“The Dark Knight Rises” debuts more new character posters
Has the Sacha Baron Cohen shtick jumped the shark?
Tim Grierson on Will Smith, the Last Movie Star
Exclusive download: Corporal, featuring Michael Shannon, presents “Glory”
The Walkmen gave a sneak preview of their forthcoming record “Lisbon” to WNYC’s “Soundcheck” and it sounded delightful. They’ve been an impressive band since their ’02 debut and have continued to nurture a sound that sticks out with conspicuous maturity among their peers. I don’t think The Walkmen have ever sounded more grown up than…
A truly strange cow punk flick, “Bad Day” just surfaced 24 years after it was shot by Modi Frank and Exene Cervenka of the L.A. punk band, X. It features legends like X bassist and frontman John Doe, The Flesh Eaters singer Chris D, and Grammy winner Dave Alvin, who also scored the film —…
New York’s Ra Ra Riot spent much of 2009 touring, both on their own and with Death Cab For Cutie before retiring to focus on writing songs. The place they chose to do it holds special meaning for the band — a peach farm upstate, and it was there that they conceived their second full-length…
Whatever you think of his music, Justin Timberlake is becoming a real triple threat. He sings, he dances, he acts. He even directs now, so make that quadruple. Soon, we’ll see Timberlake in the “The Social Network,” which he’ll follow by trying out sci-fi in “Im.mortal,” helmed by “Gattaca” director Andrew Niccol. Reportedly, he’ll be…
Someone needs to perform an Inception on MTV, it’s been too long since they were the destination for music videos. The channel has been lost in a limbo, a reality show hell with no musical kick, no Edith Piaf to pull them back out and remind them what it was all about in the first…
Band: !!! Album: “Strange Weather, Isn’t It?” Where: Sacramento, CA / Berlin, Germany Label: Warp Release: Aug 24th I remember somewhere between the release of !!!’s first record in 2001 and their second in 2004 how much mystery surrounded them, as people who had no idea who to say their name began discovering them and…
If cramming as much crazy shit as you possibly can into a music video is a mark of its success, then Grinderman’s “Heathen Child” is a triumph. Frequent Nick Cave collaborator, director John Hillcoat (“The Road,” “The Proposition”), brought this first single off of “Grinderman 2” to life in the most unbridled fashion. It may…
Seth MacFarlane, the creator and voice actor of “Family Guy” and “American Dad!” has signed a deal with Universal Republic Records to cut an album of 1940s and ’50s Broadway classics. It’s not a comedy record either, but a serious go at the likes of Rodgers & Hammerstein. We’re talking deep into the show tunes…
Now and then I’ll be pestering musicians and asking them what they’re listening to “right now” and then exposing this here for all to see. It could be an iPod playlist or the pile of records closest to the turntable, as long as it’s what they’re listening to now, not their most carefully thought out…
The title track for Todd Solondz’s latest film “Life During Wartime” was the result of a four-way collaboration between Beck, Devendra Banhart, composer Marc Shaiman and Solondz himself who penned the lyrics. Freak folk wizard, Banhart, who takes the lead vocals on the track called Solondz “One of the great luminaries,” in an email to…
Austin’s Fun Fun Fest added a third day to it’s usual two day program, just when you thought there was no more room on Austin’s calendar. The line up is decidedly more noteworthy than past years too, with The Hold Steady and de-evolution pioneer Mark Mothersbaugh and crew on board. I’m not sure about spoof…
Arcade Fire plays MSG tonight and they’ve asked the cursed genius, Terry Gilliam, to helm their live webcast. It’s part of “Unstaged: An Original Series from American Express” in partnership with Vevo and YouTube and someone has crazy balls-out ideas. Don’t rule out a glorious disaster when the cameras start rolling tonight from that anthropophobic’s…
Micro processor manufacturing behemoth and future Skynet overlords, Intel have partnered with software developer Cakewalk to launch the “Superstars” songwriting competition. Here’s the breakdown. An artist, perhaps you, submits a piece of original music into one of six ridged genres: Rock, Pop, Country, Singer-Songwriter, Urban, or Latin by August 22nd. The tracks are then judged…
Phosphorescent’s Matthew Houck has come a ways from Alabama, through Athens, Georgia and the living room in Brooklyn where I first heard him singing alone — three years ago to this day in fact. Seems like yesterday, just Houck with his guitar and 25 sweating, gorgeous people listening, loving every minute. This new video, the…
The Chemical Brothers seventh studio album, “Further” is a full on audio/visual extravaganza. Maybe I’m a Luddite but I couldn’t even believe what was going on in the interactive trailer for the album (embedded at bottom) that showcased the wild visuals — each tailored to accompany one of the album’s eight tracks. Did you know…
If I were the music supervisor for HBO’s “True Blood,” I’d want to stay away from pop for the most part and amp up the creepy swamp vibe with bayou blues and dirty soul, complimenting the show’s location. Music supervisor Gary Calamar, veteran of “Weeds,” and “Six Feet under,” has done exactly that, often employing…
Galaxie 500 and Luna while critically adored, tend to be overlooked and in this music lover’s opinion, remain two of the most under appreciated bands of my lifetime. Frontman Dean Wareham moved on from Galaxie and then from Luna with his lovely bandmate, Britta Phillips, married her and the two began recording as Dean &…
Band: Eternal Summers Album: “Sliver” Label: Kanine Where: Roanoke, VA Eternal Summers are spiritual echos of famed minimalist pop freaks and fellow Virginians, Unrest, who formed in Arlington in the mid-80′s (later known as a DC band). I hear more than traces of late era Unrest here — the slightly less crazy/more pop recordings that…
The known plot details of Lars Von Trier’s disaster movie, “Melancholia” are still taking shape, but the casting is solid. Absurdly gifted French chanteuse, Charlotte Gainsbourg, returns to work with the Danish director after starring in his controversial blow out, “Antichrist.” Perhaps she was reminiscing about onscreen clitorectomy and the hellscape that was their prior…
The Edith Piaf song, “Non, je ne Regrette Rien” is used by characters “Inception” like an alarm to wake from dreaming. It’s a lovely touch, and one exploited by composer Hans Zimmer in assembling the film’s entire score. Here’s a handy audio comparison [I saw on Cinematical] to cut straight to the big reveal: Technically,…
The IFC News team bumped into rock star Ziggy Marley on the convention floor at Comic-Con 2010, and got the scoop on his new super-hero book “Marijuanaman.” The book’s publisher, Image Comics, describes its protagonist as a being “from a planet that is in desperate need of THC. Marijuanaman seeks to save Earth’s marijuana fields…
I have an old habit of keeping a eye out for keywords that reference The Velvet Underground when filtering through the colossal amount of new band releases. It’s useful in finding music that I’ll not only have an interest in, but can be assured the band in question has good taste. San Diego’s Lights On…
There are only a few people who could possibly make a “Pinocchio” remake worth while — one of them being, Guillermo del Toro, who is producing such a film tentatively slated for 2011. Even more encouragingly, he and director Gris Grimley brought Nick Cave in on it. “I will be co-directing with a stop motion…
Justin Timberlake’s going to nail his role in “The Social Network” as Sean Parker, Facebook’s first president who was pushed out of the company after a cocaine debacle. And after watching his directorial debut for this 901 Tequila ad, I think he should stay in front of the cameras for a while longer. Preying on…
It’s called “(500) Days Of Weezy,” and I almost find this difficult to say, but it’s kind of good. I’m not sold on rapping over Hall & Oates, I can’t go for that (No Can Do). But some of these other insane tracks are dope — like “Please hustler, Please” prominently featuring Morrissey and a…
