TV/TV Gets Styl'd

Last night I decided to check out Styl'd, the new MTV reality show that follows some up and coming style assistants as they try to move up in the ultra-competitive world of high-end celebrity stylists. While I missed the first two episodes, last night's quickly drew me in, and I think I may have developed (yet another) new addiction. On top of the show being quite riveting (yes, I know it's probably 90% scripted just like every other reality show - spare me the lecture), it also featured some great music from one of my favorite up-and-coming bands, TV/TV.

TV/TV is a new wave/synth pop/garage rock band that combines some of the best elements of The Bravery and The Strokes into one, combined with a singer that sprinkles great strategic yelps into his casually cool delivery. Their songs "Turn Me On" and "Fire Island" both played during last night's episode, and both are great examples of their party-starting sounds. You can listen to "Turn Me On" over at TV/TV's MySpace page, and watch the episode below:

Styl'D - MTV Shows

Vampire Tunes

It surely is a good time to be a vampire these days. With the massive success of the Twilight series and True Blood, not to mention Cirque Du Freak and of course my favorite, The Vampire Diaries. While Twilight may receive all the credit for kicking off the vampire craze, The Vampire Diaries actually pre-dates the Twilight series by over a decade and I'm proud to say I read The Vampire Diaries before I devoured Twilight (and let's make no mistake here, I am a huge Twilight fan, with allegiances to Team Edward).

Anyway, The Vampire Diaries has now inspired a TV show, and last week's episode featured a couple great songs by some artists that should be familiar to those of you who regularly follow this blog. The first song, "Lies" is by Pablo Sebastian, he of Malbec fame. Pablo's familiar silky smooth vocals are still here, but this song is a little more rock/pop, a little less hip hop or electronic than Malbec. The song plays as Bonnie and Elena discuss Damon in the car. Unfortunately YouTube disabled embedding for these clips, but if you click below it will open a new window for you watch in.

Pablo Sebastian on MySpace

Great Northern's "Houses" also pops up in this episode as it continues to show that it may be one of the best songs to use in TV shows or movies ever. Having already played a feature role in 90210 earlier this year and just recently in One Tree Hill, "Houses" is used more as background ambience at the Mystic Grill as Jenna and Alaric talk, and then Damon and Stefan play darts.

Great Northern on MySpace

My Super Psycho Sweet Sixteen

MTV's My Super Psycho Sweet Sixteen has been airing quite a bit lately, and I finally got around to watching it last night. Based on the annoying/hit TV series, My Super Psycho Sweet Sixteen is a surprisingly awesome slasher, with all the elements that make a slasher movie good - gore, tongue-in-cheek humor, some underlying social commentary. The premise? A rich and spoiled girl, Madison, gets her parents to arrange a huge birthday bash at a closed roller rink. The rink was the site of a bloody massacre ten years earlier, but this isn't stopping Madison from throwing her party...and of course the fun and guts ensues. Really, I have to ask - who wouldn't want to see a My Super Sweet Sixteen girl get cut up?

For what basically is a made for TV movie (it had a one week limited theater run) it really is quite high on production values, and I was also pleasantly surprised to see how much gore made it. Evidently the DVD will have a few scenes added that they just couldn't show on TV, but I still thought it was way above average for this type of audience, which is always a good thing when it comes to slashers.

Of course, it wouldn't be making an appearance on this blog if it didn't also have some great music, and that comes in the form of previous favorites the Electric Owls, who contributed the song "Put the Candle Back" to the movie. For those of you who have seen the movie, the song plays when Madison, Olivia and Chloe get ready for the big party. I hope to have a video clip of the scene ASAP, but this might just have to wait until the DVD release. For now, I would reccomend watching the film if you haven't already, and heading on over to the Electric Owls MySpace page to listen to give "Put the Candle Back" a spin.

Boomkat Soundtracks The City

After a few more ridiculously intense weeks of school, I sat down with a guilty-pleasure amount of ice cream last night and watched the latest episode of The City, "Hit It or Quit It." For those who don't know, The City is a spin-off series of The Hills, and follows ex-Hills cast member Whitney Port as she navigates herself through the fashion world in New York, working for designer Diane von Fürstenberg. While not as popular as it's big sister, I find this season of The City more interesting than what The Hills has offered lately.

