Netflix Picks of the Month Club

The team at my agency Tribal Worldwide recently started a Netflix Picks of the Month Club. Well, this is my month and just for fun, I thought I'd share my picks.

Better Off Ted, 2009

Okay, Let’s start off with a great little TV series that’s totally binge-able over the course of a single weekend. This show only lasted two seasons, but that’s a good thing… because it’s nearly perfect. If you dig Arrested Development, you’ll absolutely love this quirky satire on climbing the corporate America ladder. 

Shut Up and Play The Hits, 2012

Even if you aren’t a fan of the electronic beats of LCD Soundsystem, this beautifully shot rockumentary chronicling their final concert at Madison Garden is simply infectious. Put it on the big screen, crank the volume, and this one pulls you in like a tractor beam. If you don’t believe me, watch its epic trailer like right now.

Unbreakable, 2000

Since someone already swiped my first pick of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, I’ll just go with straight up Unbreakable… M. Night’s best and ONLY re-watchable movie. This is easily one of the greatest superhero movies ever made and features a pre-Avengers, pre-Capital One Samuel L. Jackson in one of his coolest roles. And after you finish it, check out Patton Oswalt’s in-depth pitch for the sequel.

The Trip, 2010

This dramedy is a very English take on the classic roadtrip-buddy flick genre. Think of it as Tommy Boy with British-trained theatre actors who consume fine foods, traverse the rolling hills of Northern England, and enjoy educated conversation, all the while making you fall on the floor laughing. 

Harold & Maude, 1971

Alright, now for the coup de gras. This is one of those movies that from time to time will make you the smartest person in the room. It’s a beyond quirky cult-classic love story between equally strange peeps who are generations apart from one another in age. See a young Bud Cort (a.k.a. the bond company stooge in The Life Aquatic) drive one of the most iconic cars on film (a Jaguar hearse) to the best soundtrack ever… completely scored by none other than Cat Stevens himself.

The Dodos Just Made My Day

Feeling a little down in the dumps today? This latest vid from The Dodos will instantly snap you out of it. The shoulders are the best.

Getting Stoked for the Oscars?

Who will win the Oscar fight for Best Original Score? John Williams or Arcade Fire? I never thought that contest could possibly exist. Enjoy this clip from the scoring of Spike Jonze's in-the-not-too-distant-future film Her.

Trouble Will Find Me

Well, I'm head over heels digging The National's new album, Trouble Will Find Me. And this track and its accompanying video push this album even further up the charts for me. I'm so stoked on this one, that Mrs. Kyality and I are literally passing up Bob Dylan/Wilco/MMJ tix to see them at this year's Twilight Concert Series here in SLC.

Thanks to Upto12 for the heads up on this vid. 

The Whole Entire Love

Wilco's double-encore super set at Red Butte Gardens in the foothills of the Salt Lake Valley last Monday was a gem of a concert. And I realized something about them for the first time. 

Wilco's sound is defined by tension. This tension is most evident in the harsh juxtaposition between Jeff Tweedy's laid-back, mellow voice and Nels Cline's aggressive, attacking guitar. The result is a give-and-take relationship that provides the best of folksy alt-country and face-melting rock—and Wilco manages to cover everything in between.

Blunderbussed

Third grade was the year everyone in elementary school chose instruments. I clearly remember watching Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine on some random TV show, then turning to my parents and telling them I wanted to play the saxophone. Well, my mom had access to a clarinet and convinced me I needed learn the clarinet first in order to play a sax later.

I don't think I realized how much I love the sound of a clarinet until last week when I had the chase to listen to Jack White's first solo album, Blunderbuss, on a decent pair of headphones. The opening bars of "Love Interruption" came on, and in all absolute honesty, when I realized he had actually worked a clarinet into his orchestration, I got a little misty.



Blunderbuss is everything you want from a classic Stripes album, plus the unfiltered personality of Jack himself. I kind of think that despite how much he's always put himself out there, he still hasn't fully cut loose out of subconscious respect for Meg, random Raconteur/Dead Weather bandmates, or for that matter The Edge and Jimmy Page.

You take a track off Blunderbuss like "Sixteen Saltines" and you quick realize that there's still an untapped energy source buried deep within Jack White that's continuing to find its way to the surface in the form of pure, raw rock & roll.

The Civil Wars on NPR

Another great little studio concert that won't disappoint. Is it just me or John Paul White a straight up mix of Jack White and Johnny Depp?

Bon Iver at AIR Studios

If you've got about 25 minutes to spare, make sure you catch this beautifully shot studio session with Justin Vernon and Sean Carey.

OK Go+Chevy: An Exercise in Awesome

The post-Super Bowl ad chatter has pretty much centered on the clips of stunts featuring the all-new hot hatch the Chevy Sonic. A good looking car, agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners took it and the notion of "advertising stunts" literally to new heights under the mantra Let's Do This.



My fave stunt by far features YouTube darlings OK Go blasting through a 2.5 mile track lined with over 1,800 instruments in a highly-modified Sonic. The car and track were designed to actually play their song entitled: Needing/Getting. It's straight up awespirational. (Yeah, I just made that word up.)

