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It's cold out there every day...   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Monday, February 02, 2015 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

I got flowers...in the Spring...

First D.J.: "Rise and shine, campers and don't forget your booties 'cause it's cooooold out there today." Second D.J.: "It's cold out there every day. What is this, Miami Beach?" First D.J.: "Not hardly. So the big question o­n everybody's lips..." Second D.J.: "O­n their chapped lips..." First D.J.: "...their chapped lips is, 'Does Phil feel lucky?' Punxsatawney Phil! That's right, woodchuck chuckers it's...

(IN UNISON): GROUNDHOG DAY!!!"

Sunday, Punxsutawney Phil ---  the Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and Weather Prophet Extraordinary will predict whether we will have six more weeks of winter.  According to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, Phil has seen his shadow 97 times, and hasn't seen it (predicting an early spring) only 14 times.  Phil's track record is hotly disputed, though he's has had a pretty good run recently.  Nevertheless, thousands will await the sunrise and the groundhog at Gobbler's Knob in the tiny Pennsylvania hamlet that has become known as the "Weather Capital of the World," due in no small part to the movie that makes every day Groundhog Day.

This is o­ne time where the Internet really fails to capture the true excitement of a movie about a large squirrel predicting the weather. However, you can see the trailer as a refresher (while BuzzFeed compiles trivia).

In 2005, Roger Ebert revisited Groundhog Day, declaring that the film "finds its note and purpose so precisely that its genius may not be immediately noticeable. It unfolds so inevitably, is so entertaining, so apparently effortless, that you have to stand back and slap yourself before you see how good it really is."

At the other end of the political spectrum, Jonah Goldberg's equally effusive movie meditation grabbed the cover of National Review: "When I set out to write this article, I thought it'd be fun to do a quirky homage to an offbeat flick, o­ne I think is brilliant as both comedy and moral philosophy. But while doing what I intended to be cursory research -- how much reporting do you need for a review of a twelve-year-old movie that plays constantly o­n cable? -- I discovered that I wasn't alone in my interest. In the years since its release the film has been taken up by Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, and followers of the oppressed Chinese Falun Gong movement."

Indeed, a 2004 article mentioned by Ebert (but not linked) from London's Independent observes that the Harold Ramis comedy has been hailed by some religious leaders as the most spiritual film of all time. More examples can be found at the NYT and the Christian Science Monitor.

As Phil Connors ultimately observed: "When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn't imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter."

ACCORDINGLY, we start off the week:

...with Sonny & Cher o­n Hullabaloo and famously o­n Letterman years later, plus UB40 with Chrissie Hynde, not to mention The Cynics (from the Bonograph tribute CD), and David Bowie & Marianne Faithfull.

UPDATE: Punxsutawney Phil predicts six more weeks of winter. Because it's only February.

JD McPHERSON advance streams Let The Good Times Roll.

QUARTERBACKS advance stream their self-titled debut.

RHIANNON GIDDENS (Carolina Chocolate Drops) advance streams Tomorrow Is My Turn.

THE DISTRICTS advance stream A Flourish And A Spoil.

THE KEGGS have a tragic story that leaves only 10 copies of "To Find Out" known to exist.

NENA: "99 Luftbalons." Because I found myself watching Watchmen the other night.

FATHER JOHN MISTY: Josh Tillman talks to The Guardian about the creation of his current persona and the making of his new LP, I Love You, Honeybear.

EMMY THE GREAT dscusses her musical upbringing with DIY, from Elton John to Metallica.

LAURA MARLING talks to The Guardian about living in Los Angeles and leaving it to return to Britain.

STEELY DAN, ranked by Stereogum.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: American Sniper dominates for a third weekend with 31.9 million. That's a 50 percent drop, partially due to the Super Bowl. Then again, this is the most money any movie has ever made on a Super Bowl weekend.  The Clint Eastwood pic closes in on a quarter-billion in domestic receipts, with another 67 million so far from overseas markets.  Paddington and the debut of Project Amanac will battle for second and third place awith an extimated 8.5 million apiece. Paddington is doing fine on worlwide grosses; Project Almanac, which sat on the shelf for a yearin th hope it would open like Chronicle did on a Super Bowl weekend, will likely break even on a meager 12 million production budget.  The fourth-place debut of Black or White is a mere6.5 million, fortunately against a 9 million budget.  The Boy Next Door slides 59 percent to round out the Top Five with 6.1 million, but a 24.7 million total against a 4 million budget.  I've heard it's sufficiently fun-bad that it could become a cult classic.

