Category Archive

I’m a little late to the party this year (and I was a little late to the parade, too, due to a huge line at Totonno’s), but here are some Mermaid Parade photos from 2008. It was a gorgeous day for the event, just hot enough to be beach weather, but not so hot as to be oppressive.

Check out the slideshow here.

“Young New Yorkers Make a Brand New Start of It, on the Cheap”

“Adam Leibsohn, a 27-year-old communications strategist who makes roughly $60,000 a year and pays $1,650 a month for his own apartment in the East Village, says the trick to squeaking by in the city is to swear off impulse purchases and credit cards. He cooks for himself, pirates wireless Internet access and buys electronics from Craigslist or eBay. If he wants new clothes, he unloads old ones first at the Salvation Army, keeping the receipt for his taxes. ‘It’s kind of a spartan lifestyle,’ he says. ‘I eat a lot of street meat for lunch.’

Let’s unpack this for a minute, Adam Leibsohn.

You make roughly twice as much as I have ever made.

You don’t actually need to have your own apartment in the East Village: you could have your own place in a perfectly respectable Brooklyn neighborhood for about $1200 a month, or you could have a decent-sized room in the same kind of area for little more than $700.

Cooking for yourself, last time I checked, was not a sign of poverty.

The fact that you pirate wireless (which is an indulgence, not a need, to begin with) means that you must have a computer with a wireless card.

That you buy electronics on eBay and Craigslist means that you have the disposable income to buy electronics in the first place, regardless of whether or not you’re getting a good deal on them.

That you have enough dispensable clothing that getting rid of it provides you enough money, from tax deduction, to buy new clothing tells me that you probably have more clothing than you ever needed in the first place.

And finally, eating “street meat” isn’t roughing it. I would imagine that many New Yorkers think that buying any kind of prepared food at retail is an unthinkable luxury.

Verdict: Yes, New York is ridiculously expensive. No, I don’t think that on a $60k salary with your own apartment in a trendy part of Manhattan you have any right to complain. I don’t even think I have any right to complain. You know who has a right to bitch? People raising families on minimum wage. The rest of us are left to decide whether to feel embarrassed that people much wealthier than us are referred to as “scraping by” in The New York Times or pissed off that the same publication isn’t at all interested in poverty that is as real and literal in their own city as it is around the world.

My first concert ever was Beck, Ben Folds Five, and, I think, poor Elliott Smith. At the time, Folds was by far my favorite, though now I’d probably place both of the others ahead of him. I was 13, and I went with this boy who had liked me for a year before and would continue to be interested through my sophomore year of college. His father sat a few rows behind us, chaperoning. And during an intermission, I ran into the 16-year-old guy that I (and every other girl I knew) had a crush on at camp earlier that summer. It was pubescent awkwardness at its best.

This is all kind of tangential to the fact that, a few nights ago, someone mentioned the Rockford Files, and I got Ben Folds Five’s “Battle of Who Could Care Less” stuck in my head. I probably hadn’t heard the song in at least five years, but I suddenly needed to listen to it. Thank heavens for Last.fm.

It’s actually kind of a great song. It’s sort of about the same thing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is about, only less dramatic (okay, less classic) and more sardonic. I don’t think I even fully appreciated all the humor back in the ’90s. It’s packed with hilarious lyrics:

“I know it’s not your thing to care. I know it’s cool to be so bored. It sucks me in when you’re aloof.”

“Watch some Rockford Files and call to see if Paul could score some weed.”

“Unearned unhappiness. Well, that’s all right, I guess.”

“I’ve got this great idea. Why don’t we pitch it to the Franklin fuckin’ Mint? Fine pewter portraits of General Apathy and Major Boredom singing, ‘Whatever and ever, amen.’”

“See, I’ve got your old ID, and you’re all dressed up like The Cure.”

At the time, I must have actually thought that all of this boredom and apathy and getting stoned was pretty fucking cool. Now that I know how much of adult life is actually just like this, I understand what Ben Folds was making fun of.

Oh, fuck. I just tried to play the song for the fourth time in a row, and Last.fm cut me off. At least I still have YouTube.

Dear Man Man,
I have liked you for a while and was excited to see you perform for the first time. I heard that you were great live. Well, you started off on a bad note, torturing the audience with multiple between-set replays of “Don’t Worry Be Happy” and “Kokomo.” You didn’t really say anything once you were onstage. I wonder how much of the forty minutes it took you to set up were devoted to donning those dumb, white costumes and face paint. Your music was still fine, but it wasn’t worth it.
Love,
Judy

Dear Yeasayer,
You at least had a nicer onstage persona. But what was with that guy in the wifebeater, long, curly, hair, and mustache? Hipster fashion and redneck fashion have finally become indistinguishable.
Love,
Judy

Dear Brooklyn Masonic Temple,
You may want to look into never hosting concerts again. Your sound is horrible.
Love,
Judy

Dear Crowd at Brooklyn Masonic Temple,
I guess it’s “hip to be square” these days. Learn to hold your liquor.
Love,
Judy

The crowd skewed young and trashed at Monday’s Black Lips show. Everywhere, mini-hipsters were dancing around, all skinny and disaffected. One guy was regaling a group of friends with the story of how long his hair was the last time he saw the band.

I hadn’t seen Quintron & Miss Pussycat before, but I had heard tell of Quintron’s invented musical instrument, the Drum Buddy. It’s a strange contraption, full of holes and pipes and lights and spinning coffee cans. But it was pretty cool to see it in action. The music was a catchy but noisy blend of upbeat soul and synth pop. Quintron sat behind a keyboard decked out with a vintage Chevy grill, and Miss Pussycat contended with a fussy, flapper-like costume that involved what looked like a head band with a Koosh ball on it. I enjoyed the energy of the performance, which definitely got everyone dancing, but this is strictly party music. Great live, but I’m guessing they’re not nearly as interesting on record.

Oh, and when their performance ended, Miss Pussycat hopped behind the curtain of a big, strange, inflatable puppet theater she had brought with her and did a puppet show. Really.

Despite the drunken yelling, shoving, crowd-surfing, stage-diving, and beer-cup-throwing, the Black Lips were pretty great. They may have been rushing through songs a bit (and seeing the crowd, who could blame them?), but the frenetic element worked for them. An old-fashioned rock band that doesn’t resort to fancy outfits or contrived, onstage theatrics, they’re a purist’s dream. By the end of the set, the guys were completely soaked in sweat, and if that doesn’t signal a good night, I don’t know what does.

The headline?

“All Hail Brooklyn: Alt-Rock Thrives in Alt-Borough”

Choice excerpts?

“For rock bands this is a great time to be weird and independent in Brooklyn. After years in which the sound of New York was defined by various shades of retro monochrome — the new wave minimalism of the Strokes, the disco-punk of the Rapture and LCD Soundsystem, the moody Anglophilia of Interpol — a new generation is making music that is indefinably eclectic and complex, and finding acclaim around the world.” Wait… really?

“The success of bands like Yeasayer and Vampire Weekend is to some degree an indication of a thirst for new ideas in a rock landscape that, from mainstream radio down to the underground, has been sorely lacking in them.” I don’t know where you’ve been for the past few years, dude, but the underground ain’t lacking for ideas. They’re lacking for audiences, and paychecks.

“With the promotional powers of the Internet and a network of increasingly sophisticated independent labels, bands that don’t have an obvious shot a mass popularity are finding fewer reasons to sign with the majors.” What are these mystical “internets” of which you speak? Please, explain to us their strange and magical ways.

All in all, another beautifully redundant Times trend piece. Thanks for that, Ben Sisario. I give it 10/10. A+. Best New Music… etc.

