Garfunkel and Oates

​See also: Garfunkel & Oates Write Song about Greatest "Lost" Mystery: "Why Isn't There More Fucking On This Island?"

Comedy-folk duo Garfunkel and Oates -- aka Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci -- have blossing TV and film careers. But for the past three years they've been performing their brand of musical comedy at spots like the UCB Theatre and Largo, which will host their second annual Ho, Ho, Hoes? holiday show this Friday, December 9.

The duo specializes in translating topical commentary and everyday situations into YouTube anthems; their most famous, "Pregnant Women Are Smug" has over a million and a half views. Some of their videos have high production values, like "Weed Card," but they often simply record themselves on a couch. Their most recent effort "Save the Rich" is a sarcastic argument in favor of rights for the wealthy. They spoke with us about their upcoming holiday show and third album, the series they're creating for HBO, and "Save The Rich" in the context of the Occupy movement.

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Star Foreman

​See also:
*Our cover story on Skrillex
*Skrillex, Major Lazer, Caspa - Hard Haunted Mansion - Shrine Expo Hall - 10-29-11
*Skrillex Is Making Music With Members Of The Doors! We Speak With Him And Robby Krieger About It
*Skrillex photos from Petco Park
* Top Five Girls Who Look Like Skrillex

Skrillex loves it when folks cover his songs, which is good because there are a billion of them. When we met with the twenty-three-year-old producer in San Diego recently to interview him for this week's cover story -- out today -- he noted that he was particularly impressed with fan-made YouTube versions of his hit "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites."

"The best shit is when you get kids who cover my songs orchestrally," he says.

But employing a symphony is only one way to do "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites" justice. Here are our top five favorite cover renditions.

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​A couple of years ago, Sirah, a young, white, female California rapper, was on the rise. She was in talks with major labels. She was about to release an album. She stitched together her outfits with two-dollar thrift store finds and no Fendi. Sound familiar?

But unlike Kreayshawn, the white girl rapper who's currently soaking up the spotlight, Sirah was a firecracker onstage, bopping through casually feminist rhymes atop Bjork-like singsongs. Although she was living in a garage in East L.A. and working as a "sober companion" to recovering addicts transitioning from rehab back to their old lives, she felt on the verge. Then her manager threw her a curveball.

Two weeks after her album Smile You Have Teeth was finished, her manager and the co-producer on the record sent her a contract demanding $30,000 from the work's proceeds. Because she and the producer couldn't come to a song split agreement, releasing Smile would have led to a legal battle.

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Lina Lecaro

Marilyn Manson and Twiggy Ramirez at Studio Servitu

​Have you seen Marilyn Manson's short film "Born Villain"? The new work (which some are calling a music video) advances his upcoming album of the same name. It also reaffirms his "shock rocker" status, though perhaps the most shocking part is its director: Shia LaBeouf!

There's a lot of surrealist imagery and violent, NSFW antics in the thing, and while some may have a hard time watching it, we just had a hard time trying to figure out what it all means.

Well, if anyone could break it down, it'd be Nick Kushner, the NY artist whose opening Saturday night at Studio Servitu saw not only a screening of the film, but a DJ set by Marilyn Manson's band mate Twiggy Ramirez. It quickly turned into an album listening party when Manson himself got behind the laptop and unveiled his brand new music for the first time.

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Brandon Showers

​Photographers have tough jobs. Lugging around equipment. Setting up lights. Dodging other photogs. Getting harassed by cops, yelled at by editors. It can be tough to figure out just what motivates them.

Then you see the following video, from Jonathan Schwarz, of Brandon Showers working the lens for Jeff Weiss' cover-story on Compton rapper Game, and it starts to make sense. Somebody has to take photos of handsome, shirtless rappers and stunning women covered in gold makeup. Might as well be you.

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Playing cowboys and jihadis in the video for Is Tropical's "The Greeks"

​Last week, while discussing the recent uptick in apocalypse-themed videos, we spent a couple sentences discussing the angry, Mad Max-style children that stand to inherit our post-doomsday world, at least as represented in the video for Foster the People's "Helena Beat." That video was meant to exist not in an allegorical version of our world, but in a landscape grown out of the worst logical extensions of our own -- an indication similar to the opening scenes of Children of Men, littered with recognizable shops, brands and clothing styles, which made the possibilities it implied all the scarier.

