Recently in Music Category

Again, its been ages. But recent events has stirred a Taiwanese culture Renaissance in me. So i felt a great need to write something... beyond 140 characters.

So last night i went to the Taiwan film night festival thing brought on by the SF Film Org. It was a pretty crappy little fest, in which one of the most crowded film was on a broken DVD and we got refunds for. But the highlight of the evening is when i saw this film:

Yang Yang Trailer:



Let's just say, it frakkin blew my mind. I'm luving it and easily putting it in my top 5 movie of the yr. My movie going companion hated the film. So i can't say everyone will like this film, but somehow, i luved it.

The gist of the film is about a young women dealing with life, her step sister, love, etc. The whole movie existed in some weird intimate space shot by Jake Pollock (a cinematographer that seems to do a lot of chinese films.) whom is closely becoming a the next Christopher Doyle for me. Pollack decided to do this film in a hand-held only style, which leads to the intimate framing of conversations & scenes. I also rather like the lighting in this movie. Asian cities tend to have this huge contrast in lighting, and bluish tint brought on by most of the florescent lights that illuminate the city (Example).  This movie uses a bunch of back lite shots which really illustrated the contrast in both day and night shots.

But my favorite thing was the audio, or the lack of it. The only distinct audio sound in the whole movie was the sound of breathing. A theme used in many of the scenes that involved running, fighting, dancing and sex. Those scenes just happened to b some of the best non-verbal scene since Lust, Caution's infamous sex scene. I swear, i demanded a cigarette after this one dance scene... Also the only soundtrack to the movie was some beautiful post-rock tracks composed by a Giong Lim, whom i shall be searching for right now.

All this still wasn't enough to make this movie the best thing i've seen this yr. There was some great acting. I'm always surprised by the actor/actress from Taiwan. I've seen many many Taiwan films, and as long as they arent a teen drama, the indie movie acting are always awesome. Yang Yang's main star is Sandrine Pinna a french/taiwanese actress, whom seems to have been in many TW indie films. Here's an interview from her. She seems rather ditzy in the interview, idk if that's the real her, or she is doing the same thing in does in the movie... scary.

Also after truly enjoying this film, i came to an odd theory that i seem to grok these Taiwanese films a lot easier than say, an Italian film. idk, is becuz of the background? or my asian upbringing? or deep down, this IS the culture of my people?

The other big thing that sparked this great interest in Taiwanese culture is the current music Taiwanese indie music scene. First of, i just saw one of my fav, TW indie bands, WonFu @ the Cafe Du Nord a few weeks back. Marking the event of seeing a chinese band live for the 1st time. And it was a fun experience for just mere fact that i know their songs well and that the lead singer had a level of cuteness that can only be described as distinctively Asian. There just seems to be a easier bonding between me and the Chinese music. I mean i've seen fav bands in Japanese & English, I just don't seem to connect as easily. Who knows, maybe I need to visit Taiwan more. Or perhaps, subconsciously i just miss that island. But the music, oh the music... The Taiwanese underground scene is now populated by indie bands like 1976, Tizzy Bac, Shin Band (broked up), Sodagreen, & too many to name here. They all followed in the foot step of MayDay, whom dominated the TW pop charts in the early aughts, which lead to the popularity of this band movement in the culture.

All this has made me totally excited to be going back to the Asian video rental stores & trying to find more Taiwanese music. Hopefully this is only the beginning. Or hopefully, like the character in Yang Yang, this is some sort of round about way, for me to discover who i really am, by searching into the past.

or that i'm just getting old...

BONUS: a trailer from the same director of Yang Yang, "Do Over":

(via minnima)


and all the love
all the love inside you
it's for me
in the dooms in the tall grass
you said and smiled
you're the only one
that could ever tease me

Tindersticks - "All the Love"  (KCRW's Top Tune)

Bat For Lashes - "Siren Song"  (YouTube)

Dear Ben Gibbard,

I, like many of the late comers to the indie music scene all treat Death Cab for Cutie as some sort of gateway drug into the world of not-so pop music. Your band was pretty much the quintessential Indie Pop of the aughts. Then u dropped us with the wonderment of Postal Service; sucking me into another genre of music where i normally dont tread. I'm must confess my jealousy of u working with indie greats like Jenny Lewis and Feist. And was rather a fan boy of the Postal Service gems like "Such Great Heights" and "This Place is a Prison".

