Arcade Fire's Suburbs is musically and lyrically the album of 2010: Its admonishing social commentary on impatience, conformity, and alienation is even more poignant than Radiohead's monumental album OK Computer (i.e. the reference to the chess player Kasparov being beaten by the computer Deep Blue is one of many examples of man's loss of self, both individually and culturally). One can understand why director Terry Gilliam (Brazil, Fisher King) filmed their show in NYC: Throughout it, the theme of the global sprawl surpassing personal nostalgia feels as apocalyptic as their grandiosely paranoid album Neon Bible. Yet the redemptive escape from "a garden left for ruin by a millionaire inside of a private prison" and "dead shopping malls like mountains beyond mountains" ultimately comes from the same place where No Cars Go, the same place that overcame death in their groundbreaking fantastical first album, the Funeral ("climb out the chimney and meet me in the middle"); it is the place where the wild things are, where love and hope commune together: the imagination.
And because the instrumentation, sound engineering, and song arrangements are seamlessly coherent, the album entertainingly achieves at relentlessly rocking your face right off your head.
Big kudos to Mark Graves and Pat Hedden for putting on a wicked show at East Side Lounge this past Saturday in East Atlanta Village! The DJs got everyone dancing -regulars, guests, and quite a few zombies as well- to some very tasty experimental electro-crunk. Fantastic night and a great start to a Bright series of OMFG shows to come!
The Dodekapus launch party in downtown Atlanta Friday night turned out to be a euphoric gathering beyond anyone's expectations. The theme of the party was a complete 5-sensory immersion into artistic communion and expression: free freshly cooked vegan dishes, live bands, DJ Santtiago and DJ Gravey (a close friend to OMFG), full galleries of artwork, interactive paintings, live chainsaw ice sculpturing, acrobats, a lit-up elephant parade, a massive acoustic drum experience, and incredible vibes produced an atmosphere of collective individualism, community, self-expression, and joy. At eight hours long, the experience was marvelous and made the mere five-dollar cover a laughable drop of a donation to the recently formed non-profit organization. Dodekapus aims to build and sustain a prominent and accessible local arts culture in Atlanta. I'm optimistic! ~ Markos!
Well folks, the unimaginable, the unthinkable, the unbelievable has happened: PHISHis coming to Alpharetta GA. Alpharetta!? Yup, you read correctly, Alpharetta. When? Oh, only on Fourth of July weekend (Sat and Sun 3rd and 4th). Yup, again you read correctly.
Verizon Wireless Encore Park holds a capacity of only 12,000, which means there will likely be an additional 12,000 pseudo-hippies all running amok over the entire upper-class family-oriented north Atlanta suburb for the whole Independence Day weekend. Regardless of your vantage point -whether you've never even heard of Phish, can't stand psychedelic jam-rock, or are a die-hard heady- if you are in Alpharetta this Independence day, you will see an undeniable and very surreal impact on the city- a fantastic celebration unlike anything this town has experienced before.
If you want to go inside the venue, your best chance of getting tickets to the show is through the lottery style pre-salegoing on right now until the 26th. Tix are $50 a night before fees.
With the musical brilliance that Phish has always been combined with their newly matured ferocity of late, to see the band live and back in Atlanta after so many years (and in my hometown nonetheless) may very will make this show the concert experience of the entire summer. Entire summer tour here.
In my opinion: Well the lineup is upand it's what you'd expect: the biggest bands around in mainstream counter-culture (contradiction) at it's 21st century finest. While last year signaled the final milkings of the hippy-hipster compromise with Phish and MGMT, this year presents itself as unabashedly utilitarian in its selection of artists. The headliners are Dave Mathews Band (undeniably the alt-rock king of radio/t-shirts/tours in the 90's), Kings of Leon (way too popular for the actual quality of their musicianship), Tenacious D (even I don't have the guts to criticize the comic duo), Jay-Z (for those who still believe he raps artistic rebellion), and Stevie Wonder (who, though more familiar to past generations, continues to rage a wailing good show).
