Sometimes there’s a bunch of little bits of music news to report, but not in one post. That’s where Mini Music News Update comes in! In today’s update:

• It looks like the Paste-loving juggernaut of M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel will dominate yet another year in 2010. In 2008, it was their debut as duo She & Him with their record Volume 1, in 2009, it was Mrs. Ben Gibbard guesting on M. Ward’s “Never Had Nobody Like You,” and now, according to MTV, they’ll have a new She & Him record, Volume 2, in Spring of 2010.  The record is finished, but there is no release date or tracklist yet.
• The Gaurdian has an interview with Blur/Gorillaz front man Damon Albarn talking about the new Gorillaz record, which will be titled Plastic Beach and will feature guest spots from Lou Reed (!), Mos Def, Barry Gibb, and Bobby Womack. Oh and he’s making an opera with Alan Moore. Check out the interview for more.
• Below is the awesomely mopey cover for the new Spoon record, Transference, out Jan. 19. The first single, “Written in Reverse,” will hit the web tomorrow.

Gorillaz are back!  Their third record, Plastic Beach, is “going really well” according to Damon Albarn, one of the masterminds behind the virtual band.

The new album may not be what you’re expecting though…  Albarn told the Guardian that Plastic Beach is “most pop record he has ever made,” with guest appearances by Snoop Dogg, Lou Reed, and Mos Def, among others.  Keep checking back for release info and to hear some of their new music.

“If The Beatles, David Bowie, and Madonna could best represent the equivalent of all my astrological “Sun Sign” represents … and if Frank Sinatra, Roxy Music, The Cure, and Morrissey best represent the equivalent of all my astrological “Moon Sign” represents … then, what about my “Ascending Sign”?”

“These artists (see below), via their work and “personas”, have manipulated and/or nurtured the style in which my work (as an extension of my “self”) is presented.”

- Orlando G Gonzales III

Visit Poesia for selections from Orlando G Gonzales III’s recent poetry collections.

Il diciassette novembre duemilanove è stato un giorno strano, perfetto, di quelli che si ricordano per tutta la vita. Era un martedì  un giorno della settimana che come ho letto da qualche parte solitamente non prendiamo tanto in considerazione. E’ stato invece il giorno in cui ho preso grandi decisioni. In quelli precedenti mille dubbi e ore passate a trovare le controindicazioni a una decisione in realtà già presa. Come avrei potuto rimanere nello stato letargico nel quale vivacchiavo da più di un decennio, senza prendere la palla al balzo e cercare di riscattarmi dall’inedia?

Non serve lamentarsi di non essere ciò che vorremmo, dobbiamo fare di tutto per realizzare i nostri sogni. Solo allora non ci sarà uomo davanti al quale abbasseremo lo sguardo, perché forti di aver sempre dimostrato di essere degni della nostra umanità. La vita è qualcosa di complicato che s’impara solo a proprie spese, mettendosi in gioco ogni giorno. S’inizia a morire dal giorno in cui non si hanno più ambizioni. Possiamo leggere e discutere di altre vite, ma senza mai conoscerle veramente poiché appartengono ad altri. Abbiamo una sola occasione eppure spesso ce ne dimentichiamo e la diamo per scontata riducendoci a consumarla più in fretta che possiamo quando siamo giovani e più lentamente ci è consentito dalla natura quando invecchiamo.

Vorrei un giorno potermi guardare indietro senza alcun rimpianto; orgoglioso sia delle vittorie ottenute così come delle sconfitte patite. Mi piacerebbe essere allora tanto indulgente verso i miei errori quanto modesto per i miei successi. Mentre i primi mi saranno stati utili a vivere i secondi saranno stati tanto futili quanto effimeri. E quando rivolgerò lo sguardo al diciassette novembre duemilanove spero tanto di essere fiero delle scelte da me compiute in quelle ore perché sebbene sofferte e in apparenza figlie di mille pensieri sono state il frutto di un moto di ribellione di quel ragazzo che aveva tanti sogni e che pensavo ormai di aver sepolto in fondo all’anima. Quel giorno mi sono sentito padrone del mio destino e tanto vivo che ricorderò per sempre il sapore incandescente dell’aria di quella notte.

E se anche le cose non saranno andate come avevo sperato in quella notte, giuro che ne sarà valsa comunque la pena. Sempre.

