Monday, July 25th, 2005

Coming And Going On Easy Terms

Sixeyes has been running with a John Vanderslice theme for the last little while, centred around a four-part interview with the producer/artist. Well, it was supposed to be – the first two parts ran on Sixeyes, but the whole thing is now available to grok at Better Propaganda.

Vanderslice releases his new album, the wonderfully-titled Pixel Revolt on August 23. You can see track notes from the recording sessions here, and I do believe have been corrected that “Farewell Transmission” is indeed NOT a Songs: Ohia cover – nice. The ‘Slice will be touring this Fall in support or the album – no Toronto dates as yet, though. I’ve seen him twice, opening for Spoon and Beulah (photos/review), and though I missed his last appearance in town last Summer opening for Pedro The Lion, I can testify that he’s always a good show.

Anyway, the good people at Barsuk have made a track from Pixel Revolt available for your downloading pleasure:

MP3: John Vanderslice – “Trance Manual”

Also courtesy of Barsuk – some clips from the Death Cab tour documentary, Drive Well, Sleep Carefully, out tomorrow. I got a copy of this last week but haven’t had a chance to get to it yet – I will report back when I do.

Instead, I’ve been watching season 3 of Sealab 2021. Man, what a mixed bag. The first half contains some stone-cold classics (“I Robot, Really”!!) but the episodes made after the unfortunate death of Harry Goz (AKA Captain Murphy), quite frankly, suck major ass. I was listening to the commentary track from Karl Olson of Toon Zone for the first post-Murphy episode, “Tornado Shanks”, and at first thought he was being ironic in his hate for the ep, but as it went on I realized that his vitriol was genuine and more disturbingly, justified. It was bad. Really bad. And didn’t get better as the season went on (Yes, I know there is a pop culture term for this very event, but I hate it and refuse to use it…) There were still occasional funny scenes but they were the exception, not the norm. Even more disturbing is that even though the producers HAD to have known that the heart and soul of the show was gutted, there was a season four. It won’t be out on DVD for a while, but I gotta know – is there ANYTHING redeeming about it?

Ahem.

Oh look, a Sufjan piece, this one from CMJ as they ask about the inspiration behind the cover art, but no mention of Supes. Hmm.

Word is the big bad in Spider-Man 3 will be Thomas Hayden Church as… The Chameleon? Well that’s a character who lends himself to a special effects extravaganza. Using him as a relative scale of menace, perhaps we can look forward to seeing Topher Grace as a guy who cuts ahead of Peter Parker in line. Update: Comic Book Resources has another theory on what Toper Grace’s role will be… and it’s even more terrifying than you could imagine.

Teenage Fanclub tonight!

np – The National / Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers

By : Frank Yang at 8:24 am
Category: Uncategorized
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  1. ryan says:

    Yo-

    FWIW, JV’s ‘Farewell Transmission’ is actually an original tune….

  2. Thierry says:

    Oh shut up about the Fannies show already! I’ve been begging anyone who’ll hear me for a ticket for the past 10 days, to no avail…

  3. Frank says:

    Fannies Fannies fo-Fannies.

    It’s not sold out? Rotate seemed to still have tickets a few days ago and Ticketmaster still has em. I’m sure you could get them at the door, too.

  4. brads says:

    Season four does indeed have some solid stuff in it. You can’t go wrong with a ‘Chupacabras’ episode.

    And five gets even better, what with the "Chuck D as a suicidal whale" episode. And "Cavemen" is classic season one-style Quinn vs. Stormy.

  5. tyrone says:

    anyone else check out JV’s own remix album of "Cellar Door" called "MGM Endings" and it really improves alot of the songs… my favorite is the solo version of "field guide." you can still download the whole remix album on his website… I reccomend this one for sure.

    http://…/

  6. Thierry says:

    Both Rotate and Soundscapes were sold out – Ticketmaster seems to still have some tickets, so I’ll probably try my luck at the door tonight. I’ve heard from others that The Rosebuds are also worth showing early…

  7. ohnonicole says:

    frank I just saw Sufjan in vancouver and let me tell you, come september you will be Impressed [with a capital I!] they introduce each illinois songs with mini chants, and even made one up on the spot about canada! [he forgot nunavut…we forgave him]

    anyways, the show’s got everything, pom pom’s, cheers, banjoes, uniforms, pigtails.

    They’ll be awesome in TO no doubt!

  8. Karl Olson says:

    I assure you my vitrol was only 50 percent serious. I really hammed it up for the DVD, because other I’d just be boring and technical, and I’m not a funny dead pan. However, I stand by the gist of it, which is that Sealab lost it’s momentum in Season 3, and really started with that episode. That was the fonze jumping.