Great Scott!

What better way to break a months-long unintentional blogging hiatus than a few quick, spoiler-free thoughts on the film adaptation of Scott Pilgrim?

So for starters, as we’ve been repeatedly warned, it is different from the books. Significantly different? Maybe in some ways. The plot is pretty condensed, eliminating a lot of side stories and gags, and combining elements of different subplots and characters. This should really come as no surprise, since you just can’t fit 1,200 pages of comics into a 2 hour movie, even one as fast-paced as this. I can’t really call any of these changes detrimental. Yeah, your favorite secondary or tertiary character might not have made the cut (Joseph? Lisa? Mobile?), or your favorite Toronto location might not have any screen time, but the tone and spirit of the story are there, unscathed.

The cast is pretty much perfect. There was (and probably still is) a lot of worry about Michael Cera as Scott Pilgrim, and his interpretation of the character brings more of his introverted schtick than I get from the book. That said, he also has the perfect bewildered and oblivious air about him. He works in the role, even if it feels like the character has been dialed down just a notch. The supporting cast more than makes up for any minor shortcomings anyways. The look and feel of the movie versions are pretty much spot-on, even for minor characters like Sandra and Monique, or Comeau. Kieran Culkin as Wallace Wells and Aubrey Plaza as Julie Powers are absolutely impeccable, and predictably get some of the biggest laughs in the film.

The video game/magical realism elements are handled fantastically. Everything from bombastic, crackling energy bursts during the fight scenes, to subtle gags that play on the visibility of the sound effects and action lines. there are even some new jokes that play up the “film”-ness of this version, the same way that O’Malley would occasionally play up the “comic”-ness of the original – there’s a scene between Julie Powers and Scott Pilgrim that I’m thinking of specifically, a gag that can only work on film, and not on the comics page.

Last point: the music. Sex Bob-Omb is great, a sloppy, raucous garage rock trio, full of nervous energy and pop hooks. The Clash at Demonhead, with their slick, nimble dance pop and auto-tuned vocals, sound exactly how I’d imagined them. I pictured Crash and the Boys sounding a little more like No Age or Health, but the sludgy, metal influenced sound they ended up with suits them pretty darn well.

All in all, the only complaints I have are nitpicks that are too tiny to even mention. the movie was giddy, inventive, and deeply respectful of the source material, even when it wandered from it. Bravo. Now go shell out your $10 on opening day, with my full approval.

Arrivals & Departures

Yes, I know, I never update this site….and yes, I know I keep promising to. Well, I may soon. No promises. Until then, heres what’s been keeping me so busy: my debut full length as Miniature Airlines. Go download it! It’s free, and it’s good (at least I hope it is).

Last Minute

Why yes, I have been a shitty blogger lately, thank you for noticing! I’ve let this hypertext field lie fallow for months now, and for that I apologize. I will do my best to make amends, and coax this tender earth to bring forth new shoots of content for the nourishment and enjoyment of all.

But for the moemnt, I just wanted to mention that, in case you haven’t yet heard, I will be competing in the 6th annual Seattle Laptop Battle tonight at Chop Suey. I know, I know, that’s no notice at all, really. But it would be splendid if you could pry yourself away from your seasonal festivities and come out to cheer me on, or pick up on of my new (and free) CD-R promos.

That’s all for now…but expect more here in the New Year, if not before.

Decimated

Ever since I’ve moved to Seattle, there’s one event that is invariably one of the highlights of my year, and that’s Decibel Festival. The 4-day electronic music and media festival brings artists and fans from around the world to the city of Seattle, for a weekend filled with music that pushes boundaries, rewires brains, and shakes dancefloors, sometimes all at the same time. 2009 was my fourth year attending the festival, and my third year as a volunteer.

Volunteering for the Festival is always an interesting experience, and usually a great way to meet people (or at least people-watch). It’s also usually a little disorganized, despite the best efforts of the Festival staff. Last minute issues always pop up, signals get crossed, people don’t show up for their scheduled volunteer shifts, and so on. But everything ultimately works out, and I’ve never seen a major disaster arise from one of these situations.

