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Monsters of Folk Folks On Tour
The Monsters of Folk (AKA Jim James, Bright Eyes & M. Ward) are heading out on tour to support their forthcoming album - and that will include European dates. Tickets on sale July 27th.
2009 Europe
11-12 Stockholm, Philadelphia Church
11-14 Berlin, Huxleys Neue Welt
11-15 Copenhagen, Vega
11-17 London, Troxy
11-18 Paris, Elysee Montmartre
11-19 Koln, E-Werk
11-21 The Hague, Crossing Border
11-22 Antwerp, Crossing Border
24th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Japan's Smart Phones
why isn't anyone else into Japan's smart phones?
24th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Promo Promo: Coldplay
Lovely, ingenious video up for Coldplay's new track Strawberry Swing, directed by animating legends Shynola.
Trailer below, but you can see the whole video over at Babelgum.
23rd Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Data Overload
Interesting article up at Wired about tracking and documenting every facet of your life - a situation I'm sure countless people have found themselves in recently with the barrage of easy-to-use web apps.
I've been trying to cut back and streamline my own activities for many of the same reasons.
23rd Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Making Of
A lot of celebs seem to be investing online these days. Natalie Portman is one of the creators of film website Making Of - with behind-the-scenes film community type stuff to help and inspire potential film makers.
23rd Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
De-spotify
Microsoft look set to launch their own competitor to Spotify, with the focus seeming to be to draw attention to their iPod rival, Zune.
With Spotify itself not actually operating in the US, there's certainly room for something like this - although if Apple flipped the switch to allow full stream playback in iTunes they'd be in a pretty superior position themselves.
More info at the Telegraph.
23rd Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
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Dude 2.0
The Dude himself made a satellite appearance at the latest Lebowskifest, reporting live from the set of the Tron sequel.
I attended Lebowski Fest here in Seattle last night and it was great, man. The Dude made a special "satellite appearance", apologizing for not making it since he's up in Canada doing that whole Tron revival thing. I didn't watch my friends die face down in the muck to let this picture go unviewed, so I present it to you.
Calmer than you are,
Walter Sobchak
AICN has the full details.
22nd Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Trailer Park: Despicable Me
New cartoon w Steve Carrell, Russell Brand and Jemaine Clement on voice duties.
22nd Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Feed The Monster
Web 2.0 has really been picking up speed recently, and with Twitter seeming to catch up with Facebook in terms of mass popularity, let's have a look what else is out there.
Tumblr is somewhere between Twitter and a full blown blog, and in terms of customization it's pretty nifty. You can totally customise the code, and pull in data from other sources (e.g. our main content feed). Their business plan seems to involve ads on the home page, which like Twitter is made up of posts by other people you are following (e.g. Look At This Fucking Hipster). Check out ours and follow us here.
That following aspect is the big selling point for us, as a way of dragging new readers onto the mothership (www.chimpomatic.com), as well as adding some bonus data on the move, as Tumblr and Twitter are very iPhone friendly. In order to keep all our feeds and so on alive, we're using Twitterfeed, which can pull RSS content from any source and auto-Twitter it for you - hence our always up to date Twitter feed. That Twitter feed is then handy to post everything to your Facebook page.
Yahoo's Fire Eagle and Google's Latitude are likely to take off next, allowing you to easily update your location for selected people to find you. While there's something of a privacy issue, I don't think too many people will really care - or will select exactly who they wish to share that data with. Several location based social-networking services are already using the Fire Eagle service - for example Dopplr (there's that dumb spelling again), which is a travel based info-sharing service. Haven't quite got my head around that one yet, but will keep you updated...
22nd Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Freaky Details
Track listing and details up at Sub Pop for the Flight of the Conchords' second album - I Told You I Was Freaky.
Sugalumps, You Don't Have To Be A Prostitute, Demon Woman, Too Many Dicks on the Dancefloor - they're all in there.
The bad news is it won't be arriving until October 20th...
22nd Jul 2009 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Augmented Reality
'Augmented Reality' is one of the buzz words of the moment, with location aware hardware and applications allowing you to add layers of data over a real-world interface. Check out this demo, where a GPS and Compass enabled iPhone can tell where you are and which way you are facing, before overlaying data and directions to nearby Tube stations. The App promises to be launched when iPhone OS 3.1 launches.
More data on Wikipedia.
22nd Jul 2009 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
New Lou
Lou Barlow has a new solo record - Goodbye Unknown - out in October, and will be supporting Dinosaur Jr on their forthcoming tour - backed up by Mike Watt's 'Missingmen', minus the Minuteman himself. Sign up at Domino (or below) to hear the track Gravitate.
