Weekend Roundup: New M.I.A. song, No Hobbit for Del Toro
All kinds of craziness this Memorial Day weekend:... read more
The 15 Best Music Performances on Late-Night TV in May
This has been Music-On-TV Appreciation Month at Paste. In addition to all the good prime-time music, there’s been a wealth of amazing musical guests on the late-night talk shows lately. A couple of weeks ago, I looked at the state of late-night music, and liked what I saw. Here’s a countdown of my 15 favorite late-night performances from May:... read more
Weird Random Thing of the Day: Meowmania
I’ve seen the future of randomness on the Internet, and it’s name is Meowmania. Click fast, and you’ll be instantly transported back inside the house of that strange old lady across from your childhood home.... read more
Battle of the Bad: John Mayer vs. Phil Collins
We don’t spend a lot of time at Paste randomly hating on bands—“Signs of Life” and all that. But I made the comment in the office yesterday that I thought John Mayer was the new Phil Collins. I’ll admit both have their merits. Collins had Genesis, and Mayer has his mad guitar chops and the Trio (not to mention Decatur, Ga., roots and the good sense to take The Avett Brothers on tour). But the debate that followed was intense and, sadly, involved much playing of Mayer and Collins songs. So I took the question to my Twitter and Facebook... read more
Awesome of the Day: "Sassy Gay Friend" On Shakespeare
“Meet Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. She’s about to take her own life. This fate could have been avoided if she had a sassy, gay friend.” So begins the first of the “Sassy Gay Friend” series from Chicago’s legendary Second City comedy troupe. The short films, starring Brian Gallivan and directed by Joshua Funk, offer alternative endings to your favorite Shakespearean plays if only the tragic female characters had a sassy gay friend to talk some sense into them.... read more
Awesome of the Day: Every Painting in the MoMA in Two Minutes
Chances are, you weren’t planning on visiting the Museum of Modern Art today. For a glimpse of what you’re missing and an espresso-sized jolt to your soul, check out the video below from 61-year-old YouTube user chrspck. Just two minutes and five seconds, it contains every piece displayed last Sunday in the MoMA’s painting galleries.... read more
Awesome of the Day: Grandaddy + Earlimart = Admiral Radley
Because Earlidaddy and Grandimart really are terrible names, the new project from Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle and Aaron Burtch plus Earlimart’s Ariana Murray and Aaron Espinoza is called Admiral Radley. The collaborators recently recorded an album at Espinoza’s recording studio, The Ship, which is also the name of his record label, releasing the 11-song debut LP.... read more
Awesome of the Day: State Radio's Oil-Can Guitar
On stage at any State Radio show, tucked among much more conventional instruments is something a little more, er, handmade. A friend of the Boston trio’s guitarist Chad Stokes bought him back an oil-can guitar, purchased on the streets of Capetown, South Africa. Made from a Castrol oil can, bottle tops, plastic and salvaged copper, the unusual six-string has become one of Stokes’ go-to guitars.... read more
Awesome of the Day: Box Set of 1000 Tweets from 1000TimesYes
Last year, freelance music critic Christopher Weingarten pledged to write 1000 music reviews via Twitter in 140 characters or less. He was good to his word, churning out zingers that usually captured the spirit of an album in a handful of words—such as his take on Beirut’s March of the Zapotec/Holland EP: “Earnest goes to Mexico.”... read more
Awesome of the Day: Radio Free Song Club
There’s something wonderfully ambitious about the Radio Free Song Club, a new podcast created by singer/songwriter Kate Jacobs and WFMU DJ Nicholas Hill. They’ve challenged a handful of veteran songwriters to record a new song every month to debut on the show. The “club” now includes Dave Schramm (The Schramms, Yo La Tengo), Peter Blegvad (Golden Palominos), Jody Harris, Victoria Williams, Laura Cantrell, Freedy Johnston, Peter Holsapple (the db’s) and Freakwater’s Janet Beveridge Bean and Catherine Ann Irwin. Shramm serves as the one-man house band, along with guests David Mansfield, Syd Straw and Beth Orton.... read more
Awesome of the Day: Mario Batali + Dogfish Head + Russian River
I love living in Decatur, Ga. I really do. We have better restaurants and pubs within the mile of my home and the Paste office than nearly anywhere else in Atlanta. But every so often, I’m reminded that there are ways we just can’t compete with New York. This is one of those reminders.... read more
