Wavves "King of the Beach" first listen: Nevermind the Backlash edition

The new Wavves album is streaming early and ... I'm digging it, who cares of Nathan Williams is a bit of a twat.

The noise-as-purpose statement is largely gone, revealing even more of his his bratty pop sensibility. The album is still lo-fi, and crunchy, mind you, but his Jay Reatard-refuge rhythm section and time in an actual recording studio have paid off.

Dudes apparently been listening to Animal Collective quite a bit, too --  "Mickey Mouse" would fit in on "Merriweather Post Pavilion" nicely.

Go here to hear the damn thing:
http://www.fatpossum.com/promo_pages/wavves

The jam of the moment:

Sonic Youth - Teenage Riot

UGH

Fox News finds a way to make me angry every day.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/06/21/liberal-book-bias-summer-reading-national-association-scholars/

If "environmentalism, animal rights and food" are considered liberal causes, what would be the conservative alternatives? "Pollutionism, animal torture and fast-food"?

Only in America could conserving what we have not be considered "conservative," but rather referred to as "liberal" in a pejorative sense.

Of course, any sensible analysis of the report was buried at the bottom, well after the point when most readers have made up their mind, and clicked away in disgust over academia's "liberal bias" supposedly revealed.

"He also challenged the inclusion of "Persepolis," a graphic novel about the brutal dictatorship in Iran, as liberal, and the failure to list "Freakonomics," a libertarian book about economics, as conservative."

Wasted Postage: Reports from the Netflix Theater

Where the Wild Things Are (2009)
There are few things more annoying than listening to an 8-year-old make things up as he goes along for 90 minutes. Also, I don't care about the relationship problems of imaginary beasts in an imaginary forest (whether they are metaphorical or not). At least it all looked really pretty. C-

Up in the Air (2009)
A movie of our nation's time and place, even if it's most obviously exactly that, Up in the Air is good. Honest with its characters, it doesn't gift them easy redemption or eureka revelations, instead allowing them nuanced changes and growth. About 2/3 of the way through, the viewer might begin smelling some whiffs of formulaic rom-com contrivances, but directer Jason Reitman corrects the course for the final act. A- 

Sherlock Holmes (2009)
I watched this on an airplane, alright? Shit was rank. About what I expected, even with director Guy Ritchie's energy. Why does every CGI fest set in 19th century (I think) Europe have identical and desaturated backdrops? Everything looks like a League of Extraordinary Gentleman video game — the blacks aren't really black, the whites are gray and not a red or yellow hue is to be seen. D