Sufjan was Here January 12, 2010
Posted by Patrick in Muzak.Tags: Bryce Dessner, Clogs, Illinois, My Brightest Diamond, Shara Worden, Sufjan Stevens, The BQE, The National
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Fresh off the back of his instrumental album The BQE, Sufjan Stevens has put his vocals to work once again, collaborating with Clogs, an instrumental band featuring guitarist Bryce Dessner of The National amongst others.
Shara Worden from My Brightest Diamond also features on the track, which will appear on Clogs’ fifth studio album The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton. It’s a nice, Dark Was the Night-esque mellow acoustic song with some nice twinkly bits at the end. (listen at the end of this post).
While it’s not a bad song, it only serves to reinforce how much I want another one of Stevens’ albums from his ‘Fifty States Project’ (be it a joke or not) to come out.
Sure, his Christmas album collection, The BQE and Asthmatic Kitty’s Library Catalog series have been fairly decent projects (some more than others) but I’d love to hear Stevens stop writing songs about trains and record something that can stand alongside his amazing tracks like Casimir Pulaski Day, Chicago, and To Be Alone with You.
Sadly, I’m not sure if or when Stevens will release another ‘traditional’ album. As he told Paste Magazine last November:
“In all honesty, [The BQE] is what really sabotaged my creative momentum. It wasn’t Illinois so much,” he says. “I suffered sort of an existential creative crisis after that piece. I no longer knew what a song was and how to write an album. It overextended me in a way that I couldn’t find my way back to the song.”
Oh well. Let’s hope he finds his way back to the song sometime soon.
Clogs – We Were Here (feat. Sufjan Stevens and Shara Worden) (download)
[Image: Into the Dustbowl]
Dance ’til you’re dead January 12, 2010
Posted by Patrick in Muzak.Tags: A-Trak, Karen O, remix, Where the Wild Things Are, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
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Okay, so it’s a little bit old (last October to be precise), but I only last night became aware of A-Trak’s excellent remix of Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Heads Will Roll.
The remix makes an already great track infinitely more danceable and provides a perfect antidote to anyone who’s getting a bit sick of hearing Karen O sing about love and wild rumpuses on the Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack.
Speaking of which, it looks like she’ll never see an Oscar nod for her work on that particular soundtrack because of the Academy’s stupid and nonsensical rules. The injustice of it all.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll (A-Trak Remix) (download)
[MP3 courtesy of Discodust]
The US Factor January 12, 2010
Posted by Patrick in Televisual.Tags: Ellen DeGeneres, Fox, Kara DioGuardi, Pop Idol, Randy Jackson, The X Factor
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After a lot of behind the scenes deliberation and hmmming and hawing, the American version of UK (and international) television talent show The X Factor has finally been confirmed for launch in 2011.
Less certain, however, is the future of American Idol, which currently airs on FOX, the same network that The X Factor is slated for. At the moment everyone’s claiming the shows will co-exist but frankly, I don’t see this happening without one seriously detracting from the other. And let’s be honest, American Idol is still using the same tired old format that Pop Idol used way back when. Where are the battling judges? Where are the groups? And where, god damn it, are the Over 25s?
The good news for us over on this side of the pond is obviously that we’ll pretty much have year-round X Factor, with the UK edition running nicely into the US.
For one thing, Simon Cowell will definitely not be on board next season on American Idol, instead focusing his attentions on judging both the UK and US editions of The X Factor.
The obvious question on everyone’s lips is who will be joining Cowell at the judges’ table when the show debuts next year. He’s already said that he wants to work with Paula Abdul again because he “misses her”, and it was speculated that he’d possibly bring some of his UK judges over with him, the most likely candidate there being Cheryl Cole. Oh please let it be Cheryl Cole. Once it’s not Randy Jackson, that’s fine with me.
And who will be left to take the reins on American Idol next year? If it’s Ellen DeGeneres, Randy Jackson and Kara Whatsherface then you can count me out.
