Posted by Leilani Polk on May. 26, 2009, at 11:38 am
A weekly bulletin on musical guests playing late night TV; set your TIVOs or DVRs if you’ve got an early bedtime.
The Late Show with David Letterman, CBS Wednesday, May 27: The Dead (rerun, April 23) Thursday, May 28: The Killers (May 11)
Friday, May 29: Wynton Marsalis (May 13)
Posted by Leilani Polk on May. 18, 2009, at 2:55 pm
Dozens and dozens of acts will make it onto Tampa Bay area concert stages this summer. Here’s our best bets, in a wide range of genres.
Stanton Moore The bespectacled founder of NOLA funk purveyors Galactic is widely regarded as one of the best drummers currently drawing air. This show has him in a trio setting with estimable guitarist Will Bernard and keyboardist Robert Walter. The small ensemble allows room for Moore to strut his Crescent City-honed skills. Expect expansive jamming and finely honed interplay. (Video: Stanton Moore Trio performing at Emerald Lounge in Asheville, N.C., Sept. 10, 2008.) (May 28, Crowbar, Ybor City)—Eric Snider
Sunday, May 31 WMNF Jazz Jam feat. Sam Rivers/PBS/World Afro-Cuban Ensemble/Infinite Groove Orchestra/Impromptu/Trio Vibe/others TBA Tampa Bay’s community radio station has been putting together more jazz events of late — thank you for that — this being one of the more ambitious. Saxophonist Sam Rivers, 83, was once a front-rank player on the New York (and thus international) avant-garde scene. He’s settled into legendhood well, living in Orlando and taking gigs as he pleases. A potpourri of locally-based acts rounds out the bill. (May 31, Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa) —ESRead the rest of this entry »
Posted by Leilani Polk on May. 14, 2009, at 3:04 pm
David Hasselhoff was once unbelievably popular in Europe, especially in Germany, when his single, “Looking for Freedom,” hit number one right around the fall of the Berlin Wall. He hasn’t done much since aside from the odd acting gig and alcoholic video embarassments, though he’s done several self-satire appearances in films ranging from The SpongeBob SquarePants Movieto Dodgeball: A True Underdog Storyto Eurotrip; appeared in a parody of Baywatch in Wildboyz with David, Steve-O, and Chris Pontius. He’s even had a stage comedy made of his life in Australia, David Hasselhoff: The Musical.
Now, to the real matter of this post: the Hoff’s music video for “Jump in My Car.” According to WikiPedia, the single “…demonstrates a penchant for self-parody, this time of his performance as Michael Knight in Knight Rider. The car in the video was a black Pontiac Trans Am with a pulsing LED and an interior nearly identical to that of K.I.T.T. (this video was shot in Sydney, Australia and used a right hand drive KITT replica), including an aptly-timed use of K.I.T.T.’s seat ejection system. The video plays to a skit where he asks one of three girls to “jump in his car” to take her home. The girl initially refuses but then gets in so long as he behaves politely. She suggests that he should drive quickly, because she lives down south, “about 84 miles”. When she insists she is not joking, he asks her to leave the vehicle, but she refuses, so he resorts to using the ejector seat to cause her to exit.” Unfortunately, I wrote this post before realizing that pretty much every vid of this online has a “removed by request” in the spot where the embed code should be. So if you’re real interested, check it out here.
Let’s put this in perspective: when Jane’s Addiction and Nine Inch Nails toured together for the first Lollapalooza in 1991, current high-school seniors were just being born, crying for their momma’s milk. Now NIN and Jane’s have returned to milk the cash cow one more time. Though never officially declared a reunion tour, the fact that the original four members of Jane’s Addiction – singer Perry Farrell, guitarist Dave Navarro, bassist Eric Avery and drummer Steven Perkins – have only occasionally been in the same room together, let alone played a show, certainly made it feel like one. And that’s OK by me. Jane’s pulled the plug at the peak of their success, leaving many fans and soon-to-be-fans craving a live show.
Trent Reznor is a different story. The reclusive god of goth has been releasing albums once every five years or so and touring about the same. Then he dropped the news that this tour would be NIN’s last. Maybe that’s so, but rock stars have a penchant for breaking such promises.
