What I'm Listening To: 12/25/08

It may be Christmas time but that doesn't mean I'm listening to just holiday tunes. Ha! Sorry it's been such a long break between the previous What I'm Listening To and this one. I've just been fairly busy and haven't listened to much new music. These are just some things I've been listening to lately.



Paul Westerberg - 49:00

Hopefully you recognize the name from his time in a certain band known as The Replacements. If you don't know them, that's okay, alot of people today don't. He released this track online a couple months ago for 49 cents. It's a damn good deal. 49 minutes (actually around 43) of music for a penny per minute. I listened to it when it came out but lately I've been revisiting it. Even though it's ONE track, it's full of different songs and a few covers. These aren't just throwaway songs either. Most of the songs are pretty good and those that aren't are just being experimental. Many different sounds are explored. My only complaint is that you can't easily skip to a song you particularly like if you're listening in a car. Also, between the songs, mini-snippets of other songs are heard. It gives the effect of turning the dial of a radio between stations. The bad thing is...some of those snippets are interesting enough for me to wish I could hear more than 30 seconds of it.

















The Jane Carrey Band

Fronted by Jim Carrey's daughter, you'd expect it to either suck or sound like your everyday pop music. Thankfully, neither is true. Not only can she sing, but her songs have a real mature sound to them. I can try to describe it as an alternative bluesy/jazzy sound. I could imagine them touring with Martha Wainwright or someone else like that. Her voice has substance to it...it's hard to describe. It certainly makes her sound older than she really is. They're going into the studio to record some more songs, so hopefully I'll get more to listen to. No albums yet, but perhaps they will release one eventually.

http://www.myspace.com/janecarreyband


The Ice Cream Floats

I stumbled upon this one after looking through movies related to Baghead. Tipper Newton and Joe Swanberg are both actors. Swanberg is also a director. They made these toothache inducing songs of sweetness covered with a thick layer of ear numbing cuteness, all sitting on a foundation of the "indie" sound. The songs really do sound like a throwback to the 50s/60s though. That's why I dig it. It is unabashably happy go sunshine and doesn't care.

http://www.myspace.com/theicecreamfloats

A Moving Picture: Baghead (2008)

Did anyone catch the movie "The Puffy Chair"? I saw it maybe a year or so ago while surfing channels. I fell asleep and when I awoke, there was this movie on. A movie that initially annoyed me because it seemed a little dumb, cheap, and seemed like another lame drama about twenty-somethings. I was too lazy to change the channel though, so I kept watching. It turned out to be a really enjoyable movie with some great acting and a good story. I didn't find out until later that all of the dialogue in the movie was improvised and unscripted. There was no conventional script to speak of, no real budget to speak of, and it just felt...real. The film was a hit apparently, and brought a lot of attention to Mark and Jay Duplass. They wrote it while Jay directed and Mark acted. It's also recognized as one of the first movies in a movement known as "mumblecore". The movement being low budget indie flicks with improvised dialogue that are usually about twenty-somethings and relationships. I suppose.

Yeah, it's pretty much the dumbest name ever. It makes it sound like something pretentious or like it's for "hipsters" or something. I know the guy who coined the term and made it popular and I would punch him. It's an annoying label, but then again most labels are.

Anyways, this brings us to the Duplass brothers' second full length film, Baghead. It's about four struggling actors who go to a cabin in the woods. There, they're determined to write a great screenplay that will make them famous. They come up with the story of a killer with a bag over his head who torments a group of friends. Mysteriously, the story begins to become reality. Is someone playing a joke on them, or are their lives in danger? If you go in expecting it to be a slasher flick, then you will be greatly disappointed. The horror aspect of the movie not the focus at all, though it plays a part. The focus is on the relationships between the friends in the cabin. Let's see if I can sum this up. Matt and Chad are best friends. Catherine and Matt have been dating off and on for 11 years and Catherine wants to get Matt back. Michelle and Chad have been friends for a few months. Chad wants to be her boyfriend but Michelle isn't into him like that and wants to get it on with Matt. All in all, it's pretty common stuff in people's lives. It's not nearly as dramatic as it sounds. Who hasn't had that off and on romance at some point or wanted to be with a person who didn't like you in the same way? It's handled pretty realistically, and the characters are fairly likeable. The guy who plays Chad was great. He was perfect as the "nice" guy. The guys who are really great and funny but not what most girls go for physically, you know? I also thought Greta Gerwig as Michelle was good. She was kinda quirky and cute. The story was interesting to watch, some parts made me laugh quite a bit, and it kept you guessing a bit at to how it would all turn out. I have to commend the brothers on the horror/slasher elements of it. They did pretty well on it.

The only real bad thing about this movie is that it's alot of talking. There's usually no background music during these scenes so you just have to listen to them talk. The improvised dialogue is good and all, there's just alot of it. So, there's a chance you could get bored during some parts. Don't turn it off though, because it's still a pretty decent movie. I might watch it again this week.

