KEVIN'S BEST OF 2009

With the year coming to an end, it seems appropriate to highlight some of the best (or most notable) things about the past 365 days...

PASSION PIT: MANNERS


I don’t think I’ve gone a day since this album came out without listening to at least part of it. It’s my favorite album of 2009 for sure.


SWINE FLU


For something that had more hype than The Dark Knight, the global swine flu pandemic really didn’t deliver. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing...

CHUCK PALAHNIUK’S PYGMY


Satire really doesn’t get any fiercer than this novel. My favorite book of 2009, of course I didn’t really read any other new books this year either.


FANTASTIC MR. FOX


Stop-Motion movies don’t come out nearly as often as they should, and in a year saturated with 3-D CGI releases Wes Anderson’s incredibly sharp adaptation of the Roald Dhal children's book was a breath of fresh air.


INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS


Quentin Tarantino really outdid himself with this one. This has got to be one of the best written movies in the past decade and the actors pulled off their roles without a single hitch. The ending was more than satisfying.


DISTRICT 9


This was one of the best science fiction films I’ve seen in a while. Creatively made and it had some pretty awesome special effects too.



POLITICS


Ranging from zany conspiracy theories to, well, more zany conspiracy theories, this has been probably the most politically obnoxious year in a while. 2009 was the year where almost anything could be used as a political platform and was, everyone seemed to have an opinion about things they didn’t know much about. Stupid knows no boundaries.


YEASAYER: AMBLING ALP


This single is so much more than I expected from Yeasayer (I expected a lot too)
I can’t wait for Odd Blood to be released (officially).




HEAP.


This November Heap had it’s very first post, that’s worthy of mention I think.


RANDOM: Star Wars + Adidas

I gotta say, most of the time merchandising kinda just pisses me off. The exploitation of Where the Wild Things Are got beyond annoying this fall. I will say though if there's one intellectual property that I don't mind seeing turned into clothing, toys, books etc. It's the Star Wars franchise. I don't know why Star Wars is exempt from my disapproval of brand exploitation, it probably has something to do with the fact that Star Wars has always been as much about the merchandise as it has about the films.
Anyway, it looks like Adidas and Star Wars have teamed up to create some awesome kicks due for release next year. I think it might be part of an underground effort to get us fanboys to look cooler.
Check out the the full product line below
Hypebeast

MOVIE: THE CULT OF SINCERITY

Recently I've stopped watching a lot of "indie" films. For the most part I've found a lot of the films released after Garden State made minimalist movies that had quirky, flawed characters, appeal to wider audiences to be on verge of being so pretentious that they make me want to throw something at the tv. Garden State was an exceptional film, but many writers and directors trying to reach that audience have bastardized the concepts that made the film so good. I honestly have gotten to the point where whenever the typified troubled, young, artistic character has a moment of self discovery, or as I have taken to calling it, a pseudo zen Garden State aha! moment (I've used the exact phrase in conversation, I promise), I check out for the rest of the film.
So with that rant out of the way, I introduce you to The Cult of Sincerity, a film I probably would have never watched except it was on instant watch on nextflix, it was pretty late at night, and the trailer seemed intriguing. I'm so glad I decided to watch it.

The plot centers around a guy named Joseph who, fed up with his generation's sarcastic and uncaring attitude, decides to start his own one-man movement to be more real with people.
There's no getting around it, the characters are part of the much loathed "hipster" sub-culture, they thrive on irony, are into art, and don't give a shit about anything, But I don't know if trying to categorize the characters under such a blanket statement is fair, hipster or no, they are all pretty relatable. Joe tries to combat their attitude but finds it much more difficult than he thought (I found a discussion on post modernism to be particularly humorous).

Now, if what I described sounds like it could be exactly the type of trite, pretentious movie that I should hate, then you are right, but it doesn't try to hammer you in the face with philosophy, or realizations about humanity at least not in an obnoxious way. The acting is very believable, and I think that is a lot of what sets this film apart from most others.
All said The Cult of Sincerity is a smart, funny film who's message isn't annoying or pretentious. But, that's just my opinion.
8.5/10

BAND OF THE WEEK #3 NATALIE PORTMAN'S SHAVED HEAD

What does Natalie Portman's Shaved Head have in common with Norweigian black metal band Darkthrone?
Absolutely nothing, I just wanted to start this post with a question.