So, what can you expect when two powerhouse bands schedule a big reunion/farewell tour? Overworked fog machines? Yep. Tons of faded black t-shirts? Yep. Power-packed shows filled with the greatest hits? Err.. Not so much, at least for the NIN set.
Catching many of the crowd off guard, a four-piece NIN took the stage rather early, just before 8 p.m. Reznor – dressed in a green t-shirt, black jorts and combat boots — led the band through a spirited five-song run to open to the set: “Now I’m Nothing,” “Terrible Lie,” “SIN,” “March of the Pigs” and “Piggy.” The performance lost steam as the band trudged through tracks from all over the NIN catalog. It seemed like most of the crowd — many attending their one concert of the year — were waiting for “Closer.” They didn’t get it, and seemed to be even more confused that the band chose to play an Adam Ant cover so late in the set. Reznor finally won the crowd back when he ended the set with great nostalgia (but no tripped out video) with “Head Like a Hole” and “Hurt.” (More text, pictures, setlists, and video after the jump)Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Leilani Polk on May. 11, 2009, at 12:44 am
A weekly bulletin on musical guests playing late night TV; set your TIVOs or DVRs if you’ve got an early bedtime.
The Late Show with David Letterman, CBS
Monday, May 11: The Killers
Tuesday, May 12: Chrisette Michele (Def Jam’s latest neo-soul pop singer, pictured)
Wednesday, May 13: Wynton Marsalis
Thursday, May 14: Rick Ross with Magazeen (Do I not get “Yacht Club” or is it really like a serious version of, “I’m on a Boat,” and, awful? I mean, really awful, maybe because it’s not tongue-in-cheek?)
Friday, May 15: Mastodon
Posted by Joel Weiss on May. 10, 2009, at 10:54 pm
I wasn’t really sure what to expect going into Friday’s concert at Mahaffey Theater featuring an un-costumed, un-amplified-to-11 Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer. Maybe I was thinking too hard about it? After all, when you go see a band, they play their songs. When you go see a comedian, he does his material. With Guest, McKean, and Shearer, reality lay in between — a hilarious, two-hour multimedia jaunt down memory lane complete with stories, clips, and songs predominantly from two classic film satires about seemingly disparate genres of music. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Leilani Polk on May. 7, 2009, at 12:36 pm
I can’t help liking Adele, the darkhorse Grammy-winning British soul songstress with a loverly husky and powerful voice. A friend sent this video to me a little while back and it made it to the bottom of my Inbox before I’d even registered I received it. Here, she performs a Virgin Radio in-studio of her now well-known single, “Chasing Pavements,” and she’s all acoustic raw and make-up free and still beautiful and natural and wonderful and she sounds damn great. Am I gushing too much?
Posted by Leilani Polk on May. 5, 2009, at 3:56 pm
Hollywood director David Lynch is one freak-minded mutha. Although I was far too young for Twin Peaks (only 10 when it premiered), my parents never stopped me from watching Lynch’s two-season ABC drama and I was compelled to continue after the first episode.
It was television like none I’d never seen before, one that both intrigued yet completely and utterly disturbed me with its dark, bizarre aesthetic, tortured characters, and intriguing storyline, about an FBI agent who’s sent to a small town, Twin Peaks, to investigate the murder of the town’s young, seemingly innocent, homecoming queen, Laura Palmer. The soundtrack was full of slinky and somehow sneaky jazz, and melancholy compositions with ethereal vocals, motifs borrowed from Julee Cruise’s 1989 album, Floating into the Night, which was written in large part by Angelo Badalamenti and Lynch. Quite interesting and haunting music, and some that I’ll not soon forget.
This time, the enigmatic Lynch (who, in addition to being a filmmaker and composer, is a visual artist as well) has used his deranged imagination to create 50 or so original photographs for the upcoming Danger Mouse-Sparklehorse album, Dark Night of the Soul. The director’s photographs will also be published in a book to be released along with the album. (Videos after the jump.) Read the rest of this entry »
Barely a month ago, I finally witnessed Iron Maiden live. It literally took half my life to see them. I documented the journey, from the show’s announcement through its conclusion. While nothing could top my Maiden experience, it seems the Metal Gods continue smiling down on me nonetheless. After all, you can’t mention Iron Maiden without bringing up Judas Priest.
