1) Sing Me Spanish Techno – Twin Cinema – New Pornographers

Twin Cinema doesn’t have the overstuffed melodic content of the previous two records, but there are still hooks aplenty, including a slightly off-key chorus that describes every New Pron song ever: “Listening tooooo long to one song…”

2) Car Radio – Series of Sneaks – Spoon

Spoon is generally so laid back, I prefer their punchy stuff. I love how the title is pronounced “cuhradio.” cuh-razy.

3) Summer Holiday & Me – Less Sophistication – The Jessica Fletchers

I’m not sure if the proper adjective is “KINKSY” or merely “KINKY,” but the Davies should file for some sort of violation. One of those dumb rock songs that is destined to be in an ipod or car commercial soon.

4) 10:1 – Descended Like Vultures – Rogue Wave

shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

5) Which Side Is Mine – Vagenius – Vagenius

There’s one riff in here that sounds like Foreigner’s “Double Vision.” It might just be me, but the moment I hear it I start singing Foreigner, and that’s just really fucked up.

6) Massive Cure – She Like Electric – Smoosh

Tweenpop rock from the northwest sounds like baby-Quasi. Stunningly competent for a pair of kids.

7) One In Every Crowd – Lovers, Lead the Way! – Viva Voce

Viva Voce is one of the lesser known husband/wife indie duos, putting together some great shoegazy material. This track sounds like Mazzy Star with drums that actually rock.

8) Staying Fat – EP – Bloc Party

This popped up on random, and I just wanted to point out how the alternating verse vocal is completely lifted from Sleater-Kinney’s “Oxygen.” As a result, it’s a pretty good song. (Steal from the best, yo)

9) 9×3 – Ex Hex – Mary Timony

Timony opened for the S-K this month, and I couldn’t quite get riled up by her material, although there’s lots of neat stuff working here. Timony’s guitar work is splendid, but her vocal melodies are meandering, particularly on the chorus.

10) I Want To See The Bright Lights – I Want To See The Bright Lights – Richard and Linda Thompson

This ended up becoming the Sleater-Kinney cover song this month. The original is just a masterpiece, with a beautifully longing vocal that’s textbook Linda Thompson.

11) Bridges and Balloons – The Believer – The Decemberists

It’s nice to finally get a clean recording of this. Joanna Newsom’s original sounds like the best song Colin Meloy never wrote. It’s a funny little thing.

12) Chicago – Illinois – Sufjan Stevens

Sufjan’s tribute to the city of broad shoulders is epic, a six minute orchestral monstrosity with horns, choir and a kitchen sink.

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I forgot to mention that at the end of “Me and You and Everyone We Know,” there was a Q+A with Miranda July. Now, you all know how much I love(hate) Q+As.

Now, you must remember that July just made a movie after going through Sundance Labs and getting funding from Sundance grants as well as IFC funding, and got that movie into Cannes and took home several awards there, for her first feature. In other words, in a theater full of filmmaker wannabes, she just lived the dream. So of course there were dumb questions. Like her characters, Miranda July is goofy and awkward and not necessarily eloquent on-the-spot. As a result, you had uncomfortable exchanges like:

“So what was the symbolism at the end of the movie? What were you trying to say?”
“Ummmmmmmm, I don’t know how to explain that, in words. If I were better at verbalizing things like that, I wouldn’t have had to do this whole thing. You know, make the movie and all that.”

The worst thing, was when she asked for the last question some guy just started blurting out “ohh I think you really made something good here and I think you’re onto something and you’re going to be really big and successful and you did a really good job.”

HEY, what’s the first rule of Q+A? STATEMENTS ARE NOT QUESTIONS, YOU FUCKER. GRAHHHHHHHHH.

In somewhat related bits, movienet has a series of letters (well, excerpts) that July wrote to her friend Julia during the making of the film. Catch the Sleater-Kinney reference at the bottom.

