Devendra Banhart — “Carmensita”
With special guest stars Kali, Shiva, Ganesha and Natalie Portman.
Oh, carlos.
I am your basic fag nerd + red state hiptard.
I make photographs, mix tapes, perfect grilled cheeses and magic.
If I'm good, I get to move to Brooklyn
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Foxbaby — “Bid Adieu”
Foxbaby is the love child of my internet friend Jordan and his friends Kelsey and Melanie. The band’s songs, much like its members, are quirky, adorable and seem to dwell in some romantic summer daydream, rather than the ugly, ugly world in which the rest of us live. (More on their MySpace)
“ They have the awesome ability to simultaneously “have” jobs and not have jobs.
Richard Lawson, on the theoretical superpowers of sexually ambiguous hipster sluts.
- Me: Stuffy in the suburbs and consumed by awkwardness: it's like that scene in The Great Gatsby right before all the shit goes down.
- Kelly: Everything you say, even the smallest online conversation stab is like a quote from a movie that has never been made, but I know I would love it.
When did it become daring for white men to wear shorts that actually fit?
Like a weekend visit from your one super-cool aunt who gives the best birthday gifts and makes your dad slightly uncomfortalbe, JC’s blog posts are few and far between, but each one is an event to celebrate. This time around he discusses the plunging hemlines on men’s shorts and the true reasons behind the epidemic:
Several years ago in a couture issue of Peter Cummings’ celebrated XY Magazine, one writer suggested that this baggy shorts trend had outlived traditional fashion cycles because of homophobia and straight men’s unease over the rising glorification and exploitation of the male form in fashion advertisements.
Men had gotten more self-conscious about showing a little leg, he argued, and until they got over it, they would continue covering their bodies in subconscious shame.
Follow the link for his entire essay (Let’s Get Critical. Critical.)
Hipster Runoff sums how I've always felt about Portland and the people desperate to settle there (and the article is one giant [sic]).
I rlllly hate Portland and any other ‘second tier’ cities that claim to be culturally relevant by playing up the whole ‘alternative gimmick.’ There is an excess of shitty musicians who are Starbucks/Chili’s employees in every city, so I hate when a city’s personal brand revolves around ‘sounding like they really mean it when they make their shitty music/attend their shitty, awkward concerts.’
I’d say Austin, TX is pretty good example of ‘shitty city who is gimmickifying it’s underwhelmingly-alternative brand’, too. Most of the music in Austin, TX is more approachable indie fodder than the Portland concept crap, so I’ll give the edge to Portland when it comes to ‘moderately alt cities that major-city-alts-want-to-move-to-bc-they-think-their-life-will-be-simple, yet-authentic,yet-still-as-alt as they feel comfortable with.’ No matter what, we all need an alt-city full of alts to feel comfortable around without the high-cost-of-living that major metropolitan areas have. Don’t you feel like you have met a lot of people who have idealized Portland and Austin as ‘heaven on alt-earth’? Like they imagine settling down with a humble-&-emotionally-connected trophy alt who is done with his/her ‘partying phase’ and ready to start buying well-designed carriages for their newborn babies (lil alts).
Common traits of overhyped 2nd rate alternative cities:
- Perception of being ‘green’
- Perception of a bustling ‘local economy’
- A high ‘basically unemployment’ rate (this figure represents people who are over 30, but still have the jobs a 16 year old would have)
- An excess of corporate and independent coffee shops
- An excess of people with too many tattoos working in independent coffee shops
- An excess of coffee shop employees playing RLLY gimmicky ‘interesting’ music in coffee shops during their shifts/playing the albums of their friend’s band who sound exactly like _______
- Overhearing the ‘future plans’ of people who work in these coffee shops to start their own business in design/food/recordstore/boutique/other alternative biz idea.
- An excess of people in bands that have shows in an excess of venues
- An otherwise stable maintream economy which allows the alternative population to work in the service industry. While this usually happens in all cities, the minorities in the service industry are replaced by these aging alts.
