You'll Put an Eye Out

This week's Deadwood made me extremely nervous when Al's man Dan Dority finally faced off with Hearst's man Captain Turner. Thank you Gregory Nicotero (pictured in my The Hills Have Eyes post as the mutant Cyst) for your delicious eyeball extraction makeup again (see Hostel). Also what the hell was all that with Hostetler and his argument over that darn livery - he shot the wrong guy.

Here's Deadwood as a sitcom:

Camera Obscura and Georgie James at the Black Cat

Two nights in a row of Scottish twee pop music!
Last night I went to the Black Cat to see Scottish band Camera Obscura and DC locals Georgie James play. It was a good crowd for a Sunday night.
First off, Laura Burhenn of Georgie James is really hot!
Since the last time I saw them, they have written several new songs. I do like their poppy grooves and they have a lot of energy live. John Davis mentioned that they are
in the midst of recording tracks for an album release. I look forward to that. Some of their new songs were pretty good. Touring with Camera Obscura will definitely get them some more exposure across the country.








I loved Camera Obscura!
Their new record, "Let's Get Out of This Country" is currently getting a lot of iPod play for me, and I was really excited to see them live. They remind me of what I loved about early Belle & Sebastian. Lead singer, Tracyanne Campbell is a cutey- she's really tiny, and her voice is so beautiful.
The band has a really full sound live as well. When they did the title track, they threw in a few verses of "Call Me Al" by Paul Simon.
I had a great weekend of Scottish bands! Scotland's for me!

Great Headbutt or Butthead?

Man, what a headbutt Zidane threw at Materazzi in the World Cup final. I'm not buying that the line judge actually saw the incident with his own eyes. He probably saw the replay - there just was such a pause and the only reason play stopped was becuase Materazzi went down. I'm not condoning Zidane's action, but it was a pretty awesome headbutt. Congrats to the Italians. Au revoir Zidane.

Belle & Sebastian, Broken Social Scene, and Ted Leo + Pharmacists at Merriweather Post Pavillion

The last time I was at Merriweather Post Pavillion was in the late 80's to see New Order, P.I.L., and The Sugarcubes. I remember being on the lawn and there being items on fire thrown in the air (sorry- saw Dead Man's Chest on Friday, aargh). Last night, I was lucky enough to get center 4th row seats in the pavillion to see Belle & Sebastian play.

Opening around 6:30pm was Ted Leo + Pharmacists. He's had a lot of fans present as he's from DC, but I've never been huge on his music. He was okay. Not sure if I would rush to buy his records though.
Second up was Canadian supergroup Broken Social Scene. The group was sans Jason Collett, Feist, and Emily Haines, but they did have Stars' vocalist Amy Millian joining them. They had a few sound problems, but I did enjoy their set.
Last night's show was probably my favorite time seeing Belle & Sebastian. This was probably due to our nice comfy seats, but the sound was fantastic, and the band played a great mix of songs from all of their albums. They had 4 ladies on violin accompanying them (like Bond), and I liked their stage set up with large banners of images from their past album covers including Tigermilk. I quite liked hearing "A Summer Wasting", "If You Are Feeling Sinister", and "The Boy with the Arab Strap" - which I hadn't heard them play live before.

Baltimore Movie Theaters

I read this interesting article in the City Paper about the plans for a Landmark Theatres complex to open up in downtown Baltimore and what it means for local theaters like the famous Senator Theatre and the Charles Theatre.
Baltimore has some surprisingly excellent theaters in the area considering the market size probably because people like to go see movies around here. A Landmark theater is pretty exciting to have, especially one downtown where there are a lot more people moving back into the city. It actually makes me want to consider buying in the city when my lease comes up.
(photo by zizzybaloobah from flikr)

My Mom Liked The Hills Have Eyes

So yesterday, I had to have my car serviced, and I spent the day hanging out with my parents who live close to the dealer.
My mom has always loved to watch horror films over pretty much any other type of movie, so we watched the recently released unrated The Hills Have Eyes remake by Alexandre Aja.
The story is pretty simple: family gets stranded in the desert and are set upon by cannibal mutants. I enjoyed most of Aja's film High Tension, except for the dumb twist ending. The Hills Have Eyes, though, is great through and through. It's got lots of gore, brutal murders, and pretty messed up scenes of raping threatening a baby with a magnum.
My mom liked it, too.