In this vein, Bonnaroo, maintains its stance as The Great American Summer Festival, appealing to well pretty much everybody. However, with these headliners, it seems that it has taken this stance to a more definite extreme this year. There's just nothing questionable or remotely scene-specific in the headliners. Not that there is anything wrong with that. It just kind of resembles that awkward feeling of finding out that the band you've been listening to religiously for the past two years is also a personal favorite of that douchebag in accounting.
So make no mistake, the people will gather accordingly, not in huddled masses of wookie dreads or of skinny arms still clutching half-drunk PBR cans, but in the generic America of well like 1996.
With that being said, the diversity of the acts as a whole remains astounding; here are my personal favorites on this year's list thus far (if I hate you please just keep our mutual appreciation to yourself:
Flaming Lips, Jimmy Cliff, LCD Soundsystem, Avett Brothers, Thievery Corporation, the National, John Prine, She and Him, the Black Keys, Deadmau5, Blitzen Trapper, Bassnectar, MM&W, Calexico, Edwarde Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, They Might Be Giants, Brandi Carlile, and the XX.
Damn... there goes all my rationalizations to not shuffle out $250 for a ticket and a weekend of sleeplessness in the middle of a dusty-Tennessee-summer-field.
I will open your mind,mix the emotions with a dash of paprika,and take a big bite right out of the juicy center of your imagination-absorbing each creative nutrient throughout my blood stream. Later on, I'll flush your fears down the toilet.
more deep thoughts, not from Jack Handy, right here!
Here's a non-electro music post that shows a live performance of the ten piece (almost entirely) acoustic band of LA-based hippie folksters doing their original Musical ballads. Gotta hand it to the band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros- it takes a lot of effort to pull that off without the net of a studio recording, and they do it well at the NPR setting. The energy of the group, especially the lead chick-singer, is inspiring (or discomforting, depending on your point of view).
from Paste Magazine "After breaking up with his girlfriend, moving out of his house, and joining Alcoholics Anonymous, Alex Ebert began work on a story about a messianic figure named Edward Sharpe. According to Ebert, Sharpe "was sent down to Earth to kinda heal and save mankind...but he kept getting distracted by girls and falling in love." Ebert later met singer Jade Castrinos in Los Angeles. In the summer of 2009, as Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Ebert and Castrinos toured the country with a group of fellow musicians in a big white school bus.
Like a crazed mix of Krishnas, von Trapps and musical merry pranksters, the dozen or so bandmates sing in a co-ed chorus about 40-day-long dreams, desert visions, the man from Galilee and their desire to heal you and set your spirit free. At the center is Ebert, laughing and dancing and shaking like he has that same covenant with God." - Richard Parks (Paste)
Fanfarlois a London-based indie pop band formed in 2006 by the Swedish musician Simon Balthazar. They make extensive use of the trumpet, violin and mandolin as well as more commonplace instruments such as guitars and drums.
The simple and exciting pop ditties peak out by the versatility of the instrumentation and the pristine almost-gypsy sounding vocal harmonize. There's also an electro influence running through their folk rock sensibilities that makes their music more dynamic and exciting than many other new bands on the indie circuit.
You can hear most of their music online at playlist.com or check out their 2009 album Reservoir at their official website. They tour a lot in Europe but will be having some shows out west in February. It's easy to see how well they represent the forefront of the recently emerging Euro-Gypsy-Pop-Folk-Rock scene- taking hipsterdom to a new level for better or worse...
"For atoms have gone as far as atoms will go Your books write themselves They line up in row after row"
I’m a misanthrope but no one likes to be forgotten. So when the rapture happens, the Jesus will reincarnate me into the new life of a space dolphin.From then on, I’ll swim with diverse schools to far different galaxies, communicating only by melodic peepsand by euphorically rubbing against each other in the cosmic dusts. We’ll breathe in darkness and release light, eating nothingness and passing comets.We’ll never overpopulate, never bore, and never want, because …well because… we’ll be space dolphins for Christ’s sake:free forever in the universe.
Two of the greatest indie rock/alt country singer-songwriters, Jay Farrar and Ben Gibbard, recently collaborated to score the soundtrack for the new documentary film, One Fast Move or I'm Gone. The film is about the legendary beat writer Jack Kerouac, author of On the Road. The two attempted to put music to the words of Kerouac's Big Sur (Kerouac's novel about agonizing alcoholism at the California coast). Critics are calling the album dark, beautiful, and melodic country-flavored folk rock.
