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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
Dumpster Swimming Pool
I guess in England, we'd use a skip for this.
Update: Oops. Too late.
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
The Best Title Sequences Of All Time
Nice run down on 30 of the best title sequences of all time over at Creative Review. Not sure all my favourites are in there, but it's a pretty thorough list.
We all wet our pants at film school when the Se7en titles first rolled out. Stan Brakhage goes mainstream.
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
Light Test
Nice collection of pre-shoot camera tests up at Light Test. Rather than leaving these tests in the bin, assistants and photographers are making something of them and giving them a life of their own.
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
Nest Wrecker!
San Francisco Zoo's gay penguin couple have had their lives turned upside down recently, with Harry leaving his manpenguin-friend partner of 6 years - Pepper - and moving in with recently-widowed Linda. Sky news has the story.
22nd Jul 2009 - 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
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
5 Bike Apps
People are coming up with all sort of ingenious uses for the iPhone - typically as a means of replacing some other piece of hardware. WIRED has a round up of 5 bike-tech replacement apps.
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
Houston, We Have A Problem
Some bad news from the Beastie Boys... Best wishes to Adam Yauch.
20th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
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
Attack of the Clones
South Korea has deployed cloned sniffer dogs at it's main border points. Woof.
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
Death By Twitter
Looks like Twitter is not all mindless. Time magazine are claiming it is responsible for the huge drop in box office from Friday > Saturday for hilarious new comedy Bruno.
17th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Seinfeld Map
It may have been filmed mostly in LA, but Sony have still managed to put together a Google Map of Seinfeld 'locations'.
17th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
We'll Always Have Casablancas
Still no word on a fourth Strokes album, but lead singer Julian Casblancas is bridging the (possibly endless) gap with a solo record. Phrazes For The Young will arrive this autumn on Rough Trade, and you can hear a preview right now - over at julaincasablancas.com
16th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
MCFC.co.uk
They may not be top of the football league, but Manchester City are streets ahead in the website league - with a new site developed by Poke. Creative Review has more info.
16th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Promo Promo: Death Cab For Cutie
Interesting story from Atlantic Records regarding the new Death Cab For Cutie promo for - Little Bribes.
The film was put together as a time-lapse showreel piece for film maker Ross Ching, who included a 'looking for work' note on his Vimeo page. Death Cab saw the video and liked it so much they decoded to use it as their official promo.
15th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
V-boot Trailer
Coming to a low-rent channel near you, the no doubt soon-to-be-cancelled reboot of 80s Sci-Fi 'classic' V.
Julliet from Lost takes one for the team.
15th Jul 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Shoot 'Em Up
(dir. Michael Davis)
New Line
The clue is in the title here, in fact most of the script is even in the title. Lone gunman Clive Owen attempts to save a baby from a well-armed arms dealer, as a series of set-pieces run one after another - seemingly contrived around the simplest of premises. Scene 2: gun drops in toilet before hand dryer heats bullets just in time to shoot bad guy. Scene 14: bad guys interrupt Clive getting jiggy, so he keeps at it by multi-tasking. Monica Belluci also stars - dressed down as a lactating wet-nurse hooker. Don't ask.
The plot is thinner than a video game and the action even more pointless. Characters can be a crack shot one minute then run through a hail of bullets unscathed the next. With Paul Giametti hamming it up more than Groucho Marx, and Clive Owen doing little to overcome his one-dimensional reputation, the action is all that's left to sell this film and unfortunately that's not exactly deftly handled.
While John Woo or Xiang Zimou might use too much balletic slow motion, there's at least some thought behind it all - where as this is just a blurry mess. Like a Van Damme movie without 'plot' and Clive Owen in the driving seat, 'Michael' Owen could have done a better job saving this turkey.
Soundtracked like an installment of Guitar Hero, the likes of Wolfmother, Motorhead and Nirvana make up the never-ending stream of rock music (the baby loves it apparently), which attempts to smooth out the faux emotion and misogynistic, sexist, shocking, dull, cartoon violence.
15th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Read more 1.5 star reviews
BNP = Bad Graphics
Charlie Brooker asks why the BNP cant get themselves a decent graphic designer.
14th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Instapaper
Click read later, and website articles can be added to your Instapaper account, then compiled for iPhone reading at a later date.
14th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Cinemash
Cheech & Chong do Tron? 500 Days of Summer vs Nancy & Sid? Cinemash tries them all.
14th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Blast Radius
Think we already covered this way back when, but there's now an updated blast radius calculator available - to let you work out just how vapourised you would be in the event of a nuclear attack. Lucky for us, the bad guys are only suspected of packing low-kiloton weapons at the moment.
14th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Real Megabots
Gizmodo has some data on the mega-robots that have been surfacing in Japan recently here and here.
