JPAG Symposium Symposium

I appeared on this week's Joystiq Podcast Appreciation Group Podcast. We discussed, among other things, the Shawn Elliott-curated internet symposium on video game review policy and ethics.

You can read Joystiq, the site that hosts the podcast that inspired the group that hosts the podcast, here.

You can join (or visit) the JPAG, here.

Release of the Week: M. Ward's Hold Time

I hesitate to call She & Him Vol. 1 a dissapointment, but when I first heard that M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel were collaborating, I didn't expect what we got. When I think of M. Ward, he's not just a warm studio sound with punchy acoustic numbers and a 50s country/pop angle; he's a husky, distant voice: Patsy Cline meets Tom Waits. Sadly, that voice was all but missing from the She & Him album, which only became a vocal collaboration on the The Miracles' "You've Really Got a Hold on Me." 

So I was anxious to get my digital mitts on M. Ward's newest solo effort, Hold Time. For longtime (or shorttime) M. Ward fans, there's not much new here. There's a few duets, including Deschanel on "Rave On" and "Never Had Nobody Like Me" (which sound more like what I wanted She & Him to be) and Lucinda Williams on a brilliant cover of Don Gibson's "Oh Lonesome Me." The title track drifts into nighttime-string-ballad territory and a few tracks are pretty rockin' for Ward, but otherwise, Hold Time meets all expectations. Thankfully.

Oh Lonesome Me (Featuring Luci...

Epistemology - M. Ward

El-P "Flyentology" video

Over the next several weeks, you'll probably see a lot of posts of oldish tracks, as I bask in the cool afterglow of 2008, enjoying albums I loved and discovering even more (I'll post on those, too.). For now, here's why 2008 sucked for hip-hop: there was nothing like El-P!

The Overly Dramatic Truth (Mai...

Fleet Foxes - Mykonos

I finally picked up Fleet Foxes Sun Giant EP after hearing "Mykonos" on SNL. Thanks to NBC, you won't see that here, but you can watch the official video.

On an Island . . . and a Boat.

Is there anything else worth watching right now?





Yes!

Vanished (Nasty Nav Remix)

Let's revisit one of my favorite tracks of 2008. Taking a similar approach to Jesper Dahlback's remix of "Romantic Rights," the Nasty Nav remix of "Vanished" by Crystal Castles turns the Rad-Racer-night-on-the-town-circa-2024 into a club banger. It's not a complete transformation, but that's what makes it so good.

Listen!