Show Tubes: The Indy Mogul Overload


From the depths of the Indy Mogul offices come their latest BFX test film: freeze face. And by film I mean music video with music provided by Keelay.

What is Indy Mogul?
They are young, gonzo filmmakers. They make, and show, other young filmmakers how to create cheap visual effects for their backyard films. Imagine what the world would have been like if Steven Spielberg had these tools available during his formative film years? Darren Aronofsky might have gotten the awesome of THE FOUNTAIN to our eyes a few years earlier. The creation catalyst potential is endless.

EriK Beck is your guide through: 1) talking about the special FX in question 2) showing a test film using said FX. It’s just that easy. Their blog features daily notices and I hear their forums are filled with its fare share of talented creators. They are basically super film geeks on a whole ‘nother level. That level being The Internet.

Sidenote: Another Indy Mogul favorite of mine is THE SPIRIT’S DAY OFF. It became so popular that they followed up with a behind the scenes look at that film. Let it be known that is about as close as I’ll get to watching The Spirit on film. That is until they do a reboot of the franchise 10 years later or when I’m liquored up late, on a Saturday night, and happen to land on an HBO viewing.

Indy Mogul also features…



The Best/Worst Overload to Keep You Busy


The year’s nowhere near over but the best/worst lists are piling up like week old laundry. I don’t have anything against such year end reviews. I just never made the time to see/watch/read/do all the things discussed on said lists. Any reviews I make would be damn incomplete. So I’ll rely on others to do my dirty work.* Then judge them appropriately when I find their results wrong.

Heh.

Entertainment Weekly’s Best & Worst of 2008
It’s surprising how a crap magazine can get a few things right once in a while.

himym-indyshoot

I’m tempted to pick up EW tomorrow for the HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER photoshoot. The entire cast acts out random moments in 2008. If the show were as cool as the cast seems to be, I’d still be watching HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER.

Pitchfork Media put forth two bits of bests so far. For those who don’t know, they’re the Indie Rock Pete of the online music media game. Bursting forth from the ashes of what Rolling Stone used to be, maybe 20 years ago, I look forward to running through their tracks to discover something new and majestic and not found easily on mainstream radio.



Goku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei's OP Part the Second Blasts Your Soul


Being amazed, and slightly disturbed, by the GSZS first opening sequence was not enough for SHAFT.

Part two of Goku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei OVA series has arrived to strip your brains of all fears and hate. Then it will tease your desires with grand dollops of meta-potty humor. Above you see the new OP(that’s opening to non-anime watchers) for this direct to DVD version of the series.



Groonkly Bit: On Dinosaurs and Lollipops…and Hookers


The return of weekly quotes from anyone who wears the mask of sagacity, makes me think, or downright laugh out loud.

From the comments section of Ectomo’s Noise du Jour: “Letter From God To Man” By Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip:

Wait, hookers have lollipops? This. Changes. Everything. —Jason – Gorilla Sushi

The hookers in question lay below the jump.



Pearl Jam's Idea: Buyable Live Recordings in Multiple Formats


Coming in a day late, yet still completely free, is today’s music note: Pearl Jam’s 2008 Bootleg Program. Now Pearl Jam is one of my curious bands from my College Life Mach I. I first heard them while I was attending College A(that’s what we’ll call it in effort for me to remain distanced and objective).

Totally Skippable Flashback Sequence
Growing up in the middle of nowhere has its perks but one of those is not an influx of new music. At home I had the mainstream movies and TV giving me peeks at what I was missing. High School was new music hell. It was a place and time that all anyone breathed, thought and drank was hip hop. To this day, I know I would not be as bored with the genre if I wasn’t near drowned in it for half a decade.

Cut to the early 90s. I hit the college scene. Being surrounded by music, people and ideas that were new and different. It was a bit off-putting at first. That morphed into fucking fantastic pretty damn quick. It was during this time Charles introduced me to Pearl Jam‘s TEN. I knew I would never be the same again. I followed their sound as best I could. ( Remember kids, The Internet wasn’t as user friendly to as it is now.) I shudder to think how things would have turned if I had access to a proper Internets back in those days.

I grabbed up each and every new album. I just wanted that same feeling again. Each one had their moments but none ever lived up to TEN. Even so, I kept and eye on what they were up to. Their failed, yet inspiring, battle with Ticketmaster. Temple of the Dog.

Nowadays it’s their social battles that hold my interest. How they use their fame to affect change or the new ways they aim to get music to their fans. I like how they don’t crap on their fanbase like a lot of the “Big Bands” past and present.

What You Really Want to Know: 2008 Bootleg Programme
I’ve learned, by way of their myspace, Pearl Jam’s expanding on their Bootleg Program. Two weeks after each concert jam, you’ll be able to buy the digital bootlegs in mp3 or, the more awesome(yet space consuming),FLAC formats at a reasonable price.

