With worldwide record sales approaching 20 million, British band The Prodigy is one of the most successful and memorable groups to emerge from the '90s rave scene. After a five-year absence from the recorded world (apart from the release of Their Law: The Singles 1990-2005), the band's fifth... more

With worldwide record sales approaching 20 million, British band The Prodigy is one of the most successful and memorable groups to emerge from the '90s rave scene. After a five-year absence from the recorded world (apart from the release of Their Law: The Singles 1990-2005), the band's fifth album Invaders Must Die was released in early 2009 and signals a return to form as this unforgettable act continues to bridge the worlds of dance and rock. In a telephone interview from London, Prodigy founder and brainchild Liam Howlett tells SG that it all might just be better the second time around for this band, and that they're still making music expressly for the jilted generation.

Tamara Palmer: Before Invaders Must Die, it had been four or five years since you released an album, and now you're on your own record label. Can you tell me what happened in that time?

Liam Howlett: Basically, what happened is that we had come to the end of our contract with XL Recordings. We knew we had the hits album looming and none of us wanted to do it. The usual thing is that a band reaches the end of their career and does a hits album so we were kind of skeptical about it. But once we started doing it, we were really proud of it. We did that after Always Outnumbered, which was probably the low point in the band's career, relationships were a bit strained. We kind of worked through that and then we repaired our relationships and worked on the [hits album]. We put the packaging together ourselves and spent a lot of time looking at pictures and kind of reminiscing about what we'd done. Looking back, we got excited about the possibility of us writing on a new record. The contract comes to an end, which we think was a good thing, and we toured that record, which was quite successful in England. It went double platinum. And so we just went back into the studio right after that tour, it was a big arena tour, and we worked off the energy of that.

TP: This is probably an oversimplification, but it sounds like the music was the thing that healed your relationships with the other band members?

LH: Yeah. I mean, there was unfinished business with us. With this new record, we started recording without a deal and that's kind of what I wanted to do. I didn't want to be pressurized by a record label. At that stage, after we'd recorded a few tracks we started looking for deals. I think we spent about a good year looking at all the labels, every option that was out there. At one stage, XL actually wanted us back, which was a bit strange, but we didn't end up there. I had the idea of starting my own label but we needed the backing of someone else, and we found that with Cooking Vinyl, who are pretty much unknown. But they're our backer and they've done an amazing job, better than the previous record label. We really believe that the majors are not the ones holding the cards now. Now you can do things quicker and more creatively without them.

TP: You've also now got tools like YouTube bringing you so much closer to your fans in a more immediate way than ever before. You do a show and later that night, people have uploaded clips of it already.

LH: Totally, and an example of that is we had just finished two small club shows with about 1200 people last year in England and played a new track. A clip from one of those shows got a million hits by a couple of months later. That kind of shows you the power of that. That track kind of spread through the Prodigy fan base across the world pretty much via YouTube. So that's kind of cool.

TP: And also the days of making all the very expensive videos and crossing your fingers that they might land on MTV are over, especially here in America.

LH: No, and we've got no interest in that. My friend's a filmmaker so what we did is we started to get him to come away with us and film the band and we just put them on our website. It makes a real connection and we quite enjoy that, so there's quite a few little films up there.

TP: Is it fair to say that this is the Prodigy's second wind? You sound very energetic on this album.

LH: Yeah man, totally. Yeah, we are. It sounds crazy, but we really, totally are re-fired up. We love it. The band's in good shape, really tight. This band is made up of a lot of characters so it's kind of hard sometimes, it's kind of work. But yeah, we're loving it.

TP: Do you credit any of the newfound energy to working with Does It Offend You, Yeah?'s James Rushent? It's crazy but his band is part of a new generation that grew up on the Prodigy's music. That must be pretty special,?

LH: Yeah, James is a friend of mine. I met him at one of the festivals a few years ago and we were laughing because he was saying, "Oh, I love your stuff. I've been trying to rip you off for all these years, and this is what it sounds like when I rip you off." And I said, "Well, it doesn't sound anything like my music!" And I kind of became friends with him. I had a track I was working on that ended up being "Invaders Must Die," the title track, and I took it so far but couldn't really achieve the next step of it. So I phoned James up and he was very happy to help and I got him on board and he shed some light on how the track should be finished. That started a great relationship with the music; I could see myself working with him again.

TP: This is a great time for the return of the Prodigy particularly as far as live shows are concerned. Your shows are always so high energy and escapist and such a release. I think people want that sort of escapism now more than ever when they go to a concert. They want to leave their day-to-day troubles behind.

LH: I think you've hit the nail on the head with the Prodigy right there. Basically, people always ask me about what the message is. The message is within the band itself, there's no individual message within each song. We've always been writing to the hedonistic side. Bands who write big messages in the music, we always feel that this kind of weighs down the effect [of the sound]. What I've always loved about dance music is, I was [previously] into Public Enemy, which obviously carries a lot of political weight, and I was so happy to get into dance music and free myself from the shit and the kind of downness of hip-hop, the political weight of all that shit. I wanted to escape from that. And I've always remembered that feeling and just tried to capture that in our music and kind of remind people like that.

TP: It's interesting that you bring up Public Enemy because the production of The Bomb Squad was very arresting and bombastic, but it was hard to focus on when Chuck D was blowing your mind with some heavy subjects. It could be overwhelming. And I feel like your beats go after that same sort of energy and bombast, but without the social content.

LH: Yeah, definitely. When I was just a 15-year-old kid listening to Public Enemy for the first time, I had never heard anything like it. It came along and blew my mind. But I listened to it purely for the beats and the effect of the music. I wasn't tuned into the sort of black power aspect of it, I couldn't relate to that as a white kid living in the country. But the Bomb Squad were definitely the people I was looking at when I was starting.

TP: It was surprising to see Dave Grohl on the album as a guest star on "Run with the Wolves." How did that come about?

LH: Very naturally, actually. I've known Dave for quite a while. Dave was into the band when the Foo Fighters first started and we'd kept in touch. Dave's a nice guy, do you know what I mean? The last time I saw him was probably two or three years ago at the V Festival. We were chatting there and he was asking me what I was up to; we were doing our hits album tour at that time. Later, I had written one of the last tracks on the album and I got an email from him. He'd finished touring for the time being and was at home. His wife was pregnant and he was staying home to just be at home, but he wanted to get back into drumming and wondered if I would get inspired if he sent me loads of drums. And I was like, "Of course, I'm not going to turn that down!"