For example, at the opening gala at the Seattle Art Museum (which also doubled as a 10th anniversary party for the Ghostly Internationallabel), the Decibel merchandise that Donna and I were supposed to be hawking didn’t show up, leaving us a little confused as to what we would be doing. We ended up running the Ghostly merch table that evening, selling Tychoprints, Ghostly t-shirts, and CDs (end even a branded Ghostly beach ball!). We ended up having a blast selling this stuff, all while watching Clark Warner and Michna DJ, followed by a live set from local favorite Lusine, whose new album, A Certain Distance, just came out on Ghostly. It went so well, in fact, that we ended up scoring some free CDs and posters, and giving some of the Ghostly kids a ride up the Hill to the Mad Professor show at Neumo’s.

The next night was another merch shake-up, as we arrive at Motor for the dubstep showcase, only to find….no Decibel merchandise again! Instead, we got shifted to door duties, and spent the evening taking money for tickets and trying to figure out guest list and will call issues. It was a busy night, as the crowd steadily grew to capacity, and people kept flowing through the door right up until 1am, when we stopped worrying about ticketing. As a bonus, we had a good sightline of the stage, meaning we could see pretty much the full show just by turning around. Dubtek and Monkeytek weren’t all that amazing to my ears, but Boxcutterwas better than I’d expected, and UK Dubstep champions N-Type and Caspakilled the decks with choice cuts. I saw a lot of people walking out with limited run dubplate singles that night…

Saturday was my first evening without a volunteer shift, and while $140 worth of sushi kept me away from a couple of the opening acts I wanted to see, like Nosaj Thing and 214, the rest of the Bass Lovers Unite showcase was pretty incredible. Daedelus absolutely killed it with a much harder set than I’ve ever seen him play, while still keeping the retro-inspired whimsy he’s generally known for. The real highlight of the night, though, was Mary Anne Hobbs, the BBC Radio 1 DJ for the late night experimental music show. Her taste-making selections were on point, mixing the expected (Joy Orbison‘s ecstatic anthem ”Hyph Mngo” made an early appearance in the set) with new and unheard cuts.

The Decibel in the Park event on Sunday started off nice and mellow, with an deep and textured set from Kilowatts (I missed the actual opening set by DJ Eddie, who I’m sure was excellent). Sub Swara brought a dancehall infused performance next, which didn’t exactly keep my interest, but provided a nice background for the people watching and relaxing in the mild fall afternoon. The Gaslamp Killer took over with a varied and entertaining DJ set, full of banter and flailing arms, but we ended up skipping out to go warm up over a bowl of pho.

The grand finale took place at Neumo’s, and I showed up in time to catch Jerry Abstract taking the stage, dressed in a fur-lined parka, and watched him unleash some driving minimal techno from behind his laptop. It was an unrelenting set that got the steadily building crowd moving, right up until he knocked his laptop from the stage, killing all sounds for a few minutes. Fortunately, no serious damage was sustained, and the beats were flowing again shortly. Then Tim Exile took over, with an insane improvised set built on a capella vocals, beatboxing, drum machines, and spastic effect processing. This was truly a next level live performance, very demonstrative and engaging. Especially the part when he left the stage, and continued his set using nothing but a wireless headset and joystick. Absolutely mind-boggling.

As usual, there’s so much going on at this festival that I missed some sets that I would have loved. I didn’t see any of the Optical content this year, which is often a sensory immersion highlight. I didn’t get to any after hours events, due to other obligations that prevent me from being out to all hours of the morning. But of course, one of the main draws of the festival is that there’s so much to take in, and such a wide range of styles that you’re almost guaranteed to see something amazing, and discover something you never would have expected. This year was no different in that regard, and I’m sure next year will be the same.

Loopy

I’ve been watching a little bit of the first season of The West Wingon DVD recently, and while it’s an enjoyable show, there’s something about the idealism of it all that prevents me from really loving it. The show is witty, fast-paced, and compelling, but it’s run through with a streak of sunny moderate optimism that sometimes undercuts the drama. I guess that’s to be expected from a show that casts Martin Sheen as a Democratic president that somehow combines elements of Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter with the affable persona of Ronald Reagan. Crises arise that test the resolve and the ideals of the President and his staff, and idealism and savvy politics usually win out the day. When compromise rears its head, these seasoned DC veterans almost always find a way to worm around the thorny ethical questions with a bit of parlimentarian jiujitsu.

Which is why it was so refreshing to see In The Loop this weekend. Where The West Wing feels like a sunshiney promise that the good will triumph through strength of character, In The Loop paints a much more plausible picture of competing interests scrambling to subvert, undermine, intimidate, spin, counterspin, suppress, and expose each other in various layers of subterfuge and blind groping in the dark. TheWest Wing’s  Bartlett administration is constantly finding ways to have its cake and eat it too, while the various players of In The Loop are more concerned with what the cake is currently being called in the press, who’s currently slicing it, if they’re going to get a piece, and whether or not this cake even exists.

