The Fantastic Façade

A few years ago Mrs. Kyality and I saw The Killers at Saltair on their killer Sam’s Town Tour. In fact, Upto12 covered the show on his former blog more or less exclaiming them as the ultimate in postmodern pop rock. Well, Mrs. Kyality and I caught The Killers at the much larger, broader-audienced E-Center last night and now it’s my turn to provide the post-concert diagnosis.

I’m just gonna say it—The Killers are NOT a rock band. And perhaps it’s even insulting to say they are. The Killers are nothing less than theatrical entertainers specifically catering to diehard rock ‘n’ roll enthusiasts, and I genuinely mean that as a compliment. I personally think that people who consider The Killers as just some kick-butt rock band don’t get it. They’re missing out on an entire level of intertextual, postmodern odes to everything rock ‘n’ roll.

I mean seriously, this band has a lead guitarist who wields a butt-rock Flying-V on top of a stack of amps in a classic power stance, a bassist that thumps on a McCartney-style Hofner bass and all the while has a lead singer who’s subtly channeling the ’68 version of Elvis. And it all works. Not to mention you can’t help but continually think that Jason Lee plays drums for these three characters. The Killers put on an amazing show specifically for rock ‘n’ roll junkies, full of mash-ups of their own tunes and sporadic rock references. Their stage is purposefully flanked by fake plastic trees while, you guessed it, the show itself would definitely not end without some serious pyrotechnics.

It was obvious that most of the audience wasn’t there to catch the nerdy musical nuances and melodic intertextuality. The three high-school doods directly in front of us were there to see the greatest rock band in the world. And if their Stand-by-Me-style group hug at the end of the show had anything to say about it—they probably did. The real question is, do Mr. Flowers and crew consciously know they are actually exceptional theatrical showmen or do they, in fact, ever forget the fantastic façade and begin to believe their own hype?

In the Year 2000

To celebrate 50 Years of MINI, miniusa.com is taking a glimpse into the future of personal travel. Users can submit renderings of what the next 50 years of transportation could look like. I'm totally diggin' on these two concepts of personal commuter flyers. I love seeing rims on this flying mini-pod and it's pretty rad to see a fully rendered sky-cycle straight outta some anime flick.

Finally Framed

We finally framed and hung our killer Swell Season screen print poster that we scored from the wonderful Signed & Numbered for last year's show at The Depot. We love looking at this thing in our dining room. For those of you who are unsure of who the Swell Season actually are, they're basically the dood and chick from the hit indy flick Once. Here's a little refresher from none other than Upto12.

Even Magnum is Jealous

Shell has compiled a commercial of seriously fabulous Ferrari footage that'll even wipe the mustache off T. Selleck's mug. Enjoy!

I Am The Bicycle Thief

So three weeks ago, while on our weekly Sunday family walk, I saw this sweet knock-off of a classic Schwinn Collegiate called a Huffy Sportsman. It was sitting precariously against some old furniture in front of a neighbor’s house. Now this stuff was not that close to the curb, but it kinda sorta looked like it might be headed there so I full-on swiped the bike.

Once I was home for a bit, the guilt kicked in and I went back and left a note on the neighbor’s door. I let ‘em know that if they weren’t planning to toss the thing, I’d be happy to bring it back. Well it’s been three weeks—I think I’m home free. My goal is to get it ride-able, perhaps with a little help from this guy.

Mid-century Modest

I'm totally inspired by this collection of sweet little paintings of stylish, yet modest, mid-century modern homes by artist Leah Giberson. I love the detail, especially in the landscaping. Would be a pretty cool neighborhood to live in, don't you think?






So, I took the liberty of creating a custom wallpaper of these paintings. It's optimized for a 15-in Macbook Pro, but there's plenty of resolution for a larger screen as well. I set the artist's URL in a mid-century modern typeface namely, House Industries' Neutraface, crafted after architect Richard Neutra's own architectural font. You can download the wallpaper by clicking here or on the picture below:

It's Like Threadless... For Cars

Threadless.com's No More Nudes biz model of user-submitted tee designs and community-voted production has interestingly enough been more or less replicated within the fledgling private auto industry. Local Motors is a new site/auto manufacturer that collects industrial designers' user-submitted concept cars and then actually produces the car that the community has voted on.

Apparently the first winner to be produced will be the concept depicted above designer by Sangho Kim called: The Rally Fighter. The car will sport a BMW 335d 3.0 Liter, Turbo-diesel Inline 6-Cylinder Engine. To get in line a spot will cost you $99 and if you order to you'll be 23rd in line. Then you'll need to fork over another $5K to lock in your order. Who knows how much the final Rally Fighter will even cost—but if you're passionate about car design and user-submitted content—this might be the ride for you.

Happy 50th MINI!

Check out this fun b-day music vid! How do you picked to be in this thing? Sheesh.