NPSH (as I will refer to them for the remainder of this post) is a synth pop group who formed in a Seattle foodcourt around 2005 by two guys (Luke Smith and Shaun Libman) who wanted, among other things, to score girlfriends. The two eventually teamed up with Claire England, David Price and Liam Downey Jr to form the band's current lineup.

Their music lies somewhere between MGMT and the B52s with the dance sensibility of Daft Punk. This is a band who crams ridiculously catchy hooks into every orifice of their music, and they pride themselves on doing so. If you are looking for a band who's songs embody some sort of deep emotional or social meaning, this is not the band for you, but if you want a band who's music is full of immature sex jokes and just plain catchy ridiculous fun then you, my friend, have stumbled upon pure gold.

So far, NPSH has released one album, 2008's Glistening Pleasure sporting songs with titles such as Slow Motion Tag Team, Beard Lust and Sophisticated Sideways Ponytail. The whole album is catchy and like I said before crammed with high doses of highschool level humor. The poppy synths make the album perfect to put on and have an impromptu dance party in your basement, friends car, an elevator, really wherever you want, although I'm a fan of the elevator.

Something that really sets these guys apart from a lot of bands these days is the how vocal they are with their fanbase. They frequently update their blog, facebook page, myspace, and twitter with photos they've taken on tour, announcements, and random stuff that they find interesting(recently a post about ear wraps, earrings that make you look like you've just arrived from middle earth)

This band is really a must listen for fans of MGMT, Hot Chip, CSS, and Daft Punk as well as anybody who has a sense of humor and wants something they can dance to. but to you, the stuffy "mature listener" who's radio tuner never leaves NPR (I'm not hatin' on NPR!) and cannot stand those stupid kids who go out and cover your yard with toilet paper and loaf around the outsides of stores without buying anything (or maybe you are still one of the younger demographic but think you are better than that) , do yourself a favor and click the below link anyway.

MYSPACE

wintertime playlist.

a (just for fun) playlist

BAND OF THE WEEK #2: The Modern Electric

I will admit that I know absolutely nothing about this band except what they say in the mission statement that they posted on their myspace

We are from Cleveland Ohio, a city wrought with negative connotation. The mere mention of our town brings about scoffing! Eyes role in contempt! It seems that a cultural black cloud has hung over Cleveland for decades; held in place by the cynicism of the music industry and the lack of faith shown by artistic leaders. This stigma has given birth to a regional Dark Age. Any signs of light remain as "well-kept secrets", or are outsourced to the cities of societal favor: L.A., New York- bloated monotonous machines of industry whose glories fade as steel surely turns to rust. We, THE MODERN ELECTRIC, proclaim the coming of a Renaissance to Cleveland! The Dark Ages will be transformed by public reinvestment into Art! Beauty! Local music! Local galleries! Filled with Local artists! Local Boutiques! Local Ideas! Local blood pumping and rejuvenating the heart of Cleveland culture and expression! We shall be the desired destination! We shall be the Scene to which artistic nomads wander! They shall set their sails towards The Great Lake on which our empire stands! Hail Cleveland!

I really wish that more local bands had this mindset, especially here in Atlanta, a city who's music scene seems to hide itself.

Beyond having a great cause in front of them, this band has some exceptional music. They play some incredibly tight sounding piano-rock pop tunes and are most definitely worth lending your ears to. Usually when I talk to people about new music I attempt to impress them by describing the music or the artist. I'm not going to do that today, instead I will let the music impress you.
MYSPACE

- Kevin

Insomnia

Sometimes, I don't sleep. It's not that I can't sleep or that I'm not tired, but that I choose to stay awake. I guess that's not quite the same thing as insomnia, but that's the only word I know to label it.

It's 1:11 AM as I write this sentence. I am wide awake. It's like I get on a plateau and my mind is racing in a million different directions. I start to discuss things with myself. Usually I talk about music, art, God, or women. Tonight, I'm writing this.

It is amazing how much you can find out about yourself if you just sit and discuss things alone. Something about the night is surreal to me. It's one of the few times I feel like I'm just me. I'm Marcus. No masks or labels. This is where I find out who I really am. The door is shut and the cameras are off.

