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Charles In Charge
Broken Social Scene's Charles Spearin is following in the steps of Feist, Emily Haines and Kevin Drew and coming out with his own solo record - The Happiness Project, due March 23rd on Arts & Crafts.
Inspiration for the project was drawn from interviews with his neighbours on their thoughts of happiness, and he's been testing the material out on BSS's live crowds.
Check out the website for more info, where you can also download the track Anna.
21st Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Bloody Omaha
Nice video about shooting your own guerilla D-day invasion movie with 3 extras in 4 days. Saving Private Ryan provided below for reference.
If only they'd had an i-ball cam.
21st Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
People who bought this...
As noted by CJ, "customers who bought Band of Horses also bought Great Lake Swimmers". Nice match, particularly their latest album Ongiara (get it on iTunes or Amazon), although it's possibly more Mat Brooke than Ben Bridwell.
21st Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Presidency 2.0
While we all lovingly felt a connection with the way man-of-the-people Barack Obama nervously fluffed his lines (twice!) during the inauguration, it is of course great news to have a Web 2.0 loving President in office. A President who happily uses the awesome Gotham font to proclaim his simplistic, advertising-style, sloganistic promises - that we all find so easy to relate to.
Did his team just hit the right mark with the tone of their campaign? Did the Reagan fans vote Reagan in because they could relate to his age, choice of suits or the font of his letter head? Or is Obama genuinely a man in touch with the nation?
Fingers crossed the promises will be followed by action, else there's going to be a lot of disappointment around the world. I remember a very similar excitement when Tony Blair was elected....
20th Jan 2009 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Best Jobs
With Apple calling time on the high-turnover pressure of the annual Macworld Expo, check out this greatest hits of Steve Jobs reality-distortion field in action.
20th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Red Hotter And Hotter
Things are hotting up over at the Dark Was The Night Myspace, with 4AD previewing one new track a day from the forthcoming charity compiliation - which will be released on double CD / triple vinyl / download on Feb 15th.
Today: So Far Around The Bend, from The National - whose Aaron and Bryce Dessner curated the compilation.
20th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Everest Sings
We may have overlooked their support slot on the recent My Morning Jacket UK tour, but things are sounding good from the un-Googleable Everest.
20th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Promo Promo: Friendly Fires - Skelton Boy
Nice lo-fi video up for the Friendly Fires' single Skeleton Boy.
20th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
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Grizzly Phoenix
Looks like Joaquin (nee Leaf) Phoenix is putting his recently announced retired status to good use, and petitioning for a hairy role in My Morning Jacket. He's come a long way since he played the young kid in Parenthood.
19th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
John Frusciante: Stuff
Since it's John Frusciante Day here at Chimpomatic, check out this 1993 short (credited to Johnny Depp and Gibby Haynes?!) documenting Frusciante's troubled, drug-addled lifestyle after his initial departure from the Chili Peppers.
19th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
City Shrinker
Nice piece on Shift/Tilt lens photography over at Creative Review.
19th Jan 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
John Frusciante
The Empyrean
Record Collection
Since he escaped his tooth-consuming drug addiction and returned to the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1998, guitar hero John Frusciante has released a remarkable 10+ records through his solo projects - while of course playing a major part in the rehabilitation of the Chili Peppers from punk-funkers to stadium-filling, serious rockers.
While the results of the experimentation on his 2001 and 2004 solo albums have had an obviously positive effect on the Chili Peppers (most notably through the mind-blowing guitar-theatrics of Stadium Arcadium), he still manages to hold plenty back for himself - and there are not many albums that kick off with a 9 minute space-jam. Frusciante's own notes recommend that the album is played "as loud as possible and it is suited to dark living rooms late at night" - and the opener re-affirms that point. Slowly building from a lone drum, it's a vocal-free track where the guitar does the singing (sorry), as we are slowly drawn into the album.
The roles are reversed on Song To The Siren - a cover of the Tim Buckley classic, which is notable here for it's lack of guitar, instead relying on Frusciante's haunting vocals to beautifully carry the song - with delicate keyboards providing much of the charm, both here and throughout the album as a whole. Once we're warmed up, Unreachable provides one of the many high-points of the record, seemingly using a two minute intro as an excuse to unleash the stunt guitars for a blistering 4 minute outro.
