Floating Away

Giant Village joins the Summer Festival Game

Just found out the the Giant Village New Years Eve show has officially been rescheduled and is now claiming to be an "annual summer festival unfolding on the streets of Downtown LA". While I think this is great and am all for more LA area music festivals, especially those happening downtown, I would like some less dancy/DJ heavy artists. Death Cab and the Black Eyed Peas were scheduled to perform over New Years. It's not really a giant village if its only for kids with glowsticks.

Missy Elliott and the Power of Editing

I don't watch too many commercials.  This is mainly due to the fact that I am proud owner of a DVR system that lets me fly through commercials like a 5th grader on a slip n' slide.  But, somehow, over the past two weeks ago, the TV spot for the upcoming movie, "Stick It" caught my eye and I have been obsessed with it ever since.  This obsession is largely due to how in thirty seconds, they tell you absolutely nothing about the movie, but manage to show you lots of young girls in leotards saying amusing things like "It's not called gymnicestics." The best part of the spot though is it's excellent use of "We Run This" by Missy Elliott. The trailer is syncronized perfectly to the song with really quick edits that make me want to see the movie immediately. 

Here is the TV Spot:

So, after obsessing over the 30 second spot, I got very curious about what the movie is actually about, so I found the actual trailer and was extremely dissapointed. The movie looks terrible.  The biggest surprise is that the movie stars Jeff Bridges who doesnt even appear once in the shorter TV spot.  What is the Dude doing in a high school gym?  Very un-dude of him. 

Other facts to consider:
1) We finally learn the plot.  Bad girl ditches her team at finals only to become a BMX superstar. Then, get in trouble again and her punishment is to go back to her old gynmastics academy. 
2) No use of any Missy Elliott.
3) Did I mention the Big Lebowski plays the coach?

Movie Trailer:

Anyway, knowing me, I feel like I will see this movie eventually, probably on DVD. It is amazing how easily a good editing job and a great song can sway me.  But, at least, we have Missy Elliott:

MP3: We Run This - Missy Elliott

Kanye Added To Coachella

Many people predicted some last minute surprise guests added to Coachella's Saturday lineup.  Kanye West was just added. Oddly enough, they have not redesigned the poster, but the addition is reflected on Saturday's setlist.

Kanye:

No Kanye:

What would Munich look like covered up?

Sometimes I hear a cover of a song and start singing along instantly, knowing I know it, but not knowing who the original is.  Yesterday morning, it took me the length of the entire song to realize how I knew this cover of "Munich" by Editors. 

As the song ended, I realized it was an Editors cover.  It wasn't until the break when Nic Harcourt mentioned it was Corrine Bailey Rae.  KCRW has been playing a lot of her and rightfully so, she is exactly what the Morning Becomes Eclectic audience loves: a beautiful woman playing accessible, yet independent pop music. 

This cover is really beautiful and shows what a song like Munich can be when it is broken down to just its lyrics and simple guitar plucking. 

Listen below and pick a favorite:

MP3: Munich - Editors
MP3: Munich - Corinne Bailey Rae

Editors are playing Coachella on Sunday and Corinne Bailey Rae is playing the Troubadour on June 26th.

No on Coachella, But Yes on Festival of Books

Sadly, I have made the decision that I am not going to Coachella. This decision is three fold:

1) I only really want to go on Sunday and feel like I have either seen most of Saturday's bands or I am just not interested.

2) After the crazy weekend I just had, I am barely alive at work and could really use a quiet weekend to catch up on things and get some much needed sleep.

3) I have no money. That one basically requires no explanation.

But, it just so happens that the LA Times Festival of Books is this weekend. I went years ago to hear the late Jim Murray speak and even had him autograph a book for me.  Last year, Amy and I spent the day wandering around and we bumped into a food demonstration with my favorite food network star, Giada de Laurentis.  She did a nice demo and Amy got to ask a couple questions that got the crowd chuckling.

This Saturday, I will be attending and checking out two speaker events: A Conversation with Chip Kidd and The Music Industry one with Nic Harcourt among others.  I am super excited for the Chip Kidd event.  He is one of the most famous book jacket designers and book layout people out there.  I have admired his work for some time and I am looking forward to hearing him speak. The music industry one caught my eye and there just happened to be tickets available so I snatched two.