21st Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Fact: the man in charge for the Apollo 11 landing was 36. Average age of the NASA team was 26.
21st Jul 2009
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Moviedrome
Caught myself reminiscing with someone recently about Alex Cox's excellent Moviedrome series from the late 80's / early 90's, where Cox would introduce a (usually rare) film, followed by a screening.
The Last Picture Show, Coogan's Bluff, Rumblefish, Rope / 84 Charlie Mopic (double bill!) and THX1138 were among some of the more main-stream US movies, while more obscure screenings like Weekend, The Spider's Stratagem (outstanding), Q The Winged Serpant, Vamp and Yojimbo provided otherwise unseen screenings.
It's hard to believe there was ever a time when you couldn't watch anything you want whenever you want to, never mind even further back (pre-VHS), when film makers like Coppola and Scorcese would have pulled all their knowledge from actual cinema screenings.
Check out an archive listing of what was screened here, and a list of DVD-available titles over at Lovefilm.
Alex Cox is also on YouTube. And I heard rumours of a Repo Man sequel, entitle Repo Chick.
21st Jul 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Please, Please, Please Let Me Zooey What She Wants
Zooey Deschanel and Monster Of Folk dude M Ward cover Please, Please, Please on new indie kookcom 500 Days Of Summer.
21st Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Where The Eagle Landed
Just in time for the 40th Anniversary of the moon landing, NASA has released some images from the Lunar Reconnaissence Orbiter, which is mapping the moon.
The images show various landing sites from the Apollo landing - and you can even see the footprint trails between the lander and instruments test site in some.
21st Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
MJ 2000
twitpic has thrown up this projection from Ebony magazine in 1985 predicting what Michael Jackson might look like at 40, in the year 2000
21st Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
So, Tranquility Base was real after all. Nasa has released recent photos: http://bit.ly/t9u5t
20th Jul 2009
Read on TwitterSlept in the world's biggest bed on Saturday. http://bit.ly/Ik67v
20th Jul 2009
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Ad Nauseum: Samsung Jet
You might have seen this lovely new ad for Samsung's new Jet mobile. I have no doubt that it's being pitched as an iPhone killer, but the ad's nice at least.
Ad up top, making of below. Some boring details here.
20th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Man In The Mixtape
Epic Michael Jackson mixtape up over at dnbeentertainment.com
20th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Oneida
Rated O
Jagjaguwar
With a running time of just under two hours Oneida's new triple-album Rated O is not going to be an experience for the faint-hearted, but much-like it's predecessor (Preteen Weaponry - review here) it's a long ride worth strapping in for. Certainly before you wade into this sonic battlefront, you'll want to make sure you're well prepared - most likely with cups of tea and a bong. Let me set the scene: Oneida are big on repetition, they're into bit-crunching and distortion, electronics and real instruments, overt noise and subtle change. Voices are sometimes a sound source rather than a means for conveying lyrics - and musically, there's an unresolved tension running through the whole album.
You might not get much out of this release by just dipping into it or letting shuffle throw you a sonic morsel - but if you're prepared to strap in for the full 110 minutes the experience becomes something more akin to a performance. The first disc is right at home alongside Preteen Weaponry, with a great deal of droning and looping and very much an electronic feel, then at disc two we take a sharp turn and Oneida play a set of songs which are surprisingly straight and structured in nature - this took me by surprise, and put the long psychedelic workouts into a different context. The songs put me in mind of Clinic - rich in ideas, riffs, arrangements, but with that post-dance inclusion of textured noise. Also not a million miles away from Can in spirit and, at times, sound.
The third part of the album has another distinctive feel to it - an altogether less aggressive attitude towards the long improvisations, a chill-out cousin of disc one, culminating in the 20 minute Folk Wisdom which gradually works the energy back up towards the feel of the opening disc.
With this release, Oneida can officially count me as a fan. I like this band because they are serious about what they do. There is a lot of jamming but they are not just fucking around. Years ago when Spiritualized were being mercilessly hyped as the second coming of psychedlia, I really hoped they were going to sound like this instead of the fey gauchos they tuned out to be.
20th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Read more 4 star reviewsJust informed BW that The Pirate Bay is not 'a nice little guest house'.
19th Jul 2009
Read on Twitter@chasejarvis The new Lightning Dust record is shaping up to be an album of the year. Review of album #1 here: http://bit.ly/xeaYe
19th Jul 2009
Read on Twitter#Spotted: Duckie from Pretty In Pink as Lex Luthors nephew in Superman IV. Also spotted, The Tube standing in badly for the Metropolis metro.
18th Jul 2009
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