Wednesday, December 8th, 2004

Look For Me (I'll Be Around)

Is Neko Case coming to Toronto to promote a live album recorded in Toronto, or is it to preview her next studio album due out later this Spring? I don’t know, but maybe she’ll tell us when she plays the Phoenix on January 16, backed once again by the wonderful Sadies. As much as I enjoyed the Tigers Have Spoken making-of shows, I’d love to see a proper full show with her and the Sadies. Tickets on sale today, $17.50. Consider me there. Oh yeah, I reviewed the live record for Torontoist last week.

Heraclitus Sayz interviews Richard Parry of the Arcade Fire. From LHB.

Tiny Mix Tapes talks to Saturday Looks Good To Me mastermind Fred Thomas. Their latest, Every Night, may hold the record for traversing the greatest distance between disappointment to beloved this year. I had trouble getting into it at first, but after seeing the live show, it just hit me like a sack of hammers. So good.

24 creator Robert Cochran gives The New York Times (bugmenot: bugmenot02/bugmenot) a sneak preview at season four of the show… He has no idea what’s going to happen! Honestly! They’re making it up as they go, even more so than before. That doesn’t necessarily bode well, considering the trainwreck pastiche that was season three. Season four premieres Sunday January 9 before settling into it’s new regular timeslot on Monday nights. The mid-season premiere means that there will be no repeats and no skipped weeks… it’s twenty-four straight weeks of Keifer looking angry from January through May. Or twenty-three, if the premiere is two hours long. I don’t know if I’ll do the week-by-week episode commentary like I did last year. Maybe I’ll do it… MINUTE-BY-MINUTE. Oh God, that’d suck.

I re-watched Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind last night, confirming that this was indeed my favourite movie of 2004, a fact that will be formally announced when I put up my year-end movie list (yes, there’ll be one of those – hey, end of year is slow news time, I have to fill in the days somehow). Since I’d already seen it, I was able to concentrate more on details like Jon Brion’s wonderful score and Jim Carrey’s terrific performance by instead of trying to follow the twisty plot. It was also interesting to find that the messed up audio effects I noticed in the theatre were in fact part of the film, but the film melting on the projector halfway through was not.

SHOT rings up his best of 2004.

Okay, check out these choice words from American right-wing talking heads Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson about the Great White North recently, spurred by Bush’s visit to Ottawa. And I thought my head hurt before. Bonus points for maybe the first intelligent words I’ve ever heard out of Carolyn Parrish’s mouth, though she let Canada take way more crap than she should have. From Torontoist.

I have no idea who Kanye West is.

np – Yo La Tengo / I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One

By : Frank Yang at 9:39 am
Category: Uncategorized
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  1. sam says:

    wtf frank?

    where were you earlier this year? kanye’s a über-producer who, most notably, did Alicia Keys’ You Don’t Know my Name and dropped his debut album The College Dropout, to incredible acclaim. this ain’t underground.

    you should know better :)

  2. Frank says:

    I think the very fact that it’s not underground is why I don’t know it… OH AREN’T I INDIE!!!

    No seriously, I don’t listen to radio, don’t watch music television, read no mainstream pop culture mags… there’s really no reason I would ever have heard of him. I just live in my little bunker.

  3. bsearles says:

    Hey, get outta my brain, Frank.

    Just rewatched Eternal Sunshine last week, too… and confirmed the same thing. Favorite film of the year, hands down. S’all about the details.

    And Kanye West? First time I’ve ever heard his name was when I read it in a headline yesterday. The sum total of my knowledge of him… now comes from Sam’s comment above.

    I feel so contentedly out of touch.

  4. mishie says:

    it don’t matter, kanye is one cocky bastard.

    i know it doesn’t have much to do with his music, but man…he should quit running his mouth.

  5. Frank says:

    well, I see he’s up for a Best New Artist Grammy, so if he wins that then he can start counting the minutes until obscurity.

  6. Ryan says:

    Not that pitchfork defines what is good music or not, but they do a better job than x, y, z standard publication in the states. Anyways, rarely do they even review "mainstream" music, but they reviewed Kanye West when it was released and added it to their coveted "best new music" list….take it for what it’s worth…i like it on occasion. Here’s the review. http://…/

    Althogh it bugs me to hear everyone say how "different" he is with hip-hop than everyone else…um, hello?? Ever heard of The Streets, Prefuse 73, Handsome Boy Modeling School, etc?? I’m sure the fact that Kanye produced Jay-Z’s albums doesn’t hurt his marketability…no not at all

  7. sam says:

    this’ll be my last comment on Kanye since the subject seems to have dried up rather quickly but – he ain’t no new artist buzz. the man’s been working, successfully producing many great songs, for years now.

    he’s no 15 minutes guy is what i’m saying :)

  8. spencer says:

    HA!

    i have no idea who kayne west is either!!!

    actually, i do, sorta.

    but he ain’t all that.

    definitely not 10 grammys worth.

    he’s like the david gray of this year’s grammys

  9. Maria says:

    Is that link like in another language or something? I can’t seem to understand it!

  10. Frank says:

    yeah, it’s some sort of Scandanavian, I think. The Quicktime movie embedded in the page is in English, though.

  11. TS says:

    omigosh…if you haven’t listened to kanye’s album, you should. not only is it brilliant but absolutely hilarious. he deserves the accolades he gets.