All very cool: book, concept, musicians, movie, even the flannel.
Ben Gibbard is the frontman of Death Cab for Cutie, Postal Service, and All-Time Quarterback! He recently married the beautiful and talented actress/singer Zoey Deschanell (I shake my fist with jealousy).
Jay Farrar began his career with the now-famous Uncle Tupelo from which Jeff Tweedy of Wilco also got his start. He has since been rocking out in the soulful, country-folk band, Son Volt (Gravey and I recently saw their show in Atlanta; amazing music.)
So we all know by now that when it comes to music, as an art form and as entertainment, in the 21st century everything is open for game and that there are no teams, right? I mean with the billions of songs exchanged via illegal torrent pirating, the fallout of stores like Media Play, and the easy widespread access to the internet, nothing's holding us back from an endless flow of diverse music that can be shared by anyone to anyone through a myriad of interesting ways like facebook and instant messenger. Of course, you know that the answer is a confused but emphatic "WRONG!" The problem is that as the technology becomes more complex so do the legal and ethical issues surrounding the access to music. On one hand, shouldn't all music be free and open, available in as many ways as possible? On the other hand, doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of intellectual property, that the artist may be rewarded with capital, thereby inducing the incentive to create and expose that creation? Before internet proliferation, intellectual property law was pretty cut and dry; the model worked. Nowadays, everyone disagrees because the possibilities are seemingly endless, which is to say extremely convoluted.
Many try to give an easy response like, keep the music free and emerging artists can make money off of live shows. Well that's great, except for those musicians whose music is impossible to reproduce live. Plus, if you recorded a second Abbey Road, wouldn't you want to receive some frekin royalties for the effort?! So, do we build up walls and shut everything down? Not if we want a society that is open, evolving, and creatively free! OK you've read this for, time for a solution... I have no f--ing clue how to solve this quagmire, I'm not God (not yet at least), and I'm wary/unsure as to what the future holds for the music industry...
But right now (and we're supposed to "be here now" right?), Right Now, I honestly feel that the holistic nature of music, as a whole, is the greatest it has ever been in human history, far and away- because- There is No dominating genre, No popular vs unpopular, who cares about top 40 when everything is localized and universal, when you can go from bluegrass to electro in two clicks... If video killed the radio-star then the internet turned the sky black or made us all into stars. Every culture, every kind of music, every individual artist is present, mixing, and resounding harmoniously (pun intended) all around us. It's like Stephen Colbert said, "Remixing is Okay."
There are currently many interesting ways to discover music on the internet legally without downloading torrents and without stepping on any big toes in the vastly growing mp3 blogosphere. One is Pandora, which is superbly designed to help you discover artists similar to whatever artists you already like by typing what you already like into their search engine. Let a few ads in and the music will stream all day taking you from one obscure jazz musician or one pretentious indie singer to another after another. However, what's so interesting about Pandora is how well the details of its use represent the current state of the music industry: Confusion(for example 40 hours a month free then a 99 cent fee, no direct or on-demand playing of a song, and no more than 4 songs by an artist in a 3 hour period). So, yes, it is an excellent way to open up to new music but the lack of user control given to very particular and confusing rules is well just weird.
Another is Playlist.com and this site basically rocks! I let it play all day while at work. There is a huge amount of music to choose from, you can play songs immediately, you can organize playlists any way you want, AND you can discover new similar music because every search also gives you a list of playlists that other users like yourself have made which include that artist or song in it. It's free and there's just visual ads. It's still funny though, there's absolutely no Beatles for one thing. It's basically a massive user-operated streaming site of songs gathered from all over the blogosphere (as far as I can tell? not perfectly sure how they get all those songs, but they are there!), so NO downloading, just playing. Seems fair to me. Playlist.com says they are currently working on integrating their platform into facebook, which, if done right, could be very fun. Maybe sites like playlist.com and pandora are an answer for the time being (although it's still a mystery as to which artists' content is connected and which is blocked). And when we want to leave the internet to play "detachable" music, there's always lawbreaking (not that I condone smoking pot while downloading torrents, just saying..), or going to a good old fashion corporate-run music store. - Markos!