To call the film fast-paced would be like calling Usain Bolt a brisk runner. Not more than three minutes in, the shit hits the fan, and from that point on, the British communications director unleashes a deluge of brow-beating profanity punctuated by withering denigrations, in a desperate (and hilarious) attempt to contain the damage from a radio interview in which a foppish and ineffectual minister called a potential Middle Eastern conflict as unforeseeable. Nobody ever has quite the full picture, but it never stops anyone from trying to twist the latest development to their favor.

The action (if a series of official and unofficial meetings, conferences, and asides can be called action) doesn’t let up, as the political machinery of two countries tumbles haphazardly into what may or may not be a war, for motives that are never entirely clear but are nevertheless passionately advocated. Or, equally passionately dissembled upon, int he hopes of appearing neither too favorable or too unfavorable. One imagines this must be how these things actually come about, amidst a jumble of confusion and disinformation, with those who can’t keep track of the play hoping only to land in a position that will do them the least political damage, rather than the one that will create the greatest good.

Jega @ Oscillate

IDM doesn’t have the clout it used to. Once a nexus a of innovation, it seems to have been eclipsed by newer styles in the hearts of many electronic music enthusiasts. The revival of disco-derived styles and their crossover into indie/pop consciousness, and the spread of UK bass music (dubstep, etc.) have left little room for the genre in recent years. But the chin-stroking, headphone-centric style still has plenty of blood in its veins, and some of its key progenitors are putting out work as vital as ever.

Jega can be counted among  these progenitors, and his live set at Chop Suey last night served to demolish any doubts about the vitality of IDM, and serve as a reminder that the “D” in IDM is just as important as the “I”. the (admittedly sparse) crowd was happy to keep time to Jega’s erratic drum explorations using their bodies.

The set started off on a slower, mellower note, full of lush pads, rich melody, and drum patterns that skittered underneath it all. As the night progressed, the music became less melodic, pushing the synths to the background in favor of ever more intricately sliced breakbeats and noisy pulses, moving from the quiet, contemplative end of the musical spectrum all the way to full-on breakbeat madness. He even played an encore, an oddity in electronic music circles, that kept the intensity notched at its highest setting.

Openers ndCv and Obelus kept the mood calm and spacey before Jega took the stage, playing very textural, hip-hop tempo pieces in the vein of Boards of Canada or Seefeel. The transition into Jega’s more laid-back material was smooth, easing us into the quickly escalating pace of his set. This is where IDM excels; while there are certain touchstones of the genre, it’s very freeform when it comes to tempo and mood, and this set of artists brought the audience along on a tour of plenty different mindstates.

Two Weeks

Posting here just because I’ve been meaning to mention it: “Two Weeks”, from Grizzly Bear’s new album, Veckatimest (Warp Records 2009), which has been ruling my ears for at least two weeks so far. The video is intriguing and mildly creepy, but the song itself is a glorious, lush post-Pet Sounds gem. For some reason, there’s no Seattle or Portland stop on their current North American tour (grr!), though I did catch a couple songs when they opened for TV on The Radio a couple years back. Those of you fortunate enough to live in a city which they are favouring with their presence should check out the show, and let me know how amazing it was, so i can cry tears of jealousy.

(Note: You should really click through and watch the HD version of this instead).

Playtime

Well, that was a perfectly timed epic weekend. Perfectly timed as it coincided nicely with the 6 month anniversary of me and the Girl.

On Friday night, I came home to find a champagne bottle and sushi waiting, followed by a ridiculously decadent dessert. Can’t complain about that. Then we hit up several of the 80+ yard sales on Capitol Hill on Saturday, with pal Abby. Among the loot scored: a working NES and games for a mere $30, C.S. Lewis’ sci-fi trilogy for $1, a 35mm SLR with a 55mm 1.8 lens for $20 total, a sweater and some jeans, and more.  Follow that up with a little relaxation, then a jaunt down to the ID to shop for NES games at Pink Godzilla, and then to Georgetown for a signing by one of my favorite cartoonists, Jason, at the Fantagraphics store. As if that wasn’t enough, we met up with pal Valarie for drinks at Linda’s that night, and heard about the Sounders 2-1 win over the Earthquakes, finally breaking their streak of recent draws.

