Video of the Day: Alessi’s Ark, “Over the Hill”
Breaking from the recent spate of head-trip clips, Alessi Laurent-Marke takes things in a far more cute, twee direction. Tea party!
Video of the Day: MGMT, “Time to Pretend”
The Dave Fridmann-produced Oracular Spectacular was in my Top 10 for 2008, and the album definitely has legs a year later. MGMT will play Bonnaroo this year, and hopefully there will be new material in the near term. The video has that cheapo chroma key quality of early ’80s Todd Rundgren videos, which is just fine.
Static, Episode 2: Maggie McClure
Interview
“What’s It Like”
“Out of My Mind”
“I Wonder Why”
Video of the Day: The Chandeliers, “Mr. Electric”
Ever watch a “Baby Einstein” video, in which the artisans at Walt Disney film various blinking lights, ’70s-era microfilament lamps and battery-operated toys to ostensibly stimulate your infant’s brain? Consider this video “Hipster Einstein.”
Video of the Day: Dent May, “Meet Me In the Garden”
Some people are just born with no shame whatsoever. Ultrageeks goes ultralounge!
Random 10 for February 18, 2009
I had to rebuild my music library over the past few days, shove it into a new computer and resync the Podsie, so I’ve been unable to do a random for a while.I found about 2,000 songs in strange files that probably had not been touched since the 2001 rush of “definite article” bands. Yes, that’s how old that particular computer was — just before it started making death rattles and emitting toxic fumes.
1. Tahiti 80, “All Around.” More beautiful melodies and simple sentiment from the French perfect-pop band, which released its latest disc, Activity Center, last year. Those familiar with the two-year wait for a domestic release of Fosbury, be prepared.
2. Eels, “Agony.”
3. Curtis Mayfield, “Junkie Chase.”
4. XTC, “That’s Really Super, Supergirl.”
5. Peter Murphy, “A Strange Kind of Love.” One of those artifacts that came out of my digital excavation, but it gave me an excuse to post this video with Murphy performing the song with Trent Reznor. Nice.
6. The White Stripes, “St. Andrew (This Battle is In the Air).”
7. Nina Simone, “Rich Girl.”
8. Amy Millan, “Baby I.”
9. Mates of State, “So Many Ways.”
10. Fight Bite, “Swissexlover.” A stunning song from a Denton dream-pop band that richly deserves an immediate record contract with 4AD.
Video of the Day: Tahiti Boy and the Palmtree Family, “1973″
What you need right now, as you prepare for a productive day, is to let this Parisian psychedelic band send you on a hallucinogenic freakout that would make Sid and Marty Kroft blush.
Video of the Day: Ra Ra Riot, “Can You Tell?”
Well, there’s that. Or, you could ring the doorbell.
Video of the Day: The Presets, “If I Know You”
Director Eva Husson has an eye for choreographed teen drama set to atmospheric electro-pop – she directed M83’s “Kim and Jessie” — and her work on this new one from The Presets is pretty glorious in itself. One caveat: the male dancer touches the sidewalk on Hollywood Boulevard. Don’t ever do that. Ever. There’s not enough Purell in the world.
Static 1: Steven Stark
While we did a soft-launch on this last fall and had to work some kinks out before moving forward, this is the official first episode of “Static,” a new music performance and interview show on NewsOK.com. I’m particularly proud of what’s been done here, and I sincerely hope you like it. My thanks go out to Steven Stark for being the guinea pig, and to my producer/director/videographer Tanner Herriott, who is entirely responsible for the superb look and feel of this new series.
Part 1: Interview
Part 2: Lazarus
Part 3: An Airplane Disappears
Part 4: The Joy of Just Three Chords
