SXSW Dance : Robert Delong and K.I.D.S.

Im so bored! Well as bored as you can be in Austin until the biggest festival in the world gets here. I found myself laughing way to hard at my own jokes today which consisted of me daydreaming about one the recent Walking Dead episodes. They really should’ve had Rick making invisible love to Lori while wandering in the woods. But then something depressing set in, I saw an old guy at work rocking a brand new Antones t shirt the other day and these other middle aged people were giving him props “Just looking at this guy, you can tell he knows music”. Really??? Because he went and saw one the 1000 Bob Schneider shows at an overhyped venue here in Austin? It was at this moment that I realized that the only possible thing I could hope to achieve with this blog was that someone would recognize one of my terrible website t shirst and maybe say the same about me. Hey, we all have to have goals!

I’m going to go ahead and say that I’m more than likely not going to rate any of these bands because I’m not much of a pop fan these days. But every now and then I catch myself dancing to something fruity so  I owe it to myself to check out some danceable acts the week of SX. First up will be K.I.D.S.. Thankfully the band isn’t as scary as the movie, although making out with a young Rosario Dawson would have its perks. I honestly cant find much info on these guys but they are categorized as Experimental music which I don’t quite agree with. This is the type of music you expect to find playing in between sets of a Madonna or Hot Chip show. Or if you’re lucky at the after after party somewhere that has a smoke machine. They have a female lead and seem to be playing everywhere this SX, so do yourself a favor and check them out. I’ll go ahead and give this fruitiness a rating of FRESH!

http://soundcloud.com/k-i-d-s-3

Next up is MTV darling from Los Angeles Robert Delong. Typically when I see one man bands I run away screaming and holding my ears and in Delong’s case when I first heard him I did just that. But I decided to give him another shot and found myself tapping my feet and eventually doing a ghetto dip.  I still don’t think he’s great especially when he starts banging on his weak drums but I have to admit that he has some talent. His set up includes video game controllers, keyboards, beat machines, drums, guitars, and whatever else you can imagine. His sound is a nice mix off traditional dance, hip hop, and dub step. The only two songs I know of his are Global Concepts and Religious Views but you will get plenty off opportunities to see him as he will be hitting up the festival circuit big time this year. Only because of his weak drumming does he get a rating of kind of WEAK but I will definitely be at his show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8tdO0wjQLE

Next up is Viceroy who is already blowing up. I don't really get him but he’s done remixes for some of the top bands in the game today and seems to pop up at parties everywhere. This is the kind of music you expect to hear at warehouse dance parties and Barbarella late night. The reason I’m not quite feeling it is because it sounds like the music you’d hear attached to Britney Spears or Bruno Mars (sorry that’s the extent of my top 40 references). Basically music you should avoid. But his shows are supposed to be fun, so I might pop in to see whats up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV8wQcv0qrE

Alright, I’m off to go buy my Antones shirt.

SXSW Punk : Savages and Skaters

SXSW cant get here fast enough for me and my dire straits, and no I don't mean the band! I work in an environment where I am forced to hear the 40 year old version of a Wayne’s World debate on music. I swear Mickey Rourke from the Wrestler stood up at one point and said “There aren’t any real rock bands anymore! Steve Miller has to be one of the best rock bands ever! Is Jefferson Starship still around?” Yes, that’s right, Starship, not even the cool 60’s version in Airplane. What a dated and depressing discussion.  Why not top if off by breaking out an eight ball while blaring the 5”2” rock god Dio “When there’s lightening, you know it always brings me doooooown!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQzNBTukO0w

Well luckily SXSW is bringing a few new acts that can hopefully get my older counterparts to get back into bands that have made music in the past 30 years. One of those bands would be Pitchfork darlings the Savages. They are a 4 piece goth rock band from London, England. These 4 lovely ladies get their style from Joan Jett and seem to be slightly inspired by The Horrors first album. They rock their short hair cuts and heels wearing nothing but black and white on stage while screaming out haunting vocals over driving beats and loud guitars. They make songs with a live show in mind first and then worry about how it will sound on record later. I am really excited to see them live myself as they have been tearing up venues overseas recently. I will give them a rating of FRESH and not simply because I want to bang them either.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtHiMJMn2Dg