OK, not exactly a holiday video for the increasingly infamous NOLA Bloggers War On Christmas, (aka The Hostilidays) but also because this is the piece I suggested Lou For A Day should stand up on the bar and declaim at Mimi’s if I can scrape off the right-channel music track. And hey, it’s all about the gifts, right? That and the food and the booze. In fact, I think I should make and give everyone bourbon balls this year, which seems the perfect expression of the holiday season.

SOUNDTRACK: THE FEELIES-Only Life (1988).

The Feelies were based out of Haledon, NJ, a town not more than fifteen minutes from my house.  I’ve always felt this weird association to them.  One day a coworker drove me past one of the band members’ houses when I worked in North Haledon (in retrospect this was probably bullshit).

It was this album that introduced me to them.  Prior to the internet, it wasn’t always easy to find out how many albums a band had out, so I assumed this was their first.  I’d assumed that we were close in age and that I could have run into them at any local club or hangout.  Well, it turned out that this was their third and their first came out in 1980.  When I was 11.  So, clearly  there is absolutely no way we were peers.

Somehow, when I first heard The Feelies, I had not been exposed to The Velvet Underground (what?).  So, when I heard them, it didn’t occur to me to say, “Hey that guy sounds just like Lou Reed.”  And he does.  Almost uncannily so on “It’s Only Life”.

But hey, get past that and you’ve got a really great jangly alterna-pop record from the late 80s.   While R.E.M. is sort of the master of the jangly pop song, there’s no real comparison here (okay, actually “Deep Fascination” could be mistaken for R.E.M. until the vocals kick in).  The biggest difference is tempo. The Feelies just kind of meander along at a calm and relaxed pace.  Not slow enough to be, god forbid, dull, but not exactly peppy either.

One thing I like about the band is that the bass and drums are always out in front.  The bass, in particular seems to really propel the songs (especially “Too Much”) which provides a great rhythmic feels and allows the guitars ample room to roam.

And the guitars do roam.  There are two guitars and they share soloing duties.  This soloing bit is rather a departure for college radio bands in the late 80s.  So, it definitely set them apart (as did the fact that there are like 30 words in each song).

The gorgeously simple yet very compelling “Higher Ground” is certainly a high point for the disc.  As is their cover of the Velvet’s “What Goes On.”

When I was a DJ in college, I randomly selected “Away” to play during a show (the first Feelies song I’d heard).  Even after twenty-one years it’s still as fresh and interesting.  It’s also rather different from the rest of the album.  It’s uptempo for one thing.  But it also starts with a cool slow guitar opening.  The song builds faster and faster and has a great sing along chorus.   The drums also sound wonderfully abrasive.  It’s really a great song and a great introduction to an underappreciated band.

[READ: November 22, 2009] Intermere

Following hot on the heels of Symzonia, I received Intermere through Inter Library Loan.  Intermere is even shorter (at 150 pages)!

What I liked about the story is that it removes all pretense as to the setting up of and the getting to the inner earth location.  As the story opens, our narrator, Giles Anderton, is pretty much immediately in massive trouble.  The boat he is on is about to sink and he is soon plunged headlong into the ocean.  (What an exciting opening!)

When he wakes up a short time later, he is on an island and is warmly greeted by a group of very short but very beautiful (ie, very pale) people.

From here, the book follows a track remarkably similar to Symzonia.  (In fact, there appears to be a whole subgenre of Hollow Earth fiction that is inspired by Symmes’ ideas).  The first real difference, and a neat twist, is that the Intermere people are telepathic.  They immediately determine where he is from (Central United States) and who his mother is.  This is significant because Anderton’s mother is about to learn that her son has been shipwrecked and that his foster brother (a convoluted plot point) has just been killed in the war.  This double dose of bad news will likely be too much for his mother.

Oh, what war you may ask?  Well, the Intermerians keep very strict tabs on the goings on in the outside world, so even though the world was at peace when Anderton left, in the six months since then, the Chinese Empire has gone to war with the West (!).  [I'm curious about the xenophobia here, but am not inclined to pursue it much; however, note this quote:

the 400,000 Chinese and affiliated races are more insidiously dangerous than you know. They will cultivate the seed now being sown and prepare the dragon's harvest of blood.

Jeez, what do you think was on Taylor's mind?].

