mote

The Sonic Youth show at the Roseland last summer was amazing, and Lee's performance of "mote" was undoubtedly (for me) the highlight. Somehow, a soundboard recording of the full concert hit the internet and I managed to snag a copy. I haven't done a particularly thorough search, but it seems that the only high quality recording of any of the dates on their Rather Ripped tour is from Portland. Sonic Youth live is a necessarily lived experience - a live recording doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The voices never quite make it all the way to the right notes (though they get close), and the lyrics can be even more difficult to parse. But live - and I listen to the recordings now, basically, to re-live - they're electrifying. Competing noises and tones fill the concert space, and, to permit myself an understatement, they rock.

Entertain

Morris Brown

My favorite song of 2006, which has one of the most audaciously tacky, who-thought-this-was-a-good-idea music videos of all time:



Dancing midget televisions? A pink poodle (and does the purple dog remind anyone else of Clifford the Big Red Dog)? An amusement park? And are those Big Boi's label recruits riding the Ferris wheel? My biggest problem is, I think, the large number of things with faces singing along: the sun, the flowers, the car, the walls, the dog... Wow. I'm pretty sure this was directed by the same guy who made Big Boi's video for "I Like the Way You Move," except this time he let the whimsy run wild. It's a shame, because the song's phenomenal. So's the album, by the way. Aside from the pointless final track - which I can safely say is the lowpoint in Outkast's entire discography - the album's consistently excellent, and drags rarely, despite what the music police would have you think.

A Hubley Sunday

Cockaboody


Emily's animation for Hedwig:


Emily animates the dB's:


Georgia singing one of the slow, pretty ones from I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass:


Georgia sing the acoustic version of Tom Courtenay:


Finally, John Hubley directs A Date with Dizzy:


"Hey Pete! Let's eat! More meat!"

Crosseyed and Painless

Daytona 500

Video link

Matt McCormick's got a new video for the Shins song on his website here: http://www.rodeofilmco.com/films/video_australia.php

It's fun. Enjoy.

Claire Denis

I've been needing to fill a Claire Denis fix for a while, and have been having a particular hankering for her horribly underrated 2001 masterpiece Trouble Every Day.

In the meantime, however, I came across
this online.

There's a link to Denis' gorgeous video for Sonic Youth's "Incinerate" from last year's Rather Ripped. And I believe that the "Jams Run Free" videos are hers as well.

Procrastination can occasionally be productive, if you employ a rather broadly expanded definition of "productivity."

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