Here’s another thing to throw in your “Weird Taxi Related News” file (is there any other kind?). I was noticing on Twitter last night some of my Brooklyn living friends tweeting photos of a yellow cab burning in the middle of the street like there’s no tomorrow. Just right smack dab in the middle of the snowy street. Not like a pussy ass little fire, a full on Post-Lakers-Championship-Victory riot fire.
I was telling My Pal The Crook about it today, and I tried to find some pictures. In that pursuit, I ended up finding this video of ANOTHER CAB that also exploded last night. This one on 2nd Ave I guess. This fucker explodes like in the movies. At first you think it’s just a fire then, BOOM! Shit’s bananas. I guess I didn’t think cars actually did that… Also, why would this happen in the snow. Is this a conspiracy? Double also, I was awoken last week by a manhole exploding literally right in front of my building (looked/sounded exactly like this). Shitty, but epic, alarm clock.
It would be easy to dismiss this album on principle alone. It’s Iron & Wine and he’s about as indie as P. Diddy, still he longs to cling to his roots as an indie songwriter. Lush arrangements and a lack of any lo-fi edge has distanced him from other modern folk troubadours for a while now. Still, you really cannot deny that Sam Beam is actually one heck of a songwriter.
I’m serious. His music is pure Americana, and in it you can hear the strains of almost all of the past greats. There’s a little Bachrach thrown into his Jackson Browne… a whole lot of Leonard Cohen mixed in with his Van Dyke Parks. “Rabbit Will Run” best illustrates this fusion with a cadence ripped right from Cohen’s “Suzanne” and rambly lyrics that are both parts Parks and Dylan. His lyrics are filled with mediocre metaphor, like many lyrics from the classic era of songwriters. This isn’t a bad thing either, music is not necessarily supposed to be poetry. When lyrics get too lofty it often tends to lose its pop appeal.
Pop appeal is plentiful in this release. Production wise, this is folktronica light. Fuzzy guitars and Roland 101 patterns abound, but so do elaborate soft rock arrangements. The end result is a modern take on “Running on Empty” perhaps? There is definitely a retro 70’s vibe. The entire album seems prepackaged to the film and television executives who love placing Beam’s product into theirs. Again, there really isn’t anything wrong with that. This is above ground music, it’s supposed to be. It’s soccer mom SUV music to the maximum; just carefully indie enough to make the listener feel a little bit hip.
If everyone who listened to Train and Dave Matthews tuned into this instead, the world might be a better place.
Recently, Walter Schreifels of legendary New York Hardcore band Gorilla Biscuits paid a visit to 350 Broadway to do some shopping. You guys all know who the Gorilla Biscuits are right? I mean you have to. There is really no excuse to not knowing one of the most influential hardcore, nay just plain old bands of all time.
When hardcore came to New York there were few bands who made an impact on the scene like Gorilla Biscuits did and over twenty years later their legacy and influence lives on in the hearts, fingers and sweat of millions of kids.
But good old Walter wasn’t just in GB, Schreifels also spent some time in Youth of Today (another essential band for hardcore and straight edge kids) as well CIV along with vocalist Anthony Civarelli. Schreifels is currently doing his his own solo project which is departure from the Hardcore most fans have come to know him for.
Armed with a melancholic acoustic guitar and string sections, Schreidels new project features him singing out soft spoken tales of the years past over a much, much gentler and melodic musical accompaniment.
Jan from Mixmeat shot over this new video the crew worked on while riding one of the 14 Bike Co. ESB frames. For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past few years, these frames are the brainchild of Ted James, also known as Super Ted. Riders worldwide have been giving these bikes a beating and they just keep begging for MORE. I’ll always support riders who build and design their own frames. Especially guys like Ted.
Here’s my boy Hiromi’s latest work. Makes me miss NYC real bad. The weather? Not so much. The riding? Oh yeah. Good to see some familiar faces. Ya’ll stay warm now ya hear?
NYC messengers and my friends Kurt Boone and Squid have a part in this forthcoming film called Career Courier. I feel bad for any city being represented after NYC in this. It’s like going on after Sabbath!
“Who rides bikes everywhere? Crackheads. Or people that do drugs.”
Sean Walling makes fine bicycles and this video by Michael John Evans shows what goes into each Soulcraft.
