Township, "The Winter Song" (Flophouse Sessions, Feb 2008)

Township, "Sandy" (Flophouse Sessions, Feb 2008)

Jen and Andy, the betrothed Somerville duo behind the fantastic Band in Boston Podcast, have recorded many of our favorite local indie bands for their "Flophouse Sessions" -- a series taped live in the pair's living room, on stripped-down gear, and given away free on teh internets. We loved their podcast so much we decided to be friends. And now, in the first of what we hope are many collaborations to come, we've teamed up with BIB to present the latest Flophouse Session: a live set by hirsute local heroes Township, who play a CD-release gig tonight at T.T. the Bear's Place. Check 'em out, and grab the full Flophouse Session in the ever-poular mp3 format at www.bandinbostonpodcast.com.

2/29/2008 3:55:44 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

DOWNLOAD: Hooray for Earth, "Warm Out" (mp3)

Hooray for Earth: odd band. Get 'em drunk, and they're liable to belt out a Justin Timberlake hit, or maybe one of Jacko's. Left on his own, their singer has been known to crank out Magnetic Fields covers. In their own right, HFE have carved out a unique niche that's equal parts indie breadth and metal brawn, like a second coming of Queens of the Stone Age. "Warm Out," taken from their new Cellphone EP, staggers forward on a clawing, atavistic, baritone-guitar riff, the rhythm section lurching like mechanized infantry. But the bridge that follows is a thing of beauty: the guitars turn taut, lithe, and synchronous. Clusters of ascending notes flank and overwhelm the main theme; and the lyrics, a short paen to renewal that evokes the majestic/melancholic Mag Fields of "Love Comes Home To Paris in the Spring," turn sad and then frantic, just before the whole thing starts all over again. Grab the mpfree above, check out the video below, then see if you can help yrself from stampeding their EP-release gig on Leap Night -- that's tomorrow -- at the Middle East.

HFE: Warm Out (video)

2/28/2008 6:25:25 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

Black Francis: "I'm MIA!" 

"I Sent Away" has been kicking around on YouTube for a few months, but Mr. Frank Black/Black Francis is finally getting around to releasing SVN FNGRS, the sex-and-birth(?!)-obsessed mini-album from whence it comes, on March 7. Not a moment too soon: we were beginning to get bored with trying to pong Frank's head into the bucket over at his fancy new website. And since his press lady was nice enough to send off a very blog-like check-in from Francis himself, we figured we'd just publish it, since it's far weirder than anything we coulda written about it. Suffice to say that "I Sent Away" is pretty damn punk, and so's the video: if we didn't know better, we'd suspect the treatment went something like, "Francis wears a hoodie and pretends to mosh." You think this guy couldn't write another Pixies album? C'mon now.

From the inbox:

Cooking Vinyl has agreed to release my latest session (thank you CV!), which I have called SVN FNGRS, on March 4, 2008 [in the U.S.]. It was written, recorded and mixed in six days, and on the seventh day, Mark Lemhouse did artwork. The band for the session was myself, of course, on guitar, vocals and harmonica, Jason Carter on drums, and Violet Clark on bass. The session was produced by Jason Carter. There are seven (7) songs clocking in at 20 minutes and so I suppose it qualifies as a mini-LP under the old formats. No one seems to know or care what the current format models are (a very weakened LP on compact disc continues to rule the roost by default), which is WONDERFUL; so let's just call it music and pay whatever price your Google research turns up. If you want it for free, you can usually find some tracks for free download on my Myspace page or on my own blackfrancis.net. The production is sparse in terms of the band, which, by the way, seems to be a kind of 'Black Francis' thing that has been developing ever since I went back to the old stage name, but is much more produced in terms of the vocal layering of my own voice, perhaps along the lines of TEENAGER OF THE YEAR. I won't bother you here with what the damn concept is, but let's just say the theme revolves around a lot of NASTY sex, NASTIER death, and beautifully strange birth. It was a coincidence that the whole 'finger' thing turns up again; management asked for a digital b-side for a BLUEFINGER track and what they got was this seven fingered thing which is not related to the HERMAN BROOD concept, although I assure you he would approve of all this nasty business. I have made a video for the song I SENT AWAY (one of the birth songs) and you can see it on YouTube and other places, so I guess that qualifies as the first single as released by the impatient artist. I believe the more pragmatic record company is releasing another song (THE SEUS - Charles Normal re-mix) as ITS first single and I'll make an Internet vid for that one too, as soon as I finish recording the digital b-side for THAT (maybe I'll do a self indulgent symphony - note to myself; symphony wiki - written in 10 minutes); DAMN! That espresso this morning was BLACK and STRONG! BLACK & STRONG & LONG!! MUDDY BLACK WATER! My brain is exploding.....