Southern Shelter is a really cool website I recently stumbled on. It basically archives and posts local Athens and Atlanta Georgia concerts in mp3 format. So if you didn't catch the show or want to relive it, check to see if it's posted here. It's very up to date and has surprisingly good sound quality. All sorts of fresh diverse indie rock, which Athens is somewhat known for being a mecca for. Check out Jay Reatard or Circulatory System (pictured) if you need help getting started. This is an excellent way to discover and explore, from your computer, local rising music talent, as they're meant to be: live raw and in the moment. If you know of other good live music sites, please share it in a comment. Have a nice day! :) -Markos!
The enormous mouth of the giant leaf-tailed gecko (Uroplatus fimbriatus) is fitted with more teeth than that of any other land animal, perhaps to help it capture frogs and other small, slippery animals that constitute its diet (Makira, Madagascar). -source
"And he wonders why he got cut from the Geico auditions."
Piotr Naskrecki -insect, natural history, and nature photographer- has documented in his latest book, "The Smaller Majority" an astounding personal collection of beautifully detailed wildlife images. The close attention given to these tiny and numerous creatures brings a creative euphoria to the viewer and reader. Oh yeah! ~ Markos!
It's the blending vocal harmonies that really do it for me! fromSource: First Aid Kit is a Swedish duo formed by sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg from Enskede, a suburb south of Stockholm. They're young - very young. Klara is 15 and Johanna 17. The music they create could, however, hardly be called young, it's rather ancient. The emphasis is on narrative lyrics accompanying playful melodies with intense, thick harmonies. This is nothing new.
The musical journey of Klara and Johanna began, as so many others have, with singing karaoke to various pop songs that leaked into their childhood home. It was Britney, Christina and so on. Nevertheless, they turned away from their earlier musical path a few years later, when they discoverd music that could touch them in a way completley new to them. An entry to this new way of experiencing music came with Bright Eyes, the alias of singer/songwriter Conor Oberst, Leonard Cohen and Mr. Dylan to name a few. Klara almost describes her first encounter with the song "First Day of My Life" by the earlier mentioned Bright Eyes as a revelation.
Now authenticity and honesty was put in first place - and consequently that was what came to characterize the music the two sisters produced. At 13, Klara was given a guitar that she barely touched the first year. But when the basic chords could be played somewhat correctly, the first lyrics, melodies and harmonies came quite quickly. Then came another song. And another. And another. Then when these songs were published on Myspace, it resulted in positive response from near and far. Then came offers concerning contracts and gigs. And now following that path, First Aid Kit has proudly released their first record, "Drunken Trees" on the 9th of April on Rabid Records featuring seven self produced songs and a self designed cover. these American tour dates announced so far: 20/10/09 Joe's Pub New York 23/10/09 Webster Hall New York 27/10/09 Spaceland Los Angeles posted by Markos!
Synecdoche, New York Written and Directed by Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine, Adaptation) Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener
"A soul-altering, heart-changing, brain-transplanting masterpiece." - Matthew De Abaitua (Channel 4 Film) "It's a cerebral, smart and downright surreal trip into the far reaches of the mind. I'm still having trouble working out whether it's a work of genius or a self-indulgent pile of guff." - David Edwards (Daily Mirror [UK])
Here's my review of this bizarre think-piece: Part Gondry, part Lynch, and part Jonze, surreal, Kafkaesque, existential, dark, narcissistic, funny at times, irksome, and grandiose. Ambitious in its attempt to stridently encompass many aspects of human nature especially art, dying, love, meaning, and vanity. As people, we each play a part: we each spend out entire lives learning to live, and we never really 'get it' until we die. Also, you can never fully know anyone else and you can never really know yourself. One major aspect of human nature that was only subtly, instead of blatantly, portrayed (in the later 'casting scenes' of the movie), is the human struggle and desire for power, whether by hegemony or coercion. Still, the film does a thorough job of showing how human identity and understanding are always obscured. What most impresses me, besides the brilliant acting (Hoffman) and good cinematography, was the fact that through all of this deep shit and heavy subject matter, Kaufman somehow managed to still induce a few laugh out loud funny moments. It's an art movie's art movie, no objectivity here, about as postmodern as you can get. There are many many subjective little elements in the film for all different people to take their own unique meanings from. Kaufman had to walk a difficult line between telling the audience the themes and showing them the themes. Considering the weight of the themes, he did great work. Shakespeare already said it best of course, "All the world's a stage and all the people merely players." -- Mark Anderson
An Abstract Coherency of Poems, Short Stories, and Essays.