Next up is Skaters. They are a punk band that formed in NYC after a year of sharing ideas from LA to London and apparently have contributing members from Boston and New York as well. They aren’t your typical punk band that picks one style of punk, sticks with it, and has every song sound the same. They seemingly take from every style and incorporate it in their songs. You have their pop punk song I Wanna Dance and then there’s the late 80’s Clash sounding Schemers. I’m excited to see these guys as they have a reputation of bringing a lot of energy to their shows. I’m reluctant to rate them before seeing them but I’ll rate them as slightly FRESH for now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_xX3ibiOtc

Next up are the Eagulls from Leeds, England. They are another punk band who seems intent on not having one particular style. In one song they can go from sounding like Sonic Youth to Black Flag in an instant. Now I don't think they are as good as either aforementioned bands but the mere fact that they remind me of them means they are worth a listen. They have opened for the likes of Ceremony and Fucked Up, so they have some stripes on the wall. I’m holding off my rating until I see them live but for now I’ll give them a kind of WEAK rating.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR0pMZ2Z2S0
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SXSW Houston Rap : Propain and Trae the Truth

Remember when you were a kid and you really liked crappy music because you didn’t know any better? This was probably the best time of your musical life because you didn’t care if it was considered cool or not, it just gave you an excuse to jump around like an idiot and sing off key! Well there is a band that is playing SXSW that will take you back to these times but it’s actually a good thing. For me this band was Green Day and for the younger peepsout there reading this their band might have been Good Charlotte or some other variation of them. Well Driver Friendly is a nice combo of both. As my friend said “this band makes me wish I was 20 again”. I went in very skeptical but walked out pleasantly surprised. For about 40 minutes I forgot that I was old and was jumping around smiling like I had the same problems a 21 year old has. And that’s the beauty of these guys, they know what their music is and are in it as long as the free drinks and cute girls keep rolling in. Most of the shows they are playing at SX are early shows so go get you a dose of musical Red Bull before you get into the heavier stuff.  I rate them as FRESH.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UN_ybPyt_E

It looks as though SXSW is really feeling hip hop this year as most official and unofficial showcases are stacked with it and it seems to pack the most punch as far as talent is concerned. Kendrick Lamar has really blown up since last year and is headlining the Spin party this year. But along with him, artists like Slim Thug, Earl Sweatshirt (Odd Future fame), Macklemore and Ryan Lewis,  Dead Prez, and Big Krit will be bringing gold teeth, skateboards, hipster thrift clothes, and southern twang to the ATX. But the one thing that’s missing is candy paint whips!

Well to help with this, every night of the music portion of SX is loaded with Houston mc’s. It’s like the black equivalent of the British Invasion. Trae the Truth will be bringing the usual country fried gulliness you expect from this city. It’s nothing special, but if you like rolling up blunts and seeing black girls drop it to bumping music then this is the show to pop in on. I rate him as kind of WEAK.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnBUYwOrnQw&list=PLAB49A42002B19B9D

The next big thing to come out and will eventually be the flag bearer for the Bayou City for hip hop like Mike Jones, UGK (Port Arthur, Texas), and the Ghetto Boys before him will be Propain; at least in my eyes. The talent is there, he just has to keep grinding. He can bring the skills boasting rhymes as he does in Say I Wont as well as the introspective goodness like he does in The Note. Although the latter’s video reminds me a bit too much of that Eminem video where he’s crying about his girlfriend…oh wait that’s every one of his songs. Anyway, he already has the respect and love of all the local heroes like Bun B, so you may as well get on board too. I rate him as FRESH!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WroVdWB3SWQ&list=PLC28A899988BA62E6

Delorean is another one from Houston you should pop in on. I really shouldn't have to say anymore, his name alone is fresh but he brings the skills to match the name. I'm not as hyped about him as I am Propain but I’ll give him a rating of slightly FRESH for now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqCA_Mp4ZAU