Is it possible? Maiden and Priest playing Florida in the same year?
From the upcoming new album The Boys Are Back (May, 2009), the Oak Ridge Boys cover The White Stripes’ hit “Seven Nation Army”:
In the spirit of fellow contributor, Lorna Bracewell, I am gonna go ahead and call it: The Oak Ridge Boys are lesbians and it’s all Tom Cruise’s fault.
This cover of Stand By Me was recorded by completely unknown artists in a street virtual studio all around the world. It all started with a base track—vocals and guitar—recorded on the streets of Santa Monica, California, by a street musician called Roger Ridley. The base track was then taken to New Orleans, Louisiana, where Grandpa Ellitott—a blind singer from the French Quarter—added vocals and harmonica while listening to Ridley’s base track on headphones. In the same city, Washboard Chaz’s added some metal percussion to it.
And from there, it just gets rock ‘n’ rolling bananas: The producers took the resulting mix all through Europe, Africa, and South America, adding new tracks with multiple instruments and vocals that were assembled in the final version you are seeing in this video. All done with a simple laptop and some microphones.
On the morning of November 5th, 2008, the day after the historic election of Barack Obama as President of the United States, I was performing in a highschool in Palatka, Florida. The students, approximately 1/3 of whom in this particular district were African American, were palpably stoked. Many of them wore bootleg Obama t-shirts featuring images not just of the President Elect, but of his whole beautiful family. I started out my program by asking, “Does anyone know who won yesterday’s presidential election?” The students erupted into a chant of “O-bam-a! O-bam-a!” that made the aging media center feel more like a football stadium.
One would think that spending a day surrounded by so much pride and exuberance would be the ultimate spiritual jumpstart; that I packed up my gear that afternoon and floated back to St. Petersburg on a cloud of contentment knowing that the platitudes I’ve spent my life singing are true, that ”the times they are a’changin.’” Unfortunately, that was not the case. That day, which was such an unblemished triumph of justice and hope over prejudice and fear to all those young people, to me was a painful reminder that a well funded and well organized segment of my state’s and country’s body politic does not think me or other gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people like me their equal. November 5, 2008 taught me that in America a black man can (finally) take the Presidential Oath of Office, but a gay man or woman can’t even exchange a marriage vow.
As I drove back home that afternoon, I scribbled a line on a Dunkin’ Doughnuts napkin: “I’m gonna love you, no matter what they say.” Months later, I found the napkin and decided to finish the song.
Leilani joins Stephen and Joran in the studio to welcome Jim Morey and his band as they perform two tracks live and talk about their strange brand of Neo-ragtime, NOLA jazz, stumblin’ roots rock.
Yes, they brought in a monkey, and yes, we got it on video.
Download the MP3s of Gypsy Wind and Wishing Well after the break.
Posted by Leilani Polk on Apr. 14, 2009, at 12:31 pm
A heavily-pixelated sneek peek of the video for Green Day’s new single, “Know Your Enemy,” has leaked on YouTube. The music itself is pretty mediocre, and I don’t think I get the basketball players-rock band parallels, but maybe it’s just me…
Yeah Yeah Yeahs were the musical guests on Saturday Night Live this weekend. They played Zero, the single from their new album It’s Blitz! (reviewed here) and, rather strangely, an older song, Maps. Old but good at least. here’s Zero:
It was a long time coming for session number six, but well worth it, as Clearwater-based hard rockers Soulfound join Joran and Stephen in the studio to talk about playing locally and nationally, recording and playing together for a decade and their decision to go on hiatus. They also bring their amps and put them to good use. MP3s of Temper Temper, Occupation and Looking For Me can be downloaded below the jump, along with pics.
