What an awesome bunch of media I’ve been rapidly consuming of late. Take my advice and gobble it up as well:


The Silversun Pickups new LP Swoon may rival its predecessor....

The Bird and the Bee’s Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future...

and the Golden Globe Award Best Foreign Language winner (2008) Waltz With Bashir is almost indescribably good, as well.


First things first:
I am an enormously obese fan of The Silversun Pickups (SSPU) and really enjoyed their set at In the Venue when they came to town last. I can see this group progressing in the same positive direction that their 90’s counterparts The Smashing Pumpkins did if they keep their momentum going correctly.
Swoon swells and swoops at all the right times with transcendent bits of orchestration (yes, slightly reminiscent of Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness––but not in a bad way).
If you liked the last SSPU album Carnavass don’t sleep on this one. Its official release date is 4.14.09.



The Bird and The Bee (TBTB) are back with their most recent LP and I am very, very excited. I dropped the ball on this one because it was released back in January! Fortunately, Craig, soon to be a new co-owner of Positively 4th Street in Salt Lake City (and I couldn’t be more proud of the guy) tipped me to it last weekend at the Zuriick sample sale; been listening to it ever since.

The singer of TBTB was doing the Lilly Allen thing before Lilly Allen even knew what she was doing. I recommend going to my myspace playlist (while the song is still there) and checking out the Peaches remix of one of TBTB’s best song “F*ckin Boyfriend” (from their 2007 S/T) for a primer on their old stuff before you dive into Ray Guns.... You won’t be sorry.



And I recently caught Waltz with Bashir at the Salt Lake Film Society’s Broadway theater. It was moving in so many ways that one must view it to really feel its power. The film, in an animated style––a bold choice for this subject matter but one that works well––covers the devastating Sabra and Shatila massacre of Palestinians in Lebanon. Don’t worry, I didn’t understand much of the event until I saw the film myself.

But as I was watching I realized, yet again, that is the point of really good cinema––to elevate the audience above their normal state of mind and take them to a place of new experience and knowledge. An approach far different from the normal fare you’ll catch at modern American cinemas. Thank the gods for quality venues like Broadway and the Tower for, literally, keeping it real when other places are too busy playing uninspired sh*t like The Fast and Furious/Cranky Transporter IV.”
See what I mean by watching the trailer below. And local residents catch it in theaters for the full cinematic experience.



The End


by Jon Paxton