Post-hiatus Punch

I went on a brief hiatus to do things like earn my salary. I’m back now 

- What!? Ticketmaster is $750 million in debt! Serves you right you greedy bastards. But how does that happen? And why did you double my Bon Savants ticket price? Argh. [via Paste]

- Yum! A $30 TV dinner, available in New York. [NYTimes via Consumerist]

- In today’s glass half-full moment, a useless survey finds that 91% of Japan won’t be buying the new iPhone 3G when it hits their market later this summer. Sounds bad for Apple, except when you consider that 9% will, and that’s about 11 million people. [via Macrumors]

- Root beer is the new beer! [NYTimes]

- Interesting marketing campaign for laundry detergent. Send samples wrapped in a t-shirt, then instruct the recipient to wash the shirt to demonstrate stain removing power. Hope it actually works. [Frederik Samuel via Kottke]

- Devo is pissed at McDonald’s. And they are suing. [Pitchfork]

- Gawker surveys New York bloggers and media gurus to figure out how exactly to break into the media industry. This is New York specific but I think it applies to all “cool” jobs anymore:

“-Claim you’re an expert in “New Media.” No one knows what the fuck it is anyway.
-Don’t say “Web 2.0″
-Do say “I subscribe to [X] feeds…”

Sad that you have to BS about all these changing web platforms in order to seem “skilled.” Other good pointers and full text here.

- Download some free tracks from stellar Cambridge indies Passion Pit. The live show is great, as you can imagine.

New Portishead

Only one week until Portishead releases their much anticipated studio album next Monday on the 28th.  After a little over 10 years since their last release, this album looks as though it will be as dark and melancholy as ever.

Check out these videos taken from their appearance on Jools Holland:

Some downloads here. (My favorite thus far is “Small,” give it a listen!)

Disco Lies

Moby has a new album coming out tomorrow. I must have, if this is any indication:

Le Loup: Get ready

With comparisons to The Arcade Fire and an excellent album title (The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly), D.C.-based Le Loup is making waves in the indie rock channels.

The seven-piece outfit is currently on tour, and had they not taken the stage at the not-safe-for-work hour of 11:15 this past Wednesday, I would have been at T.T. the Bears cheering them on. I love the cacophony of instruments and the mash-up of vocals at the end of this clip:

mp3 Le Loup – We Are Gods! We Are Wolves!

[photo credit: Jalepeno]