It’s been awhile since I had my last link dump of articles and videos and projects posted over at NPR Music and NPR.org. So here goes.

Reviews and Blog Posts:

– First Listen: Superchunk, ‘Majesty Shredding’

– First Listen: Blonde Redhead, ‘Penny Sparkle’

– First Listen: Jesca Hoop, ‘Hunting My Dress’

– All Songs Considered blog: How ‘Scott Pilgrim’ Rocks Out On Both Page And Screen

– Song of the Day: Lower Dens: A Blissful Swarm Of Feedback

Video work:

– Ana Tijoux: Tiny Desk Concert (filmed and edited)

– Brian Courtney Wilson: Tiny Desk Concert (filmed and edited)

– Lawrence Arabia: Tiny Desk Concert (filmed)

– Peter Wolf Crier: Tiny Desk Concert (edited)

– Frazey Ford: Tiny Desk Concert (filmed)

– Mavis Staples: Tiny Desk Concert (filmed)

– The Holmes Brothers: Tiny Desk Concert (edited)

– Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer, Zakir Hussain: Tiny Desk Concert (filmed)

– Villagers: Tiny Desk Concert (filmed and edited)

Oh yeah, and be sure to check out the new podcast I’m producing alongside NPR’s arts and entertainment blog Monkey See. It’s called Pop Culture Happy Hour and features Linda Holmes, Trey Graham, Stephen Thompson and Glen Weldon discussing all things television, movies, comics, books.

Here’s the most recent one:

– Pop Culture Happy Hour: Emmys, ‘Runway,’ And General Misanthropy

Ah, True Blood. As the HBO Southern Gothic vampire soap opera wraps up its third season, I have been thinking back about what transpired. The show used to inspire so much enjoyment thanks to its over-the-top exploits and campy humor, not to mention because it’s preposterously gory (bloody explosions after a vampire is staked to death) and unbelievably sexy (Boobies! Vampire Sex!). And with those insane cliffhangers every episode, you can’t wait to tune in again next week. That is, until this season.

Season three has been so all over the place that it has me wondering if the show has lost its way or simply going in a direction I don’t want it to go. Where it used to be one of the first things I would watch each week, I’ve let many episodes pile up in recent weeks. In anticipation of the finale, I finally caught up, and while there is still much to admire, the show is not hitting the same highs it used to. I think I have it pegged down to these three issues:

1) Too Many Characters.

True Blood is not the first show with an ever-expanding cast. Deadwood, Sopranos, and The Wire rarely had an issue with huge rosters of characters to keep track of. True Blood hasn’t delivered as seamlessly as it expands its universe. Because the show is primarily plot-driven rather than character-driven, we see little in the way of character development. As such, True Blood continues to introduce new people* with little for us to care about, while leaving others on the sidelines for long extended periods of time, or mired in inane story lines.

(* Just this season alone they’ve introduced us to: Russell Edgington — the decadent vampire king of Mississippi and his Nazi redneck werewolves; Alcide — the one good werewolf apparently; Franklin — yet another sadistic vampire; Sam Merlotte’s annoying shapeshifting brother; Crystal — the newly discovered were-panther? — and her meth-making family; Jesus — Lafayette’s love interest with connections to black magic; a Wiccan waitress; an underground dog fighting ring; a meth drug ring; a secret vampire gov’t black ops illuminati group.

Whew, got that? I’m sure a ton of crap I’ve somehow blocked out. Oh yes, that’s right… and a bunch of mystical fairies with connections to Sookie, who has finally been revealed as one herself.)

Even with all the additions — and a few of them have been somewhat good, specifically Denis O’Hare as Russell — it’s often at the expense of characters who previously showed a lot of potential but often haven’t had much to do: Jessica; Sophie-Anne, the Queen of Louisiana; Pam.

2) Everyone Has Special Powers And It Doesn’t Seem All That Special Anymore

One of the other major problems with True Blood is directly related to the first. Nearly every character on the show has, or is developing, a special power or is some new creature. I understand that this is an established aspect of True Blood, even from the first season with Sam turning out to be a shapeshifter and the mystery surrounding Sookie’s abilities. But where that season introduced us to a mysterious world where vampires and humans co-exist, and how the humans might fear them as the vampires are integrated into their towns, that mystery has fallen by the wayside. There are now very few humans left at the heart of the show. This has had two effects.