But after years of silence on the Postal Service front and the fading quality on the Death Cab front, Now u decided to take steal the girl of dreams?

I say to u sir, "It is on, like Donkey Kong." I will end u.

Sincerely, ur luving fan,
The Wang

P.S. U should get off ur fraking ass and release another Postal Service Album before i find u.

It has been soo long since the Wang's last post, that even the Wang himself don't remember much. But since u gentle readers all sit patiently glued to ur RSS feeds of WWW, The Wang figures its about time for another infamous update. Of course, like a good blogger, the Wang keeps notes for things he wants to blog about. But as a bad blogger the Wang will dump the entirety of 1.5 month of stuff in one giant post. This might get long... That's what she said!! (and it might include a lot of random links like that one there.)

First off, the almost two month old post that the Wang should of wrote for Coachella 08'. Since it is very late, The Wang will cut it short.

It was fun.

Here are more photos than u can shake a stick at:
-The Wang's Flickr Coachella 08 Set
-Sunggnus' Flickr He Haz a photo pass.
-Ourcommon's Flickr stuff, very pretty.
-Miss Black's I'm w/ the Band Set
-Girl from Long Beach
-Jackiebutler's Coachella Group.
-Lastnightsparty's photoset (some NSFW stuff)
-LAist's coverage Day 1, Day 2 & Day 3
Damn it, I truly miss the LAist. They were nice enough to post a "where to eat" @ Coachella list. That's right SFist u've been warned, shape up or u r losing ur spot in the Wang's RSS feed.

Some of the memorable moments include The Flogging Molly Mosh out, the Gogol Bordello Mosh Out, which lead to famous drum riding, and yes, you r right, one of those hands holding up the drum is, in fact, of the Wang. The Wang was up front and right. When the the drum flew, the Wang brought forth his super human strength and carried the Gogol Bordello Dancing girl, by himself with the aid of a few. The Wang and friends, camped this yr @ Tent City which basically involve staying up late and waking up tot he heated tent fighting for a shower spot. Mr. Starfizzy did battle with the electronic charging wall daily. He is an avid documentor with a very small battery.

Other things of note:
-Best Video Ass Shaking.
-Roger Water Lost his Pig and then found it.
-Prince did his "Second Coming" thing and played for like 3 hrs. The Wang Squad enjoyed it from a distance, safe from the rabid fans. But we did miss the epic music momemnt of him covering "Creep". being Prince, he proceed to remove every video on Youtube of it... thank god the internet is beautiful place. So here it is: Prince Covering Creep.
-The Wang does regret not being able to be at multiple places at once... or to have the willingness to stay late enough to see Fatboy Slim




Of course the rest of today's Giant Panda Post will be paw style... one after the other. A lot of crap. Feel free to skip around or go back to your pron. Also, some of these things might be month old news.

Are you ready for the final season of BSG? Don't forget, tomorrow night will be the 2nd coming.





And the best way to recall last season is this:






And in case need more reasons to watch BSG, here are 10 more, delivered by the cast on Letterman.


In case you missed te first three seasons, here's Sci-Fis very own "What the Frak is going on."

So this past weekend was the end of the big GDC event which blurred right into WonderCon, the tiny sister of ComicCon. The Wang wasn't really involved with the GDC, cept by proxy of a visiting WoW friend. But the WonderCon did lure the Wang with some panels, that were minorly related to the Wang's work. Which turned out to be completely unrelated. But the whole potential lead the Wang to learn about professional free pass for WonderCon. So free cons = good cons.

We're not really going into a WonderCon review, but the Wang will note that he sat in a J. Michael Straczynski panel. JMS is most well known for Babylon 5, which is a legendary TV show. It had some of the best television seasonal arcs. But unfortunately due to crappy art design and dated special effects, it might be really hard for anyone to pick up the DVD sets and start watching it these days. JMS now is doing a lot of comic work and might be involved with a lot of future movie scripts. Specially with all the new comic to movies that are coming out, all these famous comic/TV writers are getting great exposures.

Now back to the main topic of today's post, the Oscars. Yes, here at WWW we're looking at the Oscars. Normally we flee from this type of direct media coverage reserved for The Daily 10, Defamer, or any of Perez Hilton's blogs. But this last year was actually a pretty good year for film. So in old school style, we jump right in to the paw listings.


