The short answer: gawwwwd, we hope not. For one thing, every decent dance craze in recent memory has been a southern phenomenon: you'd have to go back to the Rockaway for a Noo Yawk/East Coast club phenomenon, and even then, that was a dance craze marketed precisely to people who can't dance. That being the case, though, outsiders seem to be having two very strong reactions to the Chicken Noodle Soup dance: there's the people who say it's "gay." Then there's the people who note its resemblance to received stereotypes of minstrelsy.

Before we get any further, let's back up and clarify -- for those of you who don't frequent XXL's website, rap message boards, or the streets of Harlem -- exactly what the Chicken Noodle Soup Dance is. We won't get into poultry-and-the-egg speculation, but suffice it to say that since June there has developed a rap song and a dance which go hand in hand. The dance is generally acknowledged to be a descendent of two previous outbreaks called the Harlem Shake and the Toe Wop. The Chicken Noodle Soup rap song was recorded by a 19-year-old Harlem kid (supposedly this one) called  DJ Webstar (the perfect name for the kid behind an internet phenomenon) with a very young girl MC called Young B (perhaps this one). The song tells you how to do the dance, then it tells you how to eat: "Let it rain, then clear it out; let it rain, then clear it out . . . Chicken noodle soup with a soda on the side."

DOWNLOAD: DJ Webstar and Young B, "Chicken Noodle Soup" (mp3 via TJ's DJ's)

In the old days, dance crazes migrated slowly -- block by block, dancefloor by dancefloor, eventually city by city, like a disease, until a song or a movie came along to spread the instructions to the masses. Most of the good dances like the Fila, the Whop, and the Pee-Wee Herman were dead before music videos began speeding up the cycle -- thanks to which we got the Macarena, the electric slide, and the cabbage patch. But now we've got YouTube, thanks to which you don't need to wait for someone to discover "Chicken Noodle Soup," press the song onto vinyl, sell it to a major label, and have Hype Williams produce the video. Now you can see 14-year-olds doing the Chicken Noodle Soup before the song is even on the radio outside of NYC:

WATCH: 80 zillion more people doing the Chicken Noodle Soup dance at YouTube

(AN ASIDE: Speaking of "in the old days" -- by which we mean not an actual time frame but, like, that nostalgic fantasy world that exists in our brains where 1985 used to reside -- in the old days, some kid would've recorded recorded an answer track in his bedroom every week and it'd be out on 12-inch singles you'd get at the local record bodega. These days, the "official Queens remix" is some dude rapping over the instrumental in his bedroom . . . on YouTube.)

Harlem kids hungry for their own Lean Wit It Rock Wit It have taken this thing up like the plague. Kids are posting Chicken Noodle Soup vids in the weirdest places.  BET noticed the flurry of YouTube vids and is now asking kids to send in homemade videos for use in some sort of web/tv special. White sorority girls are doing it in their dorm rooms.All of which has heated up the rivalry between NYC and ATL, with southerners clowning on Chicken Noodle -- at least in part as revenge for Northerners who clowned on "Laffy Taffy" and the snap-music dance crazes.

The rap is about as complicated as the eensy-weensy spider, and the recording is so low-budget you can hear the hypeman's Nextel chirp. The dance is a different story. "It's the background music for Coon Shuffle 2006," wrote one listener from Montgomery, Alabama in a message-board thread. Similar observations appear almost anywhere you see the videos: the dance's jazzhanded "let-it-rain" and shuffling footwork are giving viewers the wrong kind of goosebumps: a foreboding echo of the cakewalk. Some feets make it more aw-shucks than others -- for instance, like, these Cassie fans:

So yeah: it's a dance guaranteed to give lots of well-meaning people the creeps, and to convince earnest young hip-hop fans that rap is deteriorating into a cartoonish joke aimed at 14-year-olds. To which OTD says: hey, we loved rap music when it was pop music for 14-year-olds that spawned goofy dance crazes every six weeks! Those were the good old days! (We only stopped paying attention when the hippies took over.) But is Chicken Noodle's shuck-and-jive a grassroots, post-racial coincidence or the conscious embrace of a stereotype by tweens who know it'll bum out elders on both sides of the black/white divide? Beats us. Then again, we're writing this as we watch Anderson Cooper do his best G-Unit impersonation, all dolled up in gratuitous bulletproof vest and peppering his interviews with the sound of random gunfire. We bet you that not even an Iranian ground attack on Uptown could get that dude to do the Chicken Noodle Soup. If you're really brave, you could try telling someone that's progress.

