MUSIC | December 1, 2011

Ed + Ginger


Since the Brits treat their flame-haired citizens like nature’s scourge, it’s only fitting that ginger-mopped troubadour Ed Sheeran is converting them all into rabid fans. His debut + has been a U.K. hit since September, and in advance of 2012’s U.S. release Elektra’s dropping the teaser EP The A Team next Tuesday. These four tracks show the folksy side of Sheeran – he’s Jason Mraz, Damien Rice, and David Gray rolled into one – but don’t be too fooled. Sure, “Give Me Love” and two previously unreleased tracks, “Firefly” and “Fall,” are soft love songs. But the title cut – which catapulted Sheeran into the spotlight – is a harrowing tale of drug addiction…with more surprises like the beat-boxing “You Need Me, I Don’t Need You” and impending fatherhood cut short on “Small Bump” to come when + finally gets here.

Videos after jump.
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BOOKS | November 30, 2011

Holiday Book Gift Guide


We at Modern Tonic wish you a very fashionable holiday season. With that in mind, here’s a selection of page-turning stocking stuffers that will keep everyone on your list in vogue.

The Pedro Almodovar Archives, Edited by Paul Duncan & Bárbara Peiró (out December TBD)
The acclaimed auteur, known best for his stylish films that give outsiders their due, has given TASCHEN access to a trove of never-before-seen images for this rich survey of his cinematic world, which features his own words as well as those of prominent Spanish authors in celebration of all that is Almodovar.

Remembering Christmas, Tom Mendocino, Frank Anthony Polito & Michael Salvatore (out now)
A heart-warming and often hilarious compilation of Christmas nostalgia from three gay authors that explores what it means to go home for the holidays: from returning to the places (and people) we thought we never wanted to see again, to reuniting with a childhood crush, to finding a new love who takes us where we belong.

The World of Downtown Abbey, Jessica Fellowes (out December 6)
A niece of series creator Julian Fellowes, Jessica takes us deeper inside the beloved British drama in this companion book that delves into the history, secrets and making of our favorite upstairs-downstairs period piece (with season 2 coming soon!).

Harper’s Bazaar: Greatest Hits, Glenda Bailey & Stephen Gan (out now)
America’s longest-running fashion magazine fetes the first decade of Glenda Bailey’s reign with a coffee table book that includes gorgeous images from the world’s top photographers and essays from pop culture icons like Patti Smith and Arianna Huffington.

David and Hammond tell their own tale of how they reclaimed an elevated rail structure to create one of the most scenic and beautiful parks Manhattan has to offer – all with no prior experience in urban planning and development, just a passion, a vision, and a community that willed it to be.

Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, Michael Pollan & Maira Kalman (out now)
In a time when we’re stuffing ourselves to the gills with holiday treats, Food Rules takes us back to the simple pleasures of eating – and eating well – through Pollan’s memorable, witty principles and Kalman’s whimsical illustrations.
Following the recent first-ever Gaultier retrospective at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, this monograph takes a comprehensive look at one of fashion’s most avant-garde designers, including dazzling photos and illustrations plus over fifty interviews with his muses and colleagues such as Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Dita Von Teese, and Tom Ford.

BOOKS | November 29, 2011

A Very Ugly Christmas


Like it or not, the holiday season is officially upon us. From the moment the pepper spray got broken out in Black Friday’s wee morning hours, Holidaze 2011 has been moving towards us like a runaway freight train. While there’s lots of things we love about the holidays, there are more than a few things that leave us bewildered, among them the amazingly tacky bedazzled and over-decorated Christmas sweaters that get hauled out of the mothballs to be worn at an office Christmas party or family gathering near you. But three resourceful guys (Brian Miller, Adam Paulson, Kevin Wool) subvert these eyesores into something to actually enjoy, with their celebratory Ugly Christmas Sweater Party Book (out now), based on their website of the same name. While partially devoted to ideas about how to create your own party where everyone dons this gay apparel, the bulk of the book is made up of photos of some of the most egregious Yuletide offenders, complete with spot-on descriptions. Props to these guys for finding the appeal and humor in something so unfashionably, well, ugly.
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MOVIES | November 28, 2011

XXX-Men


Michael Fassbender’s penis makes its first appearance three minutes into the NC-17-rated Shame (opening Friday) then reappears liberally throughout its 99-minute running time. Now that that’s out of the way, we can concentrate on the fearless depiction of sex addiction that is Brit director Steve McQueen’s sophomore feature. New Yorker Brandon spends his days in thrall to sex – he pays for hookers, jerks off to online porn, sneaks off at work for quick relief in the men’s room, and effortlessly picks up women during happy hour (for him, every hour is happy hour). When Brandon’s troubled sibling Sissy (Carey Mulligan) crashes at his apartment indefinitely, the delicate balance of his life spirals out of control. Yet Fassbender and McQueen never lose sight of their sensual, melancholy, incomparable film, even when Brandon’s compulsion deposits him in the dingy backrooms of an underground gay sex club. No shame in that, we say.

