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We know we need to be eco-friendly, but we still have real love for the battery-eating boomboxes of yesteryear. It's the pulsing LED lights, the EQ slider, the volume knob...it's the whole weight! Remember Radio Raheem in Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing"? Much respect to the boombox and the films that we found that featured the urban icon. Here we go...and by no means an exhaustive list, nor necessarily films of high regard:
The Survivors - 1981
Wild Style - 1982
Flashdance - 1983
Breakin' - 1984
Body Rock - 1984
Krush Groove - 1984
Barry Gordy's The Last Dragon - 1985
A View to a Kill - 1985
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home - 1986
Do The Right Thing - 1989
Say Anything - 1989
Pump Up The Volume - 1990
Bad Boys - 1993
Any we've missed (and there are loads of them)? Leave a comment.
If you're inspired, check out this link to the Boombox Museum. But if you're too attached to your iPod to think about going back to analog then we found this impressive accessory...the iPod boombox. Word.
Timbaland's music has always been ground-breaking, if a little commercial. So trust him to have inked a new deal with Verizon Wireless. Interesting stuff happens when a multi-Grammy award winner links with the second biggest music store (after iTunes). This project brings Timbaland in as "producer in residence" on board a Verizon Wireless' studio bus. Yes, you heard us right - Verizon has a fully-equipped tour bus converted into a studio with its own studio engineer. The plan is for Timbaland to record his next album on this bus and have it be the world's first album that is distributed straight to mobile. Is this another nail in the record store coffin?!
How cool is this for Jesse Jensema, the engineer aka supervising producer on the studio bus. We got parts of an interview with Jensema from a trade magazine: "This bus has been my home for three years...I live in a recording studio! The best part is it comes to you, you don't have to go to the studio." Jensema also added, you also have the same environment, people and vibe. "The vibe is where the creative juices flow from...We're pretty versatile and we can manipulate the bus to do whatever it needs to."
That's cool, but what we want to know is will he get some points on Timbaland's album...
Swedish singer-songwriter Peter von Poehl creates illuminated dreamscapes with his music. His forthcoming album (to be released June 10 in North America) "Going To Where The Tea Trees Are" boasts inspired arrangements using guitar, piano harmonies, sax, and Peter's unmistakable falsetto that don't really sound like anything else you've heard before. He's garnered a lot of airplay and buzz in France, and we're thinking his stuffs will translate well on this side of the pond as well. If his latest video for the song "Story Of The Impossible" is any indication (reminds us of a Grand Theft Auto game gone warm & fuzzy on LSD), we'll be hearing and seeing a lot more of PvP in the coming months.
The good folks at World's Fair have given you a free mp3 download of the title track from the album "Going To Where The Tea Trees Are", so check it.
"Help meeeee! Heeeeeeelp meeeeeeeee!" Put David Cronenberg, Plácido Domingo, Howard Shore and David Henry Hwang together and they'll give you something to remember... "The Fly: The Opera". Dopeness abounds in this sickly 80's scarefest reworked to the LA Opera scene. Time magazine described "The Fly" as "a profound parable on love and loss." And we say Cronenberg is the king of body horror and what better way to revisit this lonely, dark sterile look at the 80's than Placido Domingo producing the Opera version. In its metamorphosis into an opera, this dark romantic tragedy presents a Kafkaesque meditation on man's uneasy relationship with technology. As the doomed scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) and his girlfriend Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis) battle some big issues with back hair.... I know an old lady who swallowed a fly...perhaps she'll die.
PRODUCTION DATES - LOS ANGELES
Sunday September 7, 2008 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday September 10, 2008 7:30 p.m.
Saturday September 13, 2008 7:30 p.m.
Tuesday September 16, 2008 7:30 p.m.
Saturday September 20, 2008 7:30 p.m.
Saturday September 27, 2008 2:00 p.m.
For Mother's Day (did you forget?) this Sunday there's a special limited screening of Italian heart throb Plácido Domingo's LA Opera concert recorded live last month. "The Plácido Domingo 40th Anniversary Gala Concert" is a two-hour HD-digital presentation to commemorate the 40 years since Domingo made his Los Angeles debut in 1967. That time around he toured with the New York City Opera and sang the title role in a performance of Alberto Ginastera's Don Rodrigo at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, which happens to be LA Opera's home decades later.
This is LA Opera's first foray into film making and we're impressed that they partnered with Landmark Theatres to get the film across the country. Go take Mom to see and hear Domingo sing his heart out alongside the internationally acclaimed soprano Patricia Racette. We don't know much about opera, but it seems like the all-star team were out that night led by LA Opera Music Director James Conlon, conducting the LA Opera Orchestra.
"Opera is an art form for everyone, and Landmark Theatres is helping us to capture this experience for music lovers throughout the United States," said Domingo in a press release issued by Los Angeles Opera. "I am delighted to be able to share this concert with a national audience, including many who might not have experienced opera in live performance, and I hope that this is the first of many such ventures. I am also happy that Patricia Racette was able to join me for this wonderful celebration of my forty years in Los Angeles, and that James Conlon could conduct this special evening."
