Also, I saw Free Energy. A few times. They're pretty good.
Their new record is out today. AMG review here.
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
SXSW 2010: Beach Fossils
I counted myself lucky because two of my A list bands were playing the same show on Wednesday afternoon. Never mind that the weather was gorgeous and the gig had free Red Stripe...
About two hours before Neon Indian played to a packed patio stage crowd, Beach Fossils performed out there. The sound guy was great, I have to say, and my SXSW 2010 was off and running.
It would be easy to dismiss them as a hipster Brooklyn retro band, especially since I'm betting these kids weren't even thinking about being born when New Order's Movement came out. But there is more to their sound then just copy-catting. The singer has a Mick Jones-quality to his voice; the drummer jumps around on stage, dancing to the beat he's playing; the band creates a sound as if you're listening to them in a sea shell.
Time will tell if they can innovate or simply look and sound like a musical vintage store, but for now, they are pretty darn catchy.
About two hours before Neon Indian played to a packed patio stage crowd, Beach Fossils performed out there. The sound guy was great, I have to say, and my SXSW 2010 was off and running.
It would be easy to dismiss them as a hipster Brooklyn retro band, especially since I'm betting these kids weren't even thinking about being born when New Order's Movement came out. But there is more to their sound then just copy-catting. The singer has a Mick Jones-quality to his voice; the drummer jumps around on stage, dancing to the beat he's playing; the band creates a sound as if you're listening to them in a sea shell.
Time will tell if they can innovate or simply look and sound like a musical vintage store, but for now, they are pretty darn catchy.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Song #30,084 that has been stuck in my head
Here is a great reason why nobody hates the Pretenders: Glam, Post-punk, Classic, New Wave...It's all there:
And in case you don't already have a huge crush on Chrissie Hynde:
And in case you don't already have a huge crush on Chrissie Hynde:
Thursday, July 16, 2009
It's Cold In Outer-Space: Stereolab
For a long time I was stuck.
I didn't shop at record stores, department stores or mega-stores. The internet wasn't the shopping/swapping/discovery paradise that we now know it to be.
I pretty much bought everything, including music, at thrift stores. I have to say it was really great, and I stumbled my way into a good musical education. But my ears were as dusty as Farberware and rusty as a dinette chair (to paraphrase Jonathan Richman).
Then, back in 1996, on the way out to San Diego, I stopped off in Chicago to see my little brother. He was finishing up his BS at the University of Chicago, and was living in a big old house with several roommates. They held a party the night I was there, and someone popped in a CD towards the end of the evening.
Emperor Tomato Ketchup, by Stereolab.
It blew my mind, like the first time you see HDTV. Or taste a really good Cabernet. Or go from dial-up to cable.
Cold and warm; distant and intimate; borrowing from the past but creating the future.
Velvets. Astrud. Nico. Kraftwerk. I could hear it, but it was all in crazy technicolor. (OK, I know you can't actually hear colors.)
Anyway, I copied that thing onto a C-90 the next morning and listened to it over and over, driving through the desert on the way to the coast.
"The Noise of Carpet":
And from Mars Audiac Quintet (1994), "Wow and Flutter":
I didn't shop at record stores, department stores or mega-stores. The internet wasn't the shopping/swapping/discovery paradise that we now know it to be.
I pretty much bought everything, including music, at thrift stores. I have to say it was really great, and I stumbled my way into a good musical education. But my ears were as dusty as Farberware and rusty as a dinette chair (to paraphrase Jonathan Richman).
Then, back in 1996, on the way out to San Diego, I stopped off in Chicago to see my little brother. He was finishing up his BS at the University of Chicago, and was living in a big old house with several roommates. They held a party the night I was there, and someone popped in a CD towards the end of the evening.
Emperor Tomato Ketchup, by Stereolab.
It blew my mind, like the first time you see HDTV. Or taste a really good Cabernet. Or go from dial-up to cable.
Cold and warm; distant and intimate; borrowing from the past but creating the future.
Velvets. Astrud. Nico. Kraftwerk. I could hear it, but it was all in crazy technicolor. (OK, I know you can't actually hear colors.)
Anyway, I copied that thing onto a C-90 the next morning and listened to it over and over, driving through the desert on the way to the coast.
"The Noise of Carpet":
And from Mars Audiac Quintet (1994), "Wow and Flutter":
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Hang Up Your Hang Ups
I like to listen to Herbie Hancock when I run. Nice and intricate, and it makes my butt shake. If I shake my butt in a straight line, I can put some miles on, for sure.
Anyway, I was out with an old friend the other night, and she is in a period where she is reexamining her beliefs.
"Hang Up Your Hang Ups", indeed.
This cut is from Man Child (1975), but this video is cleverly done and merits some discussion.
Made by a fan, it starts out like some TV cop drama from the 70's, nicely aping the musical theme. As the song develops, so does the video. It stretches out to incorporate some stock footage of NYC and then splices in some movie clips that feel just as gritty. The three I spot (love it if you can spot any more -- leave a comment) are Midnight Cowboy (1969), the French Connection (1971) and Taxi Driver (1976); these three films allow the setting, NYC, to become another character that imposes its will on the others. All in all, the creator of the video uses them to great effect in conveying the schizophrenic feeling of post-modern urban life.
What's more, the mid-70's were an interesting period for the US and NYC. Notice the big cars, modernist architecture, public works projects and urban squalor.
This video nicely documents the last hurrah of American-dominated business. Japan's "Just In Time" production methods and flexible distribution would shake the pillars of American commerce in just a few short years, and OPEC's production cuts would signal the beginning of the end of Detroit's dominance.
