February 23, 2012
Daily Downloads (The Clean, The Wooden Sky, and more)
Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet.
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:
The Clean: "Tally Ho" [mp3] from Anthology
The Clean: "In the Dreamlife U Need a Rubber Soul" [mp3] from Mister Pop
search for more The Clean posts at Largehearted Boy
Coke Weed: "Magpie" [mp3] from Nice Dreams (out April 17th)
search for more Coke Weed posts at Largehearted Boy
Gold Leaves: "Cruel/Kind" [mp3] from The Ornament
search for more Gold Leaves posts at Largehearted Boy
Lee Bains III and The Glory Fires: "Centreville" [mp3] from There Is a Bomb in Gilead (out May 15th)
search for more Lee Bains III posts at Largehearted Boy
Moonface: "Teary Eyes and Bloody Lips" [mp3] from With Siinai: Heartbreaking Bravery (out April 17th)
search for more Moonface posts at Largehearted Boy
Power Animal: free and legal (name your price) Exorcism album [mp3]
search for more Power Animal posts at Largehearted Boy
The Sweet Serenades: "Moving On" [mp3]
search for more Sweet Serenades posts at Largehearted Boy
Tin Hare: free and legal Fall Demos album [mp3]
search for more Tin Hare posts at Largehearted Boy
The Wooden Sky: "Malibu Rum [mp3] from Every Child a Daughter, Every Moon a Sun
search for more Wooden Sky posts at Largehearted Boy
Free and legal mp3s of live performances at other websites:
D. Charles Speer and the Helix: 2012-02-08, Brooklyn [mp3]
search for more D. Charles Speer posts at Largehearted Boy
also at Largehearted Boy:
other daily free and legal mp3 downloads
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
List of 2011 Year-End Online Music Lists
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and album streams from weekly CD releases)
weekly CD and DVD release lists
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
February 22, 2012
Book Notes - Sara Benincasa - "Agorafabulous!: Dispatches from My Bedroom"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Bret Easton Ellis, Kate Christensen, Kevin Brockmeier, George Pelecanos, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, David Peace, Myla Goldberg, and many others.
Sara Benincasa's memoir Agorafabulous! is a surprisingly humorous look at the comic's battles with mental illness. By turns laugh out loud funny and and cringe inducing, Benincasa always impresses in this self-deprecating and honest portrayal of life with panic attacks and agoraphobia.
Kirkus Reviews wrote of the book:
"A blisteringly funny yet affecting debut memoir about a young woman’s struggle to overcome panic disorder and agoraphobia."
Stream a Spotify playlist of these tunes. If you don't have Spotify yet, sign up for the free service.
In her own words, here is Sara Benincasa's Book Notes music playlist for her memoir, Agorafabulous!: Dispatches from My Bedroom:
I wrote a book about going nuts and getting better. It's called Agorafabulous!: Dispatches from My Bedroom, and it's pretty fun for a book about struggling with debilitating mental illness and being terrified of leaving the house. It's sad, it's funny, it's hopeful, it's gross, and it has embarrassing parts about making sexytime with boys. I think you'll enjoy it, or at least find something in it to dissect at the proverbial water cooler the morning after reading it. To give you a little taste of what's in store in the book, here I proudly present an assemblage of songs that might enhance your Agorafabulous! reading experience. Warning: there's a healthy helping of DMB. Deal with it.
1. Liz Phair – "Jealousy"
To set the mood and invoke the era that was my adolescent experience, I revisit Liz Phair's Whip-Smart or Whitechocolatespaceegg albums. As an often-insecure Sicilian Scorpio, I am not unfamiliar with jealousy in romance, and this aspect of my character was on particular display throughout my teen years. Also, man, did I fucking love Liz Phair when I was a teenager. Still do, but these were the early years of my infatuation with her, which was born when I read a review of Whip-Smart in Jane Pratt's Sassy magazine, the coolest magazine for teen girls ever. And now I'm a political blogger for Jane's new venture, xojane.com. Full circle? Probably not, but it's at least a respectable semicircle.