Michael Sarnes’s take on Gore Vidal’s bestseller might as well be the video guide to “Notes on Camp.” Rex Reed, in cinema’s most obvious casting choice, plays Myron Breckenridge, a dandyish film critic who undergoes cinema’s most surreal sex reassignment surgery to emerge as Myra (Raquel Welch), a glamorous supervixen hell-bent on shattering the heterosexual imperative. Inexplicably integral to this plan is Myra’s infiltration of her Uncle Buck Loner’s (John Huston) acting school as she fights him for her portion of a sizable inheritance. But the flimsy plot is incidental to the priceless, midnight movie trash that lurks within Myra Breckenridge’s terrifically fun digressions. Brief clips from black-and-white gems of the ‘30s and ‘40s provide a constant, almost tic-like, commentary on the action. Mae West transforms the film into her own, private Sunset Boulevard, as a debauched talent agent with an insatiable hunger for young men. Thirty-seven years later, we’re still not ready for her close-up.

Watch the trailer here.

Last Saturday night, I caught a perfectly fantastic screening of Milos Forman’s early Czech film Loves of a Blonde at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and then had some wonderful barbecue at Smoke Joint. And then, quicker than you can say “white guy funk band,” my evening totally turned to shit. Upon returning to BAM to check out a free concert by White Rabbits, who I’ve heard great things about, I was faced with perhaps the most distasteful band I’ve had to see live in years.

They are called Miss Fairchild, and they are a bunch of guys from Brooklyn playing blue-eyed funk. Now, I’m as open-minded as the next girl, and I don’t think it’s impossible for white dudes to write some good songs in the genre. But this was so derivative as to actually be kind of racist. Their lead singer was a small, bearded guy in some vintage polyester. He was doing a calculated impression of James Brown. The lyrics and music were total ’70s cliches. And it was all kind of a shame, as the guy has a decent voice, a ton of energy, and the band is clearly quite competent. The only problem was… there was not an ounce of originality there. They may as well have been a cover band.

Now, it isn’t my policy to knock new, untested bands just for the hell of it. But what I see here is just another corollary to the growing trend of cultural tourism-as-music. In a way, it’s exactly like what Vampire Weekend is doing: steal some sort of music that you have no personal link to and repackage it without adding anything new. It seems soulless and boring, and frankly it’s annoying that people are so into these copies of copies of copies when there are a million great innovators out there.

What I’m trying to say is…

One, two, three, four, I declare a CULTURE WAR.

I don’t usually feel the need to repost my own articles here, but I want to make sure everyone listens to the new Mountain Goats record, Heretic Pride. It comes out tomorrow on 4AD, and it is fucking fantastic.

Suggested tracks:
“San Bernardino”
“Autoclave”
“Lovecraft in Brooklyn”
“Tianchi Lake”
“Marduk T-Shirt Men’s Room Incident”

My entire, quite lengthy, review is up at Tiny Mix Tapes. If that wets your whistle, you can stream the entire album here.

Some people are too cool to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Others are too hip for Rufus Wainwright. Well, whatever, man. I am gloriously lame, so my boyfriend and I spent this past V-Day at Radio City Music Hall watching Rufus.

Though I rarely spend so much money on tickets (anything over $20 tends to discourage me), the experience was well worth it. I’ve lived in New York for three years without once setting foot inside Radio City. The place is breathtaking: enormous stage, beautiful gold curtain, three levels of balcony, domed ceiling. Sure, all the tourists from Duluth, or wherever they come from, were kind of annoying with their glowstick-illumined frozen drinks and questionable concert etiquette, but we all have to interface with the real world sometimes.

The show began with a short, pleasant set by Sean Lennon. He joked nervously about playing depressing songs on Valentine’s Day and closed with a cute duet with his girlfriend. At one point, he mentioned that his mom was in the audience. I’m not typically so starstruck, but something felt wonderful about occupying the same room–albeit a very large room–as Yoko.

I had seen Wainwright before, and whether he gives it his all or comes across as a drink- and drug-addled sot, he always puts on quite a show. This performance was by far the most impressive I’ve witnessed from him. He played for almost two and a half hours, in two sets and a lengthy, show-stopping encore. Most of the selections came from his past three album, Want One, Want Two, and Release the Stars. Though I’m less familiar with those than I am with Wainwright’s first two albums, Rufus Wainwright and Poses, he brought every song to life with expressive singing, playful theatrics, a large band, and loud costumes.

Among the feats Wainwright performed that night were:
–a few Judy Garland songs, including “Get Happy,” performed in nylons, heels, and a blazer, backed by a chorus line of nuns;
–an un-microphoned version of an Irish folk song;
–an “Across the Universe” sing-along with Sean Lennon, his sister Martha, and his mother, folk singer Kate McGarrigle;
–a rendition of one of McGarrigle’s own songs with her and Martha;
–”Gay Messiah” as production number, complete with the obscene use of a can of Silly String;
–three costume changes;
–and onstage pyrotechnics.

It was an ambitious performance, and Wainwright surpassed even the high standards he set for himself.

1. You Can’t Hurry Love — Diana Ross and the Supremes
2. Fistful of Love — Antony and the Johnsons with Lou Reed
3. Lovers Rock — The Clash
4. Find Love — Clem Snide
5. I Love You — Beat Happening
6. Big Love — Broken Social Scene
7. Some Kinda Love — The Velvet Underground
8. Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death from Above — CSS
9. Bullets and Love — The Coup
10. Soul Love — David Bowie
11. Tuff Love — The Gossip
12. Pirate Love — Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers
13. Of Love and Colors — Lisa Germano
14. Drive Is that I Love You– MV & EE with the Bummer Road
15. ‘Cause I Love Her — The Brian Jonestown Massacre
16. I Let Love In — Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
17. The Desperate Kingdom of Love — PJ Harvey
18. A True Story of a True Story of Love — The Books
19. Love in Vain — The Rolling Stones
20. Loved Despite Great Faults — Blonde Redhead
21. A Lover Loves — Scott Walker
22. Ringo, I Love You — Stereo Total
23. Love, Love, Love 2 (Reprise) — Akron/Family

So what’s your favorite “love” song?

Xiu Xiu

I’m a sucker for a good cover, and the past few weeks have produced two of the best I’ve heard in a while.

Xiu Xiu featuring Michael Gira - Under Pressure

Under pressure indeed. Xiu Xiu have released a brilliant, dangerous, and sometimes ugly album that is receiving lukewarm, confused reviews. I have a feeling that Women as Lovers will look better to most people in five years than it does now. Meanwhile, listeners should at least be ready to get on board with this subtly dark cover of David Bowie and Queen’s “Under Pressure.” Jamie Stewart and Michael Gira (of Swans and Angels of Light) do self-conscious impressions of Bowie and Freddy Mercury against a background of anxious brass and and muted synth. Caralee McElroy’s voice is a refreshing surprise. And the instruments get carried away with themselves.

Jeffrey Lewis–Do They Owe Us a Living?

By releasing a full album of Crass covers, called simply 12 Crass Songs, Jeffrey Lewis is doing the ’80s crust-punk band’s fans a great service. For the first time, we can make out the lyrics. This raucous, boy-girl, call-and-response folk version is just what this classic of sorts needed.

Something just occurred to me:

Johnny’s Greenwood’s score for PT Anderson’s auteur-tastic There Will Be Blood was just about perfect. I don’t even want to talk about the way he got screwed over in Oscar nominations. But there is another album that would ALSO work fantastically as the movie’s score: The Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible. Sure, it would make the whole thing a little more postmodern and self-aware and distractingly filmic than Greenwood’s score, but I kind of dig that anyway. Though it was far from my favorite album of the year, this seems like the perfect use for it. Alternate DVD soundtrack, anyone? Perhaps muting the soundtrack and synching the movie with the record, Dark Side of the Moon-style?

Just imagine “Intervention” over the closing credits.

Vampire Weekend’s new, self-titled album, out today on XL, is getting the rave reviews everyone expected it would get. Every publication out there is falling all over itself to celebrate the soukous and the references. Imagine, songs that sound vaguely like Afro-pop, created by the whitest band in the history of music! Even better, throw in the most obscure cultural references possible–here’s Lil Jon! here are kefirs and keffiyehs! look at me, I know what Dharamsala is!

Here’s the thing: I sort of like Vampire Weekend. I don’t mind bopping around to “Oxford Comma.” It’s just the kind of lively song that I might play to wake myself up in the morning. But guess what? Vampire Weekend is a pretty decent pop band. They aren’t a revelation. They’re not doing much new with the form. Even the snatches of African music have been incorporated into the same format with more skill (see Paul Simon, which every reviewer seems to reference, though none seem to care that he already wrung everything that was ever innovative out of the fusion).

