Don't treat me like a tourist

My my, life has been busy recently, I just got back from Paris where I had a lovely time with my girl Normandie, we saw the AWESOME of Montreal play on Friday night.  The floor was bouncing so much from people dancing it made me feel sea sick! I had the most un French weekend ever, we had burritos and vegan cupcakes, and did an insane amount of thrift store shopping, it was so much fun!

Earlier in the week I saw Kishi Bashi play his first show in London, Kishi Bashi plays violin in of Montreal, so on their break from touring he played a special solo show at The Waiting Room in Stoke Newington.  His record has been one of my favourites of this year, beautifully crafted orchestral pop music, with yes hella violins.  His live show is kinda bonkers, he onlys plays violin and sings and uses a looping pedal and effects to manipulate the sound. See for yourself...


Check out his latest pop video featuring a bunch of Kay's of Montreal band mates, apparently some of the people who helped with this video work on that show The Walking Dead too, though sadly Egg from This Life was not in it (he'll always be Egg even with that southern accent).



And yes, also buy his record, cause it is bloody brilliant, ok?

Now, we've talked about Yo Gabba Gabba on this blog before, but I can't really finish this post without mentioning of Montreal's catchy contribution to the show's musical output (and the show's striking similarities to the band's colourful live performance!).  Check out the following videos...
Brush your teeth!


Eat your healthy food!


Wow, of Montreal are full of really good advice!

Now please let me talk TV for a bit...

OMG last week's Parks and Recreation was one of my favourites, when Leslie gave the speech at the end I almost cried, I am such a loser.  Paul Rudd was great in it too, he plays Leslie's political rival and is such a dunce.  As well as the show I am also enjoying these Parks and Rec and Ben Wyatt gifs.  You can never have too many animated gifs in your life.

Also check out Paul Scheer's (The League, NTSF:SD SUV, Human Giant) Breaking Bad animated gif's site.

"Apparently I’m stepping on toes. But haters going hate and I’m going to GIF create!" Paul Scheer 

Hell yeah!

There should be more animated gifs involving pizza juggling.

I am so loving the show "Girls" too, I just watched episode 3, and I like how it's going. It's been interesting reading the backlash against the program, but with all that hype, there are always going to be some people who want to take them down.  I am in awe of Lena Dunham!

I'm also enjoying "Don't Trust The Bitch in Apartment 23" too, it's great to see Krysten Ritter having a lead role, I loved her in Veronica Mars and Gilmore Girls, I'm not sure about the blonde girl, but I guess her character is meant to be whiney and annoying?

Apart form Michelle Williams, I never liked Dawson's Creek, but James Van Der Beek is pretty funny in it, as he plays himself and makes a ton of Dawson's Creek jokes. Come to think about it, he was pretty funny in "How I Met Your Mother" too. Maybe he's actually all right it's just that Dawson's Creek was so awful?

Well I best go, but if you're about in London town next Monday, why not come to this show and see my band Cosines play, I mean what else are you going to do right? (OK don't answer that)

See ya
Alicexx

Tommy's place!

Tomorrow we are going to the Jeff Mangum curated ATP Festival, it is going to be BOSS! I hope April Ludgate will be there...

Andy: Who is Jeff Mangum?
April: The guy from Neutral Milk Hotel.
Andy: Oh Neutral Milk Hotel, what is that?
April: That’s my favorite band I’ve told you that like a thousand times.
Andy: I don’t remember. Why wouldn’t you pick me?
April: I don’t know. You are not technically a rockstar. It’s an indisputable fact that they’re better, they are a real band…
Tom: Andy where’s your boo’s favorite place to smoosh?
Andy: At the Neutral Milk Hotel.
April: Get over it.
Andy: No you get over it. You like some other dude’s band more than me. Do you even think that Mouse Rat is the greatest band in the world because it is starting to not feel that way.
April: That band is really important to me and honestly I’ve asked you to listen to them like a million times and you never have so…
Andy: Because their music is sad and depressing and weird and art is supposed to be happy and fun and everyone knows that…

And yes that was of course from Parks and Recreation from last season, and of course made us only love our favourite intern (I hope she's not an intern any more, she's been there for ages) more.

