England

I’m heading off for England in a week. I don’t really know what to expect, the last time I was there it wasn’t such a big thing for me, I was young. But now my favorite bands are all from across the pond, from punk to britpop to even the ineptly named nu-rave.

Which brings me to a conversation I just recently had: what in the world will the 2000s be remembered for? There’s such a definitive line between the decades, but what of my generation? I hope to god it won’t be remembered for emo, which although significant due to its popularity, is a pathetic attempt to reach out to those who have long lost grunge but want the goth aesthetic. I mean look at them! Tell me they weren’t in it for the money rather than the music. Seriously.

Then again, there is “indie” rock. Although, in this age of MySpace and iPods, and where almost every music loving home owns a computer, why is it that people are accepting the same generic drivel from this tired, worn-out “genre”? Why can’t there be that one guy in his bathroom creating a unique masterpiece that actually gets recognized for it? That, would be indie.

These days, especially in England, people seem to be yearning for that ideal, so much that they just accept a tired Oasis clone as the best thing to happen since… well… Oasis, simply because they represent all things indie, which is principally their rise to fame due only to word of mouth on the internet. I speak of none other than the Arctic Monkeys. “SHUT UP! Enough already, Ballstein! Who cares about Derek Zoolander anyway? The man has only one look, for Christ’s sake! Blue Steel? Ferrari? Le Tigra? They’re the same face! Doesn’t anybody notice this? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!” Just the way I feel about these cookie cutter indie bands. Does no one seem to recognize that it’s the same thing over and over again?

By the way, if anyone gets the chance, see This Is England, an amazing movie about skinheads in the 80’s. It’s a heavy one, but what an incredible portrait of the nationalism and racism during the Thatcher years partly brought about by the war in the Falkand Islands.

Concerning England, I really have no idea what I should think about going there. I remember a day when Japan was my country of worship, but I feel as if my bonds with Japan were weaker than what I feel for England. Music is now my life, and music from England has been consistently my favorite, going all the way back to the Kinks and the Beatles and up to Blur and Radiohead.

I guess leaving many of my best friends has also had a bit of an effect on me… It’s tough to think I’ll be seeing so little of the people who are closest to me in my life. But I have to accept it. I have to know that it isn’t the end of the world, and I will see them again, as hard as it is for my deluded mind to believe.

Catching up

Hot Fuzz was seen some time ago, however, due to unforeseen circumstances, mostly due to just being away from the computer most of the time, I had no chance to write on it.

Well, it was amazing. Hot Fuzz beat the hell out of Shaun of the Dead not because it was an amazing spoof, but because it was a true action film with well placed humor poking fun at the action genre as a whole. Definitely a must see for anyone who loved Shaun of the Dead.

Then came Chalk, the little indie movie that could. It had been traveling around the festival circuit for some time and only a few weeks ago did it finally premiere in West LA’s Nuart of all places. The director, producer, and one of the actors from the movie was there to field some questions and discuss the movie afterwards.

(This, by the way, was the first time I’d been in the Nuart Theater since it had been remodeled however long ago, and they did it perfectly; no more cramped, uncomfortable seats without any leg room!)

Chalk is a mockumentary revolving around three teachers and one assistant principal in an Austin, Texas high school. Rather than being about the students though, it’s from the teacher’s perspectives. But the main story focuses on the 1st year teacher Mr. Lowrey, a bumbling, nervous wreck who can hardly control his students. Then there’s Mr. Stroope, whose only goal this year is to win the Teacher of the Year award. Scenes such as the slang spelling bee and the Teacher of the Year speeches are comedic gold. The truly amazing part of this movie, however, is that I have teachers who’ll act exactly like the ones in the movie. I’ve never seen a teacher portrayed in such a true-to-life manner such as this.

