. The songs on Gimme Fiction are very natural feeling, with a sense of one foot in front of the other, making the move as it comes in order song writing. Maybe I'm not describing this properly - what I mean to convey is the sense that the songs here are very logical and understandable, and their outstanding quality is what makes them unusual. It's odd or perhaps striking when a band can simply write great songs and let them be, especially in what is perceived to be this modern age of over-production and non-stop tinkering. 

In a world of Georgre Lucas-esque, Kanye West-ian ego mania and detailing, the songs on Gimme Fiction stand out due to their slight nature. While the album is, of course, full of piano plinks and guitar plunks, vocal lines ebbing and flowing over wide-open pianos, there is still a minimalist nature at hand. From the opening, dry buzz of the guitar descending into The Beast And Dragon Adored to the full band popping in behind in a low rumble of piano, bass and drums, it all feels simultaneously clean and dusty. Singer/guitarist Britt Daniel's voice is wonderfully grainy, the stuff of rock & roll generations past. He sings, barks and lilts over the band plodding along, bleating about believing in rock and roll. Sister Jack is a fun, blaring take on hand claps and stop-and-go choruses that make your foot tap no matter the occasion. My Mathematical Mind is a momentous, rolling number that plows along with a thumping bass and a piano part that conveys a grand scale that Daniel wails over with gusto. It's a great song that you may have heard, unfortunately through the guise of marketing - it was prominently featured in a series of car ads I won't describe here. 

Another example of a superb song on Gimme Fiction that saw widespread commercial use is the funky, Prince-inspired I Turn My Camera On, which again shows that stripped down attitude despite the fully formed feel of the song. As I alluded to in yesterday's post, this song is the definition of restraint, drawing power from the energy the group has to hold in check. It's a great song and one can certainly understand, if wince only slightly, to see it used in everything from episodes of The Simpsons to the procedural Bones. Nothing robs a little essence of a song more than seeing it used by producers to add weight or "fun" to a scene. Curiously, significant portions of this entire album were lifted and restructured to serve as the soundtrack to the film adaptation of Stranger Than Fiction. In this case, however, it was with Daniel working intentionally with the sound designer for the film, editing and removing vocals to make them fit in proper context. Done in this manner, it actually serves the film quite well, and the passion of the band fits the quirky story. It's a great film, by the way, expect a write up in the future.

Gimme Fiction is excellent, start to finish. As I stated earlier, I listened to this album so much I actually grew numb to it for a while, only to rediscover it recently. It still sounds fantastic, six years later, all the nervous energy and impeccably crafted songs sounding fresh. If, for some reason, you still are unfamiliar with this great band, you would be doing fine to start with this album. 

Backwards

Alright, round two, let's jump right in. 

Instead of focusing once again on music from the 90s, how about something more modern, say in the last 18 months? 

Spoon is fantastic, straight and simple. They're a great rootsy Rock & Roll band of the old school from Texas. They've put out amazing singles (I Turn My Camera On, The Underdog, The Way We Get By) and phenomenal albums (Gimme Fiction, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga). Metacritic dubbed them one of the best acts of the last decade, simply by weighing cumulative/aggregated scores from reviews. It's just good, solid music that rocks - great songs, great voice, great sound. So when this last year saw the release of Transference, their latest album, without the stoppage of the rotation of the Earth, I was a bit puzzled. The lead single in particular was a great piece of energetic, raucous noise. I fear we move to fast now in our pop-cultural momentum, so let's take a closer look into why Written In Reverse was fantastic and shamefully overlooked. 

Making good use of a staple of rock history that sees only middling play these days, Written In Reverse leans heavily on a piano riff on the back beat of the kick drum. It sounds great and hooks your head in immediately but it's a very raw sound. To cut to the chase here, I think that while the song is a gritty, thumping tune, it's also a little too intense and unrelenting to be as popular as it could be. I love the back and forth dynamic Spoon is creating here, down and up, down and up. It's almost hypnotic - almost. Brit Daniel's vocals are as salty and jagged as ever, wailing like a dying man. While it makes for heartfelt and angsty music, it's not a pleasant sound in the sense of drawing you back for more - its more of a 'look at how crazy this is' vibe of a wounded animal. The guitars are equally broken and damaged, simultaneously sounding tightly wound and frayed at the edges. The way they plow through the locked-in-step song it seems that the machine could break down at any minute. It's an amazingly raw and real tune, just not necessarily one you would expect people to latch on to. That may be the heart of the matter here. The song is phenomenal, it really is. It just may be that Spoon poured a little too much of themselves into it to keep it smooth. There's none of the restraint from past songs like You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb or Sister Jack. None of the loose swagger of My Mathematical Mind or The Underdog. They've gotten a little ballsier and it may have cost them a little air-play. 

I write all this and yet Spoon are still doing just fine. Transference received excellent reviews, people clamor to see them live. I guess I just want to make sure the cultural zeitgeist doesn't just zip past and onward towards some other meme-heavy fad. So by taking the long way round, I just want people to listen to Spoon, really. Just putting the word out there - get past the hard edges and they're still as fantastic as ever.