Fact is, we don't need to travel into a lightly dusted, slightly sun-parched desert or recognizably dystopian London to convince ourselves that the globe is spinning just a bit faster towards a place unhappier than we're comfortable with. Did anyone else feel more like a helpless, frustrated preteen during the Debt Ceiling Crisis than they have in a long time? Childhood, that place of uncertain meaning buried inside the tactile and visible (see: Tree of Life), is an extraordinary analogy for how it feels to be an adult right now, which might explain the shifting ways kids are being portrayed in music videos and cinema -- more adult than ever in the scenarios they are asked to inhabit, just as confused as the rest of us on the best way to proceed. More >>

A group of angry apocakids from the video for Foster the People's "Helena Beat" (Sony Music)

​As the debt ceiling languishes unraised, whole regions of the US lie under floodwaters while others dry into baked earth, and the wedding cake topper industry finds itself facing major overhauls, people naturally want to know: What are music videos doing to reflect these radically shifting, changing times?

Perhaps the last popular art form to remain willfully, artistically obscure, music videos in the last couple years--thanks to YouTube and now, VEVO--have re-emerged as a cultural barometer, rather than just the bling culture barometer they had largely become around the time of TRL's last days. In the last few months, a spate of videos with post-apocalypse flair and survivalist chic have been released, a mini canon contending with how disruptive our current times feel, how insurmountable and globally consuming the issues of our day seem, and how hard it can be to imagine a sunny outcome. That the videos' interpretations of armageddon range from pop schlock dance-offs to we've-been-here-before verité only demonstrates the fertility of the form, its elastic athleticism at the forefront of cultural articulation.

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Andrea Domanick

Pusha T and Tyler the Creator before mass destruction

​We knew when we visited the set that director Jason Goldwatch's video for Pusha T and Tyler, the Creator's "Trouble On My Mind" was gonna be one of the dopest visuals we'd seen in awhile.

As Pusha T told us on set:

I said to Tyler, if I'm gonna do a record with you, if we're gonna shoot a video, we need to be causing chaos. And he was like 'Oh my god! I was thinking the same thing! Aahhh!' So I said, let's just tear up L.A. I want to show people that I can hop in your world and you can hop in my world, and it ain't fucking up nothing. It's gonna be beautiful.

Red Bull just premiered the video, which finds the boys egging strangers, collecting a motley crew down on Skid Row, destroying a hotel room (which was far scarier live than it looks here), and trashing a convenience store. (We really were hoping Tyler would try on Pusha's Balenciagas, but looks like Odd Future pulled another one under.)

Maybe the Beastie Boys stole a tiny bit of their thunder, but hey, there's always room for terrorizing the streets and tearing shit up. WATCH:

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Star Foreman

Kreayshawn

​When we interviewed L.A.-via-The Bay rapper Kreayshawn back in May, she told us she was about to perform her fifth show ever.

Recently, after signing with Columbia, she announced a 5-city tour at the end of the summer. First, though, she jetted off to spread the swag comin' out her ovaries internationally.

But something's strange.

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From Mickjagger.com

Just Super.

​There may not be a Rolling Stones tour happening anytime soon (wonder if Mick is still pissed about Keef's "tiny togder" remark?) but for fans of The Stones frontman, musical satisfaction has been trickling in. Last week, at a press conference here in L.A., Sir Jagger announced his participation in a new global supergroup called Superheavy, also consisting of Damien Marley, Dave Stewart, Joss Stone and AR Rahman.

The video for the first single, titled "Miracle Worker," has reportedly already been shot and may be unveiled as soon as this week. The song, a soul-infused reggae jam is available for pre-order via MickJagger.com.

MJ's new band isn't the only thing that's kept the lippy rock icon on the forefront of pop culture. In fact, he's called out on two hot singles, both associated with TV singing competitions, neither being American Idol. AI judge Steven Tyler did admit to pretending to be Jagger before he was famous in his autobiography this year, though.

Clearly, Mick takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin' (tokin'?) as a musical inspiration. Here, Five Songs About and/or Referring to The Rolling Stones' Frontman ... Maybe:

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