A week later, a hard drive arrived with four hours of drumming on it. I started listening to it and within the first five minutes there was already like two ideas I had. It's quite rare that I get inspired by just a rhythm track; maybe I used to be more like that, but these days I'm looking for a bit more. But the stuff Dave sent me, there was just so much energy coming from the drums that I just sampled a few things off of it and started working on a track. And the track came about very quickly and the whole collaboration just felt really natural. We weren't really interested in collaborating with anyone on this record, especially no vocals. We wanted it to be a band album and about the three of us. When Dave came along and we finished the track, we decided we didn't want to call extra attention to it and just let people discover it for themselves. I think this album is more about us as a band than any album we've ever made, and we're all really proud of it. We accomplished what we wanted to set out to do.

TP: Hopefully that means you have more of that good energy for the future as well?

LH: Yeah. We don't care about that, we've kind of fixed our relationships and we will obviously do more stuff, but we don't really look ahead. All we think about is what's coming up next, doing these gigs with as much conviction as we can and playing the songs and concentrating on that. Before, we were so swept up that we didn't have time to enjoy it. It was total chaos, a lot of turbulent shit going on, and it was just crazy. This time around, we're just enjoying it more.


The Prodigy are currently on the final leg of their US Invaders Must Die tour, which stops in Chicago (5/23), Anaheim (5/26), Los Angeles (5/27), San Francisco (5/28) and Seattle (5/30). Go to TheProdigy.com for more info.

Welcome to the Asshole Fuckface Roundup. We do this shit here weekly. We have to. If we didn’t, the world’s Asshole Fuckfaces would be sauntering about without a care in the world. So, here we are, pointing out all the Rafa Benitez’s and Michele Bachmann’s of the world for... more

Welcome to the Asshole Fuckface Roundup. We do this shit here weekly. We have to. If we didn’t, the world’s Asshole Fuckfaces would be sauntering about without a care in the world. So, here we are, pointing out all the Rafa Benitez’s and Michele Bachmann’s of the world for you to mock and hate. This week has been so chalk full o’ Fuckfaces it was hard to pick four. But I did. And I now present them to you.

First up, some good old GOP Southern Asshole Fuckfacery.

Going into politics is sometimes hard because you are quickly forced to realize that most people don’t enjoy your racist or anti-Semitic language. Take Arkansas state senator Kim Hendren who, besides having the same first name as one of the girls on The Facts of Life, also was bitten by the stereotypical Southern idiot bug.

Totally. What he was trying to say is that even the evil Jew has moral standards. Or, no, wait; maybe he was just trying to remember his name.

RIght. Could either have been “Jew” or “Jewish.” Not really sure, but it was totally relevant to the discussion of traditional values and foreign policy.

I understand. Sometimes I call them “negroes,” but it’s not derogatory because I often agree with Charles Barkley.

Next up, some hall of fame Asshole Fuckfaces are worse than imagined.

Donny Rumsfeld is one of the all time great Asshole Fuckfaces. His epic Iraq War failure is one of the great military blunders of all time. Thankfully, his acts of horror continue to be revealed, so that we may continue to throw up in buckets. This week GQ published an article that is, simply astounding.

Let’s start with the cover sheets Rummy used for the intelligence updates he gave to Bush. Each cover sheet included a nice photo of American soldiers or Saddam Hussein and a wonderful biblical quote. That way, Bush would continue to think he was fighting a holy war.

I’m surprise they didn’t do some Crusade re-enactments on the back lawn. Sadly, that little tidbit of horror was not the worst information revealed in the article. Rummy also helped to kill Americans with his response to Katrina.

Good call. Also, Shepard Smith is crying like a baby on Fox because of all the horror he's looking at.

Um. Maybe you haven’t noticed Mr. President, but a lot of those people are black. You know what I’m saying, right?

Rumsfeld held off on sending troops for 7 days. Anything happen over those seven days? Can anyone recall anything?

Next up, some awesome Asshole Fuckface parenting.

Sometimes, as a parent, you face a super hard choice between your beliefs and letting your young son live. Just ask Colleen Hauser of Minnesota. She believes in the natural healing methods of an American Indian religious group called the Nemenhah Band. Unfortunately, her 13-year-old son came down with Hodgkins lymphoma –- a curable form of cancer. By “curable” I mean with chemo and radiation, not this:

I don’t know how you could go wrong by treating cancer with info from the Internet. Hell, you idiots here at SuicideGirls have probably cured many different types of cancer on the message boards. Unfortunately, the law stepped in and last week, a judge ruled that Hauser was neglecting her son. She took him to one chemo treatment, and then bailed.

On the run with a boy who has cancer! She’s like Dillinger, except instead of a gun, she has a young boy – with cancer. Police have several leads and she appears to be an idiot, so by the time this is posted, I expect her to be caught.

And finally, check out this criminal Asshole Fuckface.



Bragging and justifying war crimes is sort of sickening. But even worse, the fact that Obama appears to have no problem allowing this walking piece of shit to cross the country, bragging about his war crimes for all to hear, is beyond the pale. According to Obama and his spokesman Gibbs, we need to look towards the future, not the past, regardless of how blatant and disturbing the war crime. That’s an impressive stance to take, Mr. Constitutional lawyer and Asshole Fuckface. Why not just allow police to waterboard? How about we set up a waterboarding room in every FBI office? Let’s go.

At this point, Cheney is taunting and daring Obama and/or Congress to do something. Don't hold your breath.

FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comedian. Check back each Tuesday and Friday for more from FearTheReaper

"If I'm such a commodity, how come nobody went to see The Good German," Steven Soderbergh asks at one point during our conversation. He’s half-facetious and half-serious when posing the question. At 46, Soderbergh has already earned every professional accolade a film director can,... more

"If I'm such a commodity, how come nobody went to see The Good German," Steven Soderbergh asks at one point during our conversation. He’s half-facetious and half-serious when posing the question. At 46, Soderbergh has already earned every professional accolade a film director can, including the Palme D'Or for his debut, Sex, Lies and Videotape, and the Oscar for his drug war opus Traffic. His frequent collaborators now include George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and Brad Pitt (who is starring in his forthcoming adaptation of the controversial state-of-baseball tome Moneyball). Yet Soderbergh remains a stubbornly anonymous filmmaker, difficult to nail down in terms of style or subject, removed from the public eye, and without a cult following that can be roused to seek out his smaller, more experimental films.

The one adjective that sticks is prolific -- Soderbergh has directed twenty films in as many years, produced several others and racked up a library of television credits, an output that's rivaled only by his latest collaborator, porn ingénue Sasha Grey. At 21, Grey has nearly 200 blue movie titles under her belt, as well as various music and art projects and a swelling public profile that's quickly becoming indistinguishable from stardom. She was a name even before she and Soderbergh teamed up last fall to make The Girlfriend Experience, a slice-of-life indie drama that documents the travails of an emotionally distant, high-dollar Manhattan hooker named Chelsea, who offers a sophisticated brand of personal service that transcends mere copulation.