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Every now and again you’ll stumble across an indie that actually feels indie, and not Hollywood-lite. Me and You and Everyone You Know is like that, a flick that comes out of the blue and speaks with a new voice. I’m not sure it’s saying all that much, but I’m happy that it’s saying it differently, if that makes any sense.

Miranda July’s acting/writing/directing debut is about a struggling video artist/eldercab driver that falls in love with a self-immolating recently divorced shoe salesman that has two kids, an older one that’s judging blowjob contests and another one that’s having scatalogical chat sessions on the internet. The latter kid? He’s seven years old. Now, I know what that sounds like. The thing is, July treats it all with a wide-eyed optimism and naivete that makes it all work. The point is that it’s not a freakshow, but good honest people that have spent so much time living within themselves that they forgot how to live with each other.

The performances are fantastic all around, starting at the top with the loopy charm of July and going all the way down to a crazy scene-stealing turn by young Brandon Ratcliff. It is one of the few kid’s roles in recent history that didn’t drive me completely nuts, and honestly the dude made me laugh harder than anyone else in the movie.

Miranda July has been logging her promotional activities over on her blog, which includes a blow-by-blow account of her winning the Camera D’Or at Cannes. It also includes random missives from young Brandon, who writes stuff like this:

Well 143. Remember that means I love you. 1 for the letter I because it only has 1 letter, 4 for love because of 4 letters of the alphabet make up that word and you know you has only 3 letters so…

143 Ms. Miranda. I learned that from Mr. Rogers but he is dead now.

Miranda July also runs Learning to Love You More, a collaborative community art project made up of random creative assigments that anyone can contribute to. These assignments range from drawing temporary tattoos to renacting movie scenes to taking pictures of your parents kissing. She also kicks around a mixtape for female video artists called Joanie 4 Jackie, where she compiles video shorts and then sends them back out to all the contributors. All the projects have that adventurous go-get-em spirit, and you start to understand where the movie came from.

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Arthurfest being the combo efforts of local Arthur Magazine and Spaceland Productions. I wish they could swap out Sleater-Kinney and Sonic Youth though. I think the Sunday lineup looks stronger overall, and I still hate Merzbow with a passion.

ArthurFest takes place Sunday, September 4 and Monday, September 5 on Labor Day Weekend at the historic Barnsdall Art Park on Olive Hall in the Little Armenia/Los Feliz area of Los Angeles.

The two-day lineup features

Sunday, Sept. 4
SONIC YOUTH
THE BLACK KEYS
CAT POWER
THE JUAN MACLEAN
COMETS ON FIRE
SUNN 0)))
SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN
WOLFMOTHER
GROWING
JOSEPHINE FOSTER
EARTH
RADAR BROS.
MAGIK MARKERS
just added: BRIGHTBLACK MORNING LIGHT
LAVENDER DIAMOND (FEAT. BECKY STARK)
WINTER FLOWERS

Monday, Sept. 5 (Labor Day)
SLEATER-KINNEY
OLIVIA TREMOR CONTROL
MERZBOW
DEAD MEADOW
T-MODEL FORD
SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE
CIRCLE
VETIVER
just added: MODEY LEMON
MARISSA NADLER
JACK ROSE
FUTURE PIGEON
just added: BRAD LANER (Electric Company, Medicine)
just added: NORA KEYES (Centimeters)
just added: VIKING MOSES

with additional acts to be announced shortly.

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Shanghai Tang has a line of T-shirts themed after old kung-fu movies, like the Flying Guillotine and Eight Diagram Pole Fighter shirts above. They also have a really funny one for One Armed Swordsman that only has one sleeve.

Now, I know that Shanghai Tang is a really fashionable store established to exploit the well-to-do Asian fetishists like, say, Wesley Snipes, but these shirts costs $80! That is just a scam. I could sell bootleg pole fighter shirts for $25 and make a killing.

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Working through my backlog of movies, I completely forgot about Cinderella Man. The problem, of course, is that the movie is completely forgettable. The true story of James Braddock, depression era boxer that makes a miraculous comeback to the top of the sport is a Seabiscuit meets Rocky fairy tale that is (theoretically) heartwarming and inspiring.

