Blog: Sound Bites

Lunch at the Chelsea branch of Grand Sichuan International today with coworkers. We had sliced fish and sour cabbage soup, cucumbers with garlic, cold beef with spicy and wild pepper sauce, prawns in citrus sauce, and one of the dishes from the Prodigal Daughter menu (baby chicken with ginger and spicy sauce). Excellent as always. The meal was notable in a couple other ways. We spotted Mario Batali chowing down on lobster (what a celebrity!) with his Del Posto partner Joe Bastianich and some other dude. Also spotted... this enormous, literal hill of beans:

I moved to Williamsburg in March, 1998 and it is an understatement to say the neighborhood has changed a lot since then. One of the constants, however, over the last eight years is Matamoros Puebla Grocery on Bedford. The back of this crowded little store is a taqueria serving some of the best, authentic Mexican food in the city. Certainly the best in the WB. Matamoros changed the way I thought of Mexican food, which to that point meant hard-shell tacos, burritos, and sour cream smothered enchiladas. Not that there's anything wrong with that. [...]

There is little reason for NYC residents to go to SXSW Music Festival, apart from the joy of getting out of the city, barbeque and migas (the official breakfast of Austin). But you really won't be missing much music-wise if you stay here. Any American band worth hearing plays the city already, and most bands coming from England or elsewhere in Europe usually make a Manhattan pitstop on the way to or from the festival. This year, March seems especially manic. By my count, I'm going to seeing 19 nights of shows in March. Some of [...]

This year's Oscar nominations saw very few surprises, apart from maybe William Hurt's Supporting Actor nod for A History of Violence . (A surprise on two counts: 1] he was in the movie for maybe five minutes, and b] was so over-the-top in it, even Al Pacino would tell him to dial it down.) The nominees for Best Song, however, are just bizarro. The first thing you notice is there are only three of them and, second, none of them totally suck. Sure, Bird York 's "In the Deep" from Crash is a on the Paula [...]

"Draw yourself a nice, hot bath... it's Field Music!" -- David Brewis These were not the best circumstances for Field Music 's Stateside debut. They flew in just for the gig, and had to lie to customs about why they were here, couldn't bring their own equipment (openers The Diggs kindly let them use their gear), and had almost no time to rehearse with the violinist and cellist who joined them onstage for their set. Yet, they pulled it off [...]

So I was misinformed about that Britt Daniel cameo on last night's Veronica Mars. I guess they moved the schedule back, so tune in next week to see Britt sing karaoke (Elvis Costello's "Veronica," natch) at Java the Hut. Instead of any members of Spoon, we got onetime warrior princess Lucy Lawless as an FBI agent, a giant plug for the Virgin Suicides soundtrack (I wished they'd played the Sloan track, but I guess that's too peppy for heartbreak, even phony heartbreak), and a further deepening of this year's already-way-too-complex story involving a school bus [...]

The Zutons return with their second album, Tired of Hanging Around , on April 17 with a single to preceed it, "Why Won't You Give Me Your Love?" on April 3. Just as excitingly, they're playing the Mercury Lounge on March 21 on their way back from the SXSW Music Festival (where they're sharing the bill with former Kinks frontman Ray Davies). Last time they were in town, The Zutons were playing Webster Hall so getting to see them at the Mercury Lounge will be a rare treat indeed. I saw them there summer [...]

Don't forget -- it's the first new Veronica Mars episode in six weeks. Tonight's could possibly be a doozy. As you may remember the last episode featured a birth, a death, and a return. If nothing else, Spoon's Britt Daniel has a karaoke cameo . EDIT: Britt's on next week. If you want to play catch-up, the excellent fan site Mars Investigations has the Cliff Notes versions of every episode so far . The real cliffhanger is where Veronica will end [...]

After the awesome Editors show, I had high hopes for Saturday night's show with Norwegian shoegazers Serena Maneesh . I was well into the early-'90s shoegazer scene (Ride/MBV/Swervedriver/ Moose/etc) and I dig SM's self-titled 2005 album a bunch. Wish I could say the same about the live show. It didn't help that they were an hour late to the stage (nearly 1am i think), and that i had come from a party where I drank way too many margaritas, but they were a snooze. And not loud enough. And [...]

Making my list for Best Albums of 2005 is the eponymous debut from Field Music . From the same Sunderland, England scene as the Futureheads and Maximo Park* (with whom they share drummer Tom English), Field Music don't have much in common, sonically, with them but you can hear the connection in the strong Northern accents. Musically, they draw from Baroque '60s pop, with a fair amount of keyboards, horns, flutes, and strings that would appeal to fans of Belle & Sebastian, Cardinal's Eric Matthews and [...]

It was the hottest ticket in town, with a long line of people outside hoping for a chance to get in, but it didn't really feel that crowded inside the Mercury Lounge. Maybe it was because the crowd was one of the shortest I've ever seen there (as opposed Go-Betweens' who average 5'11'') so I had a perfect view of the stage even though I was three-quarters back from the stage. (They were also working on the floor and was standing on this temporary floor they had down which put me another three inches higher.) [...]

This week's Onion AV Club has a pretty good interview with comedy genius Albert Brooks whose new movie, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World , was just released. Brooks is a comedian a lot of people don't get, but his humor ages extremely well. He talks about not giving up on jokes, even when they bomb: Many of the things that didn't get laughs, I did four years later when I was known a little [...]

It was my birthday on Sunday and as a present to myself I went to WD-50 on Clinton Street. Let me back up slightly. Last year, the first week of May was shaping up to be Best Week Ever. I had tickets to see New Order at the Hammerstein, a pass to the press screening of Revenge of the Sith and, most awesome of all, was going to attend a taping of Iron Chef . The battle, which Food Network finally got around [...]