Dapper Dudes at 53 Grammy Awards 2011

 Justin Bieber arrives at the 53rd annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles.

Usher arrives at the 53rd annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles.

 

 John Mayer arrives at the 53rd annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles.

 Adam Lambert the glam rocker vastly improved over last year's tragic look with this slick black suit and matching 'do.

 Sean 'Diddy' Combs arrives at the 53rd annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles.

 Ricky Martin arrives at the 53rd annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles.

 Mario Lopez arrives at the 53rd annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles.

 Lenny Kravitz is still hot for 46, but he needs to permanently remove the futuristic, "Mad Max" gear from his wardrobe.

Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino arrives at the 53rd annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles.

 

 Adam Levine arrives at the 53rd annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles.

 Russell Brand, Katy Perry's hubby was understandably disheveled after hosting "Saturday Night Live" (in New York) less than 12 hours before arriving in Los Angeles for the Grammys.

Darren Criss arrives at the 53rd annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles.

 

Source : Yahoo

(12.02.08) Recommends:

The Hackensaw Boys.

It's been a rainy/misty/foggy start to the holiday season here in Los Angeles. And, for some reason, rainy/misty/foggy holidays makes us want to listen to bluegrass and drink beer with friends in a setting that features lots of wood, or fake wood paneling if wood is too expensive (and what with the economic crisis we're in, this is probable). We're completely serious about this. We're not sure why we feel this way, but we do. Sort of like how listening to the Strokes' album Room on Fire makes us think of driving around Kansas City with a gentle snow falling.

Well, as an aside, now that we think about it, we actually understand that Strokes connection. We were in the year between graduating college and moving on to our next adventure. We lived in a part of town that was ostensibly hip and as a result our car was broken into three times. The first two times, during the fall, just the windows were smashed but nothing was taken. We actually took this somewhat as an insult because we had hundreds of CDs strewn about the car and not a single one was taken. We figured the thief thought we had bad taste in music and were deeply offended. The third time was during the early winter, and apparently wanting to preserve energy during the cold season, the thief got tricky/steathy. We entered the car. Started it and headed to work. Silence. This seemed weird so we looked down at the car stereo. Only to see that the car stereo had been stolen. Again, all of the CDs we had were entact, but we happened to have the aforementioned Strokes album in the CD player so that one was lost. And in the interim, rather than just going to buy a new car CD player and a new Strokes CD, we would drive around with our laptop open, playing the CD through our laptop speakers (we happened to have, cough cough, downloaded the album prior to purchasing it). Because the part of town we lived in was more ostensibly hip than actually hip (we mean seriously, if this was an actual hip part of town the thief would have left us a goddam thank you note for allowing him/her to behold such an impressive CD collection; at the least s/he would have taken them all to look cool around friends. Not that we haven't gotten over the snub or anything), there were many nights were we'd have nothing interesting to do. So we'd drive a long loop around the city, listening to the Strokes Room on Fire as a light snow fell. The end.

Anyway. Moving on. Here are some pictures of a show that the Hackensaw Boys recently put on at the Redwood Bar & Grill, a random pirate-themed bar downtown. Pirate bar, of course it is. The Hackensaw Boys are a rowdy countrypunkbluegrass band and they put on a very entertaining live act.






















We also recorded some sound. We like this first song because it's about The End Times Coming. And with transformative American authors commiting suicide, and worldwide financial meltdowns, and major/historic elections, and stories of pirates hijacking ships appearing with near daily regularity in the NY Times, and bad-action-movie-plot style attacks in India, all occuring within months of each other, it kinda sorta seems like this song might be on to something.



We like this next song because the band announces they're from Virgina, and if you listen closely, you can hear people in the crowd saying, in a nod to the McCain/Palin campaign and a nod to the memory of George Allen, "Welcome to America" and "the realVirgina?"



Finally, this last clip we like because, well, because the singer insists on making "Pirate noises" as the band looks for its missing fiddle player, and because the banjo player -- we've got a rather large soft spot on the banjo -- seems to get a little bored waiting and breaks into some killer banjo soloing. Yes, we went there: we just said killer banjo soloing.