First, as each new special power is introduced, the show begins to lose the characters meant to represent the audience’s point of view. Therefore the audience has increasingly few characters to identify with or comment on the action for them. That is often what keeps a batshit crazy shows like this grounded in some sort of reality (see: Hurley on LOST, for example). Even Jessica’s plotline as the newly created, forever teenage girl vampire had a ton of potential for her to be a stand in for the audience and show what it’s like to deal with becoming a vampire, especially when it’s against your will. But they’ve often dropped the ball on her story, only to suddenly remember she’s still around.

The audience is willing to forgive the fantasy aspects of the show — creatures and magic and all that — if there is someone to counterbalance it and make it seem like this could all be happening.

Second, those with powers begin feel less special and original. Characters with the powers and abilities like Eric, Bill, Sookie are not as different in comparison to everyone else. From the vampires and werewolves and shapeshifters to maenads, fairies, and (what they’re now hinting with Lafayette and others), voodoo, black magicians, witches and Wiccans, it’s just getting a bit out of control.

Sure, there’s still humans like Jason, Hoyt, Andy Bellfleur, and I guess Tara (as impossibly dumb her plotlines have been). But those characters have often operated over to the side of the main action until all the plot lines coalesce at the end of each season. This would work a lot better if some of these normal day-to-day characters were more frequently brought into the fold and forced react to all the things Sookie and company are dealing with. Instead it often feels like two shows, and not in a good way.

3) Plots Do Not Make Sense

This one is simple. The breakneck of the story lines the last three season has been so fast that plots are often introduced and rarely given enough time to establish a status quo before moving on to something else. The serialization used to be part of the fun — each episode picked up where the cliffhanger of the previous left off. It felt immediate and exciting. But characters never seem to have the time to think things through, to formulate ideas or even catch up to see ramifications of their actions. Plot lines are often just dropped when the show gets bored with it.

And it’s starting to affect the show. The plots go in circles (see the increasingly tedious Sookie\Bill\Eric triangle; anything involving an angry Tara getting brainwashed or tortured or getting drunk or feeling sorry for herself) and some just come out of nowhere (Sam is now an angry drunk?). And as I said before, the introduction of characters as type but with little characterization has started to affect the amount of time spent on characters we like and want to see stories with.

Now, it’s very possible it’s just me. It likely is. True Blood is a bona fide hit and its popularity has never been higher. Simply put, people are going bananas for the show. Still, I feel like I’m starting to hit a wall. There are too many other good shows I’m more interested in following closely like AMC’s Mad Men, and the upcoming Boardwalk Empire on HBO. I’m not giving up for good just yet. But hopefully True Blood will find a way to keep me interested as it wraps up this season and preps for next summer’s return. It has too much potential still left to fulfill.

– Song of the Day: School Of Seven Bells: A Spacey Dance-Pop Hymn

– All Songs Considered blog: Five Great Cover Songs From 2010 (So Far)

– Jason Moran: Finding Sound, Then Making It His Own
– A Blog Supreme: More Moran Motion Pictures Please

– Los Campesinos!: Tiny Desk Concert

– Gogol Bordello: Tiny Desk Concert

– ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic: Tiny Desk Concert

– A Blog Supreme: Where Was The Jazz At Bonnaroo 2010?

– NPR Music: Live From Bonnaroo webcast and coverage

– The Mynabirds: Tiny Desk Concert

– Zuill Bailey: Tiny Desk Concert

– First Listen: Blitzen Trapper

– Fredrik: Tiny Desk Concert

– Broken Social Scene: Leaner Lineup, Same Big Sound

Here are a few recent pieces that have run elsewhere on NPR Music:

– First Listen: LCD Soundsystem, ‘This Is Happening’

– First Listen: Broken Social Scene, ‘Forgiveness Rock Record’

– Make Music With Your (Wait For It) Shoes
A new ad campaign from Nike shows musicians making music with samples triggered from their kicks.

– Regina Carter: Tiny Desk Concert
Edited the video for this one.

– Jakob Dylan, Neko Case, Kelly Hogan: Tiny Desk Concert
Co-filmed and edited the video for this one.

– Wye Oak: Tiny Desk Concert
Co-filmed and edited the video for this one.

