france's first lady of hip 'n' cool

i'm not sure if it's cool to really like carla bruni's music, style, everything, but i kinda do.



the video might be a might overly "french" in some places (the half-naked fella looking in the mirror, fingers-to-lips in horror/fear), but it's so hip in that holly-golightly (but in french!) kind of a way, that i love it. this is a bit of an old track too, so check out carla's website for newer stuff.

the record hits our american shores august 5 (next week) and i'll gladly admit i've been waiting a while for it.

speaking of the wondrous world of harry potter...

jk rowling is going to publish the tales of beedle the bard, the book of wizard fairy tales that she came up with for the deathly hallows. she originally created six copies for friends (handwritten and illustrated) and then sold one, which went for $4 million. so now us mere mortals have the chance of getting a normal one for $12.99, or a limited edition copy (for big dorks like myself) for $100. yup, i'll be buying the silly expensive one. hey, it's for charity!

it's out december 4. just in time for christmas.

update: just got a pic and link from amazon. here's the link.

harry potter and the big tease

eep! so here's the teaser trailer... as opposed to just the teaser which was seconds long.



so, so very excited.

free blood for all!

it's not too often that the non-southeast pr that floats into my personal inbox makes me sit up and want to share some band with the world. or whoever reads this blog for that matter. but that's what free blood have done. please check out the website as well as the posted video, cos the songs on there (namely "grumpy," which so often suits me down to the ground with its title yet will pull me out of said mood pretty damn quickly, that it might just be my theme tune from now on) are far better than the video i'm about to post.



the band has worked with hot chip, which accounts for that too-cool-for-school, incredibly arty hipness which makes you want to roll your eyes but instead has you making for the dancefloor and shaking your bones in all sorts of manners. brill. i think one of the fellas is from !!! so that only adds to the coolness/danceability.

also, i want this dress more than life itself right now.

goooooold!

dance dance dance - constellations, selmanaires, judi chicago

blimey it's shows galore for the next few weeks. this will be a super-rad one, especially since it's a pop death squad party. not to mention the brill selection of bands and the good words that the highland ballroom has been getting lately.

oh and kudos to the "4 items of clothing or less" challenge.

sight 4 sore eyes benefit: saturday at the earl

why not add a good cause to your rock 'n' rolling this weekend? the lovely krystal woods, barista (not barrister, which for some reason i first typed in) at aurora coffee, needs $20,000 for cornea replacements to combat an eye condition known as karatoconus. there will be plenty of awesome music from the likes of the selmanaires, as well as some kick ass raffle prizes i'm told. so come along to the earl saturday and do some good y'all.

if you want more info or want to donate some money straight away, visit the krystal woods benefit's myspace page

noot d'judi

see how i made noot d'noot and judi chicago a cute tabloid name?

anyhoo, so if you're asking me, "hey, theleila, where will you be saturday night?" i can tell you. i'll be right here:



yup. quite literally dancing my ass off to the funky beats of noot d'noot and the dirty punk dance grooves of two shorty-shorts men called judi chicago. on sunday, i'll be like, "where's my ass??" and you'll be like, "you danced it off theleila!" and i'll be all, "oh yeah man! rad."

see you there.

the fantastic mr. roald dahl... and cocker and anderson

i feel that the english (ie correct) spelling of favourite/favorite is the most suitable for this post since so much of the subject matter is quintessentially english.

right know i am literally all a-quiver (seriously just got an exciting chill and quietly squealed - quietly so as to not attract attention from the interns busy at work on deadline which i should be too, but i digress) about this news that i just found on . one of my fave ever britpop heroes, jarvis cocker (of the incredibly cool pulp, or at least was of), is working on songs for an upcoming wes anderson flick. ok, that in and of itself is incredibly exciting. new jarvis songs. new wes flick. wes and jarvis! but it gets better. in made-for-tv terms, that's not all...

the film is going to be an animated (naturally) adaptation of roald dahl's fantastic mr. fox. cue squeal!!

for those of you who might not know, i am a huuuuge fan or mr. dahl and his work. he was one of those rare writers who really knew exactly how to write for children. not to look down on them, paint a sheltered world where nothing goes wrong, preach to them or anything of that nature. he wrote funny, honest books about good people who had bad things happen to them, bad people who had good things happen to them, kids who read books, mixed together scary mixtures, ate chocolate and poached pheasant (as in stole it, the old-fashioned british way, not cooked it). they were poor a lot of times, but that wouldn't stop them from having lots of fun, which would sometimes mean breaking rules and going against what some adults told them. brilliant!

fantastic mr. fox is one i am going to have to revisit, as my faves were the twits, matilda, both charlie books (chocolate factory and the oft-overlooked, but just as kooky and amazing, great glass elevator), his autobiographies, george's marvelous medicine (which prompted me to make my own mixture from every concoction i could find under the various sinks in our buckinghamshire home. thankfully i never went as far as trying to drink it, a testament to mr. dahl's ability to separate fact from fiction and turn out sensible children), the bfg (big, friendly giant for those not in the know), the giraffe, the pelly and me. the latter of which i had on tape, with roald dahl himself reading the story. i must dig up that tape. well into high school, if i remember correctly, i would listen to that tape to send me to another place.

