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Over the past few years, Art Brut has steadily risen from cute one-trick pony to one of my favorite bands. Their third album was released this week and I find it much more instantly likable than the previous two which I had to grow to love.

Thanks to the magic that is the internet, here's the whole new album, free to stream right here on my rink-a-dink li'l blog. Enjoy:



When trying to explain the appeal of Art Brut to an uninformed plebe the other day, it dawned on me that they are totally the modern reincarnation of the B-52s (who, yes, are still around and kickin' ass, but you know what I mean).

Way back in my sophomore year of college, I competed against some fellow hipster comic artists online in a game we called Photoshop Street Fighter. While I knew the game existed outside of our insular nerd world, I did not realize it was so embraced by the artistic nerd world in general until a few months ago when I came across Adobe's Layer Tennis. Yes, Adobe, the studio that makes such essential graphics and communication software as Flash, Photoshop, After Effects, and Acrobat, among others.

Layer Tennis works as such: two artists take turns altering the same composition, passing volleys back and forth in 15-minute intervals. After the tenth volley (five each) the match is over and it's up to the audience to decide who "won", but in reality it's all just good fun regardless.

The last few weeks (it happens live every friday afternoon during the "season") have been particularly interesting. Two weeks ago, Jason Santa Maria and Derek Powazek decided to up the ante by including a game of "Three Truths And A Lie" within their bout of Layer Tennis. One week ago, British cartoonists Rex Crowle and Simon Cook took things to a whole new level by ignoring the typographic prowess and verbose technicality that has become standard in Layer Tennis for a straightforward cartoon war. And then, this past friday, Sam Brown and Ted McGrath did battle in a round of Layer Tennis that, aside from being laugh-out-loud hilarious, will go down in the history of my personal opinion as the very definition of Punk 2.0. The match-up was particularly exciting as Sam and Ted have sort of defined popular alternative art for the better part of the past decade, so seeing them go toe-to-toe was rather thrilling.



I don't want to spoil any of the madness that occurs, so the image above is just the very first volley by Sam Brown. I just about fell out of my chair in amazement at round 4.

Speaking of things I liked in my naive college years, Mates of State have a remix album coming out soon, and I wouldn't care, but Pitchfork posted this totally sweet version of "You Are Free" remixed by The Mae Shi. It's completely awesome.

Last week I rocked the house at Botanica's weekly karaoke. Many a lady were blown away by my bombastic performances, and I'm clearly not full of myself or exaggerating in the slightest.

I kicked this off with a squealing and spastic rendition of Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue":


Then got the crowd riled up with some solid call-and-response and even a full-on split during Britney Spears' "Baby, One More Time":


And finally, left them craving oh so much more with Whitetown's "Your Woman":


Anyway, the combination of karaoke with light drinking, fun folks, and flirting with girls was quite pleasant, so I was really looking forward to going back. A shame Botanica is closed tonight for renovations! Yes, no Sunday night karaoke this week (a shame, as I was already in the neighborhood for Babble redesign work). So yeah, looks like we'll have to wait until next week. A shame, too, as I'd already picked out three more songs that would be fantastic crowd pleasers at karaoke. Start things off with Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded Me With Science":


Then come back with the good vibes of Geggy Tah's "Whoever You Are":


And tear it all down again with Cake's timeless anthem "The Distance":


So yeah, that's the game plan for next week's karaoke. All are welcome. Should be a good time had by all. Karaoke is good for you.