When Soderbergh called up SuicideGirls last week, we talked sex, money, movies and baseball.

Ryan Stewart: While I was waiting on your call, I was reading an interview with Sasha. Here's an interesting quote: "One thing Steven and I definitely have in common is we're not really into critics." Is she on point?

Steven Soderbergh: She's on point. But the reasons for that might not be identical. What came up during the course of making the movie was that I said after Traffic I'd stopped reading reviews. I'd never read a lot of them, but after Traffic I just stopped completely. That's probably where that came from. You'd have to ask her why she takes that position, but my position at the time, that year, after winning the LA and New York film critics awards, I really felt like, this can only get worse. [laughs] Nothing about reading reviews from here on out is going to enhance my life at all. Whereas, for Sasha, there may be a different issue at play.

RS: James Gray, the director of Two Lovers, told me he resents reviews because often the reason a scene doesn't work is because an actor didn't show up on time, or something like that.

SS: Yeah, I know James, I'm sure that's true. I want to work on instinct. I don't want to be self-conscious and for me it's just a potential distraction or more of a background noise that I want to eliminate so that I can work quickly and clearly. Also, I'm not a result person, I'm a process person. What I really like is making them and I'm content to judge them by my own criteria later. But at the time I just want to make them. I want to make them for the amount of money and time that I've been given to make them and then I just want to move on to the next thing without agonizing.

So, when I stop making them, then maybe someday I'll sit down and look at them and determine for myself what my success rate was. Right now, it's just not relevant. Except if you're making a certain type of movie -- an art-house movie -- and you know from a business standpoint that if you get terrible reviews it's going to be very difficult to get the audience to show up. But in terms of what they say, it doesn't change the movie. Pixels don't get re-arranged because a critic said something. Also, when one film comes out I've usually already made something else or I'm in the middle of something else, and my head has moved on.

RS: Do you shed a tear over the mass firings of film critics that are occurring, or is that out of your field of vision?

SS: It kind of is, yeah. I don't like to see anybody get laid off, but it's not surprising, even from a cultural standpoint. Technology has made everyone a critic. The idea that you can distinguish yourself by how you write and what you write is diminishing rapidly. There just isn't a forum for it the way there was when Pauline Kael was writing for The New Yorker and she could write whatever the hell she wanted. And frankly, the other part of it, which has nothing to do with critics, is that that movies don't matter anymore.

RS: You really believe that?

SS: Well, culturally. Let me be more specific. They are more influential than they've ever been and less important than they've ever been. They're influential in terms of how people act and how they dress, and also what they laugh at. But in terms of importance? In terms of what they can do for us, how they can enhance us? I think they've never been less important than they are right now. There was a period of time when that wasn't true, but that time has passed. I think it's still the dominant art form, but I don't think it's an important art form anymore.

RS: What's the emerging important art form?

SS: I don't know that there is one yet. Gossip?

RS: Interesting. The movie certainly touches on the relentless ability of capitalism to spit out the old and usher in the new. Do you admire that efficiency? Do you fear it?

SS: Both. I don't judge it, it just is what it is. It isn't going anywhere. It's wound into our DNA. I'm fascinated by it, and at the same time it terrifies me. What I liked about it for the movie was coming at it from an angle I wasn't privy to. This woman has this specific job in the upper echelon of a specific business, and I thought, wow, that's an interesting way to talk about value attribution.

RS: Do you believe there's a point at which the commoditization of one's self becomes distasteful?

SS: No. It's a myopic point of view to assume that only entails a transaction that involves money. Everybody is trying to get what they want all the time. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. My whole criteria is 'is everybody getting what they want?' That's how I judge fairness or morality -- parity. Not by the act itself, but by 'is everybody getting what they want?' But I've also had the experience of injecting myself into a situation where I thought that one of the people could not possibly be getting what they wanted and that there was a grave imbalance there. I was told, in no uncertain terms, to mind my own business.

RS: Was this a business situation?

SS: It was a personal relationship, some people I knew. I just felt like "I can't watch this go on anymore," and I said something and they both sort of turned on me simultaneously and told me to shut up. So I learned a lesson and the lesson was that I can only ask "why" when it comes to something that I do. I stopped asking "why" when it comes to the other person. I really did, after that. I went, "You know what? They're right."

RS: More specifically, then, do you find the notion of fake intimacy, a la a "girlfriend experience" to be intellectually offensive?

SS: I don't know if I believe in fake intimacy, or that there is such a thing. Chelsea is getting the "something else" from her boyfriend, you know? That illusion of stability or whatever it is. From the outside, I don't know that I can make the call about whether someone is being really intimate or falsely intimate. I can make that call about myself, but I have to ask you this: If I feel like I am being falsely intimate, but the other person doesn't, what does that mean? If they are getting out of it what you'd get out of a genuinely intimate situation, but I'm not, does it matter?

RS: Tough one.

SS: I know! And I'm not saying I have the answer, but it makes me wonder, because in this situation, if you ask those guys, by their definition, it's genuinely intimate. And since this situation is all about their definition, what does it matter if she's being falsely intimate? That's part of what I thought was interesting about the idea for the film, that it raised all these sorts of questions about fake and real.

RS: Maybe "prostitute" is an outmoded word. It seems to have lost much of its meaning.

SS: I think it's a word that only has a legal meaning now. The cultural meaning of it is so blurry and could be used in so many contexts that, as you said, it's almost meaningless. If the definition of being a whore is that you're doing something that you wouldn't ordinarily do in order to make money, that's 95 percent of the people I know. Most of the people I know do not like their work, or they wish they were working somewhere else. Somebody pays me for my time, that's my job. That's what I do. Two people reaching an agreement that doesn't involve theft or assault is really none of my business. And I don't view the [sex] act as sacred. It's just not an exalted activity to me. That's really the crux of it. There is no evidence I can see that there's anything special about it.

RS: The culture certainly retains a hyper-sensitivity to the monetization of bodies, though. Actresses, in particular, will often feel that a nudity requirement corrupts their artistry. Julia Roberts is a good example -- she once said that any nude scene she did would be in a documentary.

SS: Well, you're talking movies now, I'm talking about prostitutes. But I think she's right. You're talking about someone who has a certain persona and who is a brand, in a way, and she has a certain idea of what that brand is and it doesn't involve shedding her clothes on screen. And that's cool. There are other actresses who feel like its part of their brand to do so.