BOBBI KRISTINA BROWN: Whitney Houston's daughter was found unresponsive Saturday morning in a bathtub full of water in Roswell, Georgia. She “is stable at the hospital.”

BRUCE JENNER is becoming a woman.

VAL KILMER was in intensive care for some reason... but it's not a toomah.

STEVE KROFT  “really paranoid about right-wing zealots” finding out about his affair with a young lawyer.

THE SUPER BOWL ADS, in case you missed them.

YEMEN's dominant Houthi movement on Sunday gave political factions three days to agree a way out of a crisis that led to the resignation of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi before the group imposes its own solution.

EGYPT: Al-Jazeera journalist Peter Greste has been freed, deported, and flown to Cyprus, bringing an end to 400 days behind bars.

JORDAN has threatened to fast-track the execution of a would-be suicide bomber the Islamic State is trying to free if the terror group kills its captured pilot.

THE ISLAMIC STATE: Abu Malik, a chemical weapons engineer who worked at Saddam Hussein's Muthana chemical weapon production facility before affiliating with al Qaeda Iraq in 2005, was killed Jan. 24 in a coalition airstrike in the vicinity of Mosul, Iraq.

ALBATROSS CAM, Live from Kauai, Hawaii.

BATS GO BATS during a trial in an Arkansas courtroom.

SALTY THE CROCODILE predicted the Seahawks would win the Super Bowl. Salty would have handed the ball to Lynch.

SNAKE IN A CAR ENGINE? Just pull it out and tuck it in a sack.

2469 Reads

Mountain Goats, Horse Feathers, Marshall Crenshaw, Colin Hay, Rabbit   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Friday, January 30, 2015 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with the MOUNTAIN GOATS at the M-SHOP, which Pate fans know is a fabulous, initmate venue in the Memorial Union at ISU.  Selections include "Dance Music" and "Houseguest," though I'm partial as always to "This Year" and especially the anthemic finale of "No Children." BONUS: John Darnielle interprets Ace of Base's "I Saw the Sign" (language), while Pony Up backs the duo on a cover of Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back in Town."  

HORSE FEATHERS played a session for Oregon Public Broadcasting.

MARSHALL CRENSHAW returns to The Bottomless Pit; the theme of the new one is outtakes from compilations and box sets, including a classic theological exchange with The Killer, Jerry Lee Lewis.

BOBBY BARE JR. plays a Tiny Desk Concert at NPR.

COLIN HAY stopped by World Cafe to talk about Men At Work and play some new tunes.

BIG AWESOME, aptly named, drops "What Grows Up Must Come Down."

HAYDEN drops "Nowhere We Cannot Go."

HUSKER DU covers The Beatles' "Ticket to Ride," circa 1985

THE DODOS: Meric Long talks to PopMatters about Individ.

POP's NEW OLD SOUND: What goes around comes around.

TOM PETTY comments on the Sam Smith royalty kerfuffle.

A BUDDY HOLLY hologram is going on tour.

NOW SHOWING: This weekend's wide releases include Project Almanac, which is currently scoring 35 percent on the ol Tomatometer; The Loft, which was not screened for critics; and Black or White, scoring 31 percent.

LINDSAY LOHAN: Prosecutors reject her reported community service and will ask for jail time.

STANLEY TUCCI & FELICITY BLUNT welcomed a son on Sunday.

GWYNETH PALTROW recommends ladies herbal steam their privates; gynecologists do not.

SEAN PENN, married and divorced twice before, he'd consider his future marriage to fiancee Charlize Theron to be his first.

ROBIN WRIGHT, once married to Sean Penn, is engaged to Ben Foster for the second time.

SUGE KNIGHT was involved in a fatal hit-and-run incident in Compton.

JORDAN said on Thursday it was still holding an Iraqi would-be suicide bomber as a deadline passed for her release set by Islamic State militants who threatened to kill a Jordanian pilot unless she was handed over by sunset.

EGYPT boycotted on Wednesday the second session of the International Contact Group on Libya in Addis Ababa, objecting to the presence of Qatar and Turkey.

SYRIA: A UN official said the organization's aid effort is having trouble delivering supplies to 40 percent of the population in need. Talks between various opposition factions and the regime began in Moscow on Jan. 25. The US State Department denied assertions it has abandoned moderate rebels. Journalists entering Kobane have said the city is "a mass of rubble and gutted buildings" after the more than four months-long battle.

IRAQ: A woman held captive by the Islamic State described the terrifying conditions for her fellow Yazidi women who were held in a make-shift prison at a banquet hall in Mosul.  Meanwhile, other survivors speak of Shi'ite militias and security force elements executing 72 Sunnis in the eastern village of Barwanah.

