Seeing Double.

Though the Academy somewhat made up for last year's travesty of an Awards show by at least giving every award to a defensible candidate, and in most cases actually giving it to the most deserving film, the world is still feeling the shockwaves of last year's Oscar fiasco. I'm referring of course to the triple Oscar victory for Paul Haggis's overwrought crapfest Crash. For those that are unfamiliar with Paul Haggis and his long tradition of hackneyed, melodramatic schlock, I'll give you a little primer. Haggis got his start writing genre television for shows like The Love Boat, Diff'rent Strokes and thirtysomething. Then he became a hero to middle-aged rednecks everywhere when he created Walker, Texas Ranger. His debut film Crash shocked critics everywhere by becoming perhaps the most widely panned film to ever win a Best Picture Oscar. He then tried his hand at doing quarter-life crisis film (a la Garden State) and put out Last Kiss (the fact that he's well into his 50s and still feels the need to make this sort of crap speaks volumes about the maturity level we're dealing with here).

The most recent fallout from Haggis's inexplicable success comes in the form of NBC's recent attempt to find a one-hour drama to bump Studio 60 out of it's time slot while they decide whether or not to axe it for good. The show is called The Black Donnelys and it's everything we've come to expect from the master dramatist, with its erraticly-behaving, one-dimensional characters (which is not to be confused for genuine depth or complexity), whole plot lines that manage to build and resolve themselves in less than three scenes, and redundant voice-over narration that wants you to believe that it's much wittier than it actually is. Though the most annoying feature of the show, for me, is the way it grossly misrepresents the City of New York. The show is ostensibly set in Hell's Kitchen, which contrary to it's title is now a fairly tame, heavily gentrified neighborhood, so the idea that Hell's Kitchen is affordable real estate to a family of working-class orphans is just absurd. It's a show that desperately wants to exist in the hard, gritty version of New York that Scorsese made famous in the 70s, but in the Disneyfied post-Giuliani New York just rings disingenuous. The Irish economy is booming, and Little Italy only exists as a tourist attraction at this point, so why does Paul Haggis insist on trying to make me care about a family of whiny, self-entitled brats still clinging to ethnic conflicts that sputtered out decades ago. I don't have the energy to explain all of the ways in which this is the most obnoxious show on television, but if you're interested, this review spells it out pretty well.

Blogging the Oscars

8:30 - Errol Morris takes a break from his important work for Miller High Life to bring us the opening talking head montage.

8:37 - Ellen shows up in appropriately dykish maroon leisure suite, mentions something about celebrating all nominees, not just winners, in an apparent effort by the Academy to make winning their award even more meaningless.

8:41 - Obligatory cutaway to Jack Nicholson. No hair. Does he have cancer? Still has psychotic grin on his face. I guess he's probably okay.

8:50 - Maggie Gyllenhaal tries to convince me to care about science and technology awards. I take the opportunity to leave the room and get another drink.

8:54 - Will Ferrell and Jack Black musical number is funnier than any movie either of them has done in the past two years. I cry a little inside.

9:00 - Pan's Labyrinth wins for makeup, marking a victory for Mexican comic book geeks everywhere, defeat for Adam Sandler in a fat suit.

9:15 - Greg Kinnear and Steve Carrel ironically mock sound editors for being lame and boring. Sound editors accept award, give lame, boring speech.

9:25 - Alan Arkin beats Eddie Murphy, wins for what was definitely the funniest performance of the year, gives annoyingly self-serious speech, and I'm now losing my Oscar pool very badly.

9:23 - Dove introduces crappy homemade ad campaign, hoping to cash in on the underrepresented demographic of girls that aspire to be fat and dumpy-looking.

9:35 - Melissa Ethridge song sucks, makes me want to pollute something. Tell me again why Prince wasn't up for this award.

9:45 - Cutesy penguin movie wins and I lose all hope of winning the pool. Time for another drink.

9:53 - Departed wins for writing. Myself and my party of ex-film students feel smug sense of self-satisfaction after correcting the announcer who incorrectly refers to Infernal Affairs as a "Japanese" film. (Haha. . . it's from Hong Kong. . . stupid!)

10:15 - Children of Men loses award for cinematography. I don't even know why I'm still keeping tabs on this pool.

10:20 - Robert Downey Jr. makes a joke about his drug problem. The audience is noticably uncomfortable.