7/31/2006 11:44:21 PM by On the Download | Comments [1] |  

On more or less the same day that Metallica broke down and allowed people to pay for their music online -- thereby belatedly joining everyone else on the planet here in the 21st century -- the Rolling Stones, who are second only to pornographers in exploiting new technology to squeeze the last penny out of their fans pockets, figured out a scheme to sell really crappy audio of their live performances to anyone with a cell phone. This, folks, is some next level shit. (Major labels, who pulled the wool over even their own eyes with the great LP-to-CD scam of the '90s, have consistently bet that people want greater sonic fidelity and will be willing to sacrifice portability to get it. The lesson of mp3s is that people actually want the opposite: that is, they want endless portability, and will sacrifice a great deal of audio fidelity to get it.)

It so happens that tickets went on sale today to the opening night of the US leg of the Stones' tour -- Stones tours traditionally embarking in or around Massachusetts. On September 20, the biggest band in ze world will be at Foxboro Stadium, and if you so desire you can pay $502.50 (excluding tax, handling, service charges, and that $20 you'll accidentally tip Ron Wood when you mistake him for the valet) to sit on the same fucking stage as Mick & Keef. We declined.

Also this afternoon, you could have logged onto ListenLive at 2:30 pm and paid $2 for seven minutes of the Stones live from Amsterdam, where the pre-announced set list was to have included "Jumpin Jack Flash," "Tumblin' Dice," "Sympathy for the Devil," "Brown Sugar" . . . you know, the hits. We're guessing that the Rolling Stones Inc. arrived at the going rate for this racket -- which we like to think of as revealing the Stones for the 900-number whores they've been for the past 40 years -- after a lengthy study of the masturbatory endurance of 60-year-old women. To make a conservative estimate, let's say the Stones played for two hours. You could've listened in to the whole thing via cellphone for less than $40. Only the Stones could make this seem like a fucking bargain.

We also have a fabulous idea about how to pay for that Stones concert on your gay new cellphone. With your even gayer new debit card:

7/31/2006 5:53:00 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

(The title of this post is the answer to the question, "For God's sake, does anyone need another Tupac book?")

OTD's seeds got these Disney books where the pages are actually envelopes and you can pull out, like, Cinderella's to-do list and the actual invitation to the ball? So, um, this book is like that . . . only without the street cred. Although we gotta admit, we'd kind of like to have our own keepsake replica Death Row contracts . . . if only to wave at haters when we suckass iPod-DJ at parties. That would be pretty dope. From the press release:

TUPAC SHAKUR LEGACY is far more than just a book. As a unique and special tribute to the memory of Tupac’s irreplaceable genius . . . [it's] a hands-on, interactive, portable museum that’s not just a portrait of the artist, but a knowing, revealing glimpse into the world – and mind – of one of hip-hop’s most revered poets . . .

Using recovered and removable exact replicas of documents, including everything from a 1984 playbill for a Harlem festival featuring a very young Shakur to the infamous handwritten contract with Death Row Records, TUPAC SHAKUR LEGACY stands alone in revealing the superstar as he saw himself: both supremely confident and supremely vulnerable.

Far from superfluous, the documents (and the audio CD that also accompanies the book) serve as reminders that before he was known as an amazing artist, Tupac was already an extraordinary person.

7/29/2006 9:41:49 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

It’s the end of an era for what we once lovingly termed Boston DIY: Night Rally are no more. After this Saturday, Cambridge’s proggy-Rickenbackerry-rock trio will call it quits so drummer Luke Kirkland (a/k/a lank-rap dude Boo Radley) can return to their native land of Santa Fe to finish up college. Night Rally’s farewell show at Great Scott is also the long-awaited CD release for their first full-length, Preston Family Crest, a 16-track blood-pissing collection produced by Headgear Recording’s Chris Moore (TV on the Radio/Yeah Yeah Yeahs) that’s, well, the best damn thing they’ve ever done.

DOWNLOAD: Night Rally, "Shoop John B"

7/28/2006 5:19:32 PM by Cami | Comments [0] |  

7/27/2006 11:44:40 AM by On the Download | Comments [1] |  

Mash-ups aren't so much my thing -- I’d much rather listen to a stupidly ironic cover than a bastardized version of two different songs -- but it seems fate has intervened to make me a believer. Someone very clever, who obviously has impeccable taste, went ahead and mixed Thom Yorke's ghostly "Atoms For Peace" with "Because of You," Kelly Clarkson's blood-pumping break-up hymnal.

"Peace of You," as I'll refer to it here -- way better than its given title, "Atoms for Idols" -- has Kelly going a capella over Thom's hand-made electronic bleeps. They sound almost horrifyingly good together. She's a Top-40 hook that slices up the char-grilled microcomputer that is Thom's soul. Him: "He'll be OK." Her: "I am afraid." The randomness of their harmony is something Yorke might approve of in some other form, offsetting his soft impactless pulses and frictionless ticks.

