Scott Pilgrim - 2004-2010

Some of you may have seen the awesome Edgar Wright film "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Universe," but didn't know it was based on a comic book. Some of you may not have even seen that film. In both cases, you should correct your mistake, because Scott Pilgrim is all sorts of crazy awesomeness.

Scott Pilgrim is a series of six graphic novels by Bryan Lee O'Malley, which were originally done in black and white but are being colorized now (in addition to having a few extra scenes put back in). They detail the story of one Scott Pilgrim, a Canadian slacker and part-time bass player in the band Sex Bob-omb, who's trying to get his life together and win the heart of the beautiful American trans-dimensional delivery girl Ramona Flowers. To do so, however, he must defeat her seven exes, who have formed a league of sorts. (Because, y'know, bad guys tend to hang out together.) Oh, Scott's also sort of dating a high school girl when he meets Ramona, so there's that whole mess to figure out as well.

Scott Pilgrim is probably only targeted for people between the ages of 21-40, simply because a lot of the pop culture references will be lost on everyone else. That said, it's highly improbable than anyone will get all the references on their first time through, even someone as popped out as me. There's band references, comic book references, video game references (a LOT of videogame references), television references... it goes on and on. I mean, bad guys turn into coins when they're defeated. How can you go wrong with anything that has that in it?

O'Malley's art style is a blend of manga and traditional comic book art styles, and in what seems to be the default for the book, O'Malley just takes whatever works and folds it in, so you'll see things like screentones (which haven't been used in American comics for a long time now), exploding panels, full page spreads, caption jokes... it goes on and on.

Scott Pilgrim's greatest strength, however, is its characters, and not just Scott and Ramona. There's also Wallace Wells, Scott's "cool gay roommate," who often steals the scene in almost any scene he's in. (And props to actor Kieran Culkin for getting the role pitch perfect in the movie. And, y'know, also stealing the scenes he's in...) And there's Kim Pine, Scott's high school friend (and his first girlfriend), the band's drummer who's angrier than most people would believe. Also, Knives Chau, the high school girl who's referred to as "Scott's fake high school girlfriend" early on in the book. And plenty others. Not to mention the evil exes, who are wildly diverse and mostly insane.

There's something wonderfully stop-and-start about Scott Pilgrim as both a character and a book. When it's moving forward, it feels like forward motion is the only possible thing that could be happening right then and there. When it's dwelling on a moment, you almost want that moment to last forever. And Scott as a character is the exact same way - he doesn't seem to have any 1st gear, only neutral and 4th.

And, if you haven't seen the movie "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World," you really should. It's from Edgar Wright, who's brought you such pop classics as "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz," and who's directing "Ant-Man" for Marvel. (He also did a marvelous TV show called "Spaced," but I'll talk about that another day.) I've never understood why the film wasn't a monster hit, but maybe it was just too clever for its own good, a distinct possibility considering the film makes fun of hipsters more than a little bit...


The whole series is out in black and white now, and the first four volumes are in color, with the fifth one coming in June and the sixth one probably the end of this year or the beginning of next (although it could be next summer. Who the hell knows.)

Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport - 2009

There isn't really another band out there like Fuck Buttons. I mean, the band's name alone is enough to drive off a lot of listeners, which is a shame, because they are one of the more inventive bands I've discovered in the last decade.

Formed in 2004, Fuck Buttons is two guys - Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power. They make... music. Fascinating music. At the basest level, it's electronic music, but it's not electronic music like you generally think of.

Whereas the standard modus operandi for electronic music is lots of big beats and heavy bass drops, Fuck Buttons are more interested in environmental soundscapes, but never in a trance-y sort of way. They build soundtracks for movies that don't exist, but not movies that any humans would've made. This is machine music, for machines, by machines, of machines. Their music is full of fizzes, crackles, pops, hums, static, organ croons, swizzling guitars, burbling synth banks, cosmic twinkle and a bunch of vocal samples that are so cut up, they could be signals from Mars.

Fuck Buttons first album, "Street Horrrsing," was wonderful, but was also wildly uneven. That was part of its charm, but it was disconcerting to get howls and shrieks mixed in with the lovely soundscapes. Still, there was an immense amount of potential there. But it wasn't until their second album, "Tarot Sport," that the band connected on all cylinders for me.

For "Tarot Sport," the band enlisted sonic craftsman Andrew Weatherall, who helped them center their music and focus on all the things they were doing right while sanding off some of the bits that were just getting in the way. As a result, "Tarot Sport" is all of the things that I liked on "Street Horrrsing" turned up to 11. Full of long songs, the album demands repeated listening. Keep in mind, the videos I'm going to share are directed by Andrew Hung (half of the band), but are only subsections of the full song.

The first one is "Surf Solar," what can only be described as hypnotically bouncing.



"Surf Solar" was the moment I knew I had to have this album. It hit about two months before the album went on sale, but I listened to the hell out of just this subsection. You can hear that vocal sample so heavily clipped as to be just another instruments, and the weird scratching thumps that curl into the song, and yet that almost TRON-like heavenly hum remains, soaring above it all.

After the album dropped, though, I found it was the majestic "Olympians" that I adored most of all. Again, keep in mind that this is just a subsection of the song. The full version runs 10:43.


"Olympians" is like Vangelis, Mogwai and The Chemical Brothers decided to have a musical child. It's the sound of a new dawn on a majestic desert landscape. It's an IMAX song, so widescreen that you're having to turn your head, just to see another part of it. It's the closing credits of a movie so hard warming that even the most jaded cynic would say "You know, I think we're all going to be okay after all. We might just make it." The track even made it into the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, in a sort of weird self-fulfilling prophecy.

The band's third album, "Slow Focus," dropped last year, and it's also amazing, but it's got a slightly higher barrier to entry, as the songs aren't quite as immediately accessible. It's still a great album, but it's not where I'd recommend people start with. If you find you like "Tarot Sport," then by all means, pick up "Slow Focus."

Also of note - apparently talking about Fuck Buttons makes me something of a hipster, which I get, but reject, because I've seen My Bloody Valentine live twice, and that has to even out.