The David Axelrod-style production tricks are in full-effect through the album, with some of Frusciante's more eccentric moments adding a great deal of personality to the record, whether he's singing in a faux booming voice on One More Of Me, or looping choral-style samples on Dark Light - which again uses a haunting intro, before segueing into a seemingly separate song and building beautifully on a simple bassline to hypnotise you through another 8 minute epic.
The relatively lavish production quality of Shadows Collide With People is still absent here and would have benefitted the record greatly, although production is certainly a step up from the more lo-fi home-studio vibe of many of the solo projects. Although, when you're a rock star living in the Hollywood hills, the home studio is not what it used to be. The vocals are sometimes often over-effected, where they would perhaps be more effective raw - but don't worry, there's plenty of room for another epic before the end and Central provides another soaring high point to the album, winding samples and booming keyboards through a heavily layered guitar track that builds and builds.
As a complete record, this is certainly a more focused release than Frusciante's six-albums-in-six-months period, as while each of those records yielded several gems, there was a certain sense of in-cohesiveness, which is clearly absent here. While Frusciante describes The Empyrean as a "concept album", he acknowledges that it may not come accross as narrative in that sense, but there is certainly a running theme within the songs, which all hold the same mood and tone - echoing feelings of loss, death and spirituality. The result is an outstanding, thoroughly involving and innovative album - which provides a sometimes challenging listen, with many rewards.
19th Jan 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
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Skate or die: Vans
While these days they might be synonymous with Hoxton hipsters, there was a time when you could walk up to anyone with the familiar Vans 'Off The Wall' logo on the back of their shoe and talk skateboarding. They would know where the local spots were and of course, the local skate shop.
Vans were always made in the USA and, as long as you were in the US, super cheap ($20 or so). Started in 1966 by the Van Doren brothers, the company had 70 stores in California by the 1970's, before hitting bankruptcy in the early 80's. As skateboarding re-emerged and became a more mainstream sport, the brand was revived by new investment and expanded, eventually being listed on the NASDAQ.
Through all this, they have always kept a pretty solid grip on their roots, financing the Warped tour and even backing the production of the excellent Dogtown and Z-boys documentary. Since 2007 production has totally moved to China and Vans even have a 'flagship' store on Carnaby Street - which perhaps (unfortunately) due to the more sweatshop-style manufacturing has managed to kept the prices low, with slip-ons still going for a very reasonable £30.
Vans also run a pretty successful skate team (see below) and while their more modern models do compete with Etnies and DC in the chunky-skate-shoe market, they have perhaps been more successful with their clothing lines - and of course, the iconic slip-on. Favourite of hipsters the world over.
16th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Erased From Existence
Not sure I even know anyone who even still uses it, but it looks like VHS is officially being given the last rights. The now unwatchable format put in a fairly healthy innings of around 30 years, but with the rise of DVD / Tivo / Internet it is no longer needed.
16th Jan 2009 - 5 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Donate!
Sub Pop honcho and former chimpomatic interviewee (read it here) Megan Jasper is doing a couple of Triathalons to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
You can sponsor her here or read more at www.subpop.com.
16th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Obama Is Out Of The Oval Office
Bush and Clinton both gave up email when they entered office, and initially it looked like Barackberry addict Obama would be doing the same. Security is the key risk, but one of the perks for government could be the lack of accountabilty. It now looks like Obama might be putting up a fight, but personally if I had the opportunity I'd drop it like a hot potato.
Update: looks like he's keeping that Blackberry after all....
15th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
McBus
Do you want to supersize that bus to a double decker? Bus crashes into McDonalds in Walthamstow.
Some great comments from the Walthamstow Guardian article:
"It's about time we had a drive through Micky D's in E17. I'm loving it!"
"The provisional wing of the KFC later denied all responsibility for the incident."
15th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Obamobile
When asked if it included such extras as an iPod dock, he said he could not comment specifically, but added that the limo would have "state of the art electronics".
The BBC has the low-down on the new Obamobile.
15th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Get A Piece Of Bret-E....