For those of you who only want PJ streamed through their Intertubes and want nothing to do with this payment business, you can visit Pearl Jam Live.com. They’ve got concerts listed back to 1990. I can’t tell you about their quality because the site does not seem to like Firefox. The third browser crash gave me that clue.

If you must have the physical evidence of you Pearl Jam love in your hands, that can be arranged too. Also, Mobile Bootlegs of 3 stand-out tracks per concert. This is offered through Verizon, of course, because AT&T would never think to jump onto something quite as useful. Complete details for each are provided at Pearl Jam’s MySpace.

Who knew MySpace was still useful much less relevant?

While PJ, on the other hand, remains innovative well into the 21st Century.



Peter Gabriel's The Filter has more Holes than Necessary


Music week staggers forward. The other day BuzzFeed pointed out that Peter Gabriel has become involved with The Filter.

‘What is The Filter?’ you ask.

Well you could risk being bored to death by Gabriel’s Tech Crunch’d explanation on why we need sites like The Filter:

… or I can take a stab at the general tagline. What it aims to do is collect data on your likes and dislikes, be them music or movies or TV shows(currently unavailable), and from this data it offers up new things that might be up your alley.

First off, the navigation is clunky as hell. It feels like I’m in an 80s video rental store trying not to knock down random other merchandise off the shelves as I make my selections. I browse the music section and randomly gave the CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY soundtrack a 70% good rating. The Filter, in turn, recommends Ennio Morricone‘s SQUARE DANCE. I’ve never heard of Morricone’s SQUARE DANCE but I know of his work via oh, so many, spaghetti western scores. So on some level I think The Filter is on to something.

But the movies need work. After toggling the necessary genres to get the ball rolling on movie rating I found that ball landed squarely in the 1930s era. There nothing wrong with a good old movie. I’m just not as versed in those flicks as I would be in the last few decades or so. Pinpoint searching and rating to tweak the movie finder didn’t help as most of the movies I liked denied me rating access. So here I am, stuck in the 1930s viewing pleasures.

I understand that The Filter is still in beta and because of this I’ll come back in a month or two to see if they’ve worked out the kinks. Otherwise, I’ll stick to Pandora to recommend my new music. I have hope for The Filter because just a few years ago Pandora was in the same place.



Signal to Noise to Music


You’ll have to forgive the weak emptiness of this end of The Nation. I’ve either not had the time and not made the time needed to throw together words of woe, wisdom or otherwise. Short bursts is all I can mange these days.

We will try for themes though. This week will be music. My searches will refine to anything audio or visual. Anything worth a damn on the listening scale.

Ectomo’s Noise Du Jour kicks the week off with the tried but true “noise from random electronic objects that somehow makes a listenable sound experience.” Radiohead ran a mix contest for their song “Nude” and this is one of what they got: Big Ideas (Don’t Get Any)

The orchestra assembled?

  • Sinclair ZX Spectrum – Guitars (rhythm & lead)
  • Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer – Drums
  • HP Scanjet 3c – Bass Guitar
  • Hard Drive array – Act as a collection of bad speakers – Vocals & FX


Prince is 50, Y'all


The Purple One.

This means you, foo

The writer/singer/everything of such masterpieces as “Darling Nikki” and “Housequake” just rolled the life-odometer to half a century.

Half, a fucking, century.

The BBC charted his successes:

Prince discography success

I’m taking my turn on a smaller level. In no particular order, my top 7 most favorite wouldn’t dare skip ahead or stop mid-song Prince songs are:

  • Darling Nikki
  • HouseQuake
  • Pope
  • Alphabet Street
  • Get Off (The Dirty Version)
  • Morning Papers
  • Starfish and Coffee

What are your Top 7 Prince songs, ever?

Comments are currently open.

Speak.



Weezer Covers BoA, Risks My Unbridled Fury


I admit that Weezer’s recent resurgence of Pork & Beans (a lesson in Internet Famous) was good enough to make me appreciate their skills. Hell, I may even like them again. But now they’re stepping in sacred waters. Now they dare to cover multilingual K-Pop, J-Pop Korean star BoA “Meri Kuri.”

Singing about dorks on the Internets is one thing. When you start crossing linguistic barriers and step into the awesome of the BoA zone, you best bring your A game.

What I’m hearing here (below) is B minus at best.

Hear “Meri Kuri” as the mega-hotness that is BoA intended under the cut.



Groonkly Bit: Nostalgia Tricks Your Senses


I’m having trouble describing this tune.

It’s more raw emotion than anything.

It transcends words like love and hate.

Like the end theme to an awesome movie.