Now, if you've gotten this far you may be saying to yourself: Man, it's kinda strange that you're into bluegrass music played in a manic style. Or: Man, it's kinda strange that there's a pirate-themed bar so far away from the craggy coastline of Somalia (Note: we think it's some sort of rule of AP Style that the NYTimes cannot draft an article about pirates without mentioning said pirates' proxmity off the "craggy coastline of Somalia," craggy being a word I've seen used in print perhaps never prior to Pirategate '08).

However. We submit that the strangest thing to come of all of this is that when we took the subway home -- from Union Station to the Hollywood/Vine station -- we noticed the top of the inside of Union Station is covered with hanging -- strategically or otherwise -- male manequin/blow up dolls -- or, omg, is it possible that they're Real Dolls; oh yikes, please say no. We're not kidding around:

(12.01.08) Recommends:

WSO Update.

Holy moly it's been, like, years since we've updated here. So much has been going on in the world since September that the blog felt a little uncalled for. Plus, we've been cheating on Blogger and spending much of our online time spouting nonsense on Twitter and Tumblr. But now we've gotten over ourselves, and figured we could start sharing here again. It's the holiday seasons. Recommendations are needed. So last time we updated it was about the WSO show at the Hotel Cafe. Below are some of the sites and sounds we captured. (Note: we are on the verge of converting a bunch of .mpg files to .mp3 files, so the days of you having to click on a video that has little or no visible video and only sound are almost over. Recommended: patience.)

Some sites:









Some sounds:
Tilt



Ten Dead Dogs

(10.15.08) Recommends:

Wild Sweet Orange at the Hotel Cafe.

We're lifting our head above water here to let people know that tomorrow a blog fave band, Wild Sweet Orange, plays at a blog fave venue, Hotel Cafe.

Here's some WSO tunes to get you in the mood.

Wild Sweet Orange -- Ten Dead Dogs -- mp3.

Wild Sweet Orange -- Either/Or -- mp3.

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Previous write-ups on the band can be found here and here.

Previous write-ups of Hotel Cafe can be found here and here.

(09.24.08) Recommends:

Thoughts Ahead of President Bush's Address to the Nation Regarding Our Current Financial Crisis.

Okay, so we just heard that the President is going to address the country tonight. Obviously he's not known as the most articulate and/or thoughtful president that our nation has ever produced. So who knows what he'll say. But for some reason we now have a particular section from the Andrew Bird song Tables and Chairs stuck in our heads. Can't you just picture an episode of the Simpsons where an animated President Bush addresses a weary nation with the following:

I know we're going to meet some day
In the crumbled financial institutions of this land
There will be tables and chairs
There'll be pony rides and dancing bears
There'll even be a band
Cause listen, after the fall there will be no more countries
No currencies at all, we're gonna live on our wits
We're gonna throw away survival kits,
Trade butterfly-knives for Adderall
And that's not all
Oh, there will be snacks there will
there will be snacks, there will be snacks.

Maybe tonight, when the president begins to speak, we should turn down the volume on him and listen to this song instead.

(08.11.08) Recommends:

Some Updates.

1. Matthew wrote in to update us on the missing song titles from our Horse Feathers post. The post now has the updated titles.

2. The other day we had this to Twitter. We went back to the scene of the crime when it was more light out and discovered that it's actually an MBW. But it's very Banksyesque. Here's a look:




3. Re Sunday's Obey post. This is less an update than a call for help. What we really want to be able to do is have the big picture of the mural, and then be able to click on each piece of the mural to have that individual piece pop up. We swear we've seen this done in Flickr but cannot figure out how to do it. Is this something that requires Photoshop? If anybody can help us out with this drop us a comment/email.

(08.05.08) Recommends:

Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band.

Last night Conor Oberst put on a free in-store performance at the Amoeba Records in Hollywood in conjunction with today's release of his new solo album. [The album can be streamed here.]
There was a huge and hugely appreciative crowd on hand -- we got their half-hour before the start time and and place was already packed -- and the band did a high energy run through the songs on the new album. This was one of the first shows for the new backing band, but they sound like they've been playing together for years, so this tour is certain to be very entertaining. For those in LA, the band puts on a sold out show this evening at the Troubadour and then is back in September for two nights at the Music Box.

We recorded some video of the show. Our standard video caveat applies -- the video is not really good -- and now we have an additional caveat: the band nearly blew the roof off Amoeba with its energy and the sound pretty much overwhelmed our modest little camera. Luckily the show was webcast via Amoeba's website, so once the webcast is archived we'll replace these videos with the cleaner, crisper webcast feed.


