Popular Science/Tron/Crazy Oscar lady explained
March 9, 2010
In case you’ve been living under a rock, or not had access to the internet for the past few days, the first full Tron Legacy trailer hit the web. Go watch it here and get excited. I really think/hope this movie will use new special effects technology in a tasteful way, and be generally awesome. (Via Yewknee’d)
Another item that’s been circulating the blogosphere for a few days but is still worth posting: Popular Science magazine now has its archives online, dating all the way back to their very first issue. You can also browse them in Google Books. Some of those covers from the early to mid 20th century are quite hilarious.
If you watched the Oscars sunday night and are still wondering WTF was up with that crazy woman in the purple dress getting all Kaye West on Roger Ross Williams during his acceptance speech for Best Documentary Short, go read this article. In short, her name was Elinor Burkett, and she was a co-producer of the film. Apparently she and RRW have been in a battle over who’s idea the movie was, and who deserves the credit.
Some other Oscar-related goodness: Honest Best Picture Move Titles on CollegeHumor. My favorite: Up. Honest title- Suck It Dreamworks! 2nd favorite: Up In the Air. Honest title- George Clooney On Autopilot. (Via Kottke.org)
Buzz Aldrin continues his reign of utter awesomeness by being a contestant (participant?) on ABC’s Dancing With the Stars. He’s doing it as part of an overall effort to keep the US space program on the public’s mind. He also recently taped an upcoming appearance on NBC’s 30 Rock. I can only hope I’m that badass at 80. (Via Space.com)
A shit-ton of new music
February 17, 2010
I couldn’t think of anything better to describe this post than “a shit-ton of new music.”
Seriously, check this out:
Probably my favorite producer/DJ/artist from the Ed Banger Records crew is Breakbot. I love his remixes and original material, but his new track “Baby I’m Yours” is easily his masterpiece, even if it is under 3 min. long. It’s on his latest EP of the same title, and you should go get it now at Beatport. Or wherever you can find it. I also love the Siriusmo remix… Look for one or the other to be a a featured track in my upcoming Spring 2010 Mixxxx.
So I’ve been talking a lot about the Morning Benders lately. Well, that’s because they’re smart and know just how to milk hype and anticipation for all it’s worth. They’ve been slowly releasing a steady trickle of tidbits- mp3’s, videos, interviews, etc…- and it’s working because they’re ALL OVER the blogosphere. But I honestly love them and thus I’m joining the parade. Today they released another free mp3- the full studio version of “Excuses,” the song played in the video clip I posted last week. Grab it at You Ain’t No Picasso. It can found a million other places as well, but I’m linking to YANP because that happens to be where I saw it first.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen any action from Brighton Beach, UK’s The Pipettes. This is probably because they’ve undergone about 3,278 lineup changes since their last US appearances. When I first discovered them I went totally crazy for the whole gimmick of cute girls, singing pretty harmonies, dressing up in polka-dots, doing coreographed stage moves, and bringing back the girl-group pop vibe of the Phil Spector era. I must say that initial excitement has long worn off, and they quickly fell to the far back of my mind. Now they’ve completely re-vamped their image and sound, as well as shrunk to apparently 2 frontwomen. Check out the funky spaced-out disco imagery at their website, where you can also download their new single “Our Love Was Saved by Spacemen.” Honestly, the sound matches the imagery, but I’m not sure I’m sold on the new sound. It’s catchy and fun without a doubt, but something just doesn’t quite click like the old lineup/sound/imagery did.
SXSW officially announced the schedule of showcases and I’m going to spend at least a good hour tonight looking over it, but at first glance a few things popped out to me:
Wed. night at Emo’s, Emo’s annex, and Emo’s Jr., the latter of which is the Rough Trade showcase culminating with the Morning Benders. Also on Wed. is the Next Big Nashville showcase at Maggie Mae’s featuring The Ettes and a few more Nashville acts, and the Girls Rock Austin showcase at Submerged, feature Those Darlins and The Coathangers.