Movies can be prohibitive. It’s funny, sort of, to think about that. Film seems inherently liberating. Especially now, with seemingly endless graphical capabilities, many filmmakers have left behind notions of what they can or cannot do. To a point. Lemme blanket all of this with a reassurance that in no way do I think that is a bad thing. I’m not coming down on movies at all. At all. I fucking love movies. Partly because what they do is tell a story.
Show something happening. But if you think about the things you can do with not only a camera, but effects, music, archival footage, animation, art, editing, it’s almost humorous how alike most films are. It’s like rolling a million sided die a million times and landing on something between 1-1000 every time. Still a multitude of differences, but overall only covering a small part of the whole. Every once and a while, I see a movie, if you still want to use that term, that is out of that comfort zone.
Koyaanisqatsi, which I put up as the Saturday Matinee this past weekend, is a movie like that. So is Johan Grimonprez’s Double Take. Now, this doesn’t mean that I necessarily think movies that do this are all better than others, or even very good (though these both are, in my estimation, great). But they’re interesting, if only for their ability to usurp your expectations (hopefully) without being manipulative, disingenuous, or unwatchable. The words that I would use to describe the initial interactions I had with Double Take would definitely by “fucking confused.”
I had seen it’s poster – a picture of Alfred Hitchcock standing in front of a police line-up wall, bearing the tagline “If you meet your double, you should kill him.” – around the time it experienced minimal release last year. My interest was piqued, as I assumed it was a Hitchcock documentary, and a very good one judging by all the accolades the poster let me know had been heaped upon it. But minimal investigation left me befuddled.
The more I read about it, the less I understood: it’s a video essay, about Hitchcock, but also communism and the red scare, and Hitchcock meeting his double, but it’s all archival footage, but they may have hired a Hitchcock impersonator too, and a guy who does his voice, and it’s about time travel. That’s basically what I gleaned. After spooning my brain matter back in through my ears, I decided to move on I guess, finding it easier just to forget about it than watch it and be embarrassed at my inability to understand it and risk my head exploding Scanners style in a packed (well, probably not packed) theater.
What a mistake. Luckily, I was reminded of it’s existence by My Pal The Crook last week, and quickly jumped at the chance to finally watch it. So remember that really fucking strange and muddled description I gave of it a couple sentences ago? Turns out that’s actually pretty accurate. Swag. Double Take is much easier to consume, and enjoy, if you just try not to necessarily think about what you’re watching. Just get lost in it’s wholly unique, hypnotic, thrilling, and mystifying rhythms.
At it’s most basic level, Double Take explores the parallel stories of The United States’ 1960’s tension with the USSR, and Hitchcock’s (fictional) encounter with his doppelganger on the set of The Birds. There’s a lot of actual footage of Hitchcock in the film, which I thought was just great. In my mind he had become sort of a mythical figure, and the footage of him was human, charming, but also impressive. At least I think it was him. See, they did hire an impersonator, who at various times plays Hitchcock, but also plays himself.
They also hired a Hitchcock voice impersonator (who is totally spot on) to narrate the film. I say narrate, but it’s actually just a reading of an original monologue written by Tom McCarthy in Hitchcock’s voice, based on the Jorge Luis Borges story “August 25th, 1983”. McCartthy (a novelist, whose book C was one of my favorites of last year) knocks it out of the fucking park with the monologue. I don’t want to go into detail, but it’s just great. Starting to kind of get a picture of how hallucinatory and awesome this movie is? I think any further attempt to explain it would do it disservice, so basically I would just say: see it. If only to step outside of the box for 90 minutes and look at movies with fresh eyes.
Our beloved Toilet Cobra is a true renaissance man: a photographer, a writer, a hipster and a pervert. But this Friday, January 28th, he’ll do what he does best – be an artist – and be the focus of our next show at 350 Broadway.
Nicholas Gazin is a twenty-seven year old Brooklyn-based furball who fancies himself a jack of all trades and does all sorts of creative activities in order to stave off boredom and starving. He serves Vice Magazine as their comics editor and has also been writing, photographing and illustrating in their service for a few years. He’s also our copywriter and one of our regular illustrators. He/I wrote this very thing you’re reading now! Trippy!!! His connection to the music scene has led to him creating shirts, posters and album artwork for his favorite bands. He recently started doing the art for Scion’s sponsored garage rock shows and designed the vinyl records and T-shirt for Jay Reatard’s Shatter Records Fan Club releases.
