If you’ve ever wondered what your favorite literary characters might be listening to while they save the world/contemplate existence/get into trouble, or hallucinated a soundtrack to go along with your favorite novels, well, us too. But wonder no more! Here, we sneak a look at the hypothetical iPods of some of literature’s most interesting characters. What would be on the personal playlists of Holden Caulfield or Elizabeth Bennett, Huck Finn or Harry Potter, Tintin or Humbert Humbert? Something revealing, we bet. Or at least something danceable. Read on for a cozy reading soundtrack, character study, or yet another way to emulate your favorite literary hero. This week: The Pearl Poet’s classic Arthurian tale, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Christmas is over and done with, which means that the insufferable barrage of carols is over for another year and you’ve probably got a few days off to sit and devour some new music. If Santa didn’t fill your stocking with a bunch of new tunes, never fear — plenty of artists are giving away free stuff in a display of seasonal altruism. Or clever digital marketing. Or something. Here’s a round-up of the best action to be had.
Featuring appearances by Norah Jones and Yeasayer’s Ira Wolf Tuton, Wah Do Dem stars Sean Bones as Max, a Brooklyn-based hipster who goes on a cruise alone after his girlfriend dumps him.
Chronicling a series of captivating and unsettling misadventures, the DVD features a clever mix of DIY filmmaking, unconventional storytelling, and contemporary cinéma vérité. Writers and directors Ben Chace and Sam Fleischner soundtrack the story of the disillusioned young musician’s voyage to Jamaica with tracks from MGMT, Santigold, and Suckers.
We all know that famous actors have often gotten their start in music videos, from Courteney Cox in Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” to Alicia Silverstone in “Cryin’.” But lately, we’ve seen a sort of role reversal, with independent musicians drafting film and TV celebrities to star in their music videos, thus raising the profile of the clip and (hopefully) the band. After the jump, watch 10 indie-rock videos featuring cameos by well-known actors, from Kristen Bell’s recent Yeasayer clip to Winona Ryder as Debbie Gibson in a crazy Mojo Nixon production to a debut by an unknown band that reunited some of our favorite ’90s Nickelodeon stars.
Noa Emberson is a graphic designer based out of Honolulu. He recently took on a self-initiated project commemorating twenty five of his favorite indie albums with beautifully-crafted and informative posters. Lucky for us, his design aesthetic is just as sharp as his taste in music. Click through to view a few of our favorites.
Today at Flavorpill, we loved GOOD’s infographic version of the most controversial books in America. We found out what Conan O’Brien was really thinking during his 60 Minutes interview. We wondered how someone would react to spotting one of Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s oil paintings in our apartment. Total conversation piece. We considered dropping $1000 to have ’90s rocker Juliana Hatfield write a personalized song for us. We realized that skinny jeans, do in fact, serve an important function. We chortled over the “Is It Steampunk?” Flowchart — it’s so funny because it’s true. We wished that the New York City Department of Buildings would leave Shepard Fairey alone. We wanted Hollywood to stop mining our childhood for sequel ideas. We got a kick out of Ironing Man. And finally, we wanted to thank Yeasayer’s Chris Keating for introducing us to some of the band’s more obscure influences in a new mixtape.
Last weekend marked the eleventh time that the folks at Goldenvoice have produced the Coachella Music and Arts Festival, bringing together over one hundred acts of disparate musical genres and throwing them all together in the desert heat to see what sticks and what melts away. This year’s Coachella had its fair share of legends (Sly Stone, Public Image Ltd.), indie darlings (She & Him, Vampire Weekend), titans of their genre (Jay-Z, Faith No More), and once-in-a-lifetime acts with production that you’ll never see anywhere else (Plastikman, Fever Ray, Orbital, and Gorillaz). It also had its fair share of snags: parking was a nightmare, huge crowds created gridlock, and there was a surprising lack of fantastic art other than an enormous white paper crane.
After the jump, read our power rankings for some of the acts who we saw at the festival, based on each band’s buzz points coming into their performances and cred gained or lost after the fact. You might be surprised by some of the results; if you were there, let us know who you saw at the festival and whether you agree with our judgments.
By now, the psychedelic Brooklynites in Yeasayer are probably sick of being compared to Animal Collective. So we hope they don’t mind us saying that listening to their second full-length, Odd Blood, this January reminds us of playing AnCo’s Merriweather Post Pavilion at the same time last year — which is to say, as far as we’re concerned, Odd Blood has set the bar for 2010. A 2007 buzz band with the release of debut All Hour Cymbals, Yeasayer have massively overhauled their sound on the new record, trading the devotional and hypnotic for something that’s more upbeat and darkly revelatory.
This reinvention has saved Yeasayer from the sad fate of so many former critical darlings, from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! to Tapes ‘N Tapes to (dare we say it?) Vampire Weekend: that disappointment we call the “sophomore slump.” So, in celebration of Odd Blood, we offer 10 blog-age artists whose second full-lengths lived up to (or surpassed) the promise of their predecessors.
Today at Flavorpill, we found ourselves in a “Forest Hills State of Mind” thanks to Rachel Dratch. We ogled Hong Kong-based designer May Sum’s odd, animal-centric gems. We were surprised to hear that a wolf caught in action by a prize-winning wild photog was actually a model. We kept our fingers crossed for John Logan’s play Red, starring Alfred Molina as Mark Rothko, to come stateside from London. What is it with Molina and his portrayal of some of the best painters? We read a little snippet about Claudia Kishi’s “looooooong and thick” hair in the upcoming prequel to Ann M. Martin’s Babysitter’s Club series. Ah, to read about leggings before they made a comeback. We were intrigued by news of a porn-tastic remake. And finally, we marked February 9 down in our calendars to pick up the newest from Yeasayer, which could be the best album of 2010. And yes, we realize we’re only 21 days in.
Katie Roiphe caused a stir with her recent New York Timesessay “The Naked and the Conflicted,” which argues that a large chunk of today’s heterosexual male authors tend to not only shy away from sex, but also express disgust and even boredom with it. But we’re not here to rehash the ample controversy she incited. Instead, we’ve decided to see whether her thesis applies to young, male artists in another arena: indie rock. We examined some of last year’s buzziest hits to determine whether their creators find sex as passé as their literary counterparts. Will hipster rockers prove the exception by summoning the libido of Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes? Also: Where the ladies at, and are their sexual antics stealing the striptease?
, this January reminds us of playing AnCo’s 
at the same time last year — which is to say, as far as we’re concerned, Odd Blood has set the bar for 2010. A 2007 buzz band with the release of debut 
, Yeasayer have massively overhauled their sound on the new record, trading the devotional and hypnotic for something that’s more upbeat and darkly revelatory.