Here’s the brand new video for Now We Can See by threesome the Thermals. According to the band’s Web site, the track is #1 on commercial specialty radio, tied with Silversun Pickups‘ Panic Switch. Fancy…
Posted by Leilani Polk on Apr. 6, 2009, at 2:26 pm
Just got a link to a new video by gothic/gospel group Dead Man’s Bones, “Name in Stone.” The band’s music is raw and gothic spooky, and the schtick is that in the vid, they’re performing live in a cemetery with L.A. Inner Mass Choir and the Silverlake Conservatory of Music Children’s Choir. It starts out a little slow and quiet, but builds rather nicely, and the sound of dead leaves crunching as they walk amidst the headstones adds a nice bit of natural texture. My only question is: what the hell is the lady with the baby is doing there?
This release from Rage Against the Machine’s Zack de la Rocha and former Mars Volta drummer Jon Theodore came out back in July 2008. I think its interesting to see what some jam sessions lead to among career musicians. At a mere 5-songs, the repetitive yet inspired debut eponymous EP seems like a good weekend jam that was captured and carved into entrancing neo-funk hip hop riff rock, without guitars. You can check them out at www.onedayasalion.org. Thanks to Disqo for the tip.
What do the corn-fed, flag-wavin', salt-of-the-earth folks of Iowa have in common with the liberal, yankee blue bloods of Connecticut and Massachusetts? If you guessed State Supreme Courts that operate in accordance with the principles of justice and reason, you're absolutely right.
Earlier today, the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously decided that a 1998 law limiting marriage to a man and a woman was unconstitutional. (Here's the New York Times story.) This decision makes Iowa the first state in the Midwest and the third state in the entire United States of America to approve same-sex marriage.
In honor of this landmark decision, here's a video of the Musical Theatre Academy of Orange County performing "Iowa Stubborn" from the Broadway classic, The Music Man. Cheers to Iowa for standing staunchly and stubbornly against the tide of bigotry, discrimination and hate! Our state and our country really "ought to give Iowa a try." Read the rest of this entry »
On Thursday, March 19, legendary music/film producer and arranger Quincy Jones spoke for 2-and-a-half hours to a packed house at the Austin Convention Center about the state of the music industry, the future of the music business, his first encounters with Michael Jackson, brain science, nanotechnology and the success he has enjoyed around the globe by being a ”Ghetto Gump,” happening to be in the right place at the right time. He also shared some personal anecdotes from his years in the industry.
Jones recounted how he discovered Oprah Winfrey, having cast her in The Color Purple, a film adapted from Alice Walker’s novel and directed by Steven Spielberg. Walker was apparently hesitant to have such a young (not to mention Jewish) director at the helm, who until then was best known for the sci-fi/action blockbusters Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Raiders of the Lost Ark, but Quincy was able to convince her that this was the man for the job. Executives even doubted that they could get Spielberg to commit to Color Purple “before Schindler’s List was made.” Spielberg himself asked Jones, “Don’t you want a black director to make this film?” Jones’ reply: “Did you have to go to Mars to film E.T.?”
During one especially tender moment, during a screening of Ray Charles performing “My Buddy (Quincy)” at Montreaux, the producer teared up and turned away from the crowd.
On the future of the music business, Jones was at a loss. He cited Napster, iPods and other technology for the decline in sales and said there would never be another multi-million-selling record, stating “I got mine,” and that it’s now up to future generations to figure their way out of the box. Yet, he sympathized with up-and-coming artists that find themselves surrounded by ”an entire generation that does not know people ever paid for music.” At one point, he even said he was “open to any ideas” for solutions to new revenue streams and suggested music could monetize itself through advertising similar to television.
Jones has put forth a new idea, however. This year, he started a petition and at last count has aquired over 240,000 signatures in an effort to lobby President Obama to create a cabinet-level position entitled Secretary of Culture (or Minister of the Arts) - which most other countries already have – a postion that would be tasked with music education and artists’ rights.
VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS from Jones’ address in five parts after the jump.
Posted by Leilani Polk on Mar. 20, 2009, at 3:08 pm
Just came across this on YouTube. It’s a video for Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard’s song, “To Be Objectified.” In it, quirky pop songwriter and artist Lewis creates a time-lapsed, large scale illustration while his performance is rotoscoped into a comic book cartoon. The entire thing is produced by Lewis himself and is pretty darn cool. The song is from Lewis’ forthcoming album, ‘Em Are I, due out in May on Rough Trade Records.