I Don't Want to Die (In the Hospital)



Sausalito

(08.04.08) Recommends:

An Evening of Horse Feathers.

Horse Feathers are a devastating two-piece band out of Portland, Ore. We were introduced to their music two-years ago next month by an impeccably-eared friend. We first blogged about them here.
So it was a foregone conclusion that, two years later while again living in the same city with our music discoverer friend, when Horse Feathers played the Troubadour we'd be in the crowd.




We've been listening to this band for two solid years, and until Saturday night had no idea that the violinist bares a striking resemblance -- at least in the dark from the balcony of the Troubadour -- to Harry Potter.




We recently began playing around with the video recorder function on our camera. So we tried to shoot some video of the show. The picture is obviously no good here, but the audio turned out decent. We'd like to figure out a way to turn these files into just sound files, but until then we present them below (we're not sure the name of the last two songs -- can anybody help? UPDATE:song titles have been corrected). We've been listening to them as background music since yesterday. We really love this band. They have a new record coming out next month and we could not be more excited for it.

Finch on Saturday


Walking & Running


Albina


Rude to Rile

The Gypsy That Remains

It's been a bit 'heavy' here at the blog lately, so I thought that I would lighten things up a bit as we ease out of July, and as I ease into my summer vacation. Last night I had finished up watching the Cubs-Brewers on ESPN and was getting ready to go to bed, and decided to do one last flick through the program listings. There on WHYY's local public broadcast 'Arts' channel was listed the program Soundstage, which features concert performances, and here they were offering a concert by one of the true loves of my lifetime, Stephanie Lynn 'Stevie' Nicks. I hadn't watched Stevie perform in some time, and the program information said that this concert was filmed this year, in 2008, and so I was curious to see just how she looked and sounded today. I wasn't disappointed. Stevie is still a beautiful woman, and her voice still rings true with that same raspy, story-teller quality that has made her a rock icon. Well, this kept me up for another hour watching the concert, but it was well worth it. Listening and watching her perform songs like 'Rhiannon', 'Gold Dust Woman', 'Edge of Seventeen', 'Landslide', and more took me back to thinking about various times in my life, especially remembering those times that I first heard her and the opportunities that I had to actually see her perform live and in-person. Much as the rest of the music fans of the world, I first fell in love with Stevie Nicks around the years 1975 & 1976 when I was just 14 years old. The band Fleetwood Mac, my all-time favorite rock band, had released their self-titled album and Stevie's voice began to fill the airwaves with the song "Rhiannon". This song about a Welsh witch captivated radio audiences, formed an enduring image of Stevie in the public consciousness, and with the overall high-caliber of music being performed by the band they became a top act in the arena-rock era. Fleetwood Mac had been a top blues-rock band for years prior to 1975, but they had a number of personnel changes and were looking to reinvigorate themselves. Drummer Mick Fleetwood was looking for something new to add to the group, which at that time included bassist John McVie (the band is named after Fleetwood and McVie) and McVie's keyboard-playing vocalist wife Christine. He came upon a young guitarist named Lindsey Buckingham, who was making music in California with his girlfriend, Stevie Nicks. The pair had released an album in 1973 titled 'Buckingham Nicks' which didn't fair well commercially, but which contained a number of California-style pop sounds that were easy on the ears. Fleetwood was an astute judge of talent, as Buckingham would prove to be one of the greatest guitarists in the history of rock music, but Fleetwood only wanted him, and Lindsey wouldn't come without Stevie along as a package deal. Fleetwood agreed, the two joined the band and began recording in late 1974, and the rest is rock-n-roll history. There is so much of a soap opera quality to the Fleetwood Mac story over the rest of the 1970's and into the 1980's that I could never capture it all here, but suffice it to say that if you enjoy reading the histories of musicians and bands, and want to look it up and read about it, you won't be disappointed. The bottom line is that Fleetwood Mac followed up that first 1975 release as a new band with the album 'Rumours' in February 1977, and my favorite band became the world's favorites. 'Rumours' spent 31 weeks at the top of the Billboard charts, and sold over 19 million copies to make it, at the time, the top-selling album of all-time. The album was highlighted by the #1 song, Stevie's 'Dreams', and also featured what is still today my all-time favorite song. 