--Black Francis

Oh, yeah, one more thing: who dat?

2/27/2008 9:48:51 AM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

. . . but will he bring Daft Punk? Y'know, this just might be enough to make up for Bon Jovi at Fenway. From the inbox:

Kanye West: Glow in the Dark Tour

With Rihanna, Lupe Fiasco, N.E.R.D.

At the Tweeter Center

Thursday, May 15, 2008 at 7:00 pm

Tickets are $26.00, $36.00, $65.00 and $85.00*

* plus $7.00 venue charge and applicable convenience fees per ticket

 Tickets go on-sale Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 10:00 am

2/26/2008 5:08:22 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

Proof that the Devil doesn't have all the good music

At the time of his death, on February 24 at the age of 60, Christian freak-folk luminary Larry Norman was working on an album with guests including Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock and the Pixies' Frank Black, the latter of whom said, upon Norman's passing, "Larry was my door into the music business and the most Christ-like person I ever met." If you read that quote and find yourself re-assesing what kind of a band the Pixies really were, you might want to have a click at the video above: whatever your notions of Christian rock, Norman doesn't fit it. In his prime, he looked like an Allman Brother, sang with voice as piercingly nasal as Axl Rose's, made birdcalls and nonsense words a part of his signature style, and wrote songs that compared Jesus to a UFO. (Before "Come on, Pilgrim" was the name of a Pixies EP, it was one of Norman's catchphrases.) Far closer to Roky Erikson than to politely pious souls like Amy Grant, Norman was among the first to complete a circle that reconnected rock and roll's sanctified, unruly spirit -- which had emerged, in part, from black spirituals and the rhythm-and-blues they spawned in the 1940s and '50s -- with the strain of psychedelic Christianity that emerged in California in the early 1970s. According to Josh Frank's oral history of the Pixies, Fool the World, Norman figured prominently in Frank Black's musical coming-of-age, which for Black transpired in a specific context: the death of the hippie dream. "A lot of people who were older, coming out of the ’60s, ’70s, hedonistic lifestyles, sexually promiscuous or involved in a lot of drugs," Black says in Fool the World, "people that had destroyed their lives, they came out of it clinging onto Jesus Christ." He continued:

Southern California Pentecostal culture, it’s fire and brimstone but it’s more like, success, like, "God wants you to be successful!" I probably discovered Larry Norman when I was 13 because my family had taken up this religious experience, whatever you want to call it. I was going along with it, as my whole family was. I think when you’re 13 or 14 you’re open to a lot of stuff, and if people say, "Hey, Jesus!" you don't go, "Ooh, I’m cynical!" You just kind of go, "Yeah, Jesus, cool!" Larry Norman is a real oddball guy. He's not like what people would think of him. "Ooh, a Christian, what’s that going to be about?" He's totally his own thing.

Larry Norman was born in Texas in 1948, moved with his family to San Francisco a few years later, and performed publicly before the age of 10, often accompanying his father on Christian missions to prisons and hospitals. His band People! recorded two albums for Capitol in the mid-'60s, and performed on bills with the Doors, the Who, and Hendrix. His 1969 solo album Upon This Rock is often mentioned as the first Christian rock album, although Norman bore little resemblance to the genre that followed him. As an outspoken opponent of racism and poverty, he clashed often with conservatives and his music was banned from Christian retailers. In a career spanning 40 years, he released scores of albums and performed to stadium-sized crowds. Norman knew he was near the end on February 23 when he wrote an emotional farewell letter to his fans. "We are not sure of the date when I will die," he wrote, noting that he hoped "to be buried in a simple pine box with some flowers inside." Although he hoped to "push back the darkness with my bravest effort," he was resigned to meet his maker. "I feel like a prize in a box of cracker jacks with God's hand reaching down to pick me up," he said. 

