Friday, December 31, 2010
Sully's Keepers: September-October 2010
Game On The president's speech was a barn-stormer. Humility And Humiliation America's genius is not power. It is example. "Heart Speaks To Heart" Personal reflections on the Pope's visit. Gays, The Battered Wife Of The Democratic Party Readers dissent. The...
2011 music preview: skater hip-hop, dark 60s pop, Punjabi folk
Eight mercifully un-hyped new and returning acts we're rather excited about
1. Anna Calvi
The mark of, if not a great, then at least an interesting artist is that when they emerge blinking into the public eye, they have a sound that's already, unmistakably, their own. Londoner Anna Calvi manages to establish her sound within three songs of her self-titled debut (out 17 Jan). Hers is a a baroque style that whirls theatrically; her influences range from Maria Callas to Edith Piaf to Jeff Buckley and you can hear Ennio Morricone and PJ Harvey in there too (she shares a producer in Rob Ellis). She may have been longlisted for the BBC's Sound of 2011 poll, but she's miles away from Ellie Goulding. There are moments here that could soundtrack a bloody moment in a Coen brothers thriller or the first waltz at Nick Cave's wedding.
2. The Streets
When Mike Skinner was dumped by the fictional Simone on 2003's Dry Your Eyes, at least she did it to his face. On Computers And Blues (out 7 Feb), a relationship is ended by the changing of a Facebook status. The world, acknowledges Mike, has moved on, and now it's time for The Streets to bow out gracefully on this final LP. Cs&Bs sounds like a valedictory notice, incorporating echoes of Mike's previous albums, from the garage BPMs of Original Pirate Material to the funky guitar lines of the underrated Everything Is Borrowed. And his lyrical smarts remain undimmed: "You're too down/ I'm one across the room", he riffs, crossword style, at one point. We'll miss him.
3. Cults
The problem with the internet, beside putting bookshops out of business, is that it's ripped the sheath of mystery from pop music's skin. So well done to San Diego-born duo Cults ? Ryan Oblivion and Madeline Follin ? who managed to retain an air of mystery in 2010 as the 60s-summer-pop-with-a-dark-heart of Go Outside (featuring samples of genocidal cult leader Jim Jones) began to course through the web like poisoned Kool Aid. We'll find out all about them soon, no doubt. Not only have they signed to a major, they've revealed a telling biographical tidbit: Follin's mother was Dee Dee Ramone's art dealer.
4. Toro Y Moi
2010 was the year that chillwave's founding father Ariel Pink made the leap from bedroom-bound cult secret to inspired pop dreamer gurning at the edge of the mainstream. Could Toro Y Moi follow him into the sunshine in 2011? Toro is the recording project of South Carolina's Chazwick Bundick, who made ripples with last year's Causers Of This, and should make an even bigger splash with its follow-up, Underneath The Pine (out 21 Feb). More song-driven than its predecessor, it offers a dreamy, fairy-dust blend of 80s MOR pop, 60s psychedelia and blunted, downbeat hip-hop invention. Chillwave has come of age.
5. Odd Future
Odd Future ? or, if you want their full title, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All ? are a 10-strong crew of LA skate rats out to give hip-hop a bad name. A string of mixtapes and albums by the likes of Earl Sweatshirt, Domo Genesis and Tyler The Creator (available for free download at oddfuture.com) have set out their stall: a hallucinogenic cocktail of brattish bad vibes and blacker-than-black humour: think Eminem meets Clipse. It's unpalatable to some, but indie giant XL hosted their recent UK debut show, so eyes are on them, and rightly so.
6. Cornershop
Ben Ayres and Tjinder Singh's duo may not have been prolific since their 1997 breakout hit Brimful Of Asha, but Handcream For A Generation (2002) and Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast (2009) firmed up their credentials as one of Britain's more consistently smart indie bands. Their new album, Cornershop & The Double 'O' Groove Of (out 7 Mar) sees Tjinder dish out most the vocal duties to Bubbley Kaur, the Indian singer he overheard performing in his local launderette before asking her to guest on the band's brilliant 2004 single Topknot. An album of Punjabi folk began to gestate after that and if the free taster track, United Provinces Of India, is anything to go by, the final product will be worth it.
7. Creep
Young Turks, the label that unleashed the xx on the world, is not only putting Creep's spooky witch house calling card Days out as a single (25 Jan), it's also lent them the south Londoners' Romy to provide vocals. (Like the xx, Creep also have a track called Intro; there's something going on.) Witch house might be the silliest name for a genre ever (except for the joke one once listed on Creep's Myspace page, rapegaze), but Creep's spooky, horror-movie minimalism thoroughly deserves the moniker. It makes previous witches like Zola Jesus and Salem sound positively chirpy. Not quite Glee chirpy, but still ... We also quite like that one of the best songs on their MySpace page is called Empty Chruch and it might not even be a spelling mistake. That's how cool they are.