Screening at all locations: 2:00 p.m. on May 11 in Landmark Theatres (in cities including Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, Seattle, Houston, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, St. Louis and Baltimore.)
If you can't get to the cinema then hunt out one of the company's 2006-07 season productions on DVD (The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and La Traviata) — were released on DVD. The one we're holding out for is the U.S. premiere of Howard Shore's The Fly. Yes, same Fly where Jeff Goldblum grossed us out! That production will bring in film director, David Cronenberg - sounds intense!
Hong Kong indie rockers, Noughts & Exes, bring the pain on their first full length due out later this year on Omerta Group Records. It's exciting to hear an epic, textured lushness that bands like My Bloody Valentine and Blonde Redhead have excited us with over the years, but from a completely different part of the world.
Noughts & Exes are a 5 piece outfit from the North Point neighborhood of Hong Kong, and is the brainchild of famed video director/graphic artist Joshua Wong. He describes their music as forever drawing inspiration from the beautiful streets and endless urban landscape that is found in Hong Kong, and we hear it in the music. Their songs have already caught the attention of music supervisors here in the States and have been licensed recently in MTV shows, but we feel they're ripe for a sweeping film or film trailer. Check out their video to "A Minor To Major" above, and check this free download of the song "The Ghost" off their forthcoming album called "Act One, Scene One".
The Tribeca Film Festival just wrapped in New York. It being NYC and the birth of hip hop, its kinda poetic that The Wackness made its premiere at Tribeca. Instead of a Hollywood cliche coming-of-age film with music as a backdrop, The Wackness really captures the role that music plays in a teen's life. And, as The Wackness is set in 1994, it's all about 90s hip-hop! Shapiro, the main character, makes mixtapes for his sweetheart. That's real. We’ve all done it before. Tribe Called Quest, R. Kelly, Biggie, Raekwon...long before the iTunes gift playlist we were diligently making mixtapes for our crushes and our friends.
Shapiro is our kind of guy - he's never without his headphones, he loves the ladies, but he might love hip-hop more. Method Man also plays a Jamaican in the film. Trailer to the film is above.
Also at Tribeca, Adam Yauch screened his previously reported film “Gunnin’ For That #1 Spot”. Mark your calendars for that local release, kids, this one is going to be hot.
In our world of music the logo is nearly as important as the band itself - remember the awesome burgundy sleeve with a Technic turntable's tonearm that Def Jam Records had back in the late-80s? We miss seeing record store walls covered in vinyl album covers as they have gradually shrunk to the size of beer coasters. So, we were thrilled see a new book by Bodhi Oser published by Chronicle Books which is boastfully called "Band ID: The Ultimate Book of Band Logos". But, when you've designed identities for cool companies and bands alike and logged 100s (ok, maybe like a 1000) seminal band logos you can start to beat your own drum too.
The bands included in the book span rock, hip-hop, metal, pop, reggae and country music dating back to the 1960s. Imagine your favorite band logo and artwork presented in all its glory as a gatefold print. Then imagine being able to read the back story on how the logo came together and the inspiration (or lack of it) that helped create it. From the Rolling Stones' red and black tongue-and-lips trademark to the Grateful Dead's lightning bolt skull, this covers some major and obscure shit. We're not sure if the Def Jam logo is featured, but we still love this book. Go get it!
Kneel before Zod, and the new soundtrack to the latest Grand Theft Auto. It's the greatest soundtrack to anything since...the last Grand Theft Auto. If you think these hyperbolic claims are unjustified, consider the fact that this soundtrack's lineup is better than this year's Coachella: Black Devil Disco Club, Kavinsky, Justice, Simian Mobile Disco, Femi Kuti, Roy Ayers, the Meters, Bad Brains, Black Sabbath, Heart, !!!, The Stooges, Buju Banton, Les Savy Fav, LCD Soundsystem, Whitey, Black Keys, UNKLE, The Rapture, Kanye West, Ghostface, Styles P, Nas, Gang Starr, Marley Marl, T La Rock, Aphex Twin, Philip Glass, Marvin Gaye, Bag Raiders and Goldfrapp are just a sampling of what you will be raping and pillaging to.
Here's a brief look into the process of assembling this madness, including sending out license requests for over 2000 songs before settling on the final 214 (50 Cent wanted to throw a song their way but didn't make the cut). Rockstar games, indeed.
It would be easy to write a story about the amazingness of Coachella or the post-festival shenanigans so we resisted the temptation. Until now - this story was too funny not to share. Goldenvoice, the organizers of the festival offered a $10,000 reward for the return of something valuable - Roger Waters' giant inflatable pig. We hoped that some scallywags stole it in a moment of inspired anararchy, but in fact it broke itself loose during Waters' headlining set.
Here's the transcript of the news story on the Pasadena, CA-based radio station, KPCC, but here's a worthwhile excerpt:
Coachella: ....It's about a two-story house, about that high – and the width of a couple of buses.
KPCC Radio: "In addition to the 10,000 bucks, the pig finder will get four lifetime tickets to the Coachella Music Festival."
We were gathering a SEEN search party for that pig when we heard two lucky couples had already found the pig, split in two. They're sharing the $10,000 reward. But what about the free Coachella tix?