[Image: The Guardian]
Are you full of Glee? January 12, 2010
Posted by Patrick in Muzak, Televisual.Tags: Fox, Glee, Ryan Murphy
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There’s lots of exciting news today for fans of FOX’s Glee, first and foremost that the show will be definitely returning for a much-anticipated second season (although that was really a no-brainer at this stage).
More surprisingly is the fact that the show’s producers are starting a nationwide search for stars to fill three new roles in the forthcoming sophomore year of the musical drama.
From FOX’s press release:
Building upon the show’s incredibly supportive community of GLEEks and with the hope of bringing fans even closer to the series, auditions will be open to amateur individuals as well as professionals between the ages of 16-26, and all hopefuls will be able to submit auditions online. Additional details to be announced soon, please check www.fox.com/glee for updates.
And if that wasn’t good enough, the casting search will be documented in a “multi-part special” which will air before the second season premiere, when the new stars will be revealed. Oh Glee, how we love you.
Ryan Murphy, the show’s creator and executive producer had this to say:
“GLEE has always been about finding new fresh exciting voices. Our second season search for young talent will be in the vein of our first season. We launched a nationwide search for talent for our first season with great unexpected results, and Season Two expands that search in an even bigger way. Anybody and everybody now has a chance to be on a show about talented underdogs. No matter who you are – a Broadway talent or a struggling singing waiter with a dream in the Midwest – you now have an opportunity to make that dream come true by posting your talent video and showing us what you can do. ALL the roles will be chosen from the video audition process, which is exciting and unprecedented. We want to be the first interactive musical comedy on television, and the search is ON.”
So eh…can Irish people apply?
Glee is currently airing on TV3 on Wednesday at 8pm, and on E4 on Mondays at 9pm. New episodes return Stateside on 13th April 2010.
Image ©2010 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Patrick Ecclesine/FOX
I don’t want to be bailed out of anything. January 12, 2010
Posted by Paula in Cinematics.Tags: Emilie de Ravin, New Moon, Pierce Brosnan, Robert Pattinson, Stephanie Meyer, Twilight
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It seems Robert Pattinson has been advised to take action lest he be forever typecast as an other-wordly being. Remember Me, released here this April, stars Pattinson as, wait for it…a human. No Quidditch, no fangs, and sadly no shimmering upon exposure to sunlight. Pattinson is a little less superhuman and a little bit rougher around the edges this time around.
Remember Me is a love story with a handy little bad-guy-gone-good plotline thrown in too. Pattinson plays Tyler, a defiant young man who thinks nothing of getting into scraps and being bailed out of jail by his father (Pierce Brosnan). That is, of course, until he finds his soulmate (Lost‘s Emilie de Ravin).
The film seems to be directed more to those members of the Twilight/New Moon audience who are not pre-teens, given that it contains a bit of excess raunch and debauchery. Whether it will fare well at the box office without the suport of the younger Twi-hards remains to be seen.
Welcome to the Mystic Falls, bitch January 10, 2010
Posted by Patrick in Televisual.Tags: melinda clarke, The O.C., The Vampire Diaries
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The Vampire Diaries, which started off quite meh-worthy and morphed into one of last autumn’s (I will not say fall, even if we are talking about an American TV show) must-watch programmes, has added a familiar face to the cast that is sure to excite fans of dearly departed teen drama The O.C.
Melinda Clarke, better known as Newport Beach’s Julie Cooper comes into town around March and is said to be sticking around for at least three episodes. As a massive Julie Cooper fan, I’m hoping this will lead to an extended stint and hopefully she’ll sign on as a regular (hey, she wasn’t supposed to stick around on The O.C., but well, she did).
She’ll be playing “Kelly Donovan, Matt’s irresponsible, hard-drinking absentee mother,” who, without wanting to spoil things for the uninitiated too much, didn’t even bother to attend the funeral of a close family member. With Julie Cooper under her belt, an absentee mother shouldn’t be too hard a sell.