RS: Did you have these kinds of quasi-philosophical discussions with Sasha, or were most of your talks more practical?

SS: Yeah, the stuff we talked about was more practical. I talked to her about method more than anything else. I knew that if I could just get her to be her, then we would be fine. I talked to her about how we do this, how big the crew is, what the pace is, stuff like that. We didn't really have a need to talk about it conceptually, and I knew from seeing her other work that she was fearless and that there wasn't anything I could think of that she would have a problem with. As it turns out there was nothing extreme, but it was good to know that if I needed her to do that, she would.

RS: When you watched some of the more extreme videos in her filmography, what was your reaction?

SS: It made me feel pretty square! I don't need very much, so I guess my reaction was, "Why is there all this extra activity?" I'm still stuck in first gear as far as that stuff goes, and she's pushing the envelope really far. And that's cool, there are people out there who, that's what turns them on, but I'm still in that place where I'm just marveling that it exists at all. I don't need a lot.

RS: You've somehow been tagged over the years as a director who is very reserved and demure when it comes to on-screen nudity.

SS: I guess that's just not the interesting part of it for me. When you get down to the technical aspects of it, that's just not the interesting part, in terms of movies. I'm interested in the lead-up and the aftermath, because that's the part that separates one person from another. When you get to the actual act itself, although Sasha would disagree, I don't find that there's an incredible amount of variance. And I'm not making porn. If I was trying to make a movie to turn you on sexually, then I would do all that stuff, but that's not what I'm making. I'm making a movie that's supposed to make you think or laugh or compare your life to the characters on screen. I'm not making something that's designed to make you take your pants off. And if I want that in a movie, I'll go and find one of those movies. That's what it's about for me.

RS: Stanley Kubrick thought he had figured out how to make dramatically compelling porn. One of his many unfulfilled ideas.

SS: Yeah, and Terry Southern's book Blue Movie is a great riff on that idea. Kubrick was certainly no scaredy-cat when it came to nudity on-screen. Also, Michael Winterbottom has taken that idea and done it. He's taken a sort of mainstream or legitimate indie movie and put explicit sexual activity in it, but even though all those obstacles have been cleared, I don't think the landscape has been altered and I certainly don't feel the need to imitate it, you know? I feel like Michael did that, so, okay great, I don't have to do it.

RS: Money is one of your pet subjects -- even Erin Brockovich was explicitly about money.

SS: Yeah, I'm fascinated by it. Not because I want to acquire it, but I'm fascinated by the force it exerts. Also, I'm interested in class issues and as soon as you start talking about class, you're talking about money. I think as a subject it's very compelling and complicated.

RS: You seem attracted to the idea of class-busting, in particular. Chelsea the prostitute sitting in a fancy restaurant is almost like Tony Montana saying, "Here I am, rich people - get over it."

SS: I like that idea. I like the idea of someone who is willing to behave in a way that proper society views as transgressive and then parlays that into access. I think that's a really interesting idea, and why shouldn't they? If that's their only way in and that's important to them -- and I'm not saying it should be -- but if that's important to them and that's their way in, then great. But you're right, there is a sort of renegade ethos in play. I don't know if I could ever do a gangster movie, but there are a couple of things I'm working on where that's absolutely at play. I mean, look, I'm getting ready to do Moneyball, and it's front and center in that movie.

RS: Did you see Chelsea as a practitioner of sabermetrics? She's always taking notes about what the client liked and didn't.

SS: Sure, absolutely. There's no wasted material, everything is relevant. You should be looking at everything and analyzing it, in order to exploit inefficiencies. That's what sabermetrics is all about, and yeah, that's how her mind works, for sure. Chelsea is exploiting the inefficiencies in her competitors or in the business in general. Like you said, she writes the stuff down because she feels like there is currency in knowing that some guy doesn't want to see her wear the same thing twice and is also smart enough to notice, therefore she has to be smart enough to wear something different every time. Or know that if he mentioned a book in passing that she should have read it by the next date -- she's looking for ways to create an edge for herself.

RS: Moneyball will be tough to dramatize, I'd imagine. A book about statistics and management techniques.

SS: Yeah, but I think we have a way in, making it visual and making it funny. I want it to be really funny and entertaining, and I want you to not realize how much information is being thrown at you because you're having fun. We've found a couple of ideas on how to bust the form a bit, in order for all that information to reach you in a way that's a little oblique.

RS: Do you have a huge problem with steroids in baseball? Some would say it's just another edge.

SS: Well, I'm frustrated by what I see as the inconsistency of the position. Darryl Strawberry's book just came out. He talks about how all through his career guys were popping greenies. Greenies were in Ball Four, also. So, that was there and may still be there -- it's been around forever. It was just accepted, basically. What are you supposed to say? If you're just a member of the population, like you or me, and you injure your leg or your shoulder, you will often be given a steroid to accelerate the healing process. Well, these are people who make their living through their bodies. Are you going to say to me, "This guy who makes a living off his body needs a steroid to heal because of an injury and we're not going to let him take it," but if you were injured you'd be allowed to take it? We're not going to let him get back to doing his job because we banned it?

That's where, to me, it starts to get a little weird. And that's supposedly a separate thing from "Oh, I'm on a program throughout the season to make me gain thirty pounds of muscle?" They can't even heal themselves when there's a legitimate use for it, so I don't know. On the one hand, yeah, I wish the game were clean, on the other hand, I don't know how you make it clean.

RS: What's the downside to leveling the playing field by making everything legal?

SS: The downside is the destruction it wreaks on their bodies. What happens is the muscles grow, but ligaments don't. That's why these people turn into glass. Their tendons and ligaments cannot withstand the pressure. They weren't designed to withstand the pressure that results from building up your muscle mass at that rate. That's the reason you see these guys running to first base and their hamstring snaps. In the long run, it's probably not great. In terms of a level playing field, if it can't all be clean, then I don't know, I guess it should all be not clean! It's really tricky, but the good news about baseball is that it tends to resist most attempts to alter it in any significant way. It adapts itself. It's not simply a power game.

RS: We talked about branding earlier. You're not a brand and don't seem to want to be. What's the upside?

SS: Experience and anonymity. The fact that I'm not an identifiable brand is very freeing, because people get tired of brands and they switch brands. I've never had a desire to be out in front of anything, which is why I don't take a possessory credit. That's why, if I can help it, I don't like having my picture taken or doing television. I don't want to be out in front of this stuff at all.