A RABBIT delivers the beer, just in time for the Big Game.

A WOMAN known for feeding bears may have been dead more than two weeks when her body was found Monday in the North Carolina woods.

COCKROACHES are hard to kill --exploding toilet hard to kill.

ONE OF THE WORLD'S MOST ELUSIVE CATS was captured on camera, attacking a group of red colobus monkeys.

2387 Reads

Nude Beach, Mount Eerie, John Carpenter, Cat & Husky   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Thursday, January 29, 2015 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

JOSE GONZALEZ drops a video for "Leaf Off/The Cave."

NUDE BEACH stopped by World Cafe for a chat and mini-set.

MOUNT EERIE advance streams Sauna.

JOHN CARPENTER advance streams Lost Themes.

ALL SONGS CONSIDERED: Tracks from Modest Mouse, Death Cab for Cutie, Laura Marling, and more feature in the latest edition.

THE GALS drop “Here’s To The Gals,” ahead of Velvet Rut.

POND drops the neo-Glammy "Elvis' Flaming Star" from Man It Feels Like Space Again.

THE HONEY CONE are gonna put it in "The Want Ads" for ya.

SLY STONE has been awarded 5 million dollars in unpaid royalties. He may move out of his camper.

JESSICA PRATT talks to Stereogum about her Mother's death, recording on a 4-Track, and fusing fantasy with reality.

DAN WILSON talks to PopMatters about his musical careeer from Trip Shakespeare and Semisonic thru today.

RIOT GRRRL: Ten of the Best.

LINDSAY LOHAN: Santa Monica Chief Deputy City Attorney Terry White on Wednesday raised concerns about whether Lohan completed 240 hours of community service at a London volunteer organization as stated in court documents.

KIM KARDASHIAN wants another child soon.

BRAD PITT is in negotiations to play Richard Leakey in Angelina Jolie's drama Africa.

MARIAH CAREY & NICK CANNON are getting sued by the nanny.

JOEL GREY The Oscar- and Tony-winning actor has publicly announced at age 82 that he is gay.  Shocka!

WINONA RYDER confirms the rumored Beetlejuice sequel.

WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER expands its cast for the Netflix miniseries.

THE ISLAMIC STATE: Turki al-Binali has crisscrossed the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria's' self-declared caliphate with a pistol holstered at his side, delivering fiery sermons in which the 30-year-old provides religious justification for its bloody rampage across the region.

SYRIA: It didn’t take long for rebel commanders in Syria who lined up to join a Central Intelligence Agency weapons and training program to start scratching their heads.

IRAQ: Jihadists resumed bombings against historic sites in Nineveh and destroyed remains of the ancient wall of Mosul. Also, Baghdad moviegoers review Americcan Sniper.

A CAT gets comfy on a Husky.

A MASSACHUSETTS COYOTE took advantage of the empty roads caused by the statewide travel ban on Tuesday.

A BLUE FOX turned up in a hotel lobby? Call in a fox whisperer.

A GIANT POLAR BEAR (Puppet) boards the London Underground.

2742 Reads

Father John Misty, H Hawkline, Nite Fields, Walleater, Calexico, Tiny Monkey   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Wednesday, January 28, 2015 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

ARIEL PINK drops a video for "Dayzed Inn Daydreams." 

FATHER JOHN MISTY is advance streaming a MIDI version of I Love You, Honeybear from SAP -- a joke website he created.

H HAWKLINE advance streams In The Pink Of Condition.

NITE FIELDS advance streams Depersonlisation.

WALLEATER is advance streaming I/II.

CALEXICO drops “Cumbia De Donde” ahead of Edge Of The Sun.

POP ETC covers Chris Issak's "Wicked Game."

THE MUPPETS cover Biz Markie's "Just a Friend." Sort of. 

THE CHARLATANS: Tim Burgess talks to The Guardian about the soundtrack of his life.

TWIN SHADOW: George Lewis Jr. talks to Stereogum about Eclipse,  pop vs. indie and where Lewis sees himself in the whole mess of the music world in 2014, and then 2015.

EDDIE BO: The Gentleman of Soul who never got his due.

PITCHFORK has started an internet radio station

CHRIS PRATT: The next Indiana Jones

TAYLOR SWIFT's social media was taken over by hardcore hackers who are now threatening to release nude pics of Taylor. She says they've got nothing.

GHOSTBUSTERS: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones now in advanced talks to star in the reboot. 

