I’ve been listening to a lot of Pavement lately, and the more I do, the more increasingly clear it becomes that Spoon is the Pavement of the 2000s: Indie rock’s standard bearers, at once reliable craftsmen and restless weirdos. After a career of Spartan, rigid power-pop, the band went maximalist on 2007′s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga — their unexpected best record, and an Elliott Smith posthumous collection aside, that year’s finest hour.
According to some message board hearsay, Joanna Newsom’s upcoming Have One On Me was mixed and mastered at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio studios — but not by Steve, who produced Ys. (So why the trip to Japan? Recording with Jim O’Rourke, perhaps, but not mixing?) But more interestingly, the anonymous engineer said the album will be quite long — so perhaps her two-and-a-half hour preview in Big Sur last year wasn’t just a tease. And yes, I’m going to keep geeking out like this until LOST comes back.
The truism is that it’s hard to write about joy, easy to write about a broken heart. Yet Sally Seltmann, formerly New Buffalo, is always at her best exuding bliss, as she does in song and moving picture in the video for 2010 song of the year contender “Harmony To My Heartbeat.” Can Sally be a Feist-sized pop star and play all the late shows now? Bonus: keep an eye out for Jens Lekman making a funny face!
There’s something to be said for a movie in which nice things keep happening to charming people, as is the case in the dual biopic Julie and Julia. When it happens for two hours, fatigue sets in. Not to mention hunger.
Nevertheless, the film — the twin stories of blogger Julie Powell (Amy Adams, underrated as always) and the needs-no-introduction Julia Child (Meryl Streep, romping about like a Golden Retriever) — is tasty enough despite its extra minutes in the oven. It’s a relief to see a biopic without the shadow of drugs and death and, as a blogger myself, keenly satisfying to see the Wild West of the 2002 blogosphere and one of its brave frontierswomen put to film with wit and context. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a boeuf bourguignon calling my name.
2009 was a great and terrible year for New York’s Harlem Shakes: the band released one of the best albums of the year (not to mention decade) with Technicolor Health, took what should’ve been a victory lap tour opening for Passion Pit, and abruptly called it quits. But guitarist Todd Goldstein was unwilling to drop the torch, reissuing Kids Aflame — the rewarding debut of his previously shelved solo project, ARMS — and looking ahead to his next record. In a phone conversation conducted just before New Year’s, Todd and I talked about his penchant for guitar faces, why Harlem Shakes called it quits and his favorite bands of the decade. Read the rest of this entry »
Per Joanna Newsom’s Australian label, today’s absurdist viral marketing was, in fact, the release date news. Mystery solved! (via Pitchfork) The next question: Is it two and a half hours? Cross your fingers!
I’ve been listening to a lot of Pavement lately, and the more I do, the more increasingly clear it becomes that Spoon is the Pavement of the 2000s: Indie rock’s standard bearers, at once reliable craftsmen and restless weirdos. After a career of Spartan, rigid power-pop, the band went maximalist on 2007′s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga — their unexpected best record, and an Elliott Smith posthumous collection aside, that year’s finest hour.
According to some message board hearsay, Joanna Newsom’s upcoming Have One On Me was mixed and mastered at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio studios — but not by Steve, who produced Ys. (So why the trip to Japan? Recording with Jim O’Rourke, perhaps, but not mixing?) But more interestingly, the anonymous engineer said the album will be quite long — so perhaps her two-and-a-half hour preview in Big Sur last year wasn’t just a tease. And yes, I’m going to keep geeking out like this until LOST comes back.
There’s something to be said for a movie in which nice things keep happening to charming people, as is the case in the dual biopic Julie and Julia. When it happens for two hours, fatigue sets in. Not to mention hunger.
Per Joanna Newsom’s Australian label, today’s absurdist viral marketing was, in fact, the release date news. 