Mahalo Daily's Monday post: Oscar in 60 sec. A great list but they miss a few important gems, one of which is the win by Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová's for their great song "Falling Slowly". Here is their Oscar live performance, which the Wang thinks that Glen toned down his usual vein popping performance during the high climax of the song. This of course lead to the best moment in Oscar history where John Stewart brought back Markéta Irglová to let her finish her cut-off-ed speech. She proceed to give one of the evening's most memorable speech about how hope unites us all. Here are the texts to the full speech for both Glen and Markéta, from Firstshowing. And if all this coolness isn't enough to convince you to go see this gem of a indie film then you are dead to me and might as well take you RSS feed for this blog off you readers. So go watch Once, or prepare for the burning wrath of the Wang.

Here's the FirstShowing, Full List.


I hate transformers, but really Visual Award? At least thanks to the Onion, Michael Bay gets his Oscar @ the cost of a $120m digital production. He did make that "AWESOME!" commercial. how the frak did Golden Compass win this? Really? I mean the Wang digged the airships, but it was clearly no match for the 10,000 pieces of moving metal fighting another 10,000 pieces of moving metal that is Transformers. And Bourne ran off with 3 technical awards. Great movie, but it felt like they gave it to Bourne for the trilogy, not Ultimatum.


I was rooting for Ellen Page for Juno. But since every prediction and their mother's prediction was for Julie Christie and the fact that the movie, Away From Her, was directed by Sarah Polley, The Wang was swayed... But I guess it is good that Tilda Swinton got it in the end, which shocked everyone. And ended the Wang's internal struggles. Because there's enough Wang for both Ellen Page and Sarah Polley. Email me. (makes phone gesture.)


Sure I like Johnny Depp in his myriad of characters, but really? How did that Sweeney Todd clip even fit with the others?!


Great Speech Quotes: Joel Coens: "...letting us continue to play in our corner of the sandbox"


Plus who knew, Clooney was the man. He predicated most of the acting nods. He's truly as they say, "old Hollywood". He's got it all, class, style and devilish smile. The Wang aint gay, but if George showed up an bought us diner, hey u never know... I'm just saying, not gay.


Ebb and Flow of Movies:
 

NYT gives us this wave-like visualization of movie grosses in the last few years.


On Monday night, the weekend ended in a really fun concert with Missy Higgins @ The Independent. She was rather funny with a few Aussie/American jokes, some humor about how her Target bought Bra kept falling of her shoulders (ZING!!), how she finally got her song into Grey's Anatomy and the overall comments on the American accent, which she demo-ed for the audience. Fun times were had and the Wang probably had the fun-est time at a "Pop" concert. There was something about the happy upbeat energy that Missy Higgins was going off on.


And in the end all this seemed make a really fun music weekend for the Wang. And in the recent artistic posting line, we end the day on a grammy winning music short dedicated to Johnny Cash:



THANKYOUs:
My Extra Life, Firstshowing.net, Vulture

( photo by: [Zakkaliciousness])


This of course is the artistic mindset left by the music of one of the Wang's favorite movie of the year, Juno. The general gist of the movie is that 16 yr old, sarcastic high schooler, Juno finds out she's pregnant and goes on the movie length journey of understanding love and maturity. Director Jason Reitman of Thankyou For Smoking fame, brilliantly delivers this indie darling of a film with a witty script and slightly off-the-wall comedy.With Quotes like these gems:

Rollo (Rainn Wilson): That ain't no etch-a-sketch. That's one doodle that can't be un-did, homeskillet.

=========================

Juno MacGuff: You should've gone to China, you know, 'cause I hear they give away babies like free iPods. You know, they pretty much just put them in those t-shirt guns and shoot them out at sporting events.

=========================

This movie comes around the corner with its witty, brilliant acting from everyone; from Allison Janney, J.K. Simmons, & even Jennifer Garner, in seemingly small role that turns a whisper of a character into a pretty nice side plot of the story, that seems to comment on the whole question of maturity and relationships. J.K. Simmons as the funny and understanding dad has got to be one of the best dad's in movie history. The Wang only wishes that his future father-in-law would have that kind of humor and open minded-ness. Of course seeing that the title character Juno is pretty much the witty equivalent of a wet dream center fold, plus indie guitar playing skills.



