August 18th's Hot Vspot for the Ears n Eyes...

by B Condon 2:15 PM

Fall is coming! The students are back in town, the hipsters are coming out of their summer hibernation so they can look like the appropriate awesome vampires that they are... yet somehow I'm the one coming downtown looking for them. So it's probably better to keep compiling videos, music, and fall trends for this lovely list instead!

RENT Revival: Hit or Miss?

Being hooked up to RENT's first revival both on "the Twitter" and facebook, they have been putting up many interviews from the new cast (Matt Shingledecker, Annaleigh Ashford, etc.) as well as a **click here!** fantastic article **click here!** to the true artistry of Jonathan Larson's legacy complete with original demos from Tick Tick Boom AND RENT! Any recommendations from me? While I could say watch all of them, LCD Readout, from the unpublished Superbia based on George Orwell's 1984, is one of the most beautiful songs to come from Larson's fingers. ("Can one moment mean more than the last?") And of course Larson's bushy haired brilliant performance of 30/90 from New York's Village Gate in 1991. Watch his intensity and you can see the whole storyline of RENT building in that crazy hair of his.

But coming back to his epitaph musical, here is a video from the revival with Shingledecker singing One Song Glory. Intense as always or does Shingledecker lack a little something that only Pascal had? While his voice is rough and raw which Roger's voice should be, there is a little something missing but who could possibly fill the original cast's shoes?

Final Destination 5 and "The Dougie" Goes 90s

As Nickelodeon is celebrating its 20 year anniversary by making a late night lineup on satellite channel TeenNick "The 90s Are All That) (fail for me) complete with the original All That, Clarissa Explains it All, Kenan and Kel, and Doug. Sounds like my childhood all over again, minus Are You Afraid of the Dark, but the 90s is coming back into popular culture for the

Good...

 

Or questionably awesome...

Or is it the other way around? Either way, 90s fashion is coming back in vogue with denim dresses and over-sized t-shirts (in public!) and now the TV is making a comeback. Generation Y seriously had the best TV culture!

Angry Little Girls ... on Camera?

My immediate response is "yes please!" being the fact that Lela Lee's snark if off the scales, especially in her latest video, is continually epicsauce. As of Tuesday Lee's youtube channel will be monetized which means more videos. I think you need to see it to believe it.

Margaret Berger's "In a Box" B-Side I "4-E.V.E.R.L.O.V.E"

Now to end on something that severely made me happy a few weeks ago when Scandipop put a link up of Margaret Berger's latest, or rather, the unheard half of "In A Box." While **click here!**"4-E.V.E.R.L.O.V.E."**click here!** is one of those songs you would hear towards the end of a night out clubbing, something languid but still a little upbeat, there isn't as much enthusiasm in this song as there was in "In a Box" or even anything from her second album "Pretty Scary Silver Fairy." But are B-sides supposed to be ten times better than their A-side competition? Discuss.

Josh Groban Officially an Actor/Comedian?

No bananas this time but the utmost happy dance that could happen in public in a study room at the library, as **click here!** E! Online tweeted **click here!** a recent breakthrough just today that Josh Groban has been casted as the snarky Ed Helm's brother on the NBC comedy "The Office." While I'm so excited that Josh is gaining exposure, I just hope this won't deter from his classical training. You know I like my opera with a side of humor but Groban was perfect in Crazy Stupid Love... you know, after I squealed out loud a little in the theater... as an all-around jerk which showed his fantastic timing.

But Josh certainly has a good comedy track record; the funny or die with singing Kanye West's tweet, being in Sara Barelles and Ben Fold's music videos (he's literally in Ben Folds and Regina Spektor's "You Don't Know Me" for half a second), dueting with Snoop Dogg, I love that my celebrity boyfriend is able to prove that just because some of us look naturally serious, it doesn't mean we are less fun than everyone else. Remember where he was early 2000s? Shy as hell, now look at him!