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The Smiths - There is a Light that Never Goes Out
“such a fantastic song - it’s really pathetic though that 500 days of summer brought people here, jesus….”
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My Bloody Valentine - Thorn
“Oh and by the way take your head out of your arse. Not everyone wants to listen to 3,000 different bands just to appear cultured.
I listen to only about 5 bands regularly and one of them is MBV. It’s no big deal.”
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When Will the Modern Family backlash start?
Modern Family is a surprisingly funny new show on ABC. It’s the not the kind of funny you get from sitting in the same room as people discussing “Lost” (That was great when Ben turned on his father’s oxygen tank in the flash sideways to save his life, after killing his father with a gas tank in the flashback to an alternate timeline.) No, Modern Family is intentionally hilarious. It’s another show in the “Mockumentary” tradition which is so popular these days and must have Christopher Guest rolling over in his grave.
Modern Family follows the lives of 3 families, all related to each other, in some fashion and all living in the same city (horrifying, I know). Jay (Ed O’Neil) is the patriarch of this extended family, he lives with his 2nd wife, a spicy Columbian name Gloria (Sofia Vegera) who serves as the primary eye candy for the show and the impending target for 85% of the bad impressions you’ll hear this summer. Their son Manny is 11, chubby Columbian, and adorable, you’ll laugh at Manny the same way you laugh at any middle schooler, which is without any regard for the future emotional damage you’re causing to a frustrated young adolescent. (Screw you Kevin Tyler)
The families of Jay’s other 2 children Mitchell and Claire make up the other characters on the show. Mitchell, a gay, red-headed, neck-bearded lawyer is married to a big loveable bear of a man named Cameron. Mitchell and Cameron have an adopted baby daughter named Lily and conversely, they are also the main reason the show isn’t allowed to air in Arkansas, Kansas, and some parts of West Virginia. Jay’s other offspring is Claire, played by Julie Bowen who is most well known for her role in Happy Gilmore. Bowen plays the female companion to another slightly off-kilter male lead, in Phil Dunphy. Phil is the well-intentioned, yet completely oblivious comedic anchor of the show. Phil is a toned down version of Tobias Funke, he has an impeccable ability to say the most delightfully wrong thing in any situation.
The unfortunate aspect of all this praise is that as great as Modern Family is now, it only means a bigger backlash when the show eventually reaches the masses and becomes the hit it has potential to be. If we learned anything from Arrested Development it’s that the only way to retain critical acclaim and fan adoration is to be taken off the air in a brutal and bloody coup during the height of your brilliance. So enjoy Modern Family while you can, because in a couple years, hyping Modern Family will be as blasé as hyping The Wire. (You liked The Wire? You would like The Wire….)
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Jay-Z and Beyonce watch Beach House perform @ Coachella, sigh.
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Pitchfork writer forced to report on misreable Coachella experience.
After rating the band’s sophmore album ‘Odd Blood’ an MGMT-esque 6.1, Pitchfork continued their onslaught on the ‘Avant-garde Indie-folk-pop-trio’ by criticizing their Coachella performance as ‘farty’
These guys annoy me like few others— in large part because they’re so close to being something awesome that when they miss the mark, it feels even more like a waste. (Judging from the pungency of the Mojave Tent, many took Yeasayer’s 4:20 start time to heart and predictably bugged out when Keating did his robo-fart vocal thing during “The Children”, a prime candidate for the worst song of any major indie act in 2010.)
‘Robo-fart vocal thing’, nice.
Other bands getting the p4k’d in the review, She & Him:
More surprising was their complete lack of stage presence, though you get the feeling it’s an intentional outgrowth of a band who’s had to be self-conscious of its legitimacy from the get-go. M. Ward can write his own ticket on guitar skills alone and their lead singer’s a movie star, but all the deference just seemed like a waste considering how many bands did more with less this weekend.
But they did have this nice line about Pavement.
And in large part due to Malkmus’ diffident profile in GQ, there was a sneaking suspicion that not everyone was equally excited about dusting off “Summer Babe” or “Gold Soundz” for people who were more interesting in acquiring their next beer than wondering whether Wowee Zowee would be given its proper due in the setlist. But as the set went on, the band seemed to be enjoying not just themselves but the company of each other. It’s not like Pavement’s influence isn’t still wholly prevalent in 2010 but at times, it was refreshing how five guys armed with the necessities of great songs and a sharp sense of humor can still sound like everything you ever wanted out of left-of-the-dial rock.
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Why You Hate Cilantro
I absolutely love cilantro, but then again I have a marvelously sophisticated palate and a gustatory open-mindedness that allows me to enjoy most flavors, even those from societies I am not genetically or culturally predisposed to be fond of. Those of who you dislike cilantro and feel perhaps a bit ashamed of that fact are in luck: Science says there may be a hereditary reason for your aversion.(Via Awl)
