1. Will Ferrell is headed to The Office for four upcoming episodes this season; he’ll play a branch manager from the home office who is just as inappropriate as Michael Scott. [via Deadline]
2. “At this point, Stephen [Malkmus] does not write songs for Pavement anymore, or songs in the Pavement mindset. I think he considers that part of his juvenilia, which is his own prerogative. He’s left that era behind him and then decided in 2010 that he would put himself back in that mindset for seven or eight months. As far as I could tell, he seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. Maybe he’d be willing to do it again.” – Bob Nastanovich talks about Pavement’s future
3. Two producers of 1989′s The Joy Luck Club are interested in Amy Chua’s controversial new memoir on parenting, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, into a movie. [via THR]
4. Christopher Hitchens is annoyed about historical inaccuracies in The King’s Speech, particularly the way it “downplays the foolishness” of Winston Churchill’s support for Edward VIII. [via National Review Online]
5. Yesterday Wilco announced the formation of their new self-released imprint, dBpm, to release their future albums, with distribution provided by ANTI-. [via Muzzle of Bees]
If you’ve ever wondered what your favorite literary characters might be listening to while they save the world/contemplate existence/get into trouble, or hallucinated a soundtrack to go along with your favorite novels, well, us too. But wonder no more! Here, we sneak a look at the hypothetical iPods of some of literature’s most interesting characters. What would be on the personal playlists of Holden Caulfield or Elizabeth Bennett, Huck Finn or Harry Potter, Tintin or Humbert Humbert? Something revealing, we bet. Or at least something danceable. Read on for a cozy reading soundtrack, character study, or yet another way to emulate your favorite literary hero. Last week we heard a snippet of Humbert Humbert’s musical tastes, so just to be fair, we thought we’d investigate the other side of the coin. This week: Dolores Haze, better known as Lolita herself.
1. Patti Smith won a National Book Award last night for her fantastic memoir Just Kids, and in her acceptance speech urged the crowd “never abandon the book, no matter how much we advance technologically.” Jaimy Gordon surprised many by winning the fiction prize for Lord of Misrule, which is set at a rundown horse track in West Virginia. [via USA Today]
2. Writer and producer Christopher Gambale — who pitched MTV a treatment for a reality show called Guidos back in 2006 — says the network stole his idea for Jersey Shore. [via Gatecrasher]
3. Pavement will appear on an upcoming episode of the Food Network’s Ace of Cakes in a segment that was taped at one of their Central Park shows. [via P4K]
4. Eli Roth has signed on to produce a horror project called Clown that is based on fake viral trailer that was attributed to him. [via Collider]
5. Steve Wozniak says that while the iPhone has “very few weak points,” Android will be the dominant smartphone platform. [via Engadget]
If you’re reading this, then odds are you’re not in route to Matador Records’ epic 21st birthday bash at the Palms in Vegas, where an amazing lineup of bands who have worked with the indie rock label — Sonic Youth, Pavement, Girls, Spoon, Belle & Sebastian, New Pornographers, and Superchunk, among others — will perform for three nights straight. Each evening’s show will be live streaming on Matador’s MySpace page, and will re-air again the following morning. Click through to check out the lineup, and plan your viewing accordingly.
Indie rock is often ironic or sarcastic or absurd — but truly funny indie songs can be hard to find. That realization struck us recently, while listening to “Our Riotous Defects,” from of Montreal’s fantastic new album, False Priest. Against a P-Funk backbeat, frontman Kevin Barnes deadpans the story of his relationship with a “crazy girl,” in hilarious details like, “as punishment, you killed my beta fish, just threw it out the window” and “I participated in all your protests, supported your stupid, little blog, got a Bowflex, wore color contacts to match your dresses.” In celebration of this track, we present this list of 10 more indie songs to make you laugh out loud. Because even the sullenest of hipsters has to laugh once in a while.
1. There’s something weird happening on Twitter this morning that will cause you to auto-retweet the problem-causing code anytime you mouse over the page. We recommend that you use mobile.twitter.com until it’s fixed. [via Boing Boing]
2. In case you missed it, Pavement played “Gold Soundz” on last night’s episode of The Colbert Report. [via Arts Beat]
3. J.J. Abrams has cast Kyle Chandler (aka Friday Night Lights’ Coach Taylor) and Elle Fanning (Dakota’s little sis) as the leads in his super secretive film project, Super 8, which is being produced by Steven Spielberg. [via THR]
4. Catch Me If You Can is being adapted into a Broadway musical by many of the same creatives who worked on the Tony Award-winning production of Hairspray. It will open next spring. [via Playbill]
5. Focus Features has announced that it will be campaigning both The Kids Are All Right stars — Annette Bening and Julianne Moore — for Best Actress. Note: That has only been successful five other times in Academy Awards history. [via EW]
Considering the troubles that divided Pavement in the first place, their long-running reputation for erratic live shows, and the deeply held belief that theirs is first and foremost a for-the-money reunion, we went into last night’s Williamsburg Waterfront performance with low expectations. But you know what? Stephen Malkmus, Bob Nastanovich, Spiral Stairs, and the gang kept it together long enough to bring down the house, playing every one of their best songs and bantering as though they were actually having a good time together. In celebration of this unexpected triumph, we bring you a photo of Pavement’s original Slanted and Enchanted demo tape. After the jump, those of you who don’t already have it memorized can check out the final album’s track list for comparison.
We think the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St is one of rock’s most perfect albums. So it was no surprise that Pitchfork crowned the reissue with the coveted 10.0 rating, a rarity for a site so critical its top-rated album of 2009, Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, only scored a 9.6.
We couldn’t remember the last time an album was so highly rated by Pitchfork, so we scoured their archives to put together a list of the 10 most recent album releases and re-releases to earn a 10. Mostly, we found reissues that were at least 15 years old, recorded by such unknown artists as The Beatles and Neil Young. And that makes us wonder whether any of the new music kids are making these days will ever measure up to the classics, even in the eyes of critics roughly their own age. Do you agree with Pitchfork, or do you think they’ve overlooked more recent perfect albums?
1. Gary Numan (along with a slew of other British musicians), might not make it to Coachella because of the volcanic eruption. [via Brooklyn Vegan]
2. HBO has snagged the rights for three new docs from Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney: Freakonomics, My Trip To Al-Qaeda, and his untitled Eliot Spitzer project. [via The Playlist]
3. This makes us super jealous of our West Coast friends: Pavement, Sonic Youth, and No Age will play a joint show at the Hollywood Bowl this September. [via 24Bit]
4. Chromeo will release their third album, Business Casual, on August 17. Fun fact: Solange Knowles lends guest vocals on one of the tracks. [via P4K]
5. We had no idea that Tracy Morgan had beef with Tobey Maguire… (video) [via HuffPo]
Artist/designer and screen-printer Terrance Ryan (aka Lil Tuffy) made his first poster in 2002 for The Black Keys. From an auspicious start to a glossy finish, we find Tuffy’s work for bands that range from Sonic Youth to Vampire Weekend so visually compelling, that it’s hard playing favorites. To help narrow it down, here are eleven of ours after the jump. If you like what you see, Secret Serpents has a limited number of his prints available for purchase, as does GigPosters.
