
It's time for our annual Summer Edition of Commercial Watch , where I again highlight some of the songs that those indie-saavy marketing folks are harvesting for mass consumption. Since I realize most of you are the Hulu / DVR / next-day-on-youtube type, you've probably been blissfully unaware of the beer, car, and shoe ads that have been lighting up TV screens, so I've dug up some of the best ones for you. Lucky for you, the past few months have seen a surplus in indie music in commercials so there's quite a bit more ads then here I [...]

After seeing Juno once more (don't ask why...) I have to admit I love it more and more (and especially the music). I'm still laughing out loud with "they're yellow" and singing to Polisar's intro song and Antsy Pants' Vampire (yes..I'm a Vampire too). Add Cat Power, Belle and the feel-good ending and you got a charming deal!

The day is finally here. In a few hours I'm going to be a married man and this is the mix that we are giving out as CD favors (along with a few random musings that I included in a booklet) to the guests. I want to thank all my readers for the kind words over the years about me and Celeste, and for reading what I have to say here. I'm going to be gone for a week, honeymooning, but I hope you enjoy this mix while I'm away. Huzzah! 1. Sleeping At Last - Umbrellas [...]

U2 ∞ All I Want Is You Barry Louis Polisar ∞ All I Want Is You Carly Simon ∞ All I Want Is You Michael Franti and Spearhead ∞ All I Want Is You (live) Which song do you dig best? Or did I leave out your favorite " All I Want Is You " song? Leave a hullabaloo. More: Homonyms Use some of you 50 FREE Downloads from [...]

Mr. Folkie and I finally saw the movie Juno weekend before last. It is certainly very cute and a must-see, and now it has won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. I do love little arthouse films like this, and I think it's fantastic that the stuffy Oscars are finally getting around to giving them the recognition they deserve. Ellen Page is excellent as the title character, whose speaking style reminds me of a couple of young women I know and love. Like Atonement , which won the Oscar for [...]

La musique accompagnant de JUNO est un condensé de délicatesses sonores, de notes d'automne, d'incertitudes chantées pour qu'elles soient moins invivables, d'espoirs douloureux et de déceptions obligatoires... Un bain de jouvence pop/folk pour une plongée musicale en ados troubles. Ce sont aussi dix-neuf titres intimes, qui font danser des émotions rares et des souvenirs acidulés. Des chansons qui peuvent accompagner les images du film... ou celles d'une vie. Cat Power, The Moldy Peaches, le Velvet, Belles&Sebastian, Sonic Youth, The Kinks etc... se cotoient et s'entrelacent dans une bande-son pleine à (faire) craquer de jolis témoignages sur..........................l 'amour. [...]

Playlist du 14 février au 21 février... Une radio pop, faite de reprise (improbable sur le "over & over" des Hot Chip par les Miserable Rich), de bootleg (quand les Nine Inch Nails rencontrent les Beatles avec DJ Zebra), de remixes (des Yeasayer et des Raveonettes), de nouveautés prometteuses et parfois enivrantes (The Helio sequence, Cut Copy, Basia Bulat, The Duke Spirit, AmpLive), de vieilleries intemporelles (Janis Joplin, XTC, Elvis Presley...... et Hot Butter), et de B.O (Barry Louis Polisar et son "All I want is you" qui accompagne l'excellent "JUNO"), etc.... pour deux heures [...]

I don't get to the theaters very often to see many movies. As Austin Powers would say, It's not my bag baby! Regardless, I do listen to a fair amount of soundtracks, and recently I happened to get the one for the new(ish) Jason Reitman film Juno . One thing you might notice looking over the track listing below is the abundance of Kimya Dawson (who I coincidentally mentioned a few weeks ago when talking about her appearance on the Terrordactyls album ). Ellen Page, the actress who plays [...]

The songs sound like a rhyme told by your very own conscience. There's some truth to these words, punctuated by guitar. Between the breaths of air - Kimya Dawson finds a way to pull at your heart strings and capture your attention - casting a bright light on her new project: she's the star of the Juno movie soundtrack. (Here we have another good movie championed by an amazing collection of now songs!) Dawson plays a free show in Boston this Thurdsay. [...]
Sometimes it hits you like a bus. You go into a movie, expecting quality, but you're not ready to admit words like "poignant" and "heart breaking." I just went to see "Juno," a pretty amazing film directed by Jason Reitman, starring Ellen Page and Michael Cera. Ellen starts as a little, snot-nosed high school brat, too precocious for her age but gets knocked up accidentally by her best friend Bleeker (played by Michael Cera). And as she decides to keep the baby and give it up for adoption, the search for the adoptive parents [...]

I recently saw Juno , the Jason Reitman film written by Diablo Cody and staring a bunch of very fine actors. I highly recommend the film - it's funny and thoughtful and knowing. Not the least of its highlights is the soundtrack, which is a mixture of cool oldies and new singer/songwriter stuff. One of the things I particularly appreciated was that the producers weren't afraid to play whole songs and make them the center oif attention. My favorite, played over the opening credits, is called "All I Want Is You," by Barry Louis Polisar. Polisar is wll known [...]