This leads us to the soul of our musing, the soundtrack. The sound track is mainly filled with the works of Kimya Dawson, in her many guises. She's either performing with her old claim-to-fame, The Moldy Peaches, or her solo stuff, or her recent co-lab with The Antsy Pants. Kimya Dawson is labeled as Anti-Folk. Which at first, the Wang was lost to the labeling and genre. Of course after an evening with the Moldy Peaches titular album, smack the concept home in its wordy, witty, & experimental sound. Though overall, the music used in Juno tend to be what the Wang originally felt as some sort of kiddie-folk or twee-folk. With lyrics about love, life, hamburgers and vampires all fueled by Kimya Dawson's childish voice. Her seemingly young and innocent voice is instantly shattered when one noticed the lyrics and topics that smartly flow off her folk-style guitar like verbal syrup.

Also included in the Juno soundtrack is a few songs the movie use to hammer home the character's love of music. Juno of course prefers the 1977 punk era, as her counter point, Jason Bateman defends the grunge era of 1993. Songs include "All the You Dudes" by Mott the Hoople and "Superstar" by Sonic Youth. Check out this great entry by Indiemuse.com which include a few tracks. (SPECIALLY check out Kimya Dawson's Loose Lips) Kimya Dawson really adds to the movie, from its title-opening track to the ending song which cements the movie, "Anyone Else But You" cover by Ellen Page and Michael Cera, originally a Moldy Peaches song by Adam Green and Kimya Dawson.

This leads us to the interview with Ellen Page by Pitchfork, where we learn that:

Ellen Page: [Juno director] Jason Reitman and I were meeting for maybe the second or third time and he simply said, "Well, what do you think Juno would listen to?" Immediately I said the Moldy Peaches, and he, I guess, wasn't familiar with their work, so I hopped on his computer and I played the Moldy Peaches for him. The next thing I knew he'd fallen in love-- rightfully so, they're awesome-- and he was in contact with Kimya Dawson, who is the female in the band, and he added the song at the end of the film, which is a Moldy Peaches song. That song's been in my life for years, actually; there's a lot of sentimental value there. And the next thing we know Kimya Dawson is doing the music for the film. It was really incredible how that all worked out because it just feels perfect.

So the Wang puts two paws up on Juno, and the soundtrack which is now available on iTunes, and in Jan. in hardcopy. Of course you can just get some Kimbya Dawson stuff to work you over till then.

The Moldy Peaches - Nothing Came Out (MP3) : Inspiration for the opening pic..
The Moldy Peaches - Anyone Else But You (MP3) : The song that sets the mood for Juno.

And just to catch up on the old days of WWW glory, a few recent things on the Wang's RSS reading list, paw style:
Tad Safran of the Times stirs the British Hen House with this Op-Ed on how American Women groom themselves better. Of course this lead to a nation-wide (British Nation) fervor and scorn by the ladies, which earned a second article.


Tabula Rasa may not be the best MMO around, nor may it be top dog, but the Wang donated some time, and gives it its just deserves. But what really hits the sweet spot is the fan base that took Richard Garetts new world to heart and created more fanfic and roleplaying than any Tauren cow cosplay will ever do. Here's an example from Massively on Remembrance Day. And from tabularasaroleplayers.com of their fan gathering on Dec. 21, Remeberence Day, basically a memorial honoring the day when Earth fell to the alien invaders, The Bane.


The year end round up video games and games of the year is too long to keep track of. But the Wang was sorely entranced by the Gaming Club on Slate.com.  The Gaming Club is a mimic of Steven Totilo of MTV's Multiplayer Blog and N'Gai Croal of Newsweek's  Level Up Blog 's usual vs Mode. Its normally a series of emails that would debate/discuss a specific game or video game related subject. This time for their big year end round up they included Seth Schiesel of NYT and Chris Suellentrop (most currently of Slate) into their mix. They brought forth an email roundtable that talks from everything from game design to the criticism of video games. Specially in the light of the recent events involving Jeff Gerstmann, which promoted the entire industry a new to critically comment on the field of Video Game Journalism. None the less, this was a great read about video games, industry, and and what it means to be critical.


