Pitchfork.tv: Vampire Weekend Interview

(inside)exitingARM

I recently stumbled upon this video sneak-peek of the upcoming Subtle album exitingARM which releases on May 13th. I am very excited about this album as Subtle, and front man Adam "doseone" Drucker, is one of my favourite contemporary music groups. They have the most unique sound I have ever heard and doseone's lyrics and vocals are insane. Check out this video for a taste of the atmosphere that surround their music and to hear snippets from their album.

(inside)ExitingARM

From the Mixed Up Files of J. Regalado

Go check out my personal blog for non-arts&entertainment related posts. You'll see wonderful thinks such as: poems, short stories, rants, and general nothingness.

Seriously, go to: The Mixed Up Files of J. Regalado

CD Review: Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree

British, electro-pop duo Goldfrapp’s latest Mute Records release, Seventh Tree, is a showcase of soft, captivating vocals and ambient, electronic compositions. The opening track, “Clowns,” starts off with a simple bass line and enchanting lyrics and then progresses into a wall of ambience. Alison Goldfrapp’s vocals on Seventh Tree always work well to compliment each track’s music, but the album’s strength lies in the composition more so than the vocals. “Happiness,” one of the highlight tracks, is an eerie song with raw, pulsing, synthesizer beats accompanied by a wash of ocean sounds and beating drums. “Happiness” has an intense atmosphere of fluid movement. The single, “A&E,” is definitely the album’s most prevailing song; the synthesizers parallel a grand orchestra in range and power. The first line: “It’s a blue, bright blue Saturday” is echoed in the emotion brought forward by sweeping electronic composition. Every song on Seventh Tree has a downtempo, relaxing mood that makes the album well suited for afternoons in an arm chair. Having moved away from their previous dance-pop style, Goldfrapp have made the transition quite well on Seventh Tree. Although they still have a ways to go before they will be the top band in the realm of ambient electronica, they have made large steps towards success and their next album will likely polish the difficulties found on Seventh Tree.

The official video for A&E courtesy of your friendly neighbourhood YouTube...


(This review should also be appearing in Renegade Radio soon!)

Peep These Links Yoh!

Found a couple cool podcasts on NPR.org today and am now posting them here for your listening pleasure!

Thurston Moore: Not 'A Real Guitar Player'?

Listen to some studio sessions of Thurston Moore's latest solo endeavour: Trees Outside the Academy.

This album is absolutely amazing and Thurston Moore is a genious. Despite what he may claim, he is an excellent guitarist.

Concert: Jonny Greenwood's Popcorn Supert Receiver

Radiohead virtuoso Jonny Greenwood's composition performed live. You may or may not recognize a few of the tracks from the soundtrack to There Will Be Blood (which Greenwood composed).

Concert: Black Mountain, Black Iver

Canadian rockers Black Mountain performing a live show. NPR does a great job capturing the heavy sounds of Black Mountain.

All links courtesy of NPR.org/music

The 4 Trak

Like what I have to say? Enjoy the arts? Do you write, paint, sing, dance, interpretive dance, photograph, lithograph, or practice any other wonderful form of self expression? Why not submit something to The 4 Trak?

If you're not into submitting, that's cool too, but why not check it out anyways?
The first publication will be up April 1st and the deadline for submissions is March 22nd (but we might be kind on late submissions, because we're cool like that!).

The 4 Trak is a webzine, co-edited by yours truly, for artists of all ages, races, and sexes to get their stuff out there for the public.

Send any submissions to the4trak@gmail.com

CD Review: Born Ruffians - Red, Yellow and Blue

Canadian rock trio, Born Ruffians, strike again with the Warp Records release Red, Yellow and Blue. It is nearly impossible to place this album within a single genre; each song swings from one style to another, and the transitions are flawless. Track two, “Barnacle Goose,” uses vocal harmonies to produce the effect of a full stage band without the crowded roster (a la Broken Social Scene or New Pornographers). Their single, “Hummingbird,” is definitely a summertime rock anthem, where a powerful bass line drives the wonderful pop guitar plucking and a chant-shout chorus that is almost impossible to not sing along with. The song “Little Garcon” demonstrates vocalist Luke Lalonde’s true range; moving from the heavier rock howls from earlier tracks towards a Devendra Banhart style of folk singing that makes “Little Garcon” one of the hidden gems on an already excellent album. Another track with great vocals is “Foxes Mate for Life.” With the opening line “Make a point of having fun, It’ll get you through life” this song’s upbeat nature is a testament to the happy-go-lucky sentiment that runs through the whole album. With summer just around the corner, Born Ruffians’ Red, Yellow and Blue is ready to fill the lazy day silence with the perfect combination of catchy lyrics, upbeat guitar riffs, and head-bobbing bass lines.

And for your listening and viewing pleasure: Born Ruffians - Hummingbird


(Watch for the next publication of Renegade Radio at UVic to see this review in print...hopefully)

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.