- Overhearing all of these people talking about stuff that was cool between 2 to 40 years ago. They basically have a 2 year delay on ‘what is currently cool’ and usually just rely on ‘liking aesthetics/bands that are from before 1985.’
- A handful of decent bands, a few imitators, and a bunch of krappie bands that have tied their identity to their home city and guilt their friends into attending their show/post a lot of myspace bulletins to impressionable local-17-year olds.
- They attempt to assert their city-wide inferiority complexes by having excessive representation when it comes to liberal activities, particularly ‘marches.’ Examples include Gay Pride Marches, Anti-Racism Marches, Marches Against ‘The War’, and general Marches Against Stuff That Exists Because of Conservative People.
- These cities have significant populations of ‘cool dads’ and ‘free spirited moms’ by choice/believe in their personal images, as opposed to the real-city versions of these parents who are simply ‘participating in a gimmick which they have no control over.’
- A lot of these cities have a major university or a well-branded liberal arts school with a progressive identity which the ‘hip side of town’ feels like they need to cater to in order to keep up sales of vegan wraps, pizza-made-from-only-organic-ingredients, and interesting t-shirts.
(via HIPSTER RUNOFF)
“ I like how you have no shame. It makes you an interesting subject.
Mir, while photographing her sister carbo-loading a Chick-O-Stick.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
MGMT — “Electric Feel”
They made a great album and it was very well received, but I think they should have released it this summer as opposed to last fall. I’ve had this since October, and I couldn’t bring myself to put into heavy rotation until it was consistently 80 degrees outside. Having said that, it’s now the summer staple. Muxtape soon to follow.
“ Suspended animation blue.
Jay, at whileyouwereout.
It’s really great that Sesame Street is trying to stay hip with the cool kids and all, but they’ve arrived far too late in the game to wrestle any cred away from Yo! Gabba Gabba when it comes to the Park Slope Progeny demo. And if they had any idea what they were doing over there, they’d know that beskinnyjean’d mannies such as myself were teaching their young charges to count to four using the original song back in ‘05, when it actually meant something.
But Guston and I still applaud the effort.
Gawker's field guide to Bansky.
GOD, we’ve heard so much about Banksy this week. Yes, you know he’s the supersecret anonymous world-famous street artist whose identity may have been revealed at last. But some people do not understand why this is the biggest art story of our generation. At least if you love democracy, freedom, and hilarity! Come along then, as we take a brief whirl through the world of Banksy: An artist that does not suck.
Who is he?
He’s just a dude from England who makes street art. We once thought he might be the alter ego of fellow Brit stencil artist Nick Walker, but that’s probably not the case—not exactly, at least. The Daily Mail says he’s a guy from Bristol named Robin Gunningham, who has a Facebook page that may or may not be real. There may or may not be more than one photo of Banksy extant. Basically he’s a big fucking mystery.
Why is he important?
Ha. “Important” is a subjective idea. But he’s important artistically, because he is the single funniest and most incisive social critic working in street art today; and he’s become a celebrity, making him important…to people who care about celebrities. Once his works started selling to Angelina Jolie and other assorted stars, his secret true identity became an item of even hotter speculation. But most Banksy fans loved the guy for his art long before they even knew he was a big secret.
Who cares about his identity?
If you’re a Wu-Tang fan, you remember when Ghostface Killah first started rhyming, when he wore a stocking over his face in all photos. It was awesome. People who are self-proclaimed mysteries succeed immediately in making fans who would normally care little about their background start to obsessively wonder about them. But you have to give Banksy credit: any time in the past couple of years, he could have sold a big reveal of his identity to the highest bidder for a huge sum. The idea that he’s staying secret out of fear of prosecution for vandalism is a little ridiculous; this is a guy who started as a vandal, but now has museums and town councils voting to keep his (illegal) works in place—sometimes even having city employees go back and touch up his pieces when they get painted over with more graffiti. He’s probably just a guy who doesn’t care to be treated like a superstar in public. The irony is that, by staying anonymous, he’s pushed interest in himself up to mythical levels.