Welcome to the official blog for DannyAndNina.com. We're a couple in our mid-twenties who have decided to entrust you and the rest of the internet population with the task of deciding where we should move and spend the next year of our life. Vote for the town of your choice at http://dannyandnina.com and learn more about us here!
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
#60: New LCD Soundsystem MP3 & Eden Prarie Tosses in the Towel.
It seems as though certain people never sleep. We've blogged about James Murphy once before; the multi- instrumentalist and producer is half of DFA and all of LCD Soundsystem. Having already released twocompilations of DFA remixes this year as well as the amazing 45 minute workout anthem 45:33he's already eyeing 2007.
In late March, LCD Soundsystem will release his sophomore full-length, The Sound of Silver. Even Amazon doesn't have this up for pre-order yet, but we thought we'd whet your appetite with the second track, "Time to Get Away." Enjoy the download and let us know what you think--we're definitely loving it.
Meanwhile in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, some folks and even the local newspaper are lamenting the fact that their town is effectively out of the running in the voting. Things are getting very interesting as of late, with Plano, Texas having been dethroned not once but twice--first by South Bend, Indiana and this morning by Denver, Colorado. I wonder if this has something to do with the disenfranchised Fort Collins voters who held a big lead for so long in the early stages of the vote. Looks like we're in for a nice finish!
The other day, Nina and I were listening to Separations in the car; chronologically, it was Pulp's first thoroughly great record ("Countdown" is their first perfect song, I'd argue) and on it you can hear frontman Jarvis Cocker finally wrapping himself around the repressed-yet-dauntingly-sexy persona he later perfected on His 'N' Hers and Different Class.
Well, Mr. Cocker is back with a new record, Jarvis, and while somepeople are greeting it with a lukewarm reaction, I find it difficult to dislike anything he lends his voice to. (In fairness, I'm not alone in that opinion; The Guardian deemed it an "idiosyncratic triumph"--take that, Pitchfork!) The record is incredibly textured yet cohesive, the many facets coming together to form a very satisfying whole. "Black Magic" feels like a send-up of Mellencamp's "Jack and Diane"--in a good way--while "Heavy Weather" sounds like it could've been co-written by Teenage Fanclub.
It seems like what people react most negatively to is the lack of uptempo material, but then again, that's what Relaxed Muscle was about. Anyway, Jarv does provide a couple of those songs anyway. For instance, take "Fat Children," a song about being killed by overfed kids and then coming back to haunt them. Download here or watch this live performance and marvel at Cocker being the youngest-looking 43 year old you've ever seen:
Don't you think he and Moby could be cousins? There's something of a resemblance there...
#50: Lobster attack!, New Bloc Party & Vote for Amp Camp.
Nina and I were at the grocery yesterday, and as everyone knows, half the fun of going grocery shopping is taking samples from the products being 'demonstrated' around the store. I had an unusual run-in with the demo employee as a I reached for a sample of some lobster spread that went as follows:
Employee: (gesturing to previous sample-taker) Are you together? Me: No. Employee: (keeping me from lobster spread) Well you need permission. Me: (confused) Permission? Employee: Yes. Me: Permission from whom? Employee: An adult. Me: I'm twenty-three years old. Employee: Oh... Well you're lucky to look so young!
I wasn't angry or anything, just sort of thrown off by the unexpected nature of the exchange. After all, it's been a while since I've been carded for alcohol at a bar and I certainly didn't expect something similar at the grocery store... over some lobster spread. Once I was able to realize what had happened, I figured it must have something to do with keeping kids with seafood allergies away from that product. Still, how young could she have thought I was? What is the cut-off age? 16? 18? 21?
Bloc Party has a new record coming out in February and since Nina and I are unapologetic fans of Silent Alarm, we thought we'd share an MP3 of one of the tracks. You can download "Prayer" and let us know what you think. Personally, I thought it was a little underwhelming (especially since this is what they are intentionally putting out on the net via their MySpace page), but it did prove to be catchier upon repeated listens.
Finally, the website I ran and helped launch, Amp Camp, is up for a PLUG Independent Music Award for "Online Record Store of the Year." Show some love with your vote and tell your pals to vote, too! You also get to vote for other fun things like "Live Act of the Year" (Art Brut!).
This is almost too weird and unlikely to believe, but scientists in Australia have developed an air guitar t-shirt that allows the wearer to produce guitar music by playing nothing but the air around them. One of the engineers responsible calls it "an easy-to-use, virtual instrument that allows real-time music making even by players without significant musical or computing skills."
But how does it look and sound? See for yourself by checking out the streaming WMV file here. Lest you think the Aussie science corps is a one trick pony, they've also done the same with the tambourine and guiro. Shouldn't these guys be trying to cure cancer or something?
Elsewhere, Goya's 1778 oil painting "Children With a Cart" was stolen in transit from the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio to New York's Guggenheim museum. Doesn't this sort of thing only happen in bad thrillers? Apparently not.
