Thom Yorke on NPR

So I got turned onto a cool website with lots of live music broadcasts and stuff like guest DJs. Check out Thom Yorke hosting a show. He plays stuff by Liars, Modeselektor, Madvillain, and Autechre. It almost sounds like he's making fun of Liars' album Drums Not Dead saying they're all loops and computer and not real musicians. He says Modeselektor is dumb. He might be the master of sarcasm.

The Interview

Film Festival Results

I am very excited relieved to announce that The Hammer won Viewer's Choice Award at the Victoria Film Festival as I hoped it would. I am equally excited that no awards went to the Tracey Fragments...muahaha.

Praise be to Adam Carolla.

The Results Page

CD Review (Homage): Radiohead - In Rainbows

Yes, yes, I know I am very late on this review. The online release date was in October, but I only finally picked up a solid copy of it a few weeks ago. Unfortunately there were no stickers with my vinyl, but that's about the only thing wrong with the album.

Radiohead's latest endeavour, In Rainbows, has made me fall back in love with the band that is very responsible for my soiree into alternative music. I recently purchased a copy of MOJO magazine for a staggering $13.50 for the soul purpose of reading their cover story on Radiohead's new album and I was quite amazed with what I learned. This masterpiece was four years in the making which probably explains why Radiohead more or less fell off the radar for me. I discovered them during the In Rainbows gestation period and was not privy to wonderful internet music resources like Pitchfork and, well...Google... The four years have definitely paid off.

I believe the most amazing aspect of this album would be its holistic nature. It is literally impossible for me to listen to a single track on this album without wanting to hear the album in its entirity. Where previous Radiohead albums, Kid A for example, demanded a full listen to really appreciate the music, In Rainbows makes me demand a whole album. I need to listen to it, and it is never a chore. The tracks flow seamlessly between one another and even the disc box bonus disc flows right from the last track of In Rainbows.

I constantly find myself wondering whether or not I would be as love with this album if it did not have this ground breaking release format. For anyone who does not know, Radiohead released this album online with the option to "pay what you want" as in, you can download it without paying anything. I was one of the approximate 62% who paid $0.00 and am a little ashamed of it, but I did purchase the vinyl so I feel like I've been redeemed. I know free .mp3s on band websites is nothing new, but the fact that this whole album was released online, without the interference of a record label, by one of the biggest names in alternative rock is really exciting. I can only hope more bands follow this model. I am entirely of the opinion that music needs to be sampled before purchased. There's no synopsis on the back of a CD, there's no teaser trailer, especially in the world of alternative music. Sure there are MySpace pages, but the advertisement money MySpace rings in from repeated visits to band pages does nothing for the bands themselves. It's this kind of guilt free downloading that makes me want to buy the album. I wanted to pay Radiohead back for what they've done for the music industry.

In the MOJO magazine interview Colin Greenwood speaks about music as art and price relativity. He says they "weren't giving the record away." Instead, they were asking "What is it worth? Music is one of the only commodified art forms where when you walk into a store and records by Dylan, Roxette, Klaxons or The Hives are the same price. Does that mean they're all as good as each other? Is there a way to say, by how much you pay, how good or bad something is? It's good that the whole experience has got people asking those kind of questions." How goddamn true it is and I'm dissapointed I've never thought of this. To compare music releases to paintings, photographs, etc. is brilliant. Imagine all the reproduced photographs done by someone like Ansel Adams and then compare those to photos done by your local paper's photojournalist. You aren't going to pay the same for each images, not by a mile. Everytime I listen to In Rainbows I can't help but think about the way this album has changed the music industry, and how much more it can change, and I hope it does.

As an album, In Rainbows is flawless. Every single track is a showcase of Thom Yorke's amazing vocals and his range. Take for example, the track Reckoner where he sings such a high range and falsetto that he's nearly indiscernible. His voice is closer to a violin than words. This is followed up by House of Cards, which has a simple guitar riff surrounded by epic electronic configurations and Yorke once again using his voice as an instrument, but this time resembling a brass section. Instead of being cheesy, the electronic transformation of Yorke's voice makes House of Cards sound like it's played over the grand canyon. The track Bodysnatchers was recorded ensemble in Radiohead's studio. The gritty distortion reflects this and it works beautifully. The tracks on In Rainbows are all amazing on their own, and together they make the greatest Radiohead album to date.