Sunday wrapped up the weekend with a sale on socks ($1-2 a pair at the U-Village Gap; guys, get your sock needs fulfilled cheap!), lots of video game playing, watching the pilot episode of the new BSG spin-off series/prequel Caprica, and more video game playing. Add generous amounts of wine and tater tots (oh, and hip hop and “your mom” jokes) to this last activity.

Not a bad couple of days by any stretch of the imagination. About the only downside was missing Art Brut on Friday…but hopefully we’ll have a chance to see them again soon.

The Field @ Nectar

There are a lot of seemingly negative words you could use to describe The Field’s music; droning, repetitive, simplistic. There’s one word you can’t use: boring. The Field is music stripped down to basic elements, then blown out, expanded, overexposed and pushed to extremes. Minimalism without restraint.

You can describe a typical Field song as such: take a sample of a recognizable pop song. Now trim it down to the point that it is unrecognizable. Less than a syllable, less than a full note, just a pulse of sound that hardly bears any relation to the original. Loop this, over and over, with a slowly shifting bed of pulsing delay and a steady, deep kick drum pulse. Slowly (and I mean ssssssllllllllooooooowwwwwwwwlllllyyyyy) add in layers of hihats, filtered synths, and occasionally a melody buried beneath it all. Do this for 7 to 10 minutes at a time. On record, it’s a recipe for spacey bliss-out sessions, where you can close your eyes and coast on crescendo after crescendo, waiting for the tension to break with the introduction of one more element in the mix, then feel it build again, over and over.

It doesn’t sound like the sort of thing that will drive a crowd wild, but somehow it does. On stage, The Field is a band, or something that can pass for one (two guys hunched over mixers, one guy running live visuals, and one guy switching between bass and drums), and they push the shimmering, pulsing songs farther and deeper, with the live instruments guitar filling in the edges. Parts stretch out longer, grooves run deeper, the echoing feedback is more volatile. And while they didn’t get the entire dancefloor moving, they had the cluster of dancing bodies in  the center of the room begging for more, with their hands and their voices raised.

I was too tired to stay for The Juan MacLean afterwards. Was it lack of sleep the night before, or was I exhausted just by listening to the overpowering wall of sound that ended The Field’s set? Probably a little bit of both…

Revenge of the Top 5

1. Summer in Seattle

Also known as “the best weekend of the year”.

2. Emerald City Supporters

Seattle has definitely welcomed it’s newest sporting institution, the Seattle Sounders MLS team, with open arms and sold-out games, but no one has welcomed them with more cheering, singing, drinking, and tifo-making than the ECS. If you’re planning on checking out a home game, or a viewing party for an away game, you should think about joining up. The t-shirt and scarf alone are worth the $30 membership, and the camaraderie and spirit are nothing to laugh at either.

3. Oddfellows Cafe & Bar (1525 10th Ave.)

Located in the Oddfellows building across from Cal Anderson park, this wide-open, high ceilingedroom is meticulously decorated with a relentless eye for detail. From the aged photographs, the vintage fixtures, and even the retro-styled Boylans’ sodas and old-timey candy and gum at the counter, everything feels straight out of a turn-of-the-century general shop. Plus, the massive slices of paninibread toast (served with jam and butter for only $2.50) look mouth-watering.

4. Star Trek (J. J. Abrams, 2009)

 I don’t remember which Star Trek movie was the last one I saw, but I remember it sucked. Hard. It was a Next Generation spinoff that looked and felt like an overly long TV episode, with a slightly upgraded budget and a poorly thought out plot. I remember mocking it loudly in the mostly empty theater with my friends, and we were high school nerds, firmly in the target market for this type of movie. This new reboot takes everything that was wrong with the tired franchise and chucks it out entirely, starting from the very beginning of the original crew’s story, but with a more accessible, less fanboy-centric aesthetic. The people who had managed this property had run it into the ground, and it took an outsider to take it over, revamp it, and make it into something that new audiences could be excited about again. All this, and they managed to keep the hardcore fans (mostly) happy as well. As someone who was never more than a casual fan, and one who had lost interest years ago, this is a welcome return to form.

5. Turning 30 at the Cha Cha Lounge

A low key affair that somehow combined good friends, giant crabs, margaritas, pitchers of Stella Artois, broken glass, frightened hipsters, helium voices, and a trip to IHOP that felt like a scene from Twin Peaks. And that’s about all I have to say about that…