What I think may be happening here is what happened with film critics and the movie Sideways. It was fine, sure, but they just couldn’t stop heaping praise on it, as though its director, Alexander Payne, was as good as Fellini, Bergman, and Kurosawa all rolled into one. Finally, the madness needed to stop, and A.O. Scott decided to call everyone on their shit. He wisely pointed out that film critics liked Sideways so much because they identified too strongly with its protagonist, whose obsession with wine echoed their own critical fixations. As far as Vampire Weekend is concerned, let’s think about who most music critics are. They are overeducated and, frankly, geeky, have wide-ranging tastes in music, and cultural references are, for them, kind of like candy. So when a band comes along that incorporates eclecticism (in the form of Afro-pop), collegiate nerdiness (they’re all Columbia grads and for heaven’s sake, look at what they’re wearing), and a limitless supply of knowledge about rooves and commas, every goddamn motherfucker is all over it.

Well, I call bullshit.

I love One Story. It’s a fantastic literary magazine that appears about once every three weeks and contains–you guessed it–only one story. While a larger lit mag might be weighed down with sub-par filler material, there’s nothing extra dragging One Story down. I look forward to every issue. Each one only takes about one subway ride to read.

The most recent issue, which I received in the mail on Saturday, is the best yet. It contains the first published story by Amelia Kahaney. Called “Fire Season,” it truly heralds the arrival of a powerful, new talent. In the story, a thirteen-year-old girl name Marni realizes that she has grown out of her awkward stage and is now, suddenly, beautiful. Dressing in clothing from her mother’s singles-bar days, she pursues a cruel and distant boy named Pablo and shakily inflicts her burgeoning sexuality on Roger, her most recent surrogate father. All of the action occurs amidst the backdrop of a California subdivision threatened by an advancing wildfire.

What makes Kahaney’s writing so viscerally real is its depiction of a young teenage girl who hasn’t yet grown into her sexual power. Marni and Pablo are vicious, attacking each other in the pool and hurling rocks with the express purpose of bruising one another. Kahaney renders the masochism of early adolescent love and lust unflinchingly. This piece is everything that the contemporary short story is not: the characters are not refined, New York intellectuals, and it’s never self-consciously quirky. Tom Wolfe once wrote that all New Yorker stories are about “inchoate longing.” This was, of course, hyperbole, but this sort of genteel story is just as common today as it was in the ’60s. “Fire Season” is not about inchoate longing; it’s about the kind of longing so consuming that it induces violence and incites destruction.

It isn’t often that an album excites me this much upon first listen, but The Magnetic Fields’ Distortion, out tomorrow via Nonesuch, is the first hype-worthy album of 2008. I started listening to it earlier today, and I just can’t stop. Holy fuck is it good. At the risk of sounding reductive, I’m going to say it combines the stronger elements of 1999’s 69 Love Songs (Stephin Merritt’s deep, echo-chamber voice, general bounciness, lyrical cleverness and humor) with Beach Boys-style pop and then drenches it all in a bath of Jesus and Mary Chain-inspired distortion (get it?).

Some initial highlights:

“California Girls”: A bubbly diatribe against the sunkissed (or tanned-orange), towheaded (bottle blonde) bitches of the Sunshine State. “I hate California girls,” sings co-lead vocalist Shirley Simms. I do, too. Most of them, anyway.

“Mr. Mistletoe”: A bit late for the holiday season, but the fuzzed-out jingle bells beat anything in Santa’s sleigh.

“The Nun’s Litany”: The best irreligious sing-song track since Belle and Sebastian’s “If You’re Feeling Sinister.”

Curious? You can stream the whole thing here.

I tend to hate stoner comedies. Half Baked put me to sleep. How High? How lame. I walked out of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. I just can’t abide the same dumb jokes over and over again. But there’s something different about Gregg Araki’s Smiley Face. Sure, the movie is all about someone’s stoned adventures, but the writing, acting, and directing are so sharp that it never felt trite. I have always adored Araki–he is so delightfully strange–and his last film, Mysterious Skin, proved that there was more to him than stylized tales of drugged-out teenagers. Smiley Face is another new direction, though it does involve one seriously stoned post-adolescent.

Anna Faris is brilliant as Jane, an out-of-work actress who devours an entire plate of her evil roommate’s cupcakes after her daily wake and bake. The action begins when Jane enters the weed haze to end all others and realizes that said cupcakes were of the “special” variety. From there, she embarks on a quixotic quest to buy more pot, bake new cupcakes, and make it to an audition. Of course, her efforts end in one disaster after another. The supporting cast is absurd and hilarious, featuring Danny Masterson fucking a skull, Adam Brody as a dreadlocked dealer, and John Krasinski as a total dweeb.

Whenever a film receives as much good press as Persepolis has, I start to get nervous. Though it may be perfectly enjoyable, it will rarely live up to the hype. Thankfully, this is the rare movie that surpassed my already heightened expectations.

Though I’ve always wanted to read the Persepolis graphic novels, I still haven’t, so I didn’t quite know what to expect. A friend who has read and re-read the books confirmed that the adaptation was faithful: she only counted six missing scenes.

Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical story of her childhood after the fall of the Shah is graceful and engaging. As the new regime becomes ever more oppressive, Satrapi is forced to wear the veil, and her Marxist relatives are jailed or executed. Eventually, fearing for her safety, her parents arrange for her to attend high school in Austria, where she learns that life in the West comes with its own set of problems. Humor mitigates tragedy without trivializing it, as in the clip I’ve included above, which shows Marjane overcoming her depression through what must be the all-time funniest rendition of “Eye of the Tiger.” The black-and-white animation, ripped directly from the pages of the comic books, is beautiful and subtle. Transitions between scenes are thoughtful and artfully done.

Persepolis is not only a gorgeous and meaningful film, but it can also educate the American public about the modern history of Iran–something we all sorely need. But information always makes a stronger impact when relayed on a personal level. In that sense, Persepolis succeeds both politically and artistically.

You can see a full list of my favorite albums of 2007 at Tiny Mix Tapes, but here are my ten favorites of the year, and why. I’ve written about a lot of these bands before, but hopefully I won’t be completely repeating myself.

10. Pink Reason - Cleaning the Mirror
Essential tracks: Storming Heaven, Thrush
In a sentence: Metallic, angular, cold, and slow, but also emotionally convincing, without becoming trite or navel-gazing.

09. Ponytail - Kamehameha
Essential tracks: Dear God Plz Make My2Eyes N2 One, Lion Down
In a sentence: An energetic explosion of an album that will keep you gyrating like a speed freak, that also manages to incorporate some mind-bending references to Classical music.

08. Akron/Family - Love Is Simple
Essential tracks: There’s So Many Colors, Phenomena, Of All the Things
In a sentence: Angel-folk that makes me want to float into a cloud and stay there, without enough intense guitar riffage to keep me from drifting off to sleep.

07. Double Dagger - Ragged Rubble
Essential tracks: The Psychic, Camera Chimera, Luxury Condos for the Poor
In a sentence: Finally, someone makes a good, hardcore album that matches sheer sonic impact with lyrical depth, in the old Dischord model but updated for the 21st century.

06. Dirty Projectors - Rise Above
Essential tracks: Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie, Rise Above, Depression
In a sentence: Eclectic, African-inspired instrumentals and gospel singing transform a Black Flag album into something universal.

05. Gowns - Red State
Essential tracks: White Like Heaven, Fake July, Clawless
In a sentence: A minimalist soundtrack to rural desperation, with flashes of spiritual clarity.

04. Times New Viking - Presents the Paisley Reich
Essential tracks: Teenage Lust!, Let Your Hair Grow Long, Love Your Daughters
In a sentence: Lo-fi basement punk makes a triumphant showing, fusing irresistible pop melodies with the controlled chaos of amplifier fuzz.

