quoperative

I can honestly say that I haven’t yet caught an episode of the HBO wonder child that is Boardwalk Empire. I can also honestly say that I am mildly ashamed and 100% intend to remedy this situation at the next convenient juncture.  Look, I only have enough mental bandwidth and attention span to have 1… ok, MAYBE 2 shows (if you include Delocated)… on the go at any one time.

Imagine how tickled I was to discover that the track used for the opening sequence is an instrumental edit of “Straight Up and Down” by the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Now I really feel ashamed.

Ok, Silent Library is an MTV game show adapted from a segment on a Japanese variety show (weird… Americans stealing a game show concept) where contestants work together as a team and endure a sequence of punishments while trying to remain quiet as long as possible so they can win more money.

Here’s a clip from the Japanese version… which isn’t technically a game show, but follows the same basic premise. The punishments are unusually cruel but holy shit are they ever hilarious.

I just discovered Aux yesterday. It’s a web-based video channel that calls itself “real music television”.  So far colour me impressed.  High quality video and a slew of shows hosted by Canadian musicians and music icons.  Really cool stuff.

Here’s one episode from a show called Strange Notes hosted by George Pettit from Alexisonfire.  This is part 1 of a 4-part show where he hangs out with Attack in Black in Welland, Ontario. Rockalicious.

Well I’ll be damned… Glaswegian comic Limmy has his own TV show on BBC Scotland.  If you’ve never seen Limmy before, watch this.  He’s been shooting videos for years and years and years. If you can understand what the hell he’s saying it’s really fucking funny.

So Conan O’Brien taped his last “Late Night” on Friday.  Jimmy Fallon takes over in March (no comment) while O’Brien gets ready to take over the “Late Show” in June.  For his final show Conan called on his old friends the White Stripes to round things out.  Conan and the Stripes go way back — remember they played a week-long residency in 2005 — and according to Rolling Stone Conan has known the band since the late 90s — way before they hit the big time.

Interestingly… the White Stripes had bailed on touring to support Icky Thump because of Meg’s anxiety problems so this is technically their first performance in nearly 2 years.  They did a pretty soulful version of “We’re going to be friends” sans drums… kinda cool.

And speaking of Jared Hess (this is the song that plays in the opening credits of Napolean Dynamite) you need to all go meet Ronald Chevalier – star of Hess’ new film Gentleman Broncos.

Eastbound & Down is pure comedy gold.  It’s a new series on HBO starring Danny McBride (Pineapple Express, The Foot Fist Way) and Will Ferrell’s an executive producer.  If you click through to that link and watch the preview video it looks like he’s also acting in the series.

I just grabbed a rough cut of the pilot episode by torrent and it is FUCKING FUNNY.  Everybody needs to PVR this shit immediately – looks like it’s coming out in February. This alone might be reason enough for me to finally bow down to (i.e. bend down in front of) the cable company and subscribe to HBO.

Maximum bonus points for using Freddy King’s “Going Down” for the show’s opening… in the pilot I saw at least.  I’m so pumped about this track that I’m going to include it here for your listening pleasure.  Possibly the most bad-ass Freddy tune ever recorded.

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