A Very Venture Christmas
Posted on December 25, 2007 at 10:58 am | No Comments
Christmas Day well wishes to any and all ‘Nac readers out there, whether you’re celebrating family-style, about to grab some Chinese before catching a movie, or entirely apathetic and spending the day web-surfin’.
To further any festive moods, the team behind one of my favorite toons, The Venture Bros., recorded another one of their holiday tunes, a new version of the classic Shane McGowan / Kirsty McColl duet “Fairytale of New York” for the generous souls at Quick Stop Entertainment. The stand-in singers? The lovely Dr. Girlfriend and her evil boy-toy The Monarch, ‘natch. If you’re a fan, you can already hear it in your head. If you’re not yet a fan, yes, Dr. Girlfriend is the deeper of the two less-than-dulcet voices. Here’s the track…
Be sure to visit Quick Stop Entertainment for the rest of their annual Holiday Havoc audio offerings, including contributions from Paul Dini and Billy West, among others.
Season 3 of The Venture Bros. is well into production, and co-creator Jackson Publick has shared a bunch of new out-of-context screenshots at his LJ blog. And check out this full season 3 cast picture. That so wants to be my desktop wallpaper. New episodes can’t start up soon enough… latest word is that we’ll have to wait until June.
Mp3s: Film School live in Cambridge, MA
Posted on December 18, 2007 at 12:48 pm | No Comments
San Francisco-based quintet Film School released hands-down one of my favorite discs of the year in the form of “Hideout”, which showed up back in September. It’s their third album, and first after a tumultuous 2006 that saw them not only get all their gear stolen, but brought a major lineup change, with three out of five players being replaced. And after all that, they went and crushed the already-high expectations that their 2006 self-titled sophomore album had fostered for me. What does not kill us, etc. Why this album hasn’t ended up on many more year-end lists is an absolute mystery to me.
The supporting tour for “Hideout” brought the band to many a city over the past few months, including our own Cambridge, Mass. in late October for a show at TT the Bears. Here’s a recording of the gig, along with some extra mp3s and links down below…
Live at TT the Bears
in Cambridge, MA
on Wednesday, October 24th, 2007
01. Compare
02. Sick Hipster Nursed By Suicide Girl
03. Lectric
04. Two Kinds
05. Capitalized I
06. He’s In A Deep Deep Lake
07. 11:11
08. Intentions
09. What I Meant To Say
10. Dear Me
11. Sick Of The Shame
Some Film School links…
Their official site, MySpace page, Wikipedia entry, Tour Blog, and Beggars Banquet label page. Additional Audio: On October 10th, Film School played a small show at the Triple Door in Seattle for KEXP, a station that has been longtime supporters of the band. The concert was streamed live, and here are a couple songs from the set… Supposedly it’s archived on KEXP somewhere, but I’m having trouble finding it. See some pictures from that show here. The band just performed a few songs for Spinner, so check out either the video or audio from that right here. You can stream a few songs from their self-titled second album here, and download one of those songs here…
Video: A six-minute Film School documentary from a couple years back (pre-lineup changes). The video for “11:11“, and one for “Like You Know“. A fan-shot live clip of “Breet“, performed at the Mercury Lounge last year. Photos: My Flickr-hosted shots are here. A full Film School Flickr tag search is tough, but try this. Aversion has an excellent new feature story on Film School, focusing on the tough times the band went through last year, and how front man Greg Bertens came through it with such songwriting success. Listen to any and all ‘Nac-served Mp3s at the Hype Machine.
the fine print… If anyone has an issue with these Mp3s being made available, just let me know (my contact info in the ‘nac faq). Live sets recorded with a Sony ECM-719 mic and a Sony MZ-RH10 minidisc, converted to .wav and then edited to 192kbps Mp3s. Files are made available for a limited time, and are not reposted once removed.