I found this music video for indie band Father John Misty (no me neither, but the song is all right) , check out the lovely Aubrey Plaza (aka one April Ludgate) eating flowers, dancing with a lamp and generally causing mischief.



The best character in Parks and Rec tho has to be Tom Haverford, played by the awesome Aziz Ansari.  He's announced a USA tour for later on this year, if you live there you should go and get yr tickets.  If you see him tell him to book a show in London, I totally messed up and missed him last year. And to quote Davina McCall, here are Tom's best bits...




I'll be ATP-ing you soon!
Alicexx

Actor out of work (a premonition for the Gossip Girls at the end of this season?)

It's always ace to see one of your favourite bands on telly isn't it? So yes was a welcome surprise to see the lovely St Vincent on Gossip Girl last week! Check it out below if you missed it...

Isn't Gossip Girl ridiculous at the moment?! Though I loved the Nate/Elizabeth Hurley story line and whoo, what an evil prince we have here! Hopefully there'll be another 90's band cameo like when Sonic Youth were on, though it looks like they keep throwing whatever they get at the program so it's only a matter of time. BTW have you heard Taylor Momsen's band?

Other faves at the moment...

New Girl - Love her or hate her, lovely Zooey has definitely become a force to be reckoned with, what with her awesome performance on Saturday Night Live last week (Kristen Wiig's Bjork was particularly entertaining) and her pretty awesome website for girls Hello Giggles and of course New Girl. I think my favourite bit was seeing Zooey and Lizzie Caplan having a crochet night together (hey, I'm an indie girl that's crafty, ok?) and them attempting to play Eye of the Tiger on the bells, I love that song!

Hart of Dixie - We all love Wade right? And the mayor's really weird "sexy" face he pulls when chatting up the ladies, see the photo to my left for an example. We don't have Thanksgiving in the UK, but I'd rather have Planksgiving any day, arrr!!!

Parks and Recreation - Go team Knope! Really enjoyed Martin Starr's cameo the other week, I know how much you all like animated gifs, so here's one celebrating the moment.

Martin Starr has been rapping recently with a band called Common Rotation, they're playing LA tomorrow so go see them if you live there (I dunno who reads this though maybe you could live in LA and read this in time, let me know how it is if you go eh?). They do a rap that samples "Rich Girl by Hall and Oates, how awesome is that?! I'm not sure what the rest of the stuff is like, all the music on the website is country music, well there's not enough rap/country cross over out there is there?

Coming up...
I'm super looking forward to seeing Girls when it comes out, it's produced by Judd Apatow and stars Lena Dunham, and is basically Sex in the City for more normal 20 somethings. And even better Betty Ann Baker (the mum from Freaks and Geeks) is in it! I think I've watched this trailer so many times now, it basically is a more exciting version of my life, April can't come soon enough, enjoy...

And I just bought tickets to see Zack Braff's new West End Play All New People, so looking forward to seeing it, I hope he mentions The Shins in it!

I'm going to try and post more regularly on here from now on, cause I've forgotten about it, probably cause I've been watching too much TV and yes making music with my new band Cosines. Put the 14th April in yr diary, we are playing our first show, crikey! We should hopefully be supporting my dear friends Still Flyin' when they come over in May too, they were played not once but twice on The Office the other week in the pool party episode, yey for them! More information when I have it, now I've got something to plug again I can update the blog!

Hope you're all having an awesome 2012 and got your "operation stay Olympics free" strategy in motion! I will tell you all about mine another time.
See ya
Alicexx


Last but not least, you know how much we like Feist at this blog, I stumbled across this today, how many times does she sing the work "counting"?