BOOKS | November 23, 2011

“Divine” Madness


People do some crazy stuff to get famous. All it took for Harris Glenn Milstead, aka Divine, was to dress in drag and eat a little dog poo in Pink Flamingos. It helped that his friend John Waters was around to channel his friend’s subversive impulses into the glory days of midnight movies, but who knows what craziness Divine would have gotten up to anyway? Postcards from Divine (out now) – compiled by Dan Marshall, Michael O’Queen, Noah Brodie and Milstead’s late mother Frances, with Technicolor photos of Divine in grand plumage and anecdotes from peers like Waters and Mink Stole – is a decade-long glimpse into Divine’s world. These intimate scribblings, written to his parents from 1977 to 1987 while he toured the world, are a respite from his famous self. They normalize a zaftig drag queen who merely had to be his over-sized self to become a legend.
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BOOKS | November 22, 2011

Tune In Tokyo


How do you measure, measure a year? When Tune in Tokyo (out November 29) author Tim Anderson (pictured above) fled to Japan to escape his post-adolescent malaise, his three soul-numbing jobs and his uncommonly understanding boyfriend in North Carolina, his units of measurement included, among other things: bowls of ramen, pounds lost (thanks to said bowls of ramen) and disapproving looks he attracted from the natives. But to quantify Anderson’s bitingly funny sojourn into the blindingly lit, insanely crowded “America on Opposite Day” is to miss the point. The innumerable funny/awkward/terrifying experiences he relates don’t ultimately yield tangible results: at trip’s end, he’s still in debt, still directionless and still waiting for a glimpse of the elusive Japanese lesbian he’d been hunting throughout his Eastern tenure. But what his seemingly frivolous forays into experimental Japanese jam bands and dance clubs wallpapered with massive vaginas have yielded is a sharply written, richly detailed comedy of manners – the perfect escape hatch for your impending quarter-life crisis.
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MOVIES | November 21, 2011

The Silent Artist


It’s a ballsy move to attempt a modern, black-and-white, silent film – but that’s exactly what French writer/director Michel Hazanavicius has done with The Artist (opens Friday in NYC and L.A.). Set in 1920s Hollywood, this very meta movie follows silent-film star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) as the arrival of talkies is sending his career into ruin, while a beautiful, wide-eyed extra (Bérénice Bejo) he once mentored is becoming a star. A tale of fame and love and Hollywood itself, the film is visually rich and layered with symbolism, with life frequently imitating art imitating life. But all this self-consciousness doesn’t keep the audience at arm’s length: Dujardin charms and aches so brilliantly without words that Cannes gave him a Best Actor award. And if that’s not enough, keep an eye out for Uggy, the scene-stealing dog.

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MOVIES | November 17, 2011

Field of “Eames”


We all know about Charles and Ray Eames’ chairs. But that only begins to the scratch the surface. Fittingly narrated by another multi-hyphenate, James Franco, the new documentary Eames: The Architect and the Painter (opens tomorrow in NYC and L.A. and more cities follow; also on DVD December 13) from filmmakers Jason Cohn and Bill Jersey, tells the full story of this powerhouse couple, from their innovations in furniture design to their humanizing ad campaigns for IBM to the US-propaganda film they screened for Cold War Russia to their Google-esque creative workshop, “The Eamery.”  In many ways, the Eames’ led an enviable existence, where work and life were interchangeable and full of beauty and invention. But it wasn’t without its dramas, including issues of credit, the era’s sexism pushing Ray to the background, and Charles’ wandering eye.

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MUSIC | November 16, 2011

“Snow” Angel


Two Kate Bush releases in one year? First Director’s Cut and now the hour-long song-cycle 50 Words for Snow (out November 22) – it’s like a holiday gift from the gods (preferably one that looks like Henry Cavill in Immortals, but we digress…). Bush’s work rate has been glacial – six years since her last release, Aerial, and, prior to that, 11 years since The Red Shoes – as have her general tempos and melodies. These seven songs are long, dense, layered, and breathtaking, like a good old-fashioned snowstorm. From the dulcet vocals of her son Bertie on opener “Snowflakes” to the Elton John duet on the romance-across-the-ages ballad “Snowed in at Wheeler Street” to the erotic reveries of “Misty,” 50 Words for Snow will light a fire in your heart keeping you warm long after the season is over.

Stream 50 Words for Snow in full now at NPR.com.

