Stop Okay Go

Pleased To Meet You

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are doing the Guest List thing over at Pitchfork:

>>>>Favorite New Band?
 
Kip Berman: Girls; Knight School.
I would say-- and I will say-- Girls as well, and I'm sorry if that's repetitive, but I'm really into them. But if I have to have another choice, the band that I've been super into is Knight School . They're just a Brooklyn crash-pop band, and they have a really good sense of humor about it, which I think is sometimes overlooked. They have songs like "Mrs. Tambourine Man", "Pregnant Again", and "Vampire Shmampire". The titles alone are totally entertaining, and the music's super catchy, too.

(Note: Like me, Knight School is fixated on Oprah. Who isn't? The unsigned Brooklyn band is definitely worth a listen; they're a less moody-prone-to-wrist-slitting-version of The VIvian Girls.)

 

>>>Favorite Song Ever?

Alex Naidus: The Replacements: "Can't Hardly Wait" (original Tim version).
I can listen to the original Tim version of "Can't Hardly Wait" by the Replacements from now until infinity. I love that song, and the version that's on Pleased to Meet Me makes me want to shoot myself, so I'm glad the other version exists, because that song deserves something better. But the Tim version of that song is incredible, one of my favorites.

Both versions in question. He definitely has a point:

The Tim version:

 

The Pleased To Meet Me version:

Knight School will open for The Pains of Being Pure at Heart on March 13th at The Bell House in Brooklyn.

Quickies

SO! I've been super swamped . Excuses, excuses!

Just a few thoughts on this TGIF:

-Robin Thicke and JHud are on tour and being billed as Thicke & Hudson. Sounds like the name of a couple of detectives who refuse to recognize their latent but burgeoning attraction to each other.
I might be putting too much thought into this.

-Ratatat will be in Shanghai playing the Spring Festival on May 21st. Their opening act will be a band from the industrial city Wuhan named Av Okubo. This might be one of the best band pix I've ever seen:

Av Okubo gets their name from the Wong Kar Wai movie First Love Litter on the Breeze.

No songs to post but here's a video taste of these guys. Love their sound and their style is universal:

Preetown

How adorable are these two? When I was reading the press release for Washington's Pree, it mentioned that May Tabol's vocals bring to mind Isaac Brock from Modest Mouse. Well that's not very flattering, I thought, until I played the video and I'll be damned if Tabol isn't a female Isaac Brock in totally a good way. A refreshingly unique voice; a little Bjork mixed in there as well. Watch yer quirky back, Zoey!

Pree's 5 song debut EP titled Chopping Block comes out on May 24th.

Life of the Party

I heart portrayals of the grittier side of L.A. This video by Australian band the Presets does just that with a side order of dance.

You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory

Man, it really chaps my hide that one of my favorite pop songs doesn't have a music video. No kind of quality You Tube love.  This is a travesty! A mockery! A Tia and Tamera Mowry! (Wait, what?) Knock That Door by Enon was practically made for a chipper Orbit gum commercial or something pink, bouncy and splashy. I mean, even Paris Hilton gets her own "music"videos.

Anyway, here's Enon knocking out Knock That Door at McCarren:

Sweet.

Enon is still together as far as the always reliable Wiki is concerned.  Now just a duo,Toko Hasuda and John Schmersal are in search of a drummer. Their last drummer Matt Schulz left this past year to tour with Holy F-ck. Another former member, Monasterio, (when the band was called Brainiac) has been directing videos for Model/Actress.

Quickies

-LA Weekly is reporting that Leonard Cohen will be bringing his black magic to the Nokia the week before he plays Coachella.

-Sean Penn to Madonna upon meeting her 22 year old Brazilian lover: "Another kid already?"

-Via Idolator: Faith No More is re-uniting, but only for the summer and only in Europe.

-A lot of talk about the new Cold War Kids vid.

-Aussies Ted & Francis get signed to Kitsune.

Sonic Hedgehogs

This same thing (above) happens to me whenever I try to go jogging: spit up blood, face changes colors, start to see flashing lights.  And funnily enough this happens whenever I try to use Excel. Huh. Maybe every human experience can be related through a Zach Hill video. Who needs someecards!

