Afterthought: James Cameron's Avatar

I went to see Avatar for the special effects. I was impressed.

Had I gone to see Avatar for a movie with an interesting, less-than-completely-obvious plot and well developed characters, I would have been grossly dissapointed.

But like I said, I went for the special effects and they were great. The combination of human actors and computer generated graphics is seamless throughout the movie. The best example being the final battle scene.

The combination is never distracting, at most times it's hardly noticable it was done so well.

However, as a movie, Avatar is not worth the price of admission. Awful dialoge (really, just awful), an irritatingly heavy-handed anti-war/pro-environmentalism message throughout, and a boring, predictable plot that acts only as a V6 engine to drive the Mack-truck weight of visuals the movie was created for.

The worst thing about the movie would have to be the sadly unclever play on words that is the name of the natural resource of planet Pandora the militant corporation is after: Unobtainium. That's about the par for subtlety throughout Avatar. Give your audience more credit than that, James Cameron.

Avatar left me waiting for a Cameron-narrated powerpoint presentation after the credits to hammer home even harder the incredibly obvious and pitifully generic themes of the movie.

Blakroc on Letterman

If you're not interested in sitting through the 11 chapters of Blakroc's web-series, here's a great performance the collective put on for the Letterman show.

"Ain't Nothin' Like You (Hoochie Coo)":

BlakRoc Takes Over Letterman from Creative Control on Vimeo.

Worth Hearing: Blakroc

What happens when you take the Black Keys' instrumentals (some of the best in music, let alone blues, today) and put some of the best rappers in the last twenty years over it?

Blakroc.

The Black Keys playing behind the likes of, among others, Mos' Def, Rza, Q-Tip, Raekwon and even a posthumous appearance by ODB. If you're any fan of either the Keys or any of the lyricists involved, you do not want to let this moment in the ever-evolving world of indie music pass.

Blakroc is a collaboration between Akron-based modern blues masters the Black Keys and a slew of very credible rappers, all of whom can apparently be found in Damon Dash's Blackberry.

As the web-series documenting the project shows, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney of the Black Keys were busy in a Brooklyn studio milling about vintage recording equipment and mountains of guitar pedals until hip-hop mogul Dash enters the frame. Why is he there? Apparently he's a big Keys fan. How the collaboration got off the ground? Who cares. Just listen.

The formula is this: Carney, as talented a drummer as Auerbach is a guitarist, lays down his signature brand of hip-hop savvy drum beats. Auerbach layers his reverb-and-fuzz soaked riffs. Dam' Dash dials up some of the biggest names in hip-hop, who then pen rhymes on the spot to slip on top of the Keys' doings and voila, BlakRoc.

But don't let the notion of a rap/rock combination album turn you off based on previous failed attempts (see Limp Bizkit). In my opinion, the combo has always been a three-listen-max novelty, if that.

Dan Auerbach seems to agree, in chapter 7 of the Blackroc web-series Auerbach assures the day's resident rhyme-man, Q-Tip, that this project is not like what's come before.

"That's what we're tryin' to avoid, Rap-metal," Auerbach tells Q-Tip in the video. "We're tryin' to stay the fuck away from that."

And they manage to do that readily. From watching the videos, which I highly recommend, the collaboration is as fulfilling for the Keys as it is the rappers filing in and out of the various studios. Pharoah Munze for one takes to slapping his hand against the recording booth's wood panelled walls once he finally nails his verse.

But even if you don't like the music, the novelty of seeing Dam' Dash (of all people) bobbing his head to the Black Keys' ballsy blues and the giddiness in Mos' Def's grinning face upon first hearing the Keys' backing tracks in the first episode of the web-series is well worth the video load time.

Also, any installment of the web-series featuring Jim Jones is entertainment in and of itself. See chapter 2 for Jones, Mos' Def and Dam' Dash discussing Michael Jordan and a toe infection he once had during a game and the idea of him betting on himself in the NBA finals.

If you do like the music, you won't be able to contain yourself watching Mos' Def bouncing back and forth outside Dash's Mercedez-Benz, windows down with the Keys' contributions blasting, while he improv's his own take on that particular track's chorus.

So far the album, which was released on Nov. 27, is available on iTunes, Amazon, the Blakroc website and local independant record stores around the country (You can find a directory of the stores carrying it here).

