THIS is a CLOSE-UP?

Matt and Kim - "LESSONS LEARNED" (OFFICIAL VIDEO) from FVMMO FILMS on Vimeo . Lotsa balls for doing this, especially in NYC during the winter. From their ace new album called Grand , if you're interested.

As an inside joke, Brian and I refer to our annual Coachella trek as Operation: Mindcrime . [Can't even remember how that one got started.] But each O:M has its own special landmarks, and this year there were two in particular: Coachella 2009 Official Soundtrack: Day & Age by The Killers . [A close second: It's Blitz ! by Yeah Yeah Yeahs .] We listened to that Killers record over and over, especially the first few songs. Nothing like blaring "Spaceman" at max volume in a rented Toyota Camry Hybrid after midnight. In fact, it made me go into my Killers catalog and listen to some of the older stuff once I got back home. Coachella 2009 Official Soundbite: " Gentlemen, I want my scalps! " [It's a repositioning of the words from the trailer to the upcoming Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds , seen below; keep in mind it's a lot funnier to say the shit in the trailer late at night after prolonged sun exposure and Miler Lite consumption:]

When you go to a festival like Coachella, where there are five stages/tents with performers playing simultaneously, you're bound to miss something. Like a nude dude who really doesn't like clothes. Or cops. But it looks like he enjoys the wizardly charms of electrical current. Naked Wizard Tased By Reality from Tracy Anderson on Vimeo .

In not-so-surprising fashion, Coachella 2009 (the tenth festival and my sixth) turned out to have a vast span of joys both small and large. While I though it might be a yawner, it was anything but. Guess I'll have to trust the organizers more in the future, huh? Here are some sweet-ass photos from Dave Bullock at Wired : My Friday experiences: Gui Boratto (partial), Steve Aoki, The Hold Steady (partial), Los Campesinos! (partial), The Ting Tings, White Lies (partial), Franz Ferdinand (partial), Leonard Cohen (partial), Morrissey , and Paul McCartney (partial). Gui Boratto was a nice chill entry into the fest, and Aoki followed him with a high-energy rock-and-roll via Justice set in the Sahara tent. The Hold Steady seemed to have a bit less energy than I’ve seen in previous performances, but energy wasn't a problem for Los Campesinos!, who played intense pop to an overflow Gobi tent crowd. After a bit of a technical delay, the Ting Tings boinged and bopped the Sahar...

So even though I just came back a few days ago from Coachella -- with three days of up-and-coming bands of all varieties on display -- for some reason I find myself playing and replaying an album that was originally made in Detroit circa 1974 but was only properly released a few months ago. The title is ...For The Whole World To See , and the band's name? Death . Originally, the three teen aged Hackney brothers (David on guitar, Dannis on drums, and Bobby on bass and vocals) started off interested in funk and soul, but in the crowded Detroit market, it was hard for the family to gain a musical foothold. Once they heard The Stooges and the MC5, however, they began to move in a rocking raw power direction, and Death was born. Sonically and lyrically uncompromising -- they turned down an offer to sign with Columbia Records after industry legend Clive Davis told them to change their name -- Death blended the energy and spit of proto-punk and garage rock with maximum R&B. The seven ...

So this will be the sixth year that my friend Brian and I have done the full Coachella experience. [Well, without the drug use and camping and desert dust and so forth.] And while I'm sure my opinion will be different in a week's time, right now it looks a little underwhelming and lean. Well, not Friday, I suppose; it's hard to beat the big guns (McCartney, Morrissey, Cohen, FF, Black Keys, Hold Steady) although the undercard bands are drive-bys. [A "drive-by" is a band that you watch for about ten minutes, and once you've seen the best they have to offer, you move on. Unless it's really hot out, and the performance is in one of the tents...then you stay for fifteen minutes.] But when the Saturday go-to names are The Killers and Thievery Corporation, you have a profound absence of star power, despite a stronger day roster (Mastodon! Junior Boys! Glass Candy! Amanda Palmer!) with which to contend. Sunday is pretty much a nod to the old folks with the headl...

To luxuriate in the live show that is the Jarvis Cocker Experience is to see what was once called “star power” before the be-denimed Auto-Tuned hordes stole that light from the heavens. Jarvis comes to testify, the spirit of a Stax man with a lexicon louche and vast, Otis Redding by way of Old Blighty, and Further Complications is the first of its kind to capture the sanctified moment of Jarvis being Jarvis. For behind the slim suits and spectacles lies a rough-and-tumble muscularity, a glammed-up R&B clamor that (with help from Steve Albini) is the most immediate thing he’s produced since the nascent days of Pulp. So many flavors to savor: “Homewrecker!” sounds like Iggy in drag, “I Told You Twice (Leftovers)” is a black-horned-rim soul showstopper, and “Caucasian Blues” is a romper-stomper with some nicely unhinged vocals flying around a ‘60s British Invasion riff. In the fragmented blogorrhea that is the current state of the music industry, we must cling to true talents like J...

April is one of the more fun months to be a sports fan, especially if your city is a four-sport city. (And it’s not like Detroit is my city, but the “D” in my DNA stands for “Detroit,” so intertwined is it to me.) So here come some absolutely half-assed and arbitrary opinions as to what our four sports should be doing this month: Lions – Thankfully, the Jay Cutler trolley got off at Chicago instead of Detroit, because Detroit would have had to give up the farm to get him (only to have the shit sacked out of him by the fifth game). Since it looks like no one is interested in the albatross that is the first overall pick in the draft, the Lions will have to pull the trigger…on an offensive lineman. Now, the temptation will be to draft the big QB – and I’m not saying it wouldn’t work out, but see the above parenthetical – but you don’t hire a captain when the ship has gaping holes in the hull, so go safe, find a QB in the lower part of the draft (a proven mature winner like Pat White, per...