03. Panda Bear - Person Pitch
Essential tracks: Take Pills, Bros, I’m Not
In a sentence: Can’t do it. See my blurb at Tiny Mix Tapes.

02. Marnie Stern - In Advance of the Broken Arm
Essential tracks: Every Line Means Something, Grapefruit, This American Life
In a sentence: A girl with the most impressive, self-taught guitar skills explores philosophy and inner space.

01. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
Essential tracks: Heimsdalegate Like a Promethian Curse, Suffer for Fashion, She’s a Rejector, Gronlandic Edit
In a sentence: Kevin Barnes sublimates a painful breakup into a personal transformation, using pop and funk as his guides and revolutionizing both genres in the process.

I know I haven’t posted in, oh, four months. Chalk it up to grad school. But now that I’m done with the semester, it’s time for me to count down my favorite movies of the year. More top 10 lists to come, maybe.

10. Superbad

I am not a Judd Apatow fan. I wasn’t even interested enough to see Knocked Up. But Superbad is just so believable. It’s a sophomoric guy-comedy with some humanism to it. Michael Cera is endlessly endearing. And it goes without saying that the movie is hilarious from beginning to end.

9. Hannah Takes the Stairs

It was impossible to read about Joe Swanberg’s third film without getting some sort of mangled, old-guy-film-critic diatribe on “mumblecore.” I prefer to think of guys like Swanberg and Andrew Bujaski as the budding Woody Allens of my generation. Sure, there’s a lot of navel-gazing in their movies, but there’s also a lot of insight into mid-20s urban existence. And Hannah Takes the Stairs plays like a documentary, zeroing in on what it’s like to work a creative but still boring job and try to find meaning through doomed relationships.

8. Control

Anton Corbijn handled Joy Divison singer Ian Curtis’s life in the only way possible: starkly, with as little sentimentality and hero worship as possible. Because Curtis was not, in fact, a hero. He was troubled, mentally ill, and destructive to himself, his friends, and his family. But he also happened to be one of the greatest musicians of the past 30 years. Corbijn captures the good with the bad, but keeps it all at a critical distance.

7. Ratatouille

Leave it to Pixar. I saw Ratatouille on a really bad day, and it made me feel 20 times better. It is all of those kids’ movie cliches–heartwarming, sweet, cute, etc.–but also genuinely funny with real, old-fashioned storytelling. And I guess it didn’t hurt that it was all about food.

6. Scott Walker: 30th Century Man

I guess this film still doesn’t have distribution. But it’s my favorite documentary of the year. It illuminates the career of one of popular (and not-so-popular) music’s most enigmatic, talented, and media-shy artists. And it sticks to the work itself, focusing on interviews with Walker and other musicians, completely avoiding the gossipy and the sensational.

5. Romance and Cigarettes

Some critics loved this film and some hated it. Indeed, it’s not for everyone. But if you have a soft spot for John Waters, it just might be for you. See Susan Sarandon in her trashiest (and most musical) role since Rocky Horror, along with James Gandolfini (as her unfaithful husband), Mary-Louise Parker (as her intentionally-implausible teenage daughter), and Kate Winslet (as a big slut). What’s really surprising about this film is that when the camp starts to subside, you realize that you actually did care about the characters and their plight.

4. Tears of the Black Tiger

This Technicolor Thai masterpiece may not have been made this year, but it never reached the US until 2007. With hand-painted scenery, over-the-top acting, and a timeless, fairy tale storyline, Tears of the Black Tiger surpassed almost every Hollywood western I’ve ever seen.

3. Brand Upon the Brain!

I may be a bit biased because I did happen to see this with a live orchestra and narration by Lou Reed. But Guy Maddin’s black-and-white fantasy film about girl detectives and mad scientist fathers is steeped in family-based sexual anxiety. Brand Upon the Brain is haunting and gorgeous, both referencing the retro and embracing the postmodern.

2. Waitress

Adrienne Shelley’s last film is everything classic, Hollywood movies were: warm, uplifting, but somehow unexpected. Subtly challenging social norms while indulging in ’50s diner nostalgia, Waitress deserves to be taken seriously. Performances by the late Shelley, Cheryl Hines, Kerry Russell, Jeremy Sisto, and even Andy Griffith, are nuanced and memorable. And the art direction is just gorgeous.

1. I’m Not There

I love Todd Haynes, and here he proves that he can even take on a personality as complex as Bob Dylan. Rather than playing it straight, he splits what is a truly fragmented public image among several actors. Cate Blanchett was a standout as Don’t Look Back-era Dylan, and the influence of Rimbaud and Woody Guthrie also ring true. I flinched at Richard Gere’s inclusion, but thankfully he hardly had to act at all. And the Greil Marcus notion of the “old, weird America” that crops up in the Gere section is essential in even beginning to understand the mystery that is Dylan.

Honorable mentions: The Darjeeling Limited, Zoo, Death Proof

Movies I didn’t see but probably should have: Eastern Promises, No Country for Old Men, Juno

This is nothing fancier than an iTunes playlist that I put together and have been listening to a lot lately. There is no overarching style. Some of it is very appropriate for languid, late summer days. Some of it isn’t. Most of it’s new. Some of it isn’t. See for yourself:

1. Teenage Lust! - Times New Viking - Paisley Reich

I had a day last week when I couldn’t stop listening to this song. I even put on some headphones while I was out at a bar, because it was stuck in my head and wouldn’t leave me alone. If you were raised on ’70s punk, this track will do your heart good. Lo-fi to the extreme, with fuzzy instruments and imperfectly-recorded boy-girl vocals, it is the weirdo dark horse contender for best pop song of 2007. Give it a few listens and you’ll catch yourself mumbling “I don’t want to die in the city alone” over and over when you’re not even thinking about it.

2. Atlas - Battles - Mirrored

I know, everyone likes this song. It’s no big discovery. But every time I hit that part where the catchy drum beat and distorted vocals come together, it’s like the walls are melting.

3. California Demise - Olivia Tremor Control - Black Foliage: Animation Music

I went through a serious Elephant 6 phase. While it’s mostly over now, songs like this stay with me. Lazy guitar strumming and fairy tale lyrics make for the perfect soundtrack to a summer afternoon.

4. Kookaburra - John Vanderslice - Emerald City

A really smart, gorgeous, and spare song about the mess this country and this world are in. Here’s my review of the album.

5. All the Old Showstoppers - New Pornographers - Challengers

The most consistently captivating pop band around is about to come out with its fourth album. An upbeat A.C. Newman classic, with killer keyboards, filled out by backing vocals by Neko Case.

6. Wish I Was the Moon - Neko Case - Blacklisted

Speaking of Neko Case, this is a slow, thoughtful ballad that’s already a few albums old. Sounds like a 90 degree night in Alabama, drinking iced tea on a rickety, old front porch.

7. Thrush - Pink Reason - Cleaning the Mirror

This is what cold steel would sound like if it could compose its own music and hired a chorus of junkies to do some nodded-out vocals. If this sounds unappealing, I don’t wanna know you.

8. You Can’t Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man - Okkervil River - The Stage Names

A classic, rollicking rocker from a band that is too young to be as effortlessly poetic (in a good way!) as it is.

9. Mambo Sun - T. Rex - Electric Warrior

Where glam rock and hippie shit collide, there is T. Rex. Grab your platform boots and mascara, boys. And, ladies, feel free to swoon when Bolan sings, “I’ve got stars in my beard/And I feel real weird/For you.”

10. This American Life - Marnie Stern - In Advance of the Broken Arm

I’ve already rhapsodized at length about Marnie Stern. Here’s one of the best examples of those both-hands-on-the-frets guitar chops. She’s no slouch lyrically, either, beckoning, “Mythology, come take me away.”

11. Mistaken for Strangers - The National - Boxer

For a while, I just couldn’t listen to The National. I kept seeing their names in the same places as The Hold Steady’s, and I just figured they’d be as awful as that band. Listening to the new album, I was pleasantly surprised. This is a great one about being an alien in your own life.

12. Fake Rain - Parts & Labor - Mapmaker

Discordant string sounds, fast-paced drumming, and some hints of Ennio Morricone make this a heart-pounding sprint of a song.

