Blogcritics Author: Kory Lanphear

Music Review: Band of Horses - Cease to Begin

Kory Lanphear — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 22:59:21 EDT

Band of Horses' anticipated second album doesn't Cease to impress.
As great of a history as Sub Pop has 2007 is surely a banner year for it.They own the unique distinction of having three of the current most iconic indie rock bands on their roster: The Shins, Iron and Wine, and Band of Horses, each of which has released an (excellent) album in mid-late 2007.Sub Pop also has a knack - for better or for worse -for...

A Fan's Analysis of the Denver Broncos: Weeks 1-3

Kory Lanphear — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 22:15:01 EDT

Analysis, re-caps and a totally biased opinion about the Denver Broncos
Since this is my inaugural submission and there's already three games played, permit me to recap and editorialize on the Broncos season thus far. The first two games are already a distant memory and were, thankfully, wins. I will focus primarily on trends that have proven prevalent, reflected mostly in the game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.I...

Comedy CD Review: Steven Wright - I Still Have a Pony

Kory Lanphear — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 07:23:08 EDT

Steven Wright avoids the sophomore slump by waiting more than twenty years to release his second album.
With his laconic style and deliberate delivery, master of the deadpan non-sequitur Steven Wright is as about as under the radar as you can get in the stand-up comedy world. That isn’t to say he isn’t popular, influential, or well-respected, but that his style doesn’t reek of the sort of artificial flair or manufactured...

Music Review: Rogue Wave - Asleep at Heaven's Gate

Kory Lanphear — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 13:06:14 EDT

Rogue Wave's Heaven-ly third offering.
Oakland's Rogue Wave appeared on the scene in 2004 with Out of the Shadows, an album of infectiously sweet pop musings and pastoral acoustic folksiness. They followed up with the like-minded Descended Like Vultures in 2005. After these two first strong showings on Sub Pop, they return with Asleep at Heaven's Gate on Brushfire Records,...

DVD Review: The Byrds Under Review

Kory Lanphear — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 11:13:03 EDT

A marginal documentary that disappoints.
Having the somewhat dubious distinction of simultaneously being possibly the most interesting and arguably the least-heard American band of the 1960s, The Byrds’ influence both as a band and a cultural vehicle is usually overstated, although it shouldn’t be. Often compared to the Beatles for their penchant for musical exploration and...

Book Review: Everything Is Miscellaneous by David Weinberger

Kory Lanphear — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 16:18:26 EDT

David Weinberger explores the advantages of digital entropy.
Oh, what a blessing to be living in the so-called Information Age. Or is it a curse? I guess it depends on how much celebrity gossip you can stomach. Nonetheless, there are few who would argue that the proliferation of computers and the Internet hasn’t at the very least made human existence moderately more convenient, even if it is in the...

Madden NFL 08 and All Pro Football 2K8: A Comparison

Kory Lanphear — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:30:09 EDT

An in-depth head-to-head.
Note: This comparison pertains to the Xbox 360 versions only. All games played at the All Pro difficulty level. I'm going to let you know right off the bat: I'm going to lament Electronic Art's exclusivity deal with the NFL. I know this is old news, but it's still irritating nonetheless. The whole thing is antithetical to the competitive aspect...

Why I Love Fantasy Football

Kory Lanphear — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 23:33:00 EDT

A former skeptic explores his fascination with a phenomenon.
As summer twilights and autumn dawns upon us, one thing is on many football fans' minds: their fantasy league. People stress and fret over their fantasy draft, consider and re-consider who to drop, trade and acquire. Fantasy footballers obsessively edit and re-edit their roster for week one and all weeks hence, trying to come up with that perfect...

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Music Review: Portugal. The Man - Church Mouth

Kory Lanphear — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 08:45:44 EDT

