• Stereogum have posted a fantastic unreleased track by Bruce Springsteen, “Save My Love,” from the Boss’ upcoming The Promise, which according to the post is “a huge collection of unreleased music and tour footage packaged in a reproduction of Springsteen’s song notebooks.” The record is due out the 16th of November with the documentary playing on HBO the 7th of October.
• I stumbled upon a copy of Twin Shadow‘s upcoming album Forget, which you can also ‘stumble upon’ for $1, and I have to say I’m quite impressed. Quite a few names get tossed around when talking about Twin Shadow — Hot Chip, Junior Boys, Phoenix, Brian Eno, to name a few — which, while valid touchstones and comparisons, only go so far towards describing the band’s intriguing sound. Forget is definitely worth a listen (and a dollar). If you need more convincing, check out “Castles in the Snow” and/or “Slow” on their MySpace page. The physical copy of Forget is due out in late September through Terrible Records.
• Interpol’s self-titled release gets a lukewarm Premature Evaluation: “They’ve returned to their original home, chose that simple self-titled route, but ended up overworking the production. For such sharp-dressed dudes, they’re responsible for a messy, muddled outing.”
• Yesterday, It’s a Trap! posted an mp3 from Norwegian indie-rockers Mindy Misty. Echoing the post, if you’re a fan of KVLR, Dinosaur Jr., and Sonic Youth, “Volcano Sea” should be right up your alley, as should Mindy Misty’s upcoming third album Generic Communion due out September 6th through their own Handmade Records.
• For fans of the Bear Quartet and the Skull Defekts, their recent split 7″ has received high marks and praise from It’s a Trap! editor-in-chief Avi Roig.
• And now for the self-promotion: It’s a Trap! recently published my reviews for Thieves Like Us’ Again and Again, the debut solo album from Rasmus Kellerman (of Tiger Lou), and Night Minutes’ self-titled digital play, featuring Max J Hansson of Cut City and Anna Knutson of We Live in Trenches (the self-titled digital play can be purchased for $2 at Night Minutes’ bandcamp site and is well worth the small investment).

How can anyone — let alone a prominent Republican figure — think that defending Dr. Laura in the wake of her ignorant comments is a good idea? And why is Palin even defending Dr. Laura? The radio host was not fired, she made the decision to step down, so Palin’s bizarre need to make this a Constitutional matter (“watch out Constitutional obstructionists”) is not only unnecessary, but demonstrates how little Palin grasps about what is actually going on. Even if we step into whatever fantasy world that Sarah Palin inhabits and also believe that Dr. Laura was forced off the radio for being a foul, virulent creature — sorry, a Real American — why is Palin using freedom of speech to defend someone who made such a horrid gaffe? If Dr. Laura was fired for attacking “liberal elites” or being overly critical of President Obama, I would understand Palin’s stance. But this isn’t what happened — in fact, it’s not even close.

Dr. Laura’s comments demonstrate how far this country has to go with regards to race relations. In his piece “Passive Aggressive Racism,” digby aptly writes: “It turns out that 200 years of racism in this country didn’t just disappear in one generation after all — it adapted.” While there is room to argue that Dr. Laura may not have displayed, to borrow again from digby’s piece, “overt bigotry,” it’s difficult to mount any worthwhile defense of Dr. Laura’s words or attitude. As a white person, I will never know how it feels to be referred to by demeaning racist monikers or to have them thrown around by someone of another race as carelessly as Dr. Laura did, nor would I ever pretend to. Dr. Laura’s claim that her caller is being “hypersensitive” about such a disgusting word is shocking, to say the least, a sentiment that doesn’t even come close to describing the heart of Dr. Laura’s closing argument: “If you’re that hypersensitive about color and don’t have a sense of humor, don’t marry out of your race.”

Why Palin thinks Dr. Laura should “reload” is beyond me, but it may well be her closing catchphrase. She has already proven to a number of black Republicans that she is “no longer fit to lead,” prompting another to say that Palin “doesn’t speak for us.” While I have no desire to see the bumbling Michael Steele recover some of his wasted political currency in the aftermath of Palin’s tweets, there does need to be a reaction not only from black Republicans, but the entire party.

Unsurprisingly, Al Sharpton has fired back. I may not be the biggest fan of the Reverend, but there is little to argue with in his words: “I think it’s interesting and revealing that at a moment when Dr. Laura Schlessinger has resigned after using the n-word, Sarah Palin would take it upon herself to tell her to ‘reload.’ Reload what? The n-word? Reload talking about blacks only voted for President Obama because he was black? Reload inferences against interracial marriage? What is Palin telling her to reload?”

