The news of Whitney Houston’s untimely death happened to come as a facebook update in the middle of my trying to explain to my girlfriend the importance of the grandfathers of electronic music, Kraftwerk, and so I could not believe the coincidence in one of my friends posting this minutes later. It is a Richard X remix of Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and Continue reading
Of Montreal is a band that I sort of lost track of after 2007’s Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? From what I’ve heard of the three albums since then, Skeletal Lamping, False Priest and this year’s Paralytic Stalks, I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing.
I am a huge fan of some of Of Montreal’s earlier 2nd gen. Elephant 6 work: Cherry Peel, The Gay Parade, Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies and Aldhils Arboretum. My favorite Of Montreal album to date is Continue reading
Air took us to the moon with their first LP, Moon Safari, and 14 years later they bring us back with Le Voyage Dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon).
I knew the title sounded familiar and it wasn’t until I saw the cover that I remembered my History of Film course in college. Le Voyage Dans la Lune (which can be seen here in its entirety, and it’s all of 13 minutes long so I highly encourage you to watch it) is an early, groundbreaking film directed by the ingenious Georges Méliès in 1902. Méliès was a French illusionist that arguably invented special effects with his “camera tricks,” mat shots, stop action, etc…
Air’s music has often been referred to as “cinematic,” Continue reading
Sharon Van Etten’s third album, Tramp, is an extremely introspective and emotional record. Have you ever walked in on somebody crying their heart out to a close friend of theirs? Instead of the “get the hell out of here!” teary-eyed look one would expect, Van Etten’s raspy yet soothing hum, akin to Kathleen Edward’s folkier acoustic work, welcomes the listener in as if to say “I don’t mind bearing my soul to a total stranger.” The album parks the listener Continue reading
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the movie that my friends and I intended to see the night we ended up seeing The Descendants. I really like Gary Oldman and when I hear that he was going to be in a film based on a John le Carre novel, I was ready to go opening day. Unfortunately, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was only playing in select theaters at that point (i.e. nowhere near the cultural node that is Albany, NY). It was released locally a few weeks later during my busiest work season and so I figured that I would have to wait until it came out on Netflix or DVD before I’d get a chance to see it. Luckily, a local theater, The Spectrum, plays movies worth seeing after the major box offices have kicked them to the curb. Continue reading
Guided by Voices is a band that you may know by name but have never listened to. If that’s the case, this article will hopefully warrant a listen. I myself hadn’t listened to GBV until a few years back outside of a few tracks of theirs I had on a Matador Records sampler. Since then, they have become my most listened to artist according to last.fm, surpassing Beat Happening and Joy Division a few days ago thanks to my non-stop research over the past week. I wouldn’t consider Guided by Voices my favorite band, but there are reasons why I’ve listened to them as much as I have… Continue reading
Guided by Voices is a band that I didn’t start listening to until about two years ago. Since then, they have become one of my top 5 most listened to artists. Hearing of a new LP to be released on January 16, 2012 had me revved up for two reasons: 1) frontman Robert Pollard had officially disbanded Guided by Voices in 2004, and 2) the new LP, Let’s Go Eat the Factory, was to include the most celebrated GBV roster of Robert Pollard, Tobin Sprout, Greg Demos, Mitch Mitchell and Kevin Fennell who hadn’t played or recorded together since 1996 when Pollard reportedly fired the rest of his bandmates after a falling out with Sprout. Continue reading
As promised, below you will find the Self-Hating Hipster’s T0p 51 Tracks of 2011 thanks to a scramble at my lake house, indirectly motivated by six girls working on their Masters theses. I actually mistakenly published the article about a week ago but quickly made it “Private” so as not to give you readers a glimpse of the SHH in his article underpants. I didn’t realize (stoopit!) what a massive undertaking this article would prove to be as a solo project. I know it’s too late, but I’m hoping that you don’t find it to be too little. I’ve been really busy with my job lately, and in the words of Garth Marenghi, “I’m not Jesus Christ…I’ve come to accept that now.”
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51. Fucked Up – “Queen of Hearts”
David Comes to Life
Fucked Up adds a cute, poppy flare to post-hardcore as evidenced by “Queen of Hearts.”
“Hello, my name is David!” Hi, David. “Let’s be together! Let’s fall in love!”
Stop yelling, David. Continue reading
“Why was Google blacked out yesterday?” “Did I hear that Wikipedia is down?” “Why didn’t SHH post anything on WordPress yesterday?” The last question could be answered with either protest or sloth… The real answer to these questions is that these websites, along with a number of others, protested against the passage of SOPA and PIPA. Continue reading
the self-hating hipster 
Palahniuk – Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey
1 FebRant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk (2007)
I fee like an jerkoff just writing this review. Yes, it’s come time to review a Palahniuk novel…
**Aside: Remember Fight Club?? Remember 1oth grade when the movie came out on DVD and found its way into the hands of manboys across the nation excited by violence, an occasional boob (sorry, girls) and a sweet soundtrack (that may or may not have discovered Pixies and Massive Attack for you)? Remember finding out a year and a half later that it was a book, reading it in a day and then talking to other people who had read the book and were fascinated that you read books too? “Did you like the book better than the movie?” “I dunno…both were pretty sweet. You wanna go drink a beer at my parents’ house on lunch?” I did like Fight Club (both the film and the novel) and still do, but Continue reading →
Tags: boosting, Buster "Rant" Casey, Chuck Palahniuk, contributors, dark comedy, Day-Timers, Fight Club, grotesque, hipster, Kurt Vonnegut, Massive Attack, mish-mash, Night-Timers, oral biography, Pixies, Rant, Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey, sci-fi, Self-Hating Hipster, social commentary, transcendence