Easy A review

A couple of years after the simply wonderful Juno comes another teen comedy with a brain in its head. Easy A sees a high-school girl, Olive, tell a seemingly innocent white lie about losing her virginity, which snowballs to the extent that her life begins to parallel Hester Prynne's in The Scarlet Letter. Olive, played by Emma Stone, decides to use the rumor mill to advance her social and financial standing until, inevitably, things begin to spiral out of control.

A loving homage to the John Hughes teen movies of the 1980's, Easy A is well-observed, nicely placed and, crucially, very funny. The dialogue, similarly to Juno, is snappy and sharp as hell, and just like you did with Ellen Page, you'll find yourself totally engaged and charmed by Stone. In fact, the redheaded young actress is by far and away the best thing about Easy A. For someone that we have only really seen in the supporting roles in Zombieland and Superbad, she absolutely owns the screen from start to finish. Funny, sassy and intelligent while all the time purveying the kind of vulnerability that most teenagers feel, Stone's performance suggests we'll be hearing a lot more from her in the future.

Easy A might be a love-letter to the likes of Sixteen Candles, Say Anything and Ferris Bueller's Day Off rather than being an equal to them, but it may well stand the test of time and isn't too far away from those era-defining, female-led teen flicks like Mean Girls, Clueless and Juno.

End of Decade Review

I know I'm a couple of months late with this. Don't blame me, blame Toshiba for selling me a faulty computer which took forever to repair. Anywhere, here is my end of decade review:

TOP TWENTY ALBUMS OF THE LAST DECADE

1. Is This It - THE STROKES
At a time when the likes of Limp Bizkit were considered the height of talent in indie circles, thank God The Strokes came along and changed everything.


2. Hearts and Unicorns - GIANT DRAG
Post-grunge guitar genius that still sounds as fresh now as when it was released in 2005. In Annie Hardy, Giant Drag have one of the most unique, witty and talented frontwomen around.

3. I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning - BRIGHT EYES
Conor Oberst's best album. The quality doesn't dip for the slightest second.

4. The New Fellas - THE CRIBS
Brilliant sideswipe at London's 'scene'. Raw indie pop tunes so catchy you'll be singing along the first time you hear them.

5. The Moldy Peaches - THE MOLDY PEACHES
A triumph for songwriting, imagination and charm over fancy production. A defining moment in anti-folk.

6. Rings Around The World - SUPER FURRY ANIMALS
Visionary to the point that it makes more sense now than when it was released in 2001. One of the Welsh band's greatest achievements.

7. Garfield - ADAM GREEN
The lo-fi, largely acoustic debut from one half of the Moldy Peaches proved what a diverse, weird and wonderful songwriter Adam Green is.

8. Funeral - ARCADE FIRE
Beautifully grand and epic.

9. Alas, I Cannot Swim - LAURA MARLING
This record is not only impressive because it belies her tender years or because it is her debut offering. Far from it; the genuinely exquisite Alas, I Cannot Swim would be a marvellous achievement for anyone, regardless of whether they were 18 or 80.

10. Up The Bracket - THE LIBERTINES
The album that - before it all went wrong - proved Doherty and Barat to be great poets, capturing the dirty London bohemia perfectly.

11. Myths Of The Near Future - KLAXONS
With Myths Of The Near Future, Klaxons defiantly transcended the hype and created a truly dazzling album. Rave? Hardly. Apocalyptic pop? Possibly. Bloody brilliant? Absolutely.

12. The Felice Brothers - THE FELICE BROTHERS
Old-fashioned yarns of jailhouses, alcohol, drugs, woozy romance and family ties.

13. Man Comes Around - JOHNNY CASH
Heartbreaking.

14. Regina Spektor - Begin To Hope
Her first step towards the mainstream consciousness, while still remaining joyfully left of centre.

15. Real Gone - TOM WAITS
Tom Waits beatboxes in a wardrobe (or at least that's what it sounds like), bangs blocks of wood together and comes up with a dazzlingly original album.

16. White Blood Cells - THE WHITE STRIPES
So many standout tunes, and the whole thing was probably recorded in about half an hour on a budget of four quid.

17. Panic Prevention - JAMIE T
Bouncing capriciously between indie, dancehall, punk and rap, Jamie T’s unrelenting tales of London life give a nod to Joe Strummer, and are told with an equal amount of wit and aggression.