...every week.
With season two of Flight of the Conchords kicking off on HBO this Sunday, Billboard is reporting that the band will be releasing the song from each episode the day after the episode airs. That will be followed by a 15 track album once the season has concluded (10 episodes + 5 bonus tracks).
If that isn't good enough, our favourite label Sub Pop has a buy now / pay later deal -where you can pay up front, get the downloads as they are released and then the album will be delivered in April. Top marks all round.
15th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
R.I.P. Ricardo Montalban & Patrick McGoohan
Ricardo Montalbán, star of Fantasy Island and The Wrath of Kahn amongst others, has died - aged 88 - as has another cult TV star, Patrick "I am not a number" McGoohan at 80
15th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Mapple
Think different, suckers.
If you are a Mac fan, don't worry about the haters - just check out the genius new wheel book.
14th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Photocopy
If you can't wait for an updated version of iPhoto, Photocopy is a pretty tasty way of synchronizing your offline photo collection with Flickr. You select which albums you want to sync, then any changes made offline are automatically updated with your online sets.
14th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
The Future Is Neural
First moves are afoot to record human experience, and now Japanese scientists claim to be able to output images from human brain. Plug a pocket-sized projector into the back of your head and the future has arrived.
14th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
The Game Is Up
It's not just the screws who've had enough of Michael Schofield and his cohorts. Fox has called time on the radically over-run show. AICN have the story, via a Q&A with one of the Fox bigwigs.
14th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Palm Jacket
My Morning Jacket have resurfaced with an iTunes-only live (in the studio) EP - Live From Las Vegas At The Palms
Thankfully, it's looking relatively light on Evil Urges material mostly comprising of re-workings of back catalogue tracks.
13th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Ad Nauseum: Virgin Atlantic
Not sure if airlines were evr 'sexy', but Virgin claims to be putting sexy back into their brand, with this retro 80's ad. Funny to see Our Price Virgin Mega Zavvi Bunkruptcy recreated in the background.
Creative Review has the low-down.
13th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Tapas Y Tapas
Looking for some tasty Tapas in Spain? Let Tapas Y Tapas guide you.
13th Jan 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Space Crunch
With can't-do-no-wrong President Obama promising to solve the Middle East crisis and reverse the Credit Crunch during his first day in office, less press is being given to those projects losing out - one of which might be the proposed manned space-flight project of Ares 1 and Orion.
Luckily the private sector of Space Travel is booming, with Space-X's Falcon 9 being wheeled into position at the Cape.
12th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Get Papped!
Tired of the same old profile picture? Why not draft in a paparazzi like Izaz Rony to get those unique off-the-cuff pictures? Wired has the full story.
12th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
What A Piece Of Junk!
She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts.
9th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Cool Kid / Cool Dad
Son of Wilco Spencer Tweedy has a remarkably engaging blog and twitter feed, offering his thoughts from the road as he travels with his Dad.
7th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Picassa Beater
So, no Mac Mini from Macworld, but a new 17" Macbook Pro arrived, as well as the DRM-free iTunes and a new version of iLife. The highlight of that has to be iPhoto, with a handful of Picassa-beating features, including Google Maps integration and easy syncing with Flickr and Facebook.
Incidentally, you can head over to iTunes and upgrade any DRM-locked tracks you might have for 20p per track.
7th Jan 2009 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
R.I.P. Ron Asheton
The Stooges reunion is over, as sadly guitarist Ron Asheton has been found dead at home, with a suspected heart attack to blame.
A Punk Legend. R.I.P.
We've caught him live several times, pre Stooges reunion. Check out how cooly he handles Bobby Gillespie's outburst here.
6th Jan 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Promo Promo: TVOTR Dancing Choose
Promo up for TV On The Radio's forthcoming single Dancing Choose.
6th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Picassa for Mac
While iPhoto offers a pretty nifty set of features, there's something to be said for the speed and ease-of-use of Google's Picassa photo-management software, which is now available for Macs.
It also integrates nicely with some of friendly-Monopoly Google's other services, such as Web Albums and Blogger.
