Morning, y’all! At the top of the news pile: WaPo’s Dave Malitz almost missed his date with Bob Dylan, but then didn’t! Also, my niece, who is 4 years old, does not “get” VHS.

Tony Millionaire’s potty mouth, the legacies of Leo Strauss and Lemmy, the scarcity of female comedy writers, Trace Adkins: Comic Book Hero, free vinyl, music for writing about the Simpsons, and more, after the jump.

Read More “Arts Morning Roundup: Jabez vs. Lemmy and the Merits of ‘Honky Tonk Badonkadonk’” »

For Real Estate’s Martin Courtney, returning to his native New Jersey  last summer after graduating from college may have been a regressive move, but it also turned out to be a productive one.

“I almost exclusively hang out with people from high school these days,” the singer and guitarist says, echoing that common post-collegiate experience of hometown dive bars and procrastinated job searches.

But Courtney also spent last summer writing songs and jamming in his parents’ basement with guitarist Matt Mondanile, bassist Alex Bleeker, and drummer Etienne Duguay, laying the groundwork for what is, little more than a year later, one of 2009’s most promising new indie-pop acts in a year replete with lo-fi fast-burners. Six months after its first gig, Real Estate—which plays at the Rock & Roll Hotel tonight with Japandroids and Neon Indian—was generating buzz at the South by Southwest festival in Austin and tickling the blogosphere with woozy, summery singles. Now, the band is about to release its self-titled debut on Woodsist Records.

Read More “Off the Beach: Real Estate @ Rock & Roll Hotel” »