Musical Find of the Day: Alex Cameron, for fans of Foxygen-like weirdness

I was intrigued by Alex Cameron because his upcoming album, Forced Witness, is co-produced by one of my favorite new musicians, Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado.

And Cameron has the same amount of weirdo, quirkiness as Foxygen, which I saw in concert earlier this year and can confirm the weirdness. The two artists specialize in awkward dance moves that it is very difficult to stop watching.




To kick it up a level, Cameron released the first video for his upcoming release (see YouTube, the dude likes videos) and it features beautiful backing vocals from Angel Olsen and the afore-mentioned awkward dance moves by none other than Jemima Kirk from HBO's Girls (who also directs the video).



I'm not that sold yet on Cameron's older music, but I want to hear more. He sometimes sounds kind of like Meatloaf smushed into Depeche Mode, which isn't very enticing, but, perhaps because of the presence of Foxygen and these other contributing artists, as well as some clearly exceptional character-driven songwriting, there's an opportunity for this song and all of Cameron's work to be a slow grower.

And those dance moves!

Indie Movie Binge: Which Recent DVD Releases Are Worth It

With our recent re-upping of Netflix after a time away, I've been able to hit a spate of indie flicks in the way I used to in my 20s in the mid-90s when I presumably had nothing better to do.

None of these reach Richard Linklater Boyhood levels (my movie of 2014), which, much like his past releases Slacker, School of Rock, and Dazed and Confused, holds the grand torch of best-of-the-best. But I still enjoyed this binge. From best to worst ...

Wish I Was Here

The strong soundtrack including The Shins is where Zack Braff's latest ends at being like Garden State and Scrubs, his very-high career highlights thus far. There are some funny moments, but it's mostly a serious look at midlife.

Braff plays an out-of-work actor who spends more time smoking weed than auditioning. When his father (Mandy Patinkin) announces he has cancer and can no longer pay for Braff and Kate Hudson's children's Jewish private school education, Braff decides to home school them.

This leads to much soul searching and rediscovering. Not necessarily as good as I thought it could be, this little movie is indeed worth watching.

***1/2 out of ***** stars

Obvious Child

This flick is a mix of Louie and Ed Burns' rom-coms. With major social commentary on abortion mixed in (with conservative groups the Heritage Foundation and Family Research Council chiming in against it).

I love star Jenny Slate for her roles in TV's The Kroll Show. She is far less wacky here, playing a comedian who loses her boyfriend before setting out on some binge drinking that results in a drunken encounter that gets her pregnant. Bouts of sweetness ensue with her stranger paramour, even if the bounds of believability are stretched with their continuous random sightings of each other.

Consider it devoting the time of just more than two episodes of Girls, which seems to be getting painfully annoying in its third season (should I even attempt to keep going into season four?).

***1/2 out of ***** stars

Inside Llewyn Davis

This is the one that really surprised me of this bunch. Nominated for best picture last year, I'm finding it harder and harder as time goes by to remember anything about it. I usually love the Coen Brothers, but Inside Llewyn Davis is particularly uninteresting.

It starts promisingly. Oscar Davis plays the title character. He is a folk singer who has lost the duo partner that brought him minor fame. But nobody likes his new solo stuff. The movie is fairly captivating during the first half in Greenwich Village, but it collapses into veery-slow meaningless by the point Llewyn road trips to Chicago with John Goodman, in a sadly pointless performance.

I really wanted to like this, but really didn't. It might have something to do with my stunning lack of interest in Bob Dylan (I know you're not supposed to say that out-loud) and this post-Dylan take on artistry.

**1/2 out of ***** stars

The Skeleton Twins

This is another big disappointment of two actors I really like. Perhaps the world in not ready for Saturday Night Live stars playing depressed suicidal twins.

The lack of humor is the most painful point. And why any scriptwriters would think audiences would care about these two losers is almost as amazing as it actually being green-lighted. I guess they thought Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig's double likability would save it, but they can't.

Like a really bad version of Robert Downey Jr.'s exploits in Less Than Zero.

** out of ***** stars

Christopher Owens, Formerly of Girls, Mesmerizes a Sit-Down 9:30 Club

Many dozens of shows viewed at the 9:30 Club in Washington D.C. and this was a first for me. A sit-down concert.

So there Gordie, Dan, Rachel, and I were in the third row Sunday night where we got a thrilling display from Christopher Owens, formerly of Girls (a band I missed back in 2009 when they were very obscure).

I thought it might simply be an acoustic, one-man set. But no, all the pieces from his brilliant new solo album - saxophone, flute, two female backup singers, lead guitarist, bassist, drummer, keyboard - were there. I also thought Owens (seated in the photo) would be the only stage presence capturing our attention. But he has recruited a fascinating and mesmerizing cast of characters.

