Believe this...

This album kicks ass. If you've ever been an Oasis fan but found yourself losing interest, buy this disc. Your faith will be restored. I've always thought Oasis were at their best when blatantly ripping off other bands, usually the Beatles. (If you've never heard the similarities, anyone who's ever even thought of being a rock critic will gladly drum it into your head.) But on Don't Believe the Truth, the Brothers Gallagher begin to branch out. Here you'll find them ripping off lots of bands, most notably the Velvet Underground and the Kinks. But hey, who isn't these days? There's a great psychedelic feel to the whole disc, and it's delivered with a newfound energy, stemming from both the songwriting contributions of bassist Andy Bell and guitarist Gem Archer, and from the Gallaghers feeling a need to prove to younger bands who they've influenced that Oasis still has what it takes. As this album shows, they do.

For me, this one's especially good, because I've always enjoyed the songs where Noel sings lead, and this album's chock full o' Noelly goodness. He takes lead vocals on three of the 11 songs (or 12 if you buy it on iTunes like I did), and duets with Liam on a fourth. One of the three Noel-sung tracks, "Part of the Queue" is shaping up to be my favorite Oasis tune... of... all... time. Rawk!

Star Wars... again

I went to see Episode III again yesterday, and when I got home, I watched the DVD of the original Star Wars (now also know as Episode IV, or A New Hope), and it really made it clear to me what's missing from the prequels (besides Harrison Ford, and a sense of humor). As visually stunning as the prequels are, the excessive computer-generated imagery gives the viewer the sense that what they're seeing is ultimately made up, obviously just a pretend world. But in the original trilogy, everything (sets, ships, even the aliens) has such a physical presence and tactile reality that you get the feeling if you went out into space, you could actually find these places. That kind of lived-in reality is a big part of what made the original movies so appealing, and what is sorely lacking in the new ones.

That being said, I actually enjoyed Revenge of the Sith more the second time around, largely thanks to Kevin Smith. He wrote an article for the latest Rolling Stone (read Part 1 and Part 2) in which he basically calls every Star Wars nerd to the carpet for blaming George Lucas for not bringing their childhood back. And he's exactly right: nobody is going to make me feel like I did when I was 4 or 5 and seeing Star Wars for the first time in the theater, especially not some 60-year-old director who's 30 years removed from that first movie. So with that mindset, I went into the theater to just enjoy the movie for what it is: a big, loud spectacle of lightsabers and space battles. Yeah, it's not perfect. There's some crappy acting, and some bad dialogue, and the whole "Darth Vader as Frankenstein's monster" scene at the end is just plain wrong. But there's also some amazing stuff in there. If you strip away all the expectations and hopes and hype attached to it, it's a pretty damn good summer movie. And really, that's all Star Wars was ever intended to be. The fact that it did well enough and survived long enough that we got five more movies, well that's just gravy. As franchises go, four out of six ain't so bad.

All mixed up

It's possible that Mike Relm may be the most talented DJ ever. He opened for Gift of Gab and Lateef the Truth Speaker at the show my brother and I went to in April, and at that show Doug bought his CD, Radio Fryer. Well, I finally got around to listening to it the whole way through, and it is amazing. He pulls samples from a broad range of pop, rock, and even TV and movies to create a pop culture pastiche that leans very heavily on 80's music. If you've ever listened to a song and thought, "That beat sounds just like (insert another song here)," then you'll love this CD, because this is the best mashup disc you'll probably ever hear. But don't take my word for it: download some samples from his website. The highlight for me is track 6, "Beware of the Jacksons", when he combines the acapella vocals from the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back" with the bassline from the Knight Rider theme song and lays them over a bhangra beat. Inspired, and just plain sick. Almost equally cool is having the Beastie Boys rap over the B-52's "Rock Lobster".

OK...

.

So maybe things didn't quite work out the way I thought they would. England's B-team is still pretty good, and nobody expected Kieran Richardson (left, in white) to score two goals on his debut. But the US played pretty well other than one defensive breakdown and a horrid inability to finish their chances (yes, Landon Donovan, I'm talking to you). We never looked scared or timid, and we controlled the game well enough that the English fans didn't hit full voice until about the 65th minute of the game... 10 minutes before Clint Dempsey scored for the US and shut them up again. But the game was entertaining, and I think the 47,000+ fans walked away satisfied. I was pretty happy to get out of there without punching the Mexican fan sitting in front of us who was talking smack about the US through the whole game. 2-nil, bitch.

