Safe As Milk

Now, give me candy.

Have you ever heard of Jose Gonzalez? I had seen his name around but I only got to hear him when his video for “Crosses” showed up on Subterranean a couple of weeks ago.

Here’s the iFilm link to it. You should check it out. Kinda folky/indie/Swedish (all in the best possible way).

And here are a bunch of YouTube entries starring Jose, including this very cool Joy Division cover of “Love Will Tear Us Apart”:

I’ve let too many albums pile up here in the Heavy Rotation folder so i am banging all of them out in one post. No matter your musical taste (unless you have none) you will surely find somthing you will like.

“Easier“, like a lot of the songs on Grizzly Bear’s album “Yellow House“, has a nice easy feeling without coming close to being lazy. I’ve heard ‘neo-folk’ used to describe the sound, and I guess that fits, but it’s not Joan Baez-style folk. More than anything, this band reminds me of The Kingsbury Manx (who have not updated their site in a while). You can read a short NPR piece about Grizzly Bear here with a short in-studio set to stream.

“Backstage Girl” is one of a few great songs on the new Dj Shadow album “The Outsider“. The album is just too all-over-the-place for me to really get into it. I like some of the more traditional, almost atmospheric Shadow songs on here, and I can definitely get behind the tracks he did for rappers (with the exception of the silly David Banner song), but I don’t dig on the some of the UNKLE-flavored songs. Uber-fans of ‘Endtroducing’ wil probably hate The Outsider as-is, but I bet they would enjoy an instrumental version. All of the beats and tracks on this album are dope (yeah, I said it), and if they release one I’ll get it. It would be easier to listen to as a whole.

“Crying Chic” is from Pop Levi’s Blue Honey ep. It’s just 5 songs but I am sufficiently stoked to look for his debut full-length when it comes out in January. “Crying Chic” has a bluesy 60’s rock vibe going on. Good guitars, some vocal modulation, and a steady beat. This one is worth checking out.

“Hold Up! isn’t the peppiest or the pop-punkiest song on The Adored’s debut album “A New Language” but it is enough of all of those things that it makes me smile. I get the imprssion that one (or more) of these guys had a cool older brother that hipped them to the Buzzcocks (or maybe The Damned) when they were pre-teens. There are worse musical role models and these guys have made an okay album.

“Galaxies is off of Laura Veirs‘ album, “Year of Meteors“. It’s over a year old and yes, I am super-late to the game here, but this song is one of the best things I’ve heard all year. Seriously, if you’ve read this far and you haven’t downloaded anything yet (or even if you’ve downloaded them all so far) please please please download this song. It’s that good. You have my personal guarantee. Seriously.

Okay, that almost gets us caught up to date on the music posts. I need to do some more listening but I will have a lot more coming soon. If you’ve enjoyed anything I’ve posted about please go out and buy the rest of the album by these bands. Good music deserves that support.

Well, maybe not dead, but why would they mess with the color of Guinness?

This sounds as dumb as New Coke, only now they’re messing with one of my favorite beers stouts ( sorry, Ireland — ed.).

“Manufacturer Diageo plans to produce a version at its Irish brewery using lightly roasted barley, which will have a reddish color, and give it a trial run across the Irish Sea in Britain.”

Yes, it’s true. The breakout star of NBC’s Heroes ( a SaM favorite) is Hiro Nakamura, an infectiously enthusiastic Tokyo salaryman, played by Masi Oka. Everyone I’ve talked to about the show loves Oka’s Hiro.

Lucky for us, then, that Oka took a break from his day job as an accomplished effects programmer for Industrial Lights & Magic.

[Thanks, Wired.]

I didn’t really need another reason to buy Guitar Hero II when it comes out for the 360, but the news that the Trogdor theme will be an unlockable bonus song more than cements the deal.

Allegegdly a photo of a Shuttle launch from the ISS. If this is real it’s damn cool.

[via warrenellis.com]

Here’s the link.

Super slo-mo videos of golf balls getting shot through stuff (gumball machine, jar of mayonnaise, cantaloupe). Very cool.

And Chris, don’t look at the mayonnaise one. You’ll get the heebie-jeebies.

Gabe over at Penny Arcade has been frustrated with the online part of the new Tiger Woods game.

He touches on a sentiment that we’ve shared here at SaM:

“The most frustrating thing is that there’s no competition. Just like the NFL, EA has an exclusive deal with the PGA tour. So they can get away with dropping a pile of shit like this because there’s nothing else for us to play. What incentive do they have to make something good when there’s no other option for consumers? God help us if they ever actually succeed in buying Ubisoft, because that will be the end.”

I love this guy.

Here’s the link to the blog.

He sponsors a professional Halo team

I got the Halo team. I guess everybody is finding out about that. I’m just a big video gamer. I love video games. That’s my off the court project that I own a Halo team called “Final Boss.” They’ll be competing for the championship in Vegas

And this bit make me laugh.

I don’t know what I was thinking … I bought an 18,000 piece puzzle. The lady told me four years that it would take me to do it, and I was like, “yeah right, I can do it in a couple months.” I don’t think I’ve found two pieces that connected together yet.