I hadn't heard about this until listening to a show on WFUV Fordham Radio called the Alternate Side last night, and man am I glad I happened to be driving home at that particular hour.

Many thanks to WFUV for bringing this to the airwaves because it is a project that has finally rekindled the obsessive compulsion I tend to fall into over good new music. A phenomenon I've felt deprived of since hearing Deer Tick's sophomore release, "Born on Flag Day", which, sadly, I actually went out and bought last summer.

Here's the video for the song "Ain't Nothin' Like You (Hoochie Coo)" featuring Mos' Def with the chorus mentioned earlier and Jim Jones:

Blakroc: Ain't Nothing Like You (Hoochie Coo) Ft. Mos Def and Jim Jones from Jonah Schwartz on Vimeo.

Chris Henry, 5/17/1983 - 12/17/2009

After reading about the domestic dispute that lead to Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry's then life-threatening injuries last night, I felt for him.

Henry had had his share of behavioral issues during his tenure in the NFL, including a four-game suspension at the start of last season. But, it seemed as though he had turned a corner.

In the HBO series "Hard Knocks", which followed the Bengals through the 2009 training camp, he seemed like a focused guy ready to take his career more seriously.

Tragically, though, Henry's chances at redemption ended today when he succumbed to the injuries he sustained falling from the truck-bed last night.

Too young for anyone to go, the full gravity of his untimely demise summed up in the tears welled in Chad Johnson's eyes looping on ESPN all day.

Narrow Stairs

The difference between the songs on Death Cab for Cutie's latest album, Narrow Stairs, and the songs in the rest of their catalogue is that the new ones just aren't as good.

When I first bought the cd this afternoon, I listened to the first minute or two of each song before skipping through the whole album. The fourth song on Narrow Stairs, "Cath...", did stick out at first, butsome suspect moments. Like I said in an earlier post about the first single off Narrow Stairs, "I Will Posses Your Heart," the lyrics are weak, rhyming absent, and the music uninteresting and uncharacteristic.

"Grapevine fires", really good visual lyrics. Nice mellow song.

"Bixby Canyon Bridge", eh, ok. Just one question: When did Ben Gibbard become this supposed second-coming of Jack Kerouac? I liked "Couches in Alleys", and this song's ok, but come on. No one wants to hear literary criticism when they buy an album. At least I don't.

"No Sunlight" would have been better if they left it as the slowed down, acoustic demo version that can be found online.

"Cath" is definately the album's standout. Sadly the rest of the album's tracks fail to rekindle any of Death Cab's now somewhat stale charm and ultimately call Gibbard's songwriting into question.

What I Like About Sports

I am not really a "sports guy". I watch ESPN almost regularly. I'd say it's maybe my second or third resort when I turn on the TV. If you were to ask me what league and division an obscure MLB franchise plays in, I probably wouldn't be able to tell you. But, I do like sports.

It's just I don't really worry about the numbers too much, I like the stories.

I like to think that sports appeal to a sort of primal urge in us, but in a good way. Not in the way that some people regard sports and athletes; primitive exhibitions of socially-irrelevant physical strength put on by pseudo-Neanderthal "jocks". But, as the full exertion of finely tuned human bodies working in conjunction with an acute logic in an environment that refuses even the slightest hesitation, all to overcome the efforts of someone just as fast, strong, deceptive and smart as you--if not more so--who is trying to stop you, outsmart you and outplay you at every opportunity.

It's impressive.

It's not just impressive because we aren't capable of doing it, which by and large we aren't, it's impressive because in one sense, athletes playing at the pinnacle of sports have reached a pinnacle of human ability, utilizing their bodies and minds to the utmost of their capacities.

That's a little dramatic, I know.

But athletes tend to get written off as a whole because some of them aren't as book smart as they are physically superior and sports-smart, per se. The thing is, that doesn't matter. They're not college professors, they're basketball players, football players, soccer players, tennis players, baseball players, real wrestlers, not pretend wrestlers on TV, you know, athletes.

You wouldn't judge the merit of a guy with a Ph. D in 18th Century British literature by the outcome of a one-on-one game with Lebron James, would you? So then why hold it against a college athlete if the team manager writes his papers and takes his tests?

I don't.

