Check out Tube Fruit All Smiles And Chocolate, a 1993 Modest Mouse cassette-only release that predates practically all of their recorded material.

Peter Jackson looks set to direct the two movie adaptations of The Hobbit, which goes some way towards lessening the sense of disappointment felt when Guillermo Del Toro pulled out.

Jason Segel talks about the upcoming Muppets reboot, whilst expressing dissatisfaction at being contractually obligated to star in How I Met Your Mother for another three seasons.

Listen to the new Antartica Takes It! album Constellations in its entirety.

Chromeo's eighties revivalist tendencies are fully engaged on new single "Don't Turn The Lights On."

Hear Swedish techno artist The Field's remix of the Bear In Heaven track "Ultimate Satisfaction."

Even taken out of context, this picture strikes me as fabulous. It reminds me of the faux-Lichtenstein images depicting apathetic modern day attitudes that ran through Generation X (complete with dialogue such as "Hey, Dad - you can either have a house or a life...I'm having a life"). Here, one man has accepted his lot in life without troubling himself too much about what he might be missing. To him, first class is unreachable, and he has long since learnt to live with that.

It's actually taken from the 23rd June Spider-Man strip that is widely syndicated in American newspapers, despite the fact that it is absolutely woeful. It's still penned by Stan Lee, and is the subject of a great deal of internet mockery (for examples, click here and here). The main criticism tends to be that Peter Parker spends far too much of his time sat around watching TV, or feeling inadequate compared to the earning power of his semi-famous wife rather than, say, fighting supervillains, or doing anything that could be construed as heroic. Here, he's shirking any sense of duty - of responsibility, even - in favour of kicking back and relaxing, his body language screaming "what, me worry?" in a situation that may very well require action. But Peter Parker remains either oblivious, or completely unconcerned. Way to keep that Gen-Xer spirit alive, Parker!

Just listened to Subiza, the latest Delorean album, for the first time, and it's pretty enjoyable, if you're willing to overlook how much it sounds like Panda Bear's Person Pitch. The similarities really are striking, especially when you consider that Delorean's self-titled debut record was essentially run of the mill indie pop, and what followed from them was much more dance-orientated material. Either they possess the chameleonic traits necessary to constantly evolve their sound from album to album, or their earlier releases made them faintly embarrassed, and they realised that a drastic reinvention was required. It's a successful change, whichever way you look at it, and whilst it certainly doesn't reach the heights of Person Pitch, it does belong alongside illustrious company.

I'm doing my own little thing

Given the choice, would you prefer to hear Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy perform Yankee Hotel Foxtrot track "Ashes Of American Flags," or a mostly spoken word cover of Beyonce's "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)"? Well, back in March Tweedy was given that very choice and, surprisingly enough, he decided to go with the latter. It's now made its way onto the web, so you can all enjoy his frankly hilarious reading of Beyonce's smash hit for yourselves!

Dirty Projectors and Bjork have collaborated on Mount Wittenberg Orca, and it's due next week.

The National bassist Scott Devendorf talks about High Violet.

Also on the interview front: executive producer and head writer David X. Cohen speaks about the return of Futurama.

A new No Age album, Everything In Between, is due September 27th, a date worth marking in your calendars.

And there are two new Daytrotter Sessions that are worth your time, by Pearly Gate Music and Maps & Atlases respectively.

"I feel like we're at the end of Our Town, where the people of Grover's Corner are talking to one another from inside their graves."

I think the universe is telling me I should sit down and read Thornton Wilder's Our Town. The above quote is from Douglas Coupland's All Families Are Psychotic (I'm still working my way through it, and enjoying it more than Generation X and Shampoo Planet, even though it's not without its flaws), but Kurt Vonnegut also references Wilder's play on several occasions during Timequake, which I just finished rereading the other day.

It's strange how these things work, but now that my course is finished (right down to receiving my results today - just the graduation ceremony to go now) I'm finding it much easier to be enthusiastic about literature. Which is useful, considering that the subheading of this blog is 'Words about cinema and literature and music,' and I haven't really been living up to that tagline in a while.

Five books I own which I really need to get around to reading:

1. Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

2. Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections

3. Glen David Gold, Sunnyside 

4. Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame

5. Daphne du Maurier, I'll Never Be Young Again

"So, this is what you want out of your life?"

After the first photos of the film emerged yesterday, the teaser trailer for the film adaptation of The Green Hornet premiered on Jimmy Fallon Is Alive last night. Unsurprisingly, it has already made its way onto YouTube, and even though it doesn't offer much to go on, I still found it to be interesting enough to merit posting. As a self-confessed comicbook geek, I know very little about The Green Hornet as a character. My interest is primarily centred around Michel Gondry, who in my eyes can do little wrong. Critics were divided on The Science Of Sleep and Be Kind Rewind, but I felt there was a lot to enjoy about them. Gondry's aesthetic should lend itself well to a left field superhero movie, and I'm cautiously optimistic that this will kick off 2011 cinema in the best possible way.

Over at City Lifers, my review of the debut Alba Lua EP, "Ballad Of Joseph Merrick," was posted yesterday, and I'd appreciate it if you follow the link and go read it. I'm really enjoying spreading my wings and contributing to a proper website, so long may they continue to publish my stuff! Here's the closing track from the EP, "Valley Of Abra," so you can get an idea of what they sound like. For a first release, it's pretty damn impressive, and I'm certainly looking forward to hearing more from them in the future.

Alba Lua: Valley of Abra by SUPMAG

Hear the new Wolf Parade album Expo 86 in full.

A brief documentary of the making of the new Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin album, Let It Sway.

The video for the new Crystal Castles single "Celestica."

I'm currently on a Douglas Coupland rereading kick, and for the first time since I picked up one of his novels almost ten years ago, I'm having serious misgivings about his writing. Aged sixteen, Generation X seemed indisposable, an inspirational text that was completely in sync with what I wanted from my life (i.e. lazy days spent amongst a small handful of friends, telling stories that were celebrations of life, occasionally shuffling off to work some menial but inoffensive job, awaiting the grand discovery about myself that would make my existence worthwhile). Of course, sixteen is an incredibly young age to be thinking such thoughts, and I guess the passage of time has awoken me to how unfeasible the way of living represented within the novel actually is. Some passages were still powerful, but ultimately it lacked the profundity I remembered, and left me feeling disappointed.

And in fairness, I always had issues with Shampoo Planet. I found the protagonist, Tyler, to be an unlikable character, so much so that when his inevitable downfall occurs, I just can't muster up any sympathy for his plight. He deserves what he gets, and whether or not he's truly learnt anything from his travails is left unclear, as the novel ends before we find out one way or another. On top of this, despite his selfishness and stupidity, he still ends up with the kind of job he'd been dreaming about for years, meaning the denouement falls flat. Without the certainty that he has taken on board his failings, how can I possibly care about him, or relate to him in any way? It's a dispiriting lesson to take away, that life can be so kind to someone so undeserving of it.

Maybe All Families Are Psychotic will prove to be a more enjoyable experience. It's certainly further proof that Coupland loves his dysfunctional family units (a feature of both of the novels mentioned above). About a third of the way into it, my feelings are decidedly mixed...