They show Anderton that he can communicate with his mother telepathically to assure her that he will be alright and not to fret.  (She is relieved when she gets this transmission).  When he asks them about this technology, we get the best reply ever: Would people who didn’t understand the telephone ever imagine that you could talk to someone so far away through wires?  Of course, not, and so it is with you and our wireless communication.

It’s hard to beat that logic.

As Anderton is acclimatizing to this new land, he meets many of the VIPs of the nation.  He is first greeted by Xamas, the First Citizen.  And, as soon as we see “First Citizen,” we know what that means: a detailed explanation of the political make up of their world!  And like with Symzonia, only the best people are chosen to run the country.  But it is more democratic here: everyone is allowed to hold an office for one year, although you must, of course, be qualified; they consider it an honor and a duty and one for which they receive no extra money or honors.   After the year, they return to their previous life satisfied in a job well done.

This Utopian society is sort of socialist, although it is modified somewhat.   Everyone is allowed property (there are fascinating restrictions based on age) but they mostly work for the good of the community.  The one knock against equality is that only the men can own houses while their wives run them.

Oh, and of course, as we learn more about this sort of social structure, we learn about their currency (even the exchange rate with the dollar!), and blah blah taxation etc.

But it’s the science part that is quite fun.  Like Symzonia, there is awesome energy potential down here.  And the Intermerians are willing to explain some of it to him.  They basically have this egg shaped device that somehow channel the world’s natural electricity (if they told him any more he’d no doubt use it to try and take over the world, so we never learn how they harness all of this power).  With these eggs they can make cars that go 1,000 miles and hour, they (well, the wives) can heat food with no source of fire and they can use them for illumination as well. They also have 3 different vehicles, the medocar, the aerocar and the merocar

As he’s given a tour of the main city and the lesser surrounding cities, he is introduced to many more VIP’s: Karmas, the custodian of works and polity; Maros, the curator of scientific research and application; Alpaz, the curator of learning and progress and Remo, the curator of useful mechanical devices (because no one inside the earth would be named John, of course).

There’s even a discussion of religion.  The basic tenet down here is that religious sects are quite foolish.  As long as people bow to the one true God (who I am fairly certain means a Christian God), what difference does it make if they worship via Catholicism, Protestantism, “Hindooism” or even polytheism.  These Earthly sects have caused nothing but wars, not to mention countless lives lost in aggressive missionary work.  And if they all believe in a Supreme Being who cares how they worship Him?

Since I gave away part of the story of Symzonia, how can I resist comparing it?  [So, ahem, Spoiler]: In Intermere, our hero believes that he is going to be adopted by the people there and welcomed as an honorary member.  But of course, he cannot be (especially since they told his mother that he would be back soon).  And one morning he wakes up and finds himself in merocar, speeding back to the surface, until he arrives in…Singapore?.

He sells the merocar (at the telepathic recommendation of Remo) and eventually reunites with his mother.  The book abruptly ends with this passage:

I shall not describe the meeting with my mother nor speak of what was said in relation to the strange and brief communications which passed between us months before.

Well, okay.

So, in sum, Intermere is short on plot although it’s a bit more interesting than Symnzonia in its method of arriving inside the earth.

But, as I am learning with these Utopian stories, the people who live in these Utopias are kind of jerks.  They are very smug about their superiority, they show off all of the time, and they appear to have virtually no fun.  They don’t believe in any kind of finery, they don’t believe in dressing well or adorning themselves in anything.  They barely sleep and spend most of their time in contemplation.  Which may sounds ideal, but really, it sounds kind of awful.   There’s a great episode of Red Dwarf where the crew meets a holographic Utopian spaceship that sounds not unlike this bunch, and they all come off like a bunch of tossers.

I can’t help but wonder if people were offended by these Utopian stories when they were published.  Basically, here’s this guy airing his grievances about specific things that he hates with the country or religion or technology and claiming that these Utopians are vastly superior to us because they follow the lifestyle that the author thinks is awesome.

I have recently compiled a list of some 50 Hollow Earth-related stories.  I’ve half a mind to read all of them over the next few years or so (most are quite short which will be a nice change of pace).  But if they all follow this same format of Utopian politics and unworthy Externals, I may abort that goal.  One of the sources of Hollow Earth stories listed a number of stories that are different, ether more adventurous or even satirical, so I think those will be next.  Many of them are also free from Google Books, so I’ll look into that as well.