2. Dave Matthews Band – "Satellite"
Fact: I once lost my shit so spectacularly over the course of several months that I stopped leaving the house, and even my bedroom. I'd piss in cereal bowls and other receptacles. To put it mildly, this was not the most adorable phase of my life. My friends intervened and my mother drove up to Boston from Jersey in order to pick me up. When she extracted me from the house and got me into her car, I refused to listen to any song other than the Dave Matthews Band's "Satellite," over and over and over again. The repetition of what was by then an adult contemporary standard was somehow very comforting to me. People with severe (or even mild) anxiety disorders are often comforted by repetition and routine. Even when it involves the Dave Matthews Band.
3. Dave Matthews Band – "The Best of What's Around"
I listened to a lot of Dave Matthews Band in my youth. I still do. I know. Fuck you.
4. Arcade Fire – "The Suburbs"
The setting for much of our beautifully twisted tale (although I also journey to cities near and far, and the countryside of Western North Carolina). Viva New Jersey! I also enjoy the fact that this song sounds as if it could've maybe been recorded by Wilco, but wasn't.
5. Anthony da Costa – "Mountain Range"
Let's say Josh Ritter and Ryan Adams made a baby and hired Conor Oberst as the weekend nanny. This weirdly homoerotic scenario may have produced Anthony da Costa, who makes the kind of music that would've made a great soundtrack to my many roadtrips through the Southeast and Southwest in my post-agoraphobic adulthood. I've never been cured of agoraphobia, but once I learned to manage it, my whole world opened up. I could travel anywhere and everywhere without too much fear. A road trip felt like a victory. Da Costa's music feels like that, too.
6. Emilyn Brodsky – "Ebony (Bread Helps)"
Punky folky ukelele chanteuse Emilyn Brodsky sings a fine tune about a woman at the bakery section of the grocery store who gets a phone call. It's pretty and sweet but my favorite part is the line "Bread helps when you drink too much/Bread helps with anxiety." It's so true. Which is why I'm jittery as I prepare for some TV interviews by NOT sucking down every bread product in sight (as a Sicilian child of pasta, this is tough for me). Bread does not help with weight loss or cardiovascular fitness, but Emilyn's music might. I guess you could listen to her during a nice jaunty little walk on the treadmill. And there have been plenty of times when I really could've used a message like "Take care to recognize that you are truly a miracle every day/even if you are truly miserable every day."
7. Bob Carlisle – "Butterfly Kisses"
Oh my fucking God, I'm kidding. If you listen to this on purpose, you are a terrorist.
8. Bruce Springsteen – "Radio Nowhere"
Reminds me of my days as a host and producer at Sirius XM. Great road trip song, particularly when you're way out in the middle of the continent driving to a comedy gig and can't find anything other than Jesus-flavored hate radio and the bad kind of country.
9. Simon & Garfunkel – "The Only Living Boy in New York."
Written when Paul missed/resented Art. Recorded in an echo chamber! How fucking cool is that? Also lends its name to a chapter title in my book – sort of.
10. Elton John – "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters"
More New York City love. Good on any day, for any mood.
Sara Benincasa and Agorafabulous!: Dispatches from My Bedroom/a> links:
the author's website
excerpt from the book
video trailer for the book
Dayton Daily News review
Kirkus Reviews review
USA Today review
Boston Phoenix profile of the author
The Brooklyn Paper profile of the author
HelloGiggles interview with the author
Huffington Post essays by the author
Huffington Post profile of the author
Moot Magazine interview with the author
My Book, The Movie guest post by the author
also at Largehearted Boy:
other Book Notes playlists (authors create music playlists for their book)
List of Online "Best Books of 2011" Lists
List of 2011 Year-End Online Music Lists
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
52 Books, 52 Weeks (weekly book reviews)
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics highlights)
Daily Downloads (free and legal daily mp3 downloads)
guest book reviews
Largehearted Word (weekly new book highlights)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily music, literature, and pop culture links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtracks)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
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Atomic Books Comics Preview - February 22nd, 2012
In the weekly Atomic Books Comics Preview, Benn Ray highlights notable new comics and graphic novels.