10:33 - I'm really itching to make fun of this silhouetted dance thing, but this Snakes On a Plane bit is just too good.

10:36 - Jennifer Hudson wins. Beyonce pretends to be happy for her, gives best performance of her career.

10:48 - Al Gore loses presidency on a technicality, wins award statuette.

10:50 - Ennio Morricone is honored with a lifetime achievement award, then disgraced by a performance of his music by a watered-down Canadian pop singer. Again, why was Prince not available?

11:07 - The writers of the show run out of steam and refer to Hugh Jackman as the "Volverine".

11:15 - Little Miss Sunshine wins for original screenplay. Eat it Babel.

11:24 - Beyoncee almost gives herself a coronary trying to outsing Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls medley.

11:30 - Crappy Melissa Etheridge song wins. This is bullshit.

11:38 - Michael Mann uses his years of experience directing action movies to put together a montage sequence on American history that's just as macho and angry as his films.

11:45 - Bruno Kirby, Don Knotts, Robert Altman, Scotty - RIP.

11:50 - Helen Mirren's rack accepts award for the Queen (note to self - add Caligula to Netflix queue).

12:00 - Pogues song in Cadillac ad doesn't make me want to buy an Escalade, does make me want a beer.

12:10 - Scorsese wins. The crowd goes wild. Cubs prepare for World Series victory.

12:14 - Diane Keaton pops three vallium before coming out to present best picture, makes the bald Jack Nicholson look stable and together.

12:15 - The Departed wins and I momentarily have faith in humanity.

Pregaming the Oscars

Last night Erin and I went to Letters from Iwo Jima closing out our Oscar-movie watching marathon. It was reasonably well done, but mostly it was a generic, cliched war movie and the fact that its a sympathetic portrayal of Japanese soldiers directed by an old, white American is not enough to make it a brilliant film. So having now watched the bulk of nominated movies I'm gonna throw out my amateur predictions for tomorrow night. I'm too lazy to post all of the nominees, but if you're interested, you can see them here.

Best Picture
Idealistic Prediction: The Departed
Cynical Prediction: Babel
Luckily, The Departed is the frontrunner in this category, but since Babel is pretty much the same film as Crash but ten times better (which should not be construed as an endorsement of either film), I wouldn't be surprised if Alejandro González Iñárritu's international pity-fest walks away with this one.

Best Director
Idealistic Prediction: Martin Scorsese for The Departed
Cynical Prediction: Clint Eastwood for Letters from Iwo Jima
Though I fear it would be somewhat anticlimactic for Martin Scorsese to actually win this award (I mean, does he really want to accept an award from an organization that previously decided that Kevin Costner was a better filmmaker than he was?), he did direct the best movie of the last year and I would hope that the Academy is tired of kissing Clint Eastwood's bony, wrinkled ass. . . but maybe not.

Best Actor
Idealistic Prediction: Peter O'Toole for Venus
Cynical Prediction: Forrest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland
(Disclamer: I somehow managed to not see any of the nominated movies in this category, but I'm not gonna let that stop me). Forrest is definitely favored in this category and probably deserves the award, but it would be refreshing to see someone who has been shut out numorous times only to be given a token lifetime achievement award actually win the real thing. Plus, I'm still bitter about that time I had to watch First Daughter on a plane.

Best Actress
Idealistic Prediction: Helen Mirren for The Queen
Cynical Prediction: Helen Mirren for The Queen
Helen Mirren will get this award, and she deserves it. Period.

Best Supporting Actor
Idealistic Prediction: Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine or Mark Wahlberg for The Departed
Cynical Prediction: Eddie Murphy for Dreamgirls
Alright, I get it. Eddie Murphy is talented. He can sing and dance and act and channel James Brown all in the same movie. But since I was born in 1984, all I can think of when somebody mentions his name is fat suits and a bad dance song with Rick James in the video. And I get that Alan Arkin and Mark Wahlberg both played completely one-dimensional characters, but you can't deny that they both completely own every scene they're in in their respective films.

Best Supporting Actress
Idealistic Prediction: Jennifer Hudson
Cynical Prediction: Jennifer Hudson
With one performance she singlehandedly proves that Beyoncee can't sing and that American Idol is a failure. No complaints here.