Also related to video games, the MTV Multiplaer Blog's Tracey John also wrapped up last weeks great series of article of Women Working in Games. Tracey goes off and interviews Morgan Webb (X-Play/G4TV), Janet Pickard (Game Girl Advance), Elspeth Tory (Ubisoft), Brenda Brathwaite, and Tali Fischer (Sega). Of course hidden under the subtlety of the general interviews is the questions about the recent Jade Raymond incident. But overall it's a great set of interviews about the whole industry from journalists to developers to PR. Sure the topic is about women, but it gives a nice view of the field and the people in it. Personally, the Wang comes to the conclusion that the industry seems to be embracing the female influx, but the it's the webtard players that seems to be dumbing it up for the male populace by scaring off most of these women from forums and comments.


On that note, here's a nice review of Bioshock from the Mighty Pony Girl. Yes it has a female perspective. I give her credit for reading Fountainhead before playing the game, just to get the full experience.


And since the Wang hasent been blogging about everything that was cool of recent, here's a cool link to the semi-spoiler-best-ending-ever-for-a-video-game-credit-sequence of Portal: GlaDOS - Still Alive (Youtube link). Of course if you have not experienced it, please give it a try, Portal is one of the best games this past year. Plus its short, fun and well written. It comes in slightly around 3 hrs. (without the repeatable time trials) and packs a great subtle story telling all wrapped in witty dialog. Of course the entire Orange Box is pretty worth it, for it contains Portal, Half Life, HL: Episode 1 & 2 and Team Fortress 2. TF2 is the bastard child of The Incredibles and online multiplayer mindless fun. Plus if you have the time, you should check out the "Meet the ____" videos on YT. Some of them are hilarious.


THANKYOUs:
Level Up Blog, Massively, MTV's Multiplayer Blog, [Zakkaliciousness]

There were never any good old days
They are today, they are tomorrow
It's a stupid thing we say
Cursing tomorrow with sorrow.

Gogol Bordello -- Ultimate

Photo: John

So the Wang usually does drop album reviews. Specially since the Wang enter the music scene rather late in life and is still sending half of his time catching up on the old rock legends and classics. So seeing stuff about the upcoming movie about Bob Dylan, "I'm Not There", the Wang was naturally happy to see the story of another musical icon via some indie film introduction. Since the late arrival on the English music scene, the Wang had to had most of his musical experiences with the icons like the Beatles via movies like Across the Universe and with Walk the Line for Johnny Cash. And for a new generation, the Wang included, these things may be an insult to some of the older hardcores, but there r a great way to get the new folks a slice of these icon's greatness. Covers songs re surge a interest about the original singers. Though the Wang have this weird theory that the first version of a song u listen to, tends to be the one u like more. But that's just personal opinion. Since "I'm Not There" isn't released in the US till Nov. 21, the Wang has very little to say about it except links to the Wikipedia entry and a Youtube trailer. The movie does have some strong actors/actress portraying Bob Dylan at different personalities. Amongst those are Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, and Heath Ledger.

So the topic of this post is mainly about the Original Soundtrack of the said movie. Never having much encounter with bob's music cept maybe the closest would be The Wang has heard some Wallflower songs... (yes, I said Wallflowers) Which of course is no where close to Bob Dylan's music, cept being from the same gene pool. So there Wang was, a collector of sound tracks and random music. The "I'm Not There" soundtrack pops out with names like Karen O, Sufjan Stevens, Iron & Wine, Jeff Tweedy, Yo La Tango and even the duo from the Swell season, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. Amongst many more. U might as well just check out the Wikipedia entry for the full list. Not to mention the super guitar group called the The Million Dollar bashers, which includes the guitarist from Sonic youth and Wilco. Some of the guitar in the songs smack of old school rock classics and brings a modern twang to some of these songs. Not the Wang has much to compare to with the old, original Dylan stuff. But he's definitely going to be on the lookout for some old tracks just to get a mix and feel for things. If one thing he's learned in his old age is that, any experiences is perceived differently, at different ages. So a song u heard when u were 12 probably means something completely different to u at age 30. So the Wang recommend all u old Dylan purist to give the album a try also. Why not, some of it can be good. I mean Karen O, Iron and wine really brings their own flavor to some of these really good songs. Even Mark Lanegan of Queens of the Stone Age brings a Johnney Cash esque cover of The Man in the Long Black Coat.

There r just too many good tracks, so the Wang will post the first one that came up in the random shuffle which caught the Wang's attention:

Sufjan Stevens Covering Ring of Bells (MP3)


P.S. Rabbit! Rabbit!

photo by

Sigur Rós - Hoppípolla
Sigur Rós - Hoppípolla video Stream