Garth Marenghi's Darkplace

On July 27, Sci-Fi will start broadcasting the British show, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. I've been reading a lot of stuff about the cult following this series has developed.
The premise is kind of complicated, but it sounds pretty funny. Garth Marenghi is a noted horror writer, who developed a horror series in the 1980's that was just too edgy to be broadcast until now.
The show centers around Dr. Rick Dagless, played by the writer Marenghi, and the stories are about the doctor's battles with evil in a hospital. It pokes fun at TV programs from the 80's particularly horror programs and hospital dramas.
It sounds interesting, and I am planning to Tivo it when Sci-Fi shows it. I believe the UK is getting a DVD release of the series at the end of the summer.

Italy-Germany 2-0

What an amazing semifinal match yesterday between Italy and host country Germany! After going scoreless in the first 90 minutes, the teams went into extra time, and Italy score twice in the last 2 minutes of the overtime period- two beautiful goals (unlike the one that beat Australia).
I can't wait for today's match between France and Portugal - I love watching Zinedine Zidane play (as well as pronouncing his name three times fast) What's really fracked up is that he is considered the old man of the World Cup, and he's the same age as me- crap.

Electroma - A Daft Punk Movie

This looks crazy! What the hell is this about? No talking dog with crutches though, but I want to walk around in a helmet and jumpsuit, too.

Deadwood Season 3 So Far

In the midst of all these recent summer concerts, I've been happily enjoying the new season of Deadwood. I'm happy that so far the episodes have been very Al Swearengen-centric.
His new nemesis, George Hearst, played with such likeable bucolic ruthlessness, by Gerald McRaney, is a great foil to Al's more worldly manipulations. It's good to see McRaney not just being Major Dad or Rick Simon - he can be bad, too.
I'm waiting for the inevitable showdown with either Sheriff Bullock or Dan Dority with Hearst and Turner.
I also like the story of the women in the camp - Alma's fall back in with the laudenum and her odd relationship with Ellsworth, Joanie and Calamity, and Mrs. Bullock budding flirtation with her husband. Each episode can't come soon enough every week.

Visit my New Blog

So, I have decided to expand myself into the blogging world and started a second blog with my cousin, This Is Gonna Be Good
. The focus is just food and eating. I'm still going to post about the rest of my nerdy life here, but I am moving the restauranting and food experimentation over there. Please feel free to check it out.
Pictured here are Rippers from Rutt's Hut in Jersey. They are deep fried hot dogs! My cousin went there last week.

José González, Juana Molina, and Psapp at the Black Cat

Last night, I went to a great show at the Black Cat - I'm pretty sure it was sold out.
Opening was a group from the UK called Psapp.
They've been getting some notice for having their song "Cozy in the Rocket" being used as the theme song for "Gray's Anatomy". Their sound is a pop with electronics, violin, and toy instruments.
They put on an energetic show, and lead singer Galla's voice sounded great- nice and smooth. She threw out knitted cats to the audience after naming them - I liked "Tampon Legs" the best. They also said they did a taping for Pancake Mountain that afternoon.

The second artist was singer Juana Molina, a former TV star from Argentina, who sings music that combines acoustic guitar and electronics. She just released her third record, "Son", and it's really good. She also, for some odd reason, is being grouped into the "freak folk" crowd because she is collaborating with Devendra Banhart (idiotic NY Times!).
I enjoyed seeing her at Coachella in 2004, and, despite some problems with the soundboard guys who couldn't get rid of her feedback, she was even better last night. Her vocals were amazing despite technical difficulties.
Headlining was José González, a Swedish musician of Argentinian descent who plays classical guitar and sings with a nice tenor voice. He did his popular song "Heartbeats", and I liked that he closed his main set with a cover of Nick Drake's "In the Morning". His guitar playing style is very similar to Drake's anyway.

He definitely drew a very young crowd. Oh, and I think I pissed off this guy (link below) for being up in front. As a rebuttal, he chose to stand behind me as I was at my spot once the doors opened. Second, I like to move to the music (the erratic movements?), not stand like a statue during a good show. And lastly, if the guy was 5'11", he's breaking ranks with his preferred standing chart- he should have been 2 persons behind me. Also, he was clearly a nonfan of the opening acts, so he should have waited in the rear during their sets.
Addendum: In case the guy drops his blog again (see comments), here's the image he posted of me.

Here is his post (he has a tracker so just cut and paste- sorry- he also keeps changing his blog- so if the link is dead, sorry): http://circumlocutionist.blogspot.com/2006/07/jose-gonzalezthe-worst-concert.html