In the song, Thom is pretty much Kel-C’s backup singer. Until he gets to wail a few choice lonely couplets, like "Peel all of your layers off, I want to eat your artichoke heart" all by himself. Of course, it’s totally necessary for a lyric like that to take the forefront. And the imagery? Thom eating Kelly’s heart? Their lusciously harmonized dueling vocals? Okay, I can’t stop thinking about this -- and I know it’s utterly impossible because Thom is still with his "partner"/babymama Rachel; Kelly is way too busy making poor fashion choices (what gives?) and running around on her Addicted Tour to date a hot/homely super-intellectual/crazy-genius short middle-aged British man with a hardcore dance music fetish. But what if they had actually been INVOLVED?! Like after she was on AI or something. He dumped her because she was too Texas and "mainstream" for him, even though their love was quirky and unforgettable. So she got her producers to help her write Breakaway about Mr. Thomas Edward Yorke. No? I know. Never could happen. It would change my whole outlook on life, though. I kind of wish it were true. Well, I’m told the best mash-ups aren’t just mixed well. They have to clump together the unlikeliest of combinations. No different here. This thing should come with a downloadable package of raw cookie dough and a cognitive psychology book with the pages on curing depression pre-highlighted. I’m actually eating the MP3 with a spoon, right now. Oddly enough, I’m pretty sure the only thing that would comfort me at this point would be Kelly somehow incorporating Thom’s Touretz-like flail-dance into her stage act. Behind These Lazy Hazel Eyes? Killer.

DOWNLOAD: Thom Yorke & Kelly Clarkson, "Peace of You"/"Atoms for Idols" (mp3)

-- Sharon Steel

7/26/2006 5:45:05 PM by On the Download | Comments [1] |  

We’re not sure exactly when the folks at Pitchfork started valuing “actual decent songs” over “instant-cred reference points” (can someone point us in the direction of a well-written Wolf Parade tune?), but that’s their main criticism of Movie Monster, the Capitol debut from Austin upstarts Sound Team, which received a lowly 3.7 rating (ouch!). Why are we telling you this? Because we think it’s funny that, following in the footsteps of sour-grapes grousers like Travis Morrison and David Bazan (scroll down for a live version of Bazan's ode to Ryan Schreiber), the band have gone public to protest their forking. Their “visual depiction of Pitchfork’s review,” a video posted on YouTube that involves a Sound Team scarecrow being pitched off a cliff and lit on fire, is more pitiful than funny, but the album itself is pretty good — full of cool electric piano, airy, Edge-y guitars, not-annoying new wave–isms, and even some actual decent songs — so we’ll go ahead and recommend checking them out at T.T.'s, where they’re joined by California blog darlings Cold War Kids and the Jason Lee-approved indie fivesome Midlake, from Dalton, Texas | 10 Brookline St, Cambridge | 617.492.BEAR.

LISTEN: Sound Team, "Your Eyes Are Liars"

7/26/2006 5:43:08 PM by Will | Comments [0] |  

Too many $6 beers for Marty McSleep.


Remy Ma is conceited for a reason.


Yes, it's terrible photo, but it's a terrible photo of Juelz and Remy Ma.
Above photos by Cami


Good Juelz Santana photo by Sidney Lo


And that giant Hummer. See those tail lights? They're TV screens.

Damn, what a Saturday. Spent nine hours meandering around the Connecticut Expo Center for the Funkmaster Flex Custom Car and Bike Show. Admittedly, we're not much up on cars, if only because ours is dirty, unreliable, and filled with smelly strangers. We have however studied crazy sneakers, and so we tagged along for the International Sneaker Battle with ISB judges Jeff Cavalho, who co-hosts a sneaker podcast called Weeklydrop, and Lori Lobenstine, who runs the Web site FemaleSneakerFiend.com.

Given the ISB’s wardrobe-warfare billing, we’d imagined something heated and contentious, contenders so nervous they could puke — like Eight Mile, with shoes instead of freestyles and the crowd pelting losers with those ugly-ass Miss Piggy Adidas. That wasn’t the case in Hartford, where eight competitors manned their booths like ship captains, ready for a handful of roving judges like Cavalho, Lobenstine, and some guy named Rob Heppler (jk, Rob) to critique their collections. A 20-year-old Bridgeport father, Mandela Samuel, brought his original yellowed and cracked baby Jordans from 1985. Another exhibitor, 31-year-old Brian Spar, runs a sneaker Web site called Gourmet Kickz, so his booth was restaurant-themed: two high-heeled waitresses holding sneakers, little waiter statues holding sneakers, and the stubborn insistence to identify himself only as "The Chef" in person.