Zach Hill hits'em drums hard. So much so that he sometimes bloodies his drum heads.

Zach Hill is friends with the equally intense Marnie Stern. You figure that when they play together the sheer power of their combined energy when added to the atmosphere must cause objects to explode, somewhere in the world, apparently for no reason.

Zach Hill is part of a new conceptual supergroup(no not THAT one!) called Flossin along with Matmos and Christopher Willits. Their new EP Serpents is out in digital form on Overlap.org. Free mp3 available here.

Leapwalking

I got this in the inbox a few days back, and just love the the picture of rhythm and blues songsmith Seth Walker. His website is even cooler.

Walker will be releasing his album Leap of Faith on March 3rd. He is being compared to James Hunter and Robert Cray. Not too shabby ranks. Lend an ear to his song Rewind below. Walker will be a featured performer at South by Southwest, which is rapidly approaching, 'yoes.

A Change of Scenery

Portland's scene king and queen, Keith and Anita Robinson of Viva Voce will be releasing a new album called Rose City on May 26th.  The band has gone through some transformations and is now a quartet featuring Evan Railton and Corrina Repp, of Blue Giant, a  supposedly awesome cover band.

 

Big House Call

I was listening to Timbaland today, as I do every Saturday as part of my weekly Timbaland worship services, when I got to thinking, hey, what's Nelly "Meticulous-s-s" Furtado been up to lately? Turns-s-s out that she's gone and done a new duet with James Morrison, who is a dead ringer for Coldplay's Chris Martin.

The video for the song Broken Strings is a total throwback to, I want to say the late 90's(?), when objects would mysteriously explode like defective Corningware for no particular reason. In the video, Morrison and Furtado cannot seem to locate the mysterious connecting door (that door always fascinates me) that separates hotel rooms and are forced to play prison visitation hours through a wall.

At least Morrison has the beautifully coiffed Furtado sweetly crooning to him. I'm always stuck with the guy who decides to do an opera of throat clearing in the middle of the night.

Keeping Tabs

 
I've been browsing both Issuu and Scribd, which, if you're not one of their 50 million readers, is a combination social networking and document publishing website. The popularity of the two sites is sadly another nail in the coffin of traditional print. Because how can clunky backward old things like regular individual blogs such as mine ("In my day!"), newspapers and magazines expect to compete with millions of people sharing related information? There isn't really a greater resource than people pooling their individual knowledge on a topic. It's the way more things in media will be headed.

ANYWAY! How does this relate to music!? Well besides all the books, magazines and self-published articles (thus far a happy marriage between corporations and the rogue everyman nutbar) that you can virtually leaf-through, there are also DIY/alterna-culture elements that will surely disappear eventually, such as this one category of sheet music tablature. Here are the guitar tabs for the song Drive by The Cars! Or Evanescence if that's what you're into!!
Good luck with that.

So you could, hypothetically, think of a song, go to a community to find out how to play it, record it and then share it with the community thus inspiring someone else. Repeat, rinse.

Both Issuu and Scribd could stand to be a little more user friendly, and while nothing compares to a real glossy crunchy music rag putting papercuts in your hands, that's not going to stop me from checking out 'Subbacultcha' Magazine and its piece on my beloved Laibach.

 

Ardentorium

 

Thank You Friends is a 2 CD retrospective of the works of several artists from Memphis'  famed Ardent label. Below is one of the songs from the 24 tracks featured on the project, a ditty by Sid Selvidge, whose voice has been alternately described as “an astonishing instrument..cool and liquid with a range of several octaves” (eat your heart out Mimi) and “smooth as Kentucky corn liquor and a guitar tone as smoky as Tennessee barbecue" Decide his level of liquid smoothness for yourself: (via)

Find more excellence here.

The Rose

Lily Allen was on KCRW yesterday morning doing a live set (what's above is an older clip). Lady Lily, she of the blustery fights (that she usually picks), candor and attention craving. I feel like I've watched her grow, from way back when she was discovered, in America at least, by Thighs Wide Shut years ago; a creation by and for the gaudy brutal Internet...dishing it as well as she can take it.