Thur. night the Beauty Bar hosts the IHEARTCOMIX/Green Owl showcase, which features some great new electronic artists, but faces stiff competition for the electro crowd from the Dim Mak showcase at Elysium which features the Crystal Method and Steve Aoki. The Cedar Street Courtyard, though not any specific “showcase,” will feature She & Him. The Young Turks showcase at the Mohawk Patio looks awesome. Of course the biggest is Broken Social Scene at Stubb’s.
Fri. night Cedar Street Courtyard will host Nashville’s own American Bang. Club DeVille hosts Neon Indian and CLASSIXXX. The Bright Antenna showcase at the Ghost Room features Magic Wands, which are interestingly listed as a Nashville band… The Cool Kids and Miike Snow will be at the Mohawk Patio.
Sat. night the Austin Shores stage looks pretty rad with She & Him, Justin Townes Earle, Deer Tick, and many others. The Beauty Bar lineup would appear to be the Fool’s Gold showcase, though it’s not listed as such… The Chicken Ranch showcase at Headhunter’s looks good, with Nashville’s own The Clutters and We Were the States on the bill. The Mohawk Patio looks good yet again, with Turbo Fruits and Surfer Blood.
Frankly my head almost exploded just glancing over it. More SXSW to come. Holy shit I can’t wait.
Oh, and if that didn’t make your head explode, then celebrities upside-down will.
Bonnaroo rant/BISB/Morning Benders
February 11, 2010
After some thinking, I have this to say about the Bonnaroo 2010 lineup: 1/2 good, 1/2 FAIL. Part of it is just my personal taste, but part of it is just plain WTF?
First the bad part: the headliners. The combination of Stevie Wonder, Jay-Z, Kings of Leon, and Dave Matthews Band (the 1st 4 listed in the lineup, thus assumed to be headliners) is pretty weak compared to Phish/Springsteen, or Metallica/Pearl Jam, or The Police/Tool. As much as I hate Phish, they were a HUGE score for the festival last year, and IMO, they needed someone like the widely-rumored Paul Simon or Paul McCartney to really stand up the last few years. I don’t think Jay-Z, despite his legendary status in the hip hop world, can quite fill the shoes of past headliners. Stevie Wonder is awesome and I’m glad he’s playing but somehow I just don’t see him as quite headliner material. DMB has played Bonnaroo before, and of course will please the hippie crowd, but will also draw a considerable number of collar-poppin’ fratastic douchebags.
Now for the good part: the tent-playing (or maybe Which Stage-playing) mid-level indie acts. I’m more than elated to see She & Him, LCD Soundsystem, Phoenix, Flaming Lips, Miike Snow, They Might Be Giants, OK Go, The Melvins, Neon Indian, and many more of the “indie rock” acts on the bill. Let’s just say that if I go to cover it for the Scene again this year, I will no doubt be spending most of my time in the tents.
In other lineup news, Vanderbilt’s Rites of Spring lineup came right on the heels of the Bonnaroo announcements, and the list is not surprising, though Phoenix and Passion Pit together make the lineup a tad bit stronger than past years, IMO. Headliners Ben Harper & the Relentless 7 and Drake fit right into the typical RoS formula of putting an up-and-coming rap star on one night, and a frat-pleasing, jam-ish act on the other. But this broad, please-all formula has worked well for the festival in the past, so I can’t blame them for doing what works. This ain’t no Pitchfork afterall.
As most Nasvhillians who pay any amount of attention to the local electronic/DJ scene already know, Justin Kase has been on the road for several months as a the DJ in Ke$ha’s backing band. He also ran a pretty cool, though sparingly updated blog called Blogging Is Serious Business. Sadly, though, he’s putting that blog on indefinite hiatus:
Touring kept me from updating recently, but now i just don’t have any interest to continue this blog. Never say never, but don’t expect anything new for some time to come.