13. Double Dagger - Luxury Condos for the Poor - Ragged Rubble

Everyone’s favorite post-hardcore band rails against gentrification in Baltimore. Finally, a punk band that’s pissed off for the right reasons.

14. Jesus Was a Cross Maker - Judee Sill - Live in London: The BBC Recordings, 1972-1973

Somehow lost to history, this is early ’70s folk singer Judee Sill’s only remotely successful single. Think Joni Mitchell with a dark past, and you’ll almost have it. Look for my review of the album on TMT soon.

15. Wham City - Dan Deacon - Spiderman of the Rings

Man of the hour in the independent music world (and man of the decade in Baltimore) Dan Deacon’s epic ode to his beloved Wham City collective. Like an amusement park ride that gets you so dizzy that you vomit and then get right back on for a second ride.

If you asked me two weeks ago what the worst piece of journalism I’d ever read was, I probably wouldn’t have been able to come up with a clear winner. Fortunately, about a week and a half ago, the dearly loved/hated website Pitchfork Media posted a review of Baltimore’s Whartscape festival that may just be the most awful piece of writing of all time.

The writer, Mike Powell, seems to consider a trip to Baltimore as a truly daring venture, perhaps on par with doing humanitarian aid in Darfur or going to Russia to write about Chechan politics. The author describes Baltimore as a place “where someone may, statistically speaking, have been killed the night before.” Like me, Powell lives in New York, where 539 people were murdered in 2006. Of course, the Big Apple has a much larger population than Charm City but the fact remains that, “statistically speaking,” it’s fair to say that 1-2 people are sure to have been killed on any given day within the five boroughs. While describing a performance by Wham City collective band Santa Dads, the intrepid journalist marvels, “Everyone is having fun! and no one is scared.” This seems to surprise him, despite the fact that the set took place during the day, in a relatively safe part of the city. I guess everyone who lives anywhere in Baltimore is supposed to be scared 24 hours a day. How exhausting.

In a jaw-dropping attempt at anthropology, Powell attempts to describe the people of Baltimore, who are apparently all archetypal noble savages or idiot savants. I could point out a number of memorable moments, but the following paragraph reflects the height of hilarity:

I meet a Baltimorean named, I think, Brian, who gushes breathlessly about a show he played in Atlanta and how he got hit in the head with a plate and was bleeding everywhere and a redneck convinced him he had to cauterize his head with a hot knife, but Brian passed, opting instead to make out with a girl, blood all over their collective face. He stares off for a second. “It was the best night of my life.” Brian’s gutter Zen feels like the rule in Baltimore, not the exception. If there’s any overall impression from the folks in the city, it’s that they very much mean it, that this is their lives, that they have enough conviction in what they’re playing, making, breathing to squat in an abandoned building if they have to. And some of them do.

Let’s bypass the generalizations here and get right to the essence of Powell’s observations. I guess he means that everyone in Baltimore is a pseudo-mystic that lives in a cardboard box and pounds out some rudimentary, but heartfelt, music on found instruments. Uh, I lived in Baltimore for four years and still return often to visit, and I can’t think of anyone who fits that deeply insulting description. And as for “Brian”? He has, of course, already responded via his MySpace blog. Turns out he’s not even from Baltimore and was talking to some other guy about his bloody night in Atlanta while the writer eavesdropped. Great fact-checking, Pitchfork!

The writing becomes so awful, so presumptuous and condescending, that I even briefly forgot to be upset that this so-called “Live Review” barely said anything about Whartscape’s actual performances!

Throughout the piece, Powell compares New York’s music scene and Baltimore’s. Marveling at the mysterious, DIY nature of Mobtown’s venues, he describes warehouses as “burgeoning fire hazards with crappy ventilation” and writes, “The building hosting the festival’s evening shows doesn’t have a fixed name and almost never prints their address on their fliers.” One wonders whether the writer confines his New York-based concert attendance to established venues like Webster Hall and Irving Plaza, or if he’s conveniently forgotten about venues like Silent Barn (a.k.a. Raven’s Den, a.k.a. Club Krib), a warehouse space in the heart of Ridgewood where the residents host shows in their massive kitchen. This is not to say that there aren’t differences between the two cities that perhaps bear mention (though one wonders why everything must ultimately be compared to New York), but he pretty much boils it down to the observation that people in Baltimore are enthusiastic and wild, while people in New York are jaded and restrained. As someone who’s lived in both places, as well as someone who was in Whartscape’s Saturday night audience, I feel like I can shed a bit more light on what Powell seems to have missed completely. Here’s the thing: Baltimore is a major city, but its creative community, and music scene in particular, is small. When you go to an event like Whartscape, which showcases and celebrates the achievements of these talented people, it’s going to be a jubilant event because everyone knows each other. The line between band and audience is blurred, as everyone becomes a participant in the performances of their friends, neighbors, and collaborators. Because New York is a big place with an appropriately large independent music scene, it’s possible to go to a local band’s show and not see anyone that you recognize. It’s harder to party with strangers than with friends, isn’t it?

Photo: The Death Set perform at Whartscape, as Rjyan Kidwell (a.k.a. Cex), Nolen Strals (of Double Dagger), and others crowd the stage. More Whartscape photos by Sean.

Marnie Stern is pretty much my favorite musician right now. Her debut album, In Advance of the Broken Arm (Kill Rock Stars), is a serious contender for my favorite of 2007, and her virtuosic live performances are even better. If you know anyone who can rock an electric guitar half as well as Marnie Stern, I want to hear about it.

New Jersey-based duo Rocket Surgery put on a great opening act.* Drummer Mark Ludas and guitar/keyboard player Joel Kennedy invoke prog-rock, metal, hardcore, and horror movie soundtracks to create some enormous, intense songs. Some of it’s instrumental, some finds the band members sharing vocals, which occasionally evolve into spontaneous-sounding monologue. I’m hard pressed to think of a drummer who moves faster, hits harder, or approaches his performance with such zeal as Ludas, and with he and Kennedy running at full steam, Sunday night’s set certainly won over some new converts. After the band left the stage, a guy next to me, visibly impressed, asked if I knew their name. He appeared to be text messaging someone about them… so let the well-deserved buzz begin!

Then came Puttin’ on the Ritz, another duo that couldn’t have been more different from Rocket Surgery (or Marnie Stern, for that matter). They do sarcastic, half-assed covers of oldies like “Earth Angel,” embellished with dumb skits, most of which involve the band members fighting and standing up on the drum kit. I’m not devoid of a sense of humor, I promise, but this shit was just not funny. The jokes were flat, the covers were pointless, and this ironic, hipster, kitschy bullshit got old years ago.

Thankfully, Marnie Stern reinvigorated the evening with a fantastic homecoming set. Now accompanied by Robby Moncrieff of The Advantage on guitar and drummer Zach Hill of Hella, her sound is bigger and better than ever. Up until recently, Stern’s only tourmates were her guitar and iPod, and even then she was blowing audiences’ minds. At first I was a bit nostalgic for those good, old days, as they sure did showcase her unparalleled guitar chops, but I was quickly won over by her new band’s skills and the way they filled out her sound. Standout tracks from In Advance of the Broken Arm, like “Every Line Means Something” and “Grapefruit,” drove everyone wild, and Stern’s chatty, onstage banter was seriously endearing. We were even treated to a visit from her tiny dog (who’s been with her throughout the tour), while Moncrieff recovered from a guitar mishap.

Two of these bands are going places, and one has probably already gone farther than it ever should have. Hey, two outta three ain’t bad!

*Full disclosure: I know these guys. But here’s the deal: I won’t lie. If I have any personal connection to a band and I think they suck, I just won’t write about them. I don’t feel any pressure to talk up bands I don’t like, whether I know them or not.

