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.