For New York City, the mid-70's were spent dealing with the aftermath of Robert Moses' horrible "urban renewal" system that ruined neighborhoods, displaced people and served to further segregate the population. Bankers wouldn't lend to African American neighborhoods, landlords could make more by burning their properties and collecting insurance, and the disenfranchised were the ones that suffered in that city for about the next 20 years.
Anyway, this song is about as funky as you can get without someone named "Bootsy" involved. Enjoy it.
Anyway, I was out with an old friend the other night, and she is in a period where she is reexamining her beliefs.
"Hang Up Your Hang Ups", indeed.
This cut is from Man Child (1975), but this video is cleverly done and merits some discussion.
Made by a fan, it starts out like some TV cop drama from the 70's, nicely aping the musical theme. As the song develops, so does the video. It stretches out to incorporate some stock footage of NYC and then splices in some movie clips that feel just as gritty. The three I spot (love it if you can spot any more -- leave a comment) are Midnight Cowboy (1969), the French Connection (1971) and Taxi Driver (1976); these three films allow the setting, NYC, to become another character that imposes its will on the others. All in all, the creator of the video uses them to great effect in conveying the schizophrenic feeling of post-modern urban life.
What's more, the mid-70's were an interesting period for the US and NYC. Notice the big cars, modernist architecture, public works projects and urban squalor.
This video nicely documents the last hurrah of American-dominated business. Japan's "Just In Time" production methods and flexible distribution would shake the pillars of American commerce in just a few short years, and OPEC's production cuts would signal the beginning of the end of Detroit's dominance.
For New York City, the mid-70's were spent dealing with the aftermath of Robert Moses' horrible "urban renewal" system that ruined neighborhoods, displaced people and served to further segregate the population. Bankers wouldn't lend to African American neighborhoods, landlords could make more by burning their properties and collecting insurance, and the disenfranchised were the ones that suffered in that city for about the next 20 years.
Anyway, this song is about as funky as you can get without someone named "Bootsy" involved. Enjoy it.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Cheese-boigah!
I was originally doing some light research about another Clash song ("Ghetto Defendant") for this blog, when I came across this performance of "Magnificent Seven". It, too, has been on my mind lately as I wrote a short screenplay a few months ago that used it in a scene. But this live version is so, um, alive that I decided to write about it instead -- especially because it nicely bookends the other song from 1981 I wrote about the other day.
"Magnificent Seven" was apparently the first rock/hip-hop song recorded and released, beating out "Rapture" by a few months. The lyrics were a stream of consciousness doing by Joe Strummer, and in that the song is pretty amazing by itself. The recorded version on Sandanista! is a great dancey-punk number, and I suppose the funky bass and beat were the first to hook me on it.
In this live version, recorded for the Tom Snyder Show in 1981, many more themes and influences play out. There's a heavy dub flavor with the guitars. The lyrics are delivered with more of a punk growl. It's less night club-oriented and more rock-club oriented. Above all, this is a rock band, and they could/should (have) give(n) lessons on TV performance.
But addressing the lyrical content: this song is about the post-modern urban rat race.
Ring! ring! its 7:00 a.m.!
Move yourself to go again
Cold water in the face
Brings you back to this awful place
Knuckle merchants and you bankers, too
Must get up an learn those rules
Weather man and the crazy chief
One says sun and one says sleet.
It's about consumerism, superficiality, and the silent toil of the masses. And then there's a little economics lesson about opportunity costs:
Wave bub-bub-bub-bye to the boss
Its our profit, its his loss
But anyway lunch bells ring
Take one hour and do your thaanng!
Cheese-boigah!
But ultimately, it is not rich versus poor. It attacks what lurks for all of us. After it describes the hollowness of the salary man, it preaches about the emptiness of the workingman:
So get back to work and sweat some more
The sun will sink and we'll get out the door
It's no good for man to work in cages
Hits the town, he drinks his wages
You're frettin', you're sweatin'
But did you notice you ain't gettin' anywhere?
There's also a video for the ensuing interview, but it's a little disappointing. They are all kinda nervous without guitars in their hands, and for the first two thirds they resort to Sex Pistols-style rhetoric.
"Magnificent Seven" was apparently the first rock/hip-hop song recorded and released, beating out "Rapture" by a few months. The lyrics were a stream of consciousness doing by Joe Strummer, and in that the song is pretty amazing by itself. The recorded version on Sandanista! is a great dancey-punk number, and I suppose the funky bass and beat were the first to hook me on it.
In this live version, recorded for the Tom Snyder Show in 1981, many more themes and influences play out. There's a heavy dub flavor with the guitars. The lyrics are delivered with more of a punk growl. It's less night club-oriented and more rock-club oriented. Above all, this is a rock band, and they could/should (have) give(n) lessons on TV performance.
But addressing the lyrical content: this song is about the post-modern urban rat race.
Ring! ring! its 7:00 a.m.!
Move yourself to go again
Cold water in the face
Brings you back to this awful place
Knuckle merchants and you bankers, too
Must get up an learn those rules
Weather man and the crazy chief
One says sun and one says sleet.
It's about consumerism, superficiality, and the silent toil of the masses. And then there's a little economics lesson about opportunity costs:
Wave bub-bub-bub-bye to the boss
Its our profit, its his loss
But anyway lunch bells ring
Take one hour and do your thaanng!
Cheese-boigah!
But ultimately, it is not rich versus poor. It attacks what lurks for all of us. After it describes the hollowness of the salary man, it preaches about the emptiness of the workingman:
So get back to work and sweat some more
The sun will sink and we'll get out the door
It's no good for man to work in cages
Hits the town, he drinks his wages
You're frettin', you're sweatin'
But did you notice you ain't gettin' anywhere?
There's also a video for the ensuing interview, but it's a little disappointing. They are all kinda nervous without guitars in their hands, and for the first two thirds they resort to Sex Pistols-style rhetoric.
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