I'm staying at a hotel in a planned community in Irving, Texas (between Dallas and Fort Worth) known as Los Colinas.
As I drove here, I wondered "Where the hell have I heard Los Colinas before... Los Colinas... Los Colinas..."
Got to my hotel and got on wikipedia and found this:
"Many people will recognize Las Colinas as referenced by Lawrence (of Office Space fame), who awoke early in the morning to erect the drywall at the new McDonald's."
Hole-E Shit.
EDIT: I guess the majority of Office Space was filmed in Austin. Still.
Although it leaked back in February, TV on the Radio's second LP, Return to Cookie Mountain, was released in the USA on the 12th.
If you know me, I've been verbally fellating this album for months. It's a bit more accessible than their earlier stuff (although that's great too), but still takes a while to grow on you. Heck, I wasn't much into the band when I first heard 'Staring at the Sun' and now they're up there with Pinback and Radiohead as my favorite bands of all time.
And I'll say it for the 23892nd time: 'Wolf Like Me' is the best single of the last five years.
And although I hate to cite various music critics to back up my opinions, etc...
"The disc might be the most oddly beautiful, psychedlic and ambitious of the year...Consider your mind blown." -Rolling Stone (4.5 out of 5 stars)
"The latest experiment from TV on the Radio goes horribly right." -Entertainment Weekly (A-) "A punk gospel uplift that's often profoundly moving. There's an old saying that agitators play music because they like the noise it makes. TV on the Radio play noise because they like the music it makes." -Spin
"This album has such an incredible pull: It doesn't make an atmosphere so much as a space to spend time in, and Adebimpe doesn't become a narrator so much as a witness." -Pitchfork (9.1 out of 10)
"Anyone who spouts the perennial music is dead argument need only look to TV on the Radio for proof otherwise. Give up now, guys, because it rarely gets better than this." -URB
And my favorite:
"...what might just be the best reason we've had for hope--as far as interesting, arty, progressive, well-executed, and mind-fuckingly good music goes--since OK Computer was lodge deep in the throat of music-listeners." -Filter (94%)
A couple of links and videos:
http://www.myspace.com/tvotr - Their myspace page (free place to hear 'Wolf Like Me')
The video for 'Wolf Like Me'
They were on Letterman last night. I missed it; thank all that is awesome for YouTube.
If it isn't your cup of tea after one listen, I implore you - listen to it again. And again. And again. Hey, it worked for me with their last album.
In rememberence of the victims of 9/11 and the ridiculous censorship that followed, here's a list of several songs that were "banned" by Clear Channel following the attacks.
"Down" - 311 "Walk Like an Egyptian" - The Bangles "Ticket to Ride" - The Beatles "Smokin" - Boston "In the Air Tonight" - Phil Collins (perhaps my favorite) "Mack the Knife" - Bobby freakin' Darin "America" - Neil Diamond "Ironic" - Alanis... yeah
So with nothing better to do on Labor Day Eve I went to see 'Russian Dolls', the follow-up to 'The Spanish Apartment'. It was quite good, but anyway, prior to the film, the audience of about a dozen and I were treated to a trailer to Bjork's newest film 'Drawing Restraint 9', which I guess is about Bjork and some guy hanging out on a Japanese whaling ship or something.
Here's the trailer:
From the review on IMDb:
"Possibly tedious at some points, I thought it was equally wonderful that Bjork and Matthew and the Captain and crew had so much leisure to be able to tell the story, to act in this way, to live for weeks or months on the ship and its legacy. But then, I'm a full time artist who has no idea what time it is.
What was happening on the screen was only a key meant to unlock what has always been happening within us, within the deeper scar from which we all are naturally and continually emerging our being"
Yeah, ok dude.
So, anyone want to see this at The Ross? Maybe we can inject LSD into our eyeballs first!