Allen isn't that strong a singer, but  she is an adorable presence and I love her Eliza Doolittle phrasing and the slight chill in her little songbird voice. From what I've heard she's sounding more mature, especially on her hit The Fear, below. I haven't listened to the album or researched what the song is about exactly. My guess is that it has to do something with dreading the machine that created her. It is a lot like Lily herself: pop, jaded, tongue-in-cheek but inherently positive.

Quickies

-Over the past 10 years or so Billy Joel's image has gotten battered by the press like an old Chinese junk in a storm. Back in the day, I don't think he minded playing the role of the sad Red Skelton clown desperately looking to be thought of as cool, which I think opened the floodgates of criticism. And sure, these days he appears to have completely given up on gaining any kind of public favor. Still, that's no reason to frame him as the kind of old lounge singer who tells "Pull My finger" zingers.

-Chromewaves profiles The Joy Formidable.

-A review of the new Lonely Island disc. Some people aren't likin' it! (I never tire of that joke.)

-90s rockers The Appleseed Cast, best known for The End of Ring Wars has a new album streaming on Spinner called Sagarmatha.

-Don't let the hypercolors of their site and the name of this song by Brooklyn's Suckers fool ya, this isn't  80s dance ..more something clangy that fans of Neutral Milk and Beirut can appreciate. Very pretty:
 

Derictor's Commentary

Today's video is for a song from last year from Sub Pop's Grand Archives, whose members come from Band of Horses by way of Carissa's Wierd and from...well you can read all about the indie band's royal lineage here.

Little known fact, the llamas (alpacas?) are looking at band members and thinking what unusual creatures they are and vice versa.

Littler known fact, the kid and his facial expressions grew up to be Arsenio Hall.

Nonsense aside, this an adorable vid and song.

Fashion Week Fall 09 Playlist

Here are some selections from Vanity Fair's Fashion Week Fall 09 Playlist. The Caribou oldie is highly recommended:
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cerrone supernature caribou melod day simon baker plastic and modeselektor dark side of the sun mp3s were here.

Packing and Unpacking

-There's been so much talk of Paul Simon in the past year or so. Of course, Vampire Weekend paid tribute to the man with their album, and in the post below Britt Daniel also talks about what an influence Simon has been on his music.

Well, add to this, last night Simon and Garfunkel staged a surprise reunion at the reopening of the legendary Beacon Theater on the Upper West Side!

-Although S&G aren't exactly Brit popsters, Suede's Bernard "Obsessively opposed to nostalgia" Butler, would like disapprove of the reunion.

-Unlikely to engage in any uniting or re-uniting anytime soon: Rick Ross and Fitty.

Fi'ed

  
Dabney Coleman-fan Britt Daniel is in L.A. recording new tracks for the next Spoon album tentatively to be called Me and Matty Pickles with Jon Brion. Yay!

"Matty Pickles" is the name of one of the members of the band The Subjects, a psych-rock pop outfit from Brooklyn made up of two teachers and two students. Other members of The Subjects include Mr. Splif, Cobra and Shanky. People may question the reasoning behind Daniel's decision to name the album for Matty Pickles. The bigger and more amusing question in my mind is whether or not Matty Pickles is named for one of my all-time favorite You Tube clips, as seen on their myspace page. Which would be totally great.

Rebel Yell

Patrick Wolf has changed his mind and instead of releasing a double album (never a good idea) he's going with two single length albums, the first of which will be called Bachelor. An expectedly theatrical megamix of samples from the album can be found below. It is probably one of the more imaginative, colorful things I've listened to lately. And hey, anyone who admires Tilda Swinton and gets bounced by Madonna's security team is alright by me.

(source)

Nehemiah

Listening To: Alton Ellis, Jamaican Rocksteady pioneer who died in October of last year. Eek-A-Mouse, who will be performing at the Coach House on the 19th, does a tribute to him here.

That's nice.