The Chef's waitress serves up a custom Air Force 1
photo by Matt Teuten

Hip-hop celebs were only required to grace the temporarily installed stage for one song a piece, including Remy Ma who led everybody in "Conceited (There's Something About Remy)" and Juelz Santana who knocked out “There It Go (The Whistle Song).” This being a music blog, we'd like to tell something about their performances, but with all due respect, this was about cameo obligation, not inspiration. All in all, nearly $20,000 was awarded from the Funkmaster Flex Custom Car and Bike Show and the International Sneaker Battle, one upcoming episode of the Weeklydrop podcast recorded, one bro-job threatened, and one hilariously un-PC little person joke made.

Memorable moment 1: Meeting Funkmaster Flex. The second hand we shook that day was Flex's. No shit. Before the show opened to the public, Mike the Executive, a sound engineer at Hot 97 who's an all-around swell dude and the 22-year-old organizer of the Flex-sponsored International Sneaker Battle, brought the “evangelist of hip-hop car culture,” over to meet Weeklydrop co-host Rob Heppler. We happened to be standing beside Hepdog, so we got a nice little introduction to Flex himself. Admittedly surreal, given that there were giant Flex photos plastered all over and we'd just finished reading that feverishly loved/hated piece on Hot 97 in the New Yorker.

Later, Heppler and Cavalho interviewed Flex for Weeklydrop. Apparently Heppler listened to Flex reel off a list of hip-hop A-listers when answering a question and said, "You dropped something." Flex looked down and said "Huh?" To which Heppler cracked, "Those names."

Memorable moment 2: Babymama drama. Approximate quote heard from the stage. "Ladies, if you're a babymama and you got your baby here and you got a picture of the baby's original father, bring it up onstage and we'll give you a prize."


Weeklydrop crew Jeff Cavalho and Rob Heppler interviews Juelz Santana
(Hot 97's Mike the Executive in the back) Cami took this.

Memorable moment 3: the VIP room. Ended up in the VIP area, again thanks to Mike the Executive, who's legal cognomen is Daurio in case you're in the last-name business. We were there in various states of air-conditionering, Amsteling, and buffet-plating, with Tego Calderon sitting in one corner and Sequioa-girthed bodyguards lumbering around everywhere else. One thick photographer roved around with a Vibe press badge, which seemed impressive until Mike pointed out that the dude's pass was dated 2004.

Then Juelz Santana walked in and sat down by himself by the door. Heppler recognized him, whispered to Cavalho about interviewing the Dipset phenom, then mustered up every inch of his ex-con appeal to approach Mr. Santana for an audio conversation. Juelz came over kindly, talked with them at our table, while sneakerhead photog Sidney Lo snapped pictures. During their conversation, Cam'Ron actually stopped in, blinged-out with a huge working traffic light around his neck, and big-upped his Dipset dog.

Since Santana was being interviewed about his style, he pointed out his gem-encrusted JS belt-buckle for everyone at the table to admire. "I'm gonna take a picture of your belt buckle," warned Lo. "But no homo!"


That's Sidney's hand on the right, pointing at Juelz's crotch. But no homo.

7/26/2006 9:06:32 AM by Cami | Comments [0] |  

I’m gonna take a lover

Gonna take her back to Somerville

Don’t care if she’s pretty

As we leave Suck City

 

That last line is a reference to the experimental autobiography, Another Bullshit Night In Suck City, which, if you haven’t already, you should read, like, right now. (Coming soon to a theater near you!)

 

Written by Scituate native Nick Flynn about his absentee father’s jarring reentry into Nick’s life as a drunk and dissolute resident of the Pine Street Inn, where Nick works, Suck City (the title is one of the elder Flynn’s favorite sayings) is a hugely affecting book; written in prose and poetry and playlets, it fearlessly plumbs his conflicting feelings about the pull people and places can have on you, even when you don’t want them to.

 

It seems to have informed — if only in an oblique way — the lyrics to “Somerville,” the advance track from the Pernice Brothers’ new album Live a Little (Ashmont), due out this fall. Joe Pernice is a well-read man (and a fine writer in his own right), and the Brothers’ web site offers this song for free — with “a tip of the scally cap to Nick Flynn, who like Joe Pernice, grew up on the Irish Riviera.”

 

Live a Little reunites the band with producer Mike Deming, who hasn’t worked with them since their 1998 debut, Overcome by Happiness. That title was meant to be ironic, of course: a wistful sadness has always been a Joe Pernice songwriting stock-in-trade. And, if he’s seemed a little happier in recent years, “Somerville” has all the hallmarks we’ve come to expect by now: heart-on-sleeve lyrics that manage to be elliptically evocative at the same time, and lush arrangements that envelope Pernice’s breathy, melancholic voice.

