The Popdose Interview: Andy Partridge

You submitted your questions for former XTC member Andy Partridge, and he answered them (well, most of them, anyway) during his Popdose Interview with Will Harris.

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Thursday, September 24th, 2009

Dw. Dunphy On… The New Internet Superstar

by Dw. Dunphy

I’ll cut to the chase. It’s Hitler. Adolf Hitler.

Yeah, I’m rather shocked myself, but it seems like Herr Fuhrer is YouTube’s latest viral go-to guy. The new black is “reich,” as it were.

If you have no clue, or you’re still digesting the last of Tay Zonday mania (remember him?), then you’ve been away from the Web for a long time. On the sliding scale of the Internet time-space continuum, a long time is equal to the distance between last Wednesday and the Wednesday previous to that multiplied by the rate of your Twitter tweeting frequency, wOOt, and ROFLMFAO, and cubed at the rate of EPIC FAIL.

The specific scene used in these YouTube videos comes from a 2004 German film called Der Untergang, or Downfall, as it’s known in English-speaking countries. Hitler is portrayed by Bruno Ganz in a bit of foam-frothing scenery munching, and in the specifically co-opted scene, he’s being debriefed by his staff. Much to his chagrin, bad news has been delivered. He summons all but his inner circle to leave the war room and, upon their exit, goes absolutely apeshit.

I attempted to find a word that’s more becoming of a respected writer. Something less crude. Something with more imagination and depth. But it can’t be done. Hitler goes apeshit, and that’s all there is to it. And therein lies the fun — I couldn’t find a better word, but because everyone in the film is speaking German, anyone with a video graphics program can find their own words, plop them on-screen as subtitles, and make Adolf into whatever they please.

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Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

The Popdose Interview: Andy Partridge

by Will Harris

He denies being the man who murdered love, but he is one of the men who served as a member of XTC. That’s right, he’s Andy Partridge, and this upstanding musical legend was kind enough to take on the daunting task of answering the questions of the Popdose readership…questions which, it must be said, ranged from the obscure to the ridiculous and hit virtually every spot in-between. Mr. Partridge was a gem throughout the conversation, however, and endured them all with great aplomb, never failing to come back with a witty retort.

(”You bastard” still counts as witty, right?)

Join us now as we enter into the Popdose Interview with the one and only Andy Partridge… (more…)

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Saturday, February 7th, 2009

Theatre Is Easy: “Speed-the-Plow”

by Molly Marinik

BOTTOM LINE: Dare I say “the perfect Broadway play”?

Sometimes an ideal Broadway cast is assembled: they command the stage with such presence and work together with such ease that you lose yourself completely in what’s unfolding before you. Part of the reason live theatre is so amazing is because when talent presents itself right there in front of you, you can’t help but feel its energy radiate through the audience. For these reasons, as well as a fantastically edgy script, Speed-the-Plow is one of the best shows on Broadway this year.

Raul Esparza and William H. Macy in Speed-the-Plow.

Written by David Mamet, a mogul among American playwrights, Speed-the-Plow chronicles 36 hours in the lives of three characters: Bobby Gould (William H. Macy), a recently promoted movie executive at the top of his game; Charlie Fox (Raul Esparza), his coworker and longtime friend; and Karen (Elisabeth Moss), the temporary secretary working at Bobby’s office that particular day. The banter, scheming, and power plays that subsequently occur are the result of everyone’s desire to move ahead professionally in a cutthroat industry. None of these people are inherently bad — they just embrace a dog-eat-dog lifestyle. Charlie explains to Karen, “Life in the movie business is like the beginning of a new love affair: it’s full of surprises, and you’re constantly getting fucked.”

Although Speed-the-Plow takes place in the ’80s, it’s in no way outdated. It was originally staged on Broadway in 1988 (fun fact: Madonna played Karen, in her only Broadway credit to date). This revival feels perfectly at home in 2009; really, the clothes and the ’80s technology on hand are the only aspects that date it.

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Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

The Top 10 Techniques that Hollywood Learned from the NFL

by Zack Dennis

Every great football game, at its heart, is like an action movie. Once you cut out the commercials and halftime, they’re both about the same length. They both build along the same story arc. Depending on your home city (or which side you happened to gamble money on), each game has a protagonist – a burly male hero – with a few trusted allies that faces down an black-hearted maniac and his band of unforgivable, faceless thugs.

