Denzel Washington comes to Duke

31 Dec 2009, Posted by Andrew Hibbard in Durham, Film, Playground, 0 Comments

From (W)NBA stars (often sometimes Duke alumni) to NFL QBs to Longhorns fans who wore Duke T-shirts opposite Kate Hudson, Cameron Indoor Stadium could be considered North Carolina’s Staples Center (UNC gets some stars too. There’s that Michael Jordan guy). Add Denzel Washington to that list. Washington made an appearance in Cameron Indoor Stadium on the last night of the decade to cheer on his son Malcolm Washington, a five-foot-nine freshman guard for the University of Pennsylvania Quakers. University Editor Lindsey Rupp and I were Tweeting up a storm about the Oscar winner at the game. At one point, the Crazies we’re shouting “Man on fire” to the younger Washington, but Denzel seemed to keep spirits high, giving a tip of his UPenn hat to the crowd when they cheered for him. All of this in spite of Duke’s one-side trounce of the Quakers (114-55). As the Crazies say, “More than double.”

In the locker room, when pressed about the Hollywood star, junior Nolan Smith said, “I’m going to get dressed real quick and see if I can catch him.”

(NB: Malcolm is a freshman, which means he was probably born in 1991, which is right around the time his father would have signed on for his Oscar-nominated turn as the title character in 1992’s Malcolm X. Inspired?)

The Beatles Remastered Stereo Box Set

20 Dec 2009, Posted by Taylor Doherty in Music, Playground, 0 Comments

It’s the perfect last-minute holiday gift for the right person: the music-obsessed, the classic rock enthusiast or the one who almost has it all.

I mean, I don’t think I’m the first one to say this, but The Beatles were a pretty good band. And the recent release of the Beatles’ music—a boxed-set with all 13 Studio remasters plus Past Masters—is a must-have for big fans of the group’s music. Cluck Klosterman’s sarcastic introduction to his piece on the new set for The A.V. Club captures my sentiments pretty well: Yes, I know you’ve already heard The Beatles’ music, but the new disks are worth a listen (and perhaps a purchase):

Like most people, I was initially confused by EMI’s decision to release remastered versions of all 13 albums by the Liverpool pop group Beatles, a 1960s band so obscure that their music is not even available on iTunes. The entire proposition seems like a boondoggle. I mean, who is interested in old music? And who would want to listen to anything so inconveniently delivered on massive four-inch metal discs with sharp, dangerous edges? The answer: no one. When the box arrived in the mail, I briefly considered smashing the entire unopened collection with a ball-peen hammer and throwing it into the mouth of a lion. But then, against my better judgment, I arbitrarily decided to give this hippie shit an informal listen. And I gotta admit—I’m impressed. This band was mad prolific.

On September 9, Apple Corps Ltd. and EMI Music released the digitally remastered Beatles catalogue to coincide with the release of “The Beatles: Rock Band” video game. It took a team of specialists four years to complete the process of improving the audio quality of the original recordings. And as with most projects with The Beatles’ music, great care was taken not to change too much about the original recordings.

“From the onset, considerable thought was given to what audio restorative processes were going to be allowed,” reads the media release for the boxed set. “It was agreed that electrical clicks, microphone vocal pops, excessive sibilance and bad edits should be improved where possible, so long as it didn’t impact on the original integrity of the songs.”

The edits are perhaps minor and would only be noticed by the most conscientious of listeners—less than five minutes of the 525 minutes of Beatles music was subjected to de-noising technology, for example. However, the set as a whole sounds like it was recorded with the highest care. To my ears, it sounds “very good”.

For the first time, fans of the Beatles can buy a set of all of the group’s albums in stereo. Each CD—save the “Past Masters” disk—comes loaded with a QuickTime mini-doc about the album in addition to the original artwork. The full stereo set includes:

• Please Please Me
• With The Beatles
• A Hard Day’s Night
• Beatles For Sale
• Help!
• Rubber Soul
• Revolver
• Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
• Magical Mystery Tour
• The Beatles
• Yellow Submarine
• Abbey Road
• Let It Be
• Past Masters

The price tag of $169.99 on Amazon.com seems steep until you realize what you’re getting: the full body of work of the most famous rock band of all time.

