(Source: ustreasury)
Kanye + Florence. She looks SUUUPER comfortable.
Trolling To An Extreme Or Are Humans Out Of Control?
“They interrupt workflow, create milk wastage and can be served at a dangerous temperature to a vulnerable consumer,” said Caligiore, who despite his misgivings about the drink plans to begin selling the world’s first instant babyccino. “Babyccinos have become so popular in Australia it would be difficult to find a cafe that doesn’t have them on their menu.”
Summer Music Guide
Summer shows in idyllic New York settings have become a local tradition in the age-old lineage of blowing your college savings on a heroin addiction, shouting at bystanders from fire escapes and cooking dinner over the open flame of a garbage can.
[Click above for the NYPress summer music guide. I did the first part — a super serviceyyy Q&A. I just cannot do these things straight.]
Hot Goblin: On The Beastie Boys, Tyler The Creator And Creating A Lane In Rap
We’re in the midst of a refreshing and coincidental couple of weeks for hip-hop with the release of The Beastie Boys’ Hot Sauce Committee Part Two and Tyler The Creator’s Goblin. Both albums, while diametrically opposed in style and content, present an opportunity to temporarily change the hip-hop conversation from blown-out major label mediocrity (see Wiz Khalifa’s recent Rolling Papers) towards something more insular, artistic and interesting. While The Beasties look back, Tyler and Odd Future look forward. Neither represents the future of popular hip-hop, which unfortunately rests firmly within chart-calibrated Skylar Gray and Hayley Williams hooks, but both show what unique artists can do when they craft a musical world and stick to it.
[Link is above for the full thing. It’s long.]
NY Daily News cover, May 2, 2011
WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THAT SPIKE DRESSED UP LIKE AN URBAN, GAY, MONOPOLY MAN?
Really feel like this could be blamed for so many things. Good shoes, though.
A Note On Vivian Girls And Binary Arguments
READING OTHER REVIEWS of Share the Joy, I am fuming, in fact, I WANT TO SCREAM AND THROW MY COMPUTER AT A WALL. I’d love to write about this record without bringing up such seemingly archaic matters, but the biggest misfortune of Share the Joy is that it highlights how laughable the boys-club hivemind of male-dominated rock criticism remains in 2011.
I wouldn’t expect a dude in Los Angeles or Chicago to understand or appreciate this record as much as me, a girl in New York, who sees Vivian Girls pumping the lifeblood of my city’s longstanding Downtown musical traditions. Those dudes didn’t see Vivian Girls close down McCarren Park Pool with Sonic Youth in 2008; they didn’t thrash around to their set during the final months of legendary Bushwick venue Market Hotel’s activity in 2010.
This second part of this review is as hilarious as the “laughable boys-club hivemind of male-dominated rock criticism.” I do think Pitchfork and some others engaged in gender baiting, but PLEASE combat that with an even-keeled response that exposes why that particular viewpoint bothers you so much! There is totally room for that and, with proper detail, people would appreciate it.
You know, I’m a dude that was at that Sonic Youth show and at Market Hotel and they were cool shows, but Vivian Girls are not the lifeblood of “longstanding Downtown musical traditions.” Where does that even come from? Also, two of my favorite records this year are by VG side projects, yet I don’t like this album at all. And that’s OK! It has nothing to do with sex, gender, buzz cycles, the West Coast, people liking Odd Future or some sort of hivemind.
VG are a fun band that has a handful of quality songs. Good! But Downtown music is vast and had little to do with this sort of rock. It is also mainly comes from Manhattan, and while you can argue about the lineage and how it has spread, none of these Brooklyn micromovements seem to have much to do with that tradition. Gang Gang Dance carries that tradition. Black Dice, too. Recently, not too many.
Criticizing other writers that don’t live here for being men-that-don’t-live-here that disagree with you or scored a few cheap points by comparing similar sounding groups just isn’t the best policy and undermines the first part of the review (which is actually pretty good).
I knew I should have gone to that bar. I got through security and there was an Au Bon Pain, and a Hudson News, and that was IT!!! Serious bummer. If you read our tweet feed, you know I drank a Diet Coke, It was like hanging with my mother in law, but in an airport, and she wasn’t there.
Then later:
I watched hockey at the hotel bar, Rendezvous (can you believe that shit?!), but the hockey part was rad, and then just got on some Law and Order shit in the room and crashed out.
Sam Hillmer from Zs is doing the tour diary thing and it’s pretty great so far!