Hollywood has made dozens of football movies in recent history. Every year at the studios churn out least one football film – and some years will see as many as four or five football stories committed to celluloid. With Hollywood’s recent love of biopics, it’s safe to assume that more than a few famous players will see their lives and careers dramatized on the big screen. And few things satisfy an audience like the rags to riches story of a league doormat surging to the championship. But as much as the studios love to bank on an underdog story to fill out their quarterly income statements, few football films have actually managed to appeal to more than a niche market. And fewer still have managed to garner any kind of critical acclaim.

But Hollywood has learned that even if pure football can’t deliver box office rewards, the game of football is exciting to watch. And the techniques used by football players can be used to deliver some terrific sequences. This countdown takes a look at some classic techniques used in football and how Hollywood has managed to capture the essence of what makes it so very entertaining to watch – and used this to enhance their own unique stories.

Follow me through the hole to see the top ten techniques that Hollywood has learned from the NFL…

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Thursday, January 15th, 2009

Letter from the Editor: Happy Birthday Popdose!

by Jeff Giles

Howdy, folks! Like Jim Anchower, I know it’s been a long time since I rapped at ya, but now that Popdose is a whole year old, I figured now would be as good a time as any to rekindle our big old Internet friendship.

If you aren’t a longtime reader of this space, you may not even know who I am, so let’s start with an introduction: My name is Jeff Giles, and I’m the editor-in-chief of this establishment. Popdose rose from the ashes of my old site, Jefitoblog, after it was cruelly eaten by a ne’er-do-well hosting company by the name of Jatol (which is, I believe, Latin for “motherfucker”). I was all set to cash in my bloggin’ chips, but due to the gentle persistence of some friends and colleagues, I asked some of my favorite writers if they’d be interested in joining forces. Voila! Popdose was born.

Anyway, the thing is, Jefitoblog was basically an accident. When I started the site in 2004, I was five years removed from a career in music journalism that had seen me go from a young, wide-eyed music fiend to a jaded, not-as-young crank in the space of a decade. Jefitoblog wasn’t supposed to be a continuation of that career — it was just a lark, a way of talking about music with people who loved it as much as I did. I really only had my own domain because I couldn’t track stats through my LiveJournal account — and I’d only opened that because there was no other way of leaving comments on my old friend Ben’s journal.

And now look at us. Hell, Ben writes for Popdose now! (He’s the man behind our excellent Test of the Boomerang series, which would be one of my favorite weekly reads even if I wasn’t involved in publishing it.) (more…)

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Thursday, January 1st, 2009

Song-Off Jr. – Happy New Year!

by Matchup Monkey

Welcome to 2009!  I know this matchup isn’t entirely appropriate, seeing as we’re not hitting a new century, or even a new decade, but the editors would probably spank me if I left something in the queue for 91 years (they seem to use just about anything as an excuse to slap me around).  So here you are, the battle of Boys Who Represent Particular Centuries.  We here at Popdose are well aware of the perils of knowing in advance that you’ve got a full three days to recover from your hangover, so we sincerely hope that you had a safe and happy New Year’s Eve celebration, and that you’re not suffering too much today.

T Rex – “20th Century Boy”

Bad Religion – “21st Century (Digital Boy)”

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Which type of boys do you prefer?

View Results

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Last year, Shane MacGowan and the Pogues paraded in style, as their masterpiece “The Old Main Drag” knocked off Colin Meloy and the Decemberists by a score of 60% to 40%. Next week, we’ll be addressing the ongoing saga of (technically still) Governor Rod Blagojevich by taking on the subject of Wrongful Accusations.

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Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

Popdose on Twitter

by Ken Shane

We are pleased to announce that we have acceded to modern technology and established ourselves a presence on Twitter. If you would like to follow our insane ramblings there, we have decided, in a burst of creative energy, that our username on Twitter will be, well, popdose. You can find us on the Twitter site at Popdose on Twitter.

Seriously, we’ll update Tweeters on a regular basis regarding just posted stories, breaking news of interest to our readers, and perhaps a sneak peek at things to come.

There’s no use denying it. The future is now. Join us on Twitter.

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Monday, November 24th, 2008

The Popdose 100: Our Favorite Singles of the Last 50 Years

by Popdose Staff

It all started back in September, when Robert Cass sent an e-mail to the staff telling us Billboard had announced that Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” is the top song of the Hot 100 era. The reactions were swift and predictably shocked, ranging from “There must not be a God” to “That is one brutal list” to “Just as a general rule, I don’t think an artist is allowed to complain about a lack of respect once they’ve recorded a duet with the Fat Boys.” And just as swiftly, an idea was born: what if we all ranked our favorite songs of the era and shared the results with all of you?

