*FINALLY* saw City of God, which is a fantastic film. It's the Brazilian film depicting the real-life gang wars of Rio's slums in the 1980s, with a terrific ensemble cast of young actors. It's violent (though not in a gratuitous or gory way), but the cinematography, direction, and acting or absolutely top-notch.



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Old faves Doves are releasing their third album, Some Cities stateside on March 1. I absolutely loved their debut disc Lost Souls junior year of college, and then was kind of disappointed that the follow-up, The Last Broadcast, was a lot cheerier. In fairness, the latter is also a very worthwhile disc which might very well be better in the eyes of many, but it lacked the huge, dark brilliance of Lost Souls.



Anyway, I found the entire album last week courtest of a link on Brian's Radio Blog, and while that's no longer available, you can get the excellent first single courtesy of Antinomian:

Doves / "Black and White Town"

Having listened a few times through, I would say the new album picks up where the last record left off--I'll be looking forward to picking it up in a few weeks.

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Bradley has an excellent recording of the Arcade Fire's KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic set.

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TONS of live Radiohead mp3s can be found here.

I'm digging this performance:

Radiohead / "Lucky" [KROQ Live].

Speaking of 'head, Brian also has a link to the last few full albums right here. I downloaded the Com Lag EP which I had never heard, but Hail to the Thief and Amnesiac are also there.

My favorite song from the last album?

Radiohead / "Where I End and You Begin"

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I kept meaning to link this but always forgot...it's a collection of information about Beck's connections with Scientology (did I already link this?). It should be noted the guy whose website this is from is a former Scientologist who has basically dedicated himself to exposing it as a fraud. Some very interesting stuff to be found on his site.

To summarize:
1) Beck's parents have been active scientologists for a long time.
2) Beck's life story as it's been told is pretty dubious.
3) Beck's wife is a scientologist; she happens to be the twin sister of Giovanni Ribisi, who is also one.
4) Look out for multiple references to a friend of Beck's mother who has perhaps the best name in the history of mankind (Let's just say it rhymes with "Maginal Mavis"...Lindsay, you won't like it).

I've always found the "religion" pretty interesting because of its secrecy and links to so many high-profile people. My favorite thing about scientology is that they "believe" that humans are possessed by the spirits of dead aliens who were brought to earth 75 million years ago, thrown into volcanos, and killed by hydrogen bombs. Can't make this stuff up, folks...