Fountain of EverythingVivian Girls, Everything Goes Wrong, In the RedSo often on their second record, a band will tighten things up inorder to present a more precise version of their signature sound.To which, Brooklyn's Vivian Girls say, in essence, "Screw that!"On Everything Goes Wrong, they crank up the volume,quicken the pace, and color outside the lines. This full-steam-a-head approach breeds excitement, but at the expense of finesse,i.e. their schoolyard sing-a-long vocals are even unrulier thanbefore. Not that I'm complaining—not much, at any rate.As on their self-titled debut, the trio's girl-group harmonies getthe job done, but enunciation goe

Read more »

Movie of the Month: Part 12I recently reviewed the following film for VideoLibrarian, and thought the results were worth sharing.IL DIVO [****](Paulo Sorren-tino, Italy, 20-08, 110 mins.)With his audacious portrait of Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, Paulo Sorrentino (The Consequences of Love)reinvents the biopic—or at least turns it inside out.If comparisons to Nixon aren't completely off the mark, they'realso misleading (New York Times critic Stephen Holden's cita-tion of the British miniseries I, Claudius makes more sense).While Oliver Stone offered a conventionally Freudian reading ofthe former president, Sorrentino trades back story for s

Read more »

The Un-real Is Real Broadcast and the Focus Group, Inves-tigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age, Warp Records"You feel that this is all really happen-ing, and you’re in it up to your neck."-- Lee Arizuno, The Quietus reviewBirmingham's Broadcast (Trish Keenan and James Cargill)and artist/musician the Focus Group (Julian House, the foun-der of Ghost Box Records) fill this collaboration with 23 tracksof beautiful, sometimes scary weirdness (House has design-ed every one of Broadcast's eye-catching album covers).I love the beauty, which stems from theunion between Keenan's multi-trackedmutterings and the chiming, cascadinglullaby-like melodies, but have mix

Read more »

We Had SylvesterSylvester and the Hot Band, The Blue Thumb Collection,Hip-O SelectSan Francicso didn't need me. They had Sylvester.-- Bowie on his failure to sell out the Bay in '73This might be my fav-orite release of 2009—it's certainly in the topfive. No matter thatThe Blue Thumb Collection contains material recorded between 1972-73.The time is ripe for a Sylvester revival. And I'm not just talkingabout the disco icon behind "(You Make Me Feel) Mighty Real,"but the man as a whole: drag performer (see The Cockettes), BayArea icon (read The Fabulous Sylvester: The Legend, the Music, the Seventies in San Francisco), and gospel-funk entertainer(hear th

Read more »

Misty Water-color MemoriesWalla Walla wa-tercolor sketches. Anderson Hall interior.Anderson Hall Courtyard.Still life with mannequins. Endnote: Cross-posted at Facebook (with more images).

Read more »

Memorable ContrastStarless & Bible Black, Shape of the Shape, Locust MusicIt's been three years since the last Starless & Bible Black re-cord, so I expected them to return sounding somewhat differ-ent than before. They have. Not that they've re-emerged as a-nother creature entirely, but the opening track, "Say Donny Say,"has more of a country feel than anything on their self-titled debut,which combined French chanson with British folk (though HélèneGautier hails from France, the band calls Birmingham home).That shift distinguishes their follow-up, though their approachto traditional genres remains refreshingly untraditional. Center-piece selec

Read more »

November Reviews These arethe reviewsand otherpieces I'mworking onthis month.Amazon DVD: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (with Michael Douglas and Amber Tamblyn), Moonshot (Apollo 11 doc), andLie to Me - Season One (with Tim Roth) [four-disc set].Amazon Theatricals: Youth in Revolt (Miguel Artetadirects Michael Cera), Me and Orson Welles (Richard Link-later directs Zac Efron and Christian McKay as Welles).Still playing: Black Dynamite, Coco Before Chanel, LawAbiding Citizen, This Is It, and Where the Wild Things Are. KCTS 9: These are some of the press releases I've writtenor to which I've contributed: King County executive debate invite, Seattle mayoral d

Read more »