This Week's Featured Artist: Passion Pit

2009-06-06T18:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, I completely <3 Passion Pit (Thanks 101x Staff Pick!).

About 6 weeks ago I was listening to the local radio while at work and I heard Passion Pit's Sleepyhead from their newly released Album Manners. It impressed me, now y'all don't know me all that well yet, but really I am not easily impressed.

Musically, Passion Pit is a fanciful stew of sound. A dash of Prince, a pinch of Kate Bush, a sprinkle of Modest Mouse, let it simmer for a bit and voila! You have Manners.

For as upbeat and charming as the music is, Michael Angelakos' lyrics are pretty deep. Going beyond the surface of the music, the songs made me think. For me that's the sign of a truly good bit of music. I enjoy Passion Pit, and I hope you will too.

I'm featuring three songs on the show tonight.
Sleepyhead and The Reeling from Manners and Better Things from the Chunk of Change EP.

See you all later tonight!

The Pencil Neck

It's a week late, but we premiere tonight!

2009-06-06T12:56:00.001-07:00

The Pencil Neck, that's me by the way, is coming to Blog Talk Radio tonight at 10PM Central Time!

Tonight's topic: Television a go go! We're spending the hour talking about the season that was and the season that will be. So tune in to The Pencil Neck, available only on Blog Talk Radio!

Listen to The Pencil Neck on Blog Talk Radio

Coming Soon!

2009-05-18T21:04:00.000-07:00

...to a barf bucket near you.

I love the website Shock Till You Drop.com. They're like me, only with better resources, and better writers. All geek envy aside, it's a terrific site dedicated to every gem and germ horror movies have to offer.

This week I've compiled a list of my 10 favorite plots that are coming soon to a theater or DVD player near you.

10. Dead Snow
"A group of teenagers had all they needed for a successful ski vacation; cabin, skis, snowmobile, toboggan, copious amounts of beer and a fertile mix of the sexes. Certainly, none of them anticipated not returning home alive! However, the Nazi-zombie battalion haunting the mountains had other plans."

This little gem of a movie has a trailer (subtitles not included)...Nazi Zombies ate my Norwegian Ski Bunny, someone needs to make a Video Game out of this A.S.A.P.

9. Penance
"When a single mother working as a stripper is invited by a friend to take her place to dance at a well-paid private party, she jumps at the chance of making the extra money. But little does she know, the private party is actually a malicious trap by a psychopathic killer with a vendetta against strippers, where her worst nightmares are about to begin."

First, what kind of a sick freak has a vendetta against strippers??? Was he spurned? How sincerely defective do you have to be to be spurned by a stripper? Wait, I already know who the killer is...
***SPOILER ALERT***
It has to be, this guy.

8. Doghouse
"Seven men go an excursion to help a friend deal with a divorce, however, when they arrive at a village in the country, they discover all of the women are afflicted with an airborne virus that has turned them into man-hating cannibals."

Who doesn't love an uplifting tale about pathogen fueled man-hating cannibals? Personally I think we need more of them in modern cinema. Out of Africa would have been a far different film if Meryl Streep had become a man-hating cannibal and eaten Robert Redford in the end.

7. The Devil's Tomb
"When the scientist leading a top-secret Middle Eastern archeological site goes missing, an elite military unit is sent on a search and rescue mission. Descending under the cradle of civilization, Captain Mack and his team soon find themselves face-to-face with an ancient evil lying beneath the desert. Evil that is not of this world. Evil that should that never be unearthed."

My first question is, of course, when is it appropriate to unearth evil? This little teaser implies that there is right time to unearth evil. Should we unearth it say, after lunch? In the event the Dry Cleaner scorches our favorite pair of purple pants? When Democrats win elections? Someone please let me know!

The....suspense... is...killing...me!

6. Cold Skin
"On the edge of the Antarctic Circle, a ship approaches a desolate island far from all shipping lanes. On board is a young man, on his way to assume the post of weather observer, to live in solitude at the end of the earth.

But on shore he finds no trace of the man whom he has been sent to replace, just a deranged castaway who has witnessed a horror he refuses to name. For the next twelve months his entire world will consist of a deserted cabin, trees, rocks, silence and the surrounding sea.

Then night begins to fall..."

I don't know about you all, but if I were that guy (only with boobs and you know a baby hole) I'd be getting the frack back on that boat and going home. Unemployed, but alive.

5. Plague Town
"A dysfunctional family's vacation to the Irish countryside takes a nightmarish turn when they encounter a village of diseased, deformed and decidedly homicidal residents."

This film could be called "The Hills Have Irish". Watch the trailer...and then come back and tell me that I'm wrong.

4. Frozen
"Three skiers are stranded on a chairlift and are forced to make life or death choices that prove more dangerous than even freezing to death."

Huh? No, really, huh? What could possibly be more dangerous than Freezing to death...no...strike that, exactly how many other deathly options are there when stranded on a chairlift? Being beaten to death by a ski pole? Falling to your death? Spontaneously combusting? Being eaten by space pirates? Which of these is the most dangerous way to die????

3. Brain Dead
" The story of six people caught in the unusual (except in horror films) predicament of being stranded in a deserted fishing lodge with a host of alien-infected, mutant amoeba-controlled zombies at their doorstep."

I totally heart Zombies. I really heart alien-infected, mutant amoeba-controlled zombies. They're much more fun than Nazi zombies, especially when it comes time to play twister.

2. Lesbian Vampire Killers
"Two no-hopers. One cursed village. A bus full of girls and an army of hot, hungry lesbian vampires. It's gonna be one hell of a night!"

Or at my house...Friday Night.

You think I'm kidding?

1. Pig Hunt
"When John takes his San Francisco friends to his deceased uncle's remote ranch to hunt wild pigs, it seems like a typical guys weekend with guns - despite the presence of John's sexy girlfriend Brooks. But as John and his crew trek deeper into the forest, they begin tracking the awful truth about his uncle's demise and the legend of The Ripper -- a murderous three-thousand-pound black boar! Their pursuit leads them through fields of marijuana and into the muddy landscape of Big Wallow, involving high-powered weaponry, the violent and unpredictable Tibbs Brothers, massacred emus, a machete-toting Hippie Stranger, vengeful rednecks, and throat-slitting Cult Girls who grow dope by day and worship a Giant Killer Pig by night. By the time the pig hunt is done, no one is innocent - or unscathed."

I really have nothing to add.

And that my friends is your introduction to The Pencil Neck. My weekly interwebby Radio show will premiere on May 30th at 10PM Central Time only on Blog Talk Radio.

Until then, enjoy the wide world of entertainment in all it's tarnished and slightly mouldy glory!

Yours Truly,

The Pencil Neck