Devo, Nada Surf and the punk rock leader of Iceland

I don't usually write about music, but stick with me one this one:

If you haven't heard, Devo has released "Something for Everybody," its first official album in two decades (Though you owe it to yourself to check out the surf rock album from their side project Wipeouters). It's also an amazing album by an amazing band that has unfairly been tagged as "one-hit wonder" for "Whip It," a song that at times makes me cringe from its overexposure.

The problem is Devo was a one-hit wonder only to those who weren't paying attention. Ask a real music fan and they'll rave about the band's more rocking early sound and then go off on how much of our modern sounds owes a lot to the ground Devo plowed.

I've seen Devo in concert twice, once in 1982 in Austin, and again a couple of years ago in San Antonio when they were trying out some of the new music and hammering out the old hits (they've got a good dozen of them in my mind) like they were in a time warp. What they really were in was the start of their Blue Dome Period. The new album pumps and shakes and winks like it's 1982 all over again. And it somehow sounds brand new.

What I'd forgotten is how political Devo is. These are the boys from Kent State, and they showed it in San Antonio when they critiqued poor hapless George W. Bush. The new album also has a political/social edge with songs like "What We Do" and its "Feedin' and breedin' and pumpin' gas/cheeseburger, cheeseburger, do it again..."

I wandered into Austin's Waterloo Records to buy the Devo album. While I was there I scanned the offerings for Nada Surf, a band I love but haven't fully investigated. I noticed the hipster at the counter looked oddly at my music choices. I'm guessing it was the Nada Surf purchases. Maybe this is why I'm not a regular music writer: I had no idea that they were the "one-hit wonders" who did "Popular" back in '96. I instead know Nada Surf for thoughtful creatives songs like "Blonde on Blonde" and "See These Bones."

It seems, like Devo, Nada Surf was unfairly branded a one-hit wonder! I don't know what this says about my musical tastes or the haplessness of the music business, but I do know that Iceland recently elected a punk-rock mayor for its largest city.

That's right, Reykjavik's new mayor is Jon Gnarr, who once toured with the Sugar Cubes and promised free towels at city pools and a Disneyland at the airport as part of his political platform. Somehow that strikes me as proof that Devo was right all along.

'Open Gate' shoots in East Texas

Bob Hudgins of the Texas Film Commission passes this along from The Hollywood Reporter about an indie film shooting in East Texas:


Tyler Hoechlin and Agnes Bruckner are starring in the indie film noir, Open Gate, directed by Dan Jackson and produced by Molly Mayeux, which has begun filming in Atlanta, Texas.

Hoechlin plays a rodeo clown and bull fighter in a small East Texas town, who discovers that the bulls are being used to traffic drugs.

The film is being produced by A Certain Film Prods. in association with Dahlia Street Films.

Lots more about the film here.

Jackson is a graduate of St. Edward's University, where yours truly teaches creative writing.

'Friday Night Lights' a ratings winner?

The one given about Friday Night Lights has been that it's well-written and gets really crappy ratings. That's ending this summer. The show has been in first place or tied for first for five straight weeks as its fourth season airs on NBC. Could the show conceivably get picked up for a sixth season if this continues? You bet.

The big irony is the cast and crew are preparing to bid the show farewell as the last few of the 13 episodes for season five are being shot in Austin (They will air first on DircTV in the fall under the deal NBC struck with the satellite provider). Read my Dallas Morning News column from last Friday for Connie Britton's take on this.

Will 'Tree of Life' sprout at Venice Film Festival?

I love this photo, which came from here, of Austin resident Terrence Malick and Brad Pitt walking in Los Angeles recently in matching Members Only-ish jackets. The Playlist wonders whether FX work and further Malick tinkering may keep the mostly Smithville-shot film Tree of Life out of the Venice Film Festival.

Here's a good examination of the film that Malick has been working on forever from PopMatters.

Meet the real couple behind Linklater's 'Bernie'

The real-life Marjorie and Bernie

See an update with new details here.

Richard Linklater's planned next feature starring Jack Black is called Bernie, and apparently the Bernie in question is Bernie Tiede, a 39-year-old Carthage ex-undertaker who admitted to the 1996 killing of wealthy widow Marjorie Nugent. Here's Texas Monthly's take on the crime.

Linklater is appaently looking at a fall shoot.

The story was also the subject of a TV drama that aired on the USA Network in 2006.

Hey author, Learn to write a really bad query letter now!

Literary agents are catching on that writers are slowly driving them insane via weird and wacky query letters.

(Almost) everything you ever wanted to know about Friday Night Lights' Connie Britton

Connie Britton interviewed by Reel Women's Sherry Mills.

Connie Britton spoke at length at Saturday's meeting of Reel Women, both about her career and about the television series Friday Night Lights. Here are some of the highlights:

On Friday Night Lights:

+ No, a sixth season will not happen.

+ She got teary-eyed recently while reading the script to the final season's tenth episode which is about to go before the cameras.

+ The fifth season will wrap up a lot of loose ends.

+ Look for orginal cast members to all return for the final episodes.

+ She was hesitant to do the show after playing the coach's wife in the film version of Friday Night Lights because the film role was so small. Peter Berg promised a larger role in the TV show.


On her background:

+ She went to Dartmouth but majored in Asian Studies, not theater, and spent a semester in China. Despite her major, she starred in many of the college's theatrical productions and raised the ire of some theater majors/profs.

+ Until recently she held a small grudge for the lack of support she got at the time of her graduation. She went back to the school to give an address and put it all behind her.

+ She attended the Neighborhood Playhouse after being rejected by other theater programs.

+ Her big break came in Edward Burns' low-budget The Brothers McMullen. She was visiting her sister in Washington D.C, and almost didn't show up for the NYC audition. The film was shot in the cast and crew's spare time and thus has a lot of continuity problems. Burns met Robert Redford on an elevator and handed him a tape of the completed film. It went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at Redford's Sundance Film Festival.

+ She is single, dating an L.A. writer and has two rescued dogs, one from Austin.

More in my Dallas Morning News column this coming Friday.