Here's a song that roughly 89.7% of folks can agree is pretty bad-ass: NYC powerhouse duo DFA remix Justin Timberlake's latest single, "My Love." Sure, it isn't their best work to date, but it's pretty fun nonetheless.
Plus, we know you already downloaded Justin's record anyway... you know, just out of curiosity. Maybe this will get us our first cease and desist.
Also, if your thieving heart is looking for a way of giving back, LCD Soundsystem(aka James Murphy, DFA's more rugged half) has a new MP3-only release available via iTunes. It's one long mix entitled "45:33" and is a great guilty pleasure for those in need of one.
#31: Virtual iPod, Disaster Preparedness, Nashville Sighting & New Pipas.
For those who work in an office setting and occasionally neglect to bring along an MP3 player, the Beta version of BlogMusik.net seems like a promising new tool. Billing itself as a "virtual iPod," the site allows you search for artists and listen to songs on demand free of charge. I'm not quite sure how legal this is, but they've got a nice range of artists: Blur, The Radio Dept., Van She, Soulwax, and even Bell Biv Devoe came up winners (although the latter required a search for BBD). "(That Girl Is) Poison" anyone?
The last blog post covered Enid Crow's "Disaster" photographs, and in that spirit I recommend checking out this site. It takes ambiguous graphics (in the style of airplane emergency landing cards) from the Department of Homeland Security's "Ready" website and offers alternative interpretations. Simple gimmick, but it's surprisingly funny.
Found this Nashville Craigslist post yesterday; we didn't put it up there, so it seems like an inspired bit of electioneering on the part of one Tennessee resident.
One of the most adorable bands ever, Spanish/British collaborators Pipas, are back with a new record. Sorry Love is love at first listen. Plus, they're playing one of their rare U.S. shows tomorrow in Brooklyn, so you should check them out if you're in the NYC area. More info is available on their MySpace page and here is the new video for "Riff Raff" (which is not about the cat in the hat from Heathcliff, sorry):
Nina and I love Art Brut. Seriously. We've seen them play a couple times, have cranked up the volume in the car stereo and crooned in our best (worst?) British accents, and have even managed to hang out with some of the boys pre-show in relatively un-groupie-ish fashion. That's why we are so excited about our first ever giveaway!
Two lucky folks will receive:
* An autographed copy of their debut, Bang Bang Rock & Roll * A copy of the Modern Art single * A copy of the Good Weekend single
How does one enter this fabulous contest? Just sign-up for our newsletter over at dannyandnina.com. On October 31st we're going to pick two newsletter subscribers at random to receive the loot. Why do it on Halloween? Because all the hipsters are trick-or-treating as Eddie Argos this year. Aww yeah.
So what have Art Brut done for you lately? Well, they've finished recording a new record due out November 13th on Mute. If you're anything like us, you're chomping on the bit in anticipation, so here is a new track entitled "Nag Nag Nag Nag."
I'm assuming the title is a reference to Cabaret Voltaire's classic "Nag Nag Nag," but if it is, it's lost on me... unless of course they are alluding to the tenuous connection of "art brut" the art term for 'outsider art' and the fact that Cabaret Voltaire was also both a painting and a Dadaist club in Zurich. If you ever want to learn more about the band and their contemporaries, I recommend checking out Plexifilm's Made in Sheffield.
And once more, for old time's sake... "Modern Art"!
#25: 45,000 Votes and the Radness of La Casa Azul.
To say that yesterday was a huge voting day seems like an understatement--it was our biggest day ever by far, with over 10,000 ballots cast. The the big winner was Fort Collins, CO, who wound up with (drumroll please) over 15,000 votes. Wow! Did something happen there we missed? That was a new milestone for us, vote 40,000.
The even crazier news is what's happening today--before noon, we'd already received over 6,000 votes, most of which were for Jacksonville, FL, catapulting it back into a competitive second place spot.
A little while ago I mentioned my love for Milky Way chocolates, but there is another Milkyway my heart goes out to. His name is Guille Milkyway and he is essentially the Spanish indie-pop group La Casa Azul. The band's music is amazing, some of the happiest, most rump shaking songs you'll ever hear with shades of everything from bossa nova to soft rock to disco--Beach Boys via ELO and Camera Obscura, but that description doesn't do it justice.
Just as interesting is the fact that the co-ed "band" featured in their press photos, television appearances, and music videos is just a fictitious construction designed to reinforce the idea of the band's happy-go-lucky music. The band in the video is actually fake (project mastermind Milkyway writes, performs, and records all the songs by himself) but they are completely cute anyway. I am drooling over that pink dress in the photo.
Although I don't speak Spanish like Danny, I find myself singing along to his songs anyway. I'm sure it mostly sounds like gibberish when I do it, but the songs are so catchy and fun I can't help myself. The tracks exude happiness and cuteness. It's impossible to still be in a bad mood after watching their videos, in which Milkyway makes brief appearances.