Check out the trailer so you can have SOME idea of what I'm talking about.

A Moving Picture: Burn After Reading (2008)

Well then...that was slightly disappointing.

I'm not saying that because this movie came after "No Country for Old Men". My disappointment has nothing to do with that. My disappointment stems from this just not being on the same level as other Coen Bros. movies. Also, all the advertisements play this movie up like it's a quirky comedy, but really it isn't. Yes, it's quirky. Yes, it's occasionally funny. However, it's more like a drama with occasional bouts of humor and bouts of suspense but not like other Coen movies. So if you go in thinking it's going to be a comedy, you're going to be disappointed because there aren't a gut busting amount of laughs. In a way, it feels disjointed. The first half of the movie is where most of the Coen quirk and comedy is present. It's like watching The Big Lebowski. There's serious stuff in it, but it's kept light-hearted. Then almost abruptly, the movie takes a darker turn. This is the spy thriller half of the movie. Things here are darker, more interesting, and suspenseful, but not really any laughs until J.K. Simmons pops up.



The plot centers around Osbourne Cox (played by John Malkovich, who is playing a more eccentric version of John Malkovich), a CIA analyst who quits his job because he was demoted due to a so-called "drinking problem". So he decides to write a memoir about his life. His cold hearted bitch of a wife (Tilda Swinton) is sleeping with Harry Pferrar (George Clooney), an eccentric womanizer/ Treasury agent. She wants to divorce Cox to be with Harry who is also leaving his spouse. But she needs records of his finances so she can get his moolah. She copies everything off his computer including his memoir and puts it on a disc. Eventually, the disc ends up at a gym in the hands of Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt), a physical trainer there. Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) also works there. She's a lonely woman who badly wants cosmetic surgery because she thinks guys will like her more. However, she can't get the money for it. They mistake the data on the disc for top secret stuff and decide to return it to Cox for a reward. Then it sorta turns into blackmail when Cox refuses to pay any reward. Meanwhile, Linda has turned to online dating and by coincidence starts a relationship with Harry. Eventually , all the threads intersect and it turns into a bloodbath. The whole thing is being monitored by the CIA who are baffled as to what in the world is going on.

The plot itself is okay, but by the end, even the CIA director (Simmons) has no idea what the point was. He even asks "So, what did we learn from all this?" and the answer is pretty much a shrug.

Is it good? Is it entertaining? Sure. It was decent. The acting was great but no one really got enough time to shine much. Brad Pitt and George Clooney pretty much steal the show for me. There's nothing particularly terrible about the movie. The direction and cinematography are solid. The dialogue is really witty and when it works, it works greatly. I can see why people like it, but to me it was just alright. Not as great as everybody says. Maybe just a good movie, but probably not one I'd recommend to people or watch often.

Someone needs to use these things

Kazoos!

Fucking Kazoos!

I can only think of a handful of musicians that have used the kazoo in any of their songs. To be fair, kazoos don't make the best sound in the world, but still. I think Allison Weiss may have used one on a song. In a couple shows, Anthony Green asked people to bring in kazoos to play along with the band during the chorus' of "Drug Dealer". I thought that was a cool thing to do.

Also, let's not forget about...


The Keytar!

Actually, use of the keytar has spread like wildfire through indie and local bands. I guess it's been making a comeback for the past few years. Either that or there's just been an influx of 80s cover bands. Bands today haven't been using the next level of keytar though. Yes, the 21st century version. What am I talking about?

The QWERTY Keytar!

You can trigger tons of different loops mapped to each key, or tons of different notes/sounds. Also it's really cheap to make. Also you can look nerd-diculous!

But why make a looping machine when you can make one from an existing device? A device such as....the Nintendo Game Boy!

There's been quite a few musicians to use Gameboys. Kraftwerk even released a cd full of their songs that were made into 8-bit Gameboy music. The band I'm going to note for using it though is Grey Does Matter from NYC. Jason Crawford was without a band. The members went off to do their own thing, so Jason sought replacements to do some shows with him. So, he got a Gameboy. The Gameboy became his backing band for a series of solo shows in clubs around NYC.

The instrument I MOST want to see being used is the reacTable.


This monstrosity of tech uses a Tangible User Interface translucent tabletop together with a virtual synthesizer to create music or sound effects. The blocks and other shapes you see are called "tangibles". They represent different parts of an analog synthesizer. When they are placed on the table, various animated symbols appear around them, and a line (called a waveform) may connect them to the center. These usually show what the tangible is doing, and can be manipulated with a fingertip to control the amplitude or rotated to change the frequency. A tangible called a filter can be put in the middle of the waveform connecting the module to the center and act like an effects pedal of sorts.

Bjork is the first musician to actually use the thing in a live performance. I haven't heard of any others using it.