Last Monday I saw Severance, a horror comedy not unlike Shaun of the Dead, but instead of zombies, there were some real dangerous fellows creeping around the woods seeking revenge. This movie was more of a true horror film with some comedy splashed in rather than a lampoon of sorts, and, even though the plot is rather thin, there are some real comedy as well as genuinely horrific gems all throughout. Personally, I’ve been desensitized to blood and knives and flame-throwers, but by the look on my friend’s faces during the movie, it may have been a bit more creepy than I make it seem. All in all, it was a fun movie; nothing special, but if the mood strikes for some awesome horror with some hilarious drug references, this is the movie to see.

On the music side, I saw the duo Crystal Castles from Montreal last Saturday (I’m this guy in the grey and blue hoodie), infamous for their fast, loud, strobe-lighted shows, including one at SXSW. A hooded boy keyboardist Ethen and screaming girl vocalist Alice, as well as a real drummer rather than the drum machine used on their recorded EP Alice Practice, this duo (trio when live, I guess) proved to be well worth seeing. The show only lasted about 30 minutes, but they couldn’t have made the crowd go more wild to the 8-bit bleeps and dancable drum beats.

On Tuesday I went to see The Arcade Fire at the Greek Theater, which was the place to be if you were into Canadian indie (iTunes link), because this was the big one. In fact, AF’s first album, Funeral, was the first indie album I’d ever bought (besides the My Iron Lung EP by the we-fight-to-be-indie band Radiohead). The show was astounding, I couldn’t believe how precisely and tightly they played; everything was orchestrated so absolutely perfectly. For any other band, playing like this would be commonplace, but for a 10-piece band with that many varying instruments? These guys were something else. One song noted for its incredible presentation was My Body Is a Cage, in which the lead singer’s face was projected onto the head of a cardboard cutout much like the little man on restroom signs. Very cool.

That’s it for now, next show is tomorrow which will be Deerhoof and Autolux at the Natural History Museum.

Shameless Plug

Never Mind the Bats has rekindled my love affair with the writing medium typically known as the weblog, or more colloquially known simply as a “blog.” So from here on out, you better get ready for some cogency, and more importantly, coherence, in my writing. That is… as soon as I see Hot Fuzz on Friday.

The Host

A Korean movie with 92% on Rotten Tomatoes going mainstream in U.S. theaters? Comedy/horror monster flick? Crossover between Little Miss Sunshine (also 92%) and Godzilla? I had to give in, it looked too good to be true.

Lucky for me I was dead wrong.

This movie was absolutely amazing with just the right amount of humor while still being serious at times. The monster, a mutated fish formed from mass amounts of formaldehyde being dumped into the local river by way of the doctor’s sink, was rendered with amazing detail and ultimate creepiness without being too over-the-top insane. The cinematography is incredible; the way suspense is built in the monster scenes is brilliant, like no other movie I’ve seen. Imagine this house-size fish thing staring a girl it put in its lair down for a full minute of breath-taking edginess before attacking her with incredible ferociousness.

Deerhoof, Spinto Band

Listening to Deerhoof at certain times with certain people in certain places can be completely surreal. I felt like I was in a Dali painting.

The Art Brut/We Are Scientists show this saturday night is going to have the Spinto Band opening for them. Is it strange that I’m beginning to like the opener more than the headliners? Not that I don’t love Art Brut or We Are Scientists, but I just can’t get enough of the Spinto Band. Go out and listen to some of their CD, Nice and Nicely Done, they might just be your new favorite band.

I’ve also come up with a few designs for the LP Club. Check ‘em out.

LP Club, Moo, TVotR

I am now the founder and president of the LP Club at my school, Palisades Charter High School, a club which has the sole purpose of vinyl appreciation. Expect links in the near future.

Moo is awesome. 10 free business cards made out of your Flickr pictures if you’re a pro user (which I am). How can that possibly be beat? They’re still in the process of being printed at the time of this post.

TV on the Radio on Friday at Amoeba. TV on the Radio on Sunday at the Hollywood Bowl.

Style

I love how Tyrone Biggums‘ fashion has gone into style.

