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Todd A

Thursday, 24 November 2005

American Princes

[This piece appears in All the Rage.]

“Two parts New York and two parts Arkansas‿ describes both the composition of American Princes and their sound. Matt Quin and David Slade left New York City for Little Rock, Arkansas (where Slade had once lived) in search of cheap practice space and an escape from the NYC scene. After a show at Collins Kilgore’s house, the band asked him to join. Another Arkansas local, Luke Hunsicker, eventually joined up as well. (continue reading…)

Sunday, 20 November 2005

Reese’s pieces

With a lot of talk about Reese Witherspoon’s work in Walk the Line, I guess it’s a good time to share my Reese story. I mean to write about it every time someone drags out that tired old Kevin Smith story. If you haven’t read Smith’s tirade, it boils down to Reese dissing Smith and Smith wanting to egg her house. One amusing section goes:

Secondly, she compares her Stephen Dorff-starring flick S.F.W. to Clerks, calling them “…the same movie, essentially.” If you’re me, and you’ve seen S.F.W., this is tantamount to saying Clerks licks balls.

Clerks does lick balls, Kev.

Anyway, obviously I have no idea how Reese is these days, but she went to high school at my school’s “sister school.” I was in a play at her high school (since they had no dudes of their own) with my brother. Reese was working on the play as some sort of assistant director or something. She wasn’t super-famous yet, but we all knew her. Man in the Moon and probably A Far Off Place had come out and so, you know, as far as we were concerned she was a movie star. But it was still no real big deal. It was a crappy high school play.

However, to one of our friends who was not in the play, it was a large deal. He begged Eric and me to take him to rehearsal one night and introduce him to Reese. We just thought this was kind of silly. I mean, what was going to happen? “Hey Reese, this is Nate.” “Great. See you later.” We were pretty jaded about the whole thing.

Nonetheless, we brought him along thinking we probably wouldn’t even get a chance to introduce him to her. Well, we walk in the theatre and as we’re walking down the aisle towards the stage, Reese comes walking up the aisle towards us. We stop and say, “Hi Reese, this is our friend Nate.” And Reese smiles and looks up and says, “Hi, I’m Reese” and pours some Reese’s Pieces into his hand.

How cool is that?

Thursday, 10 November 2005

LCD Soundsystem

[This piece appears in All the Rage.]

Together with Tim Goldsworthy, James Murphy runs the influential DFA Records who’ve released Black Dice, The Rapture, Le Tigre and Chromeo. On his own, Murphy is LCD Soundsystem—a dance punk outfit that sounds as comfortable in the garage as in the discotheque. The lead track on LCD’s debut self-titled album, “Daft Punk is Playing at My House,” even imagines a scenario where the two ends meet and a seminal dance group plays a punk rock house party. (continue reading…)

Thursday, 3 November 2005

dios (malos)

[This piece appears in All the Rage.]

Dios (malos) owe a great deal of their sound to growing up in the South Bay of Los Angeles. Though much is made of their “sunny California pop,‿ it’s the diversity of their hometown that’s most reflected in their sound. As the band points out, they grew up a stone’s throw away from the childhood home of the Beach Boys as well where Black Flag started. Sure, there’s sunny pop in dios (malos) but there’s also melancholic ballads and fun-loving rock songs. (continue reading…)

Wednesday, 2 November 2005

Be Nice to Mommy

This warms my cold heart so:

Jennifer Garner

(continue reading…)

Disco

Debbie Harry

(continue reading…)