18. Who Needs Actions When You Got Words - PLAN B
Acoustic rap? Surely not? Well, actually, it's really awesome, as Ben Drew washes his dirty laundry in public through lyrics delivered with venom. Whether his upcoming reincarnation as some kind of soul crooner is as good remains to be seen.

18. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots - FLAMING LIPS
Like the soundtrack to a robot's hazy dream.

20. Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - ARCTIC MONKEYS
Urban storytelling well beyond their years.

TOP TWENTY SONGS OF THE LAST DECADE

1. Do You Realize?? - THE FLAMING LIPS



2. Sampson - REGINA SPEKTOR



3. Hard To Explain - THE STROKES

4. Dreaming Of You - THE CORAL

5. Anyone Else But You - THE MOLDY PEACHES

6. Time For Heroes - THE LIBERTINES

7. Be Safe - THE CRIBS

8. Maps - YEAH YEAH YEAHS

9. No Cars Go - ARCADE FIRE

10. Hurt - JOHNNY CASH



11. Hey Ya! - OUTKAST

12. Toxic - BRITNEY SPEARS

13. Golden Skans - KLAXONS

14. Road to Joy - BRIGHT EYES

15. Presidential Suite - SUPER FURRY ANIMALS

16. Take Me Out - FRANZ FERDINAND

17. Ballad Of Lou The Welterweight - THE FELICE BROTHERS



18. Fake Tales Of San Francisco - ARCTIC MONKEYS

19. Commercial Breakdown - THE SUNSHINE UNDERGROUND

20. Time Is Running Out - MUSE

TOP TWENTY FILMS OF THE DECADE

1. Juno

2. Shaun Of The Dead

3. The Royal Tenenbaums
4. Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain
5. Little Miss Sunshine
6. Young at Heart
7. Anvil! The Story Of Anvil
8. Lost in Translation

9. Mar Adentro
10. Memento

11. Ghost World

12. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

13. Sideways
14. Garden State

15. Being John Malkovich

16. Borat
17. The Orphanage
18. Grizzly Man

19. Donnie Darko
20. City Of God

(slight glitch in the system in the above list: 3. is The Royal Tenenbaums, 8 is Lost In Translation)


QUOTE OF THE DECADE
Take a bow, former Queens Park Rangers manager Ian Hollway, for this gem following his team's rather lacklustre victory against Chesterfield:

"To put it in gentleman's terms, if you've been out for a night and you're looking for a young lady and you pull one, you've done what you set out to do. We didn't look our best today but we've pulled. Some weeks the lady is good looking and some weeks they're not. Our performance today would have been not the best looking bird but at least we got her in the taxi. She may not have been the best looking lady we ended up taking home but it was still very pleasant and very nice, so thanks very much and let's have coffee."

Kimya Dawson at Komedia, Brighton

KIMYA DAWSON
ANGELO SPENCER
Komedia, Brighton 19/05/09

Angelo Spencer was naked at The Komedia. Not literally, of course. The skinny Frenchman was very much clothed, but, due to a lack of a van to carry his kick-drum, high-hat and bass, the one-man band was forced to appear with just his electric guitar for company. While he struggled to adjust, he still made a raucous noise and, as is his way, stopped songs midway in order to explain something about the lyrical content or - more likely - to go off at a random tangent about hiking.