6th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Macworld
Big boss Steve Jobs may be out for at least this year's event, but the Macworld expo soldiers on - with the big keynote today (9am Pacific time) being addressed by #2 Phil Schiller. Likely announcements include a more media centre friendly Mac Mini, and DRM free iTunes with a more varied pricing structure. A 17" Macbook Pro also seems certain.
Less likely announcements include a mini iPhone, and a netbook Mac - but you never know.
(there's also this revolutionary keyboard-free MacWheel)
6th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Prepare For Take Off
I wouldn't exactly describe it as a tidal wave, but the HBO PR machine is revving up nicely for the new season of Flight of the Conchords, which starts on HBO on Jan 16th. You can of course watch the first episode now, over at Funny or Die, HBO and YouTube, but if you're strong enough to avoid those mini-outlets you can tide yourself over with a load of downloads from Murray's Street Team, karaoke some of the songs over at Lip Dub Video Fansterpiece, join the Facebook group or get sucked into the fan club at Mel's Blog.
2nd Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Best Of 2008
CSF
It's been a pretty good year for music according to my ears, and I've struggled to prioritise my top 5. The fifth place provided the most struggle and I narrowed it down to two albums I've overplayed and am currently on hiatus from - TV On The Radio and Vampire Weekend. I suspect they will both remain firm favourites, but song for song I'm going to have to bump Vampire Weekend into 6th place. Other notable mentions go to No Age (fuzzed up easy listening), Silver Jews (these guys finally clicked for me), Tapes and Tapes (an uncut diamond marred by shoddy production), Tindersticks (a comeback I would have betted against), The Wedding Present (it's all fours) and White Denim (lo-fi grandeur).
5. TV On The Radio - Dear, Science
Building on all the promise of their previous records, this one delivered a pretty flawless set of songs, all building of each other and rising to a great finale.
4. Ladyhawk - Shots
"Ladyhawke is in the toilet, she'll be here in a minute" joked band leader Duffy Driediger, as the original Ladyhawk launched into an awesome show at the Borderline - cementing beer-swilling, hard-rocking second-album Shots into a place in my list. No frills rock, with a lot of personality.
3. Flight of the Conchords - Flight of the Conchords
On paper, this record had to stink. Who wants to listen to the same gags over and over again? In reality, every song provides a remarkable understanding of music history, picking just the right sounds to serve the story - with so many jokes you hear a new one every time. Never, ever fails to light up Chimp HQ on a dreary day.
2. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Another one that may have been temporarily overplayed, but this 70's throwback has been a pretty remarkable debut. Almost slipping unnoticed when it arrived in the office, it has been a solid player all year and I can't help but feel like it's greatness will soon be overshadowed by an even better follow-up. Unless they crack under the pressure.
1. Black Mountain - In The Future
Since it arrived on my desk in December 2007, In The Future has held the top spot for the year - and it still shows no sign of slipping. After a debut and a few side projects that paved the way, this was somehow exactly the record I expected and it never fails to impress me. Every note, every riff, every drum fill is just when and where I want it.
Some musical clangers for 2008: MMJ - Evil Urges (so disappointing), Weezer - Red Album, Breeders - Mountain Battles (only a semi-clanger), Kings of Leon - Only By The Night.
Best Songs: Portishead - The Rip, Port O'Brien - Close The Lid, Catfish Haven - Set In Stone, Fleet Foxes - Your Protector (for keeping BW running, if nothing else).
Best Gigs: Black Mountain rocked hard (again) at The Scala, Davin Berman's Silver Jews thoroughly proved their worth at ULU, Ladyhawk + The Dudes led the Canadian invasion at The Borderline, Oxford Collapse went under-appreciated at The Windmill and Jim James brightly shone a small light for the future of MMJ.
Live Clangers: Ween were truly disappointing.
Best Movies: In Bruges was a must-see despite an awful trailer, Iron Man andThe Dark Knight proved pretty solid superhero action, while This Is England and Dead Man's Shoes proved to be overlooked gems. Perhaps the biggest shock was the fact that the Sex And The City movie didn't totally suck - and in fact addressed the TV shows many shortcomings to make for a great movie.