If I could convince people to go to the movies without doing interviews, I would do that, but I can't convince anybody of that. So, it's all upside to me. On a movie like this, [the distributor's] rationale is, "We're selling this movie on your back." And my answer is, "Well, if I'm such a commodity, how come nobody went to see The Good German?" I mean, I did more interviews for that movie than any I've ever done and nobody went, so clearly it doesn't mater. I can't convince anybody of this, and as you know, there's a whole cottage industry just in the junketing now, so do I have to now tell everybody that that ecosystem is going to die because I don't want to talk anymore? I don't know the answer.

RS: So, what if there are no more professional film writers and critics around to ask you questions in five years?

SS: People will have to just figure out based on the ad in the newspaper whether they want to see the film. I know I can come up with better ads than most people.

RS: The poster for The Girlfriend Experience is definitely great. I love the ambiguity of the four-letter word.

SS: Isn't that beautiful? That was a positive byproduct of the MPAA saying that we weren't allowed to have F***. So we said, okay, then we'll just make it four stars, and then I immediately thought, oh, there are lots of four-letter words and that's actually better, you know? See this movie with someone you blank.

The Girlfriend Experience opens May 22nd in select cities, and is available now on demand.

(image) We're on the playground, a pack of girls and boys, huddled around a fortune teller -- you know, the one you make from a piece of paper and pop on your fingertips, and you flip the peaks, back and forth, back and forth, to find the answer to your question. Will I be filthy rich? No. Will I... more

We're on the playground, a pack of girls and boys, huddled around a fortune teller -- you know, the one you make from a piece of paper and pop on your fingertips, and you flip the peaks, back and forth, back and forth, to find the answer to your question. Will I be filthy rich? No. Will I get a new dog for Christmas? Unclear. Will I die before my time? Yes. Giggles. And then you ask the question again. And you get a different answer.

That same feeling hits me when I play the poetic micro games of Argentinean gamemaker Daniel Benmergui, who released his latest, Today I Die, earlier this month. It's an indie game, and it's an art game -- but I use that term carefully, because if you're new to that scene, you might think "art" means "oppressive, overanalyzed, and stuck up its own orifice." And that's not Benmergui.

All three of Benmergui's latest creations -- Storyteller, I Wish I Were the Moon, and now Today I Die -- are short and thematically sweet. Each one hinges on a simple mechanic that helps you tell a story. In the case of Storyteller, you get a fairy tale, and you can change the plot with a click of the mouse. Here's the story when it opens:



But say you don't like that ending. Just switch around the characters in the first and second panels, and you change their fates:



In a role-playing game, you could spend 50 hours getting to one ending, and another 20 to the other. Here, the path not taken is a click away.

Today I Die (see top image) also starts with a clever mechanic: poetry magnets. But that's not what you notice when the scene opens. A woman is tied to a rock and sinking into deep waters, her hair trailing behind her. A poem that reads like a suicide note hangs above her. And the only way to save her is to change the words.

Benmergui's blog calls it a game "about the daily choice of waking up in the morning." When I asked him to reconcile the gravity of drowning yourself with the hassle of crawling out of bed, Benmergui observes that: "We are conditioned to look at life as a series of milestones and achievements, so anything that is not one of those seems to be irrelevant. Like, what you do every day. The game is not about someone who suddenly changes her life in a single, spectacular moment like movies show people doing. It's about a constant choice, an everyday choice."

Benmergui enlisted his girlfriend, Guadalupe Iturbide, for her handwriting. She's also part of the inspiration. As Benmergui puts it obliquely, "The game was born out of something in our everyday life that changed, and an insight I had after that. What was shared was the change, but the game was made after my point of view. I picked a girl because she's inspired [by] Guadalupe. But that character also reflects myself. You could easily reverse the characters."

(You can also add your own characters to Benmergui's game. To make some scratch on a game he gives away for free, Benmergui is taking sponsors. For $75, he'll draw a pixilated portrait of you or a friend. For $497, he'll put you and your s.o. in either Today I Die or I Wish I Were the Moon. And somebody's already paid $995 to give Benmergui a new ending to the game. The buyer "is well known in the industry. He might want to show the custom game or not. I'll let him choose.")

I don't want to spoil a game that you could play in the time it takes to read this column. (Try it HERE. It's free!) But here's the gist: though you start as the drowning woman, you get a chance to turn things around. Shadowy sea creatures surround you; to beat them back, you have to "shine." And when you reach the end and swim to a world of "beauty," you also get the boy -- if you want him.

Benmergui's favorite ending is the one where the girl and boy rise to the surface together. For Guadalupe, "I asked and she said that it's the one in which she surfaces on her own, but I saw her face when she saw the other ending, so she might be lying."

Today I Die is charming. The poem is cute, and, let's say it, sappy: Benmergui even deprecates himself, comparing it to what "a depressed teenager (with little sense for poetry, like me) could have come up with." And the dark vs. light symbolism is not a brain-teaser.

But the real message lies in the mechanic. When I want to change from a "dead" world to a "dark" one and finally, one that's "free," I find the word I need and stick it right into the poem. Just like Storyteller, you're always one step away from rewriting the story.

Now think what that tells us about the story. From the title and the opening image, Today I Die gives us an emergency -- but as Benmergui tells us, the game is about an "everyday choice." This isn't a giant drama but a little one. It'll happen again and again. And same for Storyteller. Even though it tells three life stories in a heroic setting, it's actually a very small, toy-like gizmo. You're not constructing epics; you're playing with one outcome after another.

And there’s his secret. Benmergui takes the epic decisions that change our lives, and the little choices we make every day, and marries them in a single click. Victory, heartbreak, suicide, and salvation are all right there for you, and they'll be there again tomorrow. It takes me back to being a kid, when I could make a choice that seemed huge, and then shake it off and try something else. One day everyone's proud of you, the next you're in detention. Maybe you kiss Colin, and then you brush him off to kiss Stu. And maybe later you kiss Chloe, too. The point is not that every story has many endings; it's that the other endings don't go away. You gather around the playground and flip through the fortune teller, again and again, and the answers always change.



Rachael Webster (a.ka.a SG member PixelVixen707) is SG's Hit Play games columnist. A game lover and game blogger living in New York City, she also writes at PixelVixen707.com and tweets as PixelVixen707.

Too embarrassed to talk to your friends about your foot fetish? Not sure when to tell your partner about those, um, nasty genital warts? Need some Gotha Stewart home-ec advice for your next soiree? Not sure how to get your foot in the door of that fab new career you want? I got you covered. Miss Truth... more

Too embarrassed to talk to your friends about your foot fetish? Not sure when to tell your partner about those, um, nasty genital warts? Need some Gotha Stewart home-ec advice for your next soiree? Not sure how to get your foot in the door of that fab new career you want? I got you covered. Miss Truth Hurts is here to answer all of your love, life, sex, career, and relationship questions. Ask anything. I've been there/done that (except for the warts) and I've dished out advice to readers just like you through the pages of my advice book/lifestyle guide, Cherry Bomb: The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Better Flirt, a Tougher Chick, and a Hotter Girlfriend, and to Living Life Like a Rock Star.