 

That’s certainly not to say he’s without a sense of humor. Check out the “Bastards of Young”-style video for “Somerville" and see how good he is at riding a bike on a treadmill.

-Mike Miliard

 

DOWNLOAD: The Pernice Brothers, “Somerville” (MP3)

WATCH: The Pernice Brothers, “Somerville” (Quicktime)

7/25/2006 7:55:52 AM by Cami | Comments [0] |  

When Dresden Dolls aren't opening for Panic! at the Disco or staging their own "Celluloid Vaudville" one-nighters (a/k/a "Fuck the Back Row"), Amanda Palmer occasionally puts together what she calls "karaoke verite": basically, a dadist short film of her lip-synching to some hit of the moment. For the latest edition, she goes picking cactus leaves, skulking around european churches, and eventually ends up dead in the street . . . all for singing Aberdeen City's massive local hit "God Is Gonna Get Sick Of Me"! We didn't think of it until we saw the video, but this would really make the perfect cover for her -- she'd bring out the goth in it, and if you posted it to the Noise boarders, they'd retort with, "Hell, we've been sick of her since she won the Rumble!"

Meanwhile, Aberdeen announced that Red Ink (i.e. Columbia) will re-release The Freezing Atlantic on August 8 with new tracks recorded by legendary superproducer Steve Lillywhite; to support it, they'll spend most of the fall on the road with the Electric Six. Not to be outdone by a Dresden Doll, they've just lensed their own video "God Is Gonna Get Sick of Me," directed by Adam Neustadter from Wormeseye Films. See it here first:

DOWNLOAD: Aberdeen City, "God Is Gonna Get Sick of Me" (QuickTime)
WATCH: Amanda Palmer, "Karaoke Verite: God Is Gonna Get Sick of Me"

7/24/2006 3:26:06 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

We're gonna save the meta-meta implications for people with too much bullshit-waxing time on their hands, but we wanted to alert this to you before it gets taken down, because apparently the 11-song remix project has been pulled from MySpace repeatedly: somebody pulled a Danger Mouse on Danger Mouse.

Yep, a self-described "DJ unit" called Sound Advice remixed Biggie Smalls with Gnarls Barkley and ended up with The Gnotorious Gnarls Biggie. In the Internerdy age, pastiche passes for genius -- or at least tons of blog posts and millions of hits -- and so this is likely to blow up overnight. We can't co-sign all the 11 songs, because on first listen, we're really not feeling "Necromancing Thugs" and "Just a Party and Bullshit" is terribly iffy. But "Can I Get With Ya Crazy Butt"? Okay, that's awesome. "Gone, Biggie, Gone" is conceptually sweet, even if we're not sure the remix really works. And "Give Me That Online Loot"? The most honest words we've heard from the Internet this month.

DOWNLOAD: The Gnotorious Gnarls Biggie, "Can I Get With Ya Crazy Butt"
DOWNLOAD: The Gnotorious Gnarls Biggie, "Gone, Biggie, Gone"
DOWNLOAD: The Gnotorious Gnarls Biggie, "Give Me That Online Loot"
DOWNLOAD: Sound Advice, The Gnotorious Gnarls Biggie

7/24/2006 1:21:38 PM by Cami | Comments [0] |  

7/23/2006 6:51:40 PM by On the Download | Comments [1] |  

Photos above by Chris Dempsey.

Metal dudes + roller babes + free beer = blue ribbon good times, brah. This month's Excuse -- the Phx's monthly cross-genre party platform -- brought the steel at the Linwood last Thursday courtesy of guest DJ/curator Iann Robinson and a pack of rabid coyotes, a/k/a the Humanoids, Blacktail, Bury the Needle, and We're All Gonna Die. Needless to say, a bunch of characters showed up to scope the leather, including co-hosts the Boston Derby Dames, who didn't hesitate to join the party, rollerskates and all.

-- Chris Dempsey

SLIDESHOW: lots more Excuse shennanigans (opens in new window)

7/23/2006 4:55:29 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

We're sorry, Stereogum. We love you and all. But this hacker note is some funny "fucking blog dude" shit. Anyone know where Sylvester was this morning?

7/21/2006 11:53:17 AM by Cami | Comments [1] |  

Flicks by Cami.

DOWNLOAD: CSS, "Music Is My Hot Hot Sex" [mp3]

Lemon-Red already gave you the merchboy view on Monday night's Diplo/CSS/Bonde De Role throwdown. Suffice to say, show was awesome, hotter than shit and sweatier than your ass crack. Our personal favorite parts of the night almost all involved BDR's bad-ass frontlady Marina: watching her pull a Brazilian-flavored Courtney-Love-minus-the-drugs onstage; trying to help hold her up as she crowd-surfed; finding her washing her blonde locks in the nasty Great Scott ladies' room sink right after their set.

CSS was all guitars, awesome girls, "art tits," alcohol serenaders, and cool sneakers. Sorta like this, except wetter.

And without the runway.

Diplo, holy fuck: TV on the Radio, "Hustlin," Spank Rock/Amanda Blank, MIA beats, Bonde de Role (who joined him briefly), and everything else that makes your hips sore. All that, despite mumbling into the mike that it was so hot onstage, his records were melting.

TD from Big Digits chided us for briefly sitting at the back of the room and yelling over Diplo's insane set with Mr. Merch, saying something like, "Get out there and dance because you aren't going to see another DJ this good in-" shaking his head, furrowing his brows, and pausing for TD-style effect, "A long time." We reported directly to the dancefloor, where we got to watch another Marina moment: her grinding with some tall Boston dude who was clearly having the Best Moment of his Month (possibly year) and then watching his face completely pale when another girl with expectations of him dramatically swooped in between them, like a mom trying to save a baby from a fall. Sorry, dude. Too bad she didn't join in and try to help you hit the three-pointer.

7/19/2006 12:36:45 PM by On the Download | Comments [1] |  

Sorry, but they're already all sold out!

 

1. See Piles at Charlie's Kitchen in Harvard Square with American Business Machines and Dead Like Death.

DOWNLOAD: Piles with Animal Hospital's Kevin Micka, "Divided Binomials"

2. See our buddy Wayne Marshall at Enormous Room's Beat Research with DJ Flack. Wayne sez, "I plan to mix all sorts of things into a dembow salsa stew, if you will, merging recent reggaeton with classic nuyorican soul and throwing in a pinch of dub for good measure. I may even break out some ol' raps. I'll also be joined by an exciting band outta Brooklyn, Aa (say 'BIG A little a'). They mix up a tangle of percussion, synthesizers, and "screamoy" vocals to make music that defies category, and they've apparently cooked up a special set just for us Cambridge folks. They also do their own light show! Should be a blast."

3. Read Lemon Red's tour blog over and over until you can smell the Jager on DJ Gorky's breath.

4.


5. Cry

7/17/2006 5:30:35 PM by Cami | Comments [0] |  

Well, we didn't actually predict it or anything. Just sort of anticipated it, in a backhanded-complimentary sort of way . . . And yes, this is happening in Boston at Avalon on August 11, which -- barring unforseen awesomeness -- makes this the show of the summer. . .

OTD, May 8:

Word has it that Patton already has volume 2 [of Peeping Tom] in the can, the problem being that volume one here is sounding a few years out of date. The record that Patton was born to make has already been made this year by someone else called Gnarls Barkley . . .

PFORK, June 14:

Mike Patton's Peeping Tom is hitting the road. Besides frontman Patton, the touring crew also features human beatbox Rahzel, Alap Momin of Dalek, vocalist Imani Coppola (remember "Legend of a Cowgirl"?), turntablist Mike Relm, and Dub Trio, who also open on select dates. After some overseas shows this week, Peeping Tom will open for nine Gnarls Barkley gigs. Craziness will no doubt ensue.

7/17/2006 10:22:09 AM by On the Download | Comments [1] |  

It only took our dude Chris "Lemon-Red" Nelson two posts to make us really, really psyched we asked him to blog from the merch table of the Bonde do Role/Diplo/CSS tour. Above: CSS in "action." For more of this -- including video, mp3, ridiculous tourbus insanity, make sure you bookmark/subscribe to/check on the regular: thephoenix.com/tourblog. He'll be posting for the entire duration of the tour, which hits Great Scott on Monday. If you miss this, you're a total idiot.

Diplo/Bonde do Role/CSS tourdates:

7/16/2006 7:51:41 AM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

Sounds of the Underground
July 14 at the Tweeter Center, Mansfield

WATCH: Slideshow, "Sounds of the Underground" (photos 1-44)

Horse The Band
The Chariot
Behemoth
Black Dahlia Murder
Converge
Gwar
Cannibal Corpse
Trivium
In Flames
As I Lay Dying
Killswitch Engage

7/15/2006 8:27:21 AM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

Back in the early ’90s, along with other Boston bands like the Swirlies and Fat Day, KUDGEL were among the primary purveyors of what along the way became known as chimp rock — a nasty, noisy, yet somehow beautiful mess of guitar-driven pop (somewhat debatable Wiki entry: CHIMP ROCK). They also carried the flag for AmRep-style fuck-you sludgepunk, and we will always love them for that. You know half of them now through Black Helicopter, who are signed via Thurston Moore to Universal Records. Which makes it high goddamn time that someone re-released their old shit, of which there wasn't a hell of a lot of in the first place. Enter the Midriff Recording Company, which is putting out Sea Monkee Plus Seven (Midriff), a reissue of their 1994 10-inch plus, uh, several newly unearthed tracks. The band are back in action, celebrating upstairs at the Middle East with the BEATINGS, POLARIS MINE, and PENDING DISAPPOINTMENT | 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge | 617.864.EAST.