If you’re along for the Hollow Earth journey, welcome aboard!

They are celebrated as great vocalists, but can the likes of Bob Dylan and Tom Waits really sing? Neil McCormick writes in the Daily Telegraph:

Bob Dylan: “A voice like sand and glue” in Bowie’s memorable phrase. Contrary to what many of his critics would assert, Dylan actually sings in tune but his harsh, barbed-wire timbre & attacking delivery has been inspiration for every tone deaf poet with a guitar. But with songs like these, who cares whether he can really sing or not?

Lou Reed: His half talking, half singing drawl with the Velvet Underground created a new rock template.

Tom Waits: Started out gruff and soulful but deliberately ravaged his vocal chords with whiskey and cigarettes to sound older and more lived in. In the history of vocals, I am not sure anyone has ever done more with less.

Johnny Cash: Even as a youngster, his voice was shaky and low, but he sang in time and in tune and like he had lived every word.

John Lydon (Johnny Rotten): His ranting style, high and tuneless, led the attack of the Sex Pistols then took us on dub metal journeys with Public Image Limited.

Ian Dury: Unrepentantly cockney speak-singing, frequently completely flat but utterly alive in the playful lyrics.

Leonard Cohen: A low, shaky monotone that has, somehow, grown in authority even as it reduces in range.

Nick Cave: A stiff baritone beset by tuning problems, Cave invests his apocalyptic blues with spine chilling conviction.

Siouxsie Sioux: A lone female entrant on our chart of errant singing stars, Siouxsie’s limited range and gravelly tone only added to her lustre as la grande dame of punk and goth.

Jarvis Cocker: OK when he keeps it to a whisper but as soon as he sings out he turns into some tuneless geek in a karaoke bar, which perfectly suits his vignettes of ordinary life.

Idag blir Randy Newman 66 år minsann. Grattis påre, din långskånk.

Bernie Marsden var, enligt initierad källa, obetydligt längre när han stod upp jämfört med sittande under konserten på Munken häromdagen. Han var dessutom, skriker rapporter från flera håll, innihelvitte bra. Så honom vill vi trots Randy Newman’s illvilliga påhopp naturligtvis inte bli av med. Det finns även flera short people vi skulle sakna väldigt mycket om de försvann från rockhistorien:

John Mellencamp 170 cm
Lou Reed 166 cm
Bob Dylan 168 cm
Prince 152 cm
Bono 171 cm
Thom Yorke 166 cm
Angus Young 158 cm
Roger Daltrey 170 cm
Ronnie James Dio 162 cm
Iggy Pop 171 cm
Paul Simon 160 cm
Tom Petty 170 cm

Jag tycker nog att vi korta kan få leva också. Så det så.

Un clasicón que conocí con Trainspotting y el más clásico aun Perfect Day, pero tiene otras muchas más destacables, yo me quedo con Make Up y Satellite of Love.

Track list

1. Vicious

2. Andy’s Chest

3. Perfect Day

4. Hangin’ ’round

5. Walk on the Wild Side

6. Make Up

7. Satellite of Love

8. Wagon Wheel

9. New York Telephone Conversation

10. I’m So Free

11. Goodnight Ladies

Link de descarga: http://www.gigasize.com/get.php?d=2fqypf5kgdc

   Je n’ai aucune idée de comment (re)commencer mon blog.

   Je devrais me présenter mais je n’arrive jamais à faire court. Je m’appelle Ced, je suis né en 1990 mais j’aurais dû naître à la fin des années 50 et grandir quelques part au Etats-Unis ou en Angleterre pendant les 60’s et les 70’s. Il y a pas si longtemps encore je rêvais d’être à l’image des héros tels que Kurt, Jim, Janis, Ian, Jimi, Sid… J’aime la musique plus que tout, Nirvana, the Doors, David Bowie, the Clash, the Rolling Stones, Joy Division, Lou Reed, Janis Joplin, the Sex Pistols, Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, the Pixies, Sonic Youth, etc, etc. J’écoute à peu prêt tous les styles de musiques, bref vous aurez l’occasion de voir ça tout au long de mon blog.