In Rainbows has quickly become one of my favourite albums of all time and I can't wait for a chance to see the live act performance or even the next project. Now I can only hope that my other favourite bands will pour their whole selves into their next album the way Radiohead has with In Rainbows.


And for your viewing/listening pleasure here is a video of Radiohead playing Bodysnatchers live at BBC2's Later... with Jool's Holland.

Film Review: The Tracey Fragments (Victoria Film Festival)

The Tracey Fragments, starring my beloved Ellen Page, is the second film I've seen at this year's film festival. The film is directed by Bruce McDonald, and written by Maureen Medved (it's a screenplay adapted from her novel of the same name). Just seeing Ellen Page's name as the title role made my walk into the theatre with high expectations. I absolutely adored Page in Juno. Whether or not I would consider her performance in Juno Best Actress worthy is questionable, but I would be very excited for her to see her win the award at such a young age. As much as I loved Page in Juno, I've started to get the feeling that she is extremely type-cast. Her young looks make her a perfect candidate for any and every femme-fatale role. That is not to say she doesn't play these roles extremely well because she does.


Now comes the problem that is The Tracey Fragments. The film portrays the life of a 15-year-old girl who is subject to an unbelievably large amount of bullying at school, a stereotypical broken home life, and myriad of other ungodly trials and tribulations which find her wrapped naked in a curtain. Through the movie Tracey continues to state: "I'm just a normal girl." Umm...no, you're not. I understand this statement is supposed to be ironic, but there was no moment in the film where I felt a deep connection with the protagonist. Her life was too chaotic for me to relate to it. I know people who have gone through hard times, but this sort of stuff would never happen to a normal human being without them ending up dead.

The writing of this film is extremely haphazard and cliched. It is presented in an avant-garde form with multiple frames on-screen simultaneously portraying different points-of-view and perspectives. I assume this is a representation of the "fragments" of the story. At best, the form was a veil to cover the poor writing. There were times when the script was so unbelievable I felt insulted and wanted to leave the theatre.

In the end I just felt bad for the film's editor. I'm sure that he/she poured a lot of energy into this film and for it to turn out so terrible is a shame. This film had a sellout crowd and I can only hope that it does not receive the Victoria Film Festival's viewer's choice award as a result. My vote still goes to The Hammer.

Film Review: The Hammer (Victoria Film Festival)

So it is that time of year in Victoria. Film Festival time! Let me begin by saying how extraordinarily glad I am that it is not my movie theatre that is hosting the festival as I hate dealing with a ton of customers and an empty theatre is the best kind of theatre (in my books at least).

The Hammer is a comedy written by, starring, and co-produced by Adam Carolla of Loveline/Man Show/etc. fame. I can sum up the review of this movie in one line:

ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT AND EXTREMELY HILARIOUS!

This movie was everything amazing about Carolla's comedy transported from the radio to the big screen and it moves over flawlessly. Possibly more exciting than seeing this movie during the film festival was the presence of Adam Carolla himself, in the flesh, in our little west coast capitol. The post film Q&A session proved as funny as any Loveline call and I felt honoured to be a part of it. The biggest downer though was the small audience. Despite being an opening night movie the turn out was pretty low. I blame this more on a lack of advertisement by the festival than Carolla's cult following.

The Hammer follows the life of retired amateur boxer Jerry Ferro (Adam Carolla) as he turns 40-years-old, loses his girlfriend and job, and returns to the world of boxing. I know what you're thinking, Stallone did the boxing movie thing already. The difference is the absolute comic genius in Carolla's script. He takes what is pretty much a tired story line (underdog rises to victory) and makes it one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time. It is full of the rants and raves that made Carolla a favourite on talk radio. Ranging from verbal berating of Los Angeles' pride in its tar pits to disgust at taking the blame (and ticket) for a friend who was driving 37mph on a highway. The plot may be a bit corny and cliched at times, but the excellent comedy overshadows any flaws.

I can only hope The Hammer does well enough on its independent circuit to eventually reach a wider audience. Once again, Adam Carolla has brought me to tears of laughter and I eagerly await his next project which I am sure will be a hit as well.