So here it is — the Popdose 100. We limited our choices to songs from the last 50 years, and in the interest of establishing some kind of consensus, we tried to stick to singles that actually charted on the Hot 100. Some of us limited the number of times we could pick a single by any particular artist, but for the most part we kept it as informal as possible — and wouldn’t you know it, “The Twist” is nowhere to be found.

Now, this being the Internet and all, we know two things: 1) people love lists; and 2) they love to complain about what’s on them. So we expect a fair amount of grousing about what made our list; hell, even some of the writers who participated were a little perturbed by the final results. Where’s all the rap? Where the hell are the women? So on and so forth. Every list is flawed, and ours is no exception, but remember, this isn’t meant to be a list of the “best” or “top” singles of the era — only our favorites.

Now that we’ve gotten all the background info and caveats out of the way, thanks are in order: to David Medsker, for tabulating the results; to Robert Cass, for editing it into something legible; and to the Popdose staff — not to mention our friends Peter Lubin, Amy Davis, Carl Abernathy, and Mike Heyliger, who added their votes to our own. Let’s take a look at the results, shall we?

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Friday, November 21st, 2008

Popdose Goes on Vacation (Sort Of)

by Jeff Giles

Howdy, folks!

As some of you may have already realized, Popdose is preparing for the holidays by giving the columnists you know and love a holiday of their own. Between November 24 (that’s Monday) and January 1, we won’t be running any of the regularly scheduled series you’ve made a part of your daily reading — but don’t worry! First of all, everyone will return in 2009 — in fact, we’re planning even more great content for you to feast your eyes and ears on — and second, we aren’t shutting down completely for the holidays. Here’s what you’ll see over the next few weeks:

The Popdose 100. On Monday, we’ll be running our largest feature ever — a list of our favorite singles of the last 50 years, as voted on by the Popdose staff (and some of our friends). Since it took so much effort, we thought it would only be fitting to leave it at the top of the site for a week, so that’s what we’re going to do. Then, on December 1, we move on to…

Mellowmas. The readers who followed me and Jason here when Popdose launched know what the word “Mellowmas” means — and the rest of you are in for a treat. (Not really.) From December 1st through the 25th, Jason and I will spend each day listening to Christmas music by a wide variety of artists (and, of course, sharing our thoughts with you). I’d love to give you the names of some of the artists we’ve selected for this year’s listening party — and to tell you the name of our first installment’s very special guest — but that would be cheating. You’ll just have to wait. And in between, you’ll also get…

Reviews. We’ll still be writing up new music, books, DVDs, and the like — basically, if it’s something an artist or a publicist is waiting on, it’ll get its due here during the break.

In closing, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of you on behalf of everyone here at Popdose for making our first year on the Web such a success. Thanks to you, our traffic has continued to climb — there are now roughly 5,000 of you coming here every day — and we intend to make the next 12 months even better. Keep reading!

Lindsey Buckingham, “Holiday Road” (live) (download) (from Live at the Bass Performance Hall)

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Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

Bottom Feeders: The Ass End of the ’80s, Part 33

by Dave Steed

This week you get another extended post so we can finish up the letter F nice and clean. Without further ado, I give you the final batch of artists whose names begin with the sixth letter of the alphabet and who reached the ass end of the Billboard Hot 100 in the ’80s.

Fortune
“Stacy” — 1985, #80 (download)

Fortune is an AOR band formed in Los Angeles in 1977. They released their debut self-titled record in ‘78, had a track called “Airwaves” on the Last American Virgin soundtrack in ‘82, then finally got around to their second album (also self-titled) in ‘85. “Stacy” comes from the second album, which includes a whole mess of generic light-rock tunes.

David Foster
“The Best of Me” — 1986, #80 (download)
“Winter Games” — 1988, #85 (download)

There’s just no way I have it in me to discuss the shittiness of Foster’s duet with Olivia Newton-John, “The Best of Me,” or Foster in general, when Terje Fjelde lives and breathes the guy — read Into the Ear of Madness while listening to these tracks.

4 by Four
“Want You for My Girlfriend” — 1987, #79 (download)

My first thought was 4 by Four simply wanted to be the next New Edition: good-looking kids with slick pop-filled R&B hooks. But I listen to this song and hear a lot of Prince in it as well. Zero in on the 2:20 mark and I swear you’ll hear the first bar of Prince’s “Controversy.”

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