Best of Best of 2009 Lists

19 Dec 2009, Posted by Andrew Hibbard in End-of-Year Lists, Music, Playground, 0 Comments

If it’s snowing in December, it must mean year-end lists. In addition to recess’ own which ran a couple weeks ago, millions of others have surfaced across the interweb, but below are a few especially noteworthy ones. Check it out:

• The Independent has a locally flavored wrap-up of the end of the aughts, highlighting the top 10 albums and 40 songs (some favorites: Hammer, Red Collar, Megafaun, Bowerbirds, Midtown, Love Language and Bombadil)
• Everyone and Mac McCaughan’s mother at Merge Records has dropped a list over at their blog
• The good folks over at Trekky Records have compiled some really stellar lists in the form of “TRK Best of 2k9″ (My biased favorites: Will Hackney, Clare Connolly, Martin Anderson — Bill Callahan and Mount Eerie!)
• WXDU’s Ross Grady weighed in
• A bunch of people dropped guests lists on Pitchfork, among them lots of Merge Artists (Jeremy Gara, Dan Bejar, etc.) and rising star Chaz Bundick who we caught up with earlier this year
• Karen Mann has her five favorite local releases on her blog
• Megafaun recount some of their favorite things of the year (and release a cover of “I Saw Three Ships”) on Hometapes’ blog as part of the label’s 8 Days of Hometapes
• All Songs Considered (and NPR music) always puts together smart pieces and their year-end list is good, but this map is possibly better

Finally, I just want to throw in Freddy Ruppert’s year-end list because he has some great picks on there, but also because the Former Ghosts’ debut album was really spectacular.

Here’s to 2010.

Top 10 Tracks of 2009: Six

07 Dec 2009, Posted by Charlie McSpadden in End-of-Year Lists, Music, Playground, 3 Comments

10. Chiddy Bang. “Kids”
Xaphoon Jones, one half of Drexel duo Chiddy Bang, just knows how to sample fellow former collegiate band MGMT (his Bob Marley mashup I Wanna Know Now is unreal). “Kids” is a justifiable jam, featuring absurd lines that reference Anchorman and Twitter and a seriously satisfying call out of Asher Roth. The new middle-finger-to-the-failed-economy-future anthem for last and this year’s seniors is clearly: “Cause life is a party/and I’m never growing up.”

09. The Dodos. “Fables”
Listen to this song while driving through a fall landscape and you will understand its magic. Bright and crisp chords kick off the song and it spirals off into a pleasing harmony.

08. Passion Pit. “Little Secrets”
Passion Pit continues to impress after releasing quite possibly the most addicting song of the 2000s, “Sleepyhead”, back in 2008. Their first album Manners continued the trend and this track is uptempto, mxing their trademark high-pitched lyrics with some killer beats. Their recently released, mindblowingly out of this world music video doesn’t hurt either.
(more…)

Duke Student Film Showcase Today from 5-11PM

04 Dec 2009, Posted by Andrew Hibbard in Film, Playground, 0 Comments

(full disclosure: film editor Charlie McSpadden contributed to one of the films)

The Fall offerings from Duke’s budding filmmakers will screen today from 5-11 p.m. in White Auditorium on East Campus. Classes participating are instructor Fred Burns’ Film Animation Production and 16 mm Production, instructor Gary Hawkins’ Introduction to Production and The Documentary Experience and AMI associate director Josh Gibson’s Experimental Filmmaking. Two Fall individual projects under the guidance of Gibson, the trailer for the upcoming Clearing Waters and the individual project by Meenal Misal, will also screen along with a film made at a summer course in Arezzo, Italy, taught by Gibson and production teaching fellow Shambhavi Kaul.