A couple of months back, our own Kathleen Massara celebrated the release of Peter Nadas’s weighty novel Parallel Stories with a selection of 10 epic novels that we dared you to finish. Of course, this also got us thinking about equivalents in other art forms, whether it’s film (Charlie Kaufman’s interminable Synecdoche, New York springs to mind immediately), theater… or, inevitably, music. The history of music is full of albums that are awfully difficult to sit through in their entirety, whether it’s because they’re “difficult” or just because they’re damn long. So here are 10 albums we dare you to finish. Have you got any challenges for us? Read More »
Every Monday morning, we rope together five of the most noteworthy, interesting, and (hopefully) enjoyable albums streaming for free on the web over the course of the week. This week is shaping up particularly well — there’s the hype-laden Jay-Z and Kanye album, as well as an early (legal) listen to the new Beirut album, along with a Blood Orange’s late-night drag queen neo-funk, The Flaming Lips and Lightning Bolt wigging out together, and YOB making a Bhagvad Gita-inspired doom metal record. It’s all after the jump!
Occasionally, we come across a piece of news that seems waaaaay too strange to be true. But still, here goes: the Flaming Lips are releasing a new version of their Gummy Skull EP, which was originally released on a USB stick embedded inside a life-sized skull made out of the same gelatinous candy stuff that’s used to make Gummi Bears. Right. The new version, which was hand-delivered by Wayne Coyne to record stores yesterday, features a special new marijuana-flavored brain. It also carries also a live version of The Soft Bulletin, which is enough to make all the accompanying silliness a compelling proposition. If you can somehow get your hands on a marijuana-flavored Flaming Lips gummy skull, it’ll set you back $150; failing that, you can watch a video of the whole strange business – featuring Coyne and a miscellaneous stoner dude – after the jump.
Record label EMI published the results today of a charity auction it held earlier this month to raise money for tsunami relief funds in Japan. There was plenty of interesting material to be had, although it was, of course, all well out of our price range – but if you happened to have a spare $10k sitting around, you could have snapped up signed copies of David Bowie’s full back catalog, while $6,744 would have gotten you Billy Corgan’s handmade “Zero” t-shirt. The news got us thinking about other band paraphernalia we’d love to get our hands on – read on to see our selection, and let us know what you’d like on your mantelpiece. Read More »
Happy royal wedding week, everyone. If you’re anything like us then you will be…well, not paying attention. If all the British royalty hype is making you crazy, then the only solution is to plug in some headphones and ignore it to the tune of this week’s mixtape. We’ve got new ones from the Flaming Lips, Liturgy, and Thee Oh Sees, not to mention Seattle’s dreamy Seapony and Belfast’s Girls Names. To snap them up, right click + “Save As” or scroll to the bottom to download the whole mix.
Yes, it’s 4/20, which means that stoners the world over are rejoicing over having a vaguely legitimate reason to get colossally baked this afternoon. There are plenty of songs out there about weed (we’re looking at you, Snoop), but they don’t necessarily make the best soundtrack for celebrating the herb -– so we’ve thoughtfully composed a psychedelic stoner mixtape that moves through a range of genres in the hope of providing a fine old soundtrack to some extracurricular pursuits this afternoon. (We’ve tried to go for selections that aren’t blindingly obvious –- with one exception -– so no Bob Marley, or Grateful Dead.)
1. Musician Michel Martelly — the presidential candidate supported by both Pras and Wyclef Jean — has won the runoff election in Haiti, taking in nearly 68 percent of the vote to defeat former first lady Mirlande Manigat. [via Vulture]
2. “I believe the writers are six weeks away from a draft. I know a little bit. But I don’t know — the fellas went off and cooked it up. I don’t know what happened when they put the elements together. When we last got together [in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey], part of it was that Bill and Ted were supposed to have written the song that saved the world, and it hasn’t happened. So they’ve now become kind of possessed by trying to do that. Then there’s an element of time and they have to go back.” – Keanu Reevestalks to MTV about Bill and Ted 3
3. Will Smith and son Jaden will co-star in a yet-to-be titled sci-fi adventure flick for director M. Night Shyamalan about “a young boy who navigates an abandoned and sometimes scary Earth 1,000 years in the future to save himself and his estranged father after their ship crashes.” [via PopEater]
4. More exciting Record Store Day news: Jerry Lee Lewis will perform at Third Man Records’ Nashville stage for a live concert LP that will be produced by Jack White and released by the label. [via TwentyFourBit]
5. The Flaming Lips’ musical based on Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is in the early stages of production with Des McAnuff, who co-created the stage version of Tommy, at the helm. Says Wayne Coyne: “It’s really become a perfect combination of my fantastical robot-world vision and [McAnuff's] little, internal, humanistic version of what that music is.” [via Guardian]
If you’re currently enjoying your lunch, then you might want to skip this video of Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne inexplicably printing an Austin City Limits poster with his own blood. (The info on the YouTube page implies that it’s up for sale, but doesn’t provide any additional info.) Feeling brave? Click through to watch one of your favorite indie rock stars embrace his inner Jackson Pollock/serial killer.
If you saw the video for The Flaming Lips’s “Watching the Planets,” you’ll already be familiar with the giant, hairy ball with an unmistakably yonic slit. And if we are to consider their new clip, for “See the Leaves,” as a direct sequel to that one, the story of that ball now goes something like this: After a crowd of naked people strip Wayne Coyne and shove him into that giant vagina, it begins to leak a cartoonish, bright yellow liquid that a nude, blindfolded young woman bathes in and ingests. She emerges with a glowing, yellow vulva of her own, flicking the liquid it issues this way and that as she stalks about in parks and parking garages, and eventually finding her spiritual home in a wildfire.
Is it actually supposed to be pee? Probably not, although yellow is certainly not the only color in the rainbow. But whatever. We don’t question The Flaming Lips. We just admire their freak flag as it flies in the afternoon sun.
Why is it that when times are tough, things like movie and concert tickets only seem to get more expensive? Well, don’t worry: We feel your financial pain. As cities across the country gear up for summers packed with free shows and screenings, we want to make sure you know that you don’t have to live in a major metropolis (or risk bug bites and butt numbness) to get your gratis film and music fix. The internet abounds with excellent music documentaries you can watch right on your computer. Check out ten of our favorites, from the Pixies to the Flaming Lips, after the jump.