'The Chain' is a rock and roll classic signature song featuring the band's tight vocal harmonies from Christine McVie, Lindsey, and Stevie, as well as the cohesion of its legendary John McVie/Fleetwood rhythm section, and soaring guitar work by Buckingham. I finally got to see Fleetwood Mac in concert at the Spectrum here in Philly in the fall of 1982 as they toured for their multi-platinum release 'Mirage', and then got to see Stevie perform solo at the Spectrum in 1983. The Fleetwood Mac concert was one of the best that I have ever seen in my life, obviously colored by my love for Stevie and the band, but the fact is that they were still tight, and looked and sounded great, at the top of their games individually and as a group. The solo concert was less of a thrill in the end, as it marked a period in Stevie's life when she was going through problems relating to drug abuse. She didn't sound good and didn't look the same. The songs were there, but the musician was different than the one I had been in love with all those years, and it was almost a sad situation. Stevie continued to have issues over the next ten years with drugs and weight gain, and though she still recorded and performed both solo and with the band the performances were uneven, sometimes brilliant but often a shadow of her former rock queen self, and she became more reclusive. In 1993, Bill Clinton was elected as President of the United States, and had used Fleetwood Mac's song 'Don't Stop' from 'Rumours' as his campaign theme song. He invited the band to play at his inaugural celebration, and this led to a revitalization for them after a few years of inactivity as a group. For me at that point, I thought that I had seen the last of them. Music was changing, 'grunge' or 'garage' bands were becoming the rage, and a 70's act like Fleetwood Mac seemed left in the past. But the Clinton inauguration reminded their numerous fans of just how good they were, and they set out on a reunion tour, and once again established themselves for the rest of the 90's as a relevant band. Stevie was right out there in front, looking and sounding as good as ever as the band released and toured for 'The Dance' in 1997 & '98, and they were going strong as those 1990's came to an end. In 2003 the band, this time minus Christine McVie who had retired, issued the album 'Say You Will', and were rewarded by winning a prestigious American Music Award by beating out such contemporary hit acts as 3 Doors Down and Matchbox 20 for the honor. Today, there are rumors that the band will record again in fall 2008, this time with Stevie's good friend Sheryl Crow joining to take over the Chris McVie role, and that they will tour in 2009. Stevie's mystical image is stoked by romantic and ethereal lyrics, raspy and passionate singing, graceful movement, possessed performances, billowing chiffon skirts, top hats, shawls, layers of lace, high-heeled leather boots, big brown eyes, and that still-long, gorgeous blond hair. The woman has been sending chills up and down my spine for over three decades now, and when I saw her on that 'Soundstage' performance last night those chills were there again. My wife Debbie is absolutely the love of my life, but I can say without hesitation that Stevie Nicks has a piece of my heart and soul, and that will never change. Her story is much longer and more detailed than I have been able to capture here, filled with success, drama, romance, intrigue and, as with any person in the public eye for decades, a strong-willed desire to adapt, overcome, and move stronger into the future. Her songs endure as radio classics, including her duo turns with Kenny Loggins on 'Whenever I Call You Friend', John Stewart on 'Gold', Tom Petty on 'Stop Draggin' My Heart Around', and Don Henley on 'Leather and Lace'. Her Mac work will never be forgotten, the songs already mentioned here as well as 'Gypsy', 'Sisters of the Moon', Sara', 'No Questions Asked', 'Seven Wonders', and 'Silver Springs' among them. And her solo work will remain legendary with the songs already listed and those such as 'Bella Donna', 'Stand Back', 'If Anyone Falls', 'Nightbird', 'The Highwayman', 'Beauty and the Beast', and many more. Stevie turned 60 years old back in May of this year, but you would never know it to look at her on stage now. To me, she was beautiful and sounded great at 26, and she is beautiful and sounds great still at 60. You can catch the Soundstage performance on PBS' Arts channel, here in the local Philly area it is being repeated today at 4pm & 10:30pm, and then again at various times over the weekend and into early August. It features Stevie doing a few of her big solo hits, Fleetwood Mac songs, and even a couple of outstanding duets with Vanessa Carlton, and it is well worth a leisurely hour of your time. If you have never had the pleasure, explore the music of Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac. My bet is that you will fall in love with the 'gypsy that remains', just like I have.