Hello everyone! {Ahem ahem} I must say it’s an honor to be able to contribute to OMFG where many of the amazing blogs discuss celebrity excitement and other such renowned entertainments of the mass media.While I’m clearly not famous as such, I am, in fact, very famous in my own head, and in some other heads too, like my dear mother’s.So when Stephanie the Magnificent offered me the opportunity to blog about my recently self published book, “Sea Light: Selected ‘6 to ‘9,” I must admit, I clicked my flamboyantly heterosexual heals and danced for joy.OMFG keeps us gloriously distracted thrill-seeking art-trash junkies connected cerebrally, as well as physically, in our ATL youngster community.So it’s Open, wide open, like an all night dance party on the cosmic edge of free market capitalism (I too am unsure what that really means but I believe it’s something great).It’s genre crossing: local electro to pop icons.It’s not just music and it’s not just fame.It’s also personal, indeed, from thence the expressions derive!So yadda yadda yadda... Oh my fucking God, you get the point and it’s time I got there too.
In the way described above, my book is kind of like this blog site.It’s whatever I wanted it to be and, even much more realistically, it’s whatever you want it to be.Having obtained an English degree from UGA, it’s obvious that I’ve always wanted to be a writer.The tough part is that the anxiety of influence (the writings of the past) are so powerful and strong that so much has already been done before (I mean I’m not Shakespeare for God’s sake).So I’ve discovered that my goal is to make reading more interactive.I hope to someday write a book composed entirely of found text where every sentence can hyperlink to a movie or book or song from where the writing came from (copyright issues!).For now, I’ve written Sea Light, which is, in material form, quite simply, a book.
The book is kind of like a comic book (or a graphic novella to be more pedantic) devoid of any illustrations (although I wouldn’t mind changing that. Any artists out there?).Like a comic book, each page is meant to appeal to your visual sense and so each writing is brief and, I hope, quick to the punch (product of our culture, right?). Each writing is entirely unique and different in form and style.Some pieces are short stories, some are free verse poems, some are entirely found text, some are essays, etc etc.What they all have in common is that they are all mostly works of fictional storytelling and they all attempt to illustrate some point about human nature, which nothing to me can be more fascinating.While all the pieces in the book are entirely disparate, they are also all carefully unified and connected (kind of like OMFG, the internet, humanity, the universe), and thus holistic.Each piece tells a story and all the pieces together tell a greater story.The story is about the outside of up from below and in between throughout.
The central theme of human nature in Sea Light is how paradoxes and opposites compliment, complete, and bring each other into existence thereby forming a third being.There is sea.There is light.Together there is Sea Light.Yes, it sounds cheesy and it is (so what? havarti is one of the tastiest foods ever).It’s also the fundamental nature of our existence, which becomes more and more mysterious the deeper one gets beneath that pasteurized surface.All of writing, and all art for that matter, is a struggle and balance between narcissism and altruism.So my voice is very present throughout the writing and completely hidden at other times.Again, the goal of the book is for the reader’s voice to take over, for the listener to speak, and for someone else to finish my sentence.
On that note, I attempt to send my book out to the masses, for even if one person reads, really reads, Sea Light, even if I never know of it, then my gratitude be released!The link below gives a few sample pages, and the option to download it for 5 or order it for 10.Often, I have copies for sell in person for 12. (I’m not exactly making the yacht club on this one people!) So go ahead, inflate the ego of a middle class urban white guy in America just a little bit more, put on your reading goggles, and take a nice deep meander through a place called Sea Light.
