THE AVENUE
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MUSIC
It's Elephant's Makes Debut
By Abigail O’Connell | Feb. 25, 2009What do you get when you mix Fugazi with The Beach Boys?
The Avenue
THE AVENUE
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MUSIC
Album Review: The Bird and The Bee – “Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future”
By ROBERT HILSON | Feb. 18, 2009Aside from an obvious flair for album titling (makes you want to shout, "'Ray Guns' are now, bitch!" doesn't it?), vocalist Inara George and soundboard extraordinaire Greg Kurstin also have a way with swinging '60s pop music set to fantastically modernized, yet still retro, production. Does this make sense? If not, think of "Ray Guns" as the aural equivalent to Disney's Tomorrowland - both create a future that will never exist by looking to tail-finned Cadillacs and moon landings as points of reference. This record awaits the mythical Year 2000, and in so doing, delivers groovy neo-psychedelia ("Ray Gun"), doo-wop era Motown complete with seductress spoken word bits ("Baby"), and breathy cocktail lounge balladeering ("Meteor"), all in a sleek electronic shell. "Diamond Dave," George's irresistible tribute to the great David Lee Roth, is not only the most catchy song here, but the only appropriate evidence by which to date this offering. It's Van Halen hero worship dressed in spacey beats and a plat-blond 'do, and as such, cooler than Judy Jetson in a discotheque.
THE AVENUE
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MUSIC
Album Review: Loney, Dear – “Dear John”
By ROBERT HILSON | Feb. 18, 2009Emil Svanängen is moving on up, literally. Having recorded his first album on a laptop microphone and CD-Rs in his mother's cellar, the Swedish popsmith now makes a big enough name for himself to afford real studio equipment, a high-end computer, and presumably, his own home. In keeping with the little-guy theme, "Dear John" comes off like techno-fied Belle and Sebastian - Svanängen sings in breathless, hushed tones, as if trying to carry on a conversation in a library after running a marathon. Most of these songs flirt with electronic chamber pop, veering at alternate forks into "Phantom of the Opera"-esque theatrics ("Harm") and somber, Postal Service dance tunes ("Summers," which would fit snuggly on "Give Up"). If there's a turnoff, it's that a lot of these tracks are too prettily twee for their own good, like a good-looking guy who never makes the first move. And winds up living in his parents' basement.
THE AVENUE
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MUSIC
Album Review: Dalek – “Gutter Tactics”
By ROBERT HILSON | Feb. 18, 2009If the election of President Barack Obama was a big can't-we-all-just-get-along inquiry to the good people of America, then "Gutter Tactics" is a scathing, unqualified "Hell no!" Or "not yet," anyway. Atop corrosive grooves tangled in haywire electronic beats, this Garden State duo spits tales of torture, war, civil rights abuses and the like, exposing every closeted sin, protesting all the wrongs that still need be righted. "Armed with Krylon" and "Who Medgar Evers Was" make up a suite of continuously devolving ambient rap that taps a well of run-for-your-life paranoia. The latter track works off a big, beefy drumbeat, spiraling feedback and lyrics about assassination. Indeed, this is dark stuff that takes nerve to slog through, and that's speaking nothing of the introductory monologue - a caustic, hell, fire and brimstone throwdown from the Rev. Wright himself. Or as Dalek likes to call it, "feel-good music."
THE AVENUE
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SEX
Embrace your neighbor’s squeaky sex with laughter
By ASHLEY ROSS | Feb. 18, 2009Oh yeah, baby. Harder! Yes, yes, yes!
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MOVIES AND TV
Festival showcases avant–garde films
By MARY MANCHESS | Feb. 18, 2009Random blurs of colors and images. There is static. The screen goes blank. The audience is confused.
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MOVIES AND TV
Rachel' shows close up of emotions, addictions
By JACK BENGE | Feb. 11, 2009Most weddings have those inevitable tense moments: the drunken toast from a distant relative, the mother-in-law's last ditch effort to abort the wedding, the clash of personalities that arise when families come together for the first time.
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MUSIC
Album Review: Bruce Springsteen – “Working on a Dream”
By ROBERT HILSON | Feb. 11, 2009For whatever reason, "40 is the new 30" doesn't necessarily hold in the world of rock 'n roll. Seems the Glimmer Twins have so wrecked all notions of aging gracefully that success in AARP terms simply means not embarrassing oneself. Naturally, the Boss holds to a higher standard - bosses always do - and so "Working on a Dream" plays like another of Springsteen's "best album since…" candidates. Of course, it's not, because it's like the last handful of great songs about gritty underdogs and the power of love, E Street themes through and through. "Life Itself" and the Beach Boys nod "This Life" feels like Asbury Park, 1975, but the goosebumps stuff is in "Last Carnival," a campfire hymn about picking up early and moving on, no matter the circumstance. It's a potent reminder from an ageless guy who still knows best: we gotta get out while we're young.