Case in point: Urban Outfitters on 3rd Street, downstairs.

Not that I have anything against UO, I just happen to be a bit biased towards the independent companies (American Apparel for shirts, Threadless and Oddica for designs).

Oink.me.uk

I am now part of the elite class of… oinkers? Oink.me.uk is a crazy exclusive bittorrent community. Luckily I found some very nice people to invite me in. Can you imagine downloading that new album you can’t find anywhere else on the net 2 weeks before it comes out? How about downloading it in less than 2 minutes? Now you may see the advantages of a community like this.

There has to be a catch though, right?

Of course there is, but it’s simply common courtesy as bittorrent goes, meaning you must have a fair share ratio (meaning you upload at least half as much as you download). But I haven’t found it to be an issue yet.

Damn. Life is sweet…

Update: Please don’t ask for invites, I only recieve them once I become a power user (upload 10 GB, be a member for 2 weeks, and keep a ratio of at least 1.05). I’ll announce when I become a power user on this blog, and I’ll be happy to invite people as long as they send me some kind of proof that they won’t cheat and that they’ll maintain a good ratio.

Movies, iTunes, iPod

Movies to see:
Science of Sleep
Idiocracy

The recent update to Apple’s iTunes is a huge improvement, despite the occasional bugs, especially on the iPod front. It not only is much more visually rich and attractive, but the syncing is significantly easier to use, not to mention intuitive.

I don’t know about the rest of the population, but a 60 GB iPod simply is not sufficient for an 86.68 GB song collection, and this has been very limiting. I use to manually manage my songs and videos, which was a huge pain if anyone’s ever tried it. Essentially, it entailed dragging every single file I wanted to be on the iPod from the Library to the iPod Library. It worked fine for a while, but then it started to become annoying when I wanted to change the tags for some of the songs or videos, and noticed that, since the computer and iPod don’t sync, I’d have to do the same change twice, once on the computer and once on the iPod. An incredible waste of time to say the least.

However, I recently had an epiphany. I realized that if I put all the music and video I wanted on my iPod into a playlist on my computer, I could have iTunes simply sync that playlist every time I connected. This meant that I could make sure everything was up to date (tags, play count syncing, etc.) on both my iPod and computer. Not only that but now if I want to add a new CD to my iPod all I have to do is drag it to the “Master” playlist, and the next time I hook up my iPod, it’ll be synced automatically.

Now I know this may seem like a very obvious solution, but if I can help just one more troubled soul out there, I could go to sleep proud that I made a difference in the world, albeit a very superficial one.

On games and movies for the iPod:

I’ve just bought Vortex on the iTunes Music Store (they finally dropped the ‘Music’ after about a year of offering TV shows in addition to songs) after adoring Zuma while bored on the bus. Both of these are games designed specifically for use on only the iPod 5th generation (i.e. video enabled), and they are gorgeous. The graphics are great, the gameplay is fantastic, and the fact that you can save your progress was a stroke of genius on the designer’s part. So if you have a video iPod, consider shelling out the $4.99 for Vortex or Zuma (the only ones I can vouch for as amazing).

I’ve also just bought my first movie from the iTunes Store, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. As mentioned in the Stevenote on Tuesday, all video on the iTunes Store will be 4 times the size of what was previously offered, and on my 17 inch monitor, it doesn’t look half bad, but on the iPod it looks fantastic. I’ve downloaded my share of movies and converted them to iPod format, but none ever looked as good as this did.

Sidenote: Saw The Black Keys at Amoeba (got a pin and a poster, which I ripped off the wall and had them sign), then Ima Robot at Safari Sam’s on Tuesday (another poster, no signage though). New club, pretty nice, but no air conditioning. What were these people thinking when they built this place? Pictures will be posted as soon as disposable camera film is developed.

Movies to see

Little Miss Sunshine – How often does a movie open with a 92%? Once every few years is how often.
Snakes on a Plane – I see no reason not to see it…