Friday, December 26, 2008

Presidential Commercials

From 1952-2008... holy crap, this rocks.
and not just the winners either, the losers are there, too.
Freakin' a!
Thanks to Emily from A Softer World, who will never know that I thanked her... or that I love her.

Christmas Aimee

So Aimee Mann apparently hooked up with Tim (from Tim and Eric) and made this little 4-parter.
Merry Freakin' Christmas.

We Are All In Some Way Going To Reseda

Everything Is Terrible brings you some brilliant music from an 80's recycling demonstration at Reseda High...

Another Well Done Music Video

It's official: every music video should have a guy standing in a field playing a uke while another guy ribbon dances flamboyantly around him. This should be the makings of every music video.
Think a little bit. Can you find one music video which wouldn't be infinitely improved by this addition?

Who the heck is Vincent?

This guy... What?
A Documentary?
(sorry, i really love this blog...)

Hawk Jones

Has changed my life forever.
The Shootout.
The Interrogation.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Blindsight

Sounds like an awful band from the late 90s, but it's actually a fascinating way that the body subverts nonfunctioning visual cortex(es) to provide reflex information to otherwise blind people. That is, sometimes the blind can see, but they don't know it.

Seasick Steve Wins

I just wanna listen to this guy all day long.
I just wanna listen.

Well Done Music Video

Vampire Weekend's Oxford Comma is a rather cool Wes Anderson-type pan and I basically think it's a really great video.
Directed by Richard Ayoade... oh, do you not know who that is?

Monday, December 22, 2008

Sunday, December 21, 2008

New Favorite Blog

Our blog takes a backseat to any blog prominently featuring a sweet track about how only girls go to church tonight!
PARTY!!!! GIRL'S NITE OUT!!!
Go through some of that blog and you'll see what i mean about new favorite.
edit: jesus.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Obama's Cabinet

Chiggity-Check out this handy little javascript from the Journal. It's like a high school who's-who of Obama's cabinet. Beautiful.

Friday, December 19, 2008

This one is for you Brent!

Behold the majesty, the adventure, the experience!

Shine by Chris Dane Owens

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Tune Of The Day #43

Brahms' Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60, Movement I. Allegro non troppo (Arthur Rubenstein and some other people)

I wrote a five page paper about this today.

Flight of the Conchords Series 2 Premiere!

It's about time! Watch it online!

Tune of the Day #42

The Microphones - I Felt Your Shape


This is basically a pretty sweet acoustic track from the absurdly lo-fi Microphones album The Glow Pt. 2, which incidentally is chalk full of some of the most discordant and rough-sounding tunes I've been privy to in my short life. What I'm trying to say is, boy do I like the Microphones.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Monday, December 15, 2008

Renaissance superheros

Photoshop contest. Some impressive entries.

Tune Of The Day #40

Sarah Walker sings Henri Duparc's Extase, Roger Vignoles on keys

One of the most beautiful and challenging 3ish lines of French poetry ever put to music.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Tune Of The Day #39

Spoon - Don't You Evah


This has been one of my favorite driving songs this year along with "Don't Make Me A Target", also from their Summer 2007 album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. It's a cover of a song by The Natural History that wouldn't find its way onto a one of their own albums until a few months later, in November 2007.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes

Accurate title.

More classics from The Asylum

That is, the people behind Sunday School Musical (through their proxy Faith Films).

18 Year Old Virgin (NSFW)
MONSTER (Cloverfield, set in Japan)
Da Vinci Treasure
Snakes on a Train
Allan Quatermain and the Temple of Skulls
Pirates of Treasure Island
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Death Racers (Actually looks a lot better than the original, which took itself way too seriously)
The Day The Earth Stopped
30,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Transmorphers
The 9/11 Commission Report Uhh....?

Alright, that's about all I can handle for now.

GUITAR PRAISE!

Just...just look at this.

Yes, it is an exact Christian clone of Guitar Hero.

Greatest movie of 2008

"The Language Lesson".

Holy crap.

The male lead of this film played the overacting effeminate dick in "Sunday School Musical", another great film of 2008 I had the pleasure of seeing last night. It appears he is trying to toughen up his image by starring in a romantic comedy that consists entirely of Japanese dick jokes.

Also, I don't know if you caught this, but there is really a film called "Sunday School Musical". Just watch the trailer. Holy crap, that is amazing. Can't wait for the Rifftrax.

Edit: Upcoming in 2009 from the same director and same company (but not the same studio): "The 18 Year Old Virgin". I'm pretty sure there are already about 80 porn titles with this same name?

Tune of the Day #38

William Shatner - That's Me Trying


Yeah, you're probably going to see that name and wonder what I'm on, but I'm telling you guys: Shatner's Has Been is a great album and totally deserves the attention of everyone in the world.
Seriously. So Good.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Tune of the Day #37

Blind Pilot - The Story I Heard


Caught this sweet little bit of music the other day on npr's top debut albums of 2008. From their album 3 Rounds and a Sound. Pretty smooth, indeed.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Tune Of The Day #36

Ben Gibbard - I was a Kaleidoscope

Solo and acoustic on Live at KEXP. The song with the rest of Death Cab for Cutie is found on The Photo Album.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Tune Of The Day #35

Richard Swift - The Novelist


There's only one way to properly punish Patterson for preempting my TOTD post yesterday - I have not choice but to choose a Richard Swift song for today's TOTD. This is the title track of his 2005 album.

The First Family

Blagojevich's news is basically making my life happen. 23/6 has the goods on why in this series of quotes: Blago Quote of the Hour
12
1
2
3
4
5
And if Blago's taint isn't enough awesome for you, check out his wife's taint!
Thank you so much, Blago. Thank you.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Not Exceedingly Funny, but...

I do like the clever idea of making Alien and Predator a finicky jewish couple from brooklyn.

Cool Video

2 things about this video make it worth my time:
1. Good music.
2. Awesome idea for a video, and well executed at that.

From this dude at Savage Chickens.

Tom Waits, Again...

This is old, but... it's also the best thing ever.

Tune Of The Day #34

Cool Kids - A Little Bit Cooler


I had to beat Simon to this. This is a hip track from the Cool Kids EP, Bake Sale.
They bill themselves as "the new black Beastie Boys," and if that doesn't sell you on these guys, then I guess your gonna have to get sold like I did: by listening to the above track and crapping your pants from how freakin' awesome it is. Enjoy.

Simon can have the totd tomorrow... screw that guy for now.

Monday, December 08, 2008

Tune of the Day #33

The Old Soul - Vege-tables


This awesome Beach Boys cover is found on their eponymous debut album.

George Herter = Greatest Man to Live. Ever.

Curious as to who that dude is and why he's awesome?
Here's an enlightening essay from this weeks Times Book Review.

Where is Your Messiah Now, Handel?

Simon Estes showed this to me the other day, but has, to date, not posted it to our wonderful blog:
The Original "Every Valley..."
The New "Every Valley..."
God bless generation... x? y? whatever they are, God bless 'em.

Where is Your God Now, Ford?

Is it just me, or is that a... brand new car up there on the altar?
or 2?
or 3?

Sunday, December 07, 2008

Tune of the Day #32

"Warm as the autumn light", from The Ballad of Baby Doe (Douglas Moore / John Latouche)

This is from the premiere recording with Beverly Sills as the title character, and Walter Cassel and Frances Bible as Horace and Augusta Tabor. Heretically, I don't think this is the best recording ever, but it's hard to argue with the emotion the singers put behind it (even if their tuning isn't always spot on). Also, this entire opera was recorded in one take. Which is insane.

I picked this song because A) it is gorgeous, and B) it is a good example of the unparalleled quality of poetry this opera offers (perhaps even better is Baby Doe's closing aria, "Always through the changing"). It definitely is not a perfect show, but in terms of character development in American opera...it's pretty hard to beat. And, again, this music is fantastic.

And Here's What Getting Served by Jesus Would Look Like

I think I've said enough.

Too Awesome for Description!

!!!!!!!!

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Tune of the Day #31

Pierre Bernac sings Ravel's Chanson romanesque, from Don Quichotte à Dulcinée

I think this was originally written for a movie adaptation of Don Quixote, but then the director decided he could do better than Ravel in the film score dept, so Ravel cut his losses and turned it into a song cycle. Pierre Bernac, although with Gerard Souzay, is one of the premiere interpreters of French song, but if you don't already know what it's "supposed" to sound like, this probably won't convince you. Still, a pretty rad tune with the perfect amount of old record vibe.

Well, it is effective....

Enjoy this awesome commercial. Not sure if it is real or not.... but still entertaining!

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Tune of the Day #30

The Long Winters - Pet Name


This is a great band performing a great cover of a great song by another great band (They Might Be Giants). Definitely TOTD material.

Devin Flynn's sound houndz

An honest educational video by the creator of Y'all So Stupid and Dance Floor Dale.

Teach both theories

Let the kids decide.

China Mandates Internet Cafes Use Linux

Red Flag Linux, that is. This is partly in response to complaints about widespread piracy - logically, now that the piracy (which was costing MS $bns a year) has stopped, Microsoft's profits should skyrocket, right? Right?

Tune of the Day #29



Electric Six - Gay Bar



Wait, it's Thursday already? (Image courtesy Married to the Sea)

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

And while we're on the PORN theme...

Let's remember the life of John Holmes:

(from wikipedia)

....
John Curtis Holmes (August 8, 1944March 13, 1988) better known as John C. Holmes or Johnny Wadd (after the lead character in a series of related films), was one of the most famous male adult film stars of all time, appearing in about 2,500 adult loops, stag films, and porno feature movies in the 1970s and 1980s, including at least one gay feature film and a handful of gay loops. He was best known for his exceptionally large penis, which was heavily promoted as being the longest in the porn industry; however, its exact dimensions are unknown. Holmes also attracted notoriety for his involvement in the brutal Wonderland murders in 1981, and for his death from AIDS.

Porn = Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Cracked provides us with some amazingly bad (non-sex) porn scenes....

Tune of the Day #28

Pedro the Lion - Second Best


So here's the history of the song cycle, according to me: Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Wolf, Faure, Respighi, Vaughan Williams, Finzi, Bernstein, David Bazan of Pedro the Lion.

This particular song is from the album (cycle) "Control", which tells the story of a failing marriage that leads to spousal murder. It is...a little intense. But so is the Schwanengesang.

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Alchemist - Lose Your Life

Perennial favorite Devin Flynn directs the best hip hop video I have ever seen.

Supreme Court Rules on Drugs & Federalism

Well, sorta. They refused to hear a case that ruled state law enforcement have to obey state laws regarding medical marijuana, not federal laws. So basically, only federal agents can seize drugs not outlawed by states. Pretty cool.

Tune of the Day #27

King Missile - Eating People


A ridiculously sticky and smooth tune by my favorite spoken word comedy group.

Monday, December 01, 2008

Urologist Of The Day

here.

Tune of the Day #26

Yo soy Maria from María de Buenos Aires by Ástor Piazzolla

Julia Zenko sings the title role in this "tango operita". It's really more like a tango ballet. Violinist Gidon Kremer leads the ensemble. You really have to listen to this.