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May 3, 2006
Shorties
No Love For Ned has another amazing streaming radio show this week, with Half-Handed Cloud sitting in for an in-studio performance.
Philip Price of Winterpills talks to the Boston Herald about the band's plan for their next album.
"It's not a definite plan, but I have a feeling the next disc will rock a little harder," Price said. "But who knows. I may write five or six dainty little folk songs in the next few months. The beauty of it is that you never really know until you’re done."
The Fiery Furnaces talk to Entertainment Weekly.
So tell me about this new video for ''Benton Harbor Blues.'' Matt, you've done some short film stuff, haven't you?
MATT Well, when I was a teaching assistant in special ed, I used to take kids to high school film class and we'd make videos, and especially with one kid, he loved it, he was a good actor. Those videos were much, much better than our video.
ELEANOR This we made with pals from Chicago; one of them actually lives down the street from our mom. Graham Gangi is a guy I went to high school with [at Oak Park River Forest High School in Oak Park, Ill.], and his buddy Matt Miller from work, this is their first video, and they're good friends. It was shot in Benton Harbor, in Michigan. It's where the studio is [Key Club Recording] where we recorded both of those last two records. You can't get more real than that. It's just, like, shots of the town and stuff.
Destroyer's Dan Bejar talks to Seattle Weekly about his songwriting process.
"I don't think about rhyming too much; that part comes pretty easy," he writes. "I'm much happier when a phrase gathers some momentum or does something memorable via something other than rhyming with what comes after it. The important thing is just to keep the rhythm going, I think."
The Oregonian reviews Alan Moore's latest graphic novel, The Lost Girls.
Published in three volumes by Portland-based Top Shelf and set for a June release, "Lost Girls" is unapologetically pornographic and undeniably powerful. Graphic novels don't get any more graphic than this.
The Washington Post reviews Neil Young's protest album, Living With War.
"Living With War" is way more about ideology than music, with Young's political statements standing front and center. Let's just say that you might like this album if you have Daily Kos set as your Internet home page. If your daily routine begins with Michelle Malkin or Power Line, "Living With War" is going to make you mad as hell. Which is pretty much the point.
Popmatter examines the state of the single.
In the bloated behemoth of the music biz, as time and innovation improved technology, something changed. To pinpoint when is pointless. One song now maligns or defines you and one hit song is the exact distance from obscurity to overnight success. Sadly, the album is an afterthought.
Stylus finds magical musical moments in two Iron & Wine songs.
Dogmatika reviews Nick Cave's novel, And The Ass Saw The Angel.
In his finest lyrical moments (The Mercy Seat, Tupelo, There She Goes My Beautiful World) Nick Cave distills the extremes of life: transcendent beauty and unremitting horror. And The Ass Saw The Angel takes a small glimmer of the former combined with a cornucopia of the latter. A profoundly twisted vision, it's the Southern Gothic of Flannery O'Connor distorted to the extremes of Octave Mirbeau's The Torture Garden.
The new issue of the New Yorker features a new story by Jhumpa Lahiri, "Once in a Lifetime." (via)
Rolling Stone reviews Radiohead's recent London performance, where they previewed three new songs.
The last new song of the evening, "Cymbal Rush," provided a rare display of nerves: Yorke set up a Laurie Anderson-like vocal loop only to find, as he sat at the piano, that he'd set it too fast. Problem rectified, he started the tune again, revealing another lament which seemed to twist the intro chords of Neil Young's "After the Goldrush" (a song Yorke is fond of performing) into a distinctly twenty-first-century lullaby. Greenwood added some of his now trademark Star Trek Ondes Martenot to haunting effect.
Win Butler of the Arcade Fire is interviewed by Chicago's Metromix.
You've said mp3s make it hard for artists to make a living. What do you think of mp3s now that they helped make your career?
I think it remains to be seen. It's the sort of thing that it is what it is. If I hear about any band, that's how I check it out. I don't buy a lot of records. Mp3s keep me from buying [bad] records. I think it's the way people are going to be exposed to music from now on.
The Onion A.V. Club lists ten successful music artists with terrible names.
The New York Times reviews the Coachella festival.
Yet Madonna and Kanye West played here this year, and they encountered even more love than the alternative-rock groups that are at the heart of this festival. And for all the famous discernment of these taste makers, one didn't feel much palpable reaction among them.
American Chronicle examines the controversy surrounding Jack White's Coke ad.
Saturday is Free Comic Book Day, visit your favorite comic shop and participate.
The Guardian listed the ten most controversial films ever.
Drowned in Sound recaps April's music releases.
