read | swans

photo by alex welsh

 featured in jtk's outrageously handsome new edition of the fader, the photo issue

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happening | jeff thrope

i am so proud to say that my great, great friend and favorite blog topic jeff thrope has gone and got named creative director for fjallraven, that swedish outdoor underdog with the boxy kid backpacks. that they had the good sense and faith to hire jeff based only on the sniper-steady right-on-ness of his website, cold splinters, is (to me) their greatest credit. his first move was to re-imagine and redesign the brand's soho headquarters, and they're throwing a big ol' bash to celebrate his stubbly kodachrome vision. come party. i'll be there with all the regulars, hiding behind my camera and stashing free stuff. on another note, i feel really great about the fact that this blog's thousandth post advertises and celebrates jeff's best success yet. that's the whole reason this ol' thing got started anyway. really come out. it'll be the best time all october (at least).

p.s. justin kay designed that flyer.

revisit | jaime martinez

watch | anna boden & ryan fleck

aside from all the great obvious things to say about anna and ryan's new movie, like wow whoa!, how about i'll say this: i have just now noticed that it's kind of a funny story features jeremy davies, who aside from being character of the year daniel faraday is also ryan's exact clone in appearance, which must have been crazy and is likely kind of a funny story in its own right. wah wah. dumb paragraph. click play.

DOWNLOAD: IDA MARIA - OH MY GOD [MP3] (via)

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look | benny arnold

 

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look | tim & heidi

 

watch | sam macon

Crocodiles revamp the Coug here, ripping "I Fight Authority" and dipping it in snake adrenaline on a deathmatch Route One drag race with xylophones. Sam did the video, which features Purvis as a sort of Elijah figure, no wait, I mean Charles Manson. I'm gonna go jump off a bridge.

watch | bonnie prince billy

I forgot to say how me and Liz took an eight hour road trip on a Wednesday after work maybe two weeks ago, to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on a whim for some secret music. We met Kim, Jonny, Scott and Tim in an easy-sloping Amish country field, at the top of which was a barn strung up Christmas-style with garlic stalks for holly drying through the rafters. There was an easy country opener with a lady singer we missed and a Civil War style banjo/fiddle act we saw from an unhitched hayride wagon. There were plenty of locals high on pig roast and beers, jawing away with the crickets over the music, and that was fine. We saw the goats in the dark and Nacho the pig around the corner, and the spot where they weighed the eggs, before finding a quiet patch of lawn to stretch out on for the main event, which was Will Oldham trying out a set of new songs for a crowd who mostly couldn't have cared less. The lead guitar guy was cranked a little loud but Meg Baird made it all soft, putting on the harmony. And such control Will Oldham has over his voice, you would hardly believe. Every bend and pitch is right on the money and we stayed through the R. Kelly encore before driving home until almost five, gladly sick on grease and Diet Coke caffeine from Taco Bell/McDonald's detours. Went to work on Thursday, too. Here's a couple things we saw there. Turn the volume on the videos loud. They got muted some by the grass.



















+ SOMEBODY ELSE'S VIDEO HERE!

listen | swans

 
Like Jeff said I flew to LA in August with my face against the fiberglass looking down for hours and watched the ground go blank then blue then red before chapping and busting up in cracks over Arizona especially. I know it's nothing new shooting shitty spacescapes out of airplane windows, but I am what I am and I couldn't resist or believe my eyes, even though I'd seen this one before, and the new Swans was playing all the way in headphones for work and also to drown out the camera clacking I imagined had my nearest co-passengers' faces in a scrunch. So what. Thanks for hyping me Jeff. You rule. Here are some bonus photos to round out the set you saw on ol' Cold Splinters.

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