If you are interested, check out the schedule and head to your local ticketmaster for FREE TICKETS.  Many were gone when I went Monday afternoon, but you never know.  They also hold tickets for Saturday and Sunday morning.

Birdmonster Adds LA Show

It's not on Ticketweb or Spaceland's website yet, but Birdmonster's site says that they are playing Spaceland on March 12th.

Tickets to the March 13th show at the Knitting Factory are on sale now.

They are playing a lot of west coast dates with Division Day and Art Brut.

Trespassers William @ Tangier 4/14

Friday night, I trekked out in the rain to one of my favorite venues in the city, tangier.  I have been hearing great things about former local band Trespassers William.  The Portland area band has a dreamy sound reminiscint of sigur ros or my bloody valentine, but with Anna-Lynne Williams on vocals it adds a whole other level of beauty to it.

I really liked what I have heard on record (see the samples below), but live the feedback was too much for me.  Anna-Lynne's vocals were non existant and instead it just became sound.  It was really cool to watch these guys set up though. They bring so much stuff to the show, I kinda wondered if they knew how to use it all.  Ross Simoni, bassist and electronics man, used 5 power strips to plug in all of his toys.

If you want another chance to catch them, they are playing Spaceland tonight with Lisa Germano.  Maybe their sound problems will be gone.

MP3: Different Stars - Trespassers William

LA Times Quote of the Day

It's a slow day here at work, hence the heavy posting.  I have read most of the LA Times today, but when I read this quote, I laughed out loud.   Today, JA Adande's article in the LA Times broke down the NBA MVP race between Kobe and Phoenix Suns guard Steve Nash.  The article, had the best Steve Nash nickname I have ever seen:

"I call Nash Mr. Drummond, because I haven't seen a white man take such good care of black people since 'Diff'rent Strokes.'"

Brilliant.

My Trip to Peru

This weekend, I booked my ticket to Peru for the month of June.  I will be there for just over 2 weeks and during that time am also hiking the Inca Trail on my way to Machu Pichu.  Hopefully, I will live to tell the tail and come back with beautiful photos like the one above.  More of these photos can be found here.

On a co-worker's recommendation, I picked up 101 Hikes in Southern California. My goal is do one or two of these a weekend to get into hiking shape. Some could argue that I am in really, really good sit on the couch shape, which isn't helpful for hiking the Inca Trail.

If anyone out there knows of any good hikes, let me know. I would really appreciate it.

The Books, Clogs at the Knitting Factory

When The Lemon of Pink came out, I was completely obsessed with it.  I didn't quite understand it, but loved it.  It was a bizarre world of cellos, banjos and odd vocals.  It took me to a world I knew nothing about, but wanted to live there.  Adam burned me their first album and I bought Lost and Safe when it came out, but it was only after their first NY show at the Knitting Factory did I really realize the genius of The Books.  That show, like their show Saturday night at the Knitting Factory in LA, was incredible. 

It's hard to imagine how two guys like Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong can pull of a live show.  In a way, it makes sense that it took them three years to figure out how to make what they do transform live.  The genius of their show is that by adding images to their songs, they do two things:

1) They take their songs to an entirely different place.  They take you to where they want you.  When you see their live show, they are in charge of your visual and aural memories. When you walk away, you remember how well the music works with the visual component. 

2) They guarantee the same performance.  When I saw them in NY last year, I remembered "Smells Like Content" was amazing.  I didn't remember everything about it or what they actually did, but I remembered leaving there and listening to that song on repeat the entire ride home.  I heard other people in the audience have similar reactions: "Oh, remember the kid in the moon bounce! I love this!"  By essentially just playing and singing over audio and video samples, everyone who sees them on their tour is guaranteed a great show.

My only complaint (and this was true of the first time I saw them), they need to bring in some chairs. That would be a great sit down show. 

MP3: Pagina Dos - Prefuse 73 w/ The Books
MP3: Smells Like Content - The Books

Clogs opened up and I liked them a lot.  Bryce Dessner from the National is half of the group.  They play really beautiful instrumental music, but I would love to see them with a larger band.  When the Books came out and played with them, I liked their sound much more.