Best Original Screenplay
Idealistic Prediction: Little Miss Sunshine
Cynical Prediction: Babel
Did I mention that Babel is crap. Because it is. Little Miss Sunshine is a comedy that doesn't pander to frat guys or lonely, single women, and it's actually funny. When was the last time you could say that about a movie?

Best Adapted Screenplay
Idealistic Prediction: The Departed
Cynical Prediction: The Departed
Not that I wouldn't mind seeing Children of Men or Borat win this one, but The Departed succeded in taking one of the most ridiculous premises I've ever heard, and not only made it seem plausible, but turned it into one of the most hardcore gangster movies of all time.

Best Cinematography
Idealistic Prediction: Children of Men
Cynical Prediction: Children of Men
After being robbed of nominations Best Picture and Director, it'll be good to see this movie get some love, even if it's in a category that nobody in America is gonna give a shit about.

Best Editing
Idealistic Prediction: The Departed
Cynical Prediction: Babel
Just because a movie has four storylines and extended montage sequences in every other scene doesn't mean it's well edited, especially when it's at least 20 minutes too long.

Best Art Direction
Idealistic Prediction: Pan's Labrynth
Cynical Prediction: Dreamgirls
For the record, I think Children of Men should have been nominated and won for this award, but since it didn't, it should go the next best film by a Mexican with an overactive imagination.

Best Costume Design
Idealistic Prediction: Marie Antoinette
Cynical Prediction: Dreamgirls
There's pretty much no way that Dreamgirls isn't gonna win this award, but I'd like to point out that Marie Antoinette is the only costume period piece I've ever seen that actually makes light of the absudity of 19th century clothing.

Best Original Score
Idealistic Prediction: Babel
Cynical Prediction: Babel
Alright, I admit it. The music in Babel was pretty good.

Best Song
Idealistic Prediction: ??
Cynical Prediction: ??
Whatever. Prince wasn't nominated. And since all the good songs in Dreamgirls were apparently lifted from the stage musical (and thereby not elligible) I'm not even gonna pretend like I care who wins this one.

Best Makeup
Idealistic Prediction: Pan's Labrynth
Cynical Prediction: Pan's Labrynth
In case you're interested, there are only two other nominees for this award, and they are Click and Apocalypto. Since one is an Adam Sandler movie and the other is directed by the most vocal American anti-semite since Henry Ford, Pan's Labrynth pretty much wins by default.

Best Sound
Idealistic Prediction: Dreamgirls
Cynical Prediction: Dreamgirls
It was a two-and-a-half hour musical that I sat though and didn't hate. I guess it deserves some credit.

Best Sound Editing
Idealistic Prediction: Letters from Iwo Jima
Cynical Prediction: Flags of Our Fathers
Don't know. Don't care.

Best Animated Film
Idealistic Prediction: Cars
Cynical Prediction: Cars
Let's not kid ourselves here. Pixar could make a movie about the zany adventures of an anthropomorphic turd and it would still be better than anything that any other studio is doing.

Best Foreign Language Film
Idealistic Prediction: Pan's Labrynth
Cynical Prediction: Pan's Labrynth
It's good. Everybody loves it. It's gonna win.

Best Documentary
Idealistic Prediction: An Inconvenient Truth
Cynical Prediction: An Inconvenient Truth
Okay, I admit it. I didn't see any of the nominees for this one (even though I apparently own a copy of An Inconvenient Truth), but c'mon, Al Gore has had such bad luck with elections. Let's throw him a bone here.

Farewell to the OC. . . Bitch

If you notice me wearing all black and burning incense in the next few days, don't be alarmed. I'm simply mourning the death of the best primetime soap opera of two years ago. Sure, the last two seasons of the OC didn't exactly reach the high bar set by the first two seasons (and what does, really?), spawning numerous pointless storylines and some of the lamest characters ever to be seen on primetime TV (Che, Johnny, Hercules). But remembering the OC for its latter-day sins would be like going to James Brown's wake and talking about how much of a junkie and wife-beater he was. So I want to remember the OC for the good times. . . like when Ryan fights Luke that first time. . . or when Ryan fights Luke that other time and they burn down the house. . . or when Ryan and Luke find out that Luke's dad is gay and then they both get in a fight with the kids from the other high school. . . or when Peter Gallagher uses the super-powers granted to him by his gigantic eyebrows to solve whatever problem the kids have created for themselves that week.