8. Jam City
There's been a lot of great music crammed into the fissure between dubstep, house, UK funky and synthetic R&B recently, and some of the best of it has been made by Jack Latham, AKA Jam City. Like Burial and Joy Orbison before him, Latham finds poignancy in the neon haze of south London subways that drew him to the city from suburban Redhill. Yet Jack's tunes are thicker, bouncier: spry, kwaito-esque rhythms festooned with layers of luxe sci-fi synth. He's currently prepping an album of his self-proclaimed "violent but emotional club trax" for release some time in 2011, before heading off on tour with the rest of the Night Slugs posse, who include fellow ones-to-watch Girl Unit, Kingdom and Jacques Greene.
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The Measure | Fashion
Floating our boat: James Blake, upstyler.co.uk, twinsets and Carven. Sunk without trace: permed fringes on boys, mince pies and M&S shredded tights
Going up
One While Changing The name for the cocktail they bring to your room at Soho House Miami while you're getting dressed to go out. Genius. We are so nicking this concept, even if we have to double up as bartender
upstyler.co.uk Cherry-picked charity shop treasures styled up with the best of the high street. Way more fun and original than trawling sale rails
Carven So the new Isabel Marant. FYI
Famousness New Willow Smith terminology ("famousness is awesomeness"). Celebrity(ness?) is so last year
James Blake If you haven't yet heard Limit To Your Love, investigate today. Tipped as 2011's "atmospheric" musical artist � la the xx
Twinsets Chris Kane catwalk-approved. Vogue-approved. Offsetting with neon essential
Going down
Leather and lace Both set to continue as headline trends. Just not worn at the same time. Unless you're Liz Hurley
Mince pies Enough already, till 1 December 2011
M&S "fashion" shredded black tights Looked like a good stocking filler a couple of weeks ago. Look a bit silly now
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TaskSync for Mac connects Remember the Milk and iCal
TaskSync is also smart enough to let you choose which task lists you want to sync, and how often, so you don't have to worry about cluttering up your iCal with unneeded Remember the Milk lists (or vice-versa). And, as Lifehacker points out, you can always use RTM as a middleman to send your iCal tasks to other services and platforms, including Outlook, iGoogle and RSS feeds.
TaskSync for Mac connects Remember the Milk and iCal originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 29 Dec 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Bloomberg's Street Is Free From Snow, But Booker Is Grabbing His Shovel
Filed under: News, Politics, Race and Civil Rights
As the blizzard of 2010 dumped 20 inches on New York City, paralyzing public transportation, flooding the subways, and leaving EMT workers stranded in the snow, those first responded to were the wealthiest. No surprise here.
On Facebook, posters have posted pictures of areas in Bed-Stuy, Bushwick, and other neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens, all untouched by snow plows. As of today, four days after the blizzard first hit, cars remain buried under drifts, the streets are empty of footprints, and trash trucks, ambulances, or any city services have apparently blown away in the wind.
The upper East Side is clean as a whistle as snow plows and crews ready 42nd St for New Year's festivities. It brings to mind people in the Ninth Ward waving white flags as their families drowned in attics as rescue and city workers rushed towards the French Quarter -- mostly to save the structures.
A newborn baby died in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, after it took emergency responders 10 hours to respond to the mother's 911 call on Monday. A Queens woman was forced to wait for three hours for first responders after calling 911 on behalf of her mother who was having trouble breathing on Monday morning, according to the Daily News. Her mother, Yvonne Freeman, 75, was dead by the time emergency workers were able to reach her home. A stroke victim had to be carried by emergency personnel and police officers because they could not drive through the streets. By the time they reached the hospital she was brain dead.
But Mayor Michael Bloomberg's block on E. 79th Street between Fifth and Madison Ave. was clear by Monday.
Why New Yorkers continue to think Mayor Bloomberg serves any other interests other than business and the wealthy perplexes me. Bloomberg's response to the criticism: "We did not do as good a job as we wanted to do or as the city has a right to expect," he said during a press conference in the South Bronx yesterday.
New York has seen bigger snowstorms that have not left the city crippled. The largest snowstorm New York City ever experienced was in 2006, 26.9 inches, and it did not stop public transportation systems.
City workers say Bloomberg's recent budget cuts have decreased manpower and allowed for this dysfunction.
In contrast, in equally cash-strapped Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Cory Booker has been responding via Twitter to residents who have not been plowed. Pictures show him running out of his own house with a shovel -- at least giving Newark residents the idea that they have his ear. Check the video below of him shoveling snow during the snow storms earlier this year.
Meanwhile in New York, as people die, and remain stranded, including my own mother who is stuck at my sister's house in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, without her heart medication, Bloomberg offers excuses at various press conferences and goes home to a cleanly plowed street.
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Reality Check
by Patrick Appel Doing a better job than I did, Kevin Drum explains the composition of the electorate: [A]bout 40% of the American population self-IDs as conservative, compared to only 20% who self-ID as liberal. You can argue all day...
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Question Of The Week: "The Bible"
by Conor Friedersdorf A reader writes: Without a doubt: The Bible. But not in a positive way. I was raised a devout Catholic. While in college, I read the Bible from cover to cover, and much of it twice. I...
Ana Beatriz Barros Maria Menounos Shakira Leslie Bibb Chelsea Handler
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