Benn Ray is the owner of Atomic Books, an independent bookstore in Baltimore. The Mobtown Shank is his blog, and his comic Said What? is syndicated weekly in the Baltimore Sun's B-Paper.
Atomic Books has been named one of Bizarre Magazine's 51 geekiest places on the planet, as well as one of Flavorwire's 10 greatest comic and graphic novel stores in America.
Goliath
by Tom Gauld
Gauld takes a look at the David and Goliath myth from Goliath's perspective. He'd rather be doing admin work than fighting people to the death. Bleak and funny - Gauld's art is consistently stunning.
Is That All There Is?
by Joost Swarte
Swarte is much more than the simple inheritor of Tintin creator Herge's art style - he modernized it and revitalized European alternative comics in the '70s-'80s in the process.
Kolor Klimax: Nordic Comics Now
Scandinavia today is like Seattle in the 90s when it comes to alternative cartoonists, and this collection presents a number of highlights - an excellent introduction for American audiences.
My Friend Dahmer
by Derf Backderf
Creator of the alt-weekly classic comic strip The City also happened to go to school with, and was "friends" with, one of America's most notorious serial killers - Jeffrey Dahmer. While being a bit wrong-headed in his sympathy for Dahmer - a psychopath physically incapable of feeling empathy for others - Derf's book is a profound look at teenage isolation on par with Charles Burns' Black Hole.
Too Much Coffee Man: Cutie Island
by Shannon Wheeler
If you've note experienced the caffeinated hysteria that is Too Much Coffee Man, Cutie Island should be your destination. Wheeler delivers new TMCM tales of our coffee-headed hero trying, like all of us, to make sense of the increasingly bizarre modern landscape.
Questions, concerns, comments or gripes – e-mail benn@atomicbooks.com. If there’s a comic I should know about, send it my way at Atomic, c/o Atomic Books 3620 Falls Rd., Baltimore, MD 21211.
Atomic Books & Benn Ray links:
Atomic Books website
Atomic Books on Twitter
Atomic Books on Facebook
Benn Ray's blog (The Mobtown Shank)
Benn Ray's comic, Said What?
also at Largehearted Boy:
other Atomic Books Comics Preview lists (weekly new comics & graphic novel highlights)
the list of online "best books of 2011" lists
52 Books, 52 Weeks
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Book Notes (authors create music playlists for their book)
guest book reviews
Largehearted Word (weekly new book highlights)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Largehearted WORD Books of the Week - February 22nd, 2012
In the Largehearted Word series, the staff of Brooklyn's WORD bookstore highlights several new books released this week.
WORD is an independent neighborhood bookstore in Greenpoint, the northernmost neighborhood of Brooklyn, that will celebrate its fifth anniversary in March 2012. Our primary goal is to be whatever our community needs us to be, which currently means carrying a lot of paperback fiction (especially classics), cookbooks, board books, and absurdly cute cards and stationery. In addition, we're fiends for a good event, from the classic author reading and Q&A to potlucks and a basketball league (and anything set in a bar). We're a small operation, just 1000 square feet and four people, but we read too much, so it all works out. If a weekly dose of WORD here isn't enough for you, follow us on Twitter: @wordbrooklyn.
WORD also hosts the monthly Largehearted Lit reading series, featuring authors who participated in this blog's Book Notes series and musical guests.
Hot Pink
by Adam Levin
The Illumination
by Kevin Brockmeier
In-Flight Entertainment
by Helen Simpson
Zona
by Geoff Dyer
WORD Brooklyn links:
WORD website
WORD blog
WORD on Twitter
WORD's Facebook page
WORD's Flickr photos
also at Largehearted Boy:
other Largehearted Word Books of the Week (weekly new book highlights)
List of online "best of 2011" book lists
52 Books, 52 Weeks (my yearly reading project)
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics & graphic novel highlights)
Book Notes (authors create music playlists for their book)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Shorties (The Top 100 Books for Children, Stream the New School of Seven Bells Album, and more)
Parent and Child lists the top 100 books for children.
