Ok, go watch this video because it's funny

Turns out Zach Galifianakis is hilarious to me even when he doesn't say a single word and barely even changes his facial expression.

Zach Galifianakis on Saturday Night Live

Okay, Zach Galifianakis on SNL. I've been hyping it up in my mind for about a month now. Probably about the most I've anticipated any show since I was in high school, so in short, yes, I overdid it.

A few thoughts:

• the monologue was maybe one of the funniest on SNL in years. It was classic Zach. Everything that his fans could ask for. I'm sure NBC will have the video up soon, if not already.
• "Here comes the choo choo!"
  
• The bidet skit was mildly funny, but never really hit its stride, and it was about the most talking he did in any skit until the very end.
• I felt like Zach was a bit under-utilized overall. A number of the skits were non-speaking parts. The flute player and the creepy guy in the background were funny, but didn't really get at his strengths. The "What's Up With That" talk show is only premise funny, which makes me wonder why they have to do it week after week when the joke is the same every time. Similarly, the Today's Show and the Situation Room skits each used him in ways that made you think the writers didn't really know what to do with him.
  
• The final skit was exactly what I had been hoping for. Zach getting to play the type of character that he is perfectly suited for. For my money, you can't beat a scene where the content is so funny the actors start cracking up and don't know what to do with themselves.
• I truly thought they had shaved Zach's beard for the last skit, but the closing scene seemed to prove otherwise. [Update: So apparently he did shave off his beard for the last skit, and then used a fake beard for the closing scenes.]
• [Edit: I've really got a growing respect for this whole beard shaving deal. In fact, SNL made a video of the whole process. Pretty classic subtle humor that makes the show better I think]
  
• If Zach hadn't been the host, I might have thought the other skits were a bit funnier, but unfortunately I was waiting for him to do something epic every second, and in retrospect, that probably wasn't the best plan. However, Kristen Wiig had some funny scenes tonight, and by no means was the episode bad like it has been in a few recent episodes.
  
• The best I can hope for is that he'll get to come back again and build on what worked tonight.
  
• "We have a great show. Hoobastank is here."

Zach Galifianakis, this Saturday, on your TV

Forget about SXSW for a second:
Zach Galifianakis is hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend. Hopefully I won't be disappointed if it's not the greatest episode of all time. Have you watched his children's acting classes from Adult Swim? You should.

If you read Pitchfork:
and don't mind a little statistics. Here's a pretty cool breakdown of their ratings system from Part-Time Music.

It's a long read:
but David Byrne's blog discussing how context, more specifically physical location, affects the type of music that is created was well worth my time.

Another somewhat technical article about music, but quite interesting:
This Slate article discusses how the standardization of pianos has literally made it such that one cannot play some classical pieces as they were written. That is, the construction of pianos was once much more variable, and many famous pieces of music were written on pianos with specific structural characteristics that no longer exist on modern pianos.

Comedy:
is mostly an afterthought at SXSW, but if you're in the mood, former Denver-ite Ben Kronberg will be performing a number of times, and will be well worth your time if you have the chance to hear him.

I didn't realize:
that Willis Alan Ramsey only made one album. Pretty unbelievable, but I guess he was the one in a billion who made one album and was financially set for life.

Horrible news really:
about Roy from Lucero having his jaw broken when he and Brian were mugged. I hope he is able to take adequate time off to heal.

SXSW day parties:
are really starting to stack up. I've not gathered the energy yet to go through the current list.

If you didn't see it:
SNL's "We are the World 3" pretty much hit the nail right on the head.

In a just world

...this would have happened a long time ago. But I can't complain because this is the best news I've heard for 2010. Cue over-anticipation now.

Following the Winter Olympics, Zach Galifianakis will host Saturday Night Live. If this episode is a bust then everything I ever believed in will be called into question. I have full confidence that it will be amazing though. My hope is that this episode will be a smash hit and he'll become a regular SNL host.

March 6th is the date to put on your calendar. No word yet on the musical guest for that night, but I have to say, why not make it an all-North Carolina night and have the Avett Brothers play?























(Image courtesy of Galifianakis' Myspace)

Yes, more random crap already...

I did finally find:

a place that was still selling the Grizzly Bear 7" featuring Michael MacDonald. Bleep.com is still selling it. Not sure why the band's and label's site are already sold out - either they are getting more copies or it's super limited edition.

Speaking of limited edition 7" vinyl that you probably don't care about:

Langhorne Slim recently released the Cinderella 7" on an Italian label called Wild Honey Records. Details can be found here. The ordering method is kind of new school old school, in that they don't have an online shopping cart, but you just paypal them the money and they (hopefully) send you the record. Old school old school would be you send them some cash in a card and (hopefully) they send you the record.