I’m curious myself, Al. Drop us a line if you ever find out, okay?

Disappointed by the lack of crackling energy and urgency, I let Hidden Lands sit for a while. Having now found a way into the album’s dense musical landscapes, which admittedly can take a few attempts, I am surprised at myself for not immediately recognizing Hidden Lands for what it is, no matter that I went into the experience with very different expectations.

“In the Deep Time” is a very smart choice for an opening track — at almost seven minutes, this cinematic composition, something I could easily picture in a Sofia Coppola film, either lulls you in and prepares you for the rest of Hidden Lands or thoroughly demonstrates that you aren’t presently in the mood for an album like this (as was my first experience with the song). By the time “In the Deep Time” comes to a close, the Pet Sounds-inspired “Sunbeam Show” sparks to life, being granted a sense of immediacy in the wake of its predecessor. Having already become accustomed to the strata of breathy instrumentation and vocals with the opener, I found listening to the rest of the album a distinct pleasure, even when the tracks sometimes didn’t seem to lead much of anywhere.

Presently working as the strange soundtrack to Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice, Hidden Lands continues to impress me. This isn’t to suggest that Candy Claws’ album only works as background music to other tasks. I have spent a few afternoons now on the porch, smoking cigarettes and staring off, my thoughts and mood benefiting from Hidden Lands‘ optimistically ethereal nature. In that way, it is a record that will most likely be enjoyed alone (and, to be honest, it sounds better on headphones than on a stereo), but there’s quite a bit to be said for an album that works on such an intimate level. It’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you can find a way into Hidden Lands, it’s an interesting and often rewarding journey.

Candy Claws’ website
Candy Claws on MySpace
“Hidden Lands” on iTunes
“Hidden Lands” on Amazon.com

It wasn’t until I developed an appreciation for crime writers like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross Macdonald (whose Black Money I first read in a class primarily focused on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work) that I went back to films like The Big Sleep or The Asphalt Jungle and truly recognized them for the accomplishments they are. It didn’t take much more than that to send me down the dark alleys and into the smoke-filled bars of just about any film noir I could get my hands on, usually from a friend’s collection on their recommendation.

That said, it wasn’t until last night that I finally watched Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil. It didn’t surprise me to read soon after my viewing that Welles had requested the worst of a pile of scripts from producer Albert Zugsmith’s desk in order to prove that he could create something worthwhile from even the most paltry of offerings. Even with Welles’ strong performances both in front of and behind the camera, there remains a cartoonish feel to some of the characters and scenes, an issue that the film itself references early on when Janet Leigh tells a central antagonists that he acts like someone who has watched too many gangster films. But even the acknowledgement of scenery chewing doesn’t remedy the fact that a number of the menacing figures that should be lurking in the shadows are too often in the light, often as markedly two-dimensional henchmen with stilted dialogue. There is even a scene where Charlton Heston’s character is being tailed by a young man who runs, jumps, and ducks behind pillars and walls like some pantomime villain.

Even the film’s hero, Miguel Vargas (yes, this is the film playfully mentioned in Ed Wood where Charlton Heston is playing a Mexican), is lacking in any real depth. Despite the film’s running time — the 1998 cut runs almost two hours — we learn little about Vargas other than he is a honest cop who has recently arrested a notorious criminal in Mexico City. Once he gets wrapped up in Touch of Evil‘s central narrative — wonderfully done in a three-and-a-half-minute long take of ‘Mike’ and Susie Vargas walking through a border town, during which we learn of Vargas’ hero cop reputation, and coming to a dramatic close with a car exploding as it crosses through a checkpoint onto American soil — Vargas is little more than a foil to Welles’ shadowy Hank Quinlan.

Touch of Evil is Quinlan’s film and Welles’ performance alone is enough to make the film worth sitting through. While it’s not of the same caliber as his depiction of Harry Lime in The Third Man (and really here I am talking about the famous cuckoo clock speech), Welles’ turn as Quinlan is quite something. Add this performance to a story that periodically meanders, but is compelling enough, and a visually striking rendering of the Mexican-American border, and you have an interesting take on film noir towards the end of the genre’s era.