Tonight, I'm a lonely boy. Tomorrow, I'll be an artist.

Sorry for rambling.

-Marcus

BAND OF THE WEEK #1: DIRTY PROJECTORS

In an interview with Pitchfork Ed Droste of the band Grizzly Bear said this about the Dirty Projectors:

Someone was asking me about what I was listening to and I was saying "Oh, Dirty Projectors, I love the new album," and they were like, "Well what kind of music is it?" and I just stopped dead in my tracks and literally didn't know how to describe it.
At first I was embarrassed because I didn't know how to describe it, but then I was like, this is what's so amazing about a lot of music now. There are so many different things and there's so much going on and Bitte Orca is so distinctly Dirty Projectors that I didn't even know how to begin to describe what genre it is, you know? What would one categorize it as? So I find it hard lately to label things as indie or pop or folk or give it some sort of categorization.

The last question is one I found myself asking quite a bit last friday when I challenged myself with a daunting quest: Listen to every Dirty Projectors album non-consecutively. But where are my manners? I'd guess that a bit of background on this band would be more than appropriate.

Dirty Projectors was founded in 2002 by frontman Dave Longstereth, their first release The Graceful Fallen Mango was released on the Western Vinyl label under his name. For their second album they adopted the name Dirty Projectors and have made 5-7 (if you count EPs) more albums and counting.
My first contact with Dirty Projectors was in 2005 when I got The Graceful Fallen Mango out of curiosity. I honestly couldn't wrap my head around it at first. It was mostly acoustic tracks performed by Longstereth. They lacked organization and often sounded like a child attempting to make up a song on the spot. I listened once and only made it about halfway through the album before I made up an excuse to listen to something else. Even though I could never put my finger on anything that was genuinely likable about that album, I found myself going back and listening to it in small parts from time to time.

Fast forward to 2009, Dirty Projectors have just released their well-received album, Bitte Orca and I have some XM radio station playing in the background. The new Dirty Projectors single "Stillness is the Move" comes on and I stop what I was doing to listen to it. There's a structure, the vocalist was a female, I honestly couldn't believe that I was listening to the same band, but there was definitely something familiar about it. As if my radio knew that I had doubts, something happened and the station played the song again. It was definitely the same band but they had grown up.
I did some research and found out that in the time I had been ignoring their other albums the band had switched labels and filled out with Longstereth still at the helm. I began catching up on what I had missed. There's a lot of experimentation in their music and I'll admit that not all of the songs that make up their discography are very good, in fact I find some entirely unlistenable.

Last week I decided to see if I could make it through the bands full catalogue in one sitting, I won't lie and say I didn't fall short of my goal because I did, I took a small break to listen to Yeasayer and I skipped a few songs that I personally cannot stand, but nonetheless I felt like I had accomplished something at the end of it all.
What that was I am still not sure.

These guys are really worth checking out, I still have no idea what genre to even think about categorizing them as and I feel like that's the way they want it.

Myspace

Random Curiosity #1: Mycology

I have this tendency to become interested in incredibly bizarre things. Usually these eccentricities wear off after a brief period in time but they leave me with a solid grounding on the topic (via reading the entire wikipedia entry several times) and about $20 less in my bank account.
Recently I have taken an interest in Mycology which, for all you normal people out there, is the study of fungi. I decided about a month ago that I desperately wanted to go mushroom hunting (no not those mushrooms, the legal ones), so I hit up Barnes & Nobel for a field guide to identify the various species of edible fungi (as well as the poisonous ones so as not to get them confused with each other) and set about reading it. After carefully perusing the pages of Simon and Schuster's Guide to Mushrooms I felt confident enough to set about on a foray into the woods behind my house in search of a feast of delicious fungus. I had a blast picking handfuls of what appeared to be a variety of edible mushrooms. After about an hour I returned to my house covered in mosquito bites to set about sorting my spoils and double checking with my handy book to see if they would kill me or not.
I may have read the identification key incorrectly but I could not find one of the fungi that I picked within the pages of the book. There were several that were very similar looking to the pictures in the book but, being afraid of accidently poisoning myself, I threw the whole lot out. There's really no conclusion to this story yet, someday I plan on going back out for round two but at the moment I'm too much of a wimp to eat my spoils, and that's probably best.
How was that for random and uninteresting? It's fungus for christsake.