Back to Chicago

I'm heading back to the Windy City tomorrow night, this time to watch Landon Donovan and the US men whoop up on England. Well, actually, it's just a pale imitation of the full-strength English team, since apparently over in Limey-land it's OK to stay home if you're tired. Not that I'm bitter. Even if the Three Lions are short on recognizable names for this game, we're equal opportunity over here: everybody gets the same ass-kicking, regardless of how big a star you are. It's about time we got some payback for Bunker Hill. And for every Hugh Grant movie except About A Boy. And the faux-hawk.

Keane, Lost and Bono Strikes Back

I made the trip to Cincinnati last night to see Keane at the Taft Theatre. The Taft is a nice venue; I've been there three times before for Dave Matthews Band and Big Head Todd & the Monsters, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, and the last Kids in the Hall tour. Last night, the sound was pretty good, our seats were terrific and the crowd response was surprising in its ferocity. You could tell the band felt it. They played most of Hopes and Fears as well as a few b-sides (like my favorite, "Snowed Under") and a couple of new songs, but generally stuck pretty close to the album arrangements on the songs I knew and didn't mess with the formula too much on the new stuff. Overall, it was an entertaining but short set that just seemed to be missing that little bit of magic that turns a great show into an amazing one. Doves had it, Keane didn't.

So tonight was the two-hour season finale of Lost. At some points during the show, it was obvious that they really didn't have enough to fill two hours, but there were enough twists to keep me hooked for next year. The fact that I got through the entire season and still had no idea what was going to happen in the finale speaks to the quality of the show.

And finally, I found this article to be very interesting. Apparently, Greg Kot, the music critic for the Chicago Tribune has a long-running relationship with U2, and has recently published some articles questioning the direction the band has taken since releasing Pop in 1997. Well, Bono took issue, and decided to hash it out face-to-face. The man is either total class, or the biggest media whore in the history of the world. More likely, it's some combination of the two. Either way, I have more respect for him after reading this.

Festival of the arts

Every once in a while, I remember that it's nice to spend a day out of the apartment. Today was one of those days. First, I met a large group of friends and co-workers for a brunch of dim sum, which was surprisingly good, especially considering where it's located (behind a Tire Barn). But it was good. Mmmm... glazed pork buns.

Then some of us headed over to the Broad Ripple Art Fair, where I purchased a couple of prints for my apartment, included the one at right by Larry Stephenson, an artist who made the trip from Kansas. He's a collector of old toys, which he then prominently features in his paintings. Great stuff. I love the graphic sensibility he has. And he even included this little history of the Giclee print (how he and many other artists now reproduce their paintings), which was pioneered by, of all people, Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills & Nash. Who says you don't learn something new every day? I also got a cool illustration by a local guy named Josh Johnson, whose website doesn't seem to be working, but I'll link it anyway in case it's a temporary thing. We featured him in the magazine a few years back, because he's got these crazy characters he's created, so his work has their story running through it. He's got a sort of "twisted children's book" featuring these characters, The Spindletons, coming out in June.

After I had finished running up my credit card balance, my friend Tony, his neighbor Sean and I sat on their front porch and had a little jam session with our acoustics. We ran through a slew of songs like the Chili Peppers' "Breaking the Girl", Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees" and a sloppy but fun version of G N' R's "Sweet Child O' Mine" for an audience of 1 (another friend, Allison) and a variety of passers-by from the Art Fair. All in all, a pretty good day. Definitely got my creative juices flowing.

More Star Wars

New info was released today about the upcoming Star Wars: Battlefront II, the sequel to my favorite XBox game. Battlefront lets you play as the Rebel Alliance, Imperial stormtroopers, Clone Army of the Republic, or droid army of the Trade Federation and puts you in the shoes of one of the grunt soldiers in a variety of battles throughout the Star Wars galaxy. Battlefront II aims to improve on the gameplay, adds new levels and characters, lets you play as a Jedi, and will give the player the ability to participate in massive online games. Sounds like a great way to kill time to me...

Time Out has a great interview with George Lucas that contains some things I hadn't read anywhere else in his slew of Episode III press. It talks about the future of Star Wars DVDs (Revenge of the Sith at Christmas!!!), what his next project will be, and whether he will ever tinker with the prequels the way he did with the original trilogy.

MAJOR SPOILERS!!!!

Don't click on any links in this post until you've seen Revenge of the Sith. At first blush, I thought it was a good to great movie. I probably didn't need to stay up until 3 am to watch, but it was fun. By no means was the movie perfect; it still suffered from some wince-inducing dialogue and lack of emotive acting by a few key players, but overall, it made me feel a hell of a lot better about the Lucas legacy. The action sequences (of which there were plenty) were definitely taken up a notch from any previous Star Wars film, and the acting and dialogue were markedly improved from Attack of the Clones. The highlight for me was the climactic duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan. When they first began facing off, I got chills.

Here's what a variety of reviewers had to say about the film. Owen Glieberman of Entertainment Weekly comes closest to summing up my feelings, and I found the following tidbit from Roger Ebert's review to be very interesting, coming from someone who's at least close to being a Hollywood insider:
"Note: I said this is not necessarily the last of the "Star Wars" movies. Although Lucas has absolutely said he is finished with the series, it is inconceivable to me that 20th Century-Fox will willingly abandon the franchise, especially as Lucas has hinted that parts VII, VIII and IX exist at least in his mind. There will be enormous pressure for them to be made, if not by him, then by his deputies."

OTHER REVIEWS
E! Online
New York Times
Rolling Stone
San Francisco Chronicle
Washington Post

In case there was any doubt...

... I am a giant-sized Nerd. Against all better judgment, I'm going to a midnight showing of Episode III. Despite good reviews starting to trickle in like this one from USA Today (don't click if you want to stay spoiler-free), I'm completely prepared for disappointment. But my friend Tony made a convincing argument that this will be the last chance ever to do something silly like this for a Star Wars movie, and like the hopeless nostalgia-junkie that I am, I bought it. So at 12:06 AM Thursday morning, the fate of any future money I might spend on Star Wars merchandise will be decided. For the sake of my potentially tainted childhood memories, I hope George got it right this time.

Either way, I finally have an excuse to post a picture of Darth Vader on my blog. Kickass!

Holy cow.

Pretty unassuming trio of guys, right? Nothing in this photo would ever lead you to believe that they were capable of producing the best small-venue concert of my life to this point. These are Doves, and they currently rule my musical world. I'm not even going to try to describe Friday's show other than to say, every time I was feeling fully satisfied, thinking they had played all the songs I wanted to hear, they would start into another of my favorites. The five-week break since their last show worked in the audience's favor, since the band was fired up to be back onstage and were clearly feeding off the crowd response. It also helped that the Vic was a great venue. We stood in a couple different spots during the show, and the sound and view of the stage was always good. Even the lighting kicked ass, and that hardly ever registers with me. Two hours of straight-up bliss.

Now that's funny

On the eve of the release of the final Star Wars film, Scott Kurtz has managed to compress the feelings of nerds everywhere into four small panels of his PVP comic.

For the uninitiated, Joss Whedon created the TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly, is currently writing the hottest X-Men title out there, Astonishing X-Men, and is directing two upcoming movies: Serenity (continuing the story from the cancelled Firefly series) and Wonder Woman. If you are a sci-fi or fantasy nerd, you've bowed at his feet at some point in the past 5 years. And if not, you will soon.

I'm in the midst of burning mixes for the drive to Chicago tomorrow, including songs from the new CDs I bought: DMB's Stand Up, Spoon's Gimme Fiction, Weezer's Make Believe, and The Mars Volta's Frances the Mute. I learned my lesson again about judging a disc by a few 30-second samples. I wasn't going to buy Weezer based on what I had heard... it just didn't seem like they were bringing anything new to the table. Thankfully, it was so cheap at Target I couldn't pass it up, and it's my favorite of my purchases. A very good, solid disc with a sweeping and epic (for Weezer anyway) closing track, and a lot less uneven than their last two CDs.

Here's the mixes I'm making... one more current stuff and one of all cover songs:

Disc 1
American Baby, Dave Matthews Band
Molly's Chambers, Kings Of Leon
Spiral Staircase, Kings Of Leon
Lyla, Oasis
Lips Like Sugar, Echo and the Bunnymen
I Predict A Riot, Kaiser Chiefs
Positive Tension, Bloc Party
The Damage In Your Heart, Weezer
Too Much Information, The Police
Born Into The World, Supersystem
I Turn My Camera On, Spoon
Merry Go Round, Silver Sunshine
No Other Way, Jack Johnson
Pure, Lightning Seeds
The Bucket, Kings Of Leon
Big Deal, Damien Jurado And Gathered In Song
Let There Be Love, Oasis
Stolen Away On 55th & 3rd, Dave Matthews Band
Air, Ben Folds Five
Blue Light, Bloc Party


Disc 2
Day Tripper, The Jimi Hendrix Experience (originally by The Beatles)
Video Killed the Radio Star, Ben Folds Five (The Buggles)
Since U Been Gone, Ted Leo (Kelly Clarkson)
In Between Days, Ben Folds (The Cure)
Let's Go To Bed, Ivy (The Cure)
Sexual Healing, Soul Asylum (Marvin Gaye)
Watching The Wheels, The Samples (John Lennon)
Champagne Supernova, matt pond PA (Oasis)
Mrs. Robinson, The Lemonheads (Simon & Garfunkel)
Wild Horses, The Sundays (The Rolling Stones)
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, Joseph Arthur (The Smiths)
I Will Survive, Cake (Gloria Gaynor)
Let My Love Open The Door, M. Ward (Pete Townsend)
This Moment, Matthew Sweet (Victoria Williams)
Silly Love Songs, Red House Painters (Paul McCartney & Wings)
Lips Like Sugar (live), Coldplay (Echo & the Bunnymen)

Too pooped to pop

Long days at work lately = tired Mikey. Once I feel up to it, I'll have plenty to report. I'm reading some good graphic novels: Queen & Country: Operation Broken Ground and Y: The Last Man Vol. 1, I'll have my take on the new Weezer, Spoon, and Dave Matthews Band discs, and most likely I'll be able to report on my trip to Chicago this weekend to see Doves. I just learned via their news blog that their lead singer, Jimi, was under doctor's orders to rest his voice, so this will be their first show back from several weeks break. That could be good for this show, or completely disastrous. Here's hoping he's fully recovered, for this show as well as for the future of the band.

A Well-Deserved Name

Thanks to a break from supporting U2, Kings of Leon played in Indy tonight at The Music Mill, and I'd like to thank Bono & Co. for giving these guys the night off. The opening act was an unremarkable band called Stereo Deluxe whose set I immediately forgot as soon as it was over. The Kings came on a little after 10:00 dressed a bit like the Rolling Stones circa 1982 and played a great hour-plus set equally split between their two albums. I didn't really know anything from Aha Shake Heartbreak, but that didn't keep me from enjoying the show. The highlight for me was the one-two punch of "Red Morning Light" and "The Bucket" about midway through, but unfortunately, the show started to lose steam from that point. However, the crowd was really into it, and the band seemed pleasantly surprised at the reception. Caleb (the lead singer) even made a point of saying "We'll definitely be back" when introducing the last song, and if that's true, I'd happily see them again.

This was such a different experience from my last Music Mill show. Great sound, a good crowd, and aside from a "no cameras" rule that prompted a lot of chasing by the security guards, no real distractions from the show. I'm starting to be impressed with whoever put this place together. The lineup of upcoming shows looks pretty good, and for a former Discovery Zone in a strip mall parking lot, they've been doing pretty well.

Ben Folds totally rawks!!!!

Ohmigod, so like I went to see that Ben Folds guy tonight, and he like totally rulez!!! OK, well it was kind of boring when he played a bunch of songs that like nobody knew so I just talked during those, but then he played that sad song about his girlfriend getting an abortion and I went nuts! Me and my girls were totally dancing, and I recorded the song on my phone and sent it to my boyfriend, cuz he luvs that song too. It was so hot.

I thought I'd give you a little taste of what it's like to stand next to a couple of Paris and Nikki Hilton wannabes at a Ben Folds show. Torture. Between the completely inappropriate dancing and getting bumped by a swinging purse every 5 seconds, it almost ruined the show for me. Thankfully, some drunken idiot started hitting on them and chased them away.

Meanwhile, onstage, Ben Folds was putting on a fantastic show. He played for about two hours, opening with The Cure's "In Between Days" and closing with a superfast version of "One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces". Most of the show was with his band (just like Ben Folds Five, a drummer and a bassist), but he played several songs solo. He mixed it up pretty evenly between all of his solo stuff and BFF discs, only playing about four songs from the just-released Songs for Silverman, and there was plenty of audience participation (if you've listened to Ben Folds Live, it was pretty much the same stuff). High energy, great setlist, and a lot of fun. I would have been happy with another hour, but I'll take what we got.

Now for a bit of shuteye, and then tomorrow night, Kings of Leon.

Blank Space

Sorry for the severe lack of posts lately. I've been too busy watching random DVDs and catching up on DVR'ed Adult Swim episodes. I got to take the day off from work today due to getting knocked out and having a camera stuck down my throat this morning, so I spent the rest of the day recovering on my couch. I watched Along Came Polly, Blade: Trinity, and The Music Man. It may be the sedatives talking, but damn! Shirley Jones had it goin' on back in the day.

Some of you may have heard the hype about DJ Danger Mouse's The Grey Album last year that combined Jay-Z's rhyming with samples from the Beatles' White Album. Well some dude named dj BC has taken the same idea and mixed a variety of Beatles samples with raps from the Beastie Boys, thus creating The Beastles. I've had these tracks for a few months, but really just got around to listening to them this week. Good stuff.

Almost time for the first new Lost in what feels like months, and it's about time.