Vibes blog

CL music contributor Mike McCray checks in with a couple of street performers on a Friday in Uptown.

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Michael Jackson’s “This is It” song is streaming on his Web site.

UPDATE: Turns out the song isn’t so “new.”

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The University of Tennessee knew that 2009-10 might be a rebuilding year for its football team, but the students did have hope.

New head coach Lane Kiffin brought in his legendary father and his decades of NFL experience to be defensive coordinator and he also inherited one of the best defensive players in college football, Eric Berry.

Now defensive players rarely, if ever, win college football’s highest honor, the Heisman trophy, but that didn’t stop a loyal base of Tennessee and Berry supporters from putting together some music videos and shorts together to promote their man.

From biting Geico and FreeCreditReport.com commercials to having UT basketball player, Renaldo Woolridge a.k.a. Swiperboy, remix Hurricane Chris’ “Halle Berry” into “Eric Berry,” that includes lots of slow motion cheerleader gyrations, bling and a mascot, Berry has dropped weekly videos online to help his campaign. (more…)

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Not that long ago, you had to wait until your 10-year high school reunion to see what everybody you weren’t that close to was up to.

Now that Facebook has allowed fringe friends to be as up-to-date with you as your close ones, it’s amazing to see how many people that never picked up a pen, pad or microphone before graduation are rapping now.

Are they incredibly late bloomers artistically or shrewd opportunists? Maybe they watched Hustle & Flow and got some ideas, who knows? But the numbers of links, e-mails and messages I’ve got from former classmates directing me toward their MySpace pages, mixtape download links and YouTube channels are at an all-time high. (more…)

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The Avett Brothers video for “I and Love and You” is finally up over at MySpace. Check it out!

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There has to be a university study somewhere that says alcohol makes you believe anything, right?

Because Thursday night, there was enough of it in me to believe some random guy with hipster clothes on was as trustworthy as MTV News.

Like most Thursday nights, I decided to bounce around Plaza-Midwood and take advantage of the beautiful green driver’s license which I like to call, the “all-access pass.”

The problem with the intoxication that “all-access pass” allows is that when drunk people start talking, just about anything sounds plausible.

Sitting on the patio at Common Market, a Michael Jackson song came on, making one drunk guy say, “Why are they playing this when Prince is the one who died today?” (more…)

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Live Nation is offering a passport to get into any show for the rest of the year at venues such as The Fillmore Charlotte.

For $49.99, and no additional fees, the holder can go on to LiveNation.com and get tickets — even if a show is sold out. The Passport holder will go online on Mondays to see what participating shows are happening in their city and reserve their ticket.

After that, you just bring your Live Nation Passport number and ID to the box office and get in to the show.

Seems like a great deal if you have a diverse taste in music.

Participating shows for The Fillmore, at this time, are:
Fri, 09/18/09 — Indigo Girls with Maia Sharp
Sun, 09/27/09 — The Disco Biscuits
Mon, 10/12/09 — BET’s 106 & Park Tour Featuring Trey Songz & Mario
Tue, 10/13/09 — Pitbull with David Rush
Thu, 10/15/09 — Blues Traveler
Tue, 10/20/09 — Queensryche
Wed, 10/21/09 — Glamour Kills Tour: All Time Low with We The Kings, Hey Monday, Friday Night Boys
Mon, 10/26/09 — Hollywood Undead & Atreyu
Wed, 10/28/09 — KMFDM with Angelspit
Wed, 11/04/09 — Metalocalypse: Dethklok and Mastodon
Wed, 11/11/09 — Matisyahu
Sun, 11/15/09 — Train w/ Uncle Kracker
Sun, 12/06/09 — David Allan Coe

It looks like the shows that are missing are the Black Crowes, Lenny Kravitz, Silversun Pickups, B.B. King, Blue October, Wolfmother, Stephen Lynch, Brand New, Honor Society, Megadeth, Roger Daltry.

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Somewhere between Russell Brand’s babbling, Lady Gaga’s bleeding and Kanye West embarrassing the shit out of Taylor Swift, you may have noticed DC-area rapper Wale and popular Go-Go group, UCB, serving as the MTV VMA house band.

2009 has seen Wale’s celebrity rise tremendously. With his single, “Chillin” (featuring Lady Gaga), getting major network airplay and what’s sure to be Asher Roth-like hype for his upcoming album, Attention Deficit, you may have overlooked his Twitter fame and mixtape, Back To The Feature, which was produced by North Carolina hip-hop icon, 9th Wonder and released this summer.

But for UCB (short for UnCalled 4 Band), backing up Kid Cudi, Jay-Z, 3Oh3 and others during the VMA’s, it was viewed as a huge step for national exposure for a genre of music I outright detested when I heard for the first time.

My first exposure was actually my first day of college. Having two suite mates from Maryland, I learned early that what I grew up on listening to WPEG was a whole ‘nother world from what WPGC plays up there. I called remember calling it “boopity boop, bullshit” (yes, I said boopity boop) and literally throwing a temper tantrum like a 6-year old when my suite mate would “crank it” every morning before class.

Long story short, by the time I graduated I was bumping go-go tracks in my iPod. The music really grows on you once you see the music in action, whether that’s the club or a party, you kind of understand what they’re getting at.

We’ve heard the Go-Go sound before. If you’re a little older, you may be familiar with Chuck Brown’s music or remember Rare Essence’s “Overnight Scenario,” EU’s “Doin The Butt” in School Daze. More recently Amerie’s “One Thing” but in terms of groups like UCB, BYB (Backyard Band) and others getting exposure outside of the DC Metro Area and places where large populations of DMV (DC-Maryland-Virginia) kids land for college, it was huge.

I don’t know if everyone enjoyed the glimpses of them performing coming in and out of commercial breaks but if they did,  I think the mainstream music world will get a huge dose of good, live, party music and actual bands and underrated instrumentation.

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In honor of my alma mater, North Carolina A&T, getting a big 19-10 win over Winston-Salem State last weekend, I thought I’d share a Michael Jackson tribute our band, the Blue & Gold Marching Machine, performed almost a year before his death. Hey, its a reason the movie Drumline was based on our school. Enjoy!

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They’ve announced Paula Abdul’s replacement… and it’s… Ellen?

That’s right, they’ve replaced the incoherent blabbering of Abdul with a comedian/talk-show host. Great choice.

That’s like putting David Hasselhoff as a judge of a talent competition. Oh, wait…

So, now you have record executive Simon Cowell — the only one who gives constructive criticism and tells it like it is, Randy Jackson — a former Journey bass player and record producer who prefers to just call everyone “dawg” and say “it was alright for me,” Kara DioGuardi — a songwriter who wrote a horrendous first single for last season’s winner, and Ellen who prefers to make jokes than offer any real opinion.

DeGeneres will sit on the judge’s panel after the auditions are completed.

Nice choice, Idol. Looks like you’ve finally jumped the shark… (if Sanjaya’s run didn’t do it for you already).

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