No Escape is Nicholas’s second solo art show and is about the same thing most art shows are about: alienation, the life of an artist, how it feels to live in a place. The title directly refers to the grim realities of being a “creative professional” or an “artist” and living in New York. The pressure to produce consistently good work is draining. The high costs of living in New York, the violence and the filth make you want to move in with your parents and abandon your responsibilities. The world seems like it’s on the brink of apocalypse or at least devastating economic collapse. There are no other options and there’s no turning back at this point. The world sucks and there’s no escape.
Friday January 28th, 7-10pm Мишка
350 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY
718-388-1725
Lil’ B – Angel’s Exodus (2011) [Amalgam] // Grade: B+
Lil B’s catalog reminds me very much of the show Lost — not that B has ever explicitly mentioned polar bears or smoke monsters (though he does share some ideas on time dilation and reverence for eastern religion with the show). Their similarity is in the polarized nature of their fandom — there’s the one subset of fans that dig the visceral aspects and the other set who appreciate the more esoteric attributes. Your mom was way into the Jack/Kate/Sawyer love triangle of Lost because it was perfect serialized popcorn fare. At the same time there was the dude on the forums who wouldn’t shut the fuck up about Lost’s similarities to Watchmen and The Prisoner. Likewise, there’s a contingency of Lil B fans who are way into collecting the early spoken word influenced based freestyles about space, vivariums and time. There’s also another (larger) fanbase who are into the more energetic and fun songs like “What That Mouf Do?,” “Wanton Soup” and “Swag OD,” a song with the lyrics* “swag od, swag od, god damn, swag od, swag od, god damn, mannn, mannn, swag.”
Over the recent months Lil B has been servicing his visceral fanbase heavily, creating increasingly catchy and club ready songs (albeit still weird as fuck) and watching as his popularity increases steadily. Angels Exodus however, is a return to the early based freestyle era, with the album having a recurring theme of motivation and personal achievement. It’s pretty much like when Lost brashly introduced time travel into the show — an open reminder that despite populist leanings and success, you’re dealing with uniquely insular creators who’ve been setting you up for weird shit since day one.
Angels Exodus finds Lil B sans any reference to swag, cooking and only a handful of mentions to Based. Instead B focuses on pushing his positive motivation agenda in a delivery that’s the closest he’s ever come to standard hip hop. He stays on beat a lot more than he usually does and uses more standard rhyme schemes
Haters try to down me, but this is my progression/ When you see me in the studio is when you see perfection/ Achievement connected with the actions/ Last time I fell was when I fell in love with distractions/ Personal development. Springboard excellence. Be anything, just not… nor the devilish.
Lil B rhymes over a collection of beats on Angels Exodus that flirt with being minimal soundscapes. The instrumentals he’s chosen lay somewhere between his more ethereal traditional hip hop sound (think “Walk The World”) and his ambient/spoken word experiments like “Love Is Strange, My Business” from Rain In England. In some form, the entire album speaks to the idea of motivating the listener to focus on their goals, to think positively or to avoid the pitfalls of life. I know, in print that sounds like the corniest shit ever, or pandering, tacked-on faux duality and depth that’s added on to rap records in an attempts to justify/offset misogyny and calls to violence — Tupac, I’m looking at you. But, remember this is coming from the dude that’s made songs about how awesome wearing girl jeans are and referencing doing psychedelic drugs with Bill O’Reilly and Carlton from The Fresh of Bel Air. So, give dude the benefit of the doubt that it’ll be an interesting listen.
Feast your eyes on a typical day for the Brooklyn based “Witch House” duo Creep. This video premiered January 25th on MTV’s Subterranean andfeatures vocals from the XX‘s Romy Madley-Croft.
Young Turks will be releasing “Days” as 12″ that will include remixes from Deadboy and Azari & III. The video for this shoegaze two step track is the brain child of Fischerspooner’s Warren Fisher and it has already been nominated at the Camerimage Festival for Best Cinematography.