Dear New York Times,

Two different people (both in their early to mid-twenties) alerted me this morning to the following article:

New Poll Finds that Young Americans are Leaning Left

The poll cited in the article (a collaboration between the Times, CBS, and MTV–because obviously MTV is the only way to reach young people) has found that, “Young Americans are more likely than the general public to favor a government-run universal health care insurance system, an open-door policy on immigration and the legalization of gay marriage.” Basically, the writer comes to the conclusion that young people (ages 17 to 29) are more socially liberal than the population at large, though in comparison with Americans as a whole, a greater percentage support the war in Iraq. Boil it all down and you get no further analysis than, “Youthful idealism leads them to care about social justice, while at the same time drives them to believe in the righteousness of our war efforts!” What we have here is the conventional wisdom that each generation tends to be more liberal than the last, and that young people are idealistic. The article includes only one brief interview with 21-year-old Democrat, who reduces the entire situation down to which party has a better marketing strategy, saying, “The traditional Republican Party is still trying to get older votes, which doesn’t make sense because there are so many more voters my age. It would be sensible to cater to us.”

After reading this article, I have no sense of what issues actually matter most to my generation, much less any idea as to why our priorities are the way they are. Are we worried about the health care or social security crises that older generations have left hanging over our heads? Do we have unique viewpoints to contribute on gay marriage or abortion? What causes our views on immigration to be different from those of our parents?

This article comes on the heels of Sunday’s installment of what I call the Times’ “Those Crazy Kids!” series. Basically, they take a fairly long-lived and well-documented youth phenomenon (in this case hipsters’ love of crafts) and present it as a news flash. A gem from that piece, whose writer clearly has her fingers on the pulse of youth culture, “From ironic T-shirts and thrift-store dresses to ’80s jewelry and skinny ties, it can sometimes seem as if every young person who eschews investment banking and law school for creative pursuits looks eerily similar.” What a novel observation!

Earlier this year, you brought us the revelations that hipsters like fair trade coffee (especially in Ditmas Park, that mecca of cool) and that Williamsburg is expensive. Thanks for that.

Is it just me, or are your articles approaching the kinds of fake news that The Onion gives us, in such well-loved classics as “Local Hipster Over-Explaining Why He Was at the Mall”?

But I’m not writing to bash you, Times. I’m just a regular reader with a simple plan for helping you connect with the youth of America. All you have to do is… ready for this?…

HIRE SOMEONE UNDER 30!

Hell, maybe you should even hire two or three people in their twenties. I know we’re idealistic and run around wearing goofy t-shirts, but I think we all know that most of your writers have some tie dye and protest memorabilia hidden in storage somewhere, too. Instead of wringing our hands over how many young people get their news from The Daily Show, rather than your fine publication or others like it, perhaps you could expand your repertoire to include some real youth points of view.

Stay groovy,

Judy

This Saturday was the 25th anniversary of Coney Island’s beloved Mermaid Parade. For the uninitiated, the Mermaid Parade is one of those wonderful traditions that keeps New York vital, despite the gentrification, commercialization, and redevelopment. Every summer, groups dressed as mermaids, shellfish, pirates, and other denizens of the high seas converge for what is essentially a debaucherous freak parade (it’s also the nation’s largest art parade). According to ConeyIsland.com, this year’s was the biggest Mermaid Parade ever.

Unfortunately, Coney Island is slated for redevelopment. Astroland stands to be demolished in favor of hotels and condos. Though the amusement park was granted a stay of execution, allowing it to remain open through the 2008 summer season, the longer-range future of Astroland and Coney Island are still up in the air.

ETA: David from Coney Island USA wrote in to let us know that Astroland was NOT granted a stay of execution to remain open next summer and that the New York Post (imagine that) reported the story without consulting Astroland. In short: suck, suck, suck.

Here’s to enjoying the Mermaid Parade while we still can, and to not giving up the fight for the survival of this and other irreplacable New York institutions.

Photos by Sean. More photos here.

Another Silverdocs selection, Mike Mills’ Does Your Soul Have a Cold? tracks the lives of five Japanese twenty- and thirtysomethings on mood-stabilizing drugs. Depression has become a theme for Mills, who directed 2005’s disappointing narrative film Thumbsucker. Thankfully, the documentary form prevents Mills from indulging in the sort of preciousness that afflicted his first film, and he manages to sketch out engaging and complicated character studies. While I had hoped that Does Your Soul Have a Cold? would spend more time talking about how GlaxoSmithKline and other drug companies basically introduced the concept of depression to mainstream Japan (the title is taken from the first Japanese ad campaign for antidepressants), Mills chose to go in a more personal direction. These in-depth profiles, taken together, illustrate the effects of mood stabilizing drugs on a nation that up until recently seemed to have no use for them. Though the film moves slowly, its nuanced and sensitive character studies kept my attention throughout. Does Your Soul Have a Cold? raises important questions about the social construction of depression versus individual, lived realities, as well as the power of pharmaceutical companies and other multinational corporations to shape global culture.

Here’s an interview on the film with Mike Mills from SXSW 2007:

Last week, I went to DC for Silverdocs. For the most part, I was there to review new music documentaries for Tiny Mix Tapes, but I had time to check out a few other films, too. One of the best of these was Super Amigos, a film that follows five rather unusual “lucha libre”-style Mexican wrestlers in Mexico City. Each masked man is a crusader for a different cause: Super Barrio fights for tenants’ rights and prevents eviction, Fray Tormenta runs two shelters for homeless children, and Super Gay combats homophobia. Ecologista Universal is the conservationist wrestler, while Super Animal directs his rage towards bullfighting.

The film’s comic book style, integrating animated sequences and panels of narration, underscores the wrestlers’ status as quirky, local superheroes. Super Amigos is both politically serious and lots of fun, incorporating light and heavy moments into an inspiring and entertaining film about five men and their unique approach to social activism.

New York’s beloved annual River to River festival kicked off last Friday with my dream line-up, Animal Collective and Danielson. Now, I have long been ambivalent about free shows. While they’re great in theory, in practice they’re hot and packed and attract pretty much the strangest, most obnoxious crowds of all time. This audience was no different, packed with ironically-clad hipsters (apparently fanny packs are the new black) and obnoxious, underaged kids from Long Island and New Jersey. As I staked out my spot, I heard one such group of teenagers discuss how “sweet” it’s going to be when Die Hard 4 comes out this summer, loudly strategize about the best way to buy beer with “fakes,” and just generally overuse the word “fuck.”

Thankfully, it was well worth the wait. Danielson, whose album Ships (Secretly Canadian) was one of my favorites of 2006, did a great set, full of characteristic Smith family good-natured dorkiness. Their performance drew from every era of their career, from folksy, upbeat “Rubber-Necker” and “Idiot Box” off of Tri-Danielson!!! (Tooth & Nail, 1998), part of the “Danielson Famile” era, to the Ships’ transcendent “Did I Step on Your Trumpet?” Even the aforementioned nightmare audience couldn’t ruin the positive energy that pervaded the set, despite trying their damnedest to do so. When Daniel Smith announced that the next song was called “Five Stars and Two Thumbs Up,” adding, adorably, “because that’s how we feel about you,” a kid next to me shouted, “I give you two-and-a-half stars on a good day!” Hardy har har. I guess just about every music critic in the country was wrong to sing the praises of Ships, then, huh? I was reminded of something Anton Newcombe screamed at a heckler during a disastrous Brian Jonestown Massacre show a few years back: “Why don’t you go smoke some crack and do something with your life?”

Animal Collective shut the crowd up (well, for the most part) with over 90 minutes of experimental, psychedelic goodness. Though space was tight, and my feet started to hurt from standing on the dock for so long, I was compelled to stay for the entire show. Each song merged with the next, with improvisation playing a large part. At some moments airy and diffuse, and at others intense and revelatory, the set felt complete and satisfying. The performance coincided with sunset over the water, and while New York’s aren’t great, as sunsets go, it was a fitting backdrop. It was exciting to see Panda Bear, Avey Tare, and Geologist (Deakin wasn’t in attendance) be so creative and energetic. It’s hard to understand how truly unique and experimental Animal Collective is until you see them live. I can’t wait for Panda Bear’s concert at Bowery Ballroom later this month!

I went to see Waitress on a total whim, expecting it to be nothing more than a light and fluffy summer-night diversion. By the time I left the theater, I realized that it was a strong, early contender for my favorite film of 2007.