(07.23.08) Recommends:

The Track "Ten Dead Dogs" from Wild Sweet Orange's "We Have Cause To Be Uneasy" (Canvasback Music, forthcoming, July 29, 2008).

As we mentioned in our last update, we haven't been blogging here lately as much as usual, as we've been playing around lots on Twitter and we've been fumbling around on Tumblr -- one anonymous tumblr that if you're savvy enough and/or have too much time on your hands you can find by scrubbing this blog, and another double secret Tumblr that we can tell you right now you'll never, ever discover, so don't even bother asking.

In addition, we've been listening almost exclusively to this WSO track, Ten Dead Dogs. We first saw WSO back in March -- my goodness, has it really been over four months since that show?? -- and about a month ago their full-length debut showed up in our mail boxes.

Let's back up though. When we say we've been listening almost exclusively to this track, we actually mean we've been listening almost exclusively to the first forty-five seconds of this track. As we Twittered earlier, the first :45 might be our favorite music released this year. Not an understatement: on the rare occasions in which we drive to work, our commute takes up to forty five minutes, which means we regularly listen to this part of the song 60 times in a row. But it's not just us who are crazy: we introduced this song to Law School Friend -- one of the few humans whose picture has ever appeared on the blog here, here, here -- during her ridiculous July 4th cookout. Last weekend, when we hung out with her again, she informed us that she had not been able to stop listening to the song. We may or may not be exaggerating when she said she listened to it 45 times consecutively.

While that may sound quaintly amateurish compared to our devotion, it is still a sign, we think, that this song is like E. Coli: some people will come in contact with it and won't notice anything every happened; others will have their bodies completely overtaken for 5-7 days before returning to a normal state; large numbers will die. Okay, probably this song won't kill you, but it will vanquish any chances you have of being productive, because you'll find yourself having to stop to hit the "back" button to start the song over. You'll do this repeatedly -- so you can try to copy his enunciation on "apartment," so you can try to hit the high note on "omen," so you can do that little "buh da doom" part, so you try to match his voice on "I watched the sky turn from blue to black to red and yellow, too," they'll be others, trust us -- until you notice that it's an hour later and all you have to show for it is the sad realization that, despite your best protestations, it probably wasn't lack of time committment to singing in the shower that prevented you from being a rock star.

Okay. Enough talking. On to the music, maestro.

Wild Sweet Orange -- Ten Dead Dogs -- mp3.

(07.16.08) Recommends:

Not Choosing the 'Format' Option on Your Camera.

Hitting format, it turns out, formats the camera's memory stick. Formatting the camera's memory stick, it turns out, erases everything on the memory stick. See, it's technology. It's all so obvious.

Anyway. In addition to playing around elsewhere in the blogospohere lately, we've also been silent around these parts because everything we heretofore were going to post now no longer exists. Enter: slow, pained, expression. So, what you would have seen, had we not been so Webst2.0pid.

1. A self created photo-tour of the street art of LaBrea Avenue, including all your street art faves -- Shepard Fairey! Banksy! MBW! The band Slayer! (the effing band Slayer!! Not even kidding about that one. Sigh)

2. A video of Albert Hammond Jr. + band performing at Spaceland.

3. Sheaprd Fairey's new Kobe Bryant pieces at Hollywood/Gower.

4. A Fourth of July photo-blogged cookout.

5. A photo-blogging adventure of Mazinga-Z,host of the finest happy hour in Korea Town, if not all of Los Angeles. This place is festooned with comic book wallpaper and robots and full of impossibly beautiful Asian women, at least three of whom will be smoking cigarettes. Indoors. And in blatant contravention of all California laws. Because Mazinga-Z is, apparently, its own sovereign Asian territory.

6. Pictures of Stevie Wonder at the Hollywood Bowl. (doh! doh! doh!)

7. And about 80 other pictures about which I either cannot remember or am repressing from memory.

Man, man, man. Losing lots of pictures, it turns out, is crappy.

Viva La Vida

From the minute that the iTunes commercial began airing back in the spring with snippets of the song "Viva La Vida" by Coldplay, it was fairly obvious that this was going to be a monster hit. But the obviousness wasn't just because of the 'i' connection, as powerful as that has become these days. The more obvious factor was that the damn song was catchy. It was a good tune, and it featured great vocals by Coldplay's leading man Chris Martin (also famous as Mr. Gwyneth Paltrow.) The song has been all over the radio this summer. It has definitely been my personal favorite new tune, and is arguably going to go down as 'that song', the one that you will always equate with this particular Summer of '08. The success of the song should also be no surprise once you know that the producer is Brian Eno, he of U2 and David Bowie reputation and success (among many other projects.) What Eno did with the already great Irish rockers of U2 when he produced The Joshua Tree album, he may be repeating here with Viva La Vida for Coldplay. The band already has a worldwide following of huge numbers, and Eno's work with them here may well catapult the boys even higher. "I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing, Roman cavalry choirs are singing...Be my mirror, my sword, my shield....my missionaries in a foreign field......for some reason I can't explain, I know Saint Peter won't call my name......never an honest word, but that was when I ruled the world." Coldplay is taking the airways by storm this summer with Viva La Vida. They will be passing through Philly on July 25th on their world tour, and we can surely look for much more from this album and band in the coming months. Note: joining Coldplay on some of their stops will be Austin, Texas Indie-rockers 'Shearwater' from Matador Records. This band was handpicked by the Coldplay boys to support them, and will play at the LA shows on July 14th & 15th, the San Jose show on July 18th, and the Vegas show on July 19th.

(07.03.08) Recommends:

Airborne Toxic Event's video for the acoustic version of "Moving On".

Okay, that title was a bit of a mouthful. But regardless. This is probably the coolest music video we've seen since that awesome video of Arcade Fire playing in an elevator (here).

Also: it's brining back memories of the Smashing Pumpkins video for 1979. (here)

Furthermore: it reminds us of our own concert photography, which is to say it's a bit too dark to see clearly, but you're convinced that something awesome is going on in the picture.





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[link via the essential radiofree silverlake]


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more airborne toxic event:
here.
here.
here.

(06.29.08) Recommends:

The Petrojvic Blasting Co.

We came across this band in the very best manner one can possibly come across a band. We were out on an early Friday evening, walking around our neighborhood, taking photographs (and taking advantage of another rare warm Los Angeles evening), after celebrating happy hour with a friend. All of a sudden, we hear the distant sound of accordion. So we kick around a few buildings, walking up stairs and peeking around corners until we stumble into the back patio of something called Crane's Hollywood Tavern, where we witnessed players of fiddles, accordions, and the occasional and sundry brass insrument entertaining a crowd gathered for something called The Honeybee Lounge, which is some kind of party that outfits guests with one dollar glasses of beer. No joke, that. It was one of those completely lovely moments destined from birth to be a Friday Evening. Perfection very nearly distilled.








The band is made of two brothers. They appear to be in some sort of negotiations to acquire the fiddle player. We think the fiddle player should acquiesce. Or the brothers should make him an offer he can't refuse. WWTGD? [1] Because this threesome is killer. Yes, we just said killer.

Unfortunately for us, we could only stick around for about an hour. Also unfortunate for us, we know nothing more about this band than what we've gleaned from the band's cryptic website, which is to say, we really don't know much at all. (In defense, we're not sure the website is actually "the band's website"). But we are very hopeful that we'll see these guys playing around town again soon. Yesterday we posted some audio of the show that we recorded. Check it out.







Finally: If anybody reading this knows more about the band, please write in and give us the low-down!


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[1] Make it work, obvs.

(06.28.08) Recommends:

An Experiment with Audio Blogging.

This is a test. If the sound quality is aggressively bad -- um, yeah, we already know the video is aggressively bad -- we'll probably kill the post, or at least update with regular pics and commentary on this band. But for now, we want to see how this turns out.

(06.27.08) Recommends:

American Teen.

On Wednesday, we were invited out to see the Los Angeles premiere of the documentary film American Teen, as part of the Los Angeles Film Festival.

A couple notes to set the scene before we discuss the film.

First, as we've mentioned before, as a general rule we've never really been film buffs. But a carve out to this is documentary films. We're more likely to go see a documentary that generates lots of buzz than any other genre of film.

Second, this might be a very obvious point, but Los Angeles knows how to do film festivals. The screening was held at the Ford Ampitheater, nestled in the Hollywood Hills. It's like a miniature Greek Theater (blogged about here). Here's the view as we first entered:




LA is usually stunningly beautiful during the day, but then the temperature drops precipitously at night. However, one of the positive residual effects of the recent LA Heat Wave has been warm summer nights. So the scenery and weather left a big impression for the festival to fill.

Luckily, the fest was up to the task. First, before the screening, Sunny Day Sets Fire (blogged about here and here) performed a set. They have a song that appears in the film. This is probably the biggest crowd they've ever played in front of. They really took advantage of the setting.

Second, they had lots for people to eat and drink. Despite this, we ran into a very talented photographer who bought us a beer. The point of all of this is to say that the crowd was in a very jovial mood.

Finally, and the point of this post, the movie was amazing.

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The film follows the lives of several high school seniors in Warsaw, Ind.

This sentence, alone, will probably be the root of all criticisms you will read about the film.

First, it will lead to uncontrollable preconceived notions/mental protests from anybody who was college-aged or younger starting in roughly 1992. Will the film, these people will wonder, actually capture the lives of these students, or will the students, trained by years of Real World begets Road Rules begets Survivor begets Laguna Beach begets The Hills and friendster begets myspace begets facebook begets blogger ubiquity use the cameras to push their agendas just like Puck and Pedro used the cameras to promote the rights of booger eaters and AIDS sufferers, respectively, during Real World San Francisco?

This concern, while never completely leaving our mind, was not much of a concern in the end, owing primarily to the fact that Nanette Burstein proves to be an incredibly thoughtful, humane, non-judgmental, talented filmmaker.

The second criticism we anticipate is that the film merely highlights the uselessness and frivolity of the modern American public high school system and the modern American teen; that a generation of complacent kids will cause America to lag behind in the global economic race for ... well, whatever it is, exactly, that we're globally and economically racing for. This, like the Real World Question, we ultimately dismiss because all of the students featured in fact display big ambitions. The ends of the ambitions differ -- getting to college, getting to a college of a particular prestige, getting to a college of a particular geography, becoming less of a nerd and feeling like you fit in, whatever -- but each student shares an equal vigor in reaching those ends.

We don't want to offer too many spoilers to the film; the film is a joy and people should experience it with virgin eyes. So we'll just say that it runs the gamut of emotions:

• At least three times we began crying (including near the end when we had to do that guy thing of quickly, but discreetly, rubbing our eyes in an attempt to dry them before the lights came up -- "we're cool, we're cool, good movie, should we head out now, wanna grab another beer, we're cool, really, stop looking at us," etc. etc.).

• At least a half dozen times we burst into laughter, literal bursts such that we had to check the person sitting in front of us to see if we had spit on them.

• We cringed out of embarrassment at the behavior of both parent and child.

• We sighed heavily out of righteous indignation at the obnoxiousness of both parent and child.

• Our hearts burst with optimism for the future when we saw a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The crowd on Wednesday -- the "jaded hollywood set" -- was as animated as any movie crowd we've ever experienced. And this movie will certainly play well in the Midwest -- it's filmed there, and as midwesterns we saw a lot of our high school selves in the picture. We fully expect this film to be the break out star of the late-summer movie season.

(06.26.08) Recommends:

Without Words.

The latest from Andrew Bird in the NYTimes Measure for Measure blog.

(06.25.08) Recommends:

Five Thoughts That Randomly Occurred To Us Throughout Last Night's Alison Krauss/Robert Plant Concert at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, Calif.

01. The Greek Theater has to be one of the most perfect concert venues in the country.




We generally prefer to see our shows in small dark bars or clubs. However, if we must go to a bigger venue, there are few that we'd rather go to than the Greek Theater. It's almost completely surrounded by the trees of Griffith Park and somehow maintains acoustics that sound as good as any venue you'll go to.


02. The reports of the music industry's death are greatly exaggerated.

One hundred and twenty five bucks. That would have been the number to say if you were on The Price Is Right and were asked to name the retail value of our seats. These were not even the most expensive seats. And all these seats were taken. I'll see your p2p network and raise you $36mm in ticket sales.