Spencer's wife, Kimya Dawson, has come a long way since I first sat cross-legged to see her in the tiny Freebutt a few years ago. Post-Juno, the venues have grown and so have the crowds, meaning it was standing room only. I'm not a snob when it comes to artists becoming successful, especially when the growth is organic and, like Dawson, the artist stays 100% true to their roots, but with larger crowds comes the inevitability that the idiot count will rise amongst the audience. Back in the day, crowds at Kimya shows would consist of meek nerds in cardigans and appropriately indie t-shirts. And, while the vast majority of people last night were simply music fans who acted with perfect etiquette considering the intimacy of the show, there were also too-cool-for-school, oh-so-kooky and leftfield 'I'm mad, me,' kids (like the ones that stood directly behind me) who insisted on chatting loudly and shouting comments that were inappropriate considering the solemn nature of the show (more on this later). Never mind that one of the most honest songwriters in the world was playing gentle acoustic music a few feet in front of them, these idiots wanted to be the centre of attention. Okay, Kimya's shows are often best when there is a constant exchange between her and the crowd (indeed, until recently, she didn't even bother writing a set-list, and just waited for requests), but talking loudly throughout while hardly listening to a word Kimya sang was disrespectful to her and the rest of her audience.Anyway, rant over. Thankfully, despite the bigger venue and the speckling of morons, the show was as intimate as ever. Kimya had a couple of friends on stage with her who, through strings and xylophone, added depth to her simple thumb-strumming. While typically shy and amicable, she had a decidedly different tone to the hilarious between-song banter she offered last time I saw her in Sydney. "You know I love you Brighton. I'm just not feeling very chatty today," she told us. Soon, she explained why. The day before the show, a good friend had died. She had spent the previous two days at his bedside, singing songs to him. He was cremated in the t-shirt she had made him. All of a sudden, her sombre mood made sense, and songs like Underground and It's Been Raining took on a whole new perspective and had even greater weight than they already did.

That's not to say that the show was a miserable one. She laughed and joked with her backing band and told a weird tale about triplets conceived four months apart and about trampolining on Brighton Pier while needing a wee. There were songs from Alphabutt, her kids album, as well as old favourites like The Beer.

Typical of Kimya, she played until the venue basically kicked her off stage long after the curfew had passed. This is the seventh time I have seen her and, having been a fan since The Moldy Peaches days, it is hard to keep perspective on how good this show was, so will sum up with the words that Emma from Owl and the Grapes said to me at lights-up: "Kimya made me want to live more. Her songs made me happy and sad at the same time."

Adam Green interview

ADAM GREEN ENTERTAINS ROB TOWNSEND WITH TALES OF TRANSSEXUALS, SWEATY GROINS, VOMITING AND GHOSTBUSTERS

“I like it when my balls get all sweaty. I like it when it makes this special smell. I rub it on my neck like cologne. It’s quite attractive.”

Adam Green is not your everyday interviewee. Within 30 seconds of our conversation beginning, the American indie crooner has already gone off at the strangest tangent. “Something compelled me to think that if I put cologne on my neck before I went to bed I would have particularly good dreams. It worked for a while but the only problem is they were all about transsexuals giving me blowjobs,” the lynchpin of the New York scene tells me in answer to a question I think had something to do with his upcoming debut tour of Australia. He goes on, “Anyway, with the cologne being thrown in the garbage, those dreams have dissipated. Now I just like ball-sweat on my neck before I go to bed. I dream about hockey,” he says with such disappointment that I feel compelled to tell him there are certain places in Sydney he can go if he would like to meet some real-life transsexuals. “I don’t really want a transsexual hooker,” he interjects. “I just want to have a lovely transsexual that follows me everywhere and is really pretty and cuddles me at night.”

Wrestling the conversation back to Green’s first visit to this country, I discover that financial constraints mean he’ll be without his trusty backing musicians for the tour. “If I brought my band – like, five guys – it would cost a fucking fortune to do just one trip, not to mention the actual tour,” he frowns. While arriving alone is not ideal, Green has excitedly recruited a temporary band for his time here, and it might contain a few familiar faces. “I ended up hooking up with those guys from Operator Please. They helped me to put a band together that mostly just involves friends of theirs, and some people from Operator Please might also play. Maybe I’ll even do some stuff with strings with them.”

Though Green has never played here before, either as a solo artist or as part of legendary anti-folk band The Moldy Peaches, talk turns to the last time I saw him play in London a few years back. This sends the conversation hurtling in another random direction. “Oh yeah, that was a fun show but a crazy, horrible day for me because the night before I had gotten food-poisoning. I’d never had food-poisoning and always prided myself on having an iron stomach. All of a sudden… holy shit. I threw up 500 times. This shit wanted to leave my motherfucking body.” Barely stopping for breath, he regales me further, his chatter mirroring his lyrical style: funny, leftfield, snappy and littered with expletives. “I was watching that show Cribs. It was [American actor/comedian] Pauly Shore’s house. He is such a sleazeball, lowlife jerk-off. He was showing me his schmucky, stupid house. Then all of a sudden I threw the fuck up over everything.”