At the Hype Machine, stream the new School of Seven Bells album, Ghostory (out February 28th).
The Quietus lists its favorite Blur b-sides.
Adventures in Sci Fi interviews author Michael Moorcock.
25 things Chuck Wendig wants to say to aspiring writers. (via)
At Pitchfork singer-songwriter Robert Wyatt shares a sampling of favorite songs over the course of his life.
25 Novels to Honor During Black History Month.
Stream a new song by M. Ward, "Primitive Girl," from his forthcoming album A Wasteland Companion (out April 10th).
The Scriptnotes podcast explores how novels are optioned by screenwriters for film adaptation. (via)
Financial Times explores the ethics of Sony Music's price hike on Whitney Houston albums after she died.
The Guardian lists the top 10 books about China.
Earth's Dylan Carlson discusses his 13 favorite albums at The Quietus.
The finalists for the 2011 Los Angeles Time Book Prizes were announced yesterday.
Congratulations to Largehearted Boy Book Notes contributors Alex Shahar, Eleanor Henderson, Ismet Prcic, and Libba Bray.
Talk of the Nation interviews about his new memoir Rez Life: An Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life.
Sharon Van Etten visits The Current studio for an interview and live performance.
Top 10 Books Written Behind Bars.
The Record's recommendation to saturday Night Live music bookers: "fewer blog bands, more cowbell."
The 20 Best Personal Development Books for 20-somethings.
Win two graphic novels (Keshni Kashyap's Tina's Mouth: An Existential Diary and Matthew Forsythe's Jingalo) and a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's largehearted Boy contest.
Amazon MP3
Follow me on Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Stumbleupon for links (updated throughout the day) that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
List of Online "Best Books of 2011" Lists
List of Online Year-End 2011 Music Lists
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics & graphic novels)
daily mp3 downloads
Largehearted Word (the week's best new books)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Daily Downloads (Tindersticks, Mind Spiders, and more)
Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet.
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:
Alcoholic Faith Mission: "Running with Insanity" [mp3] from Ask Me This (out March 27th)
search for more Alcoholic Faith Mission posts at Largehearted Boy
Christopher Paul Stelling: "Solar Flares" [mp3] from Songs of Praise and Scorn
search for more Christopher Paul Stelling posts at Largehearted Boy
Damon Moon and the Whispering Drifters: "Lungs, Dirt, and Dreams" [mp3] from Lungs, Dirt, and Dreams
search for more Damon Moon posts at Largehearted Boy
Dot Hacker: "Order/Disorder" [mp3] from Dot Hacker EP
search for more Dot Hacker posts at Largehearted Boy
Ducky: free and legal The Whether EP
Ducky: "Overdose" [mp3]
search for more Ducky posts at Largehearted Boy
Go Back to the Zoo: "Beam Me Up" [mp3]
search for more Go Back to the Zoo posts at Largehearted Boy
Inca Gold: free and legal four-track Inca Gold III EP [mp3]
Inca Gold: "Emergency Talks" [mp3]
search for more Inca Gold posts at Largehearted Boy
Mind Spiders: "On the Radio" [mp3] from Meltdown (out February 28th)
search for more Mind Spiders posts at Largehearted Boy
Tindersticks: "Frozen" [mp3] from The Something Rain
search for more Tindersticks posts at Largehearted Boy
Wrinkle Neck Mules: "Leaving Chattanooga" [mp3] from Apprentice to Ghosts
search for more Wrinkle Neck Mules posts at Largehearted Boy
Free and legal mp3s of live performances at other websites:
Backwords: 2012-02-08, Brooklyn [mp3]
search for more Backwords posts at Largehearted Boy
also at Largehearted Boy:
other daily free and legal mp3 downloads
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
List of 2011 Year-End Online Music Lists
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and album streams from weekly CD releases)
weekly CD and DVD release lists
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
February 21, 2012
Try It Before You Buy It - February 21st, 2012 Music Releases
Try It Before You Buy It features free and legal mp3 downloads and full album streams from the week's music releases:
Archers of Loaf: Vee Vee (remastered and expanded)
"Harnessed in Slums" [mp3]
Bad Weather California: Sunkissed
full album stream
Barna Howard: Barna Howard
Barna Howard: "Promise, I Won't Laugh" [mp3]
Bright Moments: Natives
full album stream
Burning Hearts: Extinctions
"Burn, Burn, Burn" [mp3]
Continue reading "Try It Before You Buy It - February 21st, 2012 Music Releases"
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Shorties (Grimes, Jennifer Egan, and more)
The Montreal Gazette profiles Grimes' Claire Boucher, whose album Visions is out today.