And last I have someone from the East Coast to check out. The former popular chef out of Flatbush known as Action Bronson. It really is uncanny how much he sounds like Ghostface from Wu Tang but the thing that keeps me listening is when he rhymes about his food. If I was awesome at two things, I’d mix them all of the time too. It’s like the time I went to a local bar and they had  a chef dj who was cooking up sushi and spinning weak records at the same time. This guy is obviously better than that. I’m holding off my rating on him in hopes that when I see him, he’s cooking up ribs and rhyming about Parsley and Rub.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6VDCvv1ies&playnext=1&list=PL5A73994739E87AEA&feature=results_video

A Good Day To Die Hard

Perhaps divorce can affect even Hollywood’s most badass men. While married to Demi Moore and that sweet sweet rack, he was inspired to make such classics like Die Hard 1-3, Blind Date, Pulp Fiction, Last Boyscout, and 12 Monkeys just to name a few. But the second Demi walked out the door and started dating Ashton Kutcher his career clearly took a hit. Initially it looked as though he came up roses by banging porn stars and “Cowboying the F$%* Up!” and making Tears of the Sun and Unbreakable. But just like Ronald Reagan warned you, dating porn stars has its downfalls. The mix of too much coke and venereal diseases leads you to make movies like Bandits, The Whole Ten Yards, and 16 Blocks. And let’s not forget dropping out of Ocean’s 11 so that you can make another Bruno music album. He has gotten lucky with last year’s Looper and Moonrise Kingdom; and his caving in and returning to action movies is a step in the right direction, but his latest installment of the Die Hard franchise makes you wonder if he simply needed some more pay off money for his secret porn star love child.

The fact that Die Hard 5 featured dirty Russians and stepped up and returned to their Rbrated roots made it sound promising. But sadly it just felt like they handed the script and director’s chair to some studio exec’s nephews as a favor to him. My 8 year old nephew could have come up with a more creative and plausible story than this. Apparently McClain has no idea where his son is or what he does, so he has a co worker track him down and finds him in some trouble in Mother Russia. Well as luck would have it McClain is able to find his son in all of about 5 minutes and immediately becomes a part of a long and nonsensical car chase. This is easily the worst car chase scene that I have ever been exposed to as it is just shot after shot of Willis looking bothered and determined followed by random cars flipping in the air.

The first twenty minutes of this movie seriously feels like you’re watching an Uwe Bol movie; also known as Huge Bol mainly because you need to smoke one to get through his awful movies! I honestly don’t smoke weed but man I kind of wished someone was passing around a Wesley Pipes bong with every bad joke Willis cracked.  It would have at least made this forced sentimental” I wish as I was there more for my son” resolution story bearable. But no we are stuck with Willis and his son Jai Courtney( who really  cant act) trying to work out their differences while also trying to get a Russian scientist who has the codes to leftover Uranium in Chernobyl to safety. Really, nuclear material in Chernobyl??? Why not just have Willis travel back in time to have to safely transport Stalin to a secret meeting with Winston Churchill.  I know that not a lot has been going on in Russia lately outside of the meteor which hit a few days ago but the nuclear facility meltdown is all you can go to?

Anyway, I’m bored with this review as this movie was boring. The last third of the movie is full of large exploding set pieces which is kind of fresh. And there is a hot Russian girl that is involved but sadly this is not enough to save this crapfest. I have too much love for the Willis and the Die Hard franchise to give this movie the wack rating it deserves so I will give it a rating of really WEAK!

Les Rav and The Neighbourhood

The one thing that mini SXSW otherwise known as Free Week in Austin reminded me was that during these festivals where there are shows at every venue downtown; you have to sift through a lot trash (both literally and figuratively) to find the goodness. And don’t be fooled by the shiny wrapper either! The perfect example of this was Les Rav. They are a 5 piece local band who apparently have a prerequisite of owning a minimum $5,000.00 instrument to get in the band. The lead singer who looked like Asia Argento had a keyboard that took up the entire stage, two dudes had violins, and another guy in the background was rocking a $15k harp. You don’t just one day get into playing the harp, that means this kid grew up with this in his house. As a matter of fact all of these clowns looked like Westlake brats who were bored and decided to form a band. They were cracking bad jokes about raves, wearing watches on the wrong wrist, and were dressed like they had just left the glee club; it was so wack it had to be fresh right? Wrong!