2/26/2008 2:09:49 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

Lethal Bizzle: loves the Breeders

Wow, it's feeling so 1993 right about now. We lost track of Kim Deal after the last Pixies tour wrapped, and thus were wholly unprepared for the leak, over the weekend, of a brand-spanking-new Breeders album to the internets. Sure, this is the Kelley Deal version and not the Pod-era Tanya Donelly version, but nope, we're not complaining. It will take us at least several weeks to recall how forgettable the last Breeders album and the Amps album were, right? We have high hopes for the new one, not least because "Bam Thwok" was so obviously more of a Breeders tune than a Pixies tune. There's also a showdate: June 5 at the Paradise.

Then there's this: according to Ticketmaster, the Lemonheads -- i.e. Evan Dando and some dudes -- will be performing their landmark It's a Shame About Ray in its entirety at the Paradise. The hitch: it's on April Fool's Day. Which means . . . well, that means it's a joke, right? That was our first thought, too, except that Dando's doing it for real down at SXSW in mid-March, to celebrate the deluxe reissue of the album, and he's also the sort of goofball who would appreciate the irony of providing a little dreamy wish-fullfilment in Boston on April 1. Also, you can actually buy tickets for this thing. So, um, until further notice, LEMONHEADS PERFORMING IT'S SHAME ABOUT RAY ON APRIL FOOL'S DAY attains show-of-the-spring status until proved to be a figment of someone's imagination.

UPDATE: Confirmed by publicist: Lemonheads performing Ray on April Fool's Day is actually happening.

2/25/2008 12:56:05 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

As expected, Only Living Witness have announced a second reunion show, after their June 14 gig sold out in a weekend. They'll now do a second show June 21, also at the Middle East Downstairs. More on the reunion here and here. Ticketing info TBA.

From the inbox:

From: ejstevenson

Date: February 21, 2008 2:05:52 PM EST

To: XXXXXXXX

Subject: ONLY LIVING WITNESS REUNION

Hi Everyone,

 

We booked our Only Living Witness reunion show for Saturday June 14th

at the Middle East Downstairs. The tickets went onsale last Friday morning

and were all sold by Sunday evening. This was a nice surprise, except that

most of our relatives and friends missed-out on tickets.

 

So, we have just booked a 2nd show:

Saturday June 21st at the Middle East Downstairs.

 

If you are interested in attending this show, please check the

Middle East website for ticket info: http://www.mideastclub.com/

 

You can also check www.myspace.com/olw for details.

(Once we know who the other bands are , etc.)

 

We just wanted to give anyone who might be interested in attending

a heads-up this time.

 

Thanks, Eric

2/21/2008 3:08:01 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

DOWNLOAD: Hallelujah the Hills, "Don't Take the Law Into Your Own Hands But Take Mine In Yours" (mp3)

On the eve of their biggest national tour to date (stops include SXSW and a Daytrotter session), Boston indie heroes Hallelujah the Hills forsook the bedroom and entered an actual studio for the first time ("My 8-track will never forgive me," laments frontman Ryan Walsh), emerging with two brand-new songs to hold us over until they record album no. 2 this spring. "Don't Take The Law" is short but feels longer, or at least bigger, managing to swell from sotto-voce, bee-swarm jangle to an anthemic, junkshop-orchestra sing-along in under two minutes. Walsh calls it "my joking attempt at starting a whole new subgenre of pop music entitled 'Police Officer/Vigilante Love Ballads.' Just like the Wichita Lineman failed at jumpstarting the 'Telephone Line Repairman Love Ballad' genre, we hope to fail in a similar, spectacular manner." Consider it done. Grab the mp3 above, then bid HTH a fond farewell when they play a free show February 24 at the Milky Way with Amoroso and Jersey's Titus Andronicus.