Visions finds Grimes at her most expansive yet, putting her upper-range vocal prowess to the test on pristine keyboard-driven pop that alternates broadly between quasi-hypnotic church trance and twitchy, glitchy dance floor crashers. All with a focused eye on free-ranging melody and harmony. Comparisons to Björk (in the unselfconscious eccentricity of it all), Enya (in the breadth and depth of the vocal looping and layering, though not nearly so overboard) and Cocteau Twins (in her new world, old soul sensibilities) are apt to a degree, but there's still more than a bit of bite, and she brings a dentist's attention to the teeth of the tunes. As was the case with so many of her 4AD peers and predecessors.
PopMatters interviews author Jennifer Egan.
Up on the Sun interviews Cursive's Ted Stevens about the band's lineup changes and new album, I Am Gemini (out today).
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America have announced the 2011 Nebula Award nominees.
SFist offers a day-by0day guide to this week's Noise Pop Festival in San Francisco.
At All Things Considered, author Patrick deWitt recommends Harry Mathews' novel The Journalist.
I've been reading Harry Mathews for years now, but of all his novels, I tackled The Journalist last. It's his least discussed work, and in my experience there's usually a reason for that. Mathews himself, in an interview, called it a "terrible flop", and complained that "nobody got it." So I started the book expecting something sub-par, thinking that even lesser Mathews would still offer a worthwhile and instructive read. And so I was surprised to find that not only was The Journalist good, but that it was every bit as great as Mathews' more celebrated novels.
Flaviorwire creates a literary mixtape for Harriet the Spy.
ArtsBeat notes author Cormac McCarthy's previously hidden talent, copyediting.
Weekend Edition interviews the duo Sleigh Bells about their new album, Reign of Terror.
The Guardian Books Blog offers tips on naming a publishing imprint.
Warren Ellis talks to The Line of Best Fit about his band, Dirty Three, and playing instrumental music.
"With all of us having played all of us in groups with singers, we realised that they took up a lot of room. But what we were doing was something really wild and free. Each of us could now do what we wanted and nobody was saying, 'OK it's the chorus, could you shut up now?' It instantly gave us this great freedom. When you get lyrics thrown in to a song, it takes the pressure off the music and becomes a very different thing.'
Tansy Rayner Roberts lists women in science fiction and fantasy who are great at their jobs.
Win two graphic novels (Keshni Kashyap's Tina's Mouth: An Existential Diary and Matthew Forsythe's Jingalo) and a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's largehearted Boy contest.
Amazon MP3
Follow me on Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Stumbleupon for links (updated throughout the day) that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
List of Online "Best Books of 2011" Lists
List of Online Year-End 2011 Music Lists
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics & graphic novels)
daily mp3 downloads
Largehearted Word (the week's best new books)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Daily Downloads (Sara Radle, PS I Love You, and more)
Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet.