Given that there were only 700 copies of Sea Monkey pressed (in 1994, vinyl only, by Doug Demay from Fat Day), their entire record will be brand new to almost everyone. Be that as it may, we couldn't resist posting an unearthed version of Mission of Burma's "Forget, which -- OK, OK -- would've been a little cooler if we'd put it up last night right before Burma played the Paradise. Sorry. About the second download: it's taken from the Kudgel homepage, which as either a wonderful joke or a throwback to a prehistoric era, is a one-song .wav file in all its 23-megabyte CD-quality glory. Hell fucking yes they did.

DOWNLOAD: Kudgel, "Forget" (mp3, Mission of Burma cover)
DOWNLOAD: Kudgel, "15 Second Crush" (.wav)

7/14/2006 1:38:31 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

DOWNLOAD: Eject, "Clementine" (mp3)

As one half of the awesome synthpop duo Cassette, force-multiplying hired keyboardist behind bands like Lovewhip and Campaign for Real Time, and flag-waving remixer for the idiosyncratic DIY/electro collective Compound 440r, Michael Potvin is one of the dudes who is singlehandedly big-upping Boston's party-music coefficient. His latest endeavor is the ridiculously catchy electrpop duo Eject. With Human League-sized hooks and a DIY, Magnetic Fields-ish sense of scale, their songs boil adult relationships down to playground-when-we-were-kids simplicity. Him: "My friends say that I like you they make fun of me." Her: "She told me that she likes you, I promised I wouldn't tell." Us: sobbing, laughing, raiding mom and dad's liquor cabinet. This is an extended remix taken from the scene-stealing C440r double-disc anthology Local Collections 2006; the "original" version will appear on Eject's debut record, out soon.

7/14/2006 11:58:44 AM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

Mission of Burma photos by Ben Sisto (see his Flickr stream)

Mission of Burma
July 13 at the Paradise, Boston

7/14/2006 12:29:23 AM by On the Download | Comments [1] |  

SLIDESHOW: "Hot Stove, Cool Music"

It rained. Hard. Lightning was in the forecast. And, as the Globe so sagely put it, “electric guitars and standing water do not mix well.” But while a baseball game cannot be moved indoors, a concert can.  

So, after the Gentlemen and the Click 5 risked shocking consequences by playing a couple quick sets outside, the second annual Hot Stove Cool Music: The Fenway Sessions shut it down, set up stage in the big concourse under right field, and began anew with an intimate half-house setting.  

The rain-sodden fans, who’d paid as much as $100 a ticket didn’t seem to mind. For one thing, they were that much closer to the beer and Fenway Franks. And, of course, it was for charity.  

The only real drawbacks were the suddenly diminished sightlines — Hey, I think I saw Kay Hanley’s tattoo! Is that a the sheen of Terry Francona’s bald pate? — and the torrential rain coming down between the bleachers and the grandstand, accreting in puddles underfoot.  

But the delay and relocation also had a couple unintended consequences. American Idol songbird Ayla Brown did not perform — thanks, the rumor went, to good ol’ Massachusetts blue laws. (Be it hereby decreed that basketball playing aspiring pop stars under the age of 18 shall not be permitted to perform on stage past the hour of 9 o’clock in the eventide!) And James Taylor, after having had fun outside with a lengthy soundcheck, played just one song when his turn came inside. (Did he not like the smallish venue?) No matter.Sure, Howie Day happened to be a bit of a snoozefest if you weren’t an adolescent girl, but Cowboy Mouth soon had the crowd in the palms of their hands. 

Backstage was an interesting scene, a collision of rock and jock worlds that was amusing to behold. Jonathan Papelbon, in a sharp suit, fresh off the plane from the All-Star Game, obliged fans who wanted autographs and cell-phone photos. Lenny DiNardo watched the onstage action from behind a curtain in the corner. Gabe Kapler and his wife Lisa sneaked outside for some alone time in the seats near the damp outfield grass. And Red Sox chairman Tom Werner and Executive VP Charles Steinberg commingled with the likes of the Dents’ Jen D’Angora, Fenway Recordings honcho Mark Kates, and Juliana Hatfield. 

