Monthly Archives: December 2005
A Little New Year’s Kulture
Sarah Asplund and myself made a little recording with some help from Peter Asplund (who recorded Sarah) and Yahoo, over which I sent the email with the digital piano accompaniment. The song is “Love Has No Pride,” by Eric Kaz, a hit for Bonnie Raitt in 1971. Happy New Year to all Kulturbloggers.
You may download the file, and listen to it in iTunes, or whatever.
2005: The year in shows
Yep, it’s that time again, best-of year-end lists. But I’m not going to just post a best-of list of shows, instead I’m gonna do a recap of various bands I’ve seen. Feel free to post your own best-of list, though. I tend to go see mostly very underground/unknown bands that aren’t easily accessible to many people, so I questioned whether I should post this or not, but hey, things have been slow.
I didn’t get out to as many shows this year as I wanted to, but I still managed to catch at least 24. (There may be one or two I’m forgetting that I didn’t get my camera into. I document shows with my camera so that I’ll be able to remember them.)
Playlist Thunderdome, Week 30
Thanks to Susan for doing a great Christmas T-dome in style. The Barenaked Ladies/Sarah McLachlan version of “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen” won hands-down in massive holiday traffic.
See if you detect a theme in this week’s t-dome, y’all. Read the rest of this entry
Christmas Wrap-Up
Lots of gifts under the tree, some even from my wish list. Yippee!
So let’s talk about the highlights/lowlights of Christmas giving. What was the best present under the tree for you? What was the worst? You can speak in general terms if you’re afraid of insulting people, but what’s blogging for?
Me: best gift was either a nice Timbuk2 messenger bag, or a set of used DVDs from wifey: the Kill Bill movies, Magnolia, and several others. Worst gift was socks — lots and lots of socks. I only have two feet, people.
Playlist Thunderdome, Week 29
Steve’s out of town and asked me to take care of Thunderdoming this week. Last week’s winner was R.E.M. I’ll refrain from commenting beyond that. 
This week: Christmas songs! I was trying to go for current bands doing old standards, but I couldn’t resist including the Kinks.
Have at it.
Why don’t we have music talk radio?
As some of you know, I live in the Triangle area of North Carolina, so named because of the three cities that form the backbone of the area: Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. Our market is currently blessed (cursed?) with the presence of not just one, or even two, but three sports talk radio stations. What is even more amazing is that there doesn’t seem to be any lack of things to talk about, at least at this time of year, with the NFL playoff race, the start of conference play in the ACC (men’s and women’s basketball teams are worth following this year), the surprisingly hot start of the Carolina Hurricanes, and lots of action in the hot stove league.
As I was listening to one of these shows the other day, listening to random callers spout nonsensical opinions as to why Coach K doesn’t know what he’s doing, it occured to me that if there were three radio stations in our medium-sized market devoted to letting listeners share their opinions about sports, why weren’t there any radio stations devoted to letting listeners share their opinions about music? Read the rest of this entry
Promising Previews, Disappointing Movies
by Bob
I’ve enjoyed the recent movie discussions on Kulturblog and thought I’d add my two cents. This Christmas season seems to be offering more promising Christmas movies than the last couple of years. This always gets me excited even if I’ve ultimately been tricked.
The Family Stone is a perfect example of this. My wife and I were excited for what seemed to be a warm fuzzy comedy about accepting newcomers into the family. Almost like Meet the Parents (which we loved) but with Sarah Jessica Parker instead of Ben Stiller and Christmas!
Well, it tried to be that, a little. And in certain moments, it was the movie we wanted and the movie we were promised. But too many things ruined it for us (all of which, of course, are not in the previews). The token gay couple was not only a token gay couple, oh no, they also had to be an interracial couple with one of them being deaf, no less. Finally, the interracial deaf gay community is represented in a movie!
Then there was the sloppy love quadrilateral involving a fairly manufactured, already-done boy-and-girl-are-engaged-and-find-out-they’re-more-interested-in-others spin involving them being more interested in each other’s siblings. And if that weren’t enough, we have the dieing-of-cancer-I-can-get-away-with-anything-because-I’m-dieing mom played by a very unlikable Diane Keaton who is supposed to make us cry at certain points.
All in all, if the preview were about ten minutes longer, it could have included everything interesting and/or entertaining about the movie. The remaining 90 minutes, sadly, are disappointing.
When have you been tricked and how?
Playlist Thunderdome, Week 28
Wow, a lot of you weirdos like Adam Ant. Who knew? Well, onwards and upwards.
Great Holiday Films
by Pris
There are many reasons to hate the Christmas season. Fortunately, cinema isn’t one of them. For sure, there are many turkeys out there, but we have been blessed with some fine holiday films through the years.
So, what are your favorite holiday films?
Syriana: A Review.
Walking out of SYRIANA this afternoon, I turned to my friends and said, “that wasn’t confusing at all.” They agreed. Our only conclusion is that SYRIANA is the type of movie that rewards attention and punishes those who rely on instant gratification.
The short and inaccurate review: like TRAFFIC, only with oil.
Read the rest of this entry
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