I was deeply saddened when I learned that Adam ‘M.C.A.’ Yauch passed away from a battle with cancer, but in death there’s always some comfort and solace when you see how that person’s life affected other people. I’m sure that MCA would be proud to see people creating more art in direct tribute to the art he created. He was truly one of the greats and I’m very fortunate to be able to say I got to see them live a few times.
This video is making the rounds and it’s well worth a look.
Yesterday at sunset I rolled through the bayous of Louisiana and into the beautiful city of New Orleans, and this is one of the first sights I saw when I got into the neighborhood I’m staying in.
This blog needs to come alive again. I’m on the road right now and have stories to tell… more soon.
Today is one of those good days where you wake up in SF to a bright and sunny day, warm and breezy, just the perfect type of day.
And this song reminds me of summer time and specifically California weather for some reason, so I figured I’d drop this Ducktails track (with Panda Bear) to start off my musical day. Lots of Animal Collective, Beach House and Panda Bear for me today… Read more…
Dubstep is awesome/hilarious. This video is about dubstep, so naturally, it’s both awesome and hilarious as well. Read more…
This “film” (i.e. Chipotle commercial) ran last night during the Grammys.
The film, by film-maker Johnny Kelly, depicts the life of a farmer as he slowly turns his family farm into an industrial animal factory before seeing the errors of his ways and opting for a more sustainable future. Both the film and the soundtrack were commissioned by Chipotle to emphasize the importance of developing a sustainable food system.
Really excited to be booked to play The Independent in a month. Working so hard on NVO just keeps pushing us to work even harder…
Dig it.
So I’ve been hoping for months, hoping for years…
Hoping I might forget…awwwww, but it don’t get much dumber…
It don’t get much dumber than trying to forget a girl when you love her.
OK Go is back with a new music video for their song, “Needing/Getting.”
Check out what went into it:
The new music video from OK Go, made in partnership with Chevrolet. OK Go set up over 1000 instruments over two miles of desert outside Los Angeles. A Chevy Sonic was outfitted with retractable pneumatic arms designed to play the instruments, and the band recorded this version of Needing/Getting, singing as they played the instrument array with the car. The video took 4 months of preparation and 4 days of shooting and recording. There are no ringers or stand-ins; Damian took stunt driving lessons. Each piano had the lowest octaves tuned to the same note so that they’d play the right note no matter where they were struck. For more information and behind-the-scenes footage, see http://www.LetsDoThis.com and http://www.okgo.net. Many thanks to Chevy for believing in and supporting such an insane and ambitious project, and to Gretsch for providing the guitars.
Awesome.
I’m working on my conservatory this weekend now that I’m taking care of yet another batch of plants that my friend can’t take care of while she’s traveling. I volunteered, though… I needed some new variation in the collection.
Last night a small crew of us gathered before our buddies in One Way Station were set to play the Boom Boom Room, and that small gathering got right to the Reggie Watts show at the Mezzanine as the wryly comedian hit the stage to do about an hour of musical comedy theater. It was incredible.
For those not in the know, and I wasn’t, Reggie Watts has done opening stints with Conan O’Brien, played Madison Square Garden with LCD Soundsystem, and has been making a name for himself huge in the comedy world. Do not pass up a chance to search YouTube a few times and discover this guy yourself.
Here’s a clip of a show he did last week in Denmark:
Next level shit.
On the internet, there’s been talk of a return of Arrested Development for a long ass time. This post by one of the writers of the show was getting passed around yesterday and it does sorta mean that this chinese democracy will finally be released…
We’re really doing this thing. Mitch Hurwitz, Jim Vallely and I are off writing the new season of ARRESTED to premiere on Netflix in 2013. The original cast is back. There are offices and parking spaces. We’re shooting this year. I wish I could give more specifics but, for the moment, even the schedule is being kept under wraps. But it’s happening and it’s great to be back with my pals from the show. More later as it becomes okay to release further details…
I’ll definitely want to re-watch the series at least five times this year to really re-aquatint myself to all of the jokes. Can’t wait.
