Anything to watch while we are waiting for this Apocalypse?

I picked up a copy of Julian Casablancas' Phrazes for the Young yesterday, and can honestly say that the first four tracks are probably the finest first four cuts I've heard on a record this year since The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. The quality drops off some after these first four, though the penultimate "Glass" is a stellar synth experiment as well with a catchy chorus build-up.

It is nice to hear Casablancas trying on all the things The Strokes' rigid guitar/bass/drums tenets never allowed them to do, even though the results are mixed. If playful experimentation results in classic songs like the Lennon-esque soul pop workout "4 Chords of the Apocalypse," then the hits are plenty worthy the misses.

Excite Bike!

Bicycling is about to have its zeitgeist moment in Baton Rouge. Read about how two wheels became the talk of the town in my November cover story at 225.

MOVIE FILTER for the week

Woody Allen's Whatever Works reviewed and more at 225.

The Pains x Saint Etienne

This winter is shaping up to the the season of the remix EP (even ATM has at least one in the works, shhh!), but here's a fresh cut from our favorite breakout band of 2009, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, the "Higher Than the Stars (Saint Etienne Visits Lord Spank Remix)." Nice "Sympathy for the Devil" intro and new wave, Kevin Shields atmospherics on this one. I still prefer the band's murkier album cuts, but "Higher than the Stars" is such a fine tune, I don't mind that it's polished to a shine.

Watch your favorites. Anytime. For free.*

*Psych!!!!

Is Hulu's gravy train of free television programming and movies soon to be derailed?

Even if the online content provider's advertising is truly in the can, charging to use Hulu is a terrible idea. I already pay for Cable. Why would I pay for Hulu on top of that? Who's with me, and where's my pitchfork?

Nowhere Boy

With The Weinstein Company in the tank, I don't expect to see Nowhere Boy, the young John Lennon biopic based on John Lennon, My Brother, the memoir written by his half-sister Julia Baird, in theaters any time soon, but a trailer and details of the soundtrack have been released.

The songs on the OST (well, the titles at least as we haven't heard these versions yet) offer a superb mix of 1950s rock-n-roll that inspired the greatest pop rock band of all-time, alongside smart selections like the lost pre-Beatles lo-fi gem "In Spite of All the Danger" which didn't see release until the 1990s, and the original version of Lennon's solo screamer "Mother," which plays over the end credits and pretty much sums up his youth in harrowing detail.

Though some scenes in the trailer tip toward melodrama, this project reminds me a lot of Anton Corbijn's moody Ian Curtis ode Control, and spans Lennon's turbulent teenage years ending with The Beatles still a year or two from fame and heading for their first extended residency on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg.

BONUS:
John Lennon - "Mother" promo film.
Paul McCartney - "In Spite of All the Danger" live in Spain, 2004.

MOVIE FILTER for the week

Five reasons not to scream this Halloween and more at 225.