Take a gander at what you probably missed out on last week out in LA, it’s a little something something we happened to attach our name to called Check Yo Ponytail. Do yourselves a favor and at least check yo favorite Bloglin now and again so you don’t miss out on the next alcohol fused, pretty girl inhabited, in your face good time, that you would only skip out on if you hate fun.
Besides everyone having a good ass time, which you can probably tell by the pics, the music made the party vibe THAT much better. A nice range of styles licked our eardrums throughout the night, you wanted some rock? Boom, you got The Royal Bangs. You wanted something electronic? Bam, we had Tobacco and of course Nadastrom mixing up some marvelous beats.
It was a pretty chill way to celebrate Danny United ‘s birthday and shame on you if you missed it. But in case you’re curious how things played out and didn’t have the time to fly out to LA, here is nice little mash-up recapping the evening for your viewing pleasure. By watching it, you can at least pretend you went or pick up enough to fake it when someone asks you what you did a few weeks ago since you were probably being a loser. For more pictures from this past Check Yo Ponytail, head over here and over here.
Joe Dante‘s an icon in the horror/comedy biz. He popped his cherry directing movies for Roger Corman – including the original Piranha back in ’78. Since then he’s dropped classic after classic of genre-bending goodness: The Howling, Gremlins, The ‘Burbs, Matinee. Dante also helped develop Eerie Indiana, one the coolest shows for cool kids ever. And hey, he’s from Morristown, NJ, which is a stones throw from where I’m from. Also, and this is just a stab in the dark, I bet he’s a really mellow drunk.
After directing a couple of flicks for the Masters of Horror series back in 2006, Dante went under the radar – leaving behind a hole in the roster of America’s great directors. Then in early 2009, the trailer dropped for The Hole, a new horror tale promising an ’80s throwback vibe…IN 3D! This was before half the movies being released were in 3D, so it was cool. The premise was very simple: two brothers find a hole in the basement of their new house that contains their darkest fears. Basically, Dante’s take on The Gate minus Satanism and Sacrifyx.
Fans got super excited for The Hole and then…nothing. Like a fart in a tornado, The Hole drifted by unnoticed.
The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2009 and also played Cannes the following year. The majority of critics dug its “kid friendly” horror vibe and hype sloooowly built up for Dante’s return. Unfortunately, while knowledgeable American studios were busy backing important, cinematic milestones like Marmaduke, The Hole could only find a home video distributor in Europe. Shortly thereafter, a DVD was released on Region 2.
There’s really not much more to the plot than two brothers find a hole with scary shit in it. They’re dad was an abusive prick so them and moms ditched him and moved far away. The oldest, Dane, listens to his iPod while cranking out morbid charcoal drawings. His lil bro Luke is an incorrigible toehead who gets off on cock-blocking Dane from hottie-next-door, Julie. Teenagers generally suck, so these are some believable characters. They find a locked door in the basement that leads to a seemingly bottom-less hole. The hole starts conjuring up the boys’ and Julie’s worst fears IN 3D!
The film’s strengths lie in Dante’s campy, veteran touch. The Hole, written by Vacany scribe Mark Smith, could have easily been fodder for the 5-dollar bin at Wal-Mart, but Dante manages to wrangle a great film out of thin material and mediocre young actors. The three main characters – brothers Dane and Lucas, and Julie – are portrayed by really boring kids. I’m not a fan of “child” actors to begin with (Stand By Me and season 4 of The Wire excluded), but these kids take bland to a whole new level.
The only noteworthy performance comes from psychopath-character actor extraordinaire Bruce Dern, who plays the former owner of the house with the hole, “Creepy” Carl. He’s only on-screen for about five minutes, so soak that in. Once the kiddies finally do venture into the hole to confront their fears (like, 75 minutes into the movie), the production design overloads on German expressionism complete with HUGE shadows.
Thus far this “review” lacks any persuasive comments on whether you should actually see (download) the fucking movie. Sorry about that. If you’re looking for the perfect horror movie to watch with your teenage kid, slap the Twilight DVD out of their hand, slap them in their smart mouth, and turn on The Hole. But if you’re looking for some grown-up horror steez with gore galore, look elsewhere. It’s a fitting addition to the Joe Dante library either way, but I’m hoping for a more adult outing by Mr. Dante next time.