While Russell Crowe and Paul Giamatti give it a good effort, Akiva Goldsman’s script and Ron Howard’s direction are completely workmanlike. All the story points are obvious, and it rarely rises above TV-Movie quality. It’s difficult to take a true story and make it seem fake, but that’s pretty much what happened here.

Oh yeah. HE WINS. SURPRISE!!!

EDIT: Title changed to FistBiscuit. Blame Fraction.

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I realized I haven’t written any movies in months, mostly because I haven’t been overwhelmed by anything. It’s been a sea of mediocrity, with only a recent little upswing. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was a brave attempt at adapting that book, but hurts itself by being comedy that’s not actually funny. That kinda killed it. I’d say more but I almost fell asleep more than once.

I had no expectations for Kicking and Screaming but it cracked me up. It’s by the numbers Bad News Bears type stuff, but there are more than enough laughs. It has kids climbing out of a butcher’s truck covered in blood right before a match, for one. Only producer Judd Apatow would think this was good for kids movie. Remember, he once thought a movie about kids getting abused at fatcamp was comedy gold. There’s a midget Asian kid in the movie named Bing-Bong, and there was this creepy pair of ladies behind us that kept yelling stuff like “AWWW HE’S SO CUTE” and “OH MY GOD I WANT ONE.” That was good for some bonus laughs.

Oh look, it’s the last Star Wars. I actually liked lots of Episode III, but it seemed like every time I was really into it, Lucas would clip my legs out from under me with a poorly timed joke, a feeble romantic scene or just basic ineptitude. Pity poor Natalie Portman, who gets to do exciting stuff like sit in an apartment and look sad while outside INTERGALACTIC WAR breaks out. I still liked more than I hated, and all in all it’s probably the best of the prequels. Plus I like prettyboys getting amputated. It makes me guffaw.

On the other side of the universe, Lords of Dogtown would be a perfectly serviceable biopic, if it weren’t for the fact that Dogtown and Z-Boys covered that material so completely. Lords of Dogtown is completely superfluous as a result. There are decent scenes here and there, but it tends to jump around a lot without any real narrative. There’s nothing particularly awful here, except for maybe Emil Hirsch shaving his head and acting like a cholo.

Here comes the aforementioned upswing. Howl’s Moving Castle is Hayao Miyazaki’s latest feature, and like most of his work, it features a young girl finding herself in the midst of a great conflict, usually brought upon by the encroachment of industry into nature. OK, so this one’s not exactly about that, but if you switch around some words you can make it fit. One thing I love about Miyazaki’s movies are that they are just so damn unconventional compared to the American animated features. The plots meander and flux, the designs always have that unique style, combining the adorable and the grotesque. They really do feel like the product of one vision, as opposed to a committee effort to steal kid’s disposable income. For one, the cutesy buddy character is a PILE OF SENTIENT FIRE. I wonder if any kid went home and tried to play with their gas range. It’s beautifully animated and has more than its share of jaw dropping moments.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith never seems to get going, but it’s still a fun little romp regardless. The plot is straight out of old comic book teamups, where our heroes fight each other due to a misunderstanding before realizing they have a common enemy and combining forces. It’s funny and clever but it’s not really hilarious, and the action is well done but somehow never really exciting. There is LOTS of action, but much of it is perfunctory stuff, background noise for the back and forth quips. There is one terrific car chase though, and the leads are ridiculously hot. While I didn’t love it, it killed 2 hours pretty well and I think it’s setup for some really fun sequels.

