Oh Japan, don’t ever change.
But there’s no reason this idea can’t succeed in the U.S. Why not have Freddy Kruger, Leatherface, Jason or Pinhead throw out the first pitch? Granted, this still wouldn’t be enough to get me to watch baseball…
In related news: Hello Kitty Ringu products.
She turns 79 today. How nice of Betty White to buy her a gorilla!
In celebration, here’s both parts of the classic “Went With the Wind!” skit.
Sure, Burnett has been immortalized on stage, screen, and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But has she been given her own Barbie doll?
The answer is: Yes. yes she has, with the official Went with the Wind! Barbie Doll:
Today is the birthday for Dwight Brown of Whipped Cream Difficulties, whom I’ve known since God was a corporal. Happy birthday, Dwight!
On the birthday theme, here’s a viral teaser trailer for Prometheus promoting Weyland Industries’ androids, that’s so straight it’s almost not creepy. Which makes it that much creepier:
Plus an imaginary TED talk from Mr. Weyland himself.
This week’s Shoegazer Sunday offering is a Japanese band called Civic. First up is “Tensai”:
Here’s a live version of “Guitar,” which is a tremendously fun high energy number. Skip the first 1:20 seconds of annoying “walking on stage” intro electronica.
Like many of my Japanese shoegazer discoveries, Civic records for High Fader Records. Guitar seems to have been reborn there as “Tobacco” up on the High Fader Myspace page, and have another song called “Innocent” on their own MySpace page. They have a very coherent, appealing sound, with the male and female vocalists trading off verses. They’re probably closest to SuperCar among their Japanese shoegaze brethren, but they’re also have a bit of U2, The Beatles, The Byrds, and maybe The Ramones in their sound.
Since I don’t read Kanji, I couldn’t tell you what the name of this song is:
I would buy a full length Civic album right now if one were available in the U.S…
More obscure Japanese shoegaze, this time from Speaker Gain Teardrop off their album RENDERING ENCRYPTION (a title that will no doubt bring a smile to Cory Doctrow’s face).
Here’s both the live and studio versions.
Sometime I’ll have to post my long in gestation piece on why I love Amy Winfrey’s Making Fiends, a successful web animations series that Nickelodeon made into a a swell TV show it failed to adequately promote.
In the meantime, enjoy this April Fools episode, which, if you haven’t followed the original series, probably won’t make much sense to you…
In which we learn, yet again, that mother nature really hate 18-wheelers.
I guess those annoying sirens are the new “TORNADOES WILL KILL YOU UNLESS YOU TAKE SHELTER RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!!!” warning.
Filmed off a TV, but impressive close-ups:
From Lancaster
Aftermath:
Two names that are not otherwise paired together.
Tony Banks, the keyboardist for Genesis (and, with Mike Rutherford, the only member through all the band’s lineups) is 62 today. In celebration, here’s a live version of “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway”:
Director Tarantino turns 49 today, which gives me a chance to talk about his film Django Unchained, an antebellum slave revenge fantasy that looks like looks like a cross between Mandingo and, well, Kill Bill. No trailer yet, but since it’s Tarantino, we know won’t be screwed up by any of that annoying political correctness. Also, damn, look at that cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Kurt Russell, Christoph Waltz, Jamie Foxx, James Remar (Dexter’s dad), Don Johnson (in the “Designated John Travolta Career Resurrection Role”), Sacha Baron Cohen, and Leonardo DiCaprio as the bad guy.
I fully expect it to rock.
Welsh trio The Joy Formidable offers up dense shoegaze textures with poppy hooks, sort of like a cross between between Siouxie and the Banshees and Adorable.
Since they’re been on Letterman, I guess they’re hardly a secret…
Here’s a live version of Japanese threesome Lemon’s Chair song “Sonar.” It starts off as some very pleasant noodling, and then more than halfway in transforms into a sonic wall of sound that never quite loses the central groove.
They also have a nice solid slab of steady-state shoegazer sweetness called “Swallowtail” on iTunes, but there doesn’t seem to be a version of that on YouTube.