I know some of you are snickering, but I can assure you that my appreciation for the OC is 100% not ironic. In what could have easily been just another teen drama about the mundane troubles of the idle rich (which if Laguna Beach and The Real Housewives of Orange County are any indicator, would definitely be a more accurate portrayal of Newport Beach), ended up being a brilliant story of male-bonding between outsiders living within the community of vapid, materialistic snobs, giving hope to wise-cracking comic book geeks everywhere that they too can befriend a hot-headed, soft-spoken bruiser from the wrong side of the tracks and sleep with Rachel Bilson. Plus, I have to give the show credit for introducing a generation of tween-pop loving girls to something outside the world of top-40 radio, even if that alternative is Rooney and Death Cab for Cutie.

RIP OC.

Francophonic Spree

Last Wednesday (that's Valentine's Day, for the record) when Erin and I came home to our apartment, we were greeted by a somewhat hostile letter from our building's management informing us that our superintendent will be visiting our apartment sometime in the near future to inspect it and make sure that we have sufficient carpeting, because the obnoxious frenchman that lives below us and seems to take joy in aggressively pounding on our floor (his ceiling) whenever we walk around our apartment at some time that isn't between the hours of 10am and 8pm, has apparently gotten fed up with our (though mostly our cat's) "excessively loud walking" and ratted us out to the super. Though I feel that this gives me every right to get on the French-hating bandwagon, I was persuaded to love the French again after going to Mercury Lounge to see French-Canadian indie pop sensation Malajube.

Let me first say that I thought their much underrated album Trompe L'Oeil was one of my favorites of last year, though I always thought their lack of English lyrics was just a novelty (like Christina Aguilera's Spanish album or Adam Sandler trying to make serious films), so I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only do they speak fluent French, but they speak pretty much no English (and by that I mean none). They opened the set with an extended instrumental jam, which might have alienated the audience had anybody actually been able to sing along to their songs with lyrics, then the singer greeted the audience in his thick French accent, "Hallo anglophones," followed by an incoherent string of words that were apparently supposed to be English. Then they kicked into "La Monogamie" with enough intensity to keep the hairs on the back of my neck raised for the better part of the night, and managed to keep that energy level going for most of the show. If nothing else, it was refreshing to see a band that actually looked like they were having a good time, especially after watching the uber-serious opening band, Snowden, whose over-earnest posturing would surely make Michael Stipe blush and, inexplicably, had a larger crowd than Malajube.

On a side note, I saw a bunch of movies this weekend as well. Children of Men was amazing - by far the most painstakingly constructed dystopian future I've ever seen in a film (the guy living in the cover art of Pink Floyd's Animals was a particularly nice touch). While I usually find the shaky, handheld camera technique hackneyed and nauseating (OC I'm looking in your direction), this movie pulled it off brilliantly, and the 5-minute-long single-shot sequences blew my fucking mind. This might not top The Departed as my favorite movie of the year, but it comes pretty damn close.

Dreamgirls was pretty much what I expected it to be. The story was too jumpy to really make it a cohesive film, but I found it a generally entertaining riff on the history of soul music. Jennifer Hudson is as good as she's hyped to be. Beyoncee is just as vaccuous and unremarkable as she is in real life. And Eddie Murphy is good enough to make me die a little every time I see a poster for one of his fat-suit movies.

I also saw Music & Lyrics (don't ask) this weekend, which was (expectedly) schmaltzy, but surprisingly enjoyable. Hugh Grant's dry self-deprication has apparently grown on me in the past few years and I managed to get through most of the movie without having the urge to beat Drew Barrymore over the head with a blunt object. Even the music was halfway decent (lest you think I've lost my credibility as a music snob, I'll remind you that the original music was done by power-pop guru Adam Schlessinger of Fountains of Wayne).

I still gotta make it through Babel, Letters From Iwo Jima, United 93 and Last King of Scotland by Sunday. Wish me luck.

If you thought 24 was funny. . .

It's good to know that George Bush has fucked up badly enough that conservatives are allowed to pretend they're an oppressed minority again. After all, there's nothing more ridiculous than than feigned martyrdom. For further evidence of this I turn to Joel Surnow, the producer of action-drama-turned-right-wing-manifesto 24, who has apparently taken it upon himself to produce a conservative answer to The Daily Show for Fox News. Whereas The Daily Show and The Colbert Report get their laughs by lampooning the hypocrisy and sensationalism of mainstream cable news, The 1/2 Hour News Hour will try to get laughs by mocking. . . The Daily Show and The Colbert Report?