HTH TOUR DATES:

Feb 29 2008          8:00P@ Union Hall, Brooklyn, NY w/ Evangelicals, Headlights
Mar 1 2008             8:00P@ Soundfix, Brooklyn, NY
Mar 2 2008            8:00P@ Garfield Artworks, Pittsburgh , PA
Mar 3 2008            8:00P@ Beachland Tavern (w/ Headlights/Evangelicals) - Cleveland , Ohio
Mar 4 2008            8:00P@ The Elbow Room- Ypsilanti , Michigan
Mar 5 2008            3:00pm Hear Ya Session, Chicago , IL
Mar 5 2008            8:00P@ Abbey Pub - Chicago , Illinois
Mar 6 2008            12:00P@ Daytrotter.com, Rock Island , Illinois
Mar 6 2008            8:00P@ The Annex - Madison, Wisconsin
Mar 7 2008            8:00P@ Nomad World Pub (w/ Ela and Curse Words) - Minneapolis , Minnesota
Mar 8 2008            8:00P@ The Maintenance Shop (w/ Poison Control Center) - Ames , Iowa
Mar 9 2008            5:00P@ Vaudeville Mews **early show** - Des Moines , Iowa
Mar 11 2008           8:00P@ New Deli - Fayetteville , Arkansas
Mar 12 2008           8:00P@ Friends Bar (SXSW Misra Showcase) Austin , Texas
Mar 13 2008           SXSW TBA   Austin , Texas      
Mar 14 2008           SXSW Friends Bar Berklee SXSW Party (day show)   Austin , Texas     
Mar 15 2008           8:00P@ Jackrabbit Lounge - Shreveport , Louisiana
Mar 17 2008           Afternoon @ Grimey's Record Shop, Nashville, TN
Mar 17 2008           8:00P @ Springwater, Nashville, TN
Mar 19 2008           8:00P@ The Rudyard Kipling - Louisville , Kentucky
Mar 20 2008           8:00P@ The Venue - Lafayette , Indiana
Mar 21 2008           8:00P@ Café Bourbon Street , Columbus , OH
Mar 22 2008           8:00P@ TBA, New York

2/21/2008 11:31:29 AM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

(c) Matt Teuten

(c) Rev. Aaron


(c) Matt Teuten

(c) Rev. Aaron

(c) Matt Teuten

(c) Rev. Aaron

(c) Rev. Aaron

No more or less morbid than usual, Stephin Merrit deigned to scowl at our photographer(s) at the Somerville Theater last weekend. Somebody leak the bootleg, already.

REVIEW: Lonely Hearts Night: Magnetic Fields at the Somerville Theater, February 14, 2008.

No video from Somerville yet; but here's "California Girls" three days earlier at the Iron Horse in Northampton

2/20/2008 9:01:34 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

All Apologies, 1992, Reading Festival

About a Son: the trailer


Frances: Mama's girl

Happy Birthday, Kurt. Perhaps you've heard: plans for a Universal Studios biopic based on Charles Cross's definitive biography Heavier Than Heaven continue to unfold, apparently without Scarlett Johannsen as the young Courtney Love.

In the meantime, About a Son, the film cobbled together from our old friend Michael Azerrad's interviews with you, is out today on DVD. Sorry, dude: you're still fucking famous.

On the upside, we think Frances Bean is gonna be OK: 15, on the cover of Harpers Bazaar this month, loves Sex and the City, pierced her nose, has "the attention span of a rabbit on cocaine," describes herself as "an attention whore" and a "shoe junkie" (hey, given the genes, there are worse kinds of whores and junkies she could be, yes?), has performed in about 20 high school musicals, and is BFF with Tallulah Willis (yep, Bruce and Demi's kid).

We'd drag out some more Nirvana stuff, but . . . we think we emptied the vault the last time. Here's a few tidbits:

• About a girl: When Mary Lou Lord met Kurt Cobain. An exclusive excerpt from Everett True's Nirvana: The Biography. By Everett True.
• Henry Santoro interviews Everett True (mp3). From WFNX.
• Praise the Lord: Mary Lou's star rises from the Red Line Platform. By Brett Milano.
• Just the Fax: Kurt Cobain to the Phoenix: 'F--- off!' By Brett Milano.
• State of Nirvana: A conversation with Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl, and Krist Novoselic . By Kurt St. Thomas.
• Kurt speaks: The driving force behind Nirvana on fame, youth, and Leave It to Beaver. By Kurt St. Thomas.

Oh, by the way, any chance you could maybe ghost some new tunes for Dave? He's been rewriting the same three songs for like four albums.

2/20/2008 2:50:20 PM by On the Download | Comments [1] |  

Jonah: basically more awesomer than us.

According to J. Jonah Jenkins, Only Living Witness's reunion show -- news of which was first broken here -- has sold out. For those lucky ticketholders, opening bands for the June 14 gig at MidEast downstairs will be Motherboar, Blacktail, and one more TBA.

For the purposes of the reunion, OLW will be Eric Stevenson (drums), Craig Silverman (guitar), Jonah Jenkins (vocals), and Bob Maloney (bass). Said Jonah on the Noise Board last week:

"We tried to get Chris Crowley in on this (and of course he's still welcome) but he has been way too busy working and traveling to practice...it was a major reason that we waited this long...in addition to folks' health issues, family stuff, and a general lack of time to practice for it. When we started practicing late last year, we hadn't played these songs since 1995, and some we had never played live because we broke up before Innocents was released."

Now the begging begins: Jonah mentions this morning that a bunch of his friends didn't get tix to the June 14 show, and already there's been some Noise Board pleading for a second show. Keep fingers crossed.

PREVIOUSLY: Exclusive: Only Living Witness to play reunion show

2/19/2008 12:52:39 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

 

Thanks to Tia, our new obsession has a name, and it is LEMUR. Now you and your DJ friends can rock the same ridonculously fantastic super-futuro interface that Daft Punk rocks up in the pyramid, and that Thom Yorke is talking about buying. List price: a mere three grand. One device -- scratch that, one enormously fucking cool device -- that'll handle "sequencers, modular synthesizers, virtual instruments, VJ software, 3D animation tools and light control." Thunderdudes, what's really?

SEE: The Lemur, bitches.

2/19/2008 12:27:45 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

All photos by Carina Mastrocola

Above snaps from last night's rawk show at the DCU Center in Worcester. Bonus snaps: the bottom two show Davey Grohl rocking out for the wife and their kid. Awwwwww. PS: Is it us or is Pat Smear looking a little bloaty?

Bonus track: the FNX dudes talked to Dave before the show. Here's some video:

2/19/2008 10:39:00 AM by On the Download | Comments [1] |  

Talk about burying the lead. In an interview with Billboard devoted to Bon Jovi's near-proximity to the DeKalb shootings, Jon Bon mentions in an aside that his band's current tour does not yet have a final date planned:

"I've got two choices," Bon Jovi says. "We've got the Giants, Soldiers, Fenways (stadiums) on hold or we stay in Europe because of the state of the economy. All these (arena) shows are sold out, but the July dates, I'm not sure where the economy's going to be, so I don't know yet."

Let's get this straight: if the economy is still tanking in July, Bon Jovi will NOT play Fenway? Great. As if we didn't hate Bon Jovi enough, now he's got us rooting for a recession.

2/19/2008 10:25:49 AM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

Dan Deacon, reigning Prince of Awesomeness, brought both kinds of mayhem to MassArt late last month: the kind that involves long, hypnotic, frontal-lobe-destroying multimedia mindfucks; and then the full-frontal, lights-out, digital body music that turns art students into pole dancers. We've got clips of both below: first, an excerpt from "Ultimate Ryeality," his settings and manipulations of Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, which works way better live than on DVD. Then the legendary Dan Deacon experience, captured as close as possibly while being nearly danced off the stage lip by ecstatic 20 year olds in heat.

Dan Deacon: Ultimate Reality (Excerpt) - Live at MassArt, Boston, 01/31/08


Dan Deacon, Live at MassArt, Boston, 01/31/08

2/16/2008 11:31:37 AM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

They also like kittens, apparently.

We’ve seen the Brooklyn-based band Yeasayer live at Great Scott before (see our previous, gushing post), so we thought we knew what to expect at Tuesday night’s gig at the same venue, with MGMT. WXPN’s World Café recently described Yeasayer as purveyors of “haunted robotic gospel” music, and that seems totally on target. There’s a combination of factors that makes their live performances seem vaguely spiritual: all four members sing, sometimes silencing their instruments completely in favor of a four part harmony; they also all throw their entire bodies into their performances. They kneel and bang tambourines on the ground; they have a mangled crash cymbal, nearly falling to pieces because they like to smash it with a maraca mid-song; they sweat and scream and shout and moan lyrics which, even from eight or so feet away, we still can’t tell what they’re saying, but we feel like we should be raising our agnostic hands and yelling "Amen!" Here’s an audio example: some live tracks from their recent Daytrotter session.

The Yeasayer boys have been touring across the U.S., so they’ve spent the past few months polishing their live act, whereas MGMT, who seem right behind Vampire Weekend as the indie music community’s latest cause celebré (as evidenced by the shivering fans in front of Great Scott, begging for extra tickets, and lots and lots of blog coverage), are still rough around the edges. We went into it thinking at least we’d see "Time to Pretend," and "Kids," two obnoxiously addictive tracks from their debut, Oracular Spectacular (Columbia), and we got a semi-decent live version of the former. The latter, "Kids," which we’re told is an MGMT classic from their days playing to packed dorm rooms at Wesleyan, was the last song they, um, "played." We say that with hesitance because it was actually just two MGMT members singing along with the album version, which was played over the loudspeakers. Half the crowd was dancing (possibly fueled by Tuesday night PBRs - especially the falling over/making out couple in front of us, awesome), seemingly unfazed, and the other half was scratching their heads, thinking "WTF?" We may not know everything about being in a band, but we’ve been too a solid number of shows in our time, and that’s not a concert. That’s just karaoke.

2/15/2008 3:51:23 PM by On the Download | Comments [3] |  

Boy, the Republicans are not having much luck with campaign songs this quarter. First John Mellencamp tells John McCain to quit using "This Is Our Country" -- look, man, using mah song to sell pickup trucks is fine, but selling war heroes to red staters? uh uh -- and now a "shocked" Tom Scholz (Obama man that he is) explains to Huckabee that "More Than A Feeling" is not about Jesus or governors or how Darwinism is a lie: "I think I've been ripped off, dude!" Favorite part of the letter: the signoff -- "still evolving." Har!

Now if we could just get Barry Goudreau (of Ernie and the Automatics "fame") to sign on . . .

If you can't read the jpeg above, here's the full text from Scholz to Huckabee:

Dear Gov. Huckabee:

It has come to my attention that your campaign's use of my song More Than a Feeling and my band's name BOSTON has resulted in a great deal of false information, which it now appears may exist permanently on the Internet. While I'm flattered that you are fond of my song, I'm shocked that you would use it and the name BOSTON to promote yourself without my consent.

Your campaign's use of More Than a Feeling, coupled with the representation of one of your supporters as a member "of BOSTON" clearly implies that the band BOSTON, and specifically one of its members, has endorsed your candidacy, neither of which is true.

I wrote and arranged More Than a Feeling, engineered and produced the recording, and actually played all the guitars on that BOSTON hit as well as most of BOSTON's songs, not the person holding a guitar in your promotion who identified himself as being "of BOSTON." Your claim that this was "the guy who originally did it" is a bit mystifying since he never played on that recording, nor has he been "of BOSTON" since he left my band over a quarter century ago, after performing with us for only three years.

BOSTON has never endorsed a political candidate, and with all due respect, would not start by endorsing a candidate who is the polar opposite of most everything BOSTON stands for. In fact, although I'm impressed you learned my bass guitar part on More Than a Feeling, I am an Obama supporter.

While this may seem like a little thing to you, BOSTON has been my life's work. I hold the trademark to the name and my reputation is inexorably tied to it.

By using my song, and my band's name BOSTON, you have taken something of mine and used it to promote ideas to which I am opposed. In other words, I think I've been ripped off, dude!

The unfortunate misconceptions caused by your campaign now live indefinitely on Internet news sites and blog archives.

As the "straight talk candidate," I hope you will help undo the damage still being caused by this misleading use of BOSTON and More Than a Feeling.

Still evolving,

Tom Scholz for BOSTON

 

2/15/2008 8:28:18 AM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

DOWNLOAD: Medicated Kisses, "Kill the Queen" (mp3)

When we told you last year to keep an eye on Medicated Kisses, we were thinking that frontwoman Alanna V's soul-fired belt might carry them to the top of the emo-pops: their "A Wolf Among Lilacs" sounded like Paramore with more metal and an even better singer. But on "Kill the Queen," a teaser for their debut album, they're aiming higher: they ditch their young-punk stylistic affectations and let Alanna carry them to the mountaintop. A pulverizing power-blues frames a tour-de-force, old-testament vocal performance: "Don't you know I made you, now baby I will break you," she sings, wrathful and gospelized, like Christina Aguilera fronting Rage Against the Machine. Grab the track above, then catch them February 19 at T.T. the Bear's Place.

2/14/2008 8:24:40 AM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

Ohhhhhh, snap! Someday you'll be telling your grandkids about this one like it was Frank and Liza or some shit.

Heart of the City Tour" JAY-Z and Mary J. Blige
At the TD Banknorth Garden
Thursday, April 3, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Tickets are $49.75, $69.75, $89.75, $125.75 and $300
Tickets go on-sale Friday, February 15, 2008 at 10:00 am

In other news, Radiohead announced the first leg of its US tour -- Boston wasn't on it. By process of elmination, we deduce that Boston will be on the second leg, which will hit the US during a window that may match the as-yet-unannounced-rock-performance at Fenway Park on July 19 and 20. Still, we wouldn't bank on it. As one astute commenter pointed out -- with a ruh-roh -- the best guess for Fenway this summer is an encore of this monstrosity.

2/12/2008 5:47:05 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

"My Blake!"

So that's what Daft Punk has been doing all these years!

You knew the storylines going in -- how big a mess would Amy Winehouse be via satellite? How much strategic, Hilary-like sobbing could we expect from Kanye West? -- but of course none of it played the way you thought it would. Yes, the 50th Grammys were a bore as usual, but from our vantage points (plural), two things made up for it. In the first hour, there were those unbelievable spoiler-of-the-decade shots of Daft Punk's DJ console -- cue the tops of our heads shorn right off. Don't bother telling us that those little LED-checkerboard-square hits don't mean anything and it's all on DAT. We believe in Santa Claus when it comes to Daft Punk. Plus those Tron suits were seriously next-level.

The rest was a mess: aside from Will I. Am's off-key crapola medley of songs he didn't know and obviously hadn't bothered to learn, what kind of spontaneity was there? Why is Alicia Keys suddenly God? And much as Kanye's tribute to his mama was okay and unfiltered (read: pure?) and we feel sorry about his mama, she obviously didn't give him enough attention as a child. Still, his cry-baby puss was almost worth it when he became the first awards-show recipient in history to get the orchestra to stop trying to play him out of his acceptance speech by shaming them for not being "tasteful"! 'Cause every guy in that orchestra has a mama! So Kanye invoked her memory and made the Gammys -- however briefly -- his bitch. Better was Vince Gill: "I just got an award from a Beatle -- have you had that happen, yet, Kanye?" Better still was Amy Winehouse -- "My Blake -- incarcerated!" Giving a performance with more life in it than anything she did at Avalon last year, then falling, stunned, into the arms of the Dap-Kings. We didn't realize how fucked up she's been all last year until we saw her display some actual talent.

And then the piece de resistance -- Herbie Hancock beating a praying Kanye and an open-mouthed Amy (yes, and Vince Gill too) for Album of the Year. This had to be a bigger upset than "Crash" beating "Brokeback Mountain" at the Oscars (let alone the Upset That Shall Not Be Named). The first jazz album to win Album of the Year in 43 Years ("Getz/Gilberto," 1964). And here's an album that sold only 52,000 copies, as reported by Variety's Phil Gallo, winning against multi-platinum megaliths. Our only guess is that Herbie -- an obvious industry favorite -- benefitted from the popular vote being split between Kanye and Amy. I mean, even with the pop appeal of "River: The Joni Letters" (Joni Mitchell songbook, guest vocals by Norah Jones, Corinne Bailey Ray, and Tina Turner), this was a  JAZZ album, with three instrumentals, including two not even by Joni (Ellington's "Solitude" and Wayne Shorter's "Nefertiti") and crazy-ass long improvisations all over the place.

