This video doesn’t have much in the way of budget, but it sure has a lot of Xs. At least four, in fact, fitting for the title of the British Columbia band’s latest, XXXX, out tomorrow on Paper Bag Records. You Say Party! We Say Die! brings its Karen O-meets-Joy Division (on the dance floor) aesthetic to new heights with the chiller “Dark Days,” a melancholy little number full of loss, longing and an absolutely killer beat. You Say Party? We Say Fantastic.
By the time Juliana Hatfield had reached her mid-20s, she’d become the poster girl for ’90s indie rock. She was looked upon as the thinking person’s alternative to the riot-grrrl phenomenon, and the future seemed rosy. Hatfield had formed revered combo the Blake Babies, launched a red-hot solo career, played bass on the breakthrough Lemonheads album and gained national attention when she told Interview magazine she was still a virgin and wasn’t too worried about it. The backlash from those without much of an attention span was inevitable. In the ensuing years, Hatfield has honed her art and produced a wealth of stirring, self-confident albums. Peace & Love, out next week on her Ye Olde label, is an utterly sincere revelation that proves well worth the wait. Hatfield will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our exclusive excerpt from her 2008 memoir and our brand new Q&A with her.
Hatfield: When I hooked up my analog-to-digital TV converter box a few months ago, I found that I was able to receive a few channels that my rabbit ears had not ever accessed. One of these channels is RTV (the Retro Television Network), which airs The Rockford Files every weeknight at 10. I remember watching it some as a child in the 1970s, but I am enjoying it much much more as an adult. (It’s not really a show for kids; it moves kind of slowly, and the main characters are not very flashy.) My newfound love for The Rockford Files (and for RTV in general) is partly nostalgia (for my childhood, for the ’70s), but part of it is the fact that Jim Rockford, the self-employed private detective (“$200 a day, plus expenses”), is such a great creation. I love that he lives in a run-down trailer in the parking lot of a restaurant by the ocean in Malibu. (How is it even possible that a person can live in a trailer in a parking lot in Malibu? Today, with real estate the way it is, that would not be believable. Today, the likes of Jim Rockford—anyone who is anything other than super-rich—would not be able to afford to live anywhere near Malibu, dilapidated trailer or not.) I love the chummy, sweet relationship Rockford has with his dad, whom he calls “Rocky,” as everyone else does. I love that he keeps his gun in the cookie jar and wears polyester wash-and-wear slacks that do not flatter his chubby bum. (This was before people worked out, before TV stars had to be all fit and muscly and healthy and botoxed and facelifted and perfect and inaccessible and unrealistic and cookie-cutter boring.) Rockford smokes and eats dollar tacos and drives without a seatbelt. He’s a straight shooter, taking everything as it comes. He’s always getting jumped by bad guys, but he never gets really angry; mostly he sighs a lot, grumbles a bit and gets on with it. I like him. Video after the jump.
Ever wonder what will happen during the last five minutes of late-night TV talk shows? Here are tonight’s notable performers:
Jimmy Kimmel Live! (ABC): The Bravery Rerun from February 4. The Bravery performed “Hateful” from Stir The Blood.
The Late Show With Craig Ferguson (CBS): Patty Griffin
The singer/songwriter is promoting new album Downtown Church and a North American tour with Buddy Miller.
By the time Juliana Hatfield had reached her mid-20s, she’d become the poster girl for ’90s indie rock. She was looked upon as the thinking person’s alternative to the riot-grrrl phenomenon, and the future seemed rosy. Hatfield had formed revered combo the Blake Babies, launched a red-hot solo career, played bass on the breakthrough Lemonheads album and gained national attention when she told Interview magazine she was still a virgin and wasn’t too worried about it. The backlash from those without much of an attention span was inevitable. In the ensuing years, Hatfield has honed her art and produced a wealth of stirring, self-confident albums. Peace & Love, out next week on her Ye Olde label, is an utterly sincere revelation that proves well worth the wait. Hatfield will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our exclusive excerpt from her 2008 memoir and our brand new Q&A with her.
Hatfield: I have a lot of animal-printed stuff. Mostly I am drawn to a leopard/cheetah-type of pattern in various shades of tan/brown/black/gold/cream; wild-animal-fur colors. I have an animal-print car-seat cover, an animal-print jacket, animal-print gloves, two animal-print bags (one cotton, one fake fur), an animal-print suitcase, an animal-print winter hat, a pair of animal-print shoes, two animal-print dresses, and I am seriously considering purchasing an animal-print lampshade that I’ve got my eye on. You have to be careful not to wear more than one animal-printed thing at once. Otherwise you might look ridiculous. Sometimes I ask myself, “Why? Why all this fake fur in my life?” I think I might be trying in some way to get in touch with my inner wild-animal, which is, sadly, kind of repressed most of the time.
“Let It Rain” is the new single from Oregon trio Pierced Arrows, the band that rose from the ashes of the now-defunct Dead Moon. Raw, uninhibited vocals and thudding bass abound on the track, which appears on the band’s sophomore full-length, Descending Shadows, out last week via Vice Records. Pierced Arrows will be celebrating the release with a North American tour with fellow garage-rockers Lullabye Arkestra, starting February 23. And here’s a bonus mp3 for “Paranoia.”
By the time Juliana Hatfield had reached her mid-20s, she’d become the poster girl for ’90s indie rock. She was looked upon as the thinking person’s alternative to the riot-grrrl phenomenon, and the future seemed rosy. Hatfield had formed revered combo the Blake Babies, launched a red-hot solo career, played bass on the breakthrough Lemonheads album and gained national attention when she told Interview magazine she was still a virgin and wasn’t too worried about it. The backlash from those without much of an attention span was inevitable. In the ensuing years, Hatfield has honed her art and produced a wealth of stirring, self-confident albums. Peace & Love, out next week on her Ye Olde label, is an utterly sincere revelation that proves well worth the wait. Hatfield will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our exclusive excerpt from her 2008 memoir and our brand new Q&A with her.
Hatfield: The Animal Planet TV channel airs Puppy Bowl each year around Super Bowl time. It’s a very simple concept, but it’s brilliant: A bunch of puppies are let loose together with toys in a miniature (puppy-sized) indoor model football stadium. Cameras track the dogs’ hilarious haphazard movements while color commentary—the play-by-play—runs throughout in voiceover by a very official-sounding sportscaster. When a dog runs across the end zone line with a toy football in his mouth, it is declared a “touchdown,” and a canned audience roars and cheers. When a puppy relieves himself on the field, it is called “foul.” Puppies run around and around, playing and jumping and skidding and wrestling, and it’s endlessly entertaining. I could sit and watch this for hours and never get bored. Who doesn’t love puppies? Video after the jump.
By the time Juliana Hatfield had reached her mid-20s, she’d become the poster girl for ’90s indie rock. She was looked upon as the thinking person’s alternative to the riot-grrrl phenomenon, and the future seemed rosy. Hatfield had formed revered combo the Blake Babies, launched a red-hot solo career, played bass on the breakthrough Lemonheads album and gained national attention when she told Interview magazine she was still a virgin and wasn’t too worried about it. The backlash from those without much of an attention span was inevitable. In the ensuing years, Hatfield has honed her art and produced a wealth of stirring, self-confident albums. Peace & Love, out next week on her Ye Olde label, is an utterly sincere revelation that proves well worth the wait. Hatfield will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our exclusive excerpt from her 2008 memoir.
Thanks to the seven members of Los Campesinos! for guest editing our website all week long. Be sure to check out the Cardiff, Wales, band’s new album, Romance Is Boring. Here’s the video for the Alex de Campi-directed title track.
As evidenced by both their music and exclamatory band name, the seven members of Cardiff, Wales’ Los Campesinos! are excitable boys and girls. The group’s third album, Romance Is Boring (Arts & Crafts), is an energetic, all-hands-on-deck dash through the pantheon of sharp indie pop and sloppy post-punk, gathering steam from Bright Eyes’ sense of emotional catharsis and Art Brut’s wry take on modern love. Try to gather all the influences brought to bear on Romance Is Boring by LC!’s seven-member army, however, and we’d be here all day. MAGNET spoke to songwriter Tom Campesinos! and guitarist Neil Campesinos!—all members (Tom, Neil, Ellen, Gareth, Harriet, Ollie and Kim) have taken the band’s surname—about the new album. Los Campesinos! will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with them.
Neil: Here are some people and some bands that make Cardiff a good place to be.
People Shape Records: Home of the awesome Attack + Defend, Them Squirrels, Evils, Fredrick Stanley Star and Islet, who will be making waves this year. Businessman Records: Look here for Little My, Gindrinker, Sweet Baboo and more. Turnstile Music: Split between Cardiff and London. That counts, right? Girls, Swanton Bombs, Perfume Genius, Video Nasties and Islet.
Instrumental quintet Balmorhea doesn’t waste time when it comes to creating albums. The Austin, Texas, band has released an album every year since 2007 and doesn’t show signs of slowing down any time soon. This year brings us Constellations, which Western Vinyl will issue on February 23, followed by a North American tour with Denmark’s Efterklang. Balmorhea’s newest release is a more meditative work, which can definitely be heard on first single “Bowsprit”; it starts off with sparse, jerky beats and blooms into a haunting mélange of stringed instruments.
By the time 
Ever wonder what will happen during the last five minutes of late-night TV talk shows? Here are tonight’s notable performers:
Hatfield: I have a lot of 
“Let It Rain” is the new single from Oregon trio 
By the time 
As evidenced by both their music and exclamatory band name, the seven members of Cardiff, Wales’ 
Neil: Here are some people and some bands that make Cardiff a good place to be.
Instrumental quintet 
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