You can watch the whole episode below, and while you're at it, I want to point out the song "Burn" by modestCompexity favorite Boomkat plays at about 15:30 in to the episode. Although Boomkat's Taryn Manning is a west coast girl, this song really feels like New York, and it makes the perfect background music as they do a fly-over of the Big Apple. Unfortunately MTV banned the YouTube clip I made of the scene in the US, but for all you foreign readers, you can follow this link to watch the scene.

The City - MTV Shows

Boomkat on MySpace

Great Northern Kick Off One Tree Hill

Any casual follower of this blog already knows how big of a fan of Great Northern I am, so you can imagine how excited I was to hear their song "Houses" play during the entire opening montage of last night's episode of One Tree Hill, "Your Cheatin' Heart."

The propulsive track, which appeared earlier this year in 90210, has that ever-present forward moving momentum, which makes it the perfect song to kick off an episode. Rachel Stolte's powerful, smokey vocals give an ethereal quality to this song, as the driving beats and bass line make sure you feel its presence. I think by the time 2009 is all said and done, Remind Me Where the Light Is will be my favorite record of the year, and "Houses" is definitely my favorite song off the album, so I'm happy to see it getting so much love, especially since One Tree Hill's music (which used to be absolutely phenomenal) has been going down hill lately.

For some reason, I can't embed the video, but if you click on the image below, you can watch the entire opening montage.

Great Northern on MySpace

Grayson's Anatomy

Last night's season finale of Drop Dead Diva, cheekily titled "Grayson's Anatomy," was a great way to cap off a stressful weekend full of studying for exams. Since I last blogged about Drop Dead Diva, I've gone back and checked out the entire season, and I can officially say that I'm hooked. I love the parallels/juxtapositions that are set up for Deb/Jane, and the show also has some of the best dialogue of anything going right now. Highly under-rated, and I think if this show was on ABC instead of Lifetime, it would have a HUGE following. One great positive is that the finale got excellent ratings, and the show has gained more followers each week...so finally there's a new show I love that won't get cancelled.

One great example of the Deb/Jane dynamic was shown in the season finale, as Grayson sits at a pub and talks with Stacy and we learn that Grayson has been losing sleep. The reason? He has been thinking of Jane (a fact which he accidentally reveals to Stacy, only to instantly play it off as nothing). I can't help but think that his dreaming of Jane is because subconsciously he connects with the part of her that is still Deb...and this really sets up the next season for some interesting drama.

One other great thing about the scene is (surprise!) the song playing in the background. The band is Castaneda, and the song is called "Piece of Mind," a clever little play on words from this super-hip California indie outfit. They are a band that does a great job of mixing new wave, pop, and punk sounds into their own indie rock smorgasboard, and really sound great on mix tapes alongside bands like The Killers, Tokyo Police Club, MGMT and The Strokes.

Overall, I've been very happy with some of the great song choices that they have made for Drop Dead Diva, and I hope next season continues to have more great story lines, dialogue, and songs.

Castaneda on MySpace

Whip It!

School's starting to actually heat up (i.e. it's mid-term time) and the weekend couldn't come fast enough right now. While I bury myself in the books, I do have one item of fun on the agenda for the weekend, and that is to check out Whip It. The latest Ellen Page movie features everyone's favorite snarky girl of the moment pursuing a roller derby career. It is Drew Barrymore's debut as a director, and based on the trailer, looks like a lot of fun.

Beyond the movie's great cast and the hilarious premise, the soundtrack looks amazing. Drew Barrymore has described it as her mixtape to us, and this only confirms to me that she is awesome. Some of my favorite artists, including The Raveonettes, Tilly and the Wall, and Peaches make an appearance on this indie-all star soundtrack, but I'm especially excited about the inclusion of "Unattainable" by Little Joy. This song was easily in my top 5 of 2008, and I'm really hoping that I hear it in the movie, too. For those of you who don't know, Little Joy is the side project of Fabrizio Moretti (drummer of The Strokes - fun fact, he used to date Drew Barrymore). Check back after the weekend, and I'll hopefully update this post with my recap of the film.

UPDATE: I saw the movie, and as expected, enjoyed the hell out of it. They did use "Unattainable" in the film, too which was great - after Bliss (Ellen Page) has her first roller derby performance, she goes to a party, and puts this song on. A more pleasant surprise was that I actually liked Kristen Wiig's character - she was nothing like her annoying nervous character on SNL or in Knocked Up and had great on-screen chemistry with Ellen Page.

And here's a breath-taking live performance of "Unattainable." I've watched this video hundreds of times and it still makes the hair on my arms stand straight up.

Little Joy on MySpace