Batman Begins is actually the first Batman movie to be about Batman. Not the villains, not the car, not Robin, not some extended Batfamily, but Batman himself. Christopher Nolan commits the movie to explaining Batman’s origin, making it feel possible and real. For the first time, you really get the feeling that Batman is more than a little fucked in the head, and for the first time the costume and the car actually make sense. I liked Burton’s phantasmagorical take on it, but there’s something to be said for this lean and mean, fully functional Batman. Populating the cast with Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman,Gary Oldman and Liam Neeson gives the whole thing real gravity, which helps keep the camp down despite dispicable dialogue. I wish David Goyer could have found a thesaurus, because he uses the word FEAR about 50 or 60 times. I know it’s the main theme of the movie, but come the fuck on! Give me a little terror, dude. The only things I really hated were Katie Holmes and the last race against the clock set piece, but the rest of the movie built up enough good will that I was willing to let it slide.

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I’ve seen Sleater-Kinney many times now, and with the two shows last week I am now in my teens. It’s telling enough that I’ve gone so many times, but it’s shocking that last week’s shows were the best I’ve seen them, ever.

It starts with The Woods, their latest album and arguably their strongest to date. It’s been billed as a reinvention of sorts, but more accurately, it’s a picture perfect snapshot of their evolving live show. The band has always sounded immense in concert, loose and loud and including increasing amounts of instrumental work over the years. This is the first set of songs where those aspects have bled back in the songwriting, resulting in a record that shoots from riot grrl roots to Zeppelinesque psychedelia and back again.

The album itself is so loud and distorted, the amps seemingly cranked so far beyond eleven that I figured the live renditions might feel a little tame, but holy hell was I wrong. These were the loudest shows I’ve been where I wasn’t standing directly next to some sort of monitor or speaker stack. There were times where it was stretching the PA beyond recognition, so I’d recommend bringing earplugs if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing. It sounded great though, gargantuan, terrifying and physically punishing. The music was intrusive and actively involving. You couldn’t passively ignore it because it was too busy grabbing you by the throat.

As ever, Sleater-Kinney rides on the primal wail of Corin Tucker, the guitar heroics of Carrie Brownstein and the sheer indomitable will of drummer Janet Weiss. Weiss remains the best drummer I have ever seen, and impossibly, she seems even greater now, conducting the band with masterful precision and bringing down the heavens every time she raises her sticks.

Of all the new material, the off-the-rails adventure of “Rollercoaster” and the sidewinding suicide tale of “Jumpers” crackled best, while the anthemic indictment of “Entertain” still riles up the crowd as Carrie Brownstein rips into the lyrics with obvious relish. With more jammy stuff worked into the actual material, there wasn’t much of it in the performance, besides the titanic raveup between “Let’s Call It Love” and “Night Light.” On the first night, the bonus cover was of Richard and Linda Thompson’s “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight,” a joyous rendition with all the women taking a turn on vocals. Night two found the band getting in touch with their metal side, blowing out Danzig’s “Mother” with ease and parlaying a subsequent drum solo directly into a wrecking ball version of “Dig Me Out” that turned the place inside-out. While all the new material was well received, there’s still not that much that hits with as much immediacy and authority as well worn classics like that and “Words and Guitar.”

This band, these songs… I don’t have the vocabulary to really describe it. In the Sleater-Kinney blog, Carrie Brownstein said “Los Angeles surprised us by being the fire. It was the heat we always try to get to, the hot core where everything disintegrates into liquid and love and then when it’s over it’s like the whole structure has been reshaped and it’s hard to remember what it looked like before.” I’m not even sure what that means, but it sounds just about right.

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Last night, Sleater-Kinney started their big tour for “The Woods,” which means I’m back at work for the Sleater-Kinney Concert Review Archive again. I never came up with a catchy name for that site, by the way. Next week I have tix for their Henry Fonda shows, which should be a face-melting good time.

Also of note: Carrie Brownstein lists 10 Songs For a Fair-Weathered Sunday over on Pitchfork. Hunh. Randy Newman, Fiery Furnaces, Richard Thompson and the Dead’s “Box of Rain?” That sounds like one of my mixes. I’m sure that in bizarro universe Carrie Brownstein runs a blog that catalogs of all my trips to the 7-11.

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