SPACE ODDITY - David Bowie

   A part la musique j’aime beaucoup le cinéma, (les séries), l’art, voyager, etc… J’aime glander et j’aime par dessus tout avoir “la flemme de…”. J’aime la solitude et j’ai souvent besoin de me sentir seul. J’aime jouer de la batterie. J’aime les lives, les festivals et leurs ambiance.  Je suis fasciné par ce qui touche à l’univers. Je rêve d’aller vivre à Londres quelques temps, d’aller voir les temples Maya au Mexique et de faire le tour du monde. Et enfin je suis le genre personne capable de débarquer dans son lycée pour massacrer tout le monde avec un fusil à pompe. Bon j’estime que c’est tout ce qu’il y à a savoir sur moi, hin, hin. Bon aller je vous laisse avec du Surf Rock  et une video de Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

MARIACHI’S FEVER - Hawaii Samurai

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Rockets Fall On Rocket Falls

En janvier 1954, François Truffaut signe dans le numéro 31 des Cahiers du Cinéma son article le plus célèbre, “Une certaine tendance du cinéma français” dans lequel il tire à boulets rouges sur la “Tradition de la Qualité” du cinéma français. En Une du magazine, la photo d’un petit garçon tiré du film Le Petit Fugitif sur lequel André Bazin, père spirituel de Truffaut, signe un article de 4 pages…

Si on sait l’admiration que les jeunes turc des Cahiers vouaient au cinéma américain, Hitchcock et Welles en tête, on ignorait en revanche qu’un film que personne n’avait revu depuis plus de cinquante ans ait eu une influence déterminante sur leur vocation de cinéaste : « notre Nouvelle Vague n’aurait jamais eu lieu si le jeune Américain Morris Engel ne nous avait pas montré la voie de la production indépendante avec son beau film, Le Petit Fugitif » déclara un jour Truffaut.

Ce film primé en 1953 à Venise est ressorti en salle le mois dernier. Tourné avec une petite caméra fabriquée pour l’occasion et permettant de filmer sans être vu, en décor naturel (Brooklyn et la plage de Coney Island), avec des acteurs amateurs, Le Petit Fugitif est un véritable petit chef-d’œuvre. Persuadé d’avoir causé la mort de son frère au cours d’un jeu, Joey, 7 ans, s’enfuit à Coney Island, immense plage new-yorkaise dédiée aux manèges et à l’amusement. Il va passer une journée et une nuit d’errance au milieu de la foule et des attractions foraines…

Claquant les quelques dollars subtilisés à sa mère avant de prendre la fuite, Joey découvre le monde enchanté de l’immense fête foraine de Coney Island, entre barbe à papa, tour en poney et saut en parachute. En 24 heures, le petit héros fait l’expérience de la vie et de la débrouille dans un monde qui s’apparente à un spectacle. Les plans de ce film, tous plus beaux les uns que les autres, nous rappellent que le réalisateur et sa femme étaient des photographes de talent. On pense à Weegee ou Robert Franck et à leurs clichés réalistes de l’Amérique des années 50. Ce récit d’apprentissage, bricolé à rebours de la machine hollywoodienne, est un pur enchantement visuel que l’on regarde avec les mêmes yeux éblouis et naïfs que Joey.

Preuve que Truffaut n’avait pas oublié ce film en se lançant dans la réalisation : son premier film, Les 400 coups, s’appelait au départ La Fugue d’Antoine.

Visite guidée dans le Coney Island des années 50 au son du Coney Island Baby de Lou Reed.

You don’t actually need me to tell you what this record sounds like. It’s lots and lots of guitar feedback, and it goes on for ages. Occasionally squealing, occasionally screeching. Maybe a dip in volume here, or an occasionally strange fluttering noise when the sound ossilations become particularly violent. There are moments when the faintest hints of harmony suggest themselves amidst the cacophany. These moments are like the first turning-on of a torch in the confusion of a blackout, but to suggest that they are anything other than incidental or accidental, or even worth all of the chaos that frames them, would be insane. This album is horrible. But it is not worthless. I shall attempt to explain why.