The unseen presence, of course, was Peter Gammons. This whole shebang is his baby, and he was on everyone’s minds as performer after performer shouted out their well wishes.  

By the time Buffalo Tom took the stage with a young man named Theo Epstein augmenting them on guitar, the night had reached an apotheosis. They tore through and excoriating “Taillights Fade” and Neil Young’s “Powderfinger,” before being joined by a motley crew of the night’s musicians for righteous “Rockin’ in the Free World.” 

It was loud enough. Gammons must’ve heard it.

-- Mike Miliard

7/13/2006 11:24:50 PM by Cami | Comments [0] |  

The reason you haven't heard from Cami in like a month? She's been pushing the boundaries of virtual reporting inside Second Life, the Sims-like alternate universe that's already been infiltrated by real-life musicians from Regina Spektor to U2. If you have no fucking idea what we're talking about, just trust us on this and read the damn story: if only for the parts where our Faithful Correspondent faces off against a dog penis and later shoots herself in the head. For those of you who do know what we're talking about, feel free to meet up with Cami (Second Life avatar: Lily Pixie) tomorrow at 3 pm in Zephyr Heights. She'll be the yellow one next to the Phoenix box. If OTD didn't have a pre-existing haircut thingee, OTD's avatar (Loo Reed) would be there too. In fact, by some other hand, Loo might be there anyway.

READ: In the Myspace-meets-Matrix online world of Second Life, everyone is sexy, real money flows, and pixels are the only limitation.

7/13/2006 10:32:05 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

WBUR, the embattled, Boston University-owned public radio station, will no longer run reviews. In an email to arts freelancers, WBUR Arts Online editor Bill Marx wrote that WBUR "no longer wants to carry arts reviews -- on broadcast or online." Marx also annouced he's leaving the station August 31 but did not say whether he was being forced out or was resigning. The text of the email follows. Developing . . .

From: "Bill Marx" XXXXXXXX
To: "Arts Freelancers"<mail>
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 14:00:27 -005
Subject: Notice to WBUR Arts Feelancers ...End is Near

To Arts Freelancers,

Forgive the mass mailing, but there are too many of you to contact individually. And I just
heard a day ago that, sadly, WBUR no longer wants to carry arts reviews -- on broadcast or
online. I will no longer be working for the station after August 31st. I am trying to end things
as quickly as I can so I can look for other opportunities, as they say...

Do I need to say how proud I am of the work you contributed to an award-winning arts
magazine that was on the cutting edge of jourmalism on the web? I have had a great time
editing your pieces and dealing with you personally...but all good things come to an end.
Perhaps this was too much fun to last....

The station will pay for -- and post -- the pieces that I have commissioned for July...those
who have pieces scheduled for this month (and haven't send in the piece) should send me
an e-mail to check -- the goal is to wrap things up by the end of July. There will be no arts
pickies for August. If you have any questions after the end of July, contact Angel Kozeli --
XXX.xxx or Robin Lubbock at XXX.xxx

Thanks so much for your work, your gripes, your passion -- I have had the time of my life
doing this...

7/13/2006 4:37:48 PM by On the Download | Comments [1] |  

From the inbox:

THE WHO TO LAUNCH FIRST MAJOR WORLD TOUR IN OVER 20 YEARS 

North American Leg Kicks Off September 12th in Philadelphia

The Who
At The TD Banknorth Garden
Saturday, September 16, 2006 at 7:30 pm
Tickets are $54.50, $79.50, $99.50 and $204.50
Tickets go on-sale Monday, July 17, 2006 at 10:00 am 

NEW YORK, NY -- (July 13, 2006) – Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, the dynamic, innovative force behind The Who, announced today that they will kick off their first world tour in over 20 years on September 12th at Philadelphia’s Wachovia Center.  The legendary rock band is already confirmed to play 17 dates at arenas and amphitheatres across the U.S. and Canada with more U.S. shows to follow in November and December. Planned concerts for 2007 include South America, Japan, Australia and Europe to be announced later.

Anticipation for the tour is already running at an all-time high following the incredible critical and box-office response to the Who’s European shows which opened in June. Fans and critics alike have hailed the show as being, “Just like the good ole days,” with the same, unbridled power and emotion that exemplifies a Who show. 

The Who, famous for their powerful music and energy on stage, will perform songs from their new mini rock opera, Wire & Glass, material from their upcoming studio album along with their greatest hits and rarities, certain to please long time fans. The new album, provisionally called “Who 2,” and the band’s first since 1982’s It’s Hard, is scheduled for an October 23 release.

VISIT: The Who tour home

7/13/2006 3:17:45 PM by On the Download |