Monday, June 30, 2008

Spaceland Tonight (6/30) w/ The Afternoons and The Movies


We are playing Spaceland tonight (Monday, June 30) w/ The Afternoons and The Movies. The show is FREE.

Below are some old pictures from our first show at Spaceland by George Tapia!

Friday, June 27, 2008

What Ever Happened to Q Lazzarus? Q Who?

We played last night in San Diego w/ The Hectors. Near the end of their set, they played a great cover of the Q Lazzarus song "Goodbye Horses". Apparently they had been playing Grand Theft Auto 4 and "Goodbye Horses" is part of the soundtrack. Hearing the song led me to look up its history and some info on the the one-hit-wonder known as Q Lazzarus.



Like many people, I first heard the song in the movie Silence of the Lambs. If you've seen the movie, you know that the song is played during a sort of disturbing scene when the serial killer, Buffalo Bill, is dancing in front of a mirror.

Before its placement in the movie, the song seems to have hardly made a dent in popular consciousness. It was released in 1988 and apparently was in the movie Married to the Mob, which, like Silence of the Lambs, was also directed by Johnathan Demme.

After it appeared in Silence of the Lambs, the song was used in a spoof scene in Clerks 2, which you can see below:



Finally, as The Hectors pointed out to me last night, the song has become part of the Grand Theft Auto 4 soundtrack. As far as the mysterious Q Lazzarus, it has been rumored that she was a NYC taxi cab driver before the song was recorded. There is also a MySpace Page that claims to be her personal page.

By the way, what does the song "Goodbye Horses" mean anyway? According to a member of Q Lazzarus:

"In an Eastern philosophy "horses" are symbolic/representative of the 5 senses - the things that keep us tied to the physical/material plane of existence. When you can transcend the limitations of these senses and achieve a higher level of consciousness, you are leaving the "horses" behind - "flying over them." The song is about someone who was so affected by (A loss? A breakup?) they decide to give up the things that keep them tied to this world by emotion."

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Beauty Bar - San Diego

Off we go to San Diego. Come see us play at Beauty Bar on June 26 w/ The Hectors and Blizzard!

Monday, June 23, 2008

CNN: "Gas Prices Thwart Indie Band Tours"

There is a piece on CNN today about how high gas prices are killing the tours of small indie bands like....ahem....us. We aren't "going on tour" this summer but we are playing out of L.A. a lot and the cost of gas is going to be outrageous.

So, when we run out of money on the highway, my plan is to have Sarah do tarot readings on the side of the road until we make enough cash to travel.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

"The Happening" and "Day of the Triffids"

I was hoping that M. Night Shyamalan's new movie, The Happening, was going to be a return to his early form. I wasn't a huge fan of his early movies but they were decent. Alas, the early reviews for The Happening are in and they are baaaaaad. As it stands now, the movie has a 16% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Those are Gigli numbers.

One interesting "spoiler" from the early reviews is that a plant toxin is responsible for the strange illness that befalls people. Shyamalan is quoted as saying that the movie is inspired by the idea that "plants can fight back" against humanity.

The idea of killer plants is not a new one. There is a sci-fi book with a cult following called Day of the Triffids in which killer plants take over humanity. Judging from the reviews of The Happening, you're probably better off sticking with the triffids.


If you insist on entertaining yourself with something called "The Happening" listen to the Pixies song, it has a sci-fi subject matter and only lasts 4 minutes instead of 90.

Friday, June 6, 2008

PBS Frontline: Bush's War

Last Spring, the PBS documentary show, Frontline, put together a two part series called Bush's War to mark the fifth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq. For anyone who wants a detailed account of how the U.S. went to war and how we screwed up post-war Iraq this is it. It is an absolutely amazing piece of work with interviews of people intimately involved with the decision to go to war as well as the decisions on how to govern post-war Iraq. The best part is you can watch it all online!

Click here to watch.

In under four hours, you can essentially learn all there is to know about the most important domestic and international poltical event since Vietnam. You need to see this!

The documentary is especially amazing because, while it is clearly and rightly slanted against decisions made by the Bush administration, it does not take a polemical tone. Rather, it allows people who were involved in the events tell the story as it happened and doesn't dumb down the content in any way.

Below is a preview for Part 1 of Bush's War:

Interviews We've Done

Below are links to some interviews we've done:

Web In Front
KROQ w/ Kat Corbitt
Radio Free Silver Lake
Detour Magazine
Indie Schmarm
SFist
Flashfilm (Japan)
LAist
Is Good w/ John Hershfield