Hahahaha. . . see, it's funny because Barack Obama is popular. . . Wait, did he just make a Marion Barry joke? Also, is it just me or does the laughter in this clip sound suspiciously like the laugh track from an 80s sitcom (apparently the sound of forced laughter is timeless). Doesn't Fox News understand that angry white men watch their network precisely because they don't have a sense of humor. I guess that's what they're counting on.

If you're interested in seeing something that's actually funny, check out this clip from last week's Family Guy. I almost gave myself a hernia watching this.

Fuck Tha Police

Last night the Recording Academy commenced the annual industry circle jerk known as the Grammy Awards, illustrating, yet again, why the Grammys are the only awards ceremony with less credibility than a Cable Aces. As usual, I tuned out, but after checking last night's winners I thought I'd give my own personal tribute to "Best New Artist" winners of years past:

Carrie Underwood, you're in good company.

Alright, Still

Arctic Monkeys, it's time to pass your crown. The award for most overhyped UK pop sensation of 2007 goes to. . . [drum roll]. . . Lily Allen.

"But Jimmy," you say, "I was listening to Lily Allen back in September and she was just as overhyped back then." Unfortunately, thanks to the gross inefficiency of the US record industry, Lily didn't get a stateside release of her album until the end of January. So, now that they have the blessing of EMI, MTV can join the hype machine in the hopes that the same angsty tween girls that inexplicably put Lady Sovereign on the top of TRL will do the same for Lily.


Nevertheless, Alright Still was one of my favorite albums of the last year, and, after missing her show at the Hiro Ballroom last October, Erin and I wanted to check out her (abjectly titled) "MTV: Discover and Download" show at Webster Hall last night.

Here's a picture I took:













Here's a picture I wish I took:













Despite a chorus of overzealous girls behind us that felt the need to sing 20 decibles over PA and a woman standing in front of us that I have to assume is a point guard for the WNBA, I can't say I was disappointed with the show. Lily proved herself a somewhat unseasoned performer by not being able to stop herself from cracking up during a few numbers, which might have been offputting from any other singer, but in this case it was sort of endearing. Even towards the end of her set, when she was taking shots while puffing on a cigarette (which I might add did not stop her from hitting every note perfectly), she still couldn't stop me from thinking she was totally adorable. The set was a bit short, but she made up for it with some decent covers.

Pop and (very little) Jazz

This week the Village Voice released their annual digest of year-end music polls known as the Pazz and Jop list (don't ask my why they even pretend to include jazz as an option - Ornette Coleman squeezes in at 21, but he's the only one in the top 100). The rundown of the top ten is as follows:

1. Bob Dylan - Modern Times
2. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
3. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
4. The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls In America
5. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
6. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am Thats What I'm Not
7. Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
8. Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
9. Joanna Newsom - Ys
10. Tom Waits - Orphans

The list is a fairly predictable (though eclectic) mix of overhyped indie rock, avante Hip-Hop, chick folk, and grizzled old men writing songs about being grizzled and old. With the exception of the Artic Monkeys (who I find so ridiculously overrated that I wondered if I didn't accidentally download the wrong album) I found the list fairly unobjectionable. I was glad to see my favorite album of the year, Yo La Tengo's I'm Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass in the top 20 along with Sonic Youth and Belle & Sebastian. Bob Dylan's place at the top along with Tom Waits at 10, and Bruce Springsteen at 19 makes me wonder whether rock critics will throw praise at any venerated musician that hasn't completely lost their spine (you'll notice that the Who don't make an appearance in the top 100).

While I thought Bob Dylan probably did make the most tasteful album of the last year, the album mostly succeeded in putting me to sleep (even if it did spawn my favorite music video of the last year), so I was disappointed to see him inch out TV on the Radio, who took a chance on a much more ambitious record. Let me also say that I was glad to see Gnarls Barkley in the top ten. Backlashers be damned, I still enjoy this album. Even though the single has worn a bit thin after the 3 millionth listen, I think I'd still rather listen to "Crazy" than "Hey Ya". Plus I have to give it up for any song that succeeds in uniting holier-than-thou hipsters with drunken club sluts (Thanks Gnarls).