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:
Dustin Wong: "Pink Diamond" [mp3] from Dreams Say View Create Shadow Leads
search for more Dustin Wong posts at Largehearted Boy
Hell Is in Hello: several tracks [mp3]
search for more Hell Is in Hello posts at Largehearted Boy
Pink Mink: "Earthquake on the Loose" [mp3] from Pink Mink
search for more Pink Mink posts at Largehearted Boy
Mirror Lady: "You Left Me" [mp3]
search for more Mirror Lady posts at Largehearted Boy
The Poster Boy: free and legal (name your price) Things We Had Time for album [mp3]
search for more The Poster Boy posts at Largehearted Boy
PS I Love You: free and legal Muster Sessions album [mp3]
search for more PS I Love You posts at Largehearted Boy
Sara Radle: "Last" [mp3] from Same Sun Shines
search for more Sara Radle posts at Largehearted Boy
Spottiswoode: "Beautiful Monday" [mp3] from
search for more Spottiswoode posts at Largehearted Boy
Stars in Coma: "Paint My Picture on the Thick Shell" [mp3] from Midnight Puzzle (out February 28th)
search for more Stars in Coma posts at Largehearted Boy
Various Artists: free and legal 25-track LSTN Sixteen compilation album [mp3] (courtesy of Urban Outfitters)
Free and legal mp3s of live performances at other websites:
Shellshag: 2012-02-11, Brooklyn [mp3]
search for more Shellshag posts at Largehearted Boy
also at Largehearted Boy:
other daily free and legal mp3 downloads
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
List of 2011 Year-End Online Music Lists
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and album streams from weekly CD releases)
weekly CD and DVD release lists
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
February 20, 2012
This Week's Interesting Music Releases - February 21st, 2012
Grimes' Visions is Claire Boucher's most solid release yet, an easy addition to my shortlist of "albums of the year" for 2012.
Of the week's other releases, I can definitely also recommend Cursive: I Am Gemini, Frankie Rose's Interstellar, Jim White's Where It Hits You, Josh Ritter's Bringing in the Darlings EP, Lambchop's Mr. M, Leland Sundries' The Foundry EP, Perfume Genius's Put Your Back N 2 It, and Sleigh Bells' Reign of Terror.
The remastered edition of Archers of Loaf's Vee Vee includes a CD of rarities and b-sides, and three Pulp reissues (Freaks, It, and Separations ) are also in stores tomorrow.
What new releases are you picking up this week? What can you recommend? Have I left anything noteworthy off the list?
This week's interesting music releases:
Archers of Loaf: Vee Vee (remastered with bonus CD)
Barna Howard: Barna Howard
Battles: Dross Glop 2 [vinyl]
Bonobo: Black Sands Remixed
Bright Moments: Natives
Burning Hearts: Extinctions
Busdriver: Beaus$Eros
Charlotte Gainsbourg: Paradisco
Cheap Girls: Giant Orange
The Chieftains: Voice Of Ages (CD and DVD)
Christopher Paul Stelling: Songs of Praise and Scorn
Colleen Green: Milo Goes to Compton
Consumers: All My Friends Are Dead (remastered)
Cursive: I Am Gemini
Damien Jurado: Maraqopa
Damon Moon: Lungs, Dirt and Dreams
Dinosaur Jr. - Bug Live At 9:30 Club: In The Hands Of The Fans [dvd]
Dirty Ghosts: Metal Moon
Dustin Wong: Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads
English Singles: Grey Skies USA [vinyl]
Field Music: Plumb
Fionn Regan: 100 Acres of Sycamore
Frankie Rose: Interstellar
fun.: Some Nights
G.G. Allin: Terror in America (reissue) [vinyl]
Galactic: Carnivale Electricos
Gemma Ray: Gemma Ray Sings Sparks (with Sparks)
Giant Sand: Black Out (reissue) [vinyl]
Giant Sand: Glum (reissue) [vinyl]
Grimes: Visions
Guy Capecelatro III: North for the Winter
Isidore: Life Somewhere Else
The James Low Western Front: Whiskey Farmer
James Vincent McMorrow: We Don't Eat EP
Jim White: Where It Hits You
John Wesley Coleman: Last Donkey Show
Jonquil: Point of Go
Josh Ritter: Bringing in the Darlings EP
Kevn Kinney & Golden Palominos: A Good Country Mile
La Big Vic: Dub the World!: Actually Revisited
Lady Gaga: Monster Ball Tour at Madison Square Garden [Blu-ray] [dvd]
Lambchop: Mr. M
Lana Del Rey: Born to Die
Leland Sundries: The Foundry EP
Matthew Friedberger: Arrested on Charges of Unemployment [vinyl]