03. Quiet ubiquity.




Alison Krauss is everywhere. She's had her hand in dozens and dozens of records. She's won 21 -- twenty one! -- Grammy Awards (though we like to think none of these were quite as satisfying to her as being crowned Old Time Fiddle Champion at the 1984 Winfield (KS) Bluegrass Festival). She might be the most influential modern figure in bluegrass with her contributions to soundtracks to Oh Brother Where Art Thou? and Cold Mountain. Yet you never really "hear" about Alison Krauss, yaknow? As far as we can tell she does not get DUIs or spend time in rehab or jail. When you hear about her in LA it's because she's coming through town after convincing one of the Biggest Badasses in the History of Rock Music to put out a countryish-folkish record. And people will pay big bucks to see her. 100 years from now people will still be considering Alison Krauss's music. We think there might be a lesson in there for member's of today's (quasi, pseudo, or otherwise) entertaining class.


04. Greek Theater + Alison Krauss + Robert Plant turns Ostensibly Reasonable and Professional Adults into Texting Schoolgirls/Fanboys/Ninnies.

US: 8:38pm: god i love this venue!

THEM: 10:00pm: last song chills.




US: 10:01pm: goose bumps. omgomgomgomg.



THEM: 10:06pm: holy shit.




US: 10:47pm: omg.




THEM: 10:49pm: such an amazing show.




05. Could a reunion be better than this?



At the end of 2007/beginning of 2008 there was lots of chatter -- plus a reported $200mm offer to Plant -- about a LedZep "reunion." But we're not sure whether such a thing could make, say, Black Country Woman, sound as vital and alive as did upright basses and mandolins and fiddles and Alison Krauss.

(06.24.08) Recommends:

Forest Fire, Survival (Catbird Records, 2008).

This record might be one of the more interesting things to happen to country music since Uncle Tupelo gave the world No Depression in 1990. Which means, of course, that the record isn't really even country. It's more like sparse, low-fi, rock music that has enough space in it to come off as a bit haunting. The owner of Catbird Records -- which, if you haven't figured out already, has, over the past few years, developed into one of the most interesting record labels we have -- calls it "homegrown hymns for those with no religion." It's absurd to evoke names such as the Rolling Stones, the Velvet Underground, the Replacements, or even Uncle Tupleo, on a band's first full length album. But at various points all of these bands put out songs that could be called sparse, low-fi homegrown hymns for those with no religion. And at first listen, you're going to hear all of those bands. And that's why we're forced to start this recommendation with the sentence we do.

What's also pretty cool about this record is that Catbird Records is using the "Radiohead Model" by giving consumers options: listen to it as a free stream, a free download, or buy it for whatever price you'd like. (Of course the main difference between this and Radiohead is that Forest Fire does not suck[1].) Go here to make your choice.

So there you have it. Go give this music a listen. It's without doubt one of the year's best releases.



--
[1] (rant) Seriously, people. Isn't it about time we have a wholesale reconsideration of Radiohead? They have to be the most overrated band of our lifetime. Seriously. Every song is several minutes too long, with the same incomprehensible warbling vocals and monotonous computer-generated wall of noise. Now, don't get us wrong. We're not anti-lyrics-that-don't-make-sense, or anti-long-songs. In fact, we've surely been to more Phish concerts than you, and we really enjoyed almost all of them. We get that that type of music can be transcendant.

But here's the thing. Radiohead's music isn't transcendant as much as mostly just annoying.

We think Radiohead fans probably fit into two categories: (1) the group that just doesn't know any better; and (2) the group that was unduly influenced at an early age.

If you are a die-hard Radiohead fan in the former group, we have a challenge for you. We have hours and hours of live Phish shows on tape (hah!) and CD. And we're pretty sure we could make you a 45 minute mix (the length of one side of a 90 minute Maxell XL-II tape, for the old school tape traders in the audience) of live Phish that will make you realize that, on the one hand, "jammy" music can be incredible and, on the other, Radiohead puts out almost uniformly boring music. We certainly understand it's a band's perogative to put out boring music, we are just perplexed by all the Radiohead worship, and after our challenge we're sure you will be too.

What's more concerning to us are die-hard Radiohead fans in the latter group. These people are like the 13-year old who starts smoking cigarettes because he wants to impress the seemingly cool 14-year old of the group. And by the time the 13-year old realizes smoking was not cool, he is either too hooked to do anything about it, or has died of lung cancer. Since we do not wish death upon any music fan, all we are left with is to say that that smoking is not cool and the 14-year old was not cool (didn't you ever stop to think that maybe if he was so cool he would have been able to find friends his own age??) and Radiohead is not cool. (/rant)