If you want to see what far more qualified people have said about Touch of Evil:

• Charles Taylor’s 1998 review for Salon.com claims that Touch of Evil “may just be the sleaziest good movie ever made.”
• Reel Classics hosts a New York Times article by Walter Murch who oversaw the 1998 version of Touch of Evil which drew heavily from Welles’ 58-page memo written after he saw a version of the film that Universal had significantly altered with new footage and reshot scenes.
• David Edelstein’s review for Slate (tucked under his review of Rounders) recalls that when Edelstein first saw the film he “thought it was one of the worst pictures ever — garish, oppressive, and appallingly overacted. Grown up, I’d go with those same adjectives, except now I think it’s one of the best.”
• And the master reviewer himself, Roger Ebert, claims “The film has always been a favorite of those who enjoy visual and dramatic flamboyance,” and also draws parallels between Welles and the character he depicts, Hank Quinlan: “Much of Welles’ work was autobiographical, and the characters he chose to play (Kane, Macbeth, Othello) were giants destroyed by hubris. Now consider Quinlan, who nurses old hurts and tries to orchestrate this scenario like a director, assigning dialogue and roles. There is a sense in which Quinlan wants final cut in the plot of this movie, and doesn’t get it. He’s running down after years of indulgence and self-abuse, and his ego leads him into trouble.”

The Redskins have been my grandfather’s team for decades and I have fond memories of watching their games with him as a young boy — this being the case, I’m not terribly keen on them losing, even if that reaction is weighted more in familial affection and nostalgia than it is on true support. And seeing as the team I grew up supporting with my father, the San Francisco 49ers, haven’t yet found a way back to those glorious days when Joe Montana and Steve Young were at the helm, it’s not hard to lend my already battered football heart to Washington on game day to receive a few more kicks.

So, whether I really want to or not (and, honestly, as a sports fan it’s been difficult to avoid), I have been following the developments at Washington’s training camp. I remember a sense of muted optimism earlier in the summer when Washington’s fans could look forward to a new head coach, the performance of a veteran quarterback Washington has often suffered at the hands of while he was dressed in Philadelphia’s colors, new starters, and some smart draft picks. The fact that all of these positive stories have been overshadowed of late is disappointing, especially when the Onion can lampoon the team and still have the story come across sounding like straight news.

After a pathetic, near-comic week, Albert Haynesworth finally passed his conditioning test. While it’s nice to see Haynesworth ready to join the squad for practice, he only did so on the 10th day of the training camp and is still over a month behind learning Shanahan’s new system. As a professional athlete who is having a decent amount of Dan Snyder’s money thrown at him, this is unacceptable. And sadly, conditioning, preparation, system changes, and cash aside, it looks as though Haynesworth’s knee issues may sideline him for the upcoming preseason bout against Buffalo. For a team that has long suffered from injury problems, Haynesworth’s knee has to be a serious concern for the upcoming season. Washington knows as well as any team that anything that can go wrong often does.

Haynesworth’s recent behavior — and the press coverage surrounding it — has most likely deflated a lot of Washington’s fans’ hopes for a sudden and forceful comeback this season. This could be a good thing as the weight of unreasonable expectations can cripple a team in the process of rebuilding. If the team walks out onto FedEx Field knowing they have a lot to prove, with a chip on their shoulder regarding the negativity surrounding their training camp, they may perform at a much higher level than if they come out feeling like a team that finally has some good things going for them: a proven quarterback in Donovan McNabb, a tested coach in Mike Shanahan, and three new starters bolstering the offensive line, including first-round draft pick Trent Williams.

Ironically, I am grateful to Haynesworth — were it not for his utter lack of preparation and fitness, I wouldn’t have found a reason to care about American football until September at the earliest. We’ll see if this interest in sustained in the wake of Jermaine Jones’ debut performance (fingers crossed) in the USA-Brazil match tomorrow (ESPN, 8:00 pm) and the Premier League’s first fixtures this weekend.

Like Obama, LBJ started his first elected term at a sprint. As The Week‘s Robert Shrum noted at the end of last month, “Lyndon Johnson achieved a formidable legislative record as president, but was undone by two key failures. Obama faces the same two challenges — fortunately, he still has time to correct course.” Shrum’s article does a fine job summing up Obama’s current standing with the American people, as does Mark McKinnon’s companion piece published by The Daily Beast last Friday.

Essentially, Shrum voices the opinion that despite Obama’s impressive legislative record, the president’s relationship with the American people has started to wane. This was also an issue for LBJ. Shrum writes, “Johnson’s call to ‘the Great Society,’ fashioned by Kennedy speechwriter Richard Goodwin, was brilliant. But over time it was reduced to an amorphous tagline, as the central arguments Johnson set out in that speech dropped from his discourse and from the national consciousness.” In Obama’s case, the charismatic speaker who delivered the “A More Perfect Union” speech, among others, has fallen from view. If a powerful legislative record is not enough — and the imagery of “wall of a thousand laws” at the Johnson Library is a powerful testament to this — Obama may face an unexpectedly uphill battle come 2012, especially if the Republicans can find a candidate that resonates with the American public in a way Obama has not in recent days.