Ah, Super Bowl week. This is usually that week that annoyed me culturally until I joined the advertising business, and given the attention it brings to the industry and how I’ve been surrounded by that the past few years, I actually quite enjoy the annual lead up to the frenzied media blitz that will happen on Sunday night and next Monday morning. This week some of the commercials are already leaking ahead of the big-dollar money shots that you’ll see during the big game on Sunday night.
Today the official Honda YouTube channel posted the commercial that everyone will at least mention once at the water cooler next Monday — “Hey, did you see that Ferris Bueller ad…” — and it’s definitely charming. Read more…
In. cred. ible. This is EXACTLY what my childhood was like as a skateboarder doing frontside ollies. They nailed it.
SBTRKT – “Atomic Peace” [Pretty Much Amazing]
On his 2011 self-titled record and the assorted non-album tracks he’s been dropping left and right since then, anonymous, genre-busting London producer SBTRKT is giving the UK’s art-dubstep trend a poppy, maximalist run for its money – to great effect, judging by the insane number of gushing timed comments on the stream of his latest leaked banger, “Atomic Peace,” which was just released on SBTRKT’s Soundcloud page though it was recorded in 2009.
Happy Monday, everyone.
After a few years of living in the Bay Area, I think I can officially declare that the good vibes have rubbed off on me — I’m going to be at Burning Man 2012. My friends have been telling me to get on this for a while and I just haven’t been committed to the idea at all until last year’s festivities were upon us, and now with plenty of time to plan and a crew of us already signed up for the ticket lottery, it was time for me to nut up and go all-in on this party in the desert. Can’t wait.
Congrats to the team at Summify on their recent acquisition by Twitter.
Our long-term vision at Summify has always been to connect people with the most relevant news for them, in the most time efficient manner. As hundreds of millions of people worldwide are signing up and consuming Twitter, we realized it’s the best platform to execute our vision at a truly global scale. Since Twitter shared this vision with us, joining the company made perfect sense.
I was turned onto this product because I saw that my old boss at FeedBurner, Steve Olechowski, was one of the investors and advisors in its development. And the problem they’re trying to solve of sorting through Twitter to bring you the most relevant news is one that I’ve been following for a while since I was with Digg a few years back. Good to see the team at Twitter putting resources and money behind this to solve it at a scale that matters for most users. It’ll be interesting to see what comes out of it.
You Can Do Anything on Saturday Night Live [Hulu]
Nailed it.
“Because I have so shame or self-awareness.”
“Is that why you’re so sucky and you don’t realize it?”
CARRIE BROWNSTEIN KEEPS IT UNCOMFORTABLE IN SEASON TWO OF “PORTLANDIA” [Co.CREATE]
Despite adoration from both crowds and critics, Carrie Brownstein resists the urge to get too comfortable with her success, and instead hopes to build upon it. “The notion that you’ve arrived, I think, is–first of all, it’s probably false–but it’s also a bad place to make any kind of art,” she says. “To have a sense of yourself as an impostor or an outsider kind of pushes you to not settle for something.”
Great feature article for any Portlandia or Carrie Brownstein fans…
On Thursday night I’ll be attending the Night of the Shorts III: The Search for Schlock opening party for this year’s SF Sketchfest. I’m bummed because it now looks like John Hodgman is out on this party, but the rest of the lineup is sure to be funny and a trip to Castro Theatre is always a fun time.
RiffTrax Presents
Night of the Shorts III: The Search for Schlock
with Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett
and guest riffers David Cross, Bruce McCulloch, Eugene Mirman, Paul F. Tompkins, Cole Stratton, Janet Varney
8pm
Due to a TV conflict, John Hodgman will not be appearing in RiffTrax as previously announced, but will still be performing in all his other shows from Jan 20-22. We’re very pleased to announce that Eugene Mirman will be stepping in to take his place in the RiffTrax show.
Here’s the trailer for the full festival:
Sarah on 
