January 2012
6 posts
Lately I’ve been unable to stop listening to Hospitality’s debut album, which I reviewed here. It’s a marvel – sweet, funny, extraordinarily tuneful and full of unexpected twists. Cheers to my first favorite new band of 2012!
My ticket stub from last night says “Jeff Mangum: 2012 Spring Season.” I’m thinking this morning about what a wonderful phrase that is, how unlikely it once would have seemed. It’s a new year, and Jeff Mangum’s comeback tour is rolling on. In a few months he’ll play Coachella. How lucky are we?
Seven years ago, I was there when he came out for one song – shaky...
Dennis The Menace is a rapper from Huntsville, Alabama. Never heard of dude before he followed me on Twitter this weekend, but I’m feeling some of the tracks he’s posted online - particularly “Maria,” a buoyant weed jam built around a sample from Michael Jackson’s 1972 solo debut. (The instrumental appears to be lifted from here.) Dennis’ rapping has a sly,...
Just got back from seeing Sing Your Song, a deft thumbnail portrait of Harry Belafonte’s remarkable life. Here is someone whose very existence as a dazzlingly charismatic, hugely popular black performer in the 1950s and 1960s was itself a radical challenge to the status quo. (Petula Clark touched his sleeve on national television – quelle horreur!) Belafonte didn’t stop there, of...
Carrie Brownstein told me about shooting season two of Portlandia and what’s next for Wild Flag. Plus sharp observations on Occupy Wall Street, Nineties nostalgia, and contemporary hip-hop. She’s one of the easiest people to interview I’ve ever encountered — every time she starts talking, out comes a fully thought-through, witty and/or observant paragraph.