Send your questions, dilemmas, and conundrums to misstruthhurts@suicidegirls.com.

Alternatively, SG members can send a message via the site to MissTruthHurts.

We won't use your name, just the city you're writing from.


Q: I've been on and off with my boyfriend for five years. We'll have this massive break-up, be apart for weeks, and then fall right back in love with each other again. I know he loves me, but we go through this back and forth too often and it's exhausting. WTF is our deal?

-Chaotic in El Paso, Texas

A: Chaos indeed! The first thing that comes to mind is maybe you're both addicted to the adrenaline of this dramatic relationship. Most drama queens (and kings) aren't even aware that they love the dramatic ups and downs of a back and forth relationship. Ask yourself: Do you get bored if things aren't chaotic? Do you love making up more than you love it when things are smooth sailing? Is your life otherwise boring and you crave some excitement? Do you get excited when your blood boils? Does it make you feel, er, alive? If you answered mostly yes, then you might just be addicted to drama. Try this: Next time you have a blow-up with your boy, don't go for the break-up card. Take a breather, collect yourself, and talk out the problem calmly.


Q: My man watches a lot of porn and it's beginning to creep me out. I catch him watching it on his computer when he doesn't think I'm noticing. It's like he has this other life or something. I don't want to be a prude, but why does he need porn if he has a girlfriend?

-Creeped out in Calabasas, Calif.

A: Embrace the porn! It could be fun. Scratch that advice if it's child porn, bestiality, or if your man only likes man-on-man movies. Otherwise, why not give it a shot? You might just find out that it turns you on and will enhance your sex life with your man. Besides, to be truly intimate and close, a guy shouldn't feel like he has to hide things from his girlfriend. The more he makes porn his dirty little secret, the more distance there will be between the two of you. Who knows? Porn might just teach you new trick or two!


Q: It upsets me when my boyfriend doesn't call me back or text me back fast enough -- which happens quite a lot. I don't know if I'm just being needy or paranoid or if something is going on. He'll go a full day before getting back to me sometimes. And, this happens at least once a week. What do you make of it?

-Anxious in Ann Arbor, Mich.

A: I can't believe I'm going to say such a cliché, but it sounds oh so true in your situation ... He's just not that into you! Move on.


Q: My boyfriend has a friend staying with him on his couch. He was supposed to only crash for a few weeks, but it's been a few months. I can't spend any alone time with him at his place because the friend is always there. I've complained to my boyfriend about this but he's not doing anything about it. I feel like I need to tell my boyfriend it's time for the freeloader to go.

-Sick of it in Saratoga Springs

A: Be careful or it might be you who your boyfriend kicks out. It's not for you to say how long your boyfriend's friend gets to crash. It's your boyfriend's deal, not yours. You don't want to be the nagging girlfriend telling him what to do. If you were living together, that's one thing. But, you're not. So, shut the hell up about it, since, unless its a serious and solid relationship, most guys will put bros before hos.




Carrie Borzillo-Vrenna is Suicide Girls' sex, love, and life advice columnist. She is an entertainment journalist, rock wife, and author of Cherry Bomb: The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Better Flirt, a Tougher Chick, and a Hotter Girlfriend, and to Living Life Like a Rock Star and Eyewitness Nirvana: The Day-by-Day Chronicle.

www.myspace.com/carrieborzillovrenna
www.carriebv.com

The manner in which we have destroyed our economy is astounding. We are so far from understanding and correcting our massive fuck ups that even this current obliteration of our ways has not brought up the discussion that needs to be had: Our usury laws are insane. Our usury laws drove us into debt, sped... more

The manner in which we have destroyed our economy is astounding. We are so far from understanding and correcting our massive fuck ups that even this current obliteration of our ways has not brought up the discussion that needs to be had: Our usury laws are insane. Our usury laws drove us into debt, sped up the loss of our manufacturing base and have directly led to the murder of the middle class. And it’s only going to get worse. The looming credit card crisis will be the next shoe to drop and with deflation a serious threat, shockingly heinous and fluctuating interest rates will make it impossible for many to get by. Even ancient Babylon had laws against the shit we allow lenders to get away with.

Quite a few successful ancient empires considered usury to be worse than murder and it was punished accordingly. We, because we are an incredibly wise country, decided to toss out centuries of law and tradition. First in the early 1900’s, we began to gut our usury laws and then under Jimmy Carter they were fully disemboweled. It’s not like we didn’t have a time period to look back on and see what would happen.

Slavery. Totally different from working endless hours at a job just to pay back a bank. Well, I say pay back a bank, but the amount borrowed has already been paid off tenfold. In reality, the average Joe in debt is paying off interest and more interest and more interest. It’s debt slavery and America is kicking ass.

What Hammurabi and Ezekiel knew, Americans certainly do not. It’s pretty simple. If you create a debt society by allowing insane interest rates, capital is removed from manufacturing and small business. It all gets pumped into the banks and everything is then out of balance. And it’s not just the money, the top minds head into the financial world, spurning the areas where society needs them, like manufacturing. Eventually it all collapses on itself. Welcome to America.

America has become a bunch of clowns scraping by to pay off the financial sector. We are waiters, Wal-mart workers, gas station attendants and Starbucks coffee makers, but overall, the “Financial services sector” employs most Americans directly or indirectly. We have a society built on loans. We are eating ourselves. First we started with our hands, then our arms, our legs and now we are getting into the organs. I just ate my kidneys. Not bad, I suggest grilling.

Now that we have gotten rid of laborers and turned unions into our society’s villains, we are obviously much better off. In 2002 and 2003, the financial sector took in more than "40% of the profits that accrued to US corporations." That’s good right? In 1988 it was half that – because interest rates were relatively normal. Then came the 90's, when every business got into the business of loans. GM wasn’t a car company, it was a financial business that sold cars as a side project. As the financial sector swelled like a fat, sucking tic, our trade deficit exploded. That’s what happens when you stop making shit because profits are better loaning money to the people who used to have jobs making shit. Sadly, Americans did it to themselves by going into debt, little by little, until it was overwhelming. I just devoured my intestines. Not bad with a little balsamic.