No. This isn’t just me passing along some press release I got. Yes, I genuinely like Tori Amos. I see you shaking your head in disgust and to that I say “feh!”. Admittedly, I’m not that big on the material she’s released post-2000, but I love(d) every album she released in the ’90s and I love this track as well.
It’s from her new album, Abnormally Attracted to Sin, set to be released in May. I hope this track is indicative of the whole album.
Sunday. Laid low today. Resting up for the long week ahead. Took another nice long walk this morning to HEB (Texas’ answer to bad grocery stores).
Definitely no iPhones at HEB. Actually, there was a Cricket and Boost Mobile kiosk in the entryway next to the Coke and holographic sticker machines.
Spent most of the day cutting together footage from day one.
Here it is:
UPDATE: Davey (one of the guys I’m staying with) just returned from DJ’ing what he described as a “Rat Pack-themed interactive after-party.” He said the party was totally lame, but that he played for an hour and got paid $300. Travis (his roommate) lamented on how last night, his band played a three-hour gig, two hours away, got paid $100 and had to split it four ways – less the gas money. Seems like half of us are always in the wrong business.
Where to begin? Last Thursday seems like so long ago, the start of a very long weekend of incredible music. With the Harvest Of Hope festival bringing bands by the boatload to Florida, many of them played shows throughout the state before and after the weekend. I (with my girlfriend and a few other friends) went to four shows in six days across the state. I did my best to document all of this with pictures and video; and even managed to score a short video interview with Bryce Dessner of The National. Read the rest of this entry »
For session five, Stephen and Joran talk with the foursome about touring, knife play and a newer sound, plus, the band performs three songs: Lips, Pretty in Pale and Whipsering Sin. Download.
Posted by Leilani Polk on Mar. 12, 2009, at 4:33 pm
Thanks to Joe for providing this brilliant little video that took my head out of the Phish clouds and prompted me to post. The vid is the result of a music project by the latest internet sensation, Israeli musician and producer Kutiman. His “Thru You” experiment includes seven music tracks/videos created exclusively from samples from more than 100 YouTube videos of musicians performing. It’s like Girl Talk taken to another level of technology.
The following clip is a hot ass funk number and as such, has been dubbed “The Mother of All Funk Chords.” It’s pretty effing cool. To check out the other six creations, click here.
Britney Spears got caught with her mic on while leaving the stage for a wardrobe change during her concert last night at the St. Pete Times Forum. Not realizing the mic was still live and says, “My pussy is hanging out!”
So far, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon has failed to impress many, but the show’s first week of music wasn’t too shabby (the Roots as house band, Van Morrison, Justin Timberlake). Last night Clap Your Hands Say Yeah ripped out a new single, called “Statues” to a very excited audience (what’s with the people on the side of the stage, anyway?).
For session #4, Joran and Stephen welcome Tampa’s Hat Trick Heroes into the studio to talk about their new album Push It Forward, recorded in Nashville with producer John McBride. The band also perform three tracks: Cemetery Lane, Stuck in a Hole and Wild Turkey.
Portishead stands on a precipice in 2009, and endless possibilities lay before them. Their album Third, released last year, fulfilled their contractual obligations to Island Records – and as Pitchfork reported yesterday, Portishead are free agents. Here’s Geoff Barrow:
“with the world being the way it is, there are lots of options open … but if you lot have any bright ideas of how we should sell our music in the future, lets us know, why not! [...] i dont think that we’re into giving away music for free to be honest…it fukin takes ages to write and we have to heat our swimming pools…!!!”
I can’t imagine better circumstances for a band like Portishead. Although Portishead lacks the vast catalogue and consistent longevity of other bands that recently introduced new business models, they’ve still done more than enough to earn a decent following of rabid supporters – the type of fans who’ll wait 11 years for the band’s third album. They know how to make music – they just need to decide where to go from there.
So as Geoff said, if you’ve got an idea, pass it along. They’ve got pools to heat and music to write, and Portishead aren’t exactly known for doing things quickly. Here’s are a couple of good Portishead videos, one older, one new
The Late Show with David Letterman, CBS
It was a long time coming for session number six, but well worth it, as Clearwater-based hard rockers 