Our favorite song of his is "Superguay" (which translates roughly as "supercool"). Despite the bright and cheery colors of the video, the song is actually about an ex-girlfriend who leaves the narrator for a hotshot scenester guy, only to be rendered "insubstantial" by his relative supercoolness. She seems so inconsequential by his side that the former "queen of disco-parties" now "cannot be seen without a microscope."
La casa Azul is seriously the number one reason I want to learn Spanish. Warning: extreme cuteness below!
Do you ever pick up the phone to call somebody and it rings in your hand just as you're about to dial and it just so happens it's the person you were trying to call? This happens to me sometimes and I get super excited about the stars aligning. Something similar just happened. As I was writing this entry about my love of La Casa Azul, Danny emailed me with the following video link. And in case you're thinking, well you both probably saw that video not too long ago and hence it's not too surprising you'd be talking about it now, the answer is no. I haven't watched it for quite a long time. It was just a crazy coincidence and I'm loving it.
I'm curious to know what other people think of La Casa Azul. Do you love it? Is it too cheesy for you? Does it feel like a glorified Gap ad or do you wish you could be shimmying in balloons?
#24: 30,000 Votes, Message in a Bottle, & Robots in Disguise.
First off, Nina's too modest to toot her own horn, but a few days ago she finished the painting on the right, a commission for a painting of a client's cat. It's one of my favorite paintings of hers, so I thought I'd share it here. On the art tip, NPR had a great segment the other day about the fate of the over 600,000 pieces of privately owned art that were looted by the Nazis during WWII.
As I'm typing this, we're receiving vote 30,000 on our site, which means that we're 3% through this crazy project of ours. Some perspective: our current President only received 21,256 votes in Washington, D.C. when he ran for re-election in 2004. I'm tempted to make a joke about our approval ratings, but I'll refrain (oh wait, I just did). Anyhow, this increased voting rate has me wondering when the 1,000,000th vote will be tallied. Perhaps we should start a betting pool?
Speaking of actual governmental elections, yesterday I discovered this page on The Washington Post's site. The U.S. Congress Votes Database allows you to see how every member of Congress voted on every single issue throughout their career. It's wonderful to see all the ways in which the internet is empowering voters. And please, if you haven't already, register to vote--there's still time!
This story about a little girl who has twice successfully sent messages in a bottle (including one from Scotland to New Zealand) is a little cutesy, I know, but it's a nice reminder of the spirit of childhood.
We've been listening to a British/German duo called Robots in Disguise for a few years now--I sometimes find myself wanting to listen to them when we're out and about and it's getting a little too late in the evening. There's a rough edge to their songs which lends itself to that time of night. Unfortunately, I think their records are only available as imports in the U.S. Here's the video for "Argument":
There's a lot to be said for how they capture the basic ridiculousness and circularity of fights ("You always... You never...") in a manner that is both keen and playful. Great track.
#22: Vote Graphs, People of the World & Pelle Carlberg.
I've got a secret crush on line graphs. It's true. I think my old co-workers were onto my addiction, but they never tried to intervene. When Nina wisely suggested the other night that I start keeping daily records of each day's vote tallies, my eyes glazed over. "Yes," I thought to myself, "then I can turn the data into graphs. Bwahaha!"
The one up top shows how quickly our vote count has risen since last Tuesday, 10/3. If you look at the past two days, you can see that the total votes have risen by almost 10,000 in 48 hours. That's a nice exponential-ish looking curve. This other one to the right (click to magnify) shows how the current top seven towns have performed over the past two days. A few of the interesting observations to be had: Jacksonville seems to be intensifying its gains (picking up about 2,500 votes) compared to towns like Birmingham, which are practically dormant. Denver has experienced a meteoric rise the past two days, as has Fort Collins, which has added nearly 2,000 votes that span. Something in the water in Colorado, I guess.
Not so long ago, I wrote about the world's shrinking population and the United States' imminent 300,000,000 population milestone, so I thought it only fair that I pass along this cool site I discovered yesterday. Breathing Earth is a simulation that uses birth and death rate data along with CO2 emissions statistics to show you in 'real-time' where and how often people are being born and dying across the world. It uses a simple, attractive map of the planet to pinpoint where these events are happening and the result is truly mesmerizing. Breathing Earth also illustrates how much carbon dioxide pollution each country is releasing, again in 'real-time' so you can see who the biggest culprits are (gee, I wonder). Miniature Earth, on the other hand, takes the old "what if the world's population was only 100 people" premise and turns it into a flash presentation that is interesting, if also a bit of a bummer. By now you know about my Swedish indie-pop fetish. Well, it turns out that one of my favorite imports of 2006 is going to be released domestically in the U.S. on Twentyseven Records: Pelle Carlberg's Everything. Now!
Mr. Carlberg was the former frontman for a lovely band called Edson and this is his debut solo record. You should visit his MySpace page (because he's sorely lacking friends), download an MP3 of "Riverbank", and watch the video for it:
#60: New LCD Soundsystem MP3 & Eden Prarie Tosses in the Towel.