Is there any thing worse that could happen in Boulder:

than seeing 3 guys playing hacky sack outside of Starbucks?

Is there any thing better that could happen in Boulder:

than seeing 2 guys wipe out on their skateboards in the same day? (of course, with the stipulation that nothing was hurt other than their egos)

Pretty sweet:

that the Kanye West video for "Can't Tell Me Nothin'" featuring Zach Galifianakis and Will Oldham was featured as #30 in Pitchfork's Top 50 music videos of 2000-2009. Well deserved.

Why hadn't I heard about this?:

Michael Cera has a new movie coming out called Youth in Revolt (also featuring Zach G.), and to add to my surprise, "Timebomb" by the Old 97s is used the trailer.

.

I know I haven't posted much of substance here lately:
so I hope that the occasional music news post is enough for now. I've got some others in the works, but just haven't had a ton of time the last few weeks.

I can't believe it's already too late:
to buy the Grizzly Bear/Michael MacDonald collaboration on vinyl. This was announced right at a week ago and now the sites that sold it are saying it is sold out.

Finally:
had the chance to see Visioneers. The quirkiness and darkness are what I was expecting. It is really funny that they are advertising it as "Zach Galifianakis from The Hangover," because the typical Hangover crowd is not going to like this movie at all. The movie is good, but like I said, it is very different. The only way I can describe the contrast between the Hangover/Visioneers, while not exactly the same, would be like Jim Carrey in Dumb & Dumber/The Cable Guy.

Getting increasingly excited:
about the new Langhorne Slim album later this month. After being so impressed with him at the UMS this summer, I definitely have a new appreciation for his music. He's actually playing Boulder tomorrow, but it is for E-town, which for my money isn't quite worth the trouble.

Some old friends from Dallas:
who are in a band called Macon Greyson, just released an EP for free download from their Web site. They tour mostly regionally, but in the past year, their most notable happening was having a song featured in the movie The Wrestler.

Is it just me:
or is Twitter getting boring and too spammed out? Maybe I just followed too many people early on, because now I look through my feed and nothing of interest really comes up.

The neverending tour:
that is Bob Dylan's life keep's going. He just announced more fall tour dates - I guess hitting some of the places the minor league ball park tour missed. Oh yeah, and he's putting out a Christmas album.

Tough day yesterday to live in Boulder:
CSU came to town and beat us 23-17, and then their fans rushed Folsom Field to celebrate right in the middle of it all. However, I don't hold that against them, given the crap all the drunken idiot 18 year-old Buff fans were yelling at them.

none of this just in

One final West Coast note:
I'm convinced that if you are looking for old country music vinyl, then the Bay Area is a great place to look. Not only are there a number of good stores like Rasputin and Amoeba in SF and Berkeley, but I am of the opinion that people just don't buy country vinyl there much, and so you've got a pretty good chance of finding some cool stuff.

Okay, one more final west coast note:
For all you vinyl collectors who have noticed, at least to a small extent, that record store owners are less pretentious these days now that they are on such a shoestring budget, never fear, I'm pretty sure the record store clerks in the bay area are just as pretentious as they ever were.

Just finished reading:
the new Dave Eggers book, Zeitoun. It is amazing! It's written in the style of What is the What? and I found myself flying through it because I just couldn't put it down.



















Didn't have a chance to write about it:
but I was able to catch one of the Lusitania's Denver shows a couple of weeks ago. All of my praises were backed up by their show. This band is really tight and their live shows are awesome. I hope they catch on up here, because all the show was lacking was a high energy packed house. By the way, Vinyl Collective is now carrying their 7" split with Buckeye.

Stumbled upon news:
that Alternative Tentacles is reissuing Secret South, a hard to find album by Denver's 16 Horsepower. If you don't have this album, you should strongly consider checking it out if for no other reason than to hear the cover of Dylan's "Nobody 'Cept You." The album will be reissued on LP and CD, each with a bonus DVD included. Vinyl originals of this album have gone on ebay for around $75 or more in recent years, so this reissue makes it a bit more accessible. However, it also leaves vinyl collectors to question whether they are bidding on an original or a reissue version on ebay, so for all it helps, there are some downsides as well. Also, I still can't decide whether it's worth it to buy reissue vinyl anyway.

I totally missed this:
but the recent Zach Galifianakis interview on the Tonight's Show was hilarious. He seemed much more in his element than when he was on Dave. I love Dave, but I felt like he was just going through the motions asking Zach questions and it wasn't very natural. Make sure and watch part 1 & part 2.

The Boulder Avett Brothers' show:
is now sold out. Let's hope we make it out alive.