The first question you might legitimately ask is ‘why?’. Why bother with four sides of unending, unvarying guitar feedback? Why bother with a record so arrogant and so contemptuous of the listener? At best, this is the flighty whim of a petulant artiste; at worst,  a deeply insulting and lazy piece of work. (Or a get out of jail early card for a singer with one album left on his contract). Well, if you must know, I kind of like indulging the cranks. Maybe I’m a bit of a masochist that way, but I hate whinging listeners who complain about ’self-indulgence’ like it’s the job of the artist to keep providing the safe, the familiar and the predictable. All art is self-indulgence! Or at least it ought to be. Otherwise, my friend, what you’re engaged in is mere commerce and you might as well sell sandwiches. Also – lest we forget – by 1975 the safe, familiar and predictable for Lou Reed involved songs about drugs, drag, S&M, death and squalor. Where the fuck do you go from there? The aural equivalent of a nuclear holocaust sounds about right, doesn’t it?

Straight up: Metal Machine Music hates the listener. It hates its peers. It hates the instruments it’s performed on, the equipment it’s recorded with and the people assigned the job of producing it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it hated itself. It’s long and it’s unpleasant. Relentlessly long and relentlessly unpleasant. This is not about aesthetic pleasure. Or at least, it’s not about aesthetic pleasure in the traditional sense. It had one influential supporter in the form of Lester Bangs, who had this to say about it.

“As classical music it adds nothing to a genre that may well be depleted. As rock ‘n’ roll its interesting garage electronic rock ‘n’ roll. As a statement it’s great, as a giant FUCK YOU it shows integrity – a sick, twisted, dunced-out, malevolent, perverted, psychopathic integrity, but integrity nonetheless.”

I sort of agree with Lester. While I’m not particularly well positioned to comment about the album’s claim to being classical music, I think his statement that it makes for ‘interesting garage electronic rock ‘n’ roll’ is either extremely generous or slightly disingenuous. MMM is perhaps one of the most boring records imaginable. It’s pretty undeniable, though, that however you look at it, Metal Machine Music is a pretty mega statement.

Even if you accept the story that Lou was simply filling out his contractual obligations in his own typically bad-humoured fashion, was there really any need to make it a double album? Could he not have made his point with two-sides of uninterrupted guitar feedback? Apparently not. There’s more to this than a Prince-esque hissy fit. Maybe he was, as he has since claimed, just too stoned to stop and think about what he was doing. If you ask me, though, we need a record, or something, like this every once in a while. Something to shake us out of our comfort zones. This is why it’s important that it’s a (relatively) popular artist that does it.

For me, my most memorable listening moments have been the ones in which I have bee transported somewhere uncomfortable and disquieting. Like my fourteen year-old self’s realisation that Everything In It’s Right Place wasn’t going to morph, Paranoid Android-style, into something resembling the Radiohead I had known up to that point. Or an even younger me hearing Revolution 9 on a tape in the car and begging my Dad to turn it off.  Of course, I returned to these things later and appreciated them anew, but those moments remained with me.

Why are they important though? Well, maybe it’s just a personal preference but I don’t want to limited to affirmative experiences when I listen to music. Stuff that I can accept or dismiss on grounds that I can articulate right away; stuff that affirms my preconceptions about what constitutes good or bad music. I like to be freaked out; to be presented with something that I can’t get my head around. I might have an instictive response to it, but I don’t know why I’m repsonding that way. Metal Machine Music fits into that category. It’s confrontational. Demands a response, an opinion. Or at least it did when it first came out. Now, of course, it has years of notoriety to accompany it. It’s edge has been dulled. But still stands as a supreme example of its kind; of an album by an artist with selling units as absolutely the last thing on their mind. But remember, it’s also kind of a joke. To quote Lester again:

It is the greatest album ever made in the history of the human eardrum. Number two: Kiss Alive!

Por Antonio Golmar

Pocos actores cuentan con un currículum como el de Mark Wahlberg, quien hace unos meses contaba en un programa de la televisión británica que su primer coche le salió gratis porque lo había robado, aunque luego, desde la cárcel, lamentaba no haber seguido los pasos de sus hermanos, los New Kids on the Block.

Nadie que viese a Mark Walhberg por primera vez ahora, con su raya a un lado engominada, su cara de no haber roto un plato en su vida y sus maneras tranquilas y educadas, sólo perturbadas por alguna palabra malsonante, podría imaginar ese pasado propio de alguna canción de Lou Reed.