Here’s the cover to Love and Desperation, the new album from J. Mascis (obviously of Dinosaur Jr.) side project Sweet Apple:

And here’s the original from Roxy Music’s Country Life:

– The Antlers: Tiny Desk Concert — Helped shoot and edited\produced the video for this beautiful set.

– Laura Veirs: Tiny Desk Concert – Edited\produced this video of a very preggers Laura Veirs. Great, warm show.

– Song of the Day: The Besnard Lakes: Filling The Room With Sound

– Sparklehorse Singer Mark Linkous Remembered — Helped put this page together and selected all the music.

– All Songs Considered blog: Dorks Gather For Listening Party – In which I am mentioned and briefly talk about the RPM Challenge.

– Culturetopia Won A Gracie Award! — This is a weekly arts and entertainment podcast I produce and it really is quite great. Check it out if you haven’t tuned in.

This past month of February, I have been working on new music as part of the RPM Challenge. As you might recall from past years, the RPM Challenge is a month-long endeavor to encourage musicians to create an entire album of original music, start to finish. That means write songs, record, mix, master and mail off a hard copy to the good folks who sponsor the event.

This is the third time I’ve taken part in four years. Here are my entries from 2007 and 2009 with Hello Come In. Incidentally, we also spent the entire year of 2007 making 12 original EPs which you can find here.

So now it’s March 1st 2010. This year I decided to mix it up and make music with people locally in Washington D.C. Working with me in collaboration is Robin Hilton and Meg Ruddick — both NPR Music coworkers. Robin I have worked with in the past on a few songs, Meg never before, so it’s pretty cool to try something new this year.

For this project we have named ourselves Golden Days and we’re proud to present our debut effort: It Was Over Before We Began.

Anyway, on to the music:

You can stream each track here, or download the entire album here.

1. It Was Over Before We Began

Download audio file (01_ItWasOverBeforeWeBegan.mp3)

2. Year Of Dreams

Download audio file (02_YearOfDreams.mp3)

3. Mind Control

Download audio file (03_MindControl.mp3)

4. Pig

Download audio file (04_Pig.mp3)

5. Come Tomorrow

Download audio file (05_ComeTomorrow.mp3)

6. It’s A Weakness

Download audio file (06_ItsAWeakness.mp3)

7. Captain Kid

Download audio file (07_CaptainKid.mp3)

8. Bone Fragments

Download audio file (08_BoneFragments.mp3)

9. Scene

Download audio file (09_Scene.mp3)

Produced by Golden Days
Recorded, Mixed and Mastered by Robin Hilton and Mike Katzif
at Hello Come In Studios & Small Good Thing Productions,
in Washington DC; February 2010
Artwork and layout design by Mike Katzif
Drums on “It’s A Weakness by Aryn Crowley
All Songs by Golden Days; Copyright 2010
Special Thanks to Hello Come In, Small Good Thing,
Krusher, for her unwavering patience and support
and our nearly half dozen fans.

– Exclusive First Listen: Gorillaz, Plastic Beach

– Abaji: Tiny Desk Concert: This is the first video I’ve actually shot for NPR. I also edited the video and produced the page taboot.

– Song of the Day: Yeasayer: Tightly Wound And Dance Friendly

– The Gun Show: A Winter Workout Mix. Here I just sort of helped direct the photographer a little for this photo shoot. Then found myself playing the part of surly trainer. Yes I get paid for this.

– David Rawlings and Gillian Welch: Tiny Desk Concert

– First Listen: Massive Attack, Heligoland

– Low Anthem: Tiny Desk Concert

– First Listen: Beach House, Teen Dream

– First Listen: Charlotte Gainsbourg, IRM

– Elvis Presley At 75: Songs We Love

– In Memoriam: Musicians We Lost, 2000-2009. I did a majority of the building, researching and producing of this multimedia interactive page which was part of our End of Decade coverage. Looks pretty great I think.

– Def Jam’s 25th Anniversary: Songs We Love. In which I discuss LL Cool J.

– In Memoriam: Musicians We Lost In 2009. I was one of the main producers and researchers for this amazing interactive feature we did as part of our End of Year coverage.

Download audio file (Maracatu.mp3)

Episode 1 : “Don Eugenio”

Download audio file (Milonga.mp3)