The Menzingers: On the Impossible Past
Neal Morgan: In the Yard
Neil Young: Cow Palace 1986
Nervous Curtains: Fake Infinity
Pallbearer: Sorrow and Extinction
Perfume Genius: Put Your Back N 2 It
Peter Broderick: It Starts Here
Pontiak: Echo Ono
Princeton: Remembrance of Things to Come
Public Image Limited - Live At Rockpalast [dvd]
Pulp: Freaks (reissue)
Pulp: It (reissue)
Pulp: Separations (reissue)
Pyramids: Pyramids (reissue)
Ramon and Jessica: Handyman's Honeymoon
Release the Sunbird: Imaginary Summer
Santana: Live at Montreux 2011 [dvd]
Sara Radle: Same Sun Shines
Sinead O'Connor: How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?
Sleigh Bells: Reign of Terror
Spacemen 3: Perfect Prescription (reissue)
Spacemen 3: Performance (reissue)
Speech Debelle: Freedom of Speech
Terry Malts: Killing Time
Tindersticks: The Something Rain
Tortoise: Standards (reissue) [vinyl]
Wild Nothing: Nowhere
Wooden Shjips: Remixes [vinyl]
Yalls: Fantasy
Young Empires: Wake All My Youth
also at Largehearted Boy:
other weekly CD & DVD release lists
List of Online Year-End 2011 Music Lists
100 online sources for free and legal music downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (music from this week's CD releases)
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
This Week's Interesting DVD Releases - February 21st, 2012
The Criterion Collection releases two films this week, Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's World on a Wire.
The other feature film that caught my eye is Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar biopic of Gman J. Edgar Hoover.
Three documentaries look especially interesting: Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone; Blank City, a film about the New York City arts scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s that includes interviews with Debbie Harry, Jim Jarmusch, Thurston Moore, and othersLast Fast Ride - The Life, Love and Death of a Punk Goddess, a documentary narrated by Henry Rollins that chronicles the life of Insaints' singer Marian Anderson.
Television offerings include Weeds: Season Seven, the first season of the BBC supernatural thriller The Fades, and the animated Underdog: The Complete Series.
What new releases are you picking up or adding to your streaming queue this week?
This week's interesting DVD releases:
American Experience: Clinton
Anatomy of a Murder (Criterion Collection)
Archie's Weird Mysteries - The Complete Series
Attack of the Vegan Zombies
Bad Actress
The Best of Archies Weird Mysteries
Big Foot
Blank City
Broken Blade Complete Collection
Carpenters - In Performance 1972
Dinosaur Jr. - Bug Live At 9:30 Club: In The Hands Of The Fans
Double Exposure
Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone
The Fades: Season One
Hazel: The Complete Second Season
House Of Flesh Mannequins
I Ain't Scared of You: A Tribute to Bernie Mac
Inkubus
J. Edgar
Last of the Summer Wine: Vintage 1991
London Boulevard
Last Fast Ride - The Life, Love and Death of a Punk Goddess
Maigret - Set 1
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Matlock: The Seventh Season
The Mighty Macs
Most Valuable Players
Naked Gun: Trilogy Collection
The New Adventures of Old Christine: The Complete Fifth Season
Nurse Jackie: Season Three
Octubre
On The Bowery - The Films of Lionel Rogosin, Vol. 1
Public Image Limited - Live At Rockpalast
Puss in Boots
Retreat
Santana: Live at Montreux 2011
Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century - Complete Series
Slavery By Another Name
The Son of No One
The Story of Ireland
That Show with Joan Rivers: Vol. 1-3
Tower Heist
Track 29
Underdog: The Complete Series
War of the Arrows
The Way
Weeds: Season Seven
The Woman with the Five Elephants
World on a Wire (Criterion Collection)
Young Justice: Season One V.3
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous weekly music & DVD release lists
Soundtracked (directors and composers discuss their film's soundtrack)
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Shorties (Magnetic Fields, Haruki Murakami, and more)
Drowned in Sound interviews Magnetic Fields frontman Stephin Merritt.
