Posted on 05 April 2010
To summarize: So far we’ve heard “Bloodbuzz Ohio,” watched the guys debut “Terrible Love” on Fallon, and caught “Sorrow” “Little Faith” and “Anyone’s Ghost” at their Bell House show last month. Now here’s footage of two more High Violet songs, bringing us ever-closer to the full tracklist. “Afraid Of Everyone” has a nice long crescendo that lasts the entire song, and “Conversation 16″ has a constant drive that definitely needs the little breather three-fourths of the way through — although this audience thought it was the end of the song. Always embarrassing, when you’re the only one who’s started clapping. These videos were taken at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN.
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Posted on 18 March 2010
Funny how the judges say things like, “Technically, that wasn’t perfect. You had some pitch problems,” then bring out this technically awful, overall awful, charisma-less woman to perform. Also, Ke, stop trying to make “Jack” happen. It’s not going to happen.
Posted on 17 March 2010
We brought you this track from David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s Imelda Marco concept album in January, and today Byrne debuted a video to go with it. Says Byrne: “We did a photo session for a magazine the other day, and I told the interviewer that on this song, by the time you get to the chorus, she owns it – she’s turned it into a Santigold song. Perfect.” This video, however, is all Imelda.
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Posted on 17 March 2010
The reggae singer claims Damon Albarn took parts of his 1981 song “Time Warp” for Gorillaz’s “Stylo” single. Grant is particularly angry because they’re both represented by EMI, and he thinks Albarn had a musicologist evaluate any similarities, to avoid asking permission: “Damon Albarn knows in his heart of hearts.” Read EMI’s “no-comment” comment at The Guardian.
Posted on 16 March 2010
It hasn’t been that long since we premiered Sleepy Sun’s “Red/Black” and “White Dove” videos. But they’re already following up last year’s Embrace LP and Sleepy Son EP with a new full-length this spring. And people say stoners never get anything done. On first listen, Fever doesn’t stray far from Embrace, with the San Fransisco sextet continuing to balance summery folk jams with thunderous sludge. They’re playing a ton of SXSW shows, and will open for Arctic Monkeys for 14 dates around the US and Mexico.
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Posted on 16 March 2010
Last time we checked in with Band To Watch Freelance Whales, they were changing up some of their tracks for a studio performance at Grand Street Recording. Now they’ve given Brooklyn duo Aislyn a chance to mix things up. Aislyn is Passion Pit keyboardist Ian Hultquist making soothing, gently percussive pop with his girlfriend Sofia Degli Alessandri. NYC’s recent snowstorms (plus a rare off-tour moment for Hultquist) left Aislyn with some remixing free time. Their “First Floor” renovation wraps the song’s vocals in shimmering glockenspiel, while an analog keyboard rumbles underneath.
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Posted on 15 March 2010
Broken Bells started their promotional tour for their self-titled debut a little less than a month ago, and it’ll wrap up at SXSW this weekend, when the supergroup-of-sorts will play about five sets during the festival. Photographer Andrew Youssef caught the band working their way through their entire album at their L.A. show. They rounded out the set with covers of My Bloody Valentine’s “When You Sleep” and Neil Young’s “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” (at their debut L.A. show it was Neutral Milk Hotel and Tommy Jones and the Shondells).
Openers Dothacker features Red Hot Chili Peppers’ new guitarist Josh Klinghoffer and three former members of Gnarls Barkley. Which reminds me — the latter project could use some Brian Burton attention once all the Broken Bells excitement has died down.
Posted on 15 March 2010
Devendra Banhart sports some serious Frank Zappa facial hair in this video, and gets friends like the Strokes’ Fabrizio Moretti, MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden, and GZA to guest star. But the most surprising part of this clip must be where Banhart and his friends end up. I think half of this video takes place inside a magical anus. Or maybe it’s not an anus? If it is, it’s hard to imagine GZA getting any type of cell phone reception in there, so he should have left his iPhone at home. GZA is a Devendra fan, so Banhart’s most likely happier with this video than he has been with previous ones.
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Posted on 15 March 2010
The Have One On Me support shows started back in Australia, migrating Friday night to our end of the world for a North American kick off show at Calvin College. The set was just ten songs, but of course that spanned 90 minutes because roughly nine-minutes per song is about right for Joanna Newsom’s labyrinth pop madrigals. Mlive.com describes the set as a hushed and sweeping affair, dropping a few tidbits from the 25-minute Q&A with Newsom that followed. For example: she doesn’t like to listen to music while writing and recording, unless that music is Dirty Projectors — clever girl. That’s a fact framed in her recent NYTimes profile that is long, but if you’ve made it through the knotty depths of her recent triple-disc triumph, you can make it through the piece. (An interesting note: Milk-Eyed Mender and Ys sold 200K and 250K albums, respectively. Have One’s week one was somewhere around 7,000. That’s gotta be drag city.) Of course Joanna gives good photo, and so we sent Graeme Flegenheimer to document the night opened by fellow forest-dwellers Bowerbirds. Here’s the evening’s setlist, along with some so-so video if you’re into that sorta thing:
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Posted on 15 March 2010
Morrissey is coming off a difficult 2009, a year that made him ask, “What does the future hold? What does the next minute hold?” No word on the former, but for the immediate future he continues to promote last year’s greatest hits collection Swords, despite calling it a “meek disaster.” This song must bring back […]