14th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Hitchcock App
The forthcoming iPhone App Hitchcock sounds like it could be fun and even useful, allowing for easy storyboarding of your potential film projects.
13th Jul 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Promo Promo: Jonathan Glazer vs the Dead Weather
Promo legend Jonathan Glazer has been back in action, with a new promo for the Dead Weather's single Treat Me Like Your Mother.
More info at Creative Review.
13th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Flashy Handbag
Love this anti-paparazzi handbag, which has a slave flash inside and a glittering facade. Any pap flash guns cause the bag to instantly respond, ruining any potentially embarrassing photos.
13th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Solved: Crop Circles
One of life's mysteries seems to have been solved - in Australia at least. Turns out Wallabies like nothing more than smoking a bowl and then heading out to make some crop circles.
13th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Trailer Park: Art and Copy
Trailer up for Art & Copy, a new documentary about the advertising industry from Doug Pray.
#CSF
#AdNauseum
#Film
#TrailerPark
13th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Trailer Park: District 9
Some lazy posting this week. Here's another trailer - for Neil Bloomkamp's V-esque sci-fi movie District 9, out this summer.
10th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Beastie Boys Cruiser
Fun, if slightly pointless tie-in from the Beastie Boys: cruise the earth in your own Sabotage style cop car. It's hilariously inept, and all gets a bit Repo Man when you hit a hill and take off.
10th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Extended Johnson
Antony & The Johnsons have a new double-A side out - featuring Aeon and a cover of Crazy In Love, which is sure to become a downbeat party favourite.
‘Aeon’ is one of the glowing highlights taken from the hugely acclaimed album The Crying Light which debuted at #1 on the European chart. The band recently appeared on Jonathan Ross and The Late Show with David Letterman in the US. Antony and the Johnsons’ audacious and impassioned cover of Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love”, a long time live favourite, is being released officially for the first time.
10th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Sunset Rubdown On Tour
I was going to make some lewd innuendo about getting a Rubdown in Europe or something, but with this supplied press shot it's just too easy.
Sunset Rubdown play the following venues in support of their excellent Dragonslayer.
September 10 Glasgow, Stereo 7.30pm, £9 adv
September 11 Belfast, Spring And Airbrake 9pm, £12.25 adv
September 12 Dublin, Crawdaddy 8pm, €14 adv
September 13 Leeds, Brudenell Social Club 7pm, £9 adv
September 14 Manchester, The Deaf Institute 7.30pm, £9 adv
September 15 London, Garage 7pm, £10 adv
September 16 Cardiff, The Globe 8pm, £9 adv
10th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Prepare The White House Couch (Updated!)
Obama and Sarkozy both snapped sneaking a peak at the G8 summit.
Update: Gawker now has a frame-by frame analysis. Obama looks like he might be in the clear. Sarkozy, less so.
10th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Deerhunter
Rainwater Cassette Exchange
Not soon after I sunk my teeth into the promo of Deerhunters recent Microcastle, bonus disc Weird Era Cont. turned up, so it's no surprise given the generosity of this band that we should be treated to this little EP so soon after those last two.
Very little from this band could be described as 'non-essential', their records are so meticulously conceived that you doubt that there was a surplus heap of discarded songs waiting in the wings and this 5 track EP is no exception. With a format like this there really isn't time for Bradford Cox's usual atmospheric experimentations so every song here has the brisk trot that I have come to love about Deerhunter's music. The title track introduces the record gently but soon evolves into a narcotic rhythm that leads us seductively into Disappearing Ink, which would stand it's ground admirably on Microcastle. With a driving guitar structure that keeps its eyes set firmly on the middle distance and pounds its way there, all the time being accompanied by Cox's effect laden vocals. Game Of Diamonds plays out like a 50's high school prom slow jam and sees some beautifully delicate melodies being coaxed gently out of their shell.
Although none of these songs quite match the power and might of songs like Nothing Ever Happened - Microcastle's finest moment - collectively they display this bands versatility, and for that reason it is a worthy small step in this bands progression.
10th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Read more 3 star reviewsTrailer Park: Funny People
'Dirty version' trailer up for Judd Apatow's new movie Funny People, about hit comedian Adam Sandler hiring Seth Rogan to write his jokes. Looks good - and could provide some redemption for Eric Bana.
You have to type your age into the teeny-tiny boxes to make it play.
9th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Iller Communication
The Beastie Boys re-release-a-thon continues. Ill Communication is now available, with 12 bonus tracks and rarities....
8th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet
Promo Promo: Chairlift
Nicely shot promo up for the iPod-soundtrack-track Bruises, by Chairlift - which is getting a post-ad re-release.
Nice to see people still putting effort and money into promos.
6th Jul 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet