 |
Thursday, September 28, 2006
If you're working press at the BMAs, they hand you the list of winners when you walk in. Which usually makes for a serious anticlimax. But we can't front: maybe it was just that a bunch of bands we actually like won shit or played or bought us drinks, but this was the best year of the Avalon-era music awards. We know, big whoop: That and an undisclosed sum of money might someday get this event to break even mean something. Awards for best moments at the Boston Music Awards 2006 (held earlier this evening at Avalon) go to . . .
- Dresden Dolls, declining to appear at the podium despite winning every award ever given, including best outfits of the evening: Amanda rocking severely hot '50s airline-stewardess chic; Brian in a ratty black bear costume that resembled Dropout Bear's nappy-head cousin. Brian in the bear suit might be the best stunt ever pulled at the BMAs.
- Beat Researcher DJ C, on the decks during pre-ceremony jumpoff, spins New Kids on the Block straight up: try requesting that on Mondays at the Enormous Room.
- Lenny Darkbuster. After coaxing the
dropout bear to stage dive during Gang Green's lifetime-achievement-award set, Lenny hops on the mic during "Alcohol" and nearly unplugs the bass cab in the process. Dave Tree takes this as his cue to briefly stop snapping pictures with a disposable camera from the side of the stage and put in his $.02 on backup vox, too. Security?
- Campaign For Real Time winning "local debut album of the year." That's a lot of qualification, which their album doesn't need. But the right band won, which never happens. You can tell they were the right band because Nick Z was wearing an original Anthrax Spreading The Disease tour t-shirt. In good condition.
- On the program it was clearly marked "comedy routine," but it still killed: Robby Roadsteamer storms on stage dropping f-bombs, announces an award he's nominated for, mercilessly insults the other nominees, calls the BMA's "plastic," heckles the hecklers, then absconds with the trophy, leaving his sidekick Aaron the King Wizard to deliver a hilarious (because it's true) monologue about the lack of black faces on stage -- partly at the expense of EJ Labb, the show-opening gay-white-girl rapper. "The only black people in this motherfucker are me and the bear," he screams. "Get the fuck up here, bear!" Wethinks the "comedy" departed from the script, since there was an uncomfortable pause after Aaron left the stage; eventually the Snowleopards were announced as the actual winners for local song of the year, whereupon they were handed one of the Dresden Dolls' spare trophies. For all we know, Robby's still got theirs. Recommended course of action: ban Roadsteamer from playing shows. Hire him as permanent BMAs emcee.
- Holly from Humanwine ends three decades of OTD angst by informing us that in Ireland, Carly is actually quite a common name for boys. Humanwine: our new favorite band.
- Damone, still killing shit. Synchronized headbanging game: focused.
- Bang Camaro, killing even more shit. [Sidebar: Let's say there's 30 dudes who rock like fuck. Let's say you're an editor who's going to put them on the A&E cover of the Globe. Would you pose them a) swathed in spandex, cheap hookers, and booze, in the gutter; b) swathed in leather, grabbing their crotches and fondling each others' asses, at the Ramrod; or c) in suits, holding fruity cocktails, seated at the Enormous Room. Right: "anything, ANYTHING except C."]
- Ben Sisto, still trying to be friends with people. Get over it, dude. Nobody likes you.
We're working on getting some video and lots of photos. But now we're going to bed. In case you care . . . Boston Music Award Winners 2006!
Best New Local Act: Humanwine
Best Female Singer Songwriter: Melissa Ferrick
Best Male Vocalist: Josh Ritter
Hard Rock Act of the Year: Godsmack
Jazz Act of the Year: Hiromi
Local Album of the Year: Aberdeen City, The Freezing Atlantic [God Is Going To Get Sick of Me (mp3)]
Best Male Singer Songwriter: Will Dailey
Best Americana Artist: Lucky 57s
Best World Artist: Boston Afrobeat Society
Best Female Vocalist: Amanda Palmer
Best Folk Artist: Antje Duvekot
Producer of the Year: Matthew Ellard
Best Blues Artist: Peter Gammons [not a typo]
Unsung Hero Award: Duke Levine
Local Debut Album of the Year: Campaign for Real Time
Song of the Year: Damone, Out Here All Night (mp3)
Best Live Act: The Slip
Local Male Vocalist: Jake Brennan
Local Female Vocalist: Sarah Borges
Hip Hop Act of the Year: Mr. Lif
Best Punk Act: Dropkick Murphys
Best Pop Rock Act: Dresden Dolls
Album of the Year (Major Label): Guster, Ganging Up on the Sun
Local Song of the Year: The Snowleopards, Stuck in the Middle (mp3)
Album of the Year (Indie Label): Mission of Burma, The Obliterati [Donna Sumeria (mp3)]
Act of the Year: Dresden Dolls
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Just because we came across it: Ornette Coleman on SNL (introduced by Milton Berle!) in 1979. This is so much more punk rock than the Rapture and Wolf Eyes jamming in adjacent practice spaces, which is kind of what it sounds like.
Friday, September 22, 2006
DOWNLOAD: Isis, "Dulcinea" (mp3)
Unlike all previous iterations of art-metal doctrine, Isis’s prizes meditative, Slint-like brooding over Melvins-grade menace -- but clocks both while ghostriding the expressway to yr skull. As shown on their retrospective DVD Clearing the Eye, they began their journey as understudies in the Neurosis school of thermonuclear drone, but found their calling when they cut their engines and drifted off into the quieter, watery deep. On "Dulcinea," from their new In the Absence of Truth (Ipecac, due October 31), frontman Aaron Turner’s mood ring gradually darkens from impressionistic ambient swirl to toilet-clogging doom, raising his listeners’ SAT scores with each headbanging coda. Breakthrough album, definitely. And the Tool kids are going to find a lot of shit to like on the album. Longtime fans of Isis, as well as stoners of all stripes, will want to torrent the shit out of their downtempo split-session (not split-CD) with Aerogramme, In the Fishtank, which you can grab a track from over here. In the meantime, check out a screening of Clearing the Eye -- the Japanese footage is not to be slept on -- this Saturday afternoon at the Middle East, and see them open for Tool on September 29 at the Tweeter Center.
Our spies report that Guns N Roses will play the DCU Center (formerly the Centrum) in Worcester on November 8. Look for tickets to go on sale next weekend. As to why GNR isn't playing in Boston -- say, at the Garden -- the word is that no one in these parts has forgotten what happened the last time Axl came to town. You can't trust fan sites farther than you can throw them, but the kids over at newgnr report that this week's West Coast jumpoffs have been top-shelf. Of course, the last couple tours started out great, too.
DOWNLOAD: Guns N Roses, "Welcome to the Jungle (Live)" (mp3)
Monday, September 18, 2006
From the Killswitch Engage homepage: the fans have spoken . . .
What would you like to hear more of on the new Killswitch Engage record? |
More Brutal |
25% |
|
More Metal |
18% |
|
Less Singing |
3% |
|
Heavier |
12% |
|
Faster |
9% |
|
More Singing |
23% |
|
More Squeals |
10% |
|
Now that they've both gotten Grammy nods, the real question for Massachusetts metal militias Killswitch Engage and Shadows Fall is . . . who's gonna make the Black Album of metalcore? Shadows Fall are out in LA recording their Atlantic Records debut with a producer named Nick Raskulinecz (resume includes Foo Fighters' One By One, Superdrag, Tom Petty, the new Rancid disc, and . . . cough Stone Sour cough). Raskulinecz combines the most important attribute of any successful thrash producer -- an unpronounceable last name -- with a penchant for making all the right Bob-Rock-type noises: "We're going to tighten the songs so that every riff, every lyric, every drum hit counts on the record," he says, "and really focus on the songwriting to make it a force to be dealt with." Of course he is. Record doesn't have a name yet, but it's being penned in for spring '07. In case you missed it the first time, here's Shads covering Only Living Witness from their contract-fulfilling disc Fallout from the War:
DOWNLOAD: Shadows Fall, "December" (mp3)
Meanwhile, Killswitch are due to release their new As Daylight Dies (Roadrunner) on November 21. Our prediction: more brutal, more singing, not so much squealing. Metal bands have never been afraid to give the kids what they want. We don't know who produced it, but we'd bet that if given the chance, he'd say, "We tightened the songs so that every riff, every lyric, every drum" . . . etc, etc. In the meantime, here's Killswitch covering Dio. Fuck yeah. (Somehow it figures that Roadrunner, the biggest metal label in the world, chooses to upload shit in Windows Media files, WMA being the sweatpants-boner of digital audio formats.)
DOWNLOAD: Killswitch Engage, "Holy Diver" (.wma)
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Varietae in Space
At least once a month, you can find that dude Vice V'Ersatile turning tricks over at the Midway Cafe. JP's answer Phil Donahue and Sammy Davis Jr, the Viceman brings what people on the Jersey boardwalk call "CLASS" to the variety-show format, which is why the V'ersatile-hosted talent showcase at the Midway is called "Varietae." And now these weirdos, who are already responsible for the dinner-theatre-musical classic Jesus/Vice/Superstar (click for youtubage) -- are back with Varietae in Space, another DIY evocation of Vegas-in-the-'70s song-and-dance numbers, cheesy softcore T&A, sub-Flash Gordon rock-opera pretension, and other amusing displays of godwaful taste. There's a plot in which Vice leads the crew of a ship called the Space Phallus in a face-off against an intergalactic terrorist -- "and," adds a press release, "there's a hungry space ofirice out there devouring everything!" The backing band includes members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and they're promising "rock rap and disco all intertwined into operatic and classically derived themes," delivered by "a band, a DJ, singers, dancers, sets, costumes." In short, the full enchilada. Tonight the Varietae cast descends on Inman Square for a performance of Varietae In Space at PA's Lounge.
DOWNLOAD: Varietae, "Opus" (mp3)
It was that MidEast security guard’s worst nightmare. At midnight, right before “Boys, You Won’t,” Kevin Whelan passed out about 20 drum sticks to people in the crowd and invited them up on the stage while Mr. Beef-Guard scowled and shook and crossed his arms over his chest, probably wondering if he’d be fired before 2 am. The kids gathered around the Wrens (Kevin Whelan, Charles Bissell, Greg Whelan, Jerry MacDonnell) like disciples to their barefooted prophet, banging sticks against everything from their own sweaty palms to the mic stand, scream-singing at a pitch that undoubtedly disturbed the folks at ZuZu while Whelan bent over his keys and the four piece’s incredible guitarist/co-vocalist Charles Bissell doubled over, coaxing sounds out of his tape delay that I’m sure made opener Craig Wedren insanely jealous. One YeahDude was in such a state of ecstasy, I thought his eyes would roll back in his head and he’d faint from the sheer indie-rock joy of it all.
The Wrens might look like 40-year-old dads worn out by mid-life, yet they’re a testament to the romantic ideal of independent. Everyone knows the sob story: their label(s) shitting on them for years, every rock critic worth his byline drooling all over themselves, and rightly so, over 2003’s indie-opus The Meadowlands, even as they’ve still refused to sign a deal with a major and make any of their fuzz-pop gems sound radio-friendly enough to follow a Coldplay track, that their live shows have a reputation for being wilder and more unpredictable their own terrible luck. But what about the fact that they’re cool and generous enough to throw 10 free t-shirts to the audience at their sold-out gig last night? That in a basement room that smelled of Boston College BO and hair products, the atmosphere could get more tense than a first therapy appointment, going from dead silence during the brief “The House that Guilt Built” to absolute mayhem during “Hopeless” and “Everyone Chooses Sides”? That Whelan was blissed-out enough to pause, flinging sweat off his forehead, wild-eyed from singing about the worst break-up fall-out in history after “Happy,” a song that builds from finger-picked heartbreak to pummeling anthem in about three minutes, and say, “We’re the Wrens from New Jersey, but you are so fucking awesome we’re going to change our name to the Wrens from Boston.” In the blue lights, he looked young again. They all did.
--Sharon Steel
Saturday, September 16, 2006
From the inbox:
The show that was originally scheduled for this Sunday at The Middle East Downstairs has been cancelled. The show has been re-scheduled for Wednesday, November 15th, 2006. Refunds available at point of purchase or tickets may be used for the rescheduled date.
Wednesday, November 15th
The Middle East Downstairs
18+ $20adv/$25dos
Leedz Edutainment presents:
Lupe Fiasco, Prone 2 (CD Release)
J-Rize
Soular Prominence
Hosted by Mr Peter Parker
Plus special invited guests
DOWNLOAD: Lupe Fiasco and Jay-Z, "Pressure" (mp3, via Still Listen to Gangsta Music)
Friday, September 15, 2006
DOWNLOAD: The Hope Conspiracy, "Suicide Design" (mp3)
HopeCon fizzled out in 2004, but frontman Kevin Baker has never been far from the Deathwish offices in Salem: he got a job managing the silk-screen shop next door. Now he's re-convened the band to bring Hope to the Hope-less, nabbing members in between their tours with Bleeding Through, None More Black, and Suicide File. For their comeback record Death Knows Your Name, they put old pal Kurt Ballou behind the boards (read our friend Julia's interview with Kurt right here; stay tuned for big Converge news soon). A heavy-in-both-senses concept album, Death Knows Your Name is follows Doomriders into the biker-metal/hardcore deep and takes its cues from a literary classic (Orwell's Animal Farm), which could make it this year's answer to Mastodon's Moby Dick-quoting Leviathan.
For more, visit the Deathwish page or make nice at HopeCon's myspace page.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Photos (c) Nicole Tammaro
Sure, last night's shindig was billed surreptitiously as a chance to "meet and greet" the Dropkicks dudes, but c'mon: you knew they were gonna throw down, right? We're talking about a band that sells out five nights straight at St. Patricks Day, some of them two-a-days, then tacks on a couple extra 9 am acoustic shows at Irish pubs for good measure. Couple of songs at the Hard Rock to benefit Denis Leary's firefighters' foundation? Yeah, sure: hey, did you know our first singer left to become a fireman? Thanks to Nicole for the pics.
Julian finally caves, covers Lou Reed . . . full report and lots more pics below.
READ: Different Strokes: Plus Wolfmother, September 13 at FleetBoston Pavilion. By Will Spitz.
Setlist
Ize of the World
The Way It Is
Red Light
The Modern Age
Juicebox
Someday
Heart in a Cage
Killing Lies
12:51
You Only Live Once
New YorkCityCops
Is This It
Hard to Explain
Last Nite
Ask Me Anything
Vision of Division
Reptilia
Encore
Barely Legal
Walk on the Wild Side
Take It or Leave It
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Let it be known: MySpace is good for lots of things, like advertising clandestine pot-delivery services, getting 14-year-olds to bare cleavage, and allowing long-lost creepy childhood friends to bombard you with Ethiopian bank-fraud scams. But in terms of organizing spontaneous flash-mob-type crowd gatherings -- even when the bait is a set by semi-famous rock and or hip-hop stars -- Rupert Murdoch's flag flies at half mast. On short notice -- couple of hours if you waited for the official word, couple of days if you read this blog -- the Rapture showed up for a secret show at the Middle East last night, played for under an hour, then stuck around to sign posters and (love the photo) empty the wallets of card-carrying Harvardites. The day before their new much-blogged-about Pieces of the People We Love hit the streets (i.e., today), they drew about a half-capacity crowd downstairs. If not for the need for bouncer-chaperoned drinking/non-drinking sections, the thing could've moved up the steps and been twice as ballsy. Everyone in the first four rows had the time of their life -- the optimal Rapture experience being dancing-at-close-range and crushed-between-bodies. For better or for worse, the Rapture live is still all about function: if, instead of looking for things to shake ass to, you're looking to rock back on yer heels and listen to some rock songs, you end up noticing how much the songs all sound the same and getting snooty about Luke's undifferentiated treble. Still, back on the periphery, OTD was prepared, without actually testing the theory by actually unfolding our arms, to pontificate that the groove of new disc's title track was totally undeniable. Then Young Spitz came walking up and declared that the whole set sucked. He DENIED THE GROOVE. And, y'know, he was kinda right. Whatever Luke's chiseled Roger Daltrey-esque visage may attract in the way of starry-eyed college babes, it also lacks the ability to communicate effort -- even while they're going sorta-apeshit, they look (deceptively?) as if they aren't trying very hard. "Get Myself Into It" is so massive, but somewhere between "Gonna get myself into it/why not help me do it" and "It's the chance of a lifetime," we began asking ourselves whether the "it" was sex or cheap real estate. But that's what happens when body-music's body blows meet with half-full rooms and laptop-strapped curmudgeons -- in other words, NOT THEIR FAULT (ENTIRELY). Still, it is not a good sign when you're watching a band and get bored enough to start scribbling rock-criticky-type notes on your wrist, like noticing Gabe's "flatulent rattling low reedy" sax. No shit, we actually wrote that down, as if it would be useful at some later date. Don't even ask us what this "plays the horn like an arpeggiator" thing is about.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Photos: Byron Smith
The Stooges went and did it. The Dolls too. Hell, even MC5 took a stab at a reunion of sorts. So in a way it’s not all too surprising that, three decades on, another punk progenitor would decide get back into the game for keeps.
The difference this time is that Radio Birdman — four Aussies, one Canadian, and one Detroit expat who worshipped unabashedly at the altar of the three aforementioned bands (and played with members thereof) — had never played the United States before this reunion tour. Ever. So when it was announced that the cult legends would be appearing the Middle East on Saturday night — on a bill with the Konks and the Rogers Sisters, no less — I was, like, so there.
The openers did their thing. The Konks were primitive and dirty and mean and front man Kurt drummed standing up. The Rogers Sisters were twitchy and bitchy (in a good way), guitarist/vocalist Jennifer Rogers voguing icily for stage-front shutterbugs and bassist — and “non-female sister” — Miyuki Furtado feigning electrocution as they tore through songs from their excellent, very different latest, The Invisible Deck (Too Pure/Beggars).
Radio Birdman, against all odds, have a new record out too: Zeno Beach (Yep Roc), and it’s really good. Better, perhaps than anyone has any right to expect. After all, this is a band who had not played together with any regularity since their 1974-1978 heyday. Their most recent stateside release was Sub Pop’s vital career retrospective, The Essential Radio Birdman, back in 2002.
But as they took the stage Saturday night to a rapturous crowd, fists pumping and flags flying, it was immediately clear that more than a quarter century has dulled them not a whit. If anything it’s only honed their steely edge. This tour finds four of the six founding members — Tek, vocalist Rob Younger, keyboardist Pip Hoyle and guitarist Chris Masuak —who are augmented by bassist Jim Dickson and drummer Russell Hopkinson. Lean and black-clad, and as they tore into the tilt-a-whirl rhythms of “Burn My Eye,” followed close on by “Do The Pop” and “Murder City Nights,” it might just as well have been Sydney ’77.
Things slowed down just a bit for “I-94,” Tek’s paean to his home state (and the Eskimo Pies and Stroh’s that are so hard to find down under) but got right back up to speed as the band, twin guitars glinting sparks, tore through “Hand of Law,” “Decent Into the Maelstrom,” “Aloha Steve & Dano,” and an excoriating cover of the Stooges “Search & Destroy.” Younger’s between song comments were all but inaudible thanks to his Aussie-accented sotto voce, but once a song kicked in his throat was at full throttle as he shook and shimmied like Saint Vitus himself. This was fast music. Hurtling. Supersonic. Indeed, if you wanna be a dork about it, you might even say Birdman have a “need for speed”: Tek, besides being a trained ER doc, was also Navy fighter pilot, and if you believe what you read, his fly boy days were the inspiration for this guy.
There were songs from the new record (the surf-friendly title track, the wah-wah freak-out “Locked Up”) but by the time the crowd lost its collective shit to the encore, a stomping, chanting tear through the classic “New Race,” it was beyond a doubt that the sentiment of the new album’s single — “We’ve Come So Far (To Be Here Today)” — was not only true but long, long overdue.
-Mike Miliard
DOWNLOAD (via Badminton Stamps): “New Race”
DOWNLOAD (via I Rock Cleveland): “We’ve Come So Far (To Be Here Today)”
WATCH: “Aloha Steve & Dano” (YouTube)
WATCH: Radio Birdman live (w/ interview) on Rockturnal, 1978 part one and part two (YouTube)
It was 11:30 and our favorite Norwegian psych-garage-shoegaze maniacs, Serena Maneesh, were, according to the published set times, supposed to be onstage at the Middle East upstairs. But there was no sign of them, and frontman Emil Nikolaisen (who looks like a white Hendrix with his puffy shirts and headscarves) and his bass playing sister Hilma (a cross between Nico and Shawn Bradley) are hard to miss. At about 11:45 we got word from the doorman (this being the MidEast, the doorman was Dave Cave of Lot Six, Beat Awfuls, and Viva Viva) that Serena weren’t coming. Bummer. Last time they came to town, it was a near-religious experience. Someone suggested that maybe they were pissed about the show being moved at the last minute from M.E. downstairs to M.E. upstairs due to poor ticket sales. We decided to stick around for another beer, just in case. Lo and behold, about 10 minutes later, an enormous tour bus rumbles up Brookline Street and out hop a bunch of frantic Europeans, charging into the club with armfuls of equipment. They set up their gear as fast as you can set up a six-piece band that includes an electric piano, a violin, and two guitar players who each have enough effects-gizmodgery to launch NASA’s Space Shuttle, then hurled themselves headlong into an utterly frenzied set that was fraught with sound problems but somehow dramatically triumphant.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
All photos (c) Aaron & Returntothepit.com. More here.
OTD caught a ride out to Worcester last night with our old friends Chris Jackson, his lovely wife Kristen Day, and Jimmy Driscoll, two of whom got shout-outs from the stage from their old pals the Bronx. The Bronx dudes, heirs to the Los Angeles punk throne, smashed through a focused 30-minute set that mostly flew right over the heads of metal nation, then were nice enough to share beer, merch, and perch space with us in the Palladium penthouse, which means we missed most of Converge -- from what little we saw they were, uh, typically Convergey, i.e. awesome -- but we slipped downstairs to catch a few songs by Mastodon, at whose altar we have been known to worship. Their new "Capillarian Crest" is already destroying, "Blood and Thunder" still kills. (Mastodon set list below, along with crappy OTD cameraphone snaps.) Mastodon's Blood Mountain and Converge's No Heroes are due out soon (or, in the case of Blood Mountain, it's out now if you live on the internet). Go buy the Bronx's self-titled Island debut on vinyl. Shit's bananas. Some things we learned poking around backstage:
- Mastodon's drummer has a purple polka dot drum kit with a Randy Rhodes tribute photo on the kick drum.
- That gorgeous six-foot black girl busting out those amazing go-go moves at the side of the stage? Rumor has it one of the Mastodon dudes picked her up in a bathroom in NYC.
- If you leave before the encore, you will always miss the full 15-minute version of "Hearts Alive."
- Mastodon's drum tech used to be in the Raging Teens.
- Mastodon are 100-percent dude.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Friday, September 08, 2006
When cabaret punks and faux-Teutonic electro-sleazeballs go on tour in the actual Rhineland, you better believe there's gonna be mayhem. Below: frantic email and morning-after shots sent by hotel staff (and intercepted by OTD's spies) after a night of debauchery by the Dresden Dolls and tourmates Porsches on the Autobahn in Regensberg, Germany: "PILLOW AND BLANKET ARE ON THE FLOOR." Even though these shots were taken to recoup damages, there's a strangely Dresden Dolls-esque still-life-ness to them -- you must be doing something right when even the evidence against you comes out composed. We assume that big brown spot is supposed to be a burn mark from the alleged fire -- looks a little shit-stainy though, dunnit?
Having passed from Germany direct to Japan, the Dolls are now en route to New Zealand. Amanda says she did the bride again over the summer -- anyone got pics?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [mailto:xxxxxx@quality-hotel-regensburg.de]
Sent: 01 September 2006 08:59
To: XXXXX XXXXXXX
Subject: group dresdon dolls
Dear Mrs. XXXXXX,
please call back, my phone number +49 0941 XXXXXX XXXX
The group has trashed a room, they set the mattress alight, they didn't payed thair minibar.
They smoked in a no smoker room, the snacks from the minibar are all over the floor. Pillow and
Blanket are on the floor. Atteched find the pictures from the room. Please call me back it is very urgent.
Thanks a lot!
XXXX XXXXXX
Group department
Quality Hotel & Suites Regensburg
Grunewaldstrasse 16, 93053 Regensburg
Tel. + 49 (0) XXX- XXXXX XXX
Fax + 49 (0) XXX-XXXX XXX
E-Mail: xxxxx@quality-hotel-regensburg.de
Internet: www.quality-hotel-regensburg.de
Thursday, September 07, 2006
If you haven't been following the leaks from the upcoming Sean Combs record, tonight's preshow pigskin kickoff could very well come as a shock. Remember how the first time you heard "Sexy Back" you were like, "Wait, that's Justin Timberlake?" Nothing like what Diddy's got in store -- weird white-noise anti-beats, James-Brown-type screaming . . . we're beginning to wonder if he's gunning for a Pitchfork 9.0.
Insert local angle here? Sure! Smashtime superstar mixtape DJ, Shade 45 satellite radio star, mixtape conglomerator, Boston's most-wanted, all-around baller Clinton Sparks is behind the decks for Diddy's NFL jumpoff prior to Dolphins/Steelers tonight. Here's fresh footage of the rehearsals:
Under the moniker Tartar Lamb, TOBY DRIVER, frontman for local avant-metal faves Kayo Dot -- probably the most unsung genius band in town -- performs his "60 Metonymies," the "long-form violin-and-electric-guitar duet" he premiered last summer at John Zorn’s East Village performance space the Stone. He also did it in Toronto this past February with I Have Eaten the City, from which show the excerpts below are taken. Tonight his ensemble will include with the help of Kayo Dot violinist Mia Matsumiya. With FENCE KITCHEN, from Portland, Maine, and Cerberus Shoal bassist/singer Erin Davidson’s solo ukulele-and-voice project, DILLY DILLY | P.A.’s Lounge, 345 Somerville Ave, Somerville | 617.776.1557 [Details]
DOWNLOAD: Toby Driver, "60 Metonymies (Excerpt 1)" (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: Toby Driver, "60 Metonymies (Excerpt 2)" (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: Kayo Dot, "Aura on an Asylum Wall (Excerpt)" (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: DJ Mark E. Moon, "Kidzmix" (mp3)
In case you missed him spinning at the Children’s Museum a couple of weeks ago, DJ Mark E. Moon — the nom de guerre of a prominent local cartoonist/indie-rocker/party-rocker — has uploaded an ingenious mixtape that brings the anything-goes strategies of 2ManyDJs and Hollertronix to the Kidz Bop crowd. Matching pre-tween fare like "Since You Been Gone" with mashed-up SpongeBob SquarePants cameos, remixing Cookie Monster in a baile-funk style, and unearthing priceless rarities like "Elmo’s Rap Alphabet," it’s the cool-kid hit of the fall.
Tracklist:
Do the Lollipop-Sweetness
Summer Nights-Olivia Newton John and John Travolta
C is for Bolinho-Cookie Monster
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song
Clementine-Eject
The Two Little Squirrels (Nuts To You)-Louis Jordan
LY-Tom Lehrer
Since You've Been Gone-Kelly Clarkson
Spongebob Squarepants theme song
Eep Opp Ork Ah-Ah (Means I Love You)-Violent Femmes
Sesame Street theme
Smurf Rave
Meow Mix theme-Paper Rad
Oye Mi Canto-Reggaeton Ninos
Elmo's Rap Alphabet
8th Wonder-Sugarhill Gang
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
 From "Cat Power: Chan Marshall reveals the secrets of her stability":
Phoenix: I remember your once telling me about your stage fright, and that made sense because you really were up there on your own or with very little accompaniment. Are you concerned that without the big band backing some of that stage fright will return?
Chan Marshall: No, no, no. I have less stage fright now because I don’t drink. I just feel more clear-headed. It was more difficult before because I was distancing myself from people. I was compounding my depression with alcohol and really pushing people away.
Might be time to revisit whatever cabinet those stability secrets are stored in. Mark E. Moon sent us the following dispatch from last night's 10 pm Chan Marshall solo gig at the Museum of Fine Arts:
It was pretty crazy. I just read all these interviews about how she doesn't lose it anymore on stage, she's sober, blah, blah, blah.
She looked calm and composed when she took the stage. she made a couple of jokes,chatted with someone in the audience and then started playing.
And then she freaked out.
She was immediately obssessing with the reverb (which in her defense wasn't working at first), then she couldn't take it when the sound guy was looking at her (first shielding her eyes, and then stopping halfway through a song to tell him he had to move), then she spent like 10 minutes trying to tune her guitar and it was STILL out of tune when she started up again, all the while starting songs and not getting through them (she was trying to do "House of the Rising Sun" over and over again).
She kept muttering, "I'm sorry, I'm SORRY," and "I'm not mad at anyone, I'm mad at myself", and "I'm just here to play music and sing songs, I didn't mean to make it into a big thing."
Finally after about 30 or so minutes, halfway through a song, she threw off her guitar, said "I gotta pee," and left the stage.
There was much | |