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John Hughes, Cloud Nothings, Camera Obscura, Cutout Bin, Guardians of the Galaxy   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Friday, August 01, 2014 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with JOHN HUGHES! The sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, buds, wasteoids, dweebies and dickheads, they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude. The writer/director behind "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club," "Pretty in Pink," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," "Weird Science," National Lampoon's "Vacation" movies, "Home Alone," "Planes, Trains & Automobiles" and many more died Aug 6, 2009.  Hughes masterfully married music to movies, so I pay video tribute to him today, starting (of course) with "Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Minds from The Breakfast Club (the drumming o­n this song is impeccable), and Karla DeVito's "We Are Not Alone," along with the Ramones playing "Blitzkrieg Bop" (from National Lampoon's Vacation), David Bowie's "Young Americans" and The Vapors o­ne-hit wonder, "Turning Japanese" and Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell" (all from Sixteen Candles, which opens to a clip of veteran WLS DJs Larry Lujack and Tommy Edwards), Van Halen's cover of "(Oh) Pretty Woman" and General Public's "Tenderness" (both from Weird Science), the Psychedelic Furs re-recorded title track from Pretty In Pink, which also featured Jon Cryer lip-synching to Otis Redding's "Try A Little Tenderness" (that last clip is a blistering live take from the 1967 Stax tour -- and excellent, btw), The Smiths' "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" (a Hughes perennial), and OMD's "If You Leave," plus two more from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, "Danke Schoen" and "Twist and Shout" (which was shot o­n Dearborn and Randolph Streets in Chicago, with International Polka Queen Vlasta atop the float, though Cameron and Sloane were in front of the Post Office), plus Yello's unforgettable-no-matter-how-you-try "Oh, Yeah." Videos are scarce for Some Kind of Wonderful, but I found Flesh for Lulu's "I Go Crazy" and the March Violets' take on the Stones' "Miss Amanda Jones."

CLOUD NOTHINGS stopped by WFUV's Studio A for a session.

CAMERA OBSCURA perfoms on WNYC's Soundcheck.

NICOLE ATKINS stopped by KUTX for a mini-set.

HAMILTON LEITHAUSER played a Tiny Desk Concert at the offices of NPR

STEELY DAN turn in a spirited "Reelin' in the Years" on the Midnight Special.

DOUG GILLARD ( Guided By Voices, Cobra Verde, Death Of Samantha, Nada Surf) talks to Magnet about his early musical experiences, Tommy Ramone, Bob Stinson, and more...

ARIEL PINK tells an odd story about getting maced by a feminist.

SLOWDIVE's Neil Halstead and Simon Scott talked to The Big Takeover about the reunion tour, solo projects and more (Thx, Frank Yang.)

ROBERT PLANT is slightly disappointed and baffled about Jimmy Page's hankering for more Zeppelin.

THE CUTOUT BIN: from ABC to the VU, from Stiff Little Fingers to Seals & Crofts, from the Baseball Project to the Bee Gees, plus the Clash, Bruce Springsteen, Sly & the Family Stone, the Cure and more -- this Friday's fortuitous finds are streaming from the Pate page at the ol' HM.

NOW SHOWING:This weekend's wide releases include Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, which is currently scoring 90 percent on the ol' Tomatometer; and the James Brown biopic Get On Up, currently scoring 82 percent.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, to quote TV's Andy Levy, was an absolute blast. It is one thing for Marvel --having sold the rights to Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and X-Men to other studio-- to build a box office empire from ostensibly second-tier characters like Iron Man, Captain America and Thor. Now they have delivered a deserved smash based on the decidedly geek third-tier GotG. If you've watched the bonus credits scenes in The Avengers and Thor: The Dark World, you may recognize a couple of the characters here, but virtually everyone will be meeting the Guardians themselves for the first time. Removing the comics' Adam Warlock and softening Peter Quill (played by Chris Pratt) brodens the appeal. Throw in Zoe Saldana and Karen Gillan as ruthless assasins, Dave Bautista ans the vengeful Drax, James Brolin as the god of death, and the voices of Bradley Cooper (the irascible Rocket) and Vin Diesel (who gets the most out of the least words in the film as Groot) a space opera that's mostly Han Solos and Chewbaccas, rife with the humor and 70s centric rock you may have seen and heard in the trailers.  The first act is particularly good, while the second act gives just enough of a breather to prepare for the more conventional heroic climax--though even this is not played too seriously. And it is Marvel, so stay past the end of the credits.

THE ORLANDO BLOOM/JUSTIN BIEBER FIGHT gets even better.

CAMERON DIAZ & BENJI MADDEN have talked about marriage.

BRADGELINA sent handwritten letters to each other while they were filming on opposite sides of the world. Awww.

CHARLIZE THERON's smart friends who are warning her about wedding Sean Penn? Let's hope so.

SHARKNADO 2 pulled in 3.9 million total viewers on Wednesday. That number is nearly three times what the original TV movie got in its debut, with the sequel setting a Syfy Original Movie record in the process.

THE 25 BEST COMING OF AGE MOVIES, according to Flavorwire. Yes, there's some John Hughes represented.

TURKISH women are posting laughing selfies on social media in defiance of one of the country’s top government officials who said that women scolded women for laughing out loud in public.

ISRAEL: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced Thursday that an unconditional humanitarian cease-fire will begin at 8 a.m. Friday in Gaza (1 a.m. ET). It will last 72 hours -- or three days -- "unless extended," the United Nations and United States said in a joint statement. The terms are similar to those propsed by Egypt and rejected by Hamas on July 15th, when the death count was 200.

THE ISLAMIC STATE, which advocates public stoning for adultery, has opened a "marriage bureau" for women who want to wed its fighters in territory they control in Syria and Iraq.

IRAQ: “Islamic State” jihadists have executed hundreds of Shi’ite Muslims in northern Iraq in what may be one of the worst atrocities yet since the al-Qaeda splinter group seized much of northeastern Syria and made huge gains in parts of Iraq.

A CAT snuggles a PUPPY...

A CROCODILE was already in the shower.

NO ANCHOVIES, PLEASE: Thousands of dead anchovies have washed up this week in the town of Seaside, Oregon, providing a welcome feast for marine birds but a foul stench for tourists and residents of the popular beachside village northwest of Portland.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: A three-tusked walrus...for dinner.

2636 Reads

Dawes, Conor Oberst, Band of Horses, Pokey LaFarge, Bambi   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Thursday, July 31, 2014 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

FOXYGEN drops a video for “How Can You Really” ahead of Foxygen … And Star Power.

DAWES played the Newport Folk Festival.

CONOR OBERST played the Newport Folk Festival.

BAND OF HORSES played the Newport Folk Festival.

POKEY LaFARGE played the Newport Folk Festival.

THE TEMPTATIONS: "Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)."

BIG STAR: #1 Record and Radio City are getting remastered by Stax.

JENNY LEWIS talks to Vulture about Lisa Frank stickers, Beyoncé, and getting in touch with her inner 8-Year-Old.

HARVEY DANGER frontman Sean Nelson talks to Fuse about the band's earliest days, their first record, "Flagpole Sitta," and the endless battle against the "one-hit wonder" title.

STEVE ALBINI's 10 BEST RECORDS, according to Pitchfork.

ORLANDO BLOOM took a swing at JUSTIN BIEBER. Miranda Kerr is mentioned.

BEYONCE & JAY Z are carefully orchestrating the business of splitting up as On the Run tour grinds to an end.

ROBERT PATTINSON has beers and BBQ with Esquire.

KATY PERRY talks her awkward phase, motherhood and more for the cover of the Rolling Stone.

ALLISON WILLIAMS (Girls) will star in NBC's live Peter Pan.

THE BIG BANG THEORY contract standoff continues and has forced production on the new season to be postponed.

DREW BARRYMORE's  half sister, Jessica Barrymore, was found dead in a car early Tuesday in National City, California.

UKRAINE: The economic sanctions that the U.S. and European Union imposed Tuesday against Russian banks were designed to severely punish a key part of Russia's economy. But their immediate impact is likely to be relatively muted.

LIBERIA: The largest recorded Ebola outbreak in history has led the U.S. Peace Corps to evacuate hundreds of volunteers from three affected West African countries, and a U.S. State Department official on Wednesday said two volunteers were under isolation after having contact with a person who later died of the virus.

ISRAEL:  At home, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is riding a massive wave of popularity. Egypt has led a new coalition of Arab states — including Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — that has effectively lined up with Israel in its fight against Hamas.  United Nations official Christopher Gunness broke down sobbing during a live television interview with Al-Jazeera, as he described how shells had struck the Jabalia Elementary Girls School in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza.  Italian reporter Gabriele Barbati confirmed it was an errant Hamas rocket rather than an Israeli strike that killed ten Gazans, mostly children, on Monday.

SYRIA: US Secretary of State Kerry denounced the Assad regime and said the US will give an additional 8 million in humanitarian aid to the Syrian people, bringing the US total so far in the conflict to 2.4 billion dollars.

LIBYA: Ansar al Sharia reportedly claimed to be in complete control of Benghazi, after taking over the headquarters of the Saiqa Special Forces yesterday.

IRAQ: An Islamic State suicide bomber destroyed a key bridge in Thar Thar that was used by the Iraqi military to keep Samarra resupplied.

BAMBI reunites with his mother.

MAYBE THE DOG swallowed your £500 retirement watch.

500 GOATS grazing in east Boise got out of their enclosure and had to be herded back in Monday.

170 PIGS, roasted by lightning.

2572 Reads

Beck, Jeff Tweedy, Deer Tick, Shovels & Rope, Watercooler Cat   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

WOODS get animated for their "New Light" video.

BECK is streaming the Song Reader LP via Spotify.

JEFF TWEEDY played a set at the Newport Folk Festival.

DEER TICK played a set at the Newport Folk Festival.

SHOVELS & ROPE played a set at the Newport Folk Festival.

CAT POWER joins J MASCIS on "Wide Awake" ahead of Tied To A Star.

CYMBALS EAT GUITARS issues a "Warning" ahead of LOSE.

PRIMUS is reuniting for a Willy Wonka tribute LP; their take on "Pure Imagination" sounds like something from the Inventing Room.

THE ROSEBUDS drop "Esse Quam Videri" ahead of Sand + Silence.

THE DEL FUEGOS from Boston Mass., with "Don't Run Wild."

BLUR may not release a new album because it was too hot outside while they were making it.

LED ZEPPELIN will include "the fabled, alternate version" of "Stairway to Heaven" in the next round of remasters.

JACK WHITE: Will he ever play hometown Detroit again? If he does, it won't be the Fox Theatre.

THE 50 GREATEST UK INDIE RECORDS, according to MOJO.

JAMES GARNER died from a massive heart attack.

BRYAN SINGER reportedly sought to settle a sex abuse suit for 100K; his accuser turned it down. The accuser's lawyer quit the case.

BLAKE LIVELY wants to be a lifestyle guru; Martha Stewart says "Wut"?

GWYNETH PALTROW & CHRIS MARTIN both showed up Monday night at a screening of Hector And The Search For Happiness.

MAKSIM CHMERKOVSKIY will no longer perform on Dancing With the Stars.

SARAH DREW (Grey's Anatomy, Mad Men)  is expecting her second child with husband Peter Lanfer.

UKRAINE: Fighting has been continuing in the Donetsk region of Ukraine,with reports government forces are firing artillery on separatist positions. The U.S. and European Union sought to put more pressure on Russia’s stumbling economy by targeting banking, energy and defense industries for sanctions in another attempt to get President Vladimir Putin to back down in Ukraine.

TURKISH deputy prime minister Bulent Arınc says women should not laugh out loud in public or speak of trivial matters on the phone.

ISRAEL: Hamas uses Shifa Hospital as a command post? I may not have believed a WND story, but the NYT and the Washington Post have both reported it (just not loudly). Turns out the Israelis built it.  UNRWA said it found a rocket cache in one of its central Gaza schools on Tuesday, the third such incident.

IRAQ: Already splitting into three states?

A CAT uses a water cooler.

A BEAVER is blamed for felling a tree that collapsed onto a car driven by Quebec tourists. Nice.

MATING SPACE GECKOS are back under Russian control.

BIRDS: Why do they sunbathe?

 

2604 Reads

Spoon, Number Ones, Twin Peaks, Christopher Denny, Dog Reunion   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

THE ALLAH-LAs spin a video for "No Werewolf," the B-side of their current single.

SPOON is streaming They Want My Soul via iTunes radio.

THE NUMBER ONES advance stream their self-titled debut.

TWIN PEAKS advance stream Wild Onion.

CHRISTOPHER DENNY advance streams If the Roses Don't Kill Us.

MEATBODIES drops “Tremmors” ahead of a self-titled LP.

CLOUD NOTHINGS play "I'm Not Part of Me" and "Pattern Walks" for a Pitchfork Music Fest twofer.

MISSION OF BURMA: Roger Miller details a week in Ukraine at Aquarium Drunkard.

JENNY LEWIS  WAS PROFILED BY The New York Times magazine.

WAX & WANE: The Tough Realities Behind Vinyl's Comeback.

40 GREAT BASSISTS, named by NME readers, which means some obvious choices rate criminally low.

SANDRA BULLOCK celebrated her 50th birthday in Wyoming.

JENNIFER LAWRENCE & NIC HOULT on the outs again?

FREDDIE PRINZE JR bashes KIEFER SUTHERLAND...five years after the fact.

PIPER PERABO wore a silver wedding dress on Saturday as she married long-term partner Stephen Kay.

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD debuted a trailer at Comic-Con.

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PT 1 also debuted a teaser trailer at Comic-Con. Director George Miller also talked about it.

ISRAEL:  A grim-faced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Monday of a protracted war in Gaza, dashing any hopes of a swift end to the three-week conflict as Palestinian fighters launched an audacious cross-border raid.

LIBYA: Islamist fighters fired rockets into a second fuel tank near Tripoli airport, setting it on fire, ignoring calls for a ceasefire from the government as well as international envoys. The government called for international help to extinguish the massive blaze, which is out of control in the capital. Many embassies have closed in Tripoli due to insecurity.

SYRIA: A U.S.-backed effort to arm the moderate Syrian opposition is finally ramping up along the Turkey-Syria border, but it may come too late to save the rebels from defeats on two fronts, by President Bashar al-Assad’s government and by the extremists seeking to carve out an Islamic state.

IRAQ: Analysts say the Islamic State is about to launch a major offensive-but one built around commando raids and suicide bombings rather than a frontal attack. The French government says it is ready to offer asylum to Iraqi Christians forced to flee by Islamist militants in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

A SCHNAUZER faints with excitement upon being reuinted with her owner.

WEAPONIZED RABBIT POOP powers a doomsday flamethrower.

COLLECTING BULL SEMEN is a tricky and dangerous job, if you hadn't gessed this already.

A DOG OWNER plans to sue a British council for thousands of pounds after her pet slipped a disc in grass while chasing a cat.

2334 Reads

Ryan Adams, Jenny Lewis, Anais Mitchell, The Devil Makes 3, Corgi   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Monday, July 28, 2014 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM drops a video for the tile track to Get Hurt.

RAYN ADAMS plays a full set at the Newport Folk Festival, including a Danzig cover.

JENNY LEWIS plays a full set at the Newport Folk Festival.

ANAIS MITCHELL & JEFFERSON HAMER play a full set at the Newport Folk Festival.

THE DEVIL MAKES THREE plays a full set at the Newport Folk Festival.

DUSTY SPRINGFIELD: "The Look of Love."

GLEN MATLOCK: The Ex-Pistol talks to The Guardian about the plans for his one-man show at the Edinburgh fringe.

ARETHA FRANKLIN has a beef with Johnny Rockets.

RICHARD MARX talks to the L.A. Times about "Right Here Waiting", country songwriting and more.

PRINCE: 20 Things you may not know about the 30-year-old classic.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Lucy tops the chart with 44 million, which is a fine domestic take against a 40 million budget. It's also the biggest non-sequel summer opening since The Fault in our Stars, and the biggest US opening for director Luc Besson (although Besson was producer on the bigger Taken 2). The C+ Cinemascore, however, suggests it won't have legs (esp. with Guardians of the Galaxy opening Friday).  Hercules places with 29 million, a bit troubling against a 100 million budget...but its B+ Cinemascore might boost its chances to compete against Lucy for second next weekend.  Dawn of the Planet of the Apes shows with 16.4 million. That's off 55 percent from last weekend; it has recouped its production budget here, and 110 so far abroad, but will need about 500 million to break even. (Hint: If you don't see Marvel this weekend, see Apes.)  The Purge: Anarchy drops 67 percent to fourth place with 9.9 million but has 51 million domestic against a 9 million budget. Planes: Fire and Rescue round out the Top 5 with 9.3 million (again, Disney likely cares more about the merch sales for this). Below the fold, Sex Tape is bombing badly is sixth place.  And So It Goes doesn't look much better in eighth.

A MOST WANTED MAN might refer to any of the targets in this adaptation of the LeCarre post-9/11 spy flick, but really it's the late Philip Seymour Hoffman who turns in one of his last typical stellar performance as Gunther Bachmann, the head of an anti-terror unit who spends almost as much time fighting bureaucratic turf wars as he does trying to stop Islamists. Hoffmann excelled at playing characters with an inner core of sadness and loneliness, and Bachmann has almost nothing else beneath the figurative armor he wears on the job. Rachel McAdams steps outside her comfort zone well enough as a leftist lawyer representing a damaged, half-Russian/half-ChechenMuslim with a thousand-yard stare. Willem Dafoe is intense but not overdone as the German banker key to two of Bachmann's investigations. And Robin Wright goes brunette as a tough US official Bachmann doesn't trust.  Rock photog-turned-director Anton Corbijn brings his stark and grim perspective to bear here with good effect; the Hamburg tourist agency must hate him. The story is sufficiently taut for the genre, but it's really Hoffman that elevates this to a film worth seeing.

JAIME KING talks about the struggles she faced during her painful pregnancy and childbirth.

KATE UPTON tells Elle she's been begging for her body her whole life. Obvious punchline here.

KENDRA WILKINSON is reportedly done with husband Hank Baskett weeks after his affair with a transgender model.

JOAQUIN PHOENIX is in early talks to star in Marvel's Doctor Strange.

MARK HAMILL calls his return to the Star Wars franchise an unexpected gift.

WONDER WOMAN: Comic-Con unveiled the first look at Gal Gadot as the Amazon Warrior.

ADAM WEST weighs in on Baffleck.

STEVEN BAUER (Ray Donovan) is dating an 18-year-old.

NORWAY: Norwegian officials said the recent threat of an imminent terrorist attack has been somewhat reduced, backing off from an earlier warning that terrorists from Syria were already on their way to Norway. A former Danish security official criticized Norway's security agency for being so outspoken about the threat.

UKRAINE: Dutch military policemen have been forced to postpone their arrival on the Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 disaster after fierce fighting between Ukrainian and rebel forces broke out near the crash site on Sunday.

ISRAEL acknowledged Sunday that troops fired a mortar shell that hit the courtyard of a U.N. school in Gaza last week, but said aerial footage shows the yard was empty at the time and that the shell could not have killed anyone.

EGYPT: The Army claimed to have killed 14 militants in shootouts in the Sinai, and to have destroyed 13 more tunnels into Gaza, bringing the total to 1,639 reportedly destroyed by Egypt's military. A rocket fired by suspected Islamist militants in al-Gorah landed in Rafah, killing four children and wounding five other people yesterday.

IRAQ: The military claimed it killed 35 Islamic State fighters in Dhuluiyah, 17 fighters in Tikrit, and seven more in Karma. The military also said it killed a sniper from Kazakhstan in the Hamrin Mountains. The Islamic State destroyed a mosque at the tomb of Jonah and the mosque of the prophet Seth in Mosul.

CONFUSED CORGI meets a wolf cub.

WHAT IS IT? Is it a bat? A huge bug?

A WILD BULL ELK was stressed by people trying to take selfies with the beast.

WOOD FROGS freeze in Alaska...then thaw out and hop away.

2871 Reads

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