Asia could kind of sing, and the two violins dudes got so excited during the performance that they touched bows and made some kind of weird clock out of their homo erotic bonding. Musically they were just boring because with the instruments they had you would think the songs would eventually build to some awesome climax but they never did. Just slow and brooding whining about…well who knows really. You were so distracted by the wackiness that you couldn’t really focus on anything else. Avoid them but try and get Asia’s phone number for me. They are definitely WACK!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIGqma_pgJo

The point of all of that was to get you mentally ready for SXSW and the 2000 bands and over 200,000 hipsters you have to sift through to find the next big thing. I can hopefully save you some time by introducing you to a few; and one of these diamonds  I truly believe will be The Neighbourhood. They are 5 white kids from California who purposely spell neighborhood like their British and somehow mix indie rock with RnB undertones. The lead has always made hip hop and RnB music and decided to bring that skill to this project. If you have read any of my stuff in the past then you know that I believe that RnB is already dead or at least on its death bed and that’s mainly because no one is trying anything new with it. Well this is step in the right direction. Check out their songs Female Robbery, Leaving Tonight, and Baby Come Home. All of heir songs are bit loungy and make you feel like you should be wearing a tux and sipping on a martini while listening to it. I am always reluctant to rate a band before seeing them live but I am going to rate them as slightly FRESH in hopes that a year from now I don’t look back and feel like I gave the next Jon B a good rating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvgulss9E-o

Both of these bands are playing SXSW. Enjoy.

Side Effects

I have finally come to the realization that I do not need to review EVERY movie that I see; especially since I am 80% sure that I am the only one who actually saw Smashed in the theater.  Even the family members of those involved in the film decided to wait for Red Box. But since this is Steven Sodomy’s last film, I figured he deserved at least an honorary mention. He’s apparently too much of an artist to continue doing something trivial like making films. My buddy and I have a side bet on when he returns to make Ocean’s 8; after he’s done sculpting a life size replica of himself or after his exhibit in Soho featuring nothing but Polaroids.

I call him Steven Sodomy because it seems like with every other film he makes, he gets too self indulgent and releases over stylized garbage that makes you feel like you’ve been anally raped. But then he always comes back with something that’s somewhat decent and you actually hope he finally reaches his potential. Well it looks like his swan song in Side Effects leaves you wondering if he actually quit too soon because he leaves us with a fairly tense thriller.

I hate to be so vague in describing the plot but I literally cannot say anything that would’ve give the story away. You are first introduced to Emily (Rooney Mara) who along with his mother is arriving at the prison to pick up Martin (Channing Tatum). I don’t even know why I bother with the character’s names; it’s not like we ever disassociate from the actors anyway. It has been 4 years since Tatum went to jail for insider trading and naturally the first few interactions between he and Mara are a little awkward but they seem to still genuinely love each other and are trying to get back to normal.  Until one morning when Mara mysteriously drives her car into a wall in an apparent suicide attempt. You then learn that she has battled depression before and received therapy for it from Catherine Zeta Jones. Her latest psychiatrist in Jude Law consults with Zeta and after a few attempts with other medication, takes Zeta’s recommendation on the latest drug to hit the market to give to Mara. And at first things seem to be going well and then one day an incident happens that completely changes the lives of everyone involved.

I will leave the rest for you to discover on your own as you are floored at almost every corner after this point. The only problem is you almost give up on the film until this incident because the first act seems like typical over stylized Soderberg; too much unnecessary weird lighting. But once he gets this out of his system the story starts to take shape and you are literally guessing at what is coming next. At first glance you start to think that this movie will be another sermon on the dangerous side effects of prescription drugs, and to a certain extent it is, but the movie takes on quite a few more themes than that.