What's fantastic about this form of advertising is that it's NOT advertising. It's just really good branded content, or in other words it's just really good branding. Period. I so wish more brands got this notion. I can honestly say, I dig the Sonic more because I now associate it with the high awesomeness degree of this stunt.

It also doesn't hurt one bit that this song rocks! I've always liked OK Go, but I straight up LOVE this song. What's even more awesome is the fact that they thought to embed a free download of the track into the campaign site. Seriously smart.

There's an excellent behind-the-scenes breakdown of the entire track on the Let's Do This site. Just click on the map on their site and a slideshow launches explaining the entire set up. Kudos to the creative team for capturing these sweet extras.

So for those of you taking notes: encouraging your clients to just be awesome is a totally and completely valid marketing strategy. Don't forget it.

Sundance 2012: The Rockumentaries

Mrs. Kyailty typically chooses our Sundance flicks each year and for 2012, she went 100% rockumentary awesomeness. We kicked of the festival with what was easily one of the most inspirational films I've seen in a long time.

Searching for Sugar Man is the larger than life story of the late-'60s, early-'70s singer-songwriter named Rodriguez, whose albums fell flat in the US. However, those same tunes found their way through all kinds of economic sanctions into South Africa at the height of Apartheid. Within the confines of this then police-state, Rodriguez's music fueled the anti-Apartheid movement among young Afrikaners.

Rodriguez became bigger than Elvis. But no one outside of South Africa knew it and everyone inside figured that since no new albums were being produced, he must have gone down in a literal blaze of glory. The stories of his death grew more and more elaborate over time and inspired two South African sleuths to search once and for all for Sugar Man.

Ironically, Rodriguez's album Cold Fact was released domestically just two months after Simon & Garfunkel's epic Bridge Over Troubled Water. It barely had a chance. In a strange twist of fate, a film called Under African Skies also premiered at Sundance this year. Mrs. Kyality caught this doc about Paul Simon's controversial Graceland album recorded in Apartheid-laden South Africa.

We wrapped up our Sundance fest with Shut Up and Play The Hits. Though entered in the documentary category, this was without a doubt a straight up concert flick. It beautifully covers the final LCD Soundsystem show at Madison Square Garden and captures the day after. Interlaced throughout the film is an amazing interview between pop culture expert Chuck Klosterman and LCD frontman and creative force James Murphy. I love LCD Soundsystem and I loved this flick, but there's not doubt you'll question Murphy's motives. Was he in for the art or did he actually get out of it for art?


Yeah, pretty much one of the coolest previews ever.

Arcade Fire in Our Lovely Deseret

As of last Monday, I've had the pleasure of seeing Arcade Fire live for the fourth time. The first two were on the Neon Bible tour, Red Rocks in Denver and in Lehi, UT. Last year, I saw them in Portland and finally in Orem, UT last week.

At first glance, you'd think that the Portland and Red Rocks shows would be amazing—and they were. But for some reason, the Utah shows have been absolutely outstanding. In fact, the Lehi show from a couple of years ago still ranks among one of my favorite concerts of all time. I kinda thought it was just a fluke. However last week's performance proved that Arcade Fire rocks a little bit harder in the Beehive State.

At both Utah shows, frontman Win Butler has mentioned that he'd often visited his Grandfather in Sandy, UT growing up. Yeah, Sandy—talk about the suburbs. There's definitely an air of nostalgia and even excitement as he reminisces. And other than a handful of d-bags making a ruckus near the front of the stage, the concert-going crowd at these shows have been way into it. Not too many peeps who are too cool to completely rock out and sing-a-long sans inebriation. I just hope Arcade Fire keeps coming back to the Crossroads of the West and that I'm around to see 'em.

Album Review: The Dodos' No Color

What do you look for an a band's third major album? I'm going to go with refinement. All bands have those first random little records that you discover after the fact. It's typically their first label album that piques our interest. It's their second big album that hopefully takes their style, expands it and melts our faces. Now it's the third that we expect a certain level of cleanliness, polish and yes, refinement.

The Dodos' latest major album No Color is the perfect third installment. It takes the band's energetic, experimental sound and applies a degree of tightness that still manages to capture their driving, frenetic sound. The real power and pleasure of the the album comes in the form of grace notes supplied by none other than Ms. Neko Case. There's wisdom and pose there that's a perfect juxtaposition to Meric Long's pseudo naivety.

The track that proves this theory the most is without a doubt Don't Try and Hide It. This song, like many others on the album, gets stuck in your head in a good way. You enjoy waking up in the morning with this song still ringing in your ears. Bottom line: Go try it, don't fight it.

Moto Music Vid

So now that I've got a Twitter account for random musings and a Tumblr blog for a pic of the day, it seems that more and more videos are surfacing on this particular blog. And I think that's good thing. This is a way cool moto music vid by French production company HUSH for the track "Frankie's Gun!" by The Felice Brothers. More videos of this caliber or better will be coming as I discover them—enjoy!

How'd I Miss This?

Loving this official music video for Daft Punk's Derezzed. Sure, I'd seen the TRON: Legacy mash-up set to this tune, but this original music vid perfectly bridges the first flick with the second. Enjoy.

