What's on tonight
Right, that’s just about it for the Guide Daily, but I’ll leave you with my pick of the very best things going on in and around our fair nation this evening.
On stage:
Birmingham: Joey Bada$$ at The Institute. Fast-rising Brooklyn rapper balancing vintage sensibility with mellow but offbeat delivery. He’s just stuck out a trailer for his forthcoming album: watch it here.
Dublin: Tim Hecker at the Button Factory. Likeable, occasionally transcendent pipe-organ ambience from the Canadian drone auteur.
Manchester: Torn Hawk at the Soup Kitchen. Melodic, fuzzy electronica from the L.I.E.S/Mexican Summer recording artist whose new album Let’s Cry And Do Push-Ups At The Same Time is well worth a listen. (Or Jesus & Mary Chain at the Academy, but you’ll need a ticket.)
On the box:
Babylon, 10pm, Channel 4: The second episode of the second series of Danny Boyle’s police force comedy drama, and things are hotting up. “The best thing on telly in a country mile,” reckons Guide critic Ben Arnold.
The Fall, 9pm, BBC2: Gillian Anderson is the TOUGH. SEXY. FEMALE COP. on the trail of the murdery Spector. Not totally sure about this show: the whole hunky serial killer thing feels a spot ill-judged, but the tension is certainly there.
Game Of Arms, 8pm, Dave: It’s a programme about arm wrestling in Pennsylvania. What’s not to like?
That’s all from me – g’night.
From Bedrooms To Billions
That’s the name of a new feature length documentary by Antony and Nicola Caulfield on the British video games industry, from 1979 right up to the present day.
A stirring trailer there, which makes the era sound like a cross between punk rock and Wolf Of Wall Street. A admirably utopian sense of ambition on display from many of the interviewees, which makes me think of the one bona fide megastar of home computing, Sir Clive Sinclair, and his boldest invention of all - the Sinclair C5.
Just imagine the jealous looks if you tanked it through Dalston in one of these of a Friday evening.
Quick Interpol update
So what of the plucky gloom rockers, their tourbus mired in snow somewhere outside Buffalo? Sounds like good news folks!
Yay! Woo!
Time for a blast of...?
Snap. Road block.-DK pic.twitter.com/fJliiL9f1q
— Interpol (@Interpol) November 20, 2014
Oh... bugger.
Updated
The Marilyn Manson video that never was...
... and probably never should have been.
In an interview last year, Eli Roth, director of ‘torture porn’ series Hostel, revealed that he directed a video for a Marilyn Manson single, starring Lana Del Rey, which never saw the light of day.
Well, footage from said video has now appeared on the internet, and while it’s artfully shot you can see why wiser heads might have decided perhaps this one wasn’t suitable for release: “Hmm, you know that bit with all those balloons with ‘RAPE’ written on them in marker pen - do you think that’s really necessary?”
Watch it below, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Updated
A fairly remarkable new Iceage video here, for the track Against The Moon from recent album Plowing Into The Field Of Love.
Lots of bleak monochrome, close ups of faces staring into the middle distance, and tongues. The lead in the video, reportedly, is one Dan van Husen, who has appeared in films including Fellini’s Casanova and Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu The Vampyre.
My favourite bit of Iceage trivia: guitarist Johan Surrballe Wieth is the son of actor Morten Suurballe, who played Chief Inspector Lennart Brix in The Killing. #trivia
Updated
Retirement watch
If I’m being honest, it’s a bit of a slow one here on the Guide Daily. Culture has been faster-moving and more vibrant than it is today, sometimes by orders of magnitude. So hey, why not, let’s take a look at figures in the public eye who are packing it all in.
Angelina Jolie
Following her next film, Cleopatra, Jolie has announced she’s quitting acting and moving behind the camera. Something about not wanting to be “the centre of attention”. She’s currently promoting her new film Unbroken, the wartime era story of a former Olympic track star who ends up in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. Husband Brad Pitt has been nothing but supportive - says Jolie:
I went home and I said to Brad, ‘I’m really curious about this film — it’s a triumph of the human spirit finding faith and forgiveness, and this man’s life seems so interesting.’ And Brad said, ‘Oh, honey, that project has been around forever.’
Cheers Brad.
Lee Evans
One of the select fraternity of comics known as “rubber-faced funnymen” (see also: Phil Cool, Jim Carrey, um that’s it), Evans will reportedly announce on this weekend’s forthcoming Jonathan Ross Show that he’s quitting at the end of the next tour, which has had some pretty woeful reviews. I’m hoping that after dropping this shock news, Evans pretends to slowly deflate, but instead of pumping himself up with an invisible bike pump, he just lies there, like an old rag on the floor.