No es que sienta simpatía por los rufianes. Gracias a dios, dos meses en chirona bastaron para que Mark diera un giro de 180 grados a su vida y aprendiera a ganarse la vida sin fastidiar a los demás. Tras su paso por la música y la publicidad (junto a Kate Moss, muñeca rota de la moda internacional, fue la imagen de la ropa interior de Calvin Klein) Wahlberg comenzó a hacer cine. Un poeta entre reclutas, Diario de un rebelde y sobre todo Boogie Nights, esa descarnada visión de la noche neoyorquina de los años 70, lo consagraron como actor.

En 2007 fue nominado al Oscar como mejor actor secundario por su papel en Infiltrados y acaba de terminar The Lovely Bones, un thriller dirigido por Peter Jackson (El señor de los anillos, District 9) que promete. Además, ha producido varias series de televisión, entre ellas Entourage, y actualmente rueda The Other Guys junto a un reparto variopinto en el que figuran Will Ferrell, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Keaton y la mismísima Paris Hilton. Sin embargo, Mark no parece un hombre frívolo: el más joven de nueve hermanos, está casado, es padre de tres niños y es católico practicante.

A sus 38 años, Wahlberg  puede mirar a su pasado con una sensación de vértigo, pero seguro que también de satisfacción por lo conseguido. Y los aficionados al buen cine y a los papeles de verdad sólo podemos desear que siga proporcionándonos buenos ratos, y que el ángel de la guarda que lo salvó de morir en los atentados del 11-S (tenía reserva en el vuelo 93 de United Airlines, pero en el último momento cambió de planes y voló a Toronto) no le pierda de vista.

As the countdown for the Australian release of Where The Wild Things Are continues, anticipation is rising! December 4th marks the date that many have been looking forward to for months now. The Spike Jonez film, based off the beloved 1963 children’s book by Maurice Sendak, was originally developed in the early 1980s to be come a Disney animated feature, but Universal acquired the rights in 2001, and in 2003 it was decided that the film would be live-action.

Filming began two years later in 2006, and now, in 2009, it hits Australian shores. To celebrate the release of such an adored childhood story, here are some “wild” tunes to get you in the mode:

Lou Reed – Walk On The Wild Side

Wild Palms – Over…Time (DJ Snitch Remix) **Highly Recommended

Dirty Politics – Call of The Wild (Lazy Rich Remix)

KIM – Wet n Wild (Riot In Belgium Remix)

Bertie Blackman – Thump (Wild Turkeys Remix)

Gooseflesh – Still Wild **Highly Recommended

Temazo para pasar un domingo tirado en el sofá o para salir de cañas. Pero gran canción la que os ofrecemos hoy. Recordarás grandes momentos y hasta te hará dudar de sí hoy también se puede salir.

       El tema es Heroin de Lou Reed y esperemos que lo disfruteís y sintais esa buena música.

This is for you if you’re having a bad day:

Much love,

Spring

I manage to get Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson to sit for a portrait session and I’m thrilled. We’re in the woods, and I have beautiful light and mise en scene. I set them up, but when I try to take pictures, I discover that my camera doesn’t have a battery or a memory card. I run back to the Times, asking Jeff and Hiroko if I can borrow one of theirs, frantically trying to find one, but no one has one. Lou and Laurie are trying to be patient with me, but their patience is wearing thin. I’m mortified.
Soundtrack: Laurie Anderson, “The Island Where I Come From”

RCA Records

The Strokes—Is This It

Julian Casablancas has said that he learned how to “sing cool” from Lou Reed. There is definitely a ton of that New York, Velvet Underground-style swagger to the music of The Strokes, but never was it more immediate and more purposeful than on their debut. Let’s face it—sometimes it takes years or a few albums to achieve your ultimate moment, but sometimes it happens right away, without even really planning on it. Sure, The Strokes had a ton of money and rich-kid notoriety to push them even further into the limelight, but that just made it even more surprising to most of the music world (who wanted to hate them so) when they turned out to actually have some great songs. The singles from this album (the initial breakthrough “Last Night”, “Hard To Explain”, and “Someday”) don’t really ever get old, and a couple of the songs (like “The Modern Age”) are even better than those. It’s just really good, really straightforward-yet-clever rock music that manages to evoke extremely catchy melodies without any sense of cheesiness whatsoever. If this is it, there should be no complaints—it’s fun, it’s hard-hitting, it’s timeless. (Note: This album has already been named Album of the Decade by NME, which is tough to comprehend, since the decade isn’t over yet. It seems they assumed it impossible that another record would make such an impact in a month’s time, which is understandable).

