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Check out Sondre Lerche’s brand spankin’ new website, and his video for “Say It All”, the single off his upcoming new album, Phantom Punch. In it, Sondre plays a virtual reality karaoke game. He chooses to be a 42-year-old male singing in his living room. Different strokes for different folks, I guess…
He’s also got a new blog entry that many of you freelancers will sympathize with. It’s about doing your own taxes.
Also, definitely check out the video for “Phantom Punch” directed by contest winner Kristoffer Borgli Thomsen, which is a totally rockin’ song and a completely different sound for Sondre. It’s probably the best Sondre video I’ve seen:
Sondre did his best slacker hipster impression for Ruvan Wijesooriya for the Phantom Punch press photos. Take a look:
I know old farts like Rod Stewart are making a killing doing cover albums that are a hit with soccer mom’s around the globe, but I had NO idea that Billy Idol would be jumping on the bandwagon with his very own…CHRISTMAS ALBUM.
Compare OLD Billy:
With NEW Billy:
White Christmas Wow, I sure would love to hear Billy doing “Frosty the Snowman”…
I’m so frustrated by clothing sizes. You know the drill–one designer’s 3 is another designer’s 0 is another designer’s 8. But what is up with this trend of SUPERTINY sizes? Banana Republic started selling size 00 in dresses and pants this year. THAT’S DOUBLE ZERO! Like how ridiculously small do you have to be to be smaller than “nothing” (literally)?
Rachel is in London right now, and I begged her to get me something from TopShop–aka “The Happiest Place on Earth”–and when she asked me what size I wore, I got all sorts of confused. Is UK 6 a US 2? But H&M sells size 4 which is a US 2 (I think). I looked at their website and saw that they too sold a size 4, which I assumed was the size I needed. But upon looking at my old TopShop stuff, looks like I’m a 6 and the size 4s are a completely new phenomenon–one that is disturbing quite a few people. How small is too small? Are retailers pandering to a thin-obsessed culture?
Granted, there is a huge tween market to be selling to–females stuck somewhere between being a girl and being a woman, their bodies in all sorts of awkward proportions. But I gotta say, walking into a store like Abercrombie (the tween line of Abercrombie & Fitch) and seeing minuscule size 10s with leg pant widths that do not even span the with of a dollar bill kinda disturbs me. Looking at the sales girls, all of 15 or 16 years of age wearing microscopic miniskirts and flimsy tank tops–I just scream in my head “WHY ARE THESE YOUNG GIRLS DRESSING LIKE ADULTS?!”–trying to imitate celebs like Nicole Richie. I dunno, there just seems to be something wrong with gangly bodies squeezed into tiny tiny hookers-in-training gear. But hey, if there’s a market for children’s beauty pagents, I guess there’s a slightly disturbed market for super-young sexy clothes.
Seriously, who in their right mind is going to wear these? I spotted these potential fashion disasters while I was at Century 21 in Brooklyn last weekend. I gasped out loud when I saw them, and muttered, “noooooooooo!”, as I had seen similar shoes from a link Rachel sent me off of the Top Shop website.
“how i spent my saturday night playing with dolls. next time im gonna make a movie, probably an academy award winning movie- im sure it will at least get nominated- i am possibly the most boring person on the planet. get into it.”
Man, today was the day for laughing at the concept of “fame”. It’s funny when people you know become well-known. When I saw this cover of BPM with MisShapes gracing the cover, I nearly pooed myself. I couldn’t believe it! What a twilight zone experience.
The article goes on to reveal that the MisShapes are working on a graphic novel for DC Comics Vertigo imprint in addition to their MTV Book deal, and international globe-trotting. It makes no mention as to what the MisShapes will be doing in graphic form–will they be fighting against symmetrical haircuts, or become a super-powerful fashion police troupe? I kid, I kid. Whatever it is, I can’t wait to see it!
And in the pure fame as humor department, listen to this Onion Podcast in which a local man is “surprised to hear himself tell Matt Damon he’s a ‘big fan’.”
Freshly transplanted from its Off-Broadway location at the Atlantic Theater, Spring Awakening comes to the Great White Way with a good deal of positive buzz behind it.
I knew nothing of the production other than Duncan wrote the music and that there were many positive reviews from places like the New York Times. According to Broadway.com, the musical adaptation is based on a “controversial” 19th-century play by Frank Wedekind, which was “banned for 71 years” and “boldly depicts how young people navigate the thrilling, confusing and mysterious time of their sexual awakening.” So knowing NONE of that, you can imagine how surprised I was to be in this fancy theater watching someone sing while mock masturbating–and that was just in the first half-hour!
It is set in 1891 in Germany and it’s a story about two groups of teenagers, the boys that attend a private school and the girls that live in the town, and how they fumble into adulthood with little guidance from the adults around them, sometimes with tragic results.
I’m one of those people who needs some time to process plays and musicals after I’ve seen them, so now that it’s almost been a week since I’ve seen the musical, I’ve come to the conclusion that Spring Awakening is…
GREAT.
Initially I was taken aback by the dark, and quite serious subject matter of the play, but I immediately was drawn to the music. I haven’t been keeping up with musicals on Broadway since 2001, but this is the first big time stage production I’ve seen that has truly achieved the feat of being an original, smart, pop rock musical. Even though the songs work with the narrative of the play and move the plots along, they sound like regular pop songs–They feel much less “theater-y” than songs from other “edgy”, contemporary musicals like RENT.
And unlike “pop musicals” like Mama Mia, Movin’ Out, or the tragic trainwreck Times Are A Changin’, these songs were specifically written to be performed as part of a musical theater piece. I think it’s quite an achievement that Duncan and lyricist Steven Sater are able to make the tunes sound like straight up pop songs while still sounding a bit like theater songs. Bravo to you two!
The cast is strong, with Jonathan Groff turning in a fine performance as the school’s number one dreamy bad boy, Melchior, and Lea Michele doing a good job as young and innocent Wendla, but John Gallagher Jr.is the real scene stealer, turning in the most powerful and memorable performance in the cast with his portrayal of Melchior’s troubled best friend, Moritzthe. He totally floored me while singing “Don’t Do Sadness” at the beginning of Act Two. You can listen to a clip of the song on the SA MySpace page.
If you have any vague interest in musical theater, I would recommend you shell out the cash and head above 14th Street (I know, I know) to see this little musical that could. You can get “rush” tickets for around $32 at the box office in advance, but here’s the catch, your seats will be ON the stage. It should be noted, you might not want to bring mom and dad to it without some serious disclosure of the subject matter…er and as a matter of fact, it’s not a date play at all. It’s The Last Kiss of musical theater, if you will.
Check out this preview video of the show to hear some of the music:
Or here are some vids of Duncan doing acoustic versions of some of the songs:
If you are absolutely dead set on seeing some of it live before you go, or if you just have a great interest in learning about how the musical came to be, head over to the Soho Apple store next week:
Composer, Duncan Sheik will give a rare look inside the creation of the new Broadway musical, Spring Awakening as part of the Apple Store’s “Made on a Mac” series. Producer Tom Hulce will moderate an interactive discussion on the musical’s development and some members of the cast will be on hand to perform.
Despite being a nerdy blogger, I’m not usually an early adopter to technologies and services. This is why I have never had a Netflix account--until this weekend. Sick of those pesky late fees, I decided to step into the 21st century and sign up. Now all I want to do on the internet is look at movies in my queue, see if my movies have shipped, see what my friends have rated movies, and choose more movies for my queue.
Tomorrow when I open my mailbox, I’m hopeful that Hard Candy, Entourage Season 2, Disc 3, and An Inconvenient Truth are all waiting for me. That is if my mailman delivers my mail. He’s an evil mailman that I swear TRIES to trap as many envelopes and flyers as possible in the joint of the box, so I cannot get my mail out. Bad bad mailman!
Anyhoo…if you have any recommendations for movies I should see, let me know. Here’s my current queue:
Speaking of movies, they’re filming The Tourist down the street from me, and Definitely Maybe is back in midtown. I wonder if Ewan McGregor is around (The Tourist). Awww Ewan!
And as if anyone had doubted it, I am still in love with Michael C. Hall…I think I may flat out be obsessed. I’ve started watching Six Feet Under on Bravo just so I can see him.
