Morning, y’all! Last night, I discovered the trailer for the new Jeff Bridges movie Crazy Heart. As far as trailers go, this one looks promising. Bridges, playing an alcoholic country star, has the Bocephus thing nailed down tight; Maggie Gyllenhaal, as the reporter who helps Bridges turn his life around, looks smart and womanly; christ, it’s got Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall, too. But then I thought back to the trailer for Men Who Stare at Goats, a Bridges vehicle if ever there was one, and the pile of broken dreams that movie turned out to be. Will it happen again with Crazy Heart?

Anne Thompson at Indie Wire thinks no. According to Thompson, Fox Searchlight initially intended to roll out Crazy Heart in spring 2010, but with Amelia looking less and less likely to pick up an Oscar nomination, Crazy Heart will now have a limited release next month. Thompson has seen a rough cut of the movie, and says it’s a contender. I’ll take that.

More arts shit after the jump.

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Spelling for Bees refers to itself as both a collective—in that it’s an umbrella for music by its 40 members—and a supergroup, meaning that its participants, drawn from indie-rock bands the District over, occasionally create songs together. The two cuts on the project’s MySpace page, “Love at First Sight” and “Giboullee (Bella),” are delicate and slow-building with an orchestral flair, and the group’s leader, Mittenfields member Dave Mann, says he eventually hopes to incorporate every player, Polyphonic Spree-style, into the live set. Mann formed Spelling for Bees this March with members of Mittenfields and another of his projects, Sweet Tea Pumpkin Pie, as well as Dangerosa, We Were Pirates, the Mean Ideas, Sun Committee, and others (one member, Austen Brown, used to be a singer in the Spree). The group has a residency at the Velvet Lounge, and each month’s performance resembles an open mic centered on a theme; at the show this Tuesday, every member will cover a Radiohead song. The Charlottesville, Va., band Invisible Hands opens, and doors are at 7 p.m. $5.

More overstaffed bands after the jump: cute orchestral indie, a Canadian choir, and Thin Lizzy and the Sex Pistols getting festive!

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Weezer: “(If You Are Wondering if I Want You To) I Want You To”
If ever there was a rock star who needed to get back in touch with his lowly teenage self, it’s Rivers Cuomo. Weezer’s best moments were driven by nostalgia for D&D, heavy metal, and awkward romance–all things the singer has been unable/unwilling to access during the band’s last three records. “(If You Are Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To,” from the Weezer’s as-yet-untitled seventh record, is auspiciously geeky, though. There are power pop riffs, at least one mention of a Slayer t-shirt and that’s enough to fuel the faint hope that Cuomo’s nerd-mojo has been reignited.

Radiohead: “These Are My Twisted Words”
So, the blogs were wrong. Who would have thought? Instead of a new Radiohead EPall we get are some nasty words and an official release of “These Are My Twisted Words,” a song that the band leaked last week onto a fan-operated message board. Hey, that’s better than nothing. And it’s not like “Twisted Words” is some sort of tossed off b-side, either. This is Radiohead at its jammiest, with hypnotic guitar arpeggios morphing together for over five minutes as if Johnny Marr were paying homage to Meddle-era Pink Floyd.

Wavves: “Cool Jumper”
San Diego-based scuzz-pop prodigy Nathan Williams has had his name floating all over the blogosphere recently, largely due to a drug-fueled mid-concert meltdown. There’s a better, more productive way, to maintain that hype level, though: release good music. “Cool Jumper” finds Williams doing just that. The chords/grit/drums formula that drives Wavves songs is cleverly expanded using Hella drummer Zach Hill to drop in jarring off time fills over Williams’ bubblegum “ooohs” and “ahhs.”

The Flaming Lips: “See The Leaves”
For the last 10 years The Flaming Lips have been rock’s leading purveyors of PMA, cutting one inspirational anthem after another. But “See The Leaves,” from the band’s upcoming record Embryonic, strikes a darker tone. In fact, between the song’s stumbling groove and bleak outro, there’s nary a confetti blasting/fist-pump-appropriate moment to be found here. “Without hope/ without love/ she sees herself from below and above,” sings front man Wayne Coyne. The Flaming Lips do paranoia pretty well, though, and “See The Leaves” is no exception. It’s hard to say what triggered the epic come-down, but it might not be a bad thing.

It’s Christmas in August for Radiohead fans. Pitchfork reported yesterday that yet another new Radiohead track has hit the Internet, the second in a week!

The first—“Henry Patch (in memory of),” a paean to the eponymous last British World War I veteran, who died in July—was announced on the band’s Web site and covered widely in the press. The latest one, called “These Are My Twisted Words,” appeared yesterday without fanfare on a Radiohead fan site. Its origins are, apparently, a mystery—so much so that Pitchfork was unable to verify that it’s actually a Radiohead song. (It definitely is.)

The appearance of these two singles is part of a Web-era trend that has bands releasing material bit-by-bit, rather than in LP-sized chunks. Although musical purists might decry the incipient death of album, Thom Yorke—perhaps music’s purest purist—isn’t one of them. He hates making albums, calls the process “creative hoo-ha,” and finds recording them insufferable. This from the architect of arguably the best album of the 1990s.

In unrelated news, Slate’s Emily Yoffe today writes that because of something to do with the distinction between dopamine and opioids, animals are driven into insatiable fits when given morsels of sustenance at a time, rather than a full ration.

So, is our reverence for albums simply arbitrary, based on archaic packaging methods? Is the serialization of music going to turn us into crazed lab rats?

While you think about it, enjoy maybe-Radiohead’s latest song:

Read More “Killer Serials: Another Radiohead Release?” »