I really enjoy:
telling people that if we ever have a son we're going to name him "Billiam," but call him "Will."

just stuff

As an astute reader has pointed out:
Zach Galifianakis' Visioneers is actually available on DVD now, as well as showing at some theaters. Seems kind of a shame it never got its time on the big screen.

In case you were wondering:
The winners of the 7" vinyl giveaway were from Florida and California. Nice to see we got some coastal coverage, even if the process was completely random.

New Telegraph Canyon:
is available for Pre-Order at Velvet Blue. I think I might wait for the vinyl version, which I don't think is up yet. Also, catch them with the Old 97s in Fort Worth toward the end of this month or on tour to the west coast in early September.

In the "you probably don't care, but maybe I do" department:
one of the only spoken word artists I still follow, Buddy Wakefield, will be touring the U.S. this fall on the Elephant Engine High Dive Revival, with compatriots Derrick Brown, Shira Erlichman and Anis Mojgani and many others. So glad to see they are hitting Denver and Boulder. Whether you think spoken word is so 1995 or uncool or uninteresting, you should briefly suspend such judgment, because Buddy puts on one of the most entertaining shows around. More on this to come.

No, there is no reason to mention this:
but I found some early Dwight vinyl the other day, and realized I had basically forgotten the genius of his work. Dwight may have done some odd projects over the years in some folks' minds, but of all the major label country artists of the 80s and 90s, I think he may have maintained his integrity as an artist more completely than almost any of the others. Can you think of anyone better?

Very very randomly:
ran across some Ryan Adams news on this blog today. The basic message was that Ryan may be resurrecting an old label he developed some years back to release recordings of some sort.

If you live:
in any of the hipper cities of the western United States, Tour de Fat, from New Belgium beer, may be coming to a city near you. It's a pretty great time, so check it out in your town some time. And if you've got the chance to attend the original event in Fort Collins, it comes highly recommended from me.

The end of the UMS and stuff

Awesome:

Brand new Daytrotter session from the Avett Brothers.

I know you don't care:
but I find it humorous that the FMQB Triple A radio conference that I've mentioned before lost Ben Harper as a headliner and replaced him in the lineup with Mindy Smith.

I told you it would happen:
and sure enough, Visioneers looks to be coming out very soon now that Zach Galifianakis is a mega star. Showings in Denver on July 29th & 30th.

I said I would do a final recap on the UMS:
but I also know you don't care about it that much, especially if you are not from Denver. Let me summarize ever so briefly: 1) The festival is super cheap - $25 for a last minute pass - I think it was like $12 for presale. I've paid more than that for one band. 2) It features some of Denver's best talent and is beginning to bring in some choice national talent. 3) Next year is the 10th Anniversary and I guarantee you they will bring in some bands that will basically be a steal for the money. 4) Enough people will have heard about it 5 years from now that there is no chance your band will get in then, but it just might if you try for next year. 5) South Broadway in Denver in July is about the best place to be in the world.

I think it's funny:
that apparently some people have accidentally happened upon my blog because Google search led them here after searching for the new Lucero album, specifically the search terms "1372 Overton Park" and "download." Not here jerks. You'll never find a leaked album for download here. But you can pre-order the new album from their Web site and get a digital download of 6 songs from the new album right NOW.

The time has finally come to give away some vinyl:
I just sent emails to the winners. Sorry if you didn't win, but the chances were tough, given that a number of people entered, and you CAN always pick up a copy from Vinyl Collective.

If you like funny things (probably safe for work, but let's be on the safe side and say NSFW):
Ben Kronberg is an awesome comic who is originally from Denver. Honestly, I just read about him in the most recent What's So Funny?, but it's pretty awesome stuff.

Weekly stuff

More evidence that Zach Galifianakis is about to be a huge movie star whether we like it or not:
in this New York Times feature.

Awesome cover art by Julie Cope:
On the new Mt. Inadale Records split 7” featuring Lubbock’s own Thrift Store Cowboys & One Wolf. Click the artwork for more details.







If you liked the Court & Spark:
you should check out their new project Hiss Golden Messenger. It's a good bit different than C&S, but the solid songwriting is still there. Kind of more…um…earthy? I would say if you listened to Hearts, this material sounds like a natural progression from that.

Monahans continues to get recognition from major media outlets:
this time in Texas Monthly.

If you didn’t know:
J.D. Salinger is still alive, but has refused to talk to the press for close to 50 years. He recently made headlines regarding the fact that he was filing suit against a publishing company who put out a book that is an unauthorized sequel to Catcher in the Rye. When the story broke, you could get this book internationally for $15 or so. Now it's up to $160 reserve price. I briefly considered buying it while it was so cheap, but then I remembered, "oh yeah, J.D. Salinger didn't actually write this book" FYI, even today, people who seek him out in the small town of Cornish, NH get turned away by a near-deaf Salinger or his wife. Road trip anyone?