the books, along with their ever-present illustrations by the brilliant quentin blake, might be one of the most vibrant memories of my childhood. they definitely did a good bit to mold me into the slightly odd, possibly mad, person that i am today. the possibility of being able to create a world such as dahl's was definitely influence enough for me to start writing at a tender age, and never truly stop. i still have a picture of roald dahl sitting on my filling cabinet next to my desk at home, where i used to do my freelance writing. dahl is somewhat past middle age, sat at his desk in his shed at the end of his garden, looking up from some writing, peeking over his spectacles with a funny smile on his face, as if to say, "oh hello, what do you want?" in a cheeky way.

obviously in so many ways he does remind me of my own family, namely my dad, who i still miss dearly. reading those books definitely takes my mind back to the incredibly silly (proudly so), vastly intelligent man who was my dad.

art and music at the highland inn ballroom

this will coincide nicely with southeast performer's feature on noot d'noot in the august issue. the noot lads 'n' lasses will be spinning some funky beats after the reception.

is so nice to see all the kinds of arts and music scenes thriving in slightly unexpected places (like youngblood, beep beep, new street) around the city. will be writing a news report on such groovy places in the october southeast performer.

get a taste of east atlanta village

am really hoping to make it out to this. i've definitely been more of a home-body than usual lately (i think it's just the aftershock of athfest and corndogorama happening two weekends in a row but i should be over that by now), but bites at all these fab places for a dollar a pop is pretty irresistible. check out the rad list:

Australian Bakery

Blue Frog Cantina

Cenci

The Earl

East Atlanta Thai and Sushi

EAV Farmers Market

Flat Iron

The Glenwood

Graveyard Tavern

Gravity Pub

Holy Taco

Joe's Coffee

Kasan Red

La Casita

The Midway

Slush

see some of y'all there maybe.

get on yer bike!

this was a campaign slogan for some british politician decades ago, which just goes to show how far ahead we are haha. and how far behind i've fallen... really need to get back on my bike. hopefully this event with inspire me and others out there...

from industrial strength promotions:

Come by the SoPo Bike shop today, and help us out! .. Bata Doce performs live for the first installment of a series of instructional webisodes to promote bicycle safety and maintenance, kids and more! Please fwd. this email to your friends!

The first video shoot, Thursday, July 10th 6:30-7:30 pm, will be featured during SoPo's summer/fall fundraiser show, TBA.

Former art director for Super Delux, Jason Drakeford is putting a great animation clip together with a theme song from Judi Chicago, so come on out and be part of this fun Sopo Bikesvideo!

Here's an excerpt from Sopo's latest blog, found at http://sopobikes.org

Sopo Empowers Kids to Help Each Other

We've got some truly amazing young mechanics turning wrenches at the shop. They help each other with repair projects. Some have built bikes for their brothers and sisters who have been walking to summer school all summer long. Our International Rescue Committee interns are soaking up as much information as possible so they can start a community bike shop in Clarkston. Zay, who's been with us since the shop was in the living room, turned out last weekend and pretty much ran the place. We are thrilled that our youngest community members are genius bike mechanics and compassionate teachers.

for more information:

Batata Doce,
Sopo Bikes,
Judi Chicago,


gotta admit i won't be able to make it, but will hopefully make it on my bike this weekend.

my fave album(s) from each year of my life

nicked this idea from idolator.

1982 The Jam - The Gift
1983 Paul Young - No Parlez
1984 Prince - Purple Rain (this was a super-tough one - Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper all released their seminal albums)
1985 Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms
1986 Queen - A Kind Of Magic
1987 Echo & the Bunnymen - Echo & the Bunnymen
1988 The Pixies - Surfer Rosa
1989 Stone Roses - The Stone Roses (and suddenly, everything in England changed...)
1990 Happy Mondays - Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches
1991 Massive Attack - Blue Lines (a bit of a "meh" year for me, what with me not being into grunge like, ever)
1992 Barenaked Ladies - Gordon
1993 Blur - Modern Life Is Rubbish (another tough year - James, Suede, Jamiroquai had ridiculously awesome debuts too. yay british music!)
1994 my head is going to splode. it's between Blur - Parklife and Oasis - Definitely Maybe, but, i mean - Barenaked Ladies' Maybe You Should Drive, Jeff Buckley's Grace, Jamiroquai's Return of the Space Cowboy, Portishead's Dummy... what a good year to be alive.
1995 the year britpop was at its peak. while Oasis' (What's The Story) Morning Glory? and Blur's The Great Escape hold a tie for my number one, there are some pretty strong runner-ups with Radiohead's The Bends, Paul Weller's Stanley Street, Pulp's Different Class, and, one more rung down, Supergrass' I Should Coco. Pretty much my (and most british kids my age) fave year of music of my life. it all sounded too good to be true. and the next year showed that it was, as britpop imploded on itself.
1996 Barenaked Ladies - Born on a Pirate Ship (have to mention Space's Spiders, Manic Street Preachers' Everything Must Go, Sleeper's It Girl and Ash's 1977. britpop obviously took a turn for the darker. and then the Spice Girls came along)
1997 a very odd tie between Ben Folds Five's Whatever and Ever Amen and The Spice Girls' Spiceworld
1998 Barenaked Ladies - Stunt (the record that got me into my fave band. bought all the previous shortly after)
1999 The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin
2000 Coldplay - Parachutes (Badly Drawn Boy's Hour of the Bewilderbeast, Robbie Williams' Sing When You're Winning and Flogging Molly's Swagger also brilliant, but Coldplay was far and beyond my fave)
2001 Gorillaz - Gorillaz (followed closely by The Strokes' Is This It)
2002 Badly Drawn Boy - About a Boy (close follow-ups are Doves' Last Broadcast, The Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and The Streets' Original Pirate Material)
2003 The Coral - Magic and Medicine (OutKast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below maybe should be my fave instead, but consistently i loved the coral)
2004 The Delays - Faded Seaside Glamour. another meh kind of a year, though this album was glorious
2005 Goldfrapp - Supernature
2006 Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere (tied with Arctic Monkeys' Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not)
2007 Janelle Monáe - Metropolis Suite I of IV
2008 well, not sure yet...

