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July 6, 2007
Shorties
The Guardian examines the future of music on vinyl.
The Asheville Citizen-Times interviews Matthew Friedberger of the Fiery Furnaces.
Q: What hints can you give about the upcoming album “Widow City?”
A: I’d call it an occasionally aggressive hour-long record. This one will have a lot more rock band sounds: guitar, bass and drums. We also added a lot of Chamberlain keyboards.
In the Guardian, Steven Adams of the Broken Family Band discusses being in a band while working a regular job.
Speaking for myself, (but I know this applies to the other band members, too), I earn decent money working in a job I enjoy, and I can now afford to live in a nice place and eat properly. I spent a few years playing at being a struggling artist, and it's rubbish. You end up smoking loads of dope and watching television in your pants all day and not having any money to go out and be a flash bastard with.
Old 97's frontman Rhett Miler talks to the Indianapolis Star.
"I think the fact that we've never been bigger or more widely known than we are is appealing to filmmakers," Miller says. "The songs have been around, so you've maybe heard them. But they're not instantly recognizable."
Guardian readers recommend songs about the environment.
The New York Times examines the celebrations surrounding the release of the final Harry Potter Book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
411mania lists the top 5 movie serial killers.
Popmatters interviews Perry Farrell.
There does seem to be an anti-environmental stand taken by certain areas of the American right. They quote that bit of the bible where it says I have given you all the fruits of the earth. Personalities like Anne Coulter have a real anti-recycling vibe.
She might as well say “I’m an idiot. If you need a fool, here I am”. Nature is a complete recycling event. Seasons demonstrate recycling. That is nature’s way. It’ll never go wrong. We, who think we’re so smart, and sit there on Fox and don’t believe in recycling are basically saying, “nature does it wrong”. What a foolish statement that is. She should be ashamed of herself.
KEXP features in-studio performances today from BOAT (noon pacific) and Battles (6 pacific).
Pocket Gamer lists the best digital comics for your Sony PSP.
Drowned in Sound interviews Colin DeKuiper of the Russian Circles.
I suppose some people must read that you’re an instrumental trio and then leap to the conclusion that you’re a slow-moving post-rock act, which really isn’t the case…
Yep, that’s right. We’re lucky that we can go on so many different tours, playing the sort of music we do. We get to play in front of lots of people who wouldn’t usually invest a lot of their attention in a band like Russian Circles. For example, we toured with Minus The Bear in the US last fall – there, we were playing for people who wouldn’t read a Russian Circles review and think it was something they had to have. But on the tour we found that a lot of people were interested.
A self-professed "music industry micro-celebrity (legendary music producer Steve Albini) is answering questions in the 2+2 forums.
Punchline Magazine interviews comedian Patton Oswalt.
How do you maintain that balance between the mainstream success you’ve had in television and movies and the more underground success and respect you’ve gained in your stand-up comedy career?
I think it’s because it’s pretty clear that all the mainstream success that I get and pursue is so that I could keep doing stand-up the way I want to do it. I think people can understand that. It’s hard to make money doings stand-up these days. It’s harder to travel. So why not do stuff that’ll help that along. I think people know that if they’re stand-up fans of mine, there’s other things of mine they don’t need to watch. Then there’s people that like my mainstream stuff and they’re smart enough to understand that my stand-up is a little bit more adult.
MSNBC lists "10 things about liv shows that suck."
The Fiery Furnaces' Matt Friedberger talks to the Independent Weekly.
The Polyphonic Spree's Julie Doyle talks to the Cleveland Free Times about the band's third album, The Fragile Army.
"It definitely resonates and represents a political viewpoint," Doyle says. "There's never 100 percent peace existing on this earth, but it is difficult to be a speaker of any sort, be it music or anything public, and ignore what is happening."
The Palm Beach Post's Leslie Gray Streeter lists her top 25 Police songs.
Folk legend Bert Jansch talks to the Scotsman.
For Jansch, the world of rock was too close for comfort to pop, which, he contends, "is to do with clothes and fashion and hair styles, which is not what I'm about. Some musicians go round the world displaying what they look like, but what they sound like is another matter. It never occurred to me to dress up for a show. I played the guitar - I never thought about anything visually; I was just concerned with the sound."
Douglas Wolk's new book, Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean, is a pick of the week at the Christian Science Monitor.
St. Vincent's Annie Clark talks to the Dallas Observer.
When she was talking to labels, she says, "I learned a lot about what I wanted, but I also learned a lot about what I didn't want. I love playing music, I love doing this thing. This is all I've ever wanted to do, so I wanna do it for a long time. I'm really happy that Marry Me is coming out and that some people seem to be excited about it—that's so awesome. But I also want to make a next record."
Former Drive-By Trucker Jason Isbell talks to Creative Loafing.
"I try to write songs that I want to listen to over and over, and I am a big fan of good pop music. There's so much good stuff by folks like Tom Petty, Big Star, and that's what I was aiming for."
Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne gives the A.V. Club his "guide to festival survival.
The Woodland Daily Democrat lists "great summer reads" for all ages.
The A.V. Club interviews my favorite (relatively) young novelist, Michael Chabon.
AVC: How does what you read affect your writing?
MC: My reading is guided by what I'm working on and reading for research purposes. I'll read works of fiction that tackle similar kinds of formal problems. When I was working on Kavalier & Clay, I read The Cider House Rules by John Irving to see how he telescopes the passage of time in that novel. On the other hand, my writing, on a larger level, is always a response to my history as a reader, as I mentioned earlier with Dune and this latest book. There's an ongoing Darwinian competition of ideas in my brain. Certain ones just stick with me. If they stick long enough, if the timing is right and I have the motive and the opportunity, then I will eventually try to write whatever that is. I think it's a pretty intuitive, impulsive process for me.
Get ready for your alma mater's college football season by downloading a fight song at College Fight Songs.
The Guardian gauges the possibly lethal effect the Sopranos had on the American novel.
From coast to coast, from white-wine sipping yuppies to real life mobsters, The Sopranos has had Americans talking - even those of us not familiar with the difficulty of illegal interstate trucking or how to bury a body in packed snow. While the New York Times called upon Michael Chabon, Elmore Leonard and Michael Connelly to resurrect the serial novel in its Sunday Magazine, critics were calling Chase the Dickens of our time. The final episode roped in some 11.9 million viewers. One major question, though, remains. Has Tony Soprano whacked the American novel?
TeachersFirst.com lists the 100 best books for children, broken down by age.
Drowned in Sound picks the winners and losers among this year's reunited bands.
WXPN features an in-studio performance by Flight of the Conchords.
NPR's All Things Considered examines the myths surrounding the writing of Jack Kerouac's On the Road.
KEXP features an interview and in-studio performance by Grizzly Bear.
Lullabyes is sharing a live performance by Abra Moore.
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