Nonesuch Records

Wilco—Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

This was the last Wilco album to feature multi-instrumentalist and sound-tweaker Jay Bennett, who died in early 2009 while in the beginning stages of a royalty battle with his ex-group. Not coincidentally, it is also the last Wilco album to feel like a truly original, classic piece of work. Granted, the band’s 2009 offering Wilco (The Album) is the closest they have come to this since Bennett’s departure, but it still lacks that other-worldliness that Bennett’s experimentalism gave Wilco. On Yankee, the disorientating sound collages that make up “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” or the creturesque wah-moog that lurks through “War on War” are some of the more memorable examples of this. Bennett’s sonic genius was one of the main factors that drove Wilco from its original alt-country upbringings into the territory we know them to tread in today, and though the peak of this era is actually 1999’s Summerteeth, Yankee was the album that had the tunes and the mythology to match (the fact that the band’s original label refused to put it out, and after finding a label, it ended up being one of the biggest records of the year). Thus, it will be the album for which they are most remembered.

Capitol Records

Radiohead—Amnesiac

This is the best Radiohead album. It may be arguable, since the band has gone through so many shifts in style over their career, therefore varying the opinions of the fan base as to which era best represents the band. Even Thom Yorke dismisses Pablo Honey and has said it “doesn’t even feel like us when I hear it”. Most long-time fans would probably opt for The Bends, since it captures the band in that early middle-ground between rock band and experimentalists. OK Computer, which might be their most widely admired album, captures that late middle-ground. Kid A was a surprise to the music world—it was adored by critics and accepted by most fans, though it did alienate some of the band’s older audience. Kid A acted as the initial shock to the system so reaction would not be as muddled when Amnesiac hit. While Kid A is made up of more traditionally arranged songs, Amnesiac acts as kind of an album-length side two of Abbey Road—everything runs together to make up one big song, or at least one big idea. It begs to be listened to all the way through, and once the listener warms up to the idea, it’s surprisingly easy to do. Plus, “Pyramid Song” is one of the most beautiful things ever recorded. For those who were hoping for Rainbows, no apologies here—that album has great songs, but as a cohesive work, Amnesiac trumps it.

QotD: “I have no pity.”

I watched Red Dragon earlier in the day rather than tonight and I did go out with friends. I have some money left but not a lot. Not as much as I’d like. But, I made sure to trade it well, for precious liquids.

So, I’m typing this in Word so that I can fix spelling mistakes, for once. Liquids and spelling do not go together all that well. Tomorrow night promises to be even more damp, but that isn’t costly. It also promises to be smokey, considering the crowd, not my usual conspirators, but friends of friends who I approve of, some of them. Not all.

At the moment it is late into the dark and I am enjoying Lou Reed’s relaxing songs of violence and menace, sitting in the darkness of my room with the light coming from my screen and from the window, which, for once, isn’t creating an “artificial night”, but letting in the real one. Melbourne nights are bright, which I like. I enjoy slow walks home, relaxed by drink, a cool breeze, light enough to see everything but dim enough to not need sunglasses. But you still wear them, of course.

Someone has taken my lovely headphones, so I’m using my speakers. I don’t usually do that at this time of night, as I’d prefer to have it louder, but my housemates aren’t about like me tonight. The moon is away so most of the monsters are away. I can barely hear this, fuck it, it’s going up.

I feel like sitting outside, I might go do that now.

(break)

It’s nice outside tonight; I wish someone else was awake. The sun is around the other side and there’s a breeze. No stars, but the sky is always nice to look at. Cicadas can fuck off elsewhere though. Or I’ll go where they aren’t, I’m not a fan.

I’ll write more on Red Dragon another time.

I met some alright people tonight, some I knew already. Not everyone impressed me, but nobody was too bad, it was a comfortable crowd.

I want another drink, but I don’t know if I need one.

(break)

I got one.

The problem with nights like these, they have the potential for being great, long nights with friends, but there are no friends around. I’m often fine with solitude, but when I’ve been with people and I’m still in a people mood, then they’re not there. I’m just here, by myself, making incomplete sentences in the dark.

Tomorrow will be better, the words that get you through today,

Goodnight cow, goodnight moon, goodnight cow jumping over the moon,

Your damp, smoked song of violence and menace,

TDE