 

BOOKS | November 15, 2011

Book Preview: Gorgeous Guys


Calling the Mammoth Book of Gorgeous Guys (out now) “mammoth” is sort of like the guys on pick-up sites with their wildly unreliable self-measurements: the book could be a stocking stuffer for the holidays; it’s actually pretty compact. And while it’s positioned as simply pics of muscle guys, it’s a bit more than that. Editor Barbara Cardy has curated hundreds of nude male photographs from a wide range of male and female photographers, some whose pics are straightforward and many more leaning towards artsy.  While a few of the photographers may be familiar, like Tom Bianchi, there are dozens whose work is much more under the radar…and that’s what makes this book worthwhile. It’s a great introduction to the work of artists that deserve to be seen, complete with background and biographical information, as well as generous samplings of their pictures. Even though this book is much smaller than suggested, it doesn’t mean it won’t deliver on its promise.

More photos after jump.
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MUSIC | November 11, 2011

Young (Gay) Professionals


We’re men enough to admit what drew us to The Young Professionals’ debut 9-00 To 17-00, 17-00 To Whenever is the campy video for percolating single “D.I.S.C.O.” Yet there’s more to TYP than stilettos and giggles. Comprised of out songwriter Ivri Lider (above right) and producer/composer/DJ Johnny Goldstein, both Israeli, this electro side-project is big on beats, heart, and politics both far-reaching and intensely personal. “Family Value” redefines the nuclear unit for an inclusive world. Or, as Lider sings it, “shame’s not something I dance to.” The banging “20 Seconds” follows Lider on a club crawl for Mr. Right (and Mr. Right Now). And “Deserve” is an elegant electro apologia about the crippling internalized homophobia that often keeps us from loving one another. But no more. These young professionals make it safe to come out whether you’re wearing a corporate suit or six-inch heels.

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WEB | November 10, 2011

November Music Video 3-Way


 Three videos you need to see/artists you need to know: Queen of Hearts (pictured above), called a mix of “Annie, Goldfrapp and Kylie” by The Guardian, is a Brit whose real identity our sleuthing has not yet uncovered. She’s repped here with “Black Star,” the mesmerizing new video from debut EP “The Arrival”; The Sound of Arrows, who we waxed effusive over last week, just debuted “Wonders,” from their brand-new album, Voyage; and last up is Portland’s dance/Italo-disco/indie rock Glass Candy, with a dream of a video for “Warm in the Winter,” shot around the West Coast late this past summer, off their new EP of the same name.

Videos after jump.
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WEB | November 9, 2011

What To Drink


We’re not strangers to winding down a long day at the office with a quiet night at home, chill music and some self-medication. But how do you pick a drink to match the music you want to lose yourself in? Drinkify is the answer to all the world’s problems, or at least yours that evening. Type in the music artist or group, and it calls up an appropriate cocktail recipe with accompanying beats. Staying home and drinking by yourself has never sounded better.

MOVIES | November 8, 2011

Win “J. Edgar” Swag


The long-awaited bio-pic J. Edgar, Clint Eastwood‘s film about the life and career of FBI founder J. Edgar Hoover, starring Leonardo DiCaprio (pictured above  right with Armie Hammer), finally opens this week. With a script by Milk Oscar-winner Dustin Lance Black, and between the was-he or wasn’t-he-gay/bi/closeted speculation about J. Edgar himself as well as uncertainty as to how that would be depicted in the film (we’ve seen it and, while we don’t want to give anything away, for something that has no historical record at all it’s conveyed in a satisfying and clear way) this one’s been on our radar for a while. To mark the film’s premiere (it opens in NYC and L.A. tomorrow, everywhere else on Friday), we’ve got a few prizes to give away to our readers, including a leather briefcase and some baseball caps and posters. To enter, email us at contest@moderntonic.com and include your name and mailing address. Contest details and prizes listed after jump.

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MUSIC | November 4, 2011

Summer Lover


When Summer Camp’s theme song came over the speakers during debut Welcome To Condale (out Tuesday), we knew we were smitten. “I can be a real serious bitch,” Elizabeth Sankey flatly declares, “if I don’t get what I want.” Well, hello Best Coast, Dum Dum Girls and other punk pop Divas – meet your fiercest competition! London-based Sankey and helpmate Jeremy Warmsley double-down on big radio hooks here – from his punky piss-take “Brian Krakow” to her nostalgia-baiting closer “1988” – with one eye (or is that two? four?) on commercial success. Our picks for hitsville? Opener “Better Off Without You” – think She & Him with cavernous drums – and “Losing My Mind,” where Sankey does her prettiest doo-wop voice while Warmsley channels the Human League. Sankey needn’t worry about her inner bitch. Summer Camp’s gonna get everything it wants and more.

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