What’s utterly flattering, though, is that he mentioned my blog, along with the obvious Nashville Nights, as an alternative for “your Nashville dancing fix…” Therefore, expect me to attempt to live up to that plug by bringing in a little more coverage of the DJ/electronic/dance scene beside my usual plugs for gigs at which I’m DJing. Don’t expect many mp3’s though, because A) Joseph at Nashville Nights has that very well-covered, and B) I don’t have the time or energy to devote to climbing the HypeMachine charts and getting labels/producers to send me shit to post. I will however, post a link to my last mix, just in case you missed it back in Dec. (Spring 2010 Mixxxx is currently in production for release next month.)
Finally, I was excited to this nicely-done video of the Morning Benders performing/recording the track “Excuses” for Yours Truly with about 50 of their best musician friends crammed into the studio, Phil Spector-style. In fact, as the singer Chris Chu talks about in the interview segment, the song is a bit of a tribute to Spector and his “Wall of Sound” recording method. They even wrote a cute little letter to him which you can read at Yours Truly. Here’s the video. (All of this via Gorilla vs. Bear and Pitchfork)
Some cool/cute videos
February 9, 2010
You’re no doubt going to be spending a lot of your internet time today following the “great unveiling” of the Bonnaroo 2010 lineup, and I have little interest in competing with that. Furthermore, I don’t have time to cover such a long, drawn-out process in the first place because this blog happens during small breaks, luls, and at lunch during my “real” job. According to the main Bonnaroo website, the place to keep up with the lineup unveiling (which is entirely up to the artists themselves this year) is Bonnaroo’s myspace page. They will start keeping tabs of the announcements at noon EST today. As of 10am the only artists I’ve seen are Weezer, Flaming Lips, Phoenix (weird because Bonnaroo doesn’t normally book acts 2 years in a row), John Fogerty, Jeff Beck, and Blues Traveler. That last one gave me a major flashback to watching Woodstock ’94 coverage when I was 13….
So, instead of focusing on the Bonnaroo craziness, I will simply post some interesting cute videos thanks to Yewknee’d:
Very cool time-lapse video of the snowfall in Washington, D.C. this past weekend:
A dog reacting to the Law & Order theme song: (Many many more here.)
Infinity Cat rules Elliston tonight/LOST timeline, etc…
February 2, 2010
First of all, if you’re a LOST fan as I am, of course you know that the final season premiers tonight. To go along with that, I give you two links of interest:
The New York Times’ timeline of a few significant events. This is pretty helpful in remembering the time scale we’re talking about here…
The real physics involved with the time travel of LOST. As an avid science lover/advocate, I have of course been pleased with the fact that the time travel involved with LOST is at least somewhat based on real-world physics.
Image via Nashville's Dead
Unfortunately there’s a great show that I’m going to miss out on due to LOST tonight, and that is the Infinity Cat Rock the Block at Exit/In. In case you’ve been under a rock the past couple of months, Ryan Bruce has revived Exit/In’s free tuesday night weekly series Rock the Block. It’s similar to the 8 off 8th series at Mercy Lounge in that it’s hosted by a rotating cast of local musicians/scenemakers/bloggers/radio show hosts/etc…. It differs in that the number of bands is entirely up to the host, however most of the ones so far have been in the 7-9 band range. Tonight’s is hosted by Infinity Cat records and has a killer lineup. So if you’re not going to be glued to ABC for 3 hours, Exit/In should be your destination, because it’s free.
Speaking of 8 off 8th… Mercy Lounge released the actual lineups for each of the 4 Road To Bonnaroo series today. See the full lineups at Nashville Cream. This is going to get interesting.
For your daily dose of eye-candy, checkout local vintage clothier Carmen Jaudon’s official spring 2010 lookbook. Photography was done by Bradley Spitzer and of course the styling was by Carmen. A good pairing of photographer/stylist indeed.
