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November 24, 2009
Shorties (Frightened Rabbit, Ha Jin, and more)
Drowned in Sound interviews Frightened Rabbit's Scott Hutchison.
DiS: Your new album, The Winter Of Mixed Drinks, is due out in March of next year. Where did the record's title come from?
SH: It's from a line in one of the songs, 'Living In Colour' - same as Midnight Organ Fight actually, which came from a line in 'Fast Blood'. I guess we like doing that. I looked through all the lyrics and couldn't find one decent enough to use, and then that one was hiding away near the end of the record. I think the "Midnight Organ Fight" was a phrase all of our own, and with this album I wanted to create another one that we could claim as our own as well. I'd never heard that sentence before and I just wanted to call our album something we could immediately identify with.
The Los Angeles Times reviews Ha Jin's new short story collection, A Good Fall.
In his latest short-story collection, "A Good Fall," Jin continues his skillful and deeply felt exploration of immigrant conflicts.
Spinner lists 20 movie-inspired band names.
Flavorwire interviews Cymbals Eat Guitars frontman Joe D'Agostino.
Amazon MP3
If Lewis Carroll had written Twilight.
At NPR, author James Ellroy shares his love for the James Jones novel From Here to Eternity.
The novel runs nearly 900 pages. It encapsulates huge themes within the brutal framework of daily tedium and the aching restlessness of the spirit. We are given military nomenclature and catch brief glimpses of mountain ranges, military encampments, cathouses and enlisted men's bars. Jones paints a wildly exotic picture. We come to see it all and know what it all means. We come to love the tortured men and women he has given us. They have become our comrades. We have fought their struggle along with them, and have succumbed and surmounted in their precise proportion. We possess their soul knowledge. It keeps us coming back to read this work again and again.
The San Antonio Current profiles David Small, author of the celebrated graphic novel Stitches.
The A.V. Club lists the best comics of the '00s.
At NPR, Alan Cheuse offers a list of winter book suggestions.
Drowned in Sound interviews LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy.
Zee Avi plays a tiny desk concert at NPR Music.
Cartoonist Hope Larson has opened an Etsy shop for her drawings (I picked up a holiday present yesterday, the original back cover artwork for her graphic novel, Chiggers).
Follow me on Twitter for links that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.
also at Largehearted Boy:
online "best of 2009" book lists
online "best of 2009" music lists
best of the decade (2000-2009) online music lists
daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
tags: music books popculture indie