And that's saying a lot. It's not easy to compete with Owens, a guy whose back story includes growing up in California's way-out Children of God cult (which apparently hired thousands of female escorts to recruit members into their sexually, shall we say, adventurous, family).

Further, Owens is a premiere musician. I've waited a long time to see him. (Girls' album Father, Son, Holy Ghost was ranked #1 in my top 70 list of 2011 and the band's self-titled debut was a way under-ranked #16 in my 2009 top 40.) The wait may have been wise, because I would be shocked if the solo album, called Lysandre, will be anywhere lower than my top three of 2013, but we'll see.

In short, his two-and-a-half Girls albums and now his solo one are almost entirely flawless. This was really, really apparent Sunday night because the first half of the show consisted of songs off his new album and had arguably much better lyrics and music than the second half of the show, which was made up of well-done soft-rock covers all largely regarded as classics in the rock 'n' roll cannon like "The Boxer" by Simon and Garfunkel, "Wild World" by Cat Stevens, "Lalena" by Donovan, and "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" by Bob Dylan. It was almost as if Owens was trying to rub it into his idols' faces that he's better.

My only complaint is that he didn't play any of those great songs off his Girls albums. But that's a small complaint. Hopefully he'll release another solo record in the next year or so, and he can play his original material for a lot longer into the night next time. (Openers Melted Toys provided an enjoyable jolt of 80s wave with memorable guitar licks liberally scattered throughout.)

****1/2 out of ***** stars

Pop Culture Roundup: Hunger Games, Girls, Wilco, Mr. Burns

I guess I've just been having too much fun this summer at my new job, but rankings on my blog of my pop-culture intake have suffered in the past month. Apologies, dear readers. We'll just have to take a quick roundup/catch-up.


The Hunger Games: I read this back in early June when I was vacationing on the Outer Banks. True beach reading. It's a formulaic story, written in a truly sophomoric style and voice. Needless to say, I couldn't put it down. Author Suzanne Collins takes unforgettable heroine Katniss Everdeen through a survivalist battle worthy of the best reality-TV plot lines.
***1/2 out of ***** stars

Girls: So far, I've made it through the first 8 of 10 season-one episodes. This is another can't-put-down pleasure. The HBO series takes us deep into the not-so-deep minds of the 20-something generation, barely surviving, arguably employed, and down-and-out in New York City. Lena Dunham brilliantly leads the cast of aimless youngsters through a version of 90210 with a seriously funny and edgy edge.

***** out of ***** stars


Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play: My season tickets at DC's Woolly Mammoth have been good to me over the years. And I was super-excited going into this season, with an apocalyptic (fun!) theme coursing through every production. But this has been a real let-down of a year. I think Woolly is losing its way by, if possible, trying just a little too hard to be creative and different. The second act, the actors, and the premise are all fairly strong in Mr. Burns. It's several decades into the future and the only culture left among the survivors of a global collapse is the memory of The Simpsons. But the story is often sooo slow and convoluted, and it fails to shed insight into the Simpsons' episode that the actors discuss. A real pop-culture miss.
*1/2 out of ***** stars

Wilco: The band's recent performance at Wolftrap in Vienna, Virginia was another in a long line of great shows I've witnessed (I saw the first of a two-night stand there). Nels Cline added new guitar solos that displayed his increasing prowess as the greatest rock player alive. And the shifting styles keep multiplying for Wilco, which started as an alt-country band, and now often sounds like something between Radiohead, Billy Bragg, The Beatles, and Sonic Youth. Speaking of Sonic Youth, that band's guitarist, Lee Ranaldo, opened and, like his new album, was spectacularly catchy.****1/2 out of ***** stars

Bike Tour Atlanta, Part 3: Pop Culture Edition

Finishing up my series on the great bike ride I recently enjoyed from Bicycle Tours of Atlanta (here are parts 1 and 2), this installment looks at some great entertainment options that happened to be in town while we rode.

First up, courtesy of my guide Robyn, is me taking a photo of a theater called the Variety Playhouse in the hipster neighborhood of Little Five Points, where my favorite new band, Girls, was playing. Unfortunately, my flight was leaving for home in a few hours. I would go on to miss Girls play in D.C. a few nights later for some similarly lame excuse.

Next, we wound our way downtown, where we had lunch and wheeled past the famed "fabulous" Fox Theater, where one of my son's favorite kids groups was set to perform. If you aren't yet familiar with Yo Gabba Gabba!, watch this bit with Jack Black.

And finishing out my blog bike tour, we stopped by the Martin Luther King National Historic Site, which is a large complex not far from the spot where the bike tour leaves from, in the Old Fourth Ward. Two highlights were seeing the wooden wagon MLK's coffin was carried in as part of his funeral march, and the gentleman in the photo who serenaded Robyn and I with a song of faith.