Considering how Green clearly enjoys veering away from the straightforward question slash answer dynamic of an interview, I ask just how bored he has gotten of being asked about Juno – the movie which ends with Michael Cera and Ellen Page singing Moldy Peaches’ song Anyone Else But You. “I don’t mind it,” he shrugs. “I’ve been a fan of Michael Cera and Ellen Page for a while and I am excited about the movie but, yeah, who wants to talk about Juno all the time? I like Ghostbusters too but I don’t talk about it every fucking day. The Ghostbusters song is probably twice as good as Anyone Else But You,” he laughs. Sardonically, he adds, “But, yes, Anyone Else But You is wonderful. Kimya [Dawson] and I wrote that shit together and it was impossible. You could never probably fucking do it. Never. Nobody. Just us. And we should be paid for it so handsomely.”

And with that tongue-in-cheek outburst, our time together comes to an end all too quickly. No time even to discuss his latest album, Sixes & Sevens, which is a delightful journey through folk, swing, indie, jazz, and honky-tonk. Before he bids me farewell though, he temporarily ditches his delicious irreverence in order to look forward – five albums into his solo career – to finally arriving in Australia. “I wish Moldy Peaches had come to Australia,” he laments. “It’s weird to me that this is the first time.” Though it’s taken him a while to get here, he promises fans heading to Oxford Art Factory that it will have been worth the wait. “I do believe in an old-style rock show. It’s really going to rock the house.”

Kimya Dawson interview

ROB TOWNSEND TALKS TO KIMYA DAWSON AS SHE PREPARES TO VISIT AUSTRALIA FOR THE FIRST TIME

When I last saw Kimya Dawson a couple of years ago, she hugged me. Not just me though; upon finishing her show in a tiny English venue, she hugged pretty much everyone in the audience. This is a typical way for her end a gig, and sums up the strong bond between the American singer/songwriter and her loyal fan-base.

Since forming anti-folk band The Moldy Peaches, Kimya has released five acclaimed solo albums, and through this year’s hit movie, Juno, has permeated the consciousness of mainstream music audiences. Her songs soundtrack many moments in the film and Ellen Page and Michael Cera sing the Moldy Peaches track, Anyone Else But You, in the closing scene. “I was on the set when they filmed that. Those kids were just super sweet. I know they were nervous I was there.”

The overwhelming impact of Juno means Kimya is hot property. While she is happy plying her trade in her own wonderfully understated and DIY way, record companies have been unsuccessfully dangling carrots in front of her in an attempt to cash in on the film’s success. “One of the super-huge ones offered me tons of money to do a publishing/album deal,” she sighs. “I told them: ‘No. I’m not going to make any albums you like and you’re going to pressure me into doing advertisements and projects that I’ll refuse to do.’ I don’t what to have the stress of dealing with somebody trying to convince me that something is a good idea.” She also recently turned down a request from McDonalds to use her music in their commercials.
 

Kimya has never been interested in fame or wealth, and although her raised profile finds her playing to bigger crowds, she tries to retain the intimacy her performances are renowned for. With just an acoustic guitar accompanying her delicate vocal and deeply personal lyrics, her gigs are captivating experiences. “I still do some small shows and house shows and I’ve always pushed for all-ages shows. I’ve been finding bigger spaces that still feel total comfortable, like old abandoned renovated churches that can hold a shitload of people, so that they can still be big but have a really good energy and vibe and not just be like, you know, a dude bar vibe, but to have an artistic feel.” She is always happy to deviate from her set-list too, although an injury is restricting her from being able to play her entire repertoire. “I think I’m getting tendonitis. My hand has just been fucked and my finger is hurting me so I’ve just been modifying the songs. I’ve just been playing them with my thumb which is how they were written. There are a couple of songs that I’m struggling to be able to play. I haven’t been able to play The Beer for a few weeks.”

However, happy as she is to take requests, don’t expect to hear any Moldy Peaches tracks. “Some people feel cheated that they don’t find out until they’ve bought a ticket that I’m not going to [play Moldy Peaches songs], but I’m like: ‘Wouldn’t you feel more cheated hearing a half-assed version?’”

While Kimya’s most-recent album, Remember That I Love You is new to people who have only recently chanced upon her because of Juno, it is actually over two years old. Excitingly, a new album has been recorded, and is due this year. She is just hoping to find a window in her hectic schedule to complete the artwork; if only there were more hours in the day. “It’s funny because I also had to do the artwork before we left on our last tour and I didn’t manage to do it then. Every day that I don’t get it done is just pushing the album release back a little bit.”