Arcade Fire vs. James

Within the past two weeks, I've been fortunate enough to hit two of the best shows I've ever seen—both quite different from one another. A week and half ago, thanks to @Upto12, I was able to see Calexico and Arcade Fire at the Rose Quarter in Portland. If you haven't heard much about this tour yet, our friends from up north have basically been lighting up and burning down nearly-filled colosseums across the nation—and this night was no exception.

Though it started out with a couple of very "good" tracks from their newest album The Suburbs—it wasn't 'til opening strums of the fourth song Haiti that they fully came alive. Their energy-level, passion and riotous rocking only increased from that point on. Seeing them live (again) only validated Upto12's point from a recent discussion.

Though I absolutely love both The Suburbs and Neon Bible—it's the tracks from Funeral that send me (and everyone else in the venue) straight into rock concert bliss. It's not that they're necessarily better tunes—they simply perform them in a way that is undeniably exuberant. The proof's here.

Five days later Mrs. Kyality and I caught the James sound check and show at a ridiculous new venue here in SLC. Despite the drab, cinder-block box that is The Complex, the classic Brit-Poppers—visually stunned by the SLC fandom—put on an amazingly energetic and spontaneous show. A minor equipment failure led to an impromptu unplugged session and later a guitar solo was forfeited for a fantastic feedback fight with a fiddle. It's these kind of nuances that make a little concert in a crap venue end up as one of the best yet.

Beach House Dining

Last Thursday, Mrs. Kyality and I made a last minute, snap decision to catch the Vampire Weekend show that night. They did a great job, but the opening act easily stole the show. I actually hadn't heard of Beach House prior to that night, but later that same night let's just say I snagged all their albums off iTunes.

Beach House is a genre-defying band, nearly unclassifiable. When you hear them for the first time, there's two relatively conflicting vibes happening all at once. You think to yourself, wow I've never anything like this. At the very same time, you can't help but think that they sound oddly familiar.

Nearly every song on their latest album, Teen Dream, is addictive in its own way. In fact, many of the songs start off one way and end completely different, like two songs squished into one. And both are awesome. The standout tracks of the night were Take Care and Walk In the Park—both of which prompted some amazing head-banging from Mademoiselle Legrand.

Listening to Beach House is like a fine dining experience. Each song is like a bite with tons of flavors to identify. Each flavor is a familiar vibe and it's fun to pick each of them out. For me, the ingredient list of Beach House is as follows: one cup of Nico, a teaspoon of Cowboy Junkies and a dash of The Beach Boys. Tasty.

My Photo-A-Day Tumblr Experiment

I have a pretty substantial hobby collecting what I think are pretty cool pictures from online. And of late, I've become a fan of some sweet Tumblr photo-blogs. Some of my faves are ryjohnson, Convoy and Please Don't Shake Me. So with all that in mind, I've decided to start my own simple, little Tumblr photo-blog. I plan on posting a photo each day and in true Kyality fashion they'll be pics about music, movies, tv, cars and design. You can follow the imagery action at: kyality.tumblr.com

Enjoy!

Telephoto + Concert = Megadork

So I brought my Rebel and telephoto lens to The Dodos and The New Pornographers to SLC's Twilight Concert Series last week. Fantastic bands. Fantastic show. So so shots that barely made the megadorkiness worth it. Nevertheless, here's the best of the bunch. Just click 'em to enlarge.

Meric Long shredding on his ultra-beat-up hollow-body electric.

Logan Kroeber keepin' the beat at a mind-bending tempo.

Keaton Snyder's got the easiest gig around. This is him bowing(?) a vibraphone just before he drooped himself over the fence and started scopin' for hoochies. Nice tee Buster.

Noodle, 2D, Murdoc and Bruce

Take a sec and check out the Gorillaz new vid 'Stylo' sporting a sick car chase, fanastic CG and the actor with the best gun face ever.

The harder the life, the sweeter the song.

Ever since the first Jeff Bridges flick I saw as a kid—Tron, obviously—I've been a staunch Bridges fan. (Jeff not Beau, duh.) Growing up, I also loved him in movies like King Kong, The Fisher King and Tucker. I kinda saw him as another Harrison Ford, which comes in handy once you see Harrison Ford on TV with his ear ring, ugh. I've always loved Jeff's delivery, it's completely genuine—you think, yeah that's how I woulda said that.

For a Bridges fan, Crazy Heart was as good as it gets. He completely throws himself into the Bad Blake character, singing the songs himself, playing the guitar himself and probably nearly drinking himself to death. Crazy Heart is also a music fan's film. There are definitely some "Once-like" moments, though the cool rawness of Once isn't present. The T-Bone Burnett tunes are simple and fantastic. You want to own the soundtrack after seeing it, for sure.

The the rest of the cast is surprisingly compelling as well. Robert Duvall is classic. Maggie Gyllenhaal has another consistently hot-or-not showing. And out of nowhere, Colin Farrell delivers an oddly perfect performance as Tommy Sweet, Blake's prodigy. Bottom line: Crazy Heart is a tough story to watch unfold—but if you're a Bridges fan or a music lover in general, it's worth a gander for sure.