A few months ago, Springsteen got pissed at Ticketmaster for directing fans to their in-house TicketsNow scalper site during a NJ sale. Ticketmaster now says the Boss held back 2,300 tickets for the 5/21 Izod Center date. Springsteen manager Jon Landau’s written a response. See your service fees hard at work at Billboard.
To recap: Rostam from Vampire Weekend and Wes from Ra Ra Riot joined laptops and R&B predilections, invited their buddies Ezra and Angel for a couple of tracks, and turned out a really fun summer LP. We happen to love summer, fun, and LPs. We also love free alcohol and partying on school nights, so we’re glad to help this happen: Join us, along with the Discovery dudes, at Le Poisson Rouge in the Village next Tuesday (6/30) for the LP listening party. If you’re still getting familiar, try the two MP3s here, or the song with Ezra … or just come out to LPR to hear the whole thing. Needle drops at 9PM, followed by a dance party featuring DJ sets by Rostam and Wes. It’s free, but you gotta be 21+ and RSVP here. Open vodka bar from 9-10 (order like four at once to minimize line time), happy hour prices on everything else the rest of the night. This flier has the details:
Continue reading Join Us For A Discovery Listening Party In NYC…
You first heard her anti-homophobia anthem as (the ostensibly George W-referencing) “Guess Who Batman?,” but when the song resurfaced on It’s Not Me, It’s You, it came with some blunt “Fuck You” titling. Now it has a video sung and shot from Lily Allen’s P.O.V. At first it seems like it’ll be pretty low-tech, but then she decides to start shifting and refashioning the world around her one Afro, Eiffel Tower, suit, wiener dog, and ass at a time. It’s all about change, see?
Continue reading New Lily Allen Video - “Fuck You”…
It’s another Crystal Castles freakout! And again, it stems from sound issues. Alice thought their Sonar set sounded shitty, so she started manhandling a drumset. Here’s video of a security guard manhandling her in turn.
Back in January we saw Phil Selway trade drums for an acoustic and sing his droning, harmonious ditty “The Tie That Binds Us” at the 7 Worlds Collide super-concert in Australia. The event was an early celebration for the sequel to 2001’s Neil Finn-assembled, Oxfam-benefit LP of the same name. Now that charitable sequel’s got a firm release date (8/10) and title (The Sun Came Out), and will feature Phil’s song with help from fellow Radiohead Ed O’Brien and a long list of exceptional et ceteras (Johnny Marr, Jeff Tweedy, Glenn Kotche, Liam Finn, and on).
In addition to that new song from the Radiohead camp comes news of reissues. Yes, more reissues. And yes, done at the behest of Capitol/EMI, who love money so much. The first round covered the first three albums, this next slate repackages Kid A, Amnesiac, and Hail To The Thief, packing each with live tracks, b-sides, and other such fixings to help give opacity to the label’s transparent cashgrab.. The rundown each album’s additional material is listed at ateaseweb. Due 8/25.
The Belle & Sebastian member’s throwback-pop concept album is out next week, but you hear the whole LP now courtesy of Matador.
Beck’s giving his website an overhaul. One of the new sections, Record Club, launched today with a cover of the Velvet Underground’s “Sunday Morning.” The idea behind the Record Club’s for Beck and friends to go into the studio sans rehearsal, re-record entire albums, and then post one song a week from that session in, it seems, grainy live and layered video form. He opted to start it all with VU’s absolutely essential 1967 collection The Velvet Underground & Nico, which means we’ll also get to hear Beck weigh in on sadomasochism, the Factory, Downtown NYC, copping heroin, thinking about heroin, taking heroin, etc. But as he cheekily notes at the site, they almost opened by getting busy in a Burger King bathroom (not really):
[A]fter lengthy deliberation and coming close to covering Digital Underground’s Sex Packets, all present voted in favor of the ‘other’ Underground’s The Velvet Underground & Nico. Participants included this time around are Nigel Godrich, Joey Waronker, Brian Lebarton, Bram Inscore, Yo, Giovanni Ribisi, Chris Holmes, and from Iceland, special guest Thorunn Magnusdottir, and myself.
Take a look.
Continue reading Beck Covers Velvet Underground & Nico…
Earlier today we posted a link to “Ntende Uli,” the first single Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit’s post-mixtape debut full-length Warm Heart of Africa. A few hours later, here’s the album’s title track, featuring Ezra Koenig. Of course Koenig and his band’s interest in African music (and people who like African music) is well known. If you recall Esau’s reworking of “‘Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa,” the association should make extra sense. The results? Good balm on another rainy rainy rainy day, warm heart of the Upper West Side.
Continue reading New Very Best (Feat. Ezra Koenig) - “Warm Heart Of Africa”…
Seeing Annie Clark solo with guitar is nothing new for those that have been seeing her shows since the pre-Actor days, but even then St. Vincent was never interested in going the simply strummed acoustic route. In order to flesh out her songs, music that often winds off-kilter harmonic trails through sudden structural shifts, her solo stints generally rely as much on loops and pedals as an ever-present electric guitar. Until this trio of live clips on Music Row in Nashville by Lake Fever Productions, unplugged renditions of Actor and Marry Me standouts which Annie introduces by admitting “Well, I don’t even think I own an acoustic guitar…” Hard to believe that from these deft bedsit rearrangements, though, with a bossa-styled jaunt through “Actor Out Of Work“; gorgeously voiced fingerpicking on “The Strangers” (sans thrashy exeunt, naturally); and a more rolling, folkie pass through Marry Me’s “Oh My God.” If St. Vincent material can sound this good without her even owning an acoustic guitar, just wait until somebody gets smart and buys her one. (Hint, 4AD.)
When we saw Girls at SXSW, we mentioned that their acoustic-tinged psychedelic felt like neo-grunge, not so much in the sound, more in the look and feel of the players. There’s something equally anachronistic about the Aaron Brown-directed video for the San Francisco duo’s gorgeous “Hellhole Ratrace,” but this is more circa Kids (or maybe, to go backwards, Nan Goldin, or forward Ryan McGinley). Whatever the case, the slow-motion pan of sweet, friendly late-night partying offers a moving counter to the song’s theme: “I don’t wanna die / Without shaking up a thing or two / Yeah, I wanna do some dancin’, too / So come on, come on, come on, come on, and dance with me.” It’s sorta the nighttime version of the sun-speckled “God Damned.” Until the sun comes up.
Continue reading New Girls Video - “Hellhole Ratrace”…