Reppin the 505

As the innaugural post on my semi-ironically titled pop culture blog, I shall begin by asking (myself) the question: why should I, a shipping clerk who dropped-out of/graduated college after only three years, add his own hackneyed voice to the cacaphonous glut of amateur journalism on the internet? Is it because I have something pertinent and meaningful to add to the general cultural discourse? Is it because the world is hungry for the opinions of another over-educated, underworked twentysomething with an interest in independent music? Is it because my crippling loneliness and isolation has forced my to turn to the only form of expression available to me in the soulless social vacuum of modern society? Or is it because I saw the blog that my friend Dan (aka Lionel McLure) started, and was moved his jockishly overcompetitive spirit to try and outdo him. . . The world may never know.

One thing is for certain though: the Bears lost the Super Bowl and now I'm bored (I guess that's two things). Of course, this year's football season was of particular importance to me because, up until this point, it's the only one I paid any attention to. So why, you might ask, does a guy who spent most of his life decrying the inherent worthlessness of sports suddenly turn into George Wendt's superfan character on SNL (minus the morbid obesity)? Well, after reluctantly agreeing to join the fantasy football league at my work, I ended up doing pretty well (I went undefeated and won the playoffs), and, much to my surprise, eventually found myself enjoying real football (oooh, take that 16-year-old self!). At the same time, I found in the Chicago Bears a team that I could root for without A) feeling like a fraud and B) resigning myself to a life of perpetual frustration (Giants, I'm looking in your direction). And even though they lost the big one, it was all worth it to see them crush the hopes of the beleaguered city of New Orleans and win the NFC championship. As a bonus, I also found out that Brian Urlacher, the monstrously-large-yet-neatly-groomed linebacker that makes up the core of the Chicago defense, played college ball in my home-of-homes, Albuquerque, New Mexico. This brings me to the subject of this entry: New Mexican expatriates that aren't a disgrace.

Up until recently, the only celebrities I knew to come from my home state are C-list actors like Freddie Prinz Jr. and French Stewart. To my knowledge the only halfway respectable celebrity to share a home town with me is Neil Patrick Harris (who only gets a pass because of his role in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle). So right now I want to give it up here for two bands, the Shins and Beirut, both comprised of New Mexican expats, that remind me that maybe I'm not doomed to a life of lameness and douchebaggery just because I'm from a state that the general public doesn't recognize as a part of the union.

I downloaded the new Shins album, Wincing the Night Away, last week and pretty much haven't been listening to anything else. While I was definitely part of the post-Garden State backlash against the Shins and I found their last album annoyingly preachy at points and not as catchy as their first, I decided to give this one a shot. Sadly the lyrics are still a bit esoteric for what is essentially a pop record (FYI: the word 'conundrum' should never find it's way into any pop song). Though luckily the band seems to have used that fat Garden State paycheck to buy some better weed, because they've jacked up psychedelia and added trippy instumental interludes into almost every song. So between the dense production and the catchy hooks you can almost ignore the feeling that the lyrics were the work of a 16-year-old girl submitting poetry to her high school literary magazine.

Unfortunately though, the Shins have effectively given up their NM citizenship (the last interview I read with them involved James Mercer explaining how excited he was to be buying a house and settling down in Portland) and probably don't even remember what green chile tastes like. The members of Beirut, on the other hand might still be young enough that some of them could live with their parents without being ridiculed, so even though they apparently live in New York, they still get plugged as being from "New Mexico by way of New York" (like me if I were to get plugged for anything). For those that aren't familiar with Beirut, they're definitely worth listening to if for no other reason than that they've pretty much invented their own bastard genre (though I'd give it another year before the Grammy's start giving out an award for Best Performance by a Slavic Folk-Rock Duo or Group). Their debut was good, but by all counts pretty rough. The recording is low-fi and the songs are mostly devoid of structure. I downloaded their new EP, Lon Gisland the other day, and so far I haven't been disappointed (I'm hoping that title is meant to point out that people from Long Island sound dumb when they speak, because they do). On this record, the songs sound more like songs and the production values are much improved, but they still keep their signature sound of brassy horns and ukulele strumming under deep, crooning vocals (hey, there's a thought - an indie rock vocalist that can sing lower than a choir boy!). The band is rumored to be working on a new album somewhere in northern NM. I'll be waiting. In the mean time, let's hope I have something else to say so that I can keep this blog going.