so there you have it - if you made it this far. not really sure if this is 100% accurate, but if it's not then blame wikipedia. i'm also kinda messing around with the release dates, cos some records came out in the uk at different times.

anyone else out there got enough free time and is enough of a music geek to want to do this too? your best option is, unless you have a way better memory, is to use wikiperdia's year in music articles, which have a pretty good list of the records released etc. if i can me arsed, i'll actually get to putting up some links here.

god bless the muppets

i am stealing this video/post (headline and all) from best week ever. i seriously don't think anything has made me happier all week. suddenly i feel all proud to be an american... who can feel grumpy about a country that gave us anything as wondrous as the muppets??

hot damn! spiked milkshakes from kasan

i still haven't made it over to kasan red in east atlanta village, but if i'm at home this holiday weekend i'll be sure to chuck back one or two of these delights:

SPIKED MILKSHAKES

to name but a few:


Mudslide
Irish Cream, Chocolate and Coffee Liquors

Girl Scout Cookie
Chocolate and Mint Liquors

Fuzzy Navel
Orange and Peach Liquors

Raspberry Truffle
Chocolate and Raspberry Liquors

Chocolate Monk
Hazelnut and Chocolate Liquors

Nuts & Berries
Almond and Raspberry Liquors

Milky Way
Chocolate and Carmel Liquors
Oatmeal Cookie
Irish Cream and Butterscotch Liquors

Peach Blush
Peach and Raspberry Liquors

Almond Joy
Chocolate and Almond Liquors

B-52
Almond, Irish Cream and Coffee Liquors

Jaffa
Orange and Chocolate Liquors

Irish Chocolate
Irish Cream and Chocolate Liquors

Hello Dolly
Chocolate and Butterscotch Liquors

Our Price: $6.50

hello dolly indeed!

freak out with the barberries

i got to catch these guys at corndogorama and thought they were rockin' - kind of a gritty, dirty punk version of the late british invasion. hells yeah. so check the barberries for free at the star bar's freak out next week, july 10. i know i will.

blast from the past with the avalanches

just heard this song on random on my ipod and realized loads of folks stateside never heard this brilliant record or saw this rad video.



every time i hear it, it takes me back to that summer in england when we played this song and frontier psychiatrist (video below), trying to remember every word to the latter and being amazed at the super djs' of the avalanches ability to patchwork together a stellar track from a million or so pieces. if you don't have the record go ahead and buy it right now.



apparently the group is finally working on album two, after almost a decade!

a really big big fat fourth rock fest

if y'all are fully recovered from corndogorama this friday (i almost am) then you should get your big american ass (or not so big maybe - as a brit i have to single y'all out this holiday somehow. it's just weird for me but i'll be happily partaking in the food and such if not the actual "celebrations" if you get me) to smiths olde bar for pop death squad's big fat fourth. it's a hella cheap $4 which includes kegs of pbr and hamburgers and hot dogs. how american can you get??

bands included missy gossip & the secret keepers and one of my faves judi chicago. since half of the latter band is british i'll be happy to have someone to be non-american with.

if i'm not driving to see gran-in-law in indianapolis (yeah i know) then i will so be there dancing my ass off to judi chicago and stuffing my face with hot dogs and jack daniels. god bless america!

edit: got the full line-up with times here...
530 - Sikamor Rooney - www.myspace.com/sikamorrooney
630 - Elliot Holden - www.myspace.com/therealelliotholden
730 - Verlaine - www.myspace.com/verlainetheband
830 - Matt Reasor & the Madness - www.myspace.com/mattreasorandthemadness
930 - Missy Gossip & The Secret Keepers - www.myspace.com/missygossipandthesecretkeepers
1030 - Goldenfro - www.myspace.com/goldenfro
1130 - Yelawolf - www.myspace.com/yelawolf
1230 - Judi Chicago - www.myspace.com/judichicago
2AM LATE NIGHT DANCE PARTY!