We Love You So – Where The Wild Things Are – Spike Jonze

“The first images of Max Records I sent to Spike to suggest casting him.”

Aska Matsumiya of The Sads and Moonrats + David Scott Stone = AsDSSka (much like celebreviations “TomKat” or “Brangelina,” but with a deluge of unyielding consonants blocking futile attempts at pronunciation). Quoth the AsDSSka MySpace: “Matsumiya is a classical trained pianist and the single, ‘25′, features a slow debussy-like piano refrain accompanied by her delicate voice and Stone’s ethereal modular synthesizer drones.” Delicate and ethereal is right– other acceptable descriptors would include “otheworldly” and “exquisite.” The gorgeous video for “25,” seen above, was directed by Spike and fellow VBS.tv contributor Crystal Moselle.

If you’re in the Los Angeles area, come check out AsDSSka at Family Bookstore on May 24th, backed by Becky Stark’s 14-dame strong ensemble, The Ladies Choir. Here’s a clip of The Ladies Choir covering Yoko Ono’s “Sisters O Sisters”:

BREAKING! Welcome to the inaugural edition of a series of Where the Wild Things Are micro-questionnaires, where various captivating individuals will examine their thoughts about the subject for your delight.

First up is Tao Lin, the author / businessman / scoundrel behind several books, a publishing house, and a blog. Here are his thoughts.

Did you encounter Where the Wild Things Are as a child?

I remember feeling aware of its presence in maybe every Doctor’s office or Dentist waiting room. Feels like I have memories of it being even inside Doctor’s offices, next to containers of cotton swabs or something. I just had an image of it being framed on a wall in a Doctor’s personal office next to a framed diploma or physicians certificate.

I see. When you see the word “children”, what do you think of?

Small, cute groups of white toy poodles “jogging” in a forward direction over a neat, very green field of grass in a park in Florida with a camera “panning” around them in the air, from fifty feet above, in the style of romantic comedy montages.

Thank you, Tao.

I am happy to have been solicited for this.

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Framestore UK

At the intersection of youth, scavenging, fine art, and elegy is the Kid Chair Poster, a visual assemblage of children’s furniture found on the streets of New York. Part narrative experiment and part aesthetic delight, the posters are the brainchild of ARTFORUM-touted provocateurs Trenton Duerksen and Daniele Frazier.

Best part? The $30 poster inaugurates a series of affordable pieces that the artists will release in teensy editions. At last count there were just 84 posters left– order online at the official website or in real life at Partners & Spade, Andy Spade’s nifty retail experiment in SoHo, then display in the office, studio, bedroom, or, if you’re of a certain age, in a fort constructed from blankets and pillows.

So apparently David Lynch went on a 20,000 mile road trip throughout the United States and did a bunch of interviews with random strangers. Kinda like This American Life, but without the dulcet tones of Ira Glass to contextualize the rambling storytelling of everyday folk, and with explicitly Lynchian aesthetics thrown in for good measure. In the first clip from this 121-part series, note the conspicuous presence of a white picket fence and the droning refrain of shunting boxcars in the background. All we need is a dwarf and a backwards-talking blonde to make this real-life tale of one man’s triumph over cancer into a searing Inland Empire-esque nightmare. Check out the Interview Project website for the official trailer.

Jens Lekman is a Swedish singer whose chest cavity is home to one of the world’s most beautiful voices. But more than that, he’s also an amazing musician with a masterful command of pop history. His encyclopedaic knowledge is clearly evident in the vast array of nostalgic influences audible in the his music, but if you needed any more evidence, he’s released a fantastic new mix tape for free download on his website. The Summer Never Ends: Part 3 includes tunes from country music legend Nicolette Larson, an Italo-disco children’s choir called Baby’s Gang, late ’60s one-hit-wonder rock group American Breed, and sneak peeks at new songs from Lekman himself. Best of all, we finally get to find out who was on the other end of the line in Alicia Keys’ 2003 hit, “You Don’t Know My Name”– The Honeydrips‘ Mikael Carlsson, sounding decidedly unsexy.

Check out Jens’ video for “Sipping on the Sweet Nectar” from his 2007 album, Night Falls Over Kortedala:

Oh man, Toy-a-day! What a generous and fantastic place. You and the kids could spend days browsing. All you need is a printer, some glue and scissors and you’re ready to make your own Max.

Here’s the deal: Tiny Masters of Today is the type of band you might want to write-off as a novelty act at first glance. That would be a mistake. Yes, they’re barely out of their tweens and they look like a Sonic Youth tribute group (Sonic Youth²), but this brother and sister digital DIY duo deserve to be taken seriously– in a rock duel, they’d blow away the majority of their thirty-something musical contemporaries, with talent and spunk to spare.

Ringing endorsements from the blogosphere, David Bowie and NME led to musical collaborations with Jack White, Kimya Dawson and Where The Whild Things Are songwriter Karen O, who co-directed the awesome zombie-themed video for “Hologram World.” The band is about to unleash their ridiculously fun sophomore album onto America, proving that reports of an entire generation’s cultural demise at the white-gloved hands of Radio Disney have been greatly exaggerated. Contradicting the focus-grouped somnolescent sounds of corporatized kid-pop, Tiny Masters of Today heralds scholarly musical exploration as much as the exuberant, grimy silliness of youth. Check out their new video, “Skeletons.”

If there’s one thing DJ’s love it’s remixing the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s. Resident Los Angeles party starter-upper Them Jeans adds his name to the list with his charming version of Soft Shock (acoustic). Listen now for zero dollars just by clicking.