-Kevin

Tara McPherson

I wanted to share one of my favorite (and quite possibly favorite) artists with you guys, Tara McPherson. My dad randomly surprised me with her book "Lost Constellations" a while back and her work pretty much captivated me instantly.

check out some of her awesome poster art...

Her red-headed girls are probably my favorite.
(prepare to see some boobies..)




go here to check out more of her work:
http://www.taramcpherson.com/

Hopefully her work will inspire you guys just as much as it inspired me, and hopefully this blog post won't show up to be too terribly long.

xoxo,
Sarah

(500) Days of Soundtracks

First off, let me start by telling you I rarely connect to movies in a meaningful way. This isn't because film doesn't have to capacity to move me, but that most films are cookie-cutter, shallow presentations of defined genres. For this movie, that was not the case.

(500) Days of Summer, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (that kid from Angels in the Outfield!) and Zooey Deschanel (one of the most beautiful women on the earth IMO), is a romantic-comedy from a guy's perspective. That last part is very important.

A quick summary of this movie is Boy meets Girl, Boy falls in love with Girl, Girl breaks Boy's heart, and somewhat of a resolution. I don't want to give too much away for those who plan on seeing this movie. This film uses very creative transitions and filler scenes to convey the wide array of emotions that the main character, Tom, experiences. On top of the creative non-linear progression of the movie and the fact it is from a guy's perspective, the movie also has a great soundtrack.

What I've noticed recently is that most good soundtracks within movies do not translate nearly as well outside of the context of the scenes they were intended for. Examples of this include Garden State, Juno, and more recently, Where The Wild Things Are. Now don't get me wrong; all of these movies have some great artists and songs on their soundtracks. However, without the constant driving of the plot and dialogue of the movie, the songs seem to lose their connection to each other.

Regardless, the movie has become one of my favorites of all time and should not be thought of as a chick flick before further investigation. If you would rather watch movies that can help you escape from reality rather than reflecting it back onto you, this movie may not be your type.

FINAL RATING FOR (500) Days of Summer: 5/5 Stars

-Marcus

PLAYLIST #1 Morning Tea, Snooze Control

Sometimes I get bored and make playlists for different things, The following is a crop of tracks that I have been waking up and driving to school with. Light, Nutty Flavor, goes well with Chai Lattes and Bagels (if you like that sort of thing).

#1 Yalira - The Very Best
#2 Lover - Devendra Banhart
#3 Can You Tell - Ra Ra Riot
#4 One Big Holiday - My Morning Jacket
#5 Queen Bitch - David Bowie
#6 I Want You Back - Jackson Five
#7 Osaka Loop Line - Discovery
#8 Light Powered - Deastro
#9 Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - Daft Punk
#10 Road to Joy - Bright Eyes
#11 West Coast - Coconut Records
#12 Walking on a Dream - Empire of the Sun
#13 Campus - Vampire Weekend
#14 Daylight - Matt & Kim
#15 Brothersport - Animal Collective
#16 Smash Lies - Matisyahu

I'm sure that most of you are resourceful enough to get your mitts on these songs if you don't already have them handy...

MUSIC POST #1 YEASAYER - AMBLING ALP

And as the very first addition to the heap I present Yeasayer's new song "Ambling Alp"
It's being offered for free at Their Website. The track is from their forthcoming album Odd Blood, which, if Ambling Alp is any indication, should be an auditory feast.

This is a Blog. This will be a heap.

Okay, so at the moment this place is pretty much empty. I hope that isn't the case for very long.
Basically I created this blog with these goals in mind:
1. pile as much information about interesting stuff in one area as I can.
- Stuff can be defined as follows: Music, Films, Books, Poetry, Creative Projects, Cool Events and Random Curiosities
2. Build a collective of collaborators who bring a variety of nifty skills and ideas to the table.
3. Allow new artists (musicians, filmmakers, writers etc.) to shamelessly self promote.
4. Build a powerful new media corporation which controls massive shares in energy companies and also influences governmental decisions through the use of lobbyists.

so basically this is a one man show at the moment, hopefully that will change soon, regardless I hope you, whoever is reading this, enjoy what you find here.