Epinions Recent Reviews for headlessparrot

Run, Fat Boy, Run: Don't think. Just run with it.

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:56:33 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - Depending on how you want to frame things, the 2007 film Run Fat Boy Run is either a much worse or a much better film than it has any right to be. Much worse, both because it stars the unconventionally charming, hysterically funny Simon Pegg –...

This is how I spell “A little sincerity wouldn’t hurt”

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:42:35 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - Allow me to explain a pet theory which is only tangentially related to my understanding of the Welsh septet Los Campesinos! (that’s Spanish for “the peasants”) and their debut LP, Hold On Now, Youngster. It goes as follows, that the...

Too cool for words (but 5,000 of them will have to do)

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:58:31 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - It’s a small man who derives self-worth from his possessions. But I am a small, small man, and Apple’s iPod Touch is a pretty awesome possession. Combining the refined music playback functionality and good looks of six generations of mp3 players...

45:33, or, How I spent my Sunday afternoon

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:00:39 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - Music, as I’ve extensively written and you’re well aware, is a tremendously subjective thing. This is an obvious, and widely agreed upon point, but it’s as good a starting point as any for my discussion of LCD Soundsystem’s...

"The sorriest bunch of metalheads I've ever seen"

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:00:13 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - You can be forgiven for thinking that it all just comes a little too easy to Colin Meloy. A bookish intellectual, prodigious writer and self-proclaimed ne’er-do-well, the Decemberists front man is the brain trust behind four albums (and...

A rabbit gives up somewhere, and a dozen hawks descend

Tue, 8 Apr 2008 17:56:30 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - The Mountain Goats – the Mountain Goats being, more or less, John Darnielle and whomever he has decided to surround himself with on any given day – are not a band that you want to become enamoured with. At least not if you value your free time,...

In which our hero breaks the heart of his fourteen-year-old self

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 19:07:42 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - As most music listeners are probably aware, a semi-controversy erupted recently over the Black Crowes’ most recent record. The music rag (‘magazine’ is a bit too generous) Maxim published a review of the whole album – 2008’s Warpaint –...

Forever saving little shops, china cups, and virginity

Tue, 1 Apr 2008 19:36:31 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - Kinks leader Ray Davies has said of the group’s 1968 album The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society that it might be the “most successful flop of all time.” Such a claim is bold but not unreasonable, predicated on the fact that...

In defense of jumping ship

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 21:34:11 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - The Onion A.V. Club featured an interesting blog entry several weeks ago, enquiring into a curious phenomenon whereby bands – or even just band names – have become a shorthand for all that’s wrong with a genre of music. The most obvious example that they...

No exploding space shuttle jokes, please

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:02:35 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - There’s an important caveat to be made before I engage in any critical analysis of the three-quarters Canadian quasi-super group the New Pornographers, which is that I like the New Pornographers considerably less than I like the idea of the...

In which our hero demonstrates the fundamental flaw of hipster ideology

Mon, 3 Mar 2008 20:54:25 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - Most bands only wish they could make an album as brilliant as the Weakerthans’ Reconstruction Site. Most bands spend the entirety of their career striving for that kind of brilliance. So I guess it’s understandable that when a group...

Here's To Being Here - Jason Collett: Of Bobby and the Band

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:17:03 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - In 2003, I claimed – in response to Broken Social Scene’s sophomore album You Forgot It In People – that “rock was not dead.” Ignoring the fact that claiming rock was ever dead – or even on life support – was a positively inane...

It's not love, but it'll do.

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:07:38 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - There’s a semi-obscure critical theory – the author of which I can’t immediately recall – that argues for the reading of pulp fiction (most notably the Harlequin series) by women as an act of feminist subversion. The thinking, if I recall...

Georgie James: going Places the New Pornographers have already gone (but that's OK)

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:17:41 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - Georgie James came on the recommendation of former Epinioner cryptosicko who described their 2007 album Places as “the pop record that Rilo Kiley should have made, instead of <
i>Under
the...

In Field & Town - Hayden: Hayden Harvests Neil Young's folk sound

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:37:51 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - Hayden – that being the stage name of one Paul Hayden Desser, Toronto native and folk-rock not-quite-cult icon – embodies the classic narrative of the Canadian rock star, who heads south for greener pastures, ultimately returning in...

"Drink to me, babe, then"

Mon, 4 Feb 2008 19:18:23 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - If the SIGG bottle is a triumph of style over substance (cool though it may be), then what does that make Nalgene? Mostly, it makes the company, and its line of heavy-duty drinking bottles, a triumph of either utilitarianism or a...

SIGG: A triumph of style over substance? Mostly - but a cool one, nonetheless

Fri, 1 Feb 2008 16:54:41 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - Something that most people don’t know about me – and something that is often a surprise, given that I live an otherwise comically unhealthy lifestyle – is that I fancy myself a bit of a runner. Not competitive, mind you, but serious, covering...

Reconstruction Site: Join me for girly drinks and parlour games

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:05:28 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - Colin Meloy sings that “Albert Camus said living was anguish” on Neapolitan Bridesmaid, a song by Tarkio, his Decemberists-anticipati
ng
college rock band. On The Past Is A Grotesque Animal, Of...

Who are you, and what have you done with Rilo Kiley?

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:27:34 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - Pop is a dirty word no longer. Between the ever-increasing number of alternative rags and holier-than-thou indie critics tripping over themselves to fawn over the oeuvre of Brian Wilson and their constant mining the charts for golden nuggets (see...

"I'll fake it through the day with some help from Johnnie Walker Red"

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 20:28:10 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - My first experience with Scotch – a dreadful one – is one that is both well-documented on Epinions already, and also sorely imprinted in my own mind. And it involved, in fact, the very spirit that I am now taking a second look at – Johnnie...

The Decemberists: sinews, dirigibles, and petticoats, oh my!

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 19:17:06 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - In his 1868 book The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations, French writer Georges Polti compiled a list of (you guessed it) thirty-six dramatic situations that encompassed the basic plot patterns of all works of fiction. While Polti himself admitted...

Sleeman Original Dark - It's okay... I guess.

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 23:55:26 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - Guelph, Ontario's Sleeman Brewing and Malting – now a subsidiary of Japanese brewer Sapporo – is a brewery with an identity crisis that cuts right to the core of its very existence; an identity crisis that can be directly tied to the rise...

Smooth, Stylish, Salacious, Succulent, Saporous - St. Ambroise (Oatmeal) Stout

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 05:09:55 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - When most people – those non-beer geeks in our midst – think “stout,” I'd venture to guess that the image they conjure is one of a tall pint of Guinness, its nitrogen-forced creamy head barely eking out over the top of the glass, and its dark –...

"But down these mean streets a man must go"

Sun, 15 Oct 2006 23:40:55 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - In his superb analysis of the genre of detective fiction The Simple Art of Murder, noted hard-boiled detective fiction author and academic Raymond Chandler makes a number of astute observations about the nature of the detective novel that...

"The light music of whisky falling into a glass - an agreeable interlude" Part VI

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 01:01:17 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author headlessparrot - Ask a layman about brands of Scotch whisky, and you're likely to get one of two responses – though I've never conducted such a study, I'd be willing to hazard a small wager on its accuracy. The names that you're most likely to hear are (and probably...