If you haven’t yet checked out The Vampire Diaries, it’s coming to TV3 and ITV2 at some point in the future, although no amount of furious Googling will tell me exactly when. It’s expected on ITV2 at least this month. New episodes return to the US on January 21st.
[Image: Gulum.net]
Dirty Talk January 10, 2010
Posted by Patrick in Webshite.Tags: blind, not for profit, porn, visually impaired
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Finally, the service that all visually impaired internet users have been waiting for has arrived: Porn for the Blind. The website does exactly as it says on the tin, allowing those of us with 20/20 vision to describe our favourite internet porn clip which is then uploaded on to the site as an MP3.
The site itself is pretty much bare links and description, but I’m sure blind people aren’t going to complain that it isn’t visually appealing enough.
After listening to the 53 second description of Cum Overload (“There’s a woman who is vaguely sort of trying to cover up her vagina…), I think my dealings with the site have come to an abrupt end.
[Image: CrazyFast]
It’s just Justin January 9, 2010
Posted by Patrick in Muzak.Tags: Blood Bank EP, Bon Iver, For Emma, Hazeltons, Justin Vernon, Volcano Choir
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Before there was Bon Iver (and Volcano Choir), there was Justin Vernon – the solo artist. Not that Bon Iver isn’t as good as a solo vehicle for Vernon, but I only discovered last week that he had actually produced an album of his own, Hazeltons, before he infamously locked himself in a cabin for three months and wrote For Emma.
His solo effort isn’t a million miles away from Bon Iver’s stuff, but it’s a lot simpler, with most tracks comprising mainly acoustic guitar and Vernon’s voice.
Perhaps the strangest part of the whole thing is that he sings with a bit more of an accent, there’s a bit more grit in his voice than there is in Bon Iver’s falsetto-laced tracks. That said, any Bon Iver fans may actually prefer this to their divisive autotune-y Blood Bank EP.
Apparently only 100 copies were made of this album, “in long paper sleeves with various nature photos”. Guess we missed that boat. It is available online unofficially, but to tell you how to get it would be completely wrong and possibly illegal.
Check out the title track from the album, Hazelton, below.
Hazelton – Justin Vernon (download)
[MP3 courtesy of PeerValidated]
[Image: PopSecret]
“We’re more than just a club. We’re friends. Best friends.” January 1, 2010
Posted by Paula in Lit.Tags: Ann M Martin, Goosebumps, Scholastic, The Babysitters Club, The Babysitters Club The Summer Before
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Do the names Claudia, Kristy, Mary-Anne, Dawn and Stacey strike a chord of delight in your heart? Does the thought of Stoneybrook High, a school teeming with closet diabetics and boys called Logan, send a shiver running down your spine? If yes, then I’m guessing that you too grew up dreaming of starting your own Babysitters Club. Ann M. Martin’s 250 volume-strong book series, The Babysitters Club, was like heroin to pre-teens everywhere in the eighties and nineties. And there was always just one more that you hadn’t read…
Well, good news. Following on from 2008′s Goosebumps revival, Scholastic have announced plans for a Babysitters Club revamp. The first two books of the series will be re-released later this year. The series was given a mild re-design a few years ago, but the fancy cover art and the addition of a new babysitter, Abby (obsessed with learning Hebrew, star of Abby and the Mystery Baby and Abby The Bad Sport. Anyone remember but me?) failed to boost sales. The books will be given a few cultural tweaks this time around. It’s rumoured that Stacey’s perm will be no more, replaced simply with the term “fashionable hairstyle”.
A prequel to the series is also on its way. For those of us who sometimes wonder what the Babysitters did before they babysat, “The Summer Before” will be published this April. Scholastic promises a “moving” novel, ripe with crushes, gossip and “the joys and tribulations of being a girl”. I for one cannot wait.
Patrick and Paula
Patrick
Paula