Waitress transcends the diner kitschfest that I (and many others) anticipated, attaining the magical quality with which the best classic Hollywood movies are imbued. It shares with those films a likable and virtuous protagonist (Keri Russell, radiant as Jenna), who instantly wins over the audience. A waitress at “Joe’s Pie Diner,” Jenna is stuck in a suffocating marriage with a jealous, needy, and abusive husband, Earl (Jeremy Sisto, exhibiting impressive emotional range). Her only joy in life is creating delicious, whimsical pies with names like “Marshmallow Mermaid” and “I Hate My Husband.” Though Earl demands that she give him all of her tip money at the end of each shift, she manages to sock some of it away and fantasizes about winning $25,000 in a pie competition, in the hopes of saving enough to leave him. An unwanted pregnancy further complicates Jenna’s situation, forcing her to keep another secret from Earl and bringing a cute but awkward young obstetrician into her life.

You might think you know where this is going. Well, think again. While (spoiler!) dearly departed writer-director Adrienne Shelly does give us a happy ending, it isn’t the one she sets us up to expect. I won’t reveal the specifics, but I will say that the ending is completely appropriate. Though it masquerades as a carefree confection, Waitress is a serious and important film. It doesn’t give us easy answers, making her characters deal with the consequences of their actions. Romantic love doesn’t conquer all, because sometimes there are more important things in life. Sometimes relationships simply don’t work out because practical concerns prevent them from doing so.

The film’s characters, too, seem at first to conform to Hollywood stereotypes. Slowly, though, Shelly erodes these one-dimensional representations. Earl is a controlling, abusive husband, but he truly loves Jenna, and his behavior stems from the fear that she doesn’t love him as he loves her. Though Becky (Cheryl Hines), who waits tables with Jenna, is a snarky, subtlely superior bottle blonde, she is fiercely loyal to her friends and refuses to leave her invalid husband. Powerful performances on the part of every actor, most of whom were playing against type (check out Andy Griffith as a fussy curmudgeon with a good heart) are essential to fleshing out Shelly’s complex cast of characters. The filmmaker herself proves a triple threat, rounding out the triumvirate of waitresses as single, self-conscious Dawn.

Waitressis far from the best movie ever made. Still I consider it a perfect film. Not a single shot or line is wasted. Shelly’s directorial choices are impeccable. Every scene, especially those overhead shots of Jenna baking ever more exotic pies, lives up to its aesthetic and dramatic potential. The movie succeeds entirely on its own deeply, yet subtley, subversive terms. Waitress is that rare film that moves the medium forward without alienating mainstream audiences. Cinema, and the world as a whole, I think, has lost an important, powerful, humanist voice in Adrienne Shelly.

I happened to hear the new Smashing Pumpkins single, “Tarantula,” on KEXP while I was at work yesterday. It prompted me to wonder, WHY DOES BILLY CORGAN KEEP KILLING MUSIC?

Sure, I loved The Smashing Pumpkins between the ages of 10 and 13. At that age, I identified with the vague rebellion implied in lyrics like “Despite all my rage/I am still just a rat in a cage” and even thought that “Disarm you with a smile/And cut you like you want me to/Cut that little child/Inside of me and such a part of you” sounded kind of romantic. I’m not proud of it, but the words seemed pretty profound to me at the time. It makes sense: the middle school years are defined by misdirected anger, and any notion that one may have of romance in seventh grade is likely to involve a lot of sadomasochistic, self-pitying sentiments.

Billy Corgan is now 40 years old, and he still hasn’t gotten over this crap. “Tarantula” sounds like an outtake from either of the Machina albums, which weren’t so hot in the first place. And the lyrics? Oh boy. “Yes, I’m real/’Cause someone gave us sound”? Non sequitur. “The spoils of all I got were left to scrounge.” Anyone want to take a stab at diagramming that sentence? Then there’s, “I don’t want to be alone,” which Corgan howls repeatedly towards the end of the song.

It’s been a long slide since Siamese Dream, the band’s career highlight if you don’t think much about the lyrics. At that point, they were still stealing enough from shoegaze to create interesting soundscapes. The horrifically-named Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness had some high points (again, if you ignore the lyrics) but was ultimately flabby and self-indulgent. Then came Adore–remember Billy Corgan in the “Ava Adore” video, looking like Uncle Fester in a floor-length black dress? The Machina albums play like self-parody. Then there was Zwan (no explanation needed). I didn’t even bother with the Corgan solo album.

And now this?

The new album is going to be called Zeitgeist. I seriously doubt that Corgan knows the meaning of that word. The American Heritage Dictionary (2006) defines “zeitgeist” as: “The spirit of the time; the taste and outlook characteristic of a period or generation.” And the Smashing Pumpkins? Perhaps the spirit of 12-year-olds across the country a decade ago… but at this point, one can only hope that the album title is a self-effacing joke.

I saw this movie at a midnight screening last Saturday. A potential cult classic overlooked for years due to lack of distribution, The Apple may be the Plan 9 from Outer Space of pop musicals. The plot, such as it is, centers around the dystopic world of the future (1994, that is), in which people wear lots of silver vinyl but disco-chic hairdos are still all the rage. This harsh realm is controlled by a totalitarian record company called Boogalow International Music (called, simply, “The BIM”). It isn’t clear how the label made the transition from selling music to world domination, but that’s part of the fun. When an idealistic, young, folk-singing couple proves a threat to BIM’s disco mind control, Boogalow’s head honcho manages to seduce one of them into his evil fold, while the other rebels against BIM’s control. And, of course, this is all one, big, glittery New Testament allegory.

According to “New York’s Apple Superfan,” who hosted our screening, at the movie’s premiere, the audience hated the movie so much that they threw the commemorative soundtrack LPs they had been given at the screen. Don’t you hate people with no sense of camp?

To be honest, I was both excited and a little bit scared about attending No Fun Fest. A yearly four-day festival devoted entirely to experimental and noise music, No Fun takes place at The Hook, in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Now in its fourth year, the festival has been attracting an ever-growing following, including lots of out-of-towners. This year, the four-day festival pass sold out almost immediately, and when I tried, a few weeks ago, to buy tickets for Thursday the 17th and Saturday the 19th, I found that the Saturday show (headlined by giant of noise Merzbow) was already sold out.

As to the source of my trepidation, well, I am by no means an aficionado of noise. In fact, before I started writing for Tiny Mix Tapes, avant garde and noise music barely existed for me. I was vaguely aware of it, but I was never interested enough to allow it to infiltrate the predominantly indie rock realm of my musical taste. But a few months into writing for TMT, two interesting things happened. First, I started reading and hearing from other writers about bands and musicians who were innovating beyond anything I’d ever heard before. At the same time, because writing about music forced me to engage with such a high volume of it, I grew weary. Much of the indie rock I’d love so much was boring the hell out of me. The “hype” bands just weren’t cutting it. Tapes ‘N Tapes? What the hell is good about that band? The Hold Steady? Don’t get me started. Has anyone listened to Ted Leo’s new album? Crap, crap, crap. I still listen largely to what we call indie rock, for lack of a more descriptive genre, but there was no question that I needed something new. I went to a Magik Markers show, saw Lightning Bolt a few weeks later, and can definitely see the appeal of noise. It sounds new, pushes limits, is neither catchy nor marketable. But I still wasn’t sure whether I was ready for No Fun. Would I make it through an entire night of this stuff?

Because I was kind of scared it would kill me, I only showed up in time for the second half of Thursday’s show. We walked in just as Hive Mind and Damien Romero were beginning their set. Maybe my inexperience or lack of subtlety is showing, but to me this was nothing but two guys pulling knobs on boxes to produce a drone that didn’t change much during the duration of their set. People seemed to be into it, but I couldn’t appreciate what was going on. I just didn’t see what there was to like.

Kim Gordon and Yoshimi (of Boredoms) were next. I loved their set which, though it involved a healthy amount of screaming from Gordon, was less of an assault on the ears than anything else I heard that night. It all sounded (and might have been, for all I know) very spontaneous. My only complaint is that their performance was too short, at under 20 minutes.