If you’ve seen Weeds Season 4:
Then you probably heard “A New World” and “Head Honcho” by DeVotchKa playing along with one of the episodes.

When my friend told me she grew up in Hawai’i:
I said, “can you be more pacific?”

In case you missed it:
Vic Chesnutt stopped into Daytrotter for a session that was posted here not so long ago.  FYI, the scream he does in "Independence Day" is not for sale at Guitar Center.

The Hangover (not mine...the movie)

I really hadn't planned on writing a full blog about going to see the Hangover, since of all the things I am, a movie reviewer is not one of them. Nonetheless, a week ago when Westword offered a chance to get free passes to an advance screening of the Hangover, I jumped at the chance. Normally I don't make a big effort to see new release movies, especially when they are mass marketed big studio type films. Nonetheless, Zach Galifianakis' scenes in the trailer were enough to catch my interest.

The general deal was that we weren't guaranteed seats, but if we got there early (they said 30-60 minutes), we should have a good chance of getting seats. Turns out that the prospect of getting something for free was more than people could stand, and they probably took the day off of work just to get in line. We actually heard that people began showing up at noon to line up for the 7 p.m. showing. As much as I wanted to see the movie, it wasn't bad enough to wait 7 hours in a 14 plex in Arvada, so I'm glad we made it to the theater at about 6:15. The line was already ridiculous by that point, and we were probably 250-300 people back in line. The good news we found out was that the theater held over 400, so we stuck it out and found seats that were up front, but not quite the front row.

The biggest surprise about the line was that we were really expecting a lot of hipsters, largely due to the Galifianakis cult following and because I was expecting not a lot of people go through the Westword movie section where the free showing was announced. Turns out a radio station had announced the show today though, because we soon found out that the line looked much more like the Flatirons mall crowd than the painfully hip Sputnik crowd. Further proof of the low hipster turnout was the lack of silly hats, which were almost non-existent. Rather, I think most were anxious to see "that guy from The Office" as much as anyone in the movie.

Oh yeah, I should mention that we saw the movie too. I was afraid the previews had given away all the funny parts, but by no means was that the case. I actually have a hangover from the movie because there were so many funny parts that I really can't remember any of them. Plus, you don't want me to spoil it anyway. Just to reassure you, there are plenty of scenes in the movie that aren't in the trailer, and while some of the humor is a bit crude, it avoids being completely low brow and stays true to Galifianakis' comedic style.

My favorite part of the night was as we were leaving hearing all of the mall crowd talking about all the ridiculous cliched things that people say about Vegas. Yes, a woman behind me even said "yeah, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." Wow, I thought, this is not Zach's typical crowd. This is the guy who makes jokes about the most offensive subjects imaginable but somehow gets away with it because they are so intelligent.

Alas, I fear that the non-mainstream days of Zach G. have finally come to an end. If this movie is not his breakout, then I don't know what will be. Land of the Lost may dominate the top of the box office standings for the weekend, but I think The Hangover will sustain as well. I can't be more glad that I got to see his stand-up show at the Boulder Theater 18 months or so ago, because even those days may be numbered as well. The good news I think is that Visioneers should finally be released. It's apparently been picked up for distribution, but I'm sure they are waiting for The Hangover to make Zach a superstar first so they can maximize profits. Given the laugh-out-loud comedy of The Hangover, I'm wondering how the dark comedy of Visioneers is going to be received for Galifianakis by his new mainstream followers. Hmm, this situation sounds familiar...anyone remember The Cable Guy?

The hot tub is too hot!

Relating to a post many moons ago, apparently the dark comedy Visioneers featuring Zach Galifianakis has secured distribution and will hopefully be released for our consumption soon.

In completely unrelated news, here's a great blog by Richard Buckner regarding the backstory behind his three albums being reissued on Merge this month.

What do you think folks, is Bloomed the best album ever recorded in Lubbock? It's up there no matter what.

Visioneers

Just watched the trailer for the new Zach Galifianakis movie Visioneers.

It is really hard to tell what the movie is like, that is, whether it will be super funny, or more quirky, but I'm going to go ahead and set my sights high and say it looks amazing.  Mainly just because Zach Galifianakis is pretty much on top of his game right now.

His show at the Boulder Theater earlier this year was probably the funniest hour and half I've ever witnessed.  So funny in fact that I can't even remember any of the jokes. 

That's funny,

haha