Speaking of lookbooks… I present to you Hipsters Have to Pee. Must be all those PBRs and soy lattes… (Via Hipster Runoff)
Happy LOST day!
NASA/Obama look to cancel Constellation program
February 1, 2010
As expected, today Obama submitted his budget proposal for NASA, which includes cutting the Constellation/Ares rocket program. Under the new plan, he wants to pursue commercial options for getting people to low-earth orbit, and focus NASA’s main efforts on exploring the rest of the solar system. This will no doubt meet some resistance in Congress and the Senate, but overall I think it will go through. I’m starting to agree with it more and more. The biggest reason is that companies like SpaceX will probably be capable of safely transporting our astronauts to the ISS much sooner than NASA’s Ares rockets could have (without a massive and utterly impossible funding boost). Read more details at Space.com and at Discovery news.
Now enjoy these two nice nuggets via yewknee’d:
Sky:
Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger/Benefit show in M’boro
January 26, 2010
I’m not quite sure whether to breathe a sigh of relief, or still be worried about the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger. I haven’t really had a chance to fully think the outcome through yet. But the news is: the merger is on, but with special provisions mandated by the government to prevent a full-on monopoly on the entire live music business. Basically, AEG Live will get to use Ticketmaster’s software, and Ticketmaster’s Paciolan ticketing and software services unit will be sold to a division of Comcast or another possible buyer. I guess the biggest worry here was that the merger would go on unchecked and that did NOT happen, so I guess we can all sigh a breath of relief… for the time being. More details at Business Insider.
There’s a pretty cool fundraiser/benefit show happening in Murfreesboro this Thursday 1/28/2010 for YEAH. (If you’re unfamiliar with YEAH, which stands for Youth Education through Arts & Humanities, please click on the flier to visit their website and learn more about their AWESOME program.) The show lineup is Shoot The Mountain, Hammertorch, and How I Became the Bomb, and there will also be Yazoo and New Belgium beers! (The beer part is a big deal because normally this space is alcohol-free because it’s an all-ages venue/hangout.) It’s obviously an 18+ event, and your attendance will help out one of the best local causes I can think of.
It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of local electronic/8-bit wizard Matt Pusti. We went to MTSU together and he was mostly responsible for my introduction to electronic music in general. Before that, I thought drum machines were evil and anything not made by a “real” instrument was terrible. I recently mentioned his newer, more experimental endeavor DAAS and was quite glad to see him getting back to producing that genre of electronic music. (His material before Makeup & Vanity Set sounded much more like the DAAS material.) His Makeup & Vanity Set project has been somewhat idle for a couple years, but that has just changed with the release of his new Jambox EP on Bandcamp. GO GET IT NOW FOR NOTHING MORE THAN YOUR EMAIL. This is apparently just a taste of the goodness to come on his next full-length, due out later this year. I will probably do an interview with him as my first “official” interview on here… one of more to come.
Lineup announcements
January 19, 2010
Today is a day of announcements.
If you’re a Nashvillian surely you know that Mercy Lounge is hosting a series of free shows this week featuring the best of Nashville’s local rock. It’s their 7-year anniversary bash. You may have seen that they had two “special secret guests” in addition to Friday’s already awesome lineup of the Non-Commissioned Officers, How I Became the Bomb, De Novo Dahl, and the Ettes. Today they announced the 1st of those two special guests: The Features. Apparently you’ll have to wait until friday to see the other one. I smell another Kings of Leon rumor mill/controversy on the horizon… keep checking their calendar for updates, or follow them on Twitter.
Rumors abound about possible Bonnaroo lineups/headliners. Here’s one blog that attempts to predict some of the artists. (Via Nashville Cream)
And of course, today was the official announcement of the 2010 Coachella lineup. This should allow you to hone your Bonnaroo predictions a bit, if you’re into that sort of thing. Here’s the lineup:
steve cross loves music and science 