Stream the BBC documentary Haruki Murakami: In Search of his Elusive Writer. (via)
The Globe and Mail profiles singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten.
At 3:AM Magazine, Andrew Gallix interviews Simon Reynolds.
3:AM: You're known for having introduced critical theory into music journalism: wasn't this in part a way of providing an intellectual justification to what you were doing?
SR: No, I don't think so — I've never felt the need to justify or aggrandise music in that way. Music asserts its own importance and crucialness without any help from me or the books I've read! What it is, I'm a fan of critical theory, of that kind of philosophy and writing, and it just seemed like there was a natural fit between certain ideas and what was going on in the music. It wasn't about legitimising "low" culture in high culture or highbrow terms, but just about intensification — the ideas would potentiate (to use drug terminology) the most radical aspects of the music. The combination of the music and the theorisation seemed to create a bigger buzz, basically.
The Guardian profiles Adam Ant.
"Cos new romantic was nothing to do with Adam and the Ants. The Ants was a punk band, or a post-punk band if anything, and so historically it's inaccurate. New romantic was basically, in my mind, clubbers with too much makeup on with stupid clothes. I never set foot in any of their clubs, so I find it quite distressing to be nobbled into new romantic, cos it was just a load of guys who looked like they'd had a row with their girlfriends' makeup. There was nothing tough about it, nothing dangerous about it, it was soft electro stuff and it just looked a bit wet. And I didn't like being associated with it."
At Vice, Jon Savage interviews Iggy Pop.
William Wallace Cook talks to All Things Considered about his new book, Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots.
Weekend Edition profiles Senegalese rap artists leading political protests in their country.
The Rumpus interviews Sara Benincasa about her new memoir, Agorafabulous! Dispatches from My Bedroom.
NPR is streaming the new Y La Bamba album, Court the Storm (out February 28th).
Islam and Science Fiction interviews author G. Willow Wilson.
R. Hankins: Do you think there is a general lack of interest in Science Fiction in the Muslim world? What has been your experience?
G. Willow Wilson: I have been very surprised by the level of interest and support that I've gotten. For a long time I thought it was just the American Muslim community, because there is a lot, geek cultures generally sci-fi fantasy comics, is really big in the Muslim community because it’s an outsider culture. That really resonates, I think, with American Muslims who are kind of struggling to reconcile too often conflicting identities. I mean that kind of at the core of sci-fi and fantasy. You've got the kid who’s kind of on the outside, but he has super powers; he discovers he’s got this great destiny or you know, things really aren't that bad after all, and I think that really appeals to Muslim, especially youth, Muslim youth in America.
NPR is streaming the new Dirty Three album, Toward the Low Sun (out February 28th).
The Other People podcast interviews Adam Wilson about his debit novel. Flatscreen.
NPR is streaming the new Robert Glasper Experiment album, Black Radio (out February 28th).
Austin Kleon lists 25 great quotes about creativity that didn't make it into his new book, Steal Like an Artist.
NPR is streaming Fanfarlo's new album, Rooms Filled with Light (out February 28th).
To the Best of Our Knowledge interviews authors about the question of creativity in creative nonfiction.
Amazon MP3
Follow me on Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Stumbleupon for links (updated throughout the day) that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
List of Online "Best Books of 2011" Lists
List of Online Year-End 2011 Music Lists
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics & graphic novels)
daily mp3 downloads
Largehearted Word (the week's best new books)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
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