credit: erik voake (marr); david black (cosentino)

ex-smiths guitarist johnny marr has teamed up with a bunch of young relevant artists, including best coast, providing inspiration for new songs. the best coast song “in your sleep” sounds exactly like best coast. not sure why he was necessary since best coast can pump out great tunes without his help.

i suppose its a way for mister marr to keep up with the kids by involving himself in some totally distant way like fabricating some fantasy, location-based, instagram-filtered, cool story (bro) about something that didnt actually happen.

read about this totally predictable publicity stunt and check out the best coast track that recalls early best coast: http://www.spin.com/articles/hear-johnny-marrs-team-ups-best-coast-tom-vek-and-more

their official statement is about as interesting as their past decade of work…

“to our fans and friends: as r.e.m., and as lifelong friends and co-conspirators, we have decided to call it a day as a band. We walk away with a great sense of gratitude, of finality, and of astonishment at all we have accomplished. To anyone who ever felt touched by our music, our deepest thanks for listening.”

in other news, i finally did the dishes after neglecting them for a week.

• you still are not hip
• there is no line for sitting down
• stuff runs out
• dust gets on you, in you
• cell networks get overloaded
• vip is worth it
• public transportation rules
• music is fun
• friends are fun
• everything was as expected

see my notes from last years fyf fest.

well, the annual sunset junction music fest has done what its hipster-infested circus (sorry too easy) and marched to the beat of its own drum circle by tripping on its own untied shoes. sunset junction faced an injunction this week that they were not able to meet causing the fest, originally to have taken place this weekend, to sunset.

the sunset junction promoters had not the permits because it owed the city a bunch of monies from last years event. the sun junx went into panic mode and asked the public for donations (err hopefully attendees already shelled out money to the once-free event). that went nowhere. then in came the might corporation even non-hipsters love to hate, live nation. live nation ponied up $10k to support the fest but that city said “ur monies no good, please take a shower u filthy hipsters” and denied the permit.

but way to keep everyone on their toes. this pre-media frenzy was not anticipated. nor was getting in bed with live nation.

whatevs… this years lineup was kinda was all sorts of meh. so what u finna do this weekend?

based on the amount of search traffic coming to brutalhipster.com for the new mixtape only because i posted about the first “house of balloons” mixtape, i thought it would be a good idea to drink some buffalo trace and blog about the latest mixtape.

“thursday” follows up the homemade r&b vibes but expands on the “house of balloons” blueprint incorporating subtle rasta vibes, improved garage band plugins/fx, more indie rock samples that i cannot identify, but lacking in beach house samples (which is the only reason i listened to the first mixtape anyway).

so it feels like things are starting to come together for the weeknd and more people are googling for them. i miss the beach house samples but “thursday” is still pretty hip and legit.

rumor has it, a third mixtape is forthcoming.

download the “thursday” mixtape here: http://the-weeknd-xo.com/albums/thursday/

despite having a stupid name and being hosted on their decrepit blogspot platform, magnifier has already impacted interest, traffic, and relevance of brutal hipster thanks to googles huge built-in reach and highly guarded “tastemaker” algorithm unique to google.

the “tastemaker” algorithm allows google magnifier to offer up free music from only the most legit artists like my morning jacket, shabazz places, the walkmen, etc. it can only get better from here once they iterate on the “tastemaker” algorithm to factor in witch house, dubstep, and djent-step.

where will brutal hipster go from here? maybe google will buy brutal hipster. or should brutal hipster pivot and get into food blogging?

credit: timothy norris

outspoken “old guy” henry rollins has offered his thoughts on the recent passing of amy winehouse. behind his thoughts on her passing is commentary on technology and the internet.

rollins goes about blaming the internet for “[speeding] up the world’s information uptake but they have cheapened that which they capture”. ironically, the internet is the very medium in which he used to broadcast these thoughts.

he then continues, “a text conversation is a short exchange of often grossly truncated language that corresponds to a thought made all the more shallow by the process”. turns out that statement is just wordy way of saying “stop tweeting and call your mother!”

in seriousness, i wholeheartedly agree that the instantaneous consumption of informations over a far broader range diminishes the worth of its cargo. i mean, even rollins’ message itself is just one of many of his “talks” that appear to say a lot but ultimately say little.

still though, isnt it kind of in bad taste to piggyback commentary on the state of our digital society on the passing of a beloved soul that touched… wait what happened to the stock market?!?

chino moreno, the singer from popular alterna-emo-heavyish rock band deftones, has a side project called crosses who just released a teaser video promoting the bands upcoming album.

the video is brandished with three crosses in a style similar to popular witch house recording artist, ritualz. ritualz has caught wind of this and flipped his shit on twitter and facebook but not google+ (aww).

moreno is clearly trying to ride the witch house buzz which has probably all but peaked at this point. but ritualz is overreacting anyways since mainstream kids who catch wind of the new crosses imagery may accidentally confuse ritualz releases with crosses music and buy ritualz music instead.

so at the end of the day, everyone wins. yay.

credit: nick walsh (la times)

yesterday, a premiere for the electric daisy carnival documentary at the manns chinese theater in hollywood turned into a clash between authorities and raver tweens.

some popular dj named kaskade fired off a tweet that sent the local area raver community in a hizzy to catch a free outdoor block party preceding the premiere. despite city approval, they clearly had not learned their lesson from past electric daisy carnival mayhem. shit quickly got outta control and turned itself into a trending topic on twitter.

cant electric daisy carnival get their shit in order? we really must save the chaos and destruction and city dollars for when sports teams win (or lose). at least we got a planking out of it. (isn’t planking over?)

this jay maisel dude took the photo of the “kind of blue” album cover and went for the kill after discovering baio’s “kind of bloop” having used a pixelated facsimile of the photo as the cover for his digital tribute.

so maisel had a camera and pressed a button on it. big whoop. he thinks the world owes him for that split second of “work”. but is it work? a photograph is just a still representation of a moment of time. talk about facsimile.

meanwhile, baio spent the time to creatively reinterpret miles davis‘ musical recording (for fun) giving it a retro-modern (?) spin on the masterpiece and to visually represent it in the same manner.

so the two entered the legal ring and fisticuffs ensued. baio threw a “fair use” uppercut and severely damaged maisels diamond-encrusted scowl on maisels face. maisel then retaliated by slamming baio, as well as the risiding judge, with a solid gold folding chair. that delivered a blow too strong for baio. he realized he didnt stand a chance fighting legitimately while his opponent was out to strong-arm him and neutral parties without an honest fight. baio had no choice…he tapped out.

the seven month legal tussle came to an end. standing over baio, maisel commenced baio’s slow demise one cannibalistic bite after another and snatching his wallet carrying $32.5k.

so that blow, totally blows. im sure prince has a purple opinion on this. check out “kind of bloop” and maybe throw baio a few (or $32.5k) bucks, yeah? http://kindofbloop.com/