If you think the term "student-athlete" applies to the freshman basketball player who's going to win your school a national championship before diving into his in-ground pool filled with NBA money, I would say you're wrong. You get graded by your teachers in class, and maybe you do well. He gets graded by the NBA coaches and scouts poring over his nationally-televised games and assessing his ability with an intimidatingly wide array of criteria. So, he may not do half as well as you in the classroom, most people can barely dream of doing half as well as him in the last two minutes of a national championship game.

But, like I was saying, I like sports for the stories.

So sports appeal to a primal urge in us. An urge for competition? An urge for that vicarious dominance die-hard fans relish in when "their" teams win? Whatever you want to call it, it all comes down to winning and losing. No one wants to lose, everyone wants to win. It's as simple as that.

What sports-feature stories provide is a context for the competition. Whether it's stories that detail the drama that unfolds in the heat of the battle, if you will, or the "fluffier" stories that reveal off-court or off-the-field details about the athletes and teams, those stories let you in on the motivations of individual players and teams. For example, if you knew that a safety on the underdog side of the field had called out the other team's quarterback, the one who had to work his way into the limelight and fend off adversity without remorse ever since, you'd be a lot more interested in watching how each of those players performed.

If you know why a team wants to win then it's easy to get emotionally invested in the game. Same as if you heard or read something that made you want a player to lose, you'll get a lot more pleasure, in a minorly sadistic sort of way, out of seeing an interception get picked out of Terrell Owens' hands than you would from, say, Joey Galloway's.

But even if you don't want to bother reading a story on a rivalry that's been going on since your grandparents were teenagers, or you don't feel like watching a segment on a millionaire all-star's humble beginnings, you can't deny that what they do is impressive.

Speaking of Impressive. Dwight Howard could very well be just a large horse raised by a human family that took him in as one of their own. Then spent the first 16 or so years of his life teaching him to play basketball before releasing him into the NBA. With a cape.

Preface to video: The cupcake dunk: clever yet unimpressive. Dwight Howard's superman dunk: ...yeah, right?

The Return of The Office

Remember that writer's strike that went on for months but almost anyone you talked to still couldn't figure out what they were striking over? Well that's over now and has been for a few weeks. A lot of shows had seasons cut in half by the strike and have now come back to resume, one of those show's is NBC's "The Office".

The writers for "The Office" were striking, at least in part, over not being paid royalties for the advertisements on web versions of the episodes they wrote. Now, I can understand that. I'm sure NBC gets a bunch of money for those advertisements and the writers are entitled to their share. But if you're going to go on strike and cut in half what was shaping up to be your best season yet, you better come back and make it very clear to we, the viewers, why your absence was so unbearable. I'm afraid, at this point, my DVD's of past seasons of "The Office" are doing a better job of that than the writers' new material.

There have been three post-strike episodes up to this point, "Dinner Party", "Chair Model" and "Night Out". I'll start with the first episode back, "Dinner Party".

I don't want to go into too much detail so if you haven't seen the episode yet you can see it on nbc.com. But, the plot of "Dinner Party" is basically this, Michael and Jan have the office couples over for a dinner party at their condo. Jim and Pam, and Andy and Angela come over and later Dwight shows up with a former babysitter as his date.

I like the premise, and I liked a lot of the details revealed about the characters in the episode, Jan cleans out Michael's bank account on all sorts of things; paintings of herself, her scented candle company that doesn't make any money, furniture, and a bunch of other things you see in their condo, and Andy and Angela are in fact in a relationship, twisted as it may be.

But, what I didn't like about this episode was the overwhelming awkwardness literally pouring through my tv screen. I know, "The Office" is all about awkward comedy and that's the best part of the show, yes, but too much of anything is too much, you know? The writers must be in some weird state of mind after that strike to have come up with something so blaringly uncomfortable that even I, a big fan of the show, could be left so cold by it. Michael having all sorts of vasectomies and un-vasectomies, Jan getting altogether too creepy dancing to her assistant's music and everything, they're really just creepin' it up over there at NBC.

Too much awkward and not enough fun, witty dialogue that has been the reason for watching the show since it started.

The next episode, "Chair Model" was a little better, but not very much at all. The premise was way creepier than funny. Michael sees a model in a chair catalog and becomes obsessed with her and eventually Dwight finds out online that she's actually dead (too much) and he and Michael go to her grave where the episode ends with the two of them literally singing and dancing over her grave. I can't remember what the song was because it just wasn't very funny.

