Another week winds down at Veritas Lux Mea, and it was a good one too. It got frigidly cold here in Wisconsin yesterday with a morning temp around 12, and it doesn't look like the cold is going to shake before this weekend. Hopefully, the lyrics to Matt Pond PA's "Summer is Coming" (mp3 available at bottom of page) "the summer is coming/We should all stand clear" serve as a little hope to warmer temperatures sooner than later.
I hope you got the chance to catch another great episode of The Office last night, followed by the season premiere of Scrubs. Oh how I've missed my Scrubs. Sitcoms have gone down the drain recently with the same old schtick of fat funny comedian paired with attractive yet older female...the only shows I feel have ever really made that work were Married with Children and Everybody Loves Raymond.
Coincidentally, TVAddict.com recently interviewed Scrubs creator Matt Lawrence on the state of TV sitcoms:
Scrubs Creator Bill Lawrence on the State of TV Sitcoms
theTVaddict.com: With regards to the current state of television sitcoms, what has changed since your days with Michael J. Fox on SPIN CITY?
Bill Lawrence: First and foremost on that list is that network executives have no clue as to what they’re doing when it comes to comedy. When we started doing promos for SCRUBS, the network insisted that we add a studio audience laugh track. Back then, the belief was that classic studio sitcoms were the way to go.
Now the very same executives are more then happy to say that nobody likes multi-camera sitcoms — it’s a dead medium. Of course the reality is that it’s not that multi-camera sitcoms don’t work, it’s that people don’t like crap. There are so many options out there with TiVo and 150 channels. My goal is to just not make crap.
You would think that when you go pitch a show as a comedy writer, a network executive would say, we obviously have no idea how it works, we should do what you want. Yet for some reason what ends up on the air is yet another comedy with a fat husband and a thin hot wife.
Hollywood loves to panick and make grand statements. One thing I always look at is that more people then ever are watching TV. Less people are watching network TV, so network TV has to evolve. We have to adapt and make television shows more fiscally responsible.
There are two ways to survive now...[READ MORE]
MUSIC
The Grand Marquee
"The Grand Marquee - Ahead of the hype While the world is fearfull awaiting the new Killers album and one wonders why there are influences of Springsteen and U2 in their songs, while many music fans ponder, why Mando Diao or the Strokes can't come up with anything (good) anymore, shows a duo from New York and California the established (Schnarchbacken -> no close translation) sleepers, how to do it right. The Grand Marquee play fresh and easy going and poach in 30 years of music history - everything between Glamrock, Post-Punk and New Wave is quoted, who want's to have some reference points: Interpol, Editors, Black Rebel M.C. (when they sounded like Jesus & Mary Chain). On their Myspace-page it's saying that they didn't find a Record label so far, why I can't understand, because of the good song qualitiy. Their 6-track-debut-EP which they published themselves is available at CD-Baby or in digital form at iTunes. So come on before all of the hype-guys (no direct translation) notice this band!" German Music Review
The Grand Marquee - "Perfect"
The Grand Marquee at Myspace
Essentials: Matt Pond PA, The Nature of Maps
Review from The Daily Free Press, the Independent Student Newspaper of Boston University
For years, the Champaign-based Polyvinyl Record Co. has been releasing sensitive emo-pop by bands like Braid, American Football and Rainer Maria that, while not sounding exactly the same, all present variations on the same theme: longing for something. Most likely you.
In this tradition comes Matt Pond PA’s The Nature of Maps, the third album from this Pennsylvania-based band made up of the titular Pond and a handful of musicians. The album is a collection of 12 delicate, slow-to-mid-tempo weepers that back up Pond’s gentle guitar strumming with chamber instruments like violins, cellos, and — just for good measure — a harp.
The songs sound like what you’d expect from a guy who wrote music for the Oxygen Network and titles his tracks “No More,” “Summer is Coming,” and “A Million Middle Fingers.” What makes Maps better than your typical emo tearjerker is Pond’s soaring vocals — unfortunately, a good male voice in indie rock is hard to find.
Take “The Party,” for example. When Pond bellows, “Next weekend there’s a party and it’s good to have these goals/ We’re finally getting somewhere/ These invitations, what a thrill,” he delivers the lines with such an acid-laced tongue that if you don’t feel a twinge inside you — well, then I pity your cold, cold heart.
Listeners be warned: Maps is a solid album from start to finish, but have your Kleenex handy [CREDIT].
Matt Pond PA - "Fairlee"
Matt Pond PA - "No More"
Matt Pond PA - "New Kehoe NJ"
Matt Pond PA - "Summer is Coming"
Matt Pond PA - "Promise the Party"
Matt Pond PA official website