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MUSIC
Album Review: A.C. Newman – “Get Guilty”
By ROBERT HILSON | Feb. 11, 2009A.C. Newman is a silent killer. Left to his own devices, the New Pornographers' evil genius retreats from hook-a-second power pop to fiddle around with a less potent arsenal - off-kilter rhythms, tuneless guitar riffs, minor-key progressions. They're all here in one form or another, though working only as masking agents, attempting in vain to veil Newman's intoxicating melodies. Preferring slow burn to out-and-out explosion, "There Are Maybe Ten or Twelve" and "Prophets" qualify as growers by Newman standards, but in time each reveals itself as seductively charming as "Mass Romantic" or "Mutiny, I Promise You." "Changeling," on the other hand, is a throwback in this regard. Thriving on a big, obvious, harmony-laced chorus, it's further proof that Newman strikes two ways - in his own words, "Like A Hitman, Like A Dancer."
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MUSIC
Album Review: Bon Iver – “Blood Bank”
By ROBERT HILSON | Feb. 11, 2009"Blood Bank"? More like bloodletting - well, the last song anyway. The first three on this four-track hold-me-over from indie-folk songsmith Justin Vernon ebb and flow with all the woodsy beauty of an icy stream or a staggering moose. Mr. Bon Iver plays sparsely arranged acoustic pop that lives and dies on lyrical content and vocal delivery. In the case of the title track and "Beach Baby," an achingly fragile voice spins off melodic narrative flush with images that come alive in the depth of their detail. "Babys," likewise, continues the theme with cappella passages, chopsticks piano, and a warm refrain - "Summer comes to multiply." This is throw-another-log-on music for snow-ins, chamomile tea and photo albums, except for the unholy Dylan-Daft Punk union of "Woods," which takes a leak on your crackling fire and sends you running for a snow shovel and icepick.
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MUSIC
Indie band reunites with renewed energy, record deal
By JENNIFER ARELLANO | Feb. 11, 2009The musical death and rebirth of a rock band rarely happens in the span of one night. But for Averkiou, such an unusual life cycle is the norm for the three-year-old Gainesville band. Convinced that they were playing their farewell show at Pop Mayhem in May last year after the brief departure of their guitarist, Averkiou played an appropriately rollicking final set.
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MUSIC
Album Review: Franz Ferdinand – “Tonight: Franz Ferdinand”
By ROBERT HILSON | Feb. 11, 2009Trends always expose themselves on the third album. The Look only buys you so much time. Catchy singles only take you so far. By album three, you're either the White Stripes or you're Jet. Or, you're Franz Ferdinand, stuck in that untenable middle ground - milking the same-song formula for all it's worth, and in turn, fielding diminishing returns. So it goes, Tonight's "Ulysses" takes on "Do You Want To," which was take-two on "Take Me Out." That's a lot of "takes" for one sentence, not so many for three and a half years - the time between albums. And if this seems like a momentum killer, well, it is. So too are these songs - "Turn It On" and "Live Alone." They're all the same, really: slinky little danceable groove rockers that have three things in common. All catchy, all disposable, all written by a band destined to be the answer to a trivia question.
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LIFESTYLE
Living in Quarantine
By ERIK VOSS | Feb. 11, 2009During the flu season, people are islands. A nearby cougher is the village leper, his hacking the metaphorical bell clanging a warning of "unclean!" for all those with an upcoming chemistry exam.
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MOVIES AND TV
'Wrestler' shows inside look at life in the ring
By JACK BENGE | Feb. 4, 2009By Jack Benge
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MOVIES AND TV
Demetri Martin explains "Important Things" in life
By DAN SECO | Feb. 4, 2009For many, the opportunity to study at NYU's School of Law on full scholarship epitomizes the term "no-brainer."
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SEX
Accepting "He's Just Not That Into You"
By ASHLEY ROSS | Feb. 4, 2009Let's face it: we've all been there.
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ART AND THEATER
Art benefit rocks local venue
By LEE ZIESCHE | Feb. 4, 2009It is not every day that you find Pepé Le Pew, Abraham Lincoln, and the Virgin Mary hanging on the same wall, but they all found a home at the Wayward Council Art Benefit Show Friday night.
THE AVENUE
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LIFESTYLE
‘Trashed talk’ eases convos
By ERIK VOSS | Jan. 28, 2009As the youngest member of a family of seven, I was the last one to start drinking alcohol.
THE AVENUE
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SEX
How to find and seduce a valentine
By ASHLEY ROSS | Jan. 28, 2009There are only about two weeks left until that dreaded holiday, the one full of an obnoxious amount of pink, with roses everywhere and events planned to remind you that you're single.
THE AVENUE
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MUSIC
Q&A with Streetlight Manifesto
By HENRY TAKSIER | Jan. 28, 2009Streetlight Manifesto, New Jersey's beloved third-wave ska band, will play Wednesday at Common Grounds. The show, which also features A Wilhelm Scream, The Swellers and The Stitch Up, begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are for $14.