Awesome of the Day: "70 Million" Video from Hold Your Horses
“The Last Supper” is just the beginning for the Paris-based seven-piece band Hold Your Horses, which uses live action to recreate 25 iconic paintings—from Vincent Van Gogh to Andy Warhol. It’s way more fun than my college art history class, and the song is pretty great on its own. Check out the band’s MySpace page or watch the video below:... read more
Awesome of the Day: Spike Jonze's I'm Here
Spike Jonze released a new 30-minute short film March 19, available from Absolut at imheremovie.com. It’s your typical boy-robot-meets-girl-robot story, where the band Lost in Trees (fronted by L.A. musician Aska Matsumiya) will change your life. Jonze’s last film was based on one children’s classic, Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, and the new one owes much to another one—Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. It’s a beautiful film about waking up to life and human (er…robot) connection. You can watch the trailer below or watch the full film here.... read more
Awesome of the Day: Imagining Wes Anderson's Spider-Man
It’s easy to pick on Wes Anderson, but truth is, I’ve loved every one of his movies—even Life Aquatic. Still, filmmaker Jeff Loveness is pretty spot on. Here are some imagined outtakes from The Amazing Spider-Man, starring fake Jason Schwartzman, fake Owen Wilson and fake Gwyneth Paltrow.... read more
New Yorker Online Jigsaw Puzzles (Awesome of the Day)
The New Yorker has recently turned 85 years of magazine covers into online jigsaw puzzles. Choose a level of difficulty from 1 to 3 and an easy-to-use app will randomly pick a cover going back to 1925 for you to tackle. From Saul Steinberg’s “View of the World from 9th Avenue” to the Obama family terrorists, you can assemble hundreds of cover illustrations without ever repeating, wasting dozens of hours of your employer’s time (unless you’re a Paste staffer—get back to work!).... read more
8-bit NYC (Awesome of the Day)
Ever imagined your character from Exodus: Ultima III was traveling around the streets of New York instead of the land of Sosaria? Well, 8-Bit NYC# will at least give you a glimpse of what that might have looked like. Brett Camper has mashed up the old-school 8-bit map with the navigability and accuracy of Google maps. “Maps offer us visual architectures of the world, encouraging us to think about and interact with space in particularly constrained ways,” he says in the appropriately designated “Why?” tab. “Take some time to think about New York a little differently. Set out on a... read more
Arts & Faith's Top 100 Films
When Image Journal published its Top 100 Books of the Century, it became my reading list for over a year. Their refreshing selections from 100 different authors manifested “a genuine engagement with the Judeo-Christian heritage of faith, rather than merely using religion as background or subject matter.” Image included some of my then-favorites like Walker Percy, Flannery O’Connor, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein. These writers wrestled honestly with faith, and the list led me to read Frederic Beuchner’s Godric, G.K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday, Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Shusaku Endo’s Silence, Graham Greene’s The Power and... read more
Oskar Blues Gubna Imperial IPA (Awesome of the Day)
First off, let me say that I’ve never been a fan of IPAs. If I wanted my mouth to pucker in bitter rebellion, I’d just chew on an orange peel. Breweries trying to out-hop each other with their Hop Nuclear Meltdown quintuple IPAs and Too Bitter for Satan 6 million IBU brews usually leave me wanting to follow it with a pack of Whoppers for a little malt flavor.... read more
#WebBands (Awesome of the Day)
Occasionally, a Twitter hashtag will rise above the noise and unleash the creativity of the masses in service of the greater good. This week, that greater good is a torrent of great/groan-inducing puns on band names, making them more suited for the web. See them all at #WebBands, but here are some of my favorites:... read more
Preservation Hall w/Tom Waits, Jim James, Buddy Miller & More
Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile, Ani DiFranco, Richie Havens, Andrew Bird, Steve Earle and others sound even better when backed by on the nation's finest jazz ensembles. read more
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