I WRAPPED UP COMMUNITY FOR A TV AND A GIRL

Thanks Kristen for letting me do that.

By far the show I was most fond of this season, or maybe any season ever (1), was NBC’s underdog/fanart-stimulator/Soup -host-vehicle/Channel 101-mastermind-masterminded/community-college-set Community. In 09-10, while most people were getting too-involved with the conclusion of Lost (2), I was trying to figure out how to make .gif files so I could join in all the fun people were having with the Community ensemble on Tumblr and Livejournal (3). Speaking really broadly: I liked the show a lot and I think it worked on a whole lot of levels.

(More specific now!) The show sometimes gave me butterflies and I think its first season excelled because it featured: a great ensemble led by a fairly-recognizable anti-Seacrest who is able to make my DAD laugh; an exaggerated but accurate portrayal of a few aspects of college that haven’t yet been beaten into a desk (classroom puns!); inter-character chemistry that became a shipper’s dream; fans that (I think probably) mostly experienced and expressed love for the show on the web; the Dan Harmon that listened to those fans; and Alison Brie.

A laundry list of stray observations that are related to most of the laundry-listed reasons above, written both now and over the course of the season:

READ THE REST OF THE POST AT KRISTEN'S BLOG, A TV AND A GIRL

Lavis Bloke

I get to see Lavis Blake tonight who are "taking Philly by storm." I will probably heckle something like "What the fucks is your name a reference to?"(edit: to a homeless woman that squatted in the abandoned house next door. I see a trend! Omar, Lavis Blake... someone needs to start a band about "Spare some change for cup of coffee" Liacouras guy.)

I was really bummed when they took their old songs off their site in favor of some more Philly math-lite. It seemed weirdly self-conscious of them. This is another case of me reading way too far into the activity of a local band but, come on, it was kind of drastic. And though the guitars got noodly and open tuned, I've determined this isn't a turn for the worse. LB's place, now, (no longer outliers which, even though I know very little about the band past their Myspace page, I will declare them,) is somewhere between Spraynard's posi-stoke and Algernon's elated emoturity.

Dag Nasty-informed lyrics and annunciation in "On The Road" (which for some reason, conjures images of Fozzybear:) "We live and learn respect." "We live in library stacks" which is even better. Share some motifs with the 'nard dogs: "As the sun goes down/across those hills." Kyle, the singer, is seriously great. His shuddering vocal on "Era of Hopeful Monsters" gives me the chills.

Summer To-Do List, v.1.0

Cover awesome songs with one or more bands. 4 Non Blonde's "What's Up," Piebald's "King of the Road" with lyrics changed to be about my friends, "Roadrunner" with Kennett-related lyrics, "No Fun," etc.

Convince Failed Attempts at Facial Hair to play a full band set somewhere.

If Fest Chester actually happens, redefine frontman while leading a group of confused and susceptible musicians to local, single show infamy.

Have meaningful experiences while listening to: An Emo Diaries comp, Orange Rhyming Dictionary, This is Happening, another Spraynard all-nighter, etc.

Cook more, cook better.

Make my way to East Fairmount Park or equivalent around sunset any evening I can.

Fight loneliness with loud music, books, writing and, duh, other peeps.

Best Shit I've heard this year so far

With the impending release of This is Happening, I thought it'd be OK if I listed the best shit I've heard so far this year:

This is Happening
the Monitor
Transference
the Brutalist Bricks
Cut and Paste
That untitled Teenage Softies E.P.
The Skin Cells
Romance is Boring

All of these records are really really good. 2010 >2009


 

Facebook Status Lyric Atrribution

I hate it when a person uses a song lyric in their Facebook status without attribution. I am trying to change the world one status at a time but I'm worried I look like a douchebag.

Just watched a Philadelphia Independent Film Festival submission called "My Kidnapper." Definitely the type of doc I'd read about and would immediately feel like I had to see it, it's that interesting. So read about it.

TV Producer Mark Henderson, one of the six "kidnapees" experiences a kind of Stockholm Syndrome when he starts receiving emails from his Colombian kidnapper. Henderson and some other tourists were taken during a camping trip in the Sierra Nevada mountains by a group of Colombian revolutionaries. They were let go after a few months and then, not quite a year later, Henderson and his fellows start getting emails from the group, asking pretty mundane things like "what've you been up to since?" Their kidnappers became Facebook friends and invited them to weddings. For Henderson, staying in touch with his kidnappers and making the documentary with the other people captured seemed to take on a weird, 21st century therapy... Pretty wild.

Here's the trailer:

Revessay: My off/on relationship with Spraynard's "Cut and Paste."

I loved Spraynard's first E.P.  I guess, like everyone else, I had a Latterman-sized hole in my eardrums that had to be filled? But you know those Latterman comparisons are just lazy so that's the last you'll hear of that.

I think I started listening to that demo during that January warm-spell last winter... or was it late fall? Don't really remember. I remember trekking out to Cedar House, Sartaj in tow, hoping to catch them at an overcrowded shit show. Mimi had given them two thumbs up after seeing them play Fennario a week earlier. I guess we missed Spray, but thankfully got to see Factors of Four rock the kitchen before dealing awkwardly with a crackhead in some Baltimore Avenue Chinese restaurant. So the first time I saw Spraynard was probably at our house that following spring break... their sets haven't gotten much longer. They played the demo + a Plow cover.

A lot of time passed, from a local music standpoint. The buzz about "Cut and Paste" started, in my ears, mid-fall, when Mimi played me "Jay's Cafe," a C+P track that had its debut on "West Chester Nuclear Winter." The song is an instant classic, but yeah dude, my interest in Spraynard had definitely waned by this point. I think I probably had some post-Pirouette fear of band commitment. Factors of Four had yet to fail me (well, actually, they were broken up by the summer's end,) but I just felt too tired to get attached to anyone else. And my ambivalence toward Spraynard continued, through downloading C + P, seeing them play my house one or two more times, and the laser tag show...


READ MORE ON MY BLOG THAT WILL STRICTLY BE ABOUT LOCAL MUSIC RELATED STUFF (IF I KEEP UP WITH IT.) INAUGURAL ESSAY Y'ALL.

Animal Sounds

I still stand by my hyperbolic claim that Teenage Cool Kids are the best band of the decade. Click to 2:50 into this video and see why.



Also, who didn't love an underdog this tenth of a century? Arrested Development? Conan-as-Tonight-Show-host? Yankee Hotel Foxtrot debacle? Y100-to-YRock-on-XPN? Stuff like that.

EDIT:

They have fucking EVERYTHING a young rock fan wants these days: running and Malkmusite/mathy guitar lines, drones, kiss off lyrics (Savage, sneering in Art School Anarchist: "[So,] is there a reason for your sentimental streak, or have you just gone soft man?"), hooks/bababa's til the Texas cattle come home...

EDIT:
Maybe the problem is there aren't enough young rock fans around to appreciate?