“This band is from Alaska.” How often do you hear yourself uttering these words? You’d be saying them a lot more if you listened to Wassila Alaska’s own Portugal. The Man.Situated just inland from Anchorage, Wasilla, the “Home of the Iditarod,” does not inspire visions reminiscent of rock and roll extremes – or any extreme other than cold for that matter. But given time, they might just be able to proudly tack “Home of Portugal. The Man” up onto their website right next to “Alaska’s First Tree City, USA.”Portugal. The Man is one of those bands is that either the subject of highly exaggerated praise or unmitigated scorn by rock critics. Staking claims as to the potency of their “esoteric, shape-shifting” rock certainly doesn’t help. And while the band may be unfounded in many of their claims to mind-boggling complexity, they admittedly do offer a unique vision in their music that is definitely worth exploring for fans of Indie rock.Carefully carving around any classically defined rock ‘genre,’ it’s probably best to file Church Mouth under ‘rock, prog’. If variety is the spice of life then Church Mouth is a spicy meatball - bluesy hard rock, driving arena rock, and modern day alternative Indie sounds abound to create a musical diversity steeped in contemporary and classic progressive rock traditions in short form, replete with easily marked influences that can be named in nearly every track. The leadoff title track is White Stripes with a Mars Volta time signature. For some reason the chorus of “Telling Tellers Tell Me” sounds like Blood Sugar Sex Magik-era Red Hot Chili Peppers and “Shade” takes a page from the TV on the Radio playbook. “Bellies Are Full” and “Children” take a turn for the Zeppelin, minus the pseudo-mystical Lord of the Rings lyrics.Church Mouth’s influences may be easily identified, numerous and diverse as they are, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Portugal. The Man has much to offer in the way of originality, too. The schizophrenic “Sugar Cinnamon” goes from pseudo-drum and bass verses to electro-boogie stomp choruses and back again. But “My Mind” is the radio-ready standout track. A perfect musical diorama of disaffected, yet privileged youth, I can see this song used as the track over the opening title sequence of a new dramedy on the CW – the camera tracking sweeping beach vistas as front man John Baldwin Gourley wails the plight of the principal cast – “my mind is all/gone.” My intention is not to undercut the seriousness or effectiveness of the song, but it does reek a little melodramatic. However, “My Mind” has universal appeal with a great chorus, and there’s still plenty of weirdness buried within the track to satisfy the audiophile in you. There’s a lot going on within Church Mouth, but the listener isn’t bombarded with zithers and mandolins. None of the songs have long instrumental passages symptomatic of prog and the production has an elusive textural feel, which is so important to a band with such a frenetic sound. The result is that Church Mouth is radio-friendly, but not necessarily tailor-made for radio – something that is deceptively hard to pull off and I applaud the band for this achievement.With Church Mouth, Portugal. The Man has chosen timely influences and wisely at that. Fans familiar with bands such as White Stripes, Queens of the Stone Age and Silversun Pickups will find plenty to like about this album, if they don’t mind a little flair for prog. One can only speculate as to the album’s lasting appeal, but it’s a very ‘now’ sound and one that is worthy of attention by both the casual and the serious Indie fan.

Kory Lanphear is a reality-television producer newly moved to Denver, CO from Los Angeles, CA. He enjoys living slow.

Karl Rove Makes Best Decision of Bush's Political Career Fourteen Years Too Late

Kory Lanphear — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 23:44:16 EDT

Karl Rove - aka "Bush's Brain" aka "Turd Blossom" aka "Bush's Underhand Man" - took his Yankees cap into his hands and tearfully announced to a weeping crowd he was making the best political decision President Bush has ever made by vacating his position as the President's Brain. Unfortunately, Rove made this announcement in 2007 and not in 1993 when he first came into Bush's employ.A gasp of disbelief rose up in the crowd of fans numbering in the tens of thousands. One teenage female admirer was overheard lamenting to her friends, "You guys, I feel like the band is breaking up!" before running away in sobs. Insider reactions to Rove's decision have only recently begun to trickle in. One anonymous rival said, "Even though he ruined my political career because I deigned to run against a politician he was advising, I'm kinda gonna miss that guy. He was always good with surprises. Horribly terrifying surprises." When asked to comment on Rove's legacy, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales responded, "I do not recall."Reports that Rove's role in helping to get President Bush into potentially the worst position any president has ever been in and then abandoning him was an elaborate ruse to get back at Bush for nicknaming Rove "Turd Blossom" are thus far unsubstantiated.The fate of Bush's closest remaining political ally - Dick Cheney - is still unclear. But it is expected that the succeeding Presidential administration will move into the White House to find Cheney shackled to a desk in the Oval Office ranting about being the Emperor and will be forced to lure him out of the White House with promises of lifetime executive privilege.With Turd Blossom and Skeletor gone, it was widely speculated that Bush will be in an awful panic after being left alone to deal with The Penguin, of whom he is reportedly very afraid. Bush is also nervous because of the overwhelming workload that will be left to him after Rove's departure. Bush's sole duty up until this point had been securing an "awesome" lunch for his staff. President Bush seemed to view the slow systematic dismantling of his cabinet like a mother whose children had spent all day dragging out their many toys, only to abandon the toys in boredom. His reaction to Rove's resignation: "Aw, crap, now who's gonna help me clean up this mess?!"It is widely speculated that Karl Rove will retire to numerous humanitarian awards and possibly a Nobel Prize nomination (fingers crossed). Meanwhile Rove, ever the strategist, was already busy poring over family polls regarding whether to take a vacation in Turks and Caicos or Ibiza. "Ibiza is lagging slightly behind in the numbers, but I believe it could pull at least 6.25 per cent closer if it were implied - by proxy, of course - that Turks and Caicos sucks," said Rove. He did not indicate whether The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth would be involved. He has also expressed an interest in helping his son run for student office at university. The campaigns haven't started yet, but absentee ballots from Florida have begun flooding in and any potential rivals have been asked to pre-concede defeat. Rove's future seems wide open and brimming with potential. Of the many projects he may choose to undertake, one thing is certain: he will eventually reap what he has sown.

Kory Lanphear is a reality-television producer newly moved to Denver, CO from Los Angeles, CA. He enjoys living slow.