When you shut your eyes and listen, this tune by FREEwilliamsburg favorite Toro y Moi is all skippy, bouncy, and happy squelchy-ness. When you open them it’s all roofies, stabbing and satanic rituals. An interesting video by Elisha Smith-Leverock and Chris Murdoch.

In 2002, Pat Tillman left the NFL and a contract worth millions of dollars to join the US Army along with his brother, Kevin. By April 2004, he was dead. Though initial reports claimed Tillman was killed by hostile forces, it was eventually revealed that the bullets came from US soldiers. Pat Tillman was a victim of fratricide – friendly fire. With great intensity and surprising restraint, Amir Bar-Lev’s The Tillman Story argues that everyone, from those on the scene to George W. Bush, covered up the actual events surrounding Tillman’s death as a way of improving public opinion of the war.

Throughout the initial reports and eventual revelation of fratricide, Tillman’s death was a top story covered daily by major news outlets. Despite this, Bar-Lev methodically unravels the story as if it had never been told before. And in a way, it hasn’t. The key difference between the story we’ve heard for six years and the one told here? Pat Tillman’s family – particularly his mother, Mary. She spent years scouring military documents to uncover the truth about her son’s death and serves as the driving force behind the film.

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A useful tool for road-tripping hip hop nerds, the Rap Map pin-points such notable locations as the George Westinghouse Institute of Technology, where Biggie, Jay Z and Busta all went to school in the 80s and honed their skills in the hallways. You can also locate spots name-checked in songs, such as the charming Greenleaf Boulevard where ‘bodies be found..with their fucking heads cut off’ -from ‘Let Me Ride’ by Dr. Dre, or Lil Wayne’s condo in Miami (or Rikers Island, the jail Lil Wayne is serving time for weapons charges).

Those less interested in hip hop history and more in meeting a nice lady should instead refer to this helpful map of places.

over and out,
– captain blyth.

Here’s a fun question. Who has lived here for 10 years, sent letters to Marty Markowitz about bikes on Bedford Avenue, called the police, and “put forward an idea for bike depots, which would be built in McCarren Park and along Kent Avenue and charge cyclists a $1 fee to park there”?

C’mon, somebody go scour some public records or something.

Also, we now know why the Brooklyn Paper is protecting their bike-gluing source: “because our reporters have not actually witnessed him committing a crime.” Total crock of shit.

Who should be our next make-believe villainous superhero?! Help name him in the comments! Maybe the Paper will publish your story next week.

[h/t to Animal]

Earlier in June we posted about the all-vegan bakery Champs  owned by Megan Blackburn and Brad Baker (best name ever) of Boneshakers that was scheduled to open later in the summer. Vegans rejoice-it’s finally open and ready for business! The interior of Champs is fairly bare bones right now-three pictures are hung on the wall, and there aren’t any table and chairs, but they’ll be arriving soon. Taking inspiration from the Italian bakeries in the area, Baker and Blackburn wanted to offer everything one would find at a normal bakery, but made with strictly vegan ingredients. A variety of cookies, cupcakes, scones, brownies, and Gimmie! Coffee Drinks are served. We tried the chocolate, peanut butter brownie and it was delicious. Typically vegan treats taste chalky, but that wasn’t the case here. The Discerning Brute got the details on the tasty vegan treats:

Eighty-five percent of the ingredients they’re using are organic, their shortenings are healthy oils that are  non-hydrogenated, and, in addition to being 100% vegan, they’ll soon be offering gluten-free and sugar-free options. The most exciting news happened when Megan spilled the beans about the croissants. That’s right… they will be offering the only vegan croissants in New York.

From TruePanther:

New single from Real Estate. Two brand new songs, “Out of Tune” and “Reservoir”. “Out of Tune” was recorded by Jarvis Taveniere and features some synthwork by Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never). Greater fidelity and more sophisticated songwriting than we’ve heard from Real Estate before. Available on 7″ and Digital Single 10/12/10.

by truepanther

I can’t tell if this new Ted Leo and the Pharmacists video is a spoof of American Idiot or a feel-good look at the goofiness of the “punk rock ethos.” (Whatever that means.) What I can tell is that this Tom Scharpling-directed video is star-studded! It’s got Paul F. Tompkins, John Hodgman, Julie Klausner and punks!

Growing up, playing in rock bands, we never really wanted to admit that our dads were cool. Probably because of so many t-shirts tucked into jeans, so many too-revealing conversations with waitresses at restaurants, and so much pushing you to play sports on the weekends. Our dads, it is safe to say, were not like Hugh Everett, the father of Eels songwriter Mike Everett.

Mike Everett (or simply just E) did not know his dad was a genius. A for real genius! He died when E was 18, and later Hugh’s theories about parallel universes became a hit in the happening world of quantum physics. The BBC documentary Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives follows E as he tries to basically understand what his old man was talking about. Hopefully he will clue us in on what parallel worlds are all about, so we can both stop being freaked out by the concept, and hold conversations with our friends who took smarter classes than us in college.

The film is being shown Tuesday night as part of the Secret Science Club at the Bell House. The group isn’t that secret anymore, as every month the events are packed to the gills and standing room only. But although the cat’s out of the bag, a good time is still ensured. When else do you get to feel so smart while drinking with your friends? Check out the trailer below.

Long before you arrive at a Not Blood, Paint show the rumours reach you. They are music, they are spectacle, they are hit ’n run theater, car crash club night, they are a disorientating re-imagining of what four men, five coats of make-up and accomplished musicality can do with a six by ten space.

Once Abe Lincoln showed up to assassinate an impostor Lincoln on stage, there was a duel, it was 1865. At Bizcon 2009, posing as businessmen sprinkling the secret to their success, the band were removed from the stage and cussed-out by an irate venue owner, suspicious that they weren’t really a band.

And it can be confusing, casual observers leave tonight not sure what just happened, some feeling like NBP have been inside their heads moving around the furniture, others wondering aloud: “have I just been punk’d?”

Tonight begins with sacramental wine, occult chanting and a swelling audience. Before long we are guided on laundromat flirtations, pantyhose washing one-liners, we get a how-to on histrionic four-part harmonies, witty interplay and languorous bass-lines and that’s just in “Watch Your Mouth”.

Beyond the immersive physical theater, beyond the site-specific improv and pageantry NBP sound as much post-punk as post-prog, as much pastiche as parody, they are a guided tour through a minefield of ambitious, dynamic melodies and assorted guilty pleasures. Not since the Horrors pillaged krautrock and post-punk has a band’s Vinyl collection been a subject of such insatiable scrutiny.

Tonight there is no need to preface your secret love of King Crimson’s “House of the Crimson King” with qualifiers, tonight you need not defend your “Mr Blue Sky” ringtone to indignant friends, tonight even Toto’s ‘Africa’ is welcome. Tonight is post-irony, let the chips fall where they may.

Following a directive from the band the NBP faithful, the so-called Not Fans, Painters or Paintbuckets, dance their asses off in glam, in glitter, in various metallics, in fur, in jewels, face-paint and masks. Rumor has it that a Bomb Squad producer is here tonight as a precursor to what one can only imagine would be a show-stopping future recording.

Somehow, behind the costuming, the breathtaking four part harmonies, beyond lead vocalists Joe Stratton and George Frye’s assured stage manner, the band manage to share the dynamic time-changes and dueling harmonies of the Dirty Projectors, the spastic inventiveness of neo-prog acts Yeasayer and Of Montreal, and the bombastic histrionics of MUSE or Queen all without falling into knowing clever-clever Pitchfork revisionism.

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