Saturday 21 November 2009

You just haven't earned it yet baby

Firstly apologies for my absence, my excuse is as ever, life, though since I last wrote I met Stuart Murdoch (ok I took his coat when I was working the cloakroom, no I didn't check his pockets!!), had a band practice with one of my many new musical projects, went to a crazy experimental show where a woman screamed into a piano and Simon Bookish played the recorder (that was just weird!) and celebrated American Thanksgiving. Phew!

So thanks for the emails guys recommending video clips to show and props to Alan for emailing this particular video. This is probably the most random thing ever, Chris Packham famed for his role on the Really Wild Show joined the presenters on Springwatch earlier this year.

Apparently it was a bet to see how many Smiths tracks he could reference throughout the series, and this is a montage of all those clips, I just love how some of them were rather set up, and good to see Bill Oddie get a mention too. And watch out for Chris wearing a Jesus and Mary Chain tee shirt in one clip, sorry Chris but you doing this isn't going to make Springwatch cool! So watch, enjoy and (like me) groan a lot...



Will be back soon with some movie reviews next week finally got to watch 10 Things I Hate About You and now obsessed with Julia Styles, she is so cool! Now I'm off to go watch some dudes get married, congratulations to Shummers and Spangles, may you spend many years being nerds in love!

Hope yr all well
Alicexx

Tuesday 17 November 2009

Perfect copies of the top 20



A rare opportunity for me to feature some British telly, yey! For any American's reading, your kid from the wrong side of the tracks was The Fresh Prince where as we had this 'gritty' north eastern show about kids that hung out at Byker Grove youth centre. The show spawned such celebrities as the monstrosity that is Ant and Dec (or as in the show PJ and Duncan) though they did produce this genius rap song, you had Will Smith, us PJ and Duncan, obs we win! erm?

This scene is flawed though, what self respecting teenager of the 90s would have ever said Half Man Half Biscuit were her favourite band? And sorry were they ever in the top 20? I imagine John Peel would have been proud though.

Half Man Half Biscuit have some shows coming up, see here for more details.

Monday 16 November 2009

If you wanted to know who Slint are?



Found this video clip showing one of my favourite name dropping scene from Gilmore Girls. Shame on Jesse for not knowing who Slint are, but props to the record store guy (played by Chuck E Weiss a Tom Waits collaborator and co-owner of the infamous Viper Room, fact kids) for helping him out. I like the fact he described them as grunge, obviously post rock requires too much explanation for the average Gilmore Girls fan. Also a triple whammy of the pixies playing in the background and chat about The Go-Go's.

Sunday 15 November 2009

Love hurts in so many painful ways

A video from the vaults of TV gone past, it still slightly disturbs me to hear a classic being murdered in this way by Courtney Taylor of The Dandy Warhols. This was from Season 2 of Veronica Mars when the programmers were obviously struggling so much that they had to put cameo appearances in nearly every episode, these worked to our amusement, but really this is just a bit wrong.

Nice of them to get The Dandy Warhols on there seeing as their song 'We Used To Be Friends' was the theme tune to the program, (and was also, according to Wikipedia the theme music for the Australian reality series My Restaurant Rules). Must also mention their song 'Solid' was also used as the theme tune to the Apatow series Undeclared, another program that was cruely cancelled in it's prime, maybe it's the curse of The Dandy Warhols?

Colour My Life With The Chaos Of Trouble



So, here we go, first review on the blog, the indie non-romantic comedy of the summer, enjoy!

(500) Days of Summer is a film charting the 500 days it takes for Tom Hansen (played by the lovely Joseph Gordon-Levitt) to fall in love, get his heart broken and get over the Summer Finn (played by indie princess Zooey Deschanel). Already the workings of a good indie movie cause indie boys are always pining over pretty indie girls in pretty dresses aren't they?

1. Dialogue - Where do I start? Well the fact their first conversation is about their mutual love of The Smiths is a good one though the best line in the whole film is when Tom laments that "It pains me to live in a world where no-one has ever heard of
Spearmint". Spearmint, of all of the bands languishing in London late 90s indie all-so-rans obscurity they picked Spearmint, WTF!!! Interestingly enough my old band played a show with Spearmint about 7 years ago, I remember being very amused that they turned up with their own sound man, lighting man and guitar technician who all had matching 'Spearmint Crew' embroidered shirts. I was rather jealous, I want to be in a band that has roadies with embroidered shirts, did look rather out of place in the Bull and Gate though...

Obviously the writers must have thought that Spearmint represented the obscure cool they were going for with the movie, but come on, has anyone ever even thought the above statement apart from maybe the band and their mums? Good on Spearmint though, I hear they played the ICA recently, anyone go?