Arriving in Australia on the back of American and UK tours, Kimya admits she never thought life would turn out this way. “Becoming a professional musician wasn’t my dream growing up. We [The Moldy Peaches] just made up some songs, played them a couple of times, knew some dudes [The Strokes] that were getting big and who asked us to tour with them. We were like: ‘Weird. Okay.’ It was all pretty accidental. I went from being like: ‘I make expresso,’ to being like: ‘Wait a minute, I’m in Japan!’ It wasn’t like I set that as a goal and then worked at it for years. It just kinda happened. It is pretty surreal but I think I would have always ended up travelling anyway, so I feel super lucky.”

Her Sydney dates will be family affairs, with support coming from husband Angelo Spencer (above). Their 23-month old daughter, Panda (also above), will also be travelling with them. The combination of being a doting Mum and playing in larger venues gives touring a slightly different dynamic for Kimya and means, understandably, that she isn’t always able to hang out with all of her fans after shows. “A girl in Nebraska got really mad at me because I needed to get out of the venue and run back to the hotel to check on Panda. She said: ‘You loved having your picture taken with people before Panda was born.’ I was like: ‘Are you serious? You really want me to neglect my child so you can have a picture to show your friends?’”

While the affection between Kimya and her devotees makes such an encounter anomalous, her nature is such that she still wishes she could oblige every single request. “If I could be in ten places at once I would totally give them everything they need. I really try to give a lot of myself but sometimes people are like: ‘No, I need more. I can’t just have a hug. I need a hug, a picture, an autograph and I want you to call my friend on my cell phone,’” she laughs. Generally though, she loves engaging with fans; a fact that is illustrated by how pleased she is to receive my phone-call: “I’ve really been looking forward to this interview, because I know you’ve been following along for a while,” she excitedly tells me. During our conversation, the amity with which she chats to a long-term fan like me perfectly illustrates just how much she cares about the people who listen to her music. As Australia is set to find out, although fame and fortune have come a-knocking, Kimya Dawson remains quite the most sincere, grounded and kind-hearted person one could hope to encounter.

Interview by Rob Townsend

An honest to blog Juno review

It was generally agreed amongst critics that 2007 was a pretty woeful year for movies. Well, if the quality of new release Juno is any benchmark, 2008 is going to be a whole lot better:Following in the indie slipstream of Little Miss Sunshine, Juno is an intelligent comedy telling the story of 16-year-old Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) who gets up the spud following a one-off encounter with her endearingly geeky best friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera), and her subsequent decision to have the baby adopted.

Obviously the schoolgirl’s plan to give up her sprog to a desperate, childless woman (Jennifer Garner) and her hen-pecked husband (Jason Bateman) is not without its pitfalls and, as the nicely-paced narrative unfolds, the collection of genial, convincing characters unveil their own troubles and insecurities, from the stifled love that Bleeker feels towards Juno, to the Peter Pan complex of Bateman’s character. These complexities are personified perfectly by the protagonist, whose impish wit hides an unravelling aching and yearning. This is essentially a story about courage and dignity in the face of adversity, and it is handled wonderfully by director Jason Reitman and performed immaculately by the oustanding and believable Page and Cera.

Okay, so the dialogue may seem a bit too razor sharp at times, but the fact that every character is consistently super witty to the point of being a stand-up comic is easily forgivable due to the sheer number of laugh-out-loud moments. This film is quotable in a Napoleon Dynamite kind of way, and you will by attempting to pass off the standout quotes as your own for weeks to come.Juno also offers a soundtrack which will have indie kids everywhere wetting themselves, not least the Moldy Peaches moment that will melt even the coldest of hearts. Elsewhere, Belle and Sebastian, Cat Power, Sonic Youth and Mott The Hoople (can you guess which song?) add to the charm.

In a nutshell, it would take someone with the soul of a pocket calculator not to be touched by this lovely, lovely film.

See the trailer here

UPDATE: Looks like I know what I'm talking about beacuse Juno has just been nominated for four Oscars. They are: best film, best director, best original screenplay and best actress for Ellen Page. For a full list of nominees, go here. Now, let's just see if the ceremony goes ahead.