Fifteen years ago, a mogul who’d lost his best friend to murder and had his name implicated in the murder of an enemy changed the world of rap music despite the fact that he could barely rap. Remember? Maybe the glare from this glimmering jumpsuit will refresh your memory.
Every Monday morning. Music so good… it must be shared.
This week: “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” — Arcade Fire, covering Cyndi Lauper
(And when you’re done with the video, stay for the entire, ridiculous playlist, including some scenes (!!!) from the 80s movie starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Helen Hunt, Jonathan Silverman and Shannen Doherty.)
Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness.
For what it’s worth, I’ve spent most of my 20s as a devoted Decemberists-head, coming in right around the release of Picaresque, staying for the genius The Crane Wife, working through the more difficult The Hazards of Love (“The Wanting Comes in Waves” is still epic) and experiencing that feeling of musical euphoria over The King is Dead, maybe the best album of 2011.
Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness.
Colin Farrell has starred in some terrible and forgettable movies. We know his role. He plays the fast-talking punk who’s really not a punk because we KNOW he has a soft side. He endears himself to us because he’s Irish, and women think his body totally rocks. And there is a law, written in permanent ink on a massive steno pad somewhere in Hollywood (I’ve seen it), that posits anyone with a body deemed to totally rock cannot be a punk.
Back in 2008, Farrell actually proved why he deserves the attention and the dollar bills that follow when he starred in a movie most of us never heard about, and if we did, we probably shrugged our shoulders and then forgot. He starred in a movie called “In Bruges.” The name sounds art house. And despite featuring heavy gunfire, it kind of is. The best way to explain the movie is how I explained it in a text to a friend: “It’s a dark comedy/crime thriller set in Bruges. Somehow it worked.”
Every Monday morning. Music so good… it must be shared.
Every Monday morning. Music so good… it must be shared.
Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness.
Song: Nas – “Life’s A Bitch”
Growing up as a guitarist and a huge fan of rock and metal, I would routinely listen to songs just to get to that one epic guitar solo, riff or breakdown that immediately triggered the air guitar instinct. In fact, I’d usually rewind to the start of the particularly epic* passage a few times out of sheer reverence. “Life’s A Bitch” is one of the songs that – as a 25-year-old fan of wordplay and hip-hop – I always have to stop to rewind. Continue reading
Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness.
Cereal: Frosted Toast Crunch
When I was younger, maybe five or six years old, my mom refused to let my brother, sister and I eat sugary cereals. She reasoned we ate so much sugar during the day, during the rest of our meals that an added significant dosage at breakfast would make us grow up to become bank robbers. This might have been a fair argument. But we were young. We didn’t know any better, and those damn commercials with cartoon rabbits and the fluorescent glow of cardboard boxes perpetrated our minds, alluring us to the sugary side. We begged nonstop.
Every Monday morning. Music so good… it must be shared.
Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness.
Album: “In My G4 Over Da Sea” — Neutral Bling Hotel
In February 1998, Neutral Milk Hotel released “In The Aeroplane Over The Sea”, a seminal concoction* of lo-fi indie rock.
*If you’ve never listened to the blown-out guitars on “Holland, 1945″, well, do so right now.
After the release of the album, Neutral Milk frontman Jeff Mangum more or less disappeared for the next decade. He stopped releasing music and only showed up to play live shows within the last few years.
The Brew House 