My favorite set of the night was Hair Police. They seemed to riff on other genres, like industrial, hardcore, and metal, taking them to their logical extremes at the far reaches of what can rightly be called “songs.” Whatever they were doing, they were definitely on point, full of energy, and totally exciting.

Pain Jerk ended the evening. No one that I came to the show with was at all familiar with them, but someone we met while loitering outside between sets told us that they were Japanese and “unlistenable”–which, to him, was not a bad thing. This was a pretty good description–unlistenable, but I still wanted to listen to it, because it was interesting. Kohei Gomi spent the duration of his performance bent over his electric guitar, perhaps the most intensely focused guitar player I’ve ever seen. That said, I left after about 40 minutes, because my ears were ringing. As far as I could tell, the set ended just about as soon as I got outside, so I didn’t miss much.

All in all, a mind-expanding experience, and it made me kind of sad that I hadn’t cared enough to get the Saturday tickets before they sold out.

A Note on Moshing

I understand that the feminist polemic isn’t attractive. Over the years, I have become less and less inclined to resort to it. But this mosh pit stuff has been weighing on my mind ever since I started going to noise shows.

Let me set the stage. At most noise shows, the audience is never more than 20% female. At No Fun Fest, I think the percentage was even smaller.

Inevitably, a mosh pit formed. If you are a 5′4” girl, as I am, you will have a hard time seeing the stage unless you’re near the front. At least 25 guys in excess of six feet tall will be blocking your view. You can’t really blame them–they probably don’t know they’re doing it, and they deserve to see the show, too. But if you push your way up to the front, you’re in the mosh pit. This can be a problem if you’re roughly half the size of the average guy who’s slamming into you. You’ve got a choice: risk serious injury or have a horrible view.

At No Fun, the pit just got crazier as the night went on. The energy got really weird during Pain Jerk. People seemed to be throwing some serious punches. Someone got hurt in the middle of the pit, and a few people tried to shield him or her from being stepped on, but no one seemed to care. They just kept moshing. My friend saw a girl in the Ladies Room holding an ice pack to her newly-bruised head.

Now, I don’t like saying this, because it makes me the Captain No Fun of No Fun Fest. And I understand, live music is exciting. Of course it is. Moshing is attractive because it’s a way to participate in what the musicians onstage are doing. Some people think that it, like contact sports, also satisfies heterosexual males’ need for a social excuse to touch other heterosexual males (thus its prevalence in largely male musical genres: noise, hardcore, metal). But if it’s going to hurt a fair number of people every night and prevent countless others from seeing or enjoying the show, maybe it’s time to rethink the practice and allow everyone the chance at a positive experience.

After seeing Grindhouse, I had April March’s “Chick Habit” stuck in my head for weeks. After doing some research, I realized that March’s song was an English-language cover of a French song called “Laisse Tomber les Filles.” Apparently Serge Gainsbourg wrote it for France Gall.

Here’s an amazing music video for the original version. Thanks, YouTube!

I love Guy Maddin. From Twilight of the Ice Nymphs to The Saddest Music in the World , his movies combine weird, weird ideas with an obsession with old Hollywood. There’s really not much like his movies–you just kind of have to see them.

That said, imagine the absolute ecstatic shock that seized me as I heard about the plans surrounding a special New York engagement for his new movie, Brand Upon the Brain! As the film is silent, with a soundtrack and narration intended for live performance, Maddin decided to get some of his favorite people to narrate. These included Laurie Anderson, John Ashbery, Isabella Rosselini… and Lou Reed.

Lou Reed! I bought tickets immediately.

Brand Upon the Brain! is a supposedly autobiographical story about a little boy named (what else?) Guy Maddin. I say supposedly because, well, Guy lives with his hyper-vigilant mother, mad scientist father, and sexually intense older sister in a lighthouse that also serves as an orphanage. When Wendy Hale, a teen detective in the Bobsy Twins tradition, mysteriously arrives on the island, things go from bizarre to… well… super-bizarre. Eventually, Wendy disguises herself as her “brother,” Chance and seduces Guy’s sister, who subsequently kills her father, who is then reanimated! I hope you understand that these aren’t spoilers–it’s pretty difficult to spoil this movie. The black and white photography and frequently hysterical intertitles gave the film an antiquated, and therefore timeless, ambience. Somehow, it also made it easier to suspend my disbelief. There are many adjectives that apply to Guy Maddin, but “realist” isn’t one of them.

At the screening I attended, Reed sat in elevated box seats above the stage, reading the narration from what seemed to be a teleprompter. His weathered voice complimented the film perfectly, though I admit it was difficult to stay focused on the screen when I would just as soon have watched him instead. I was particularly wrapt when he read the description of one character’s history of electroshock, recalling all of the rumors about Reed’s own childhood experiences that have been circulating for years.

Also in the theater were an 11-piece orchestra, an opera singer for the film’s two arias, and three sound people doing live sound effects. Everyone was perfectly synched with the movie, and the entire live set-up made it impossible not to think about each element of the film (and of film in general) separately, and how it all comes together. It’s so great when theater, film, and music come together so successfully.

“Throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘You helped this happen.’” –Jerry Falwell on the causes of 9/11

So tell me, if gays, feminists, wiccans, and the ACLU made God angry enough to cause 9/11, what does it mean that the day of Jerry Falwell’s death is the sunniest, warmest day so far this year? I guess this “God” dude has a pretty good sense of humor.

The Mountain Goats, Friday 5.11.07
Sound Fix Records, Brooklyn

Is there anything better than a free Mountain Goats show at a great independent record store? If there is, it can’t be legal.

John Darnielle turned up last Friday to celebrate the re-opening of Sound Fix’s Fix Cafe and Lounge. The renovated bar and performance space looked fantastic, and crowds swarmed. An hour before the scheduled show time, the place was already packed, with fans spilling out into the street, hoping to at least hear Darnielle’s set. Some friends and I cleverly parked ourselves in front of the one window that offered a clear (albeit side) view of the stage.

Darnielle told the audience that he was going to play some very obscure stuff, and he definitely delivered on the promise. We got tons of cassette-only material, including one song that The Mountain Goats recorded for a tape Darnielle’s friend released in the mid-’90s as an attack on Lollapalooza. A catchy and promising new song, called “Lovecraft in Brooklyn” chronicled H.P. Lovecraft’s move to Red Hook. Darnielle confessed that he was nervous about that song, as everyone wants to “rep Brooklyn” these days. Hopefully the crowd’s positive response was enough to convince him to hang onto it. Though I knew that the set would be devoted largely to rarities, I held out hope of hearing “Palmcorder Yajna.” Maybe all of my good karma added up, because my favorite Mountain Goats song managed to make its way onto the setlist.

When Frank Bruno joined Darnielle onstage for a super-rare performance by the duo’s side project, Extra Glenns, I thought that the hardcore fans in the audience were going to explode.

And of course, the first encore ended with a hearty singalong to “No Children,” which Darnielle flubbed at first and then had to start over.

Despite his complaints about the heat in the room (I was in there for a few minutes and had to leave–too many people, yech), Darnielle soldiered on through almost an hour and a half of material. Police and fire trucks circled the block multiple times, and though I was afraid they were about to shut us down for blocking the sidewalk and violating fire codes, the show proceeded. It was a perfect spring evening, with an ice cream truck hovering at the corner of the block and Mountain Goats fans (an almost eerily sweet group of people) sitting on trash can lids, drinking bottles of beer out of paper bags.

Setlist (stolen from The Mountain Goats forum)
the mountain goats:

some swedish trees
snow crush killing song
going to queens
the day the aliens came
going to bolivia
going to maine
lovecraft in brooklyn (new song)
the recognition scene
cold milk bottle
going to port washington
palmcorder yajna

the extra glenns:

the river song
infidelity
adultery
program cell death (or programmed cell death?) - new extra glenns song!

the irony engine
going to marrakesh
carmen cicero
the badger song

-first encore:
memories
no children (aborted piano-only version)
no children (guitar and piano version)

-second encore:
houseguest