Speaking of good - good dramatic-new-website-having Birthday Boyz are in China on VBS TV! Damn, Jeff B no doubt is our most television-friendly friend.

The first three episodes are up, and The Boyz are possibly already deeper into enemy territory than any U.S. band ever. Oh and leave a comment - I know you don’t wanna but they are like solid gold to internet TV people.

Best,
L

This just came to my phone. It’s by and starring the cast of the Vampire Weekend Fanfic.

L

I’m lucky to be a few years younger than the Walkmen. Since I’ve been 19, their music has made me look forward to growing up - helped me picture of myself in the future. That sounds silly, but seriously, I could take you through it.

Today I’m 26. I’ve not been feeling enthused about this birthday, mostly because I can’t really see past the Summer - logistically, but also in other ways. And then half an hour ago I heard this:

And its no big deal, but I feel hints. The fog is lifting.

Beer the size of your head Thurs night at 10 at Loreley if you’re free!
L

Sometimes good friends know how you’re feeling better than you do. We were all watching Aa’s final set in the garden at 502 - all of us clearly up in our own heads - when Sarah touched my hand and said “It’s okay.” Only then did I realized how sad I was about all this.

Stephen testifies on his blog. And that reminds me, Billy made a movie about the 502 experience a few years back, set to Aa’s appropriately newgays Horsesteak.

Am I right to say Baumbach-ish? I guess I should see one of those.

L

When we started making movies we choose to work with equipment that gave us strict limits. The idea was to reduce the number of decisions we didn’t know anything about. So we shot black and white with a non-sync 16mm K3 (handheld) that could only shoot 25 secs per shot. One take per shot, one shot per scene. Then we pretty much just laid the scenes end-to-end and called it a movie.

Now we’re moving in some non-fictional directions and again we don’t know what we’re doing. Shit just got real. Hence the back-to-basics InstaMovie project that accidentally began last year and now begins in earnest.

This time our limiting equipment is the video function a Kodak point-and-shoot still camera. In weird ways it behaves like the K3 - shots can only last a certain amount of time (I think its like 1:30) and you have to keep the shutter depressed for that duration. We’re editing in a similarly minimal way, basically just yes/no-ing shots and putting them in order.

The results are something like our old films: episodic, messy, with a “natural” structure (it’s offensive how many of our movies start in the day and end at night, or the other way around), and maybe some mystery ¹.

Ok. We hope you enjoy this distillation of a nostalgic and violent then starkly sincere show. Those heartbeat/Beat Happening drums kill me. And I like that it’s pitch black for the Landslide sing-along - your eyes are supposed be closed for that.

Instamovie02: Puttin on the Ritz and Fleetwood mAacfee
Sunday June 08, 2008.
98°F. Partly cloudy chance of thunderstorms.
At 502, Brooklyn NY

MORE:
Puttin on the Ritz
Fleetwood mAacfee is John and Nadav from Aa + Kevin MacFee covering Fleetwood Mac. Duh.

BTW, I’m not gonna eulogize 502 yet (I’m sure I will though. Tentative blog-post title “Season. Finale. Lost.”) cuz I hear it’s still got a couple parties left in it. But I will say that…y’know…Im gonna miss that place! :’-)

L

1) Sorry our old films aren’t online btw. They’re awesome.

Besides that it’s plain-on-the-face awesome, I’m into this video clip bexuz:

1. Last summer in Honduras, Whit, Coogan and I shared our cabin wall with a group of British teens who were there doing charity construction. One afternoon it was raining crazy. And over the terrible drumming of storm on our tin roof, we heard through the wall an unforgettable sound: 5 English boys slowly chanting a capella, “When the sunshine shines we shine together…gonna be you and me forever…you can stand under my umbrella…brella…eh…eh…eh…under my umbrella…” It was choir-like, ethereal and hilarious.
2. Heavy guitar distortion and darkDAYGLOdark color scheme is very WALCOTT (newgaze remix) - yes/no? Like, it’s newgaze defined. Like, it’s newgaze divine.

3. Not to be a total lameass, but isn’t it cinematically exhilarating when the shot pans to the jumbotron? AW DAMN WHIT, I wanna pan to closeup sometime.
4. The U2b comment “She looks like she’s falling out of a tree when she dances…” hahahaHahaHah

But the point of this post is if watching this on youtube makes me feel blissed out about being alive right now, imagine how I’d feel if I went?? What are tickets to MSG? $100? I gotta start budgeting for this kinda thing. Dag I shoulda learned my lesson last time.

BTW (and maybe the real real point of this post is) remember less than a year ago Kanye West was a fairly annoying / sometimes defendable pop rapper? Then he does one song with Daft Punk, and all of a sudden he looks like Gary Numan and is cooler than Walt Disney and James Bond put together?! How’d this happen ??

(image and proof via Fader)

Followup: Goin’ to Summer Jam! Yes - maybe its a case of closing the barn door after the horse runs off. But maybe, as Chris C suggests, Kanye will actually have to step up his game to stand out from the competition!

As much as John A has perceivedpredictedeclared ska the official sound of summer 08, we say SPORTS CASUAL IS THE LOOK.
LOOK (especially look at Look 2 “Action Flash”):

Sports Casual is hard to define, but I am reminded of another John (M) describing his packing strategy for 9-days of camping as ‘inappropriately luxurious.’ It’s also good friends with last summer’s Slut-Cajzh dress code.

I’m so siked. Like, I’m not saying somebody should write a Throw Some Ds-style song about buying loafers, but that is what I’m feeling right now.

L

There was a couple weeks when the Blondes footage was at the lab and all we could do was wait/worry. Making this kept us sane. Enjoy!

Cast: Ebony, Ian, Brian, John, Michaela, Noah, Andy F-III. Premix: duh.

Video link
Youtube

L + W

That New York Underground Film Festival was something special. One, they showed our work. Two, they put Whitney’s name on the website before anyone else - even Peggy Ahwesh, who’s kinda famous. Three, they gave me an official underground filmmakers badge. Four, I got to watch movies the way I love to: for free (which allows me to be promiscuous and adventurous in my choices) and in a movie theater (so I can be invisible). And most importantly, some of the programs eased that anxiety I have that Whit and I will never find/build a community of peers.

Like every piece - with maybe one exception - in the program Where ’s the Love blew my mind. I especially want to point you to the unbelievably Wan Kar Wai-esque and unsettlingly sincere Second Life documentary i.Mirror. You can watch the whole thing on youtube, and you should — though I gotta say, something’s definitely lost when it’s not blown up on a big screen. It seems less…crazy…on a computer screen. (I think the inverse happens with our piece - seeing MySpace screencaps on the big screen was funny in a way I didn’t see coming and I’m not sure how I feel about. Not that I know how I feel about i.Mirror. Except, maybe I love it?)

So yeah, if you haven’t gone yet, tomorrow’s the last day. Our program’s playing at 8. And the thing before it looks really good. I’ll be at both. FOR FREE.

L