Movie Clangers: Indiana Jones was as forgettable as you hoped it wouldn't be, while Somerstown didn't follow it's siblings in quality. There Will Be Blood did follow it's predecessors, with style over substance.
TV: The Wire came to a fantastic finale, Entourage continued to provide lifestyle envy, Breaking Bad took an original direction, Mad Men provided some slow-burning drama, while Summer Heights High provided some simple laughs. Undeclared and Freaks & Geeks finally caught my attention this year, wishing I'd caught both much earlier.
TV Clangers: Heroes just gets more and more contrived.
As a final note, headline of the year goes to chimpovich, regarding Men Called Him Mister's support slot for Foals in Madrid: "Band of Small Horses"
31st Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Read more 5 star reviewsMPFreeze
While you're waiting for the Queen's speech on Christmas Day, head over to Amazon for £3 worth of MP3's from their newly launched store. That will snag you one of several albums, including a couple that made this year's chimp top 5's. Enter code FREEMP3S at the checkout.
23rd Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Super Surf
We've mentioned Pulitzer-winning photographer Vincent LaForet before on Chimpomatic, for his video short to promote the High Definition video capabilities of the new Canon 5D Mark II stills camera (get it here). That promo got him a ton of interest, and the owners of Smug Mug have generously funded his next project, which will be a surf movie with Jamie O'Brien, shooting out at the world famous pipeline wave.
There's an area-man approved element to the project too - as they will be shooting the film on a handful of the 5D cameras, as well as an adapted Red One.
22nd Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Skate or die: Jason Lee
Quite possibly the world's most well-recognised skateboarder, Jason Lee is now far better known as that cheeky chap actor from My Name Is Earl - but as a teenage skater he was known to me as that young dude with big lambchops.
Riding with Gonz for Blind in 1991, Jason Lee was the co-star of the mega-influential skate movie Video Dayz, directed by Spike Jonze (see above). He pioneered a lot of street skating moves, and was well known for big ollies and kickflips. As his acting career took off, insurance issues put an end to Lee's skateboarding career and he was forced to hang up his trucks.
I strangely recall the moment I read about him landing an acting job in a film by that Clerks guy, with that girl from 90210. Mallrats was a so-so affair, but Jason Lee's Banky character easily stole the show. Another amusingly obnoxious role in Chasing Amy sealed the deal and Hollywood came calling. Parts in the likes of Enemy of the State, Almost Famous, Vanilla Sky and Alvin and the Chipmunks followed and IMDB reports that he netted a cool $3M for the overlooked movie A Guy Thing.
No grumbling from me however, as Lee must now have enough clout to sidestep the insurance issue and has re-invested in skating - and re-started his once defunkt label Stereo with business partner Chris Pastras. Great artwork, great photography, great attitude.
And Earl? Great moustache.
Bonus Fact: Don't get cornered at a party, he's a Scientologist. So is Earl's brother, Randy.
Double bonus fact: Jason Lee's son is called Pilot Inspektor Riesgraf-Lee. Ouch.
Final bonus fact: He made a cameo as Kevin Bacon in the Yacht Rock episode Footloose.
Music Fact: The song from his part in Video Days was so in demand that it was released as a single, titled Jason's Song.
Photo by Atiba Jefferson. I urge you to visit his website.
19th Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
iMacPlayer
The BBC have released a Mac version of the awesome iPlayer, so you can now download higher-quality versions of the week's shows - in addition to the already excellent web-based version.
19th Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Bigger and Best
Forget the chimp top 5 charts, and head over to The Big Picture for their 3 part run-down of the year's best photographs.
UPDATE: Part 2 here, Part 3 here.
18th Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Note to self
Head on over to Funny or Die to watch the Flight of the Conchords Season 2 premier ....but the bad news is it's suitable for US based chimps only for now.
17th Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
Get Lost
Lost is back for season 5 on Jan 21, and it looks like Jack and Ben are roomies....
16th Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet
X-factor Side Effects
Looks like X-factor winner Alexandra's Hallelujah cover has had some positive side-effects, with Leonard Cohen and Jeff Buckley taking numbers 24 and 25 in the Amazon MP3 top selling artists list....
Bonus fact: her mum was in Soul II Soul
16th Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet