art is the new religion

Sasquatch Music Festival

Feast your eyes on this lineup!

Nine Inch Nails, Special Guest - to be announced, HIM, …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Wolfmother

Mainstage: BEN HARPER & The Innocent Criminals, The Flaming Lips, The Shins, The Tragically Hip, Neko Case, Iron & Wine, Sufjan Stevens, Gomez, Rogue Wave Wookie: Sam Roberts, Constantines, Architecture In Helsinki, Bedouin Soundclash, Matt Costa, The Brunettes Yeti: Tim Seely, Korby Lenker, Common Market, more artists to be announced

Mainstage: Beck, Death Cab For Cutie, Queens of the Stone Age, Matisyahu, The Decemberists, Nada Surf, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Blue Scholars Wookie: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Arctic Monkeys, We Are Scientists, Chad Vangaalen, The Heavenly States Wookie: Rocky Votolato, Laura Veirs, Mercir, The Village Green, more artists to be announced

I need to go to this.

Project Runway fun

If you're a Project Runway fan, you need to check out the Project Runway community on LiveJournal.

http://community.livejournal.com/projectrunway/

Among the gems I've recently discovered on this community include:

• Andrae's loopy Ebay auctions
• The contestants' MySpace and Friendster addresses (which you probably can't see because it's a friends-only post)
• Tons of links to photos from the Fashion Week show
• Drawings like the one shown here
• Links to hilarious bootleg PR merch
• A link to the rental listing for the famous Apt. 35D
• and more random and sundry Project Runway ephemera

Update:  Ben documents our foray into the Project Runway drinking game.  Please forgive him for referring to the beverages as "pomegranate cosmos" when you and I both know they're actually called posmos.

Valentunes

I'm addicted to the Rhapsody service, because for $9.95 a month I have access to stream all sorts of music at any time.  Although no online catalog is perfect, theirs is pretty thorough;  8 times out of 10 they have what I'm looking for, from indie rock to rock classics and beyond. 

(Since I'm already hawking it, click here to get a free 14-day  trial of Rhapsody)

A few weeks ago I used their search function to search for tracks with a specific word in them.  From that single search was born the idea for countless themed mixes!

Here is the first of more to come:  KT's Valentunes
(I didn't have time to play with the track order, so hopefully it's alright)

1. Happy Valentine's Day - Outkast
2. Valentine - Willie Nelson
3. Blue Valentines - Tom Waits
4. Valentine's Day - Bruce Springsteen
5. Valentine - Merrick
6. Valentine - Old 97's
7. My Funny Valentine - Chet Baker
8. Valentine - Barbara Lea
9. Saint Valentine - Joe Ely
10. Two Sides/Monsieur Valentine - Spoon
11. Valentine - John Waite
12. Valentine's Day - Steve Earle
13. Valentine's Day - The Kids of Widney High
14. No Valentines - Elton John
15. Valentine Melody - Tim Buckley

YouTube

YouTube is addictive.  I've just been watching a lot of Feist videos.

This Jenny Lewis video is brilliant.  As much as I refused to like Rilo Kiley, I really like her solo record.

I also watched Duncan Sheik's KCRW performance to see my boys Fil (playing the piano) and Poe (grumpy looking guy with sunglasses sitting with his hands in his lap).

Who's going to SXSW?

Project Runway

Allow me to direct you to Ben's latest post for some more Project Runway greatness.

GRAMMYzzzzz

I've been in a Theraflu-induced haze for the past few days and have been missing out on all sorts of fun things like seeing Will Sheff play a solo show at Cafe Du Nord and hanging out with my friends Fil and Poe who were in town with Duncan Sheik last night.  :(

In my stupor of sickness I have watched a lot of TV.  The GRAMMY Telecast was especially underwhelming this year.  How did I ever watch any awards telecast without the DVR-power of being able to fast forward through most of it?  Christina Aguilera's rendition of Donny Hathaway's "A Song For You" (OK I know Leon Russell wrote it, but I'm familiar with Donny's version) was exciting in theory, but her vocal noodling combined with the avant jazz piano noodling just ended up making my brain hurt.   Sure, they had a drummer backing them, but I couldn't find the beat for the life of me.  Oh and the all-star celebrity jams, they're just embarrassing.  Less is more, GRAMMY people.  I'd rather see Keith Urban strumming on his acoustic than half the superstar attendees jamming with the reanimated Sly Stone.

And who was that random tattooed, faux-hawked, cutoff-sleeved-white-jacket wearing yahoo that sang with Fantasia during one of the many tribute medleys?   He was so random that I don't even know how to google him.

In other TV news, the personalities on Project Runway are still captivating, but their creations are not.  Santino, what was with that jumpsuit??  Where is the talent and promise we saw in you during the first few episodes??

This genius drawing came from a commenter to Santino's Myspace profile.

Tonight I'm also missing Chad VanGaalen who's opening for Mason Jennings' sold out show at Great American.  I saw two of Chad's videos on Subterranean this weekend, and I think I might be in love with his music.  Watch the video he made for "Clinically Dead" -- he does all the animation himself.  I need to get a copy of his record Infiniheart.

And before I forget, read my review of "Danielson: A Family Movie" on SFist.

Go Cougars!

This post on Brooklyn Vegan refers to Johnathan Rice, age 21-ish, as the boyfriend of Jenny Lewis, age 30.

It may not be true, but I kind of hope it is.

Tim Gunn drinking game

About two episodes back, my Project Runway Watching Club (Ben, Mena and I) started to realize that Tim Gunn is one of the most entertaining parts of the show. 

It probably had a lot to do with Santino's spot-on mocking of Gunn, but it also has a lot to do with Gunn's predictability.  Santino's got the voice and the phrases down, but what about when Gunn swans into the design room with his everpresent frown?  His repetition of the phrase "make it work"? (We're doing our best to adopt "make it work" into our daily lexicon.)

Someone needs to create the Tim Gunn drinking game.  Who's it going to be?  Ben? 

Late to the Game

Jeez, you forget to surf the Innerweb for a week or so, and you miss out on all sorts of things!

Here are some things that I've just come across tonight.  It's all gonna be old news to you.

• OMG -- Britt Daniel, actor?  [Watch]  At least it wasn't Spoon playing live on The O.C.

• Grandaddy is no more.   Hopefully my friend Aaron will continue to make fantastic art and rake in the profits, and I'm sure Kirby will continue to play music.  I had many a good time during and after a Grandaddy show, so a moment of silence for the end of an era...

• I'm digging The Raconteurs tracks from their website.  Listen to "Store Bought Bones" and tell me it doesn't remind you a little of my friend Dave Doobinin's "What Your Money Wants".   Hey Jack and Brendan, take my friend Dave on tour with you.

<-- He even looks a little like Brendan Benson. 

Listen to new tracks from Dave Doobinin here.  (I can't wait to see you in Austin, Dave!)

• Where has the singer of Calla been all my life?  I'm so ridiculously late to the game on this one (they've been around since the late 90's), it's not even worth making fun of me.  But oh, Aurelio... he's from Texas too...  Watch their video for Strangler to drool over the indie rock equivalent of Gael Garcia Bernal. 

• I saw Danielson: A Family Movie this weekend.  It was a fantastic film -- a must-see if you're a fan of any ilk of adventurous music or modern-day artistic visionary.  I'll link to my review on SFist once I post it.  (Read this week's "When The Lights Go Down In The City" while you're waiting.

Four Things

I'm kind of proud that an LJ-esque meme has brought Mena back to blogging.  And now it's my turn:

Four jobs I've had:

Assistant to the President, V2 Records, NYC
Artist Manager
Special Projects Manager, Texas Chapter of NARAS
My first job was painting t-shirts for a friend of my mom

Four movies I can watch over and over:

Reality Bites
Singles
Wet Hot American Summer
The Baxter

Four places I've lived:

San Antonio, TX
Austin, TX
New York City
San Francisco, CA

Four TV shows I love:

The Dog Whisperer
Project Runway
Made
Blow Out

Four places I've vacationed

Oh, this is so sad...
Austin, TX
NYC
Houston, TX
I spent 2 days in Omaha once.

2006 is the year of the vacation.

Four of my favorite dishes:

Anything involving no meat and:
coffee
cheese
dark chocolate
potatoes

Four sites I visit daily:

http://ljkrissy.livejournal.com/friends/
dictionary.com
SFist
Gmail

Four places I would rather be right now:

at home
at Club DeVille with friends in Austin
with my nephews in Houston
somewhere tropical

Tag Four Other Bloggers

Nyla
Ashod
Blagg who will probably not do it
Rows