There's also a nice reference to Summer's love of Belle and Sebastian, and her quoting 'The Boy With The Arab Strap' in her college yearbook. And they have a chat about Springsteen too, the cool indiekids favourite troubadour. Points are lost cause she states that Ringo is her favourite Beatle, everyone knows that Paul is the best Beatle!

So The Smiths, Belle and Sebastian and Spearmint, that's hella indie, but a - point for her love of Ringo takes it to 4/5 cardigan points



2. Music Parapanalia - Well Gordon-Levitt wears not one but two different Joy Division teeshirts which is good but there's not really much indie product placement in this film (surprisingly even in the record shop scenes) so I guess that's 2/5 cardigan points

3. Band Appearances - Sadly no band cameos in this movie so a big fat 0 cardigan points
EDIT, how did I not know at the time about She & Him? this must be changed to 5 cardigan points!



4. Soundtrack - pretty indie at times, The Smiths, of course... Regina Spector, Feist, The Temper Trap... he sings The Pixies in the Karaoke bar. Probably the boldest move is having a big song and dance number to 'You Make My Dreams' by the glorious Hall and Oates, a bold move for an indie film, I bloody love Hall and Oates.

OK so Cardigan points... has to be 5/5

5. Generally indie - this film is hella indie, for starters Zooey Deschanel is the top indie princess, she wears lovely dresses and has the ultimate indierock husband in Ben Gibbard. Joseph Gordon-Levitt wears cardigans and skinny ties and does the pining indie boy perfectly. And then there's the kooky cinematography and cutesy graphics which are really nicely done and not too twee (so as not to put off potential outsiders from seeing our indie flick).

Easy, 5/5 cardigan points

Total of 21 cardigan points, HELLA INDIE!!!


Alicexx



(500) Days of Summer Sountrack Website

Saturday 14 November 2009

First post

Nate Archibald and the lovely Sonic Youth

One of the many things that make me smile about a good movie is when the character pops out a line about a certain indie band, when they're wearing a band tee shirt, when there's good music and even better when an indie band makes a rare cameo appearance. It makes me smile and it makes me feel like the movie maker gets my lil indie gal world and we have a bond over a shared love of indie rock (even if they may have put the reference in for marketing means, I maybe indie but I aint no fool!).

In brief this is a blog to amuse and celebrate the random indie references that appear in our favourite films and TV series. I will also look to rate movies and TV programs in terms of their indieness and indie music references by awarding them cardigan (the indie-est of apparel) points for five categories giving the film a final indie rating out of 25.

The five categories are...

1. Dialogue - points will be given for band mentions in dialogue and the more bizarre references will of course get max points, eg. Young Marble Giants, Slint (oh how I did spit out my tea when I saw that) and of course countless others being dropped into conversation in Gilmore Girls. The infamous triple whammy of The Shins/Death Cab/Bright Eyes in the Chrismukka episode of The O.C.

2. Music Paraphanalia - eg. posters,tee shirts, records in record shops, who can forget the Ladybug Transistor/Of Montreal poster in High Fidelity? Or the lovely Seth Rogen wearing a Sonic Youth tee shirt in 40 Year Old Virgin. Points again go for the most obscure band.
Incidentally I actually booked a show for those two bands a few years ago and pretty much the first thing I said to them when they turned up for sound check was "it's just like the poster in high fidelity",see I maybe a dork but I have booked shows for bands that are totally cool, but then I go and blow it by behaving like a dork in front of them...

3. Band cameos - the obscurer the better, and if the band acts in the movie/film even better. I'm sure we were all watching with bemusement when Kim Gordon acted as the afficiate for Rufus and Lily's wedding on Gossip Girl, and also the common band playing in bar trick eg the bait shop, The Bronze, the Karaoke bar in Veronica Mars have all provided endless entertainment all round.

4. Soundtrack - how indie is the soundtrack? sometimes a film can be totally indie but not have any references to it, eg Lost In Translation (Jesus and Mary Chain, Kevin Shields), But I'm A Cheerleader (Dressy Bessy! April March!)...

5. General indieness - eg. cute girls wearing cute indiegirl dresses, boys with side partings in skinny ties and cardigan, cool vintage furniture, kooky cinematography, holding hands, cuteseyness


So I end my first post with links to a couple of videos of one of my favourite recent cameos, of course it's the lovely
Kim Gordon marrying Rufus and Lily and Sonic Youth performing afterwards
BTW, "I Don't Really Know Who is Sonic Youth, But They Seems Old School..." is one of my favourite quotes of the week.

See you soon for my first reviews of my favourite summer indie flicks 500 Days of Summer and Adventureland.

Alicexx