The '70s are when we decided to toss our usury laws aside and rape each other at will. The big case that turned everything upside down was Marquette National Bank v. First of Omaha Service Corp. in 1978. Before that horrible Supreme Court decision, states could set their own interest rate caps. The court ruled that banks could set their rates based on the state “where the bank is located.” No mas. Good bye interest rates under 10%. It was the wild west as far as credit card companies were concerned and we were all victims about to be fed to the pigs in Deadwood.

The awesome thing about high interest rates is it allowed banks to take more risks on lenders. Since they were now charging huge interest rates, they could afford to loan to every hobo in the land. The insane amount of profits would make up for the defaults by the sad sacks would couldn’t make their payments. We’ve actually reached a point now where customers who pay off their cards every month are having their cards cancelled. Good is bad, bad is good and America is a giant pile of shit. I just ate my liver. Boiled it. Don’t recommend that.

The bestest thing of all is how the banks weren’t satisfied with insane interest rates that would have led to their execution back in the day. No, they also had to go with huge overdraft fees, ATM fees, transfer fees, and on and on. And we let them. We did so because we were using credit to get by and in our new mindset of stupidity, getting reamed is how it was done. Fortunately, the banks didn’t keep any of this money in reserve, they kept it flowing and “working,” so when the crisis hit, they had to ask the people they had been bending over a log and raping for a bailout. Thankfully, it’s all legal. I just gobbled up my lungs. Used a straw.

The only way out of this mess is to look at our usury laws again. Interest rates need to be capped at 9%. There is no other way out of this mess. Meanwhile, your president and his Wall Street douchebags/economic gurus, Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, ARE THE PROBLEM. They were and are part of the machine. They will never take such obvious and drastic action because they came up during the heinous period of whatever goes. They know no other way.

So, it’s time to take out the heart and fry it up in a pan with some butter. We’re fucked.

Next week, I’ll cover payday loans, which is actually 100 times worse than credit cards.

FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comedian. Check back each Tuesday and Friday for more from FearTheReaper

Who wants to drink great wine and listen to Led Zeppelin? Show of hands please. If you have a soul, you just put your hands up. I've talked about pairing music and booze before in this column and it's something I think about on a regular basis, as they are two of my favorite things in life. more

Who wants to drink great wine and listen to Led Zeppelin?

Show of hands please.

If you have a soul, you just put your hands up.

I've talked about pairing music and booze before in this column and it's something I think about on a regular basis, as they are two of my favorite things in life. It's what I do, it's who I am and the two go together like nerds and Lost theorizing. Hey wait, that's me too.

A few months ago I was at dinner in LA with Joe Bastianich and Mario Batali and it turned into (as they always do) a late night Amaro session. It was a Friday night and I realized that the best Zeppelin cover band in the world, Six Foot Nurse was playing at Molly Malone's. I rousted a bunch of the crew out of their liquid-herb induced haze with promises of "I swear if you close your eyes IT IS Led Zeppelin." Now I'm going to have to ask you, the reader to take me at my word on this and if you ever have the chance to see the Nurse, take it.

We made it to Molly's in time to catch the last twenty minutes of the set and if memory serves, three seconds into The Ocean Joe turned around to me with huge eyes and said "Holy shit."

The rest of the evening was just piling on more wood to the already raging fire and before Joe left he said to me, "We have to do something with these guys, have to bring them to NYC and do something."

Joe being the man of his word that he is called me the next day and asked me if I thought the band would be interested in coming to NYC to do a show where he would pair wines with specific Zeppelin songs. He didn't have any other details other than the most important one, which was, let's do this.

Of course the band was excited about the opportunity to go to NYC and we worked it out where I would play a few songs with them as well. I was nervous about this because as strange as it may sound, other then "Rock N Roll," I don't know any Zeppelin songs on guitar. Or, I don't know any Zeppelin songs on guitar correctly. I've never sat around and learned Zeppelin. Crazy right? Well Nalle Colt (guitar player for The Nurse as well as Pearl) knows it all note for note so on one hand I knew that if I learned something wrong he could show me the right way to play it and on the other hand I was stressed because he knows it all note for note and I didn't want to come in to rehearsal like an idiot.

I woodshedded and learned "The Ocean," "Rock N Roll," "The Rover," "Whole Lotta Love" and "Heartbreaker." At rehearsal I learned "Good Times Bad Times" and then day of show learned "Tangerine" and "Since I've Been Loving You." After rehearsal I felt really good about where I was at with the songs and after Nalle showed me a couple of little Page-isms, I was ready to rock. The band sounded sick with the rhythm guitar.

We had a pre-show meeting at the Spotted Pig the night before, where we ate and drank for five hours and discussed how the show would run for fifteen minutes. That's pretty much how the whole week in NY went. Pearl and I would make one plan, like, "Let's stay in and be mellow tonight because we're super hungover" and that would turn into Joe texting me and saying, "Come into Del Posto for dinner. Please let me feed you. Pasta will heal your soul." How do you say no to that? So we go for dinner and that turns into Pearl and I and the Nurse guys in the private room at Del Posto drinking all night with Joe, Mario, Jay McInerney and NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson. Weird, random and totally in context with my life. Jay and Jimmie were both really cool and Jay had some great Michael J. Fox stories (but those are for the book my friends, sorry). Jimmie said he'd take me out on the track and I plan on taking him up on it.

Anyway, I digress.

Show time at the City Winery, a killer new venue from the people that started the Knitting Factory. Live music, food and a wine program where you can make your own wine with help from an expert and with grapes flown in from the worlds best regions.

The show was oversold. Four hundred and change packed around tables. Six glasses in front of each person with a place mat explaining what each wine was and why it was paired with the accompanying song.

The show was being hosted by Joe and his buddies Mike Edison (ex-editor of High Times and Screw magazines) and David Lynch (a wine expert, not the Blue Velvet guy). If anyone can make the unlikely coupling of fine wine and rock music work, it would be these three eclectic mofo's. They all took turns on the mic explaining as best they could to the crowd how this evening came to be and even had the band kick into short five to ten second bits of songs to whet their appetites. I could tell the evening was going to be a success. Besides the obvious fact that the place was sold out, as soon as the band played the first five-second tease, the place went nuts. These people were starving for rock!! Lot's of mid to late 30's white whiteys that have the cash to drink well and would never go out to a rock show. They didn't even know they wanted this night and we gave it to them.