TOM CRUISE & NICOLE KIDMAN's marriage never had a chance, acccording to the documentary, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.

KRISTEN STEWART confessed she has been taking a break from Hollywood.

CHRIS HEMSWORTH has the offer to star in an Independence Day sequel.

THE FANTASTIC FOUR reboot has a trailer online and it looks to be charting a different tone from the original.

RUSSIA's state news agency TASS was also implicated as working with the alleged Russian spy ring which has been disrupted in New York.  

SYRIA: In the past several months, many of the Syrian rebel groups previously favored by the CIA have had their money and supplies cut off or substantially reduced, according to the Daily Beast

LIBYA: The rival Islamist parliament based in Tripoli has suspended participation in UN peace talks, claiming new offensives by forces aligned with the internationally recognized government.

A TINY MONKEY getting combed with a toothbrush

A ZOMBIE CAT clawed his way back to life five days after he was buried alive.  

AT LEAST 40 DOGS have mysteriously gone missing since November in a small North Texas town, but authorities say they have no idea who is taking them or why.

RARE SUMATRAN TIGER TRIPLETS were born at the Chester Zoo.

2472 Reads

Ryan Adams, Jenny Lewis, Hiss Golden Messenger, All We Are, Cat House   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Tuesday, January 27, 2015 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

SLEATER-KINNEY blasts through "A New Wave" for Letterman, and "Surface Envy" for Conan in a TV twofer Tuesday.  I think Conan got the better end of the deal.

RYAN ADAMS & JENNY LEWIS play Austin City Limits.

HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER advance streams the Southern Grammar EP.

ALL WE ARE advance streams their self-titled debut.

PERCUSSIONS, a Four Tet side project, released 2011 Until 2014.

MIKAL CRONIN drops “Made My Mind Up” ahead of MCIII.

JACK LADDER & THE DREAMLANDERS bring Sharon van Etten to bear on “To Be And To Be Kept,” ahead of Playmates.

FAITH NO MORE dropsthe  very NSFW single "Superhero," ahead of their reunion LP.

THE BAND: "The Weight," from their dancing movie

BELLE & SEBASTIAN: Stuart Murdoch and Stevie Jackson talk to The Guardian about about their first encounter, terrible open-mic evenings and how Status Quo will rescue any gig. 

THE DEATH OF MUSIC SALES: If CDs are truly dead, digital music sales are lying in the adjacent grave

TOM PETTY & JEFF LYNNE have received songwriting credits for Sam Smith's hit, "Stay With Me."

THE WILD HONEY ORCHESTRA will serve up the Beatles' “White Album” on Feb. 28 at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, with an all-star lineup of pop-minded musicians from L.A. and beyond raising money for Autism Think Tank.

BILL COSBY's latest accuser pops up at the HuffPost.

EMILE HIRSCH was involved in a fracas with a female executive from Paramount Pictures while partying into the early hours at the Sundance Film Festival.

EMMA WATSON has closed a deal to star in Disney's live-action musical Beauty and the Beast. Bonjour!

LINDSAY LOHAN is scrambling to finish her community service by Wednesday ... because jail is on the line.

JAMES CAAN has filed for divorce from his wife for the third time.

CHRIS WEITZ is re-writing the first Star Wars stand-alone spin-off. It's an...interesting choice.

THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON graces the cover(s) of Empire magazine, should you want a closeup look at the titular villain.

THE EPIC UNCOOL of Philip Seymour Hoffman. Oddly, only a graf on Almost Famous, which inspired the title of the article.

THE UNITED STATES: Federal authorities announced charges against three Russian nationals, accused of spying on behalf of their government and attempting to recruit New York City residents as intelligence sources in the USA.

JAPAN: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday called the killing of a Japanese captive by Islamic State militants "outrageous" and again demanded the group release a second Japanese national they are holding.

SYRIA: Kurdish fighters in Syria claimed to have lifted the Islamic State’s four-month siege of the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani and said the last Islamic State attackers were on the run.

IRAQ: Canadian special forces in northern Iraq have engaged in two more firefights against Islamic State group militants, but Canada’s government denies they’re involved in combat.

A CRAZY CAT HOUSE, courtesy of a crazy cat dude.

HISSING COCKROACHES & GIANT SCORPIONS may be adopted in honor of your exes for Valentine's Day, courtesy of the San Francisco Zoo.

A RESCUE DOG gives birth to 14 puppies.

WATER DOG & LAND DOG, snuggling together... mass hysteria!

2218 Reads

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