Another thing about this episode, but all of them really. Jim and Pam's little secret crush romance they had for the whole series up until this season was one of those storylines that you really get caught up in. Those were the good uncomfortable moments when Jim would say something a little too forward and Pam would look in either direction without moving her head and change the subject in the most awkward and obvious way possible. But now the two of them are together and Jim has gone from being the guy your pulling for to get the girl to being the guy who's been sort of a dick since he started dating Pam. So, Jim's a dick now. Kind of.

The one good thing about the latest episode, "Night Out", was how Jim was flying high when he suggested they all work late to save a Saturday in the office and then how he got knocked down a few pegs after everyone realized he'd forgotten to ask security to leave the gate unlocked. Well, I shouldn't say that was the only good thing about this episode.

The best thing about the episode, and the only good thing that's seem to come out of these new ones: Ryan's a cokehead. How great is that? First of all, if there's anyone out there who really liked Ryan's character after he went from a pitiful yet condescending intern to a successful asshole has to be an even bigger asshole than that character. But, now he's a cokehead and we can just laugh at him instead of pursing your lips whenever he's on screen and muttering, "I just don't fuckin' like that guy."I mean, I never expected that to happen when Michael and Dwight ran up on him in the city. But, it's perfect. The one character I really liked not seeing is now the character I can't wait to see more of. It's great.

I think the big problem with these new episodes is that they've taken the characters out of the office. "The Office" is a sitcom, situational comedy, once you take the characters out of the situation, the office, you lose the comedy. Or at least a good deal of it.

Put them back in the office and just turn down the awkwardness a little bit, you have it up way too loud so I can't hear the jokes.

Well, the next episode comes out tomorrow night on NBC at 9. We'll see if things pick up this week.

Awaiting Narrow Stairs

As anyone out there who holds Death Cab for Cutie in any sort of regard would know, their first album since their 2005 release, Plans, is set to release May 13.

The album, Narrow Stairs, has already had its first single released, "I will possess your heart". A lot of reviews have said that the long instrumental lead in is a turn off to most listeners, but in my opinion, its the best part of the song. The driving bass complimented by Ben Gibbard's sparing piano really caught my ear when I first heard it in the short video about the making of Narrow Stairs that DCFC had on the front page of their website for the last few months. So, I like the intro ... it's just the rest of the song that bothers me.

The melody of Gibbard's lyrics, if you admit there is one at all, is robotic at best. While I have only heard the song on YouTube videos and could probably use a few more listens, I don't even think the lyrics are that strong. Mind you, lyrics, thanks to Ben Gibbard, are Death Cab's strong point. But you can make your own judgments of "I Will Possess Your Heart", the video's at the bottom of this post.

Oh, and just one thing about the video itself. I really like everything with the girl traveling and what not, that looks pretty good. But as for the performance segment? The members of DCFC have more indie flare on and around them than I'm willing to take in one video. The scarves, snow caps, the ever-present dummy glasses, ok, but why must they be playing in a walk in freezer? Is there any reason why we need to see their breath? And I have a lot of respect for Ben Gibbard as a songwriter, but when he goes around wearing a snow cap with a brim on it, well it makes me question how much respect I can really have for him.

I'm looking very forward to the release of Narrow Stairs. I'm hoping to hear more Transatlanticism than Plans, though the latter has some good songs too. The band has said in interviews that the recording process changed for them on the new record. As opposed to their usual, very calculated approach to how songs should sound and will be recorded, they apparently went into the studio without much more than Gibbard's songs written on Big Sur. "I Will Possess Your Heart" is said to be a good example of their approach this time around, they sort of let all the parts come together before the song really hits, at which point it dies out. Hopefully this single is the band giving its fans the bad news first.

Anyway, here's the official video for "I Will Possess Your Heart", you decide if the song's any good or if the band's extensive indie garb is too much.

Worth Hearing: Feist on the Colbert Report

Monday night Stephen Colbert had Feist on his show, the Colbert Report. After an interview with the cable-TV satirist, Feist took the stage to perform her song, "I feel it all".

I admit I was turned off by Feist at first by the whole iPod campaign around her and her song, "1234", but I did like her Colbert Report performance. While I don't listen to very much of her solo work, I recently started listening to the band, Broken Social Scene. In addition to her solo work, Feist is one of the band's singers.

Broken Social Scene took a little getting used to, but eventually it's undeniable. Their more experimental musical wanderings aren't my favorite, but I really like their more traditional style songs. By traditional, I mean, a song that has at least a discernible verse and chorus.