After Mike Edison described Zeppelin as like "the moment right before penetration" they introduced the first wine, Henriot Blanc de Blanc Champagne that was paired with 'Immigrant Song." Try and think about the acidity of Champagne and then think of Plant wailing and Page's biting riff and it makes sense. Or it doesn't and it doesn't matter because you're drinking killer booze and getting your ass kicked by the Nurse. I can't remember all of the pairings as I was getting ready to play (I was to get up for the last pairing, Bordeaux and "Whole Lotta Love") and then I would stay up and we would play all the rest of the songs. There was a Chablis with "Misty Mountain Hop" which worked as the edgier notes of the Chablis (compared to the Champagne) matched Page's deliberate phrasing in Hop. Kashmir was paired with a Barolo and the wine, like the song both took their time to unfold their epic bodies.

By the time the six glasses of wine were finished the crowd was well oiled and when we kicked into "The Ocean," spontaneous dancing broke out all over the room. Amazingly, as buzzed as I was I didn't fuck up once. The energy got better and better with each song and "Rock N Roll" closed it out in true bombastic Zeppelin style. The reaction to the band was so overwhelming you would think these people really saw Led Zeppelin. Maybe it was all the great wine? We came back and encored with "Since I've Been Loving You" and said goodnight. After the show we "helped" Joe finish off some triple magnums of fine Bastianich vino.

It was an insanely decadent week. Being fed by Joe and Mario everyday is amazing and brutal at the same time. I swear I gained 190 pounds. I've been on tuna with oil and vinegar since.

Cheers,

Scott

PS The new Anthrax album, Worship Music, is currently being mixed by Dave Fortman.

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Scott Ian is SuicideGirls' monthly Food Coma columnist. Click HERE for more of his musing on sustenance and libations. He plays guitar for revolutionary metal band Anthrax and also for Pearl.

What's all this business I hear about growing up? People are always saying things to me like, "Just you wait, someday you won't like living in a dirty loft with six roommates," and, "I can't wait 'til you get sick of wiping the noses of concave-chested scenesters,"... more

What's all this business I hear about growing up? People are always saying things to me like, "Just you wait, someday you won't like living in a dirty loft with six roommates," and, "I can't wait 'til you get sick of wiping the noses of concave-chested scenesters," and also, "Buy some high heels and get a real job." And I'm like, "Whoa, guys!" First of all, I only have five roommates and our loft is pretty clean, and secondly, I will wipe my imaginary boyfriend's nose if he needs it because I'm helpful like that, and you should know that I wore heels out the other night for the first time ever and they almost killed me. I think growing up is less about fitting some dumb "grownup 2.0" mold and more about figuring out how to jerry-rig the universe to let you do whatever it is you happen to like doing, even if it's a silly thing like writing and not lawyering or investment banking or putting sprockets into widgets on an assembly line. I think everyone needs a reminder sometimes that you shouldn't let people make you feel bad for being yourself, especially if those people are your own crazy family, to whom I will say glass motherfucking houses and leave it at that.

Matt and Kim Try Out to Be Suicidegirls

Not really but look how naked they are!



I know I've taken some good-natured jibes at them in the past, but Brooklyn's happiest party couple have won me over with their latest effort, Grand. It's all about being young and broke and psyched on life and staying up all night and having lots of lo-fi fun.

How could I not have a soft spot for them when they're singing about my goddamn life?

The music itself is simple as always, and Matt's omnipresent nasalness can get a little annoying towards the end, but they've upped their production quality and catchiness just enough to make Grand listenable for more than a few songs, even adding nice touches like handclaps, strings and electronic beats.

On the theme of making your childish passions work for you, let's juxtapose the Village Voice's video of Matt and Kim's apartment with a recent WTF Bacardi ad that syncs up "Daylight" with one fashionably scruffy young professional's quest across schmancy white people parties through the ages to find a mojito refreshing enough to make him forget he is not, in fact, Jake Gyllenhall.



I bet Kim bought a lot of ice cream with that check!

They're on tour to pretty much everywhere right now, and I defy even the grumpiest of you to last through their set without catching the smiles.

Orphan

If you like your boy-girl duos more evil than adorable, here's some stronger stuff for you. With their bass and drums setup, Orphan is bound to get compared to experimental noise rockers Lightning Bolt, but to my grateful ears, the two aren't all that similar. Contrary to their name (which, for me, conjures some jacked, twitchy orphan packing sharp swords with which to avenge his parents' deaths), they have deep roots in 70's blues metal as well as grunge, hardcore, and weirder art metal motifs.

I discovered Orphan when they opened for the also-great Pontiak at the lower east side's Cake Shop. Despite sparse attendance, they rocked their black little hearts out. Badass drummer chick Speck Brown pounds classically menacing, Sabbath-esque beats straight into your brain while Brendan Majewski screeches doomsday lyrics and grinds through distorted, catchy riffs to kill you with, proving once again that bass is the best instrument if you're good enough to play it like a lead guitar.

They also make funny videos with footage culled from youtube:



Their latest album, Aborted by Birth, came out on white vinyl with great cover art and a run of 666 (awesome). I'm embarrassed I slept on this one for so long.

Love Is All Is All You Need

Even grownups need to dance it out sometimes. Thankfully, everyone's favorite Swedish indie popsters are back with a new E.P. and tour. I've always liked Love Is All for the balance they strike between noise (distorted guitars, lo-fi production, skronky sax) and pure, joyous pop. Delivered in Josephine Olausson's cute, accented wail, lyrics about love, loss, and loneliness make me want to do a happy-sad dance of identification before lying down and spooning with my cat.

They're currently touring Europe and the U.S. and bring copies of their new E.P. with them, which consists of covers of their favorite Swedish classics (in Swedish!). Because they only made 200 copies, they're also giving the music away online. Spread the love.



Camera Obscura

Do you ever wish you could stop falling in love with people who suck? When I grow up, I'm only ever going to love people who love me back. Psyche! You can't control who you fall in love with. What you can control, however, is how you deal with it. Camera Obscura's Tracyanne Campbell deals with it a lot on the recently released My Maudlin Career, with too-close-to-home lyrics like these:

I feel you, Tracyanne. But then you wouldn't make beautifully sad pop songs anymore. And you wouldn't be playing those songs all over the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. right now, either. It's a bittersweet trade off.

The music has matured too, with touches of '50s girl group and country, and lovely string arrangements. And according to twitter, which doesn't fucking lie, it's a current favorite of Missy's. What more do you need? Buy that shit, put it on, and pretend you run a bangin' girly website. Or just hold yourself and sway back and forth while spooning with your cat, that is, if you're flexible enough.





Hunter is a Brooklyn-based writer currently contributing to Vice, The New York Press, Impose, and The L Magazine. If you email her at hunter.suicide AT gmail DOT com, chances are she'd love to add your publication to that list. Seriously, she's got some time on her hands.