The ending seems a bit over the top but it’s necessary for the story to work. Emily was originally supposed to be played by Blake Lively and I am not sure at what point Sodomy realized that this was a mistake but thankfully he came to his senses and brought on the one hundred times more talented Rooney Mara instead. She is mesmerizing and the sole reason why this movie works. Again, I cannot get into specifics why but just see for yourself and let me know what you think. I rate this movie as FRESH and no it’s not because I got see Mara’s boobs, but that certainly does help.

Rust and Bone

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Bullet to the Head

“I can’t wait to see the new Evil Dead movie, although I know you’re probably going to hate it because you’re a purist bastard” my friend. My response “Pfft please! I saw freaking Bullet to the Head on opening night! Of course I am down for the new Evil Dead!” 

My intent was to prove that I was in fact not a purist by admitting that I saw a B action movie by myself on a Friday night. But now that I think about it, this actually makes me more of one than I initially realized! Action movies today rely too much on cgi to make them cool when in reality all you need is a tough guy who says bad ass things like “we’re gonna find em and then we’re gonna kill em!”;and does bad ass things like interrogating someone by beating them with a shotgun. This is what made and makes Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Charles Bronson, and even Jason Statham so awesome. They’re the tough guys you want to be like; not some 5’2” scrub like Tom Cruise or Marky Mark. Give me these dudes with tons of senseless violence, pointless explosions, and brunettes with d cups who wear tight t shirts and I’m there every time! 

Well thankfully you immediately see that Bullet to the Head has every one of these elements in it as the movie starts out with Stallone and Jon Seda executing a hit in a hotel room in Crescent City, Louisiana. And for the most part, everything goes as it should but as they are waiting to collect from the person that hired them, Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa) from Game of Thrones is waiting in the bar to kill them in a double cross. Seda is killed but Stallone fights off Drogo, who goes by the name of Keegan in this movie, to survive. As it turns out, the person Stallone and Seda took out just so happened to be a crooked cop who was the former partner of D.C. officer Taylor Kwon (you know him as Han from Fast and the Furious). Kwon for some reason decides to come down to Crescent City to aid in the investigation because he always thought that his partner was up to something big. The local police aren’t too much of a help though, so he tracks down Stallone to help him find out who was behind his partner’s death. And he uses the fact that they will also be finding the people who double crossed him as bait to reel in a reluctant Stallone who makes it known as much as humanely possible that he hates cops. You are taken through some muddled plot which eventually leads you to a get rich off of the poor scheme for the reasoning behind it all. But no one cares about the plot. All you care about is that with each layer of the plot that is revealed, Stallone gets to look mean and intimidating in his tight shirts as he beats and shoots his way to revenge. And unlike in the disappointing Parker, there is plenty of that in this movie.

You should feel guilty every time Stallone drives over, punches, shoots, and blows up every bad guy thrown his way but instead you end up literally cheering in the theater. At the tender age of 92 and with the aid of HGH he looks like he can beat you to a pulp anytime he gets good and ready to do so. And it’s because of this that some of what you see is somewhat believable. His partner Kwon plays the role of a no nonsense cop almost to the point to where you’re hoping he gets shot as well along the way. But for some reason they create this silly love story between him and Stallone’s incredibly hot hipster daughter, played by Sarah Shahi. When you buy the dvd you can see her topless if you pause the movie at the right moment but outside of that, all you get is a quick flash, which honestly is better than nothing. 

It was good to see Christian Slater having a ball in this movie, and I mean that quite literally. It felt like he was on an eight ball every time he was on screen. He looked completely at home at his clothing optional party in his mansion ; I swear he wasnt acting at all during this scene. 

Khal Drogo did a decent job as the head henchmen who killed only because he enjoyed the hunt. The three ladies on this planet that were tricked into watching this movie will swoon over him as apparently it was a prerequisite to wear smedium shirts in this movie. I give this movie a rating of FRESH as it was made specifically for action junkies. Go check it out to support the genre so we can get more like it!