Shrum’s second challenge is one that has been lingering for years — the two wars that Obama inherited the day he took office, conflicts where victory has still not been strongly defined and exit strategies continue to elude our political and military leaders. Shrum aptly notes that with Vietnam, LBJ risked becoming “the first American president to lose a war.” For Obama, Afghanistan is starting to look an awful lot like that doomed conflict. The president has called for a review of the war effort in December, but what he will do if Afghanistan continues to look like a war that cannot be won, not in the conventional definition of the word, is unclear.

I agree with Shrum’s conclusion: “Barack Obama must do what Johnson could not: He must reach and win the hearts and minds of the American people; and he must decide soon, with political courage, what he will do about the nation’s longest war (ironically, what Vietnam also was in its time).”

This is a country that elected a president that people wanted to have a beer with. Many felt they could connect with the younger President Bush, enough so that W. not only defeated the Maverick and the future Nobel Prize Winner in 2000, but later Senator Kerry in 2004. To be honest, that’s not a bad record. And it should be a warning to Obama: If you can’t find a way to connect with the American people, someone else will.

With the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Obama must find a way to get the American people on board with whatever steps he plans to take after Decemeber. The idea of convincing the nation that an indefinitely continued military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan would be the best course of action is absurd, and this may play well for Obama in the short term if he decides that a dramatic cut in the number of troops in these countries is the best course of action. It will be the fallout in the wake of departing American troops that will haunt the president in 2012. If things go terribly wrong after a military withdrawal, fulfilling his promise to get the troops home may not be enough, and those dark moments will be swiftly seized upon by the Republicans and used not only as justification for their behavior during the Obama administration, but as fuel for their political future.

• Swedish pop artist Robyn has teamed up with Snoop Dogg on “U Should Know Better,” which can be streamed in its entirety here.
• Stereogum and The Tripwire have both thrown their two cents in about the Basement Jaxx remix of Vampire Weekend’s “White Sky,” which can be streamed from either site (Stereogum, The Tripwire).
• It’s a Trap! posted Cut City’s track “The Sound and the Sore” as a free mp3 download with commentary from yours truly.
• It’s a Trap! also recently published my review for Far From Tellus’ self-titled record.

These revelations come after the British Government released thousands of previously secret UFO documents earlier today. The files also revealed that UFO sightings peaked in 1996, during the X-Files‘ height of popularity in the UK.

Another interesting account revealed by these so-called “British X-Files” is of a Leeds-based gambler who, according to the BBC, “held a 100-1 bet on alien life being discovered before the end of the 20th Century, and who approached the government for evidence to support his claim after the bookmakers refused to pay out.” Unsurprisingly, the British Government took pleasure in being of no assistance to this man, telling the gambler that the MoD “was open-minded about extra-terrestrial life but had no evidence of its existence.”

I wonder if the gambler has a legitimate legal grievance now that this same government has released reports of aliens threatening Britain during WWII.

• Amazon.com is offering a digital copy of Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs for $3.99 today only.
• It’s a Trap! has put up a free mp3 download from Night Minutes, the new creative vehicle of soon-to-be former Cut City man Max Hansson. As I was lamenting the impending departure of Cut City from the music scene a week ago, it’s nice to see that some of that creative energy will still exist, just transfered down new avenues.
• And, as my limited readership should be used to, a little self-promotion: It’s a Trap! also posted my review of Anna von Hausswolff’s Singing from the Grave.

It’s a Trap! reported last month that Deleted Art put up a free download of “The Sound and the Sore” on their site, so if you’re looking for a preview of what’s to come, that’s probably not a bad place to start. If you haven’t heard anything by Cut City before, I recommend tracking down the songs “Just Pornography (for M.E.)” (one of my favorite songs in general) off Exit Decades, “Replacement” from the split Cut City did with Cat Party, and “Departure in Particular” from Narcissus Can Wait. Unfortunately, the band’s MySpace page only has “The Sound and the Sore” on it at the moment, but it looks as though you can preview tracks on Deleted Art’s page for Cut City and their releases.

It’s a bittersweet feeling being both excited for Cut City’s upcoming record and knowing it’s probably their last, but seeing how much their previous releases affected me, even their less assured, yet still intriguing debut Exit Decades, I’m confident that Cut City’s departure from the world of music will not coincide with their departure from my esteem.