Tag Archives: video

In Praise of Two Guys on Beer

There’s some­thing amiss in the Philly beer blo­gos­phere, if you ask me. Lew’s been crazy busy with more impor­tant things, like send­ing his son to col­lege, not to men­tion fin­ish­ing up that book. (Con­grats on both, Dad!) Ram­blin’ Jack has been a lit­tle heavy on the press releas­es late­ly in anci­ti­pa­tion of launch­ing a new site, which has been post­poned, per his lat­est post. Beer­lass has been doing her thing, but her blog tends to make me more hun­gry than thirsty. Love Joe Six­pack, but hate philly.com too much to find his stuff.  Where do I turn for more beer insight?

I’ve been tweet­ing recent­ly with Dave Mar­torana, half of the Two Guys on Beer duo. They have a video pod­cast, which you can also view at their YouTube chan­nel. Nat­u­ral­ly, I’m eat­ing crow here as they haven’t record­ed since the World Cup end­ed, but I think that’s due to some shenani­gans at Indy Hall. Dav­e’s been great about rec­om­mend­ing oth­er video pod­casts to me, like Beer Tap TV and Two Beer Queers.

Thing that’s great about video pod­casts now? They look great on your iPhone 4. Seri­ous­ly. Amaz­ing. I was total­ly over pod­cast­ing. The word just turned me off and the prod­uct often was­n’t much bet­ter. You know what changed all that? HD tech­nol­o­gy. Every­thing looks and sounds awe­some, and you can watch while you ride the train to work! Per­fect, bite-sized morsels of beery goodness.

But you know what? I want more! Rec­om­mend your favorite beer writ­ers and pod­cast­ers. I love local folks, but I want to know who your favorites are. It always helps to refresh sources and I feel like I’m long over­due for some good­ies. Drop your rec­om­men­da­tions in the com­ments so I can check ’em out!

The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite

Had this song stuck in my head on Tues­day morn­ing. Odd, because I learned that the man respon­si­ble for writ­ing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” George David Weiss, had died the night before.

As I thought about it, I looked up Matt Per­pet­u­a’s exhaus­tive Pop Songs ’07-’08 and found this entry for the song. So maybe that’s not the most illu­mi­nat­ing piece ever writ­ten about an R.E.M. song, but it remind­ed me that Auto­mat­ic for the Peo­ple was such a down­er of a record.

I know I’ve said it before else­where, but I can’t even try to lis­ten to this absolute pill of a record any­more. Maybe it puts me back in a weird spot, remem­ber­ing all the awk­ward moments it sound­tracked while I was a gawky teen, but it’s so one note that even tracks like “Sidewinder” and “Ignore­land” can’t shake me from my sleep. Going back to that place is one weird trip, let me tell you.

This album is to me what I think an album like Lucin­da Williams’ Car Wheels on a Grav­el Road would be just six years lat­er: a sol­id adult con­tem­po­rary record that lulled peo­ple into a false sense of sophis­ti­ca­tion. (How I avoid­ed buy­ing that Williams record I may nev­er know.) As much as I used to think Auto­mat­ic was a pro­found med­i­ta­tion on death, I real­ize today that that had every­thing to do with me know­ing noth­ing about the sub­ject mat­ter. It’s the muzak disc Stipe cursed the Bea­t­les for mak­ing. How he can even sing “Every­body Hurts” with a straight face at this point in his career is beyond me.

Refused Make Decibel’s Hall of Fame

Can’t tell you how thrilled I was to see the new issue of Deci­bel. This piece by Nick Green is a must-read, and I’m hon­est­ly sur­prised I haven’t seen more love for it online. Maybe I’m just not read­ing the right things, or maybe the Deci­bel mas­sive isn’t all that into Refused, but I was blown away. Great choice.

Not sure I know exact­ly why I love this album so much. It’s not some­thing I ever lis­tened to all that often and I cer­tain­ly was­n’t into it when it was released in ’98. I prob­a­bly did­n’t hear it until much lat­er when the album art caught my eye while job hunt­ing on my room­mate’s com­put­er in 2003. I loved how pre­ten­tious it was and could­n’t resist its temp­ta­tion. Like Fugaz­i’s The Argu­ment, it’s a bold state­ment album and one you won’t soon for­get. Cer­tain­ly a must for folks who missed out alto­geth­er. Let’s please diver­si­fy our ’90s nos­tal­gia past rote reunions like Pave­ment and Guid­ed by Voices.

Haven’t heard the reis­sue yet but I’m clam­or­ing to get my hands on a copy. Take every­one’s word for it. You won’t be dis­ap­point­ed. Chill­wave does­n’t have this kind of cathar­sis. Trust me.

Gil Scott-Heron in the New Yorker

Recent­ly read Gil Scott-Heron’s pro­file in the New York­er and was absolute­ly gut­ted. I’m among the few crit­ics who did­n’t imme­di­ate­ly fall in love with his new album on Mata­dor, and the arti­cle did lit­tle to con­vince me that it’s not the most exploita­tive release of 2010. Can’t help but feel awful for a guy who’s life is com­plete­ly dic­tat­ed to him by crack addic­tion. It’s like tak­ing advan­tage of old blues­men if you ask me.

Watch the video for “I’m New Here” above.