"I Feel It All" has that same quick, catchy quality of the BSS songs I like most. It's definitely in the vein of catchy, but quality songs that a lot of indie bands have mastered; the Shins, DCFC, BSS, etc. Without jeopardizing the songs' integrity, I think those bands are more often than not able to create really likable songs that still have the depth for long-term enjoyment and respect.

Also, I am always amazed by singer/songwriters that can totally capture you in a song with nothing more than their voice, their guitar, and the words they put together to sing to you. Here's Feist on the Colbert Report doing just that.

Worth Hearing: Ben Gibbard's "Couches in Alleys"

This is the first of what I hope will be a recurring post entitled, "Worth Hearing." Pretty straightforward. Any song or band that strikes me in a way that I feel is worth telling another person about, I'll spare my friends and family the conversations they won't care about and just post my thoughts here.

I'm a big fan of Ben Gibbard, the lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie and the Postal Service. While some may be turned off by Death Cab's quirky, indie style or the Postal Service's techno backing music, his songs are, in my opinion, some of the best this generation may have to offer to the history of American songwriting.

Last year, Gibbard spent a good deal of time on the road doing a solo tour, just him and his guitar with the occasional guest.

I have been lucky enough to download the recordings of a few of these shows and I have a newfound jealousy for anyone who attended the one at the 9:30 Club which apparently was broadcast on NPR as well.

I'm jealous because in addition to all the charmingly earnest Death Cab and Postal Service songs that he played for most of his audiences over the course of the solo tour, he played his song, "Couches in Alleys", that he recorded with Styrofoam.

On the recording he admits it is the first time he's played the song live and proceeds to play the song as any avid listener of Gibbard would hope he would; earnest, honest, and a bit melancholy, really.

He substitutes the catchy, categorically elusive backing music that Styrofoam provided for his remarkable lyrics on the initial recording with a somber chord progression on his guitar.

The song is an "open letter" to Jack Kerouac, the Beat Generation's icon and author of "On the Road", among other novels.

Gibbard's appreciation of the beatnik Kerouac and his transient lifestyle during the 1950's and 60's is apparent in this song. Gibbard relates to Kerouac's struggle with aging. As one who lived a famously free flowing life, Kerouac had a hard time retreating to sedentary life in his later years and died at the ripe age of 47 of cirrhosis of the liver caused by years of drinking.
Gibbard doesn't come off as one to live as, I'll say recklessly, as Kerouac, but he certainly has spent years on the road.

Like Kerouac, getting older doesn't seem to have been so easy on Gibbard and this song is evidence of that. It must be hard for the ever-traveling type like touring musicians to realize that their nomadic, adventurous lifestyle must come to an end at some point.

Here is one of the portions of the song that I am referring to:

At the end of this road that climbs the horizon
we’ll be reached in a matter of miles.
And when the wheels cease to spin,
The walls and the fences will grow taller
Than redwood trees.
And I know your demise
And I fear what will happen
When the world fails to flow under me.

I especially like the line, "When the wheels cease to spin, the walls and the fences will grow taller than redwood trees." When the traveler stops his incessant moving, he must feel boxed in by his surroundings. Like most of Gibbard's lyrics, I just can't imagine a better way to articulate that notion than he does in this song.

This may also be an allusion to the cabin on Big Sur, California, where Kerouac, on the verge of a nervous breakdown as a result of his newfound literary stardom, wrote his novel "Big Sur."

I'm imagining the cabin on Big Sur in California would be surrounded by redwood trees. I draw this conclusion because I know Gibbard himself retreated to the exact same cabin on Big Sur where Kerouac sought refuge, to write Death Cab's new album, "Narrow Stairs."

I'll bring up another part of the song,

I felt like your mirror with the wind whipping through my hair.
When the wheels cease to spin
And I cased my surroundings I realized I hadn’t gone anywhere.
And the problems I’d left, were couches in alleys
That no one would ever claim.
And the hardest part, was sifting through the pieces
Of the rainsoaked and rotten remains
when I got home.

After the years of traveling, feeling like Kerouac out on the road, he realizes he's back where he started. I'm not sure just what problems Gibbard is reffering to as the "couches in alleys", but I think the metaphor is really incredibly bright and appropriate.

But enough of what I think, here's the same recording of "Couches in Alleys" that I'm talking about.