Cat Power Matador, Plain

This week’s entry comes from Georgia-born, indie-darling Chan Marshall, aka: Cat Power. This sexy songstress with the piercing hazel eyes is more than just a mysterious, possibly japanimation infringed, stage name – she’s a legitimate artistic talent with the eclectic, street-cred resume to prove it. A high school dropout (one-upping Mr. West), she opened for Liz Phair in the early nineties, cut albums with members of Sonic Youth, made soundtracks for weird foreign films and even got the likes of Dave Grohl and Eddie Veder to play on her 2003 album You Are Free. Makes me want to change my name to something totally random. On the docket? Van Helsing. Respect…

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So a couple of weeks ago, good friends of the show, JB and Kath, decided they would enter in to that most holy and legally binding of ceremonies: marriage. In order to celebrate their special day and provide an excuse to shoot ridiculous video footage, Whit Hansen, another friend of the show and Rhett’s old roommate, and I produced a touching visual tribute. We kicked around a few ideas but decided that although love was invented by Sir Isaac Newton, Bryan Adams had already perfected how to express love through the majesty of song. One song. You know the song. And so, on the fateful evening of June 7th, 2008 after a 6 hour open bar reception (which made everything funnier – to our advantage) the evening was capped off by our unveiling of “project Will Scarlett”. What started as an early nineties, Robin Hood-themed prom request, evolved into this masterpiece of wedding cinema.

I hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it. Give the video about a minute headstart in loading, so you can watch it straight through. Respect…

-John

Louis XIV Atlantic

In a rock music scene struggling to find true talent to latch on to, these guys stand out as one of the best options to salvage the genre. A San Diego band, by way of Paris-where they all met in 2003-these guys have a truly refreshing, unpolished sound. Their lyrics are overflowing with humor, cynicism and plenty of sexual connotation that when combined with heavy rock guitar riffs and pop-rock beats, serve as the perfect backdrop to fuel all of your debaucherous endeavors. To be quite honest, their album cover (pictured above) should tell you what they’re all about. I’ve seen these guys live, at an embarassingly, poorly-attended show here in C-town, and can verify they are in fact the real deal and deserved their early billling opening for The Killers. They were incredible live and I was surprised at how much they came off as a “real-deal rock band”. Loud guitars, killer solos, energetic showmanship and vocals – every piece of the live rock puzzle. I recommend them highly and hope their next show around here will feature plenty of new fans.

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The Mars Volta Universal

The Mars Volta comes to you from Long Beach, California and features two members of the former El Paso-based band At The Drive In: Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala. Drawing heavily on their Mexican heritage they’ve managed to bring an untamed, theatrical presence to their unorthodox rock stylings. Piercing and uneven – Bixler-Zavala’s vocals invoke thoughts of a Slayer/Stevie Nicks (that’s right – Stevie) combination, whlie his on stage persona is more in tune with the heyday of Rage Aagainst the Machine’s Zack Delarocha. An exciting mixture, I know. Those of you looking for something with a harder, darker edge will be excited, but I think their music is worthy of a listen by everyone. You never know what might surpise you.

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Check out the latest podcast where John and Rhett engage in a special edition of the always controversial Coast-to-Coast staple, underrated/overrated. This time around, the guys each select five things in pop culture they find overrated and five they feel to be underrated and the rest pretty much takes care of itself. Will Rhett dare to knock Lost and incur fury over the airwaves? Will John call out Rhett and rate him personally as being overrated? Only one way to find out…

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Download: Underrated/Overrated

Last Thursday night, ABC’s ground-breaking drama Lost concluded its fourth brilliant season with a beautifully crafted, 2-hour finale that lived up to fairly lofty expectations. Fans were treated to the standard fare from the Lost menu: mysteries, plot-twists, suspense, creepy people who may or may not be dead – but this time around fans got something else as well: answers. A rarity for a show that relishes its complexity and intricate story-telling devices. But more than anything, it was really a taste of what the next two seasons will hold. The satisfaction of finally having the answers to four years worth of questions will start to become a recurring feeling. The mysteries will start to conclude and puzzle pieces will fall into place, so that two years from now, the entire Lost story will be complete and it will go down as the greatest show of all time. What other show capitalizes on every aspect of human emotion? What other show has ever had the intertwined elements of Lost’s plot lines? What other show has ever had as interesting and multi-faceted characters as Lost? What other show has been able to center itself around mystery, yet walk the line between keeping fans interested and not giving too much away too soon? There are none, and that last point is the real reason Lost has managed to be the pinnacle of television production these last four years. Look at Twin Peaks. A show definitely ahead of its time, it was full of vibrant characters each one more beautifully idiosyncratic than the next. Fresh and original, dark and mysterious – there was nothing like it on TV and there hasn’t been since. For all of its strengths, it made a fatal error in solving the dominant plotline too soon and relying too much on mysticism and fantastical plotlines to carry viewers into the subsequent season. Unfortunately, David Lynch’s masterpiece fizzled as quickly as it had flared, making it only to a second season before becoming a cautionary tale for TV writers. On the other side of the spectrum is Lost’s production team, which has been able to prolong revealing the deep-seeded mysteries while simultaneously introducing and resolving new plotlines that are still compelling and vital to the storyline. It sounds so simple, yet is the bain of many a writer’s existence. It may just be the biggest mystery of the show. And as much as I dislike Winter, I look forward to January so that I can start on the thirty-four remaining episodes of the most captivating show in television history.

A few final thoughts on Lost to bridge the divide until next season:

1. I love Kate. I do.
2. What happened to Vincent? Seriously – where is he?
3. For those who have never seen this show – stop being stupid and rent the first season. Do it. Don’t be like Rhett – enjoy life and embrace quality television. There is more to TV than Matlock reruns and Project Runway marathons, I promise you. Plus, watching a show shrouded in mystery on DVD is great. You don’t have to wait a week to see what happens, you can watch it right away. It’s as great as it sounds. That is all.

-John (ECH)

Mew Sony/BMG

This week’s featured band comes all the way from Denmark and has been described as creating dreamy thunderstorm pop, Danish art-rock and even prog-rock. Whatever that is. While nailing down their sound is certainly no easy task, I’m not going to start manipulating weather system forecasts to describe their musical genre, but I am going to say this: this band is pretty rad. How’s that for a sweet critique? Pretty sweet, I know. Anyway, Mew has won numerous Danish music awards, opened for R.E.M. and is even big in Japan. Big in Japan! Like Godzilla and cartoon baby animals. Recording their next album right now in Brooklyn, I hope Mew will look to continue their individuality and innovative musical stylings. And then they’ll get too big and everyone will start copying them. Branson, I’m looking at you.

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Ok, I just got Sirius radio and well, it’s fantastic. I don’t know why I didn’t get it earlier…as our good friend Thor likes to say, I’m the dumb. There are two big satellite radio companies, Sirius and XM. I seem to remember seeing something about XM and Sirius getting the OK from the courts to merge although I haven’t heard anything about it since. So, be on the look-out for that. Anyway, since I don’t have XM radio, I will stick with just writing about Sirius.

Sirius’ claim to fame is that it has Howard Stern. In fact, two channels are devoted to Stern. One channel just replays his shows (along with a wrap-up special) and the other has shows on it that has the Stern seal of approval. The other big talk radio stations that Sirius carries are ESPN, NFL, a few comedy stations, Martha Stewart, Maxim, E! Entertainment and a whole list of other random ones. Maybe one day, we can take Coast to Coast to the Satellite airwaves…

As far as the music goes, they have stations that cater to pretty much everyone, ‘60s hits, ‘70s stuff (The Doobie Brothers has been played a number of times already), New Wave (lots of 80’s stuff), Left of Center (really, my favorite station, more info below), The Grateful Dead Channel (ALL Grateful Dead, all the time), Alt Nation (Weezer recently took over the station for a whole day), Classic Hip-Hop (your mom and dad’s hip-hop hits), Punk, Hair Nation (This is where John will fill his cravings for Whitesnake), Classic Rewind (solid rock staples of the 70s & 80s) and Outlaw Country (which plays guys like Johnny Cash and Robert Earle Keene).
Left of Center is by far the best music station that I’ve listened to in the last few years. It might even be better than Indie 103.1 here in Los Angeles. Here is just a quick sample of the folks they played last night, Nada Surf, Band of Horses, TV on The Radio, Sufjan Stevens, Inerpol, The Cribs, Portishead, Magnetic Fields, Liz Phair, Beck, Bright Eyes, Mates of State, Sonic Youth, and I could go on and on.

While driving the other night, I heard a brand new artist (at least to me) by the name of Johnny Flynn who sounds like he belongs in the alt country genre, except for the fact that he hails from England. Tickle Me Pink was the song that was played and well, it was awesome. I quickly looked into finding the record and it is now available thru Amazon. It also has yet to be added to Itunes which is a shame but hopefully, that will be rectified soon. Anyway, if you want, check out his myspace page and tell me what you think. He’s got a few other songs you can check out besides Tickle Me Pink and I’m really looking forward to purchasing a copy of his album.

So, two things that we covered today, Tickle Me Pink is the song of the summer and Sirius Radio is awesome.

Rhett