Tommy Walsh
No, not Charlie Dimmock’s mate – the champion hurler for Kilkenny, who announced his retirement from the game this morning. I’m not that up on hurling so I checked him out on YouTube, only to find his most popular video features him being knocked to the floor and in obvious pain (over 110,000 hits). Good luck and congratulations to a much-loved sportsman.
Updated
Lunchtime links
Stuff for you to read as you gingerly pick at your wasabi peanuts.
- OK Go have released their new album as a strand of DNA
-
Fox is remaking Luther for the US market, for some reason
- Hugh Laurie is going to be in the next series of Veep
- Will Bob Marley’s legacy be forever tarnished by Marley-branded ganja?
- And what happens when granny gets stoned?
Today's new music
As we trundle in the direction of lunchtime, let us turn to the field of popular music, and see what new things have popped up in the last 24 hours or so.
Meghan Trainor - Lips Are Movin
New single by her who wrote that song all about being a larger lady, while being, to all intents and purposes, of average size. Good fun if you like that sort of thing.
Brodinski - Can’t Help Myself
Sometime Kanye producer and Bromance label boss drops a new cut of doomy trap-techno, with rhymes from Chicago rapper SD.
Duppy Gun - Dummy mix
A popping dancehall mix by Duppy Gun, a production unit featuring psychedelic scientists Sun Araw and M Geddes Gengras.
Extreme Precautions - Untitled 10
Well, this is the product of a troubled mind. There are blastbeats. There are fast cuts. There are lots and lots of goats.
Updated
Let's talk about Alec Baldwin
Not often I feel drawn to write those words, but there it is. The veteran actor is fronting a new web series called Love Ride, in which he sits in the back of a New York cab, a nice young couple squeeze in next to him, and he gives them relationship advice.
Baldwin has what I would charitably call a bluff charm. Hear how he loosens the couple up with a bit of Josef Fritzl-themed kidnapping banter before alluding to “the mistakes I’ve made” (which include a fairly long and hair-raising history of divorce, litigation and visitation rights that would make a foreign diplomat pale around the gills).
Still, while I will confess that I don’t entirely understand what’s going on - what’s with the woman feeding them lines over an intercom? – the combination of mushy feels and New Yoik attitude is, if I’m honest, quite appealing. “You guys are so cute together,” barks Baldwin. “You’re making me sick to my stomach.”
Jaden Smith: The Album
The young Jaden Smith, son of Will, has been a rich source of englightenment entertainment recently. Earlier this week T magazine published an interview with Jaden and his sister in which the 16-year old actor/musician/mystic stated his intention to be “the most craziest of all time”. The interview makes for remarkable reading – check out the opening exchange, which packs almost infinite levels of pretension into just 27 words.
What have you been reading?
WILLOW: Quantum physics. Osho.
JADEN: “The Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life” and ancient texts; things that can’t be pre-dated.
Magnificent, and it only gets deeper, like a Siberian sinkhole.
Jaden has a new album out today, The Jaden Experience. It’s available for free via the iTunes Store, but someone has stuck it up on YouTube so maybe have a listen there.
Perhaps I’ll review it later, but I was quite into this customer review posted by one ‘Swagmoneyjj’.
I was not ready to hear this music. When I downloaded this, something changed. When I downloaded this, the rapper inside of me came out and closed my mouth for me so I could listen to how amazing this was. I tried to open my mouth again to compliment the music, but the rapper said “shhh, the karate kid is killing it.” “What is he killing?” I asked. The rapper replied “he is killing doubt, evil, sorrow, and regret.” I listened to every song in a row and I wasn’t ready. I became reborn.
And so forth.
Updated
Pray for Interpol
No, I’m not fretting about the career of the gloomy New Yorkers – although let’s be honest, any indie-rockers who have bashed out five or so albums should be seriously considering exit strategies. The issue here is more pressing. Interpol are TRAPPED. In a SNOWSTORM. Somewhere near BUFFALO.
Here’s all the news from their Twitterfeed.
It was starting to get worrying for a bit.
Although possibly a bit boring too.
Their shows in Toronto and Montreal have been cancelled, but Interpol urge fans to hang on to their tickets - they will be returning. Probably in Spring.
Updated
Morning all
All sorts going on today, but let’s kick off with Jennifer Lawrence talking about penises.