Odds that there'll be a Grammys telecast in 50 years: not worth mentioning. But sometimes the diminishing returns are just good enough.

-- OTD & Jon Garelick

2/11/2008 10:08:50 AM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

Best of Both Worlds: Behind the scenes with Miley Cyrus's musical director

We caught up with our old friend Stacy Jones (Letters to Cleo, Veruca Salt, American Hi-Fi) at the tail end of his current freelance gig, which just happens to be the biggest pop tour in the universe -- let's just say he's now the Tommy Lee of tweenpop. Click above for the video; but note that our web-size screen doesn't even begin to convey the insanity of Hannah Montana's digital-3D movie. More soon on the film, which is legitimately ridiculous. (Our favorite pop critic weighed in with a pretty great review of the tour here.) For now, maybe it's enough to say it's a new high-water mark in hyperreality, and it's even more of a mindfuck to see Stacy and Kay Hanley in larger-than-life dimension-bending action. (Note: now extended for another week!) After the jump: the full text of the interview, plus links to the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus tourblogs that Kay and some of the other band members kept.

Topics covered:

• How Stacy nearly fought Billy Ray Cyrus!
• What Miley rocks when she's playing Guitar Hero!
• Which reality-show band Stacy ghost-guitared for on TRL!
• Random other shit involving the Smashing Pumpkins, AFI, Cheap Trick, the rebirth of Hi-Fi, and, if you read between the lines, the realization that the secret thematic glue between Stacy Jones and Miley Cyrus is basically the Foo Fighters!

2/9/2008 9:48:58 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

It's official: Only Living Witness will play a reunion show at the Middle East downstairs on June 14. Support bands are still being finalized. Tickets are not yet onsale, we'll update as soon as more info becomes available. For a comprehensive history of the band, read James Parker's interview with frontman Jonah Jenkins here, on the occasion of Century Media's reissues of OLW's two studio albums.

DOWNLOAD: Only Living Witness, "December" (mp3)

2/6/2008 4:56:26 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

DOWNLOAD: State Radio, "Gang of Thieves" (mp3)

The big news in the land of the kinda, sorta broken-up New England jam band Dispatch is the release of Dispatch: Zimbabwe — Live at Madison Square Garden (Concert Hot Spot), a DVD document of the three sold-out benefit shows the trio reunited to play last summer in NYC. But right on the heels of that, singer/guitarist Chad Urmston has dropped the sophomore disc by his post-Dispatch band State Radio, Year of the Crow (Nettwerk). The philosophical differences that broke up Dispatch are on full display on the disc’s first single, "Gang of Thieves," a tightly wound punkish salvo with little in the way of jamming or of the reggae-tinged grooves that pepper Year of the Crow. Catch the band at Newbury Comics on Newbury Street in Boston at 7 pm on February 15, at Newbury Comics in North Attleboro at 3 pm on the 16th, and for the kickoff of a world tour on February 22 at Pearl Street in Northampton.

— Matt Ashare

2/6/2008 3:41:42 PM by Will | Comments [0] |  

Up front: we don't know the answer, either. But what we do know is that the Fenway Park folks have been warning their neighbors to expect a concert on Saturday, July 19 and Sunday, July 20, 2008. So let the speculation begin: think you know who's coming to Fenway? Tell us in the comments; results and excerpts will appear in the fishwrap next week.

In the meantime, here's our best guesses. Note: these aren't real odds, so don't blame us if the Madonna/McCartney "Aged Icons Tour" is announced tomorrow on the History Channel.

1. Radiohead

• Pros: US tour has already been promised in two legs, one before June 6 and one "after July 8." After July 8! July 19 is after July 8! Ooo! Oooh!
• Cons: No mention of Fenway ticket-buyers being allowed to name their own price (unless it's on eBay, for north of four figures.) Far too relevant for a venue that favors artists in their dotage (Stones, Springsteen, Buffet). Might actually draw people who like music more than baseball. Also, could spark fierce crosstown bidding war with the kids booking the late show over at the Museum of Science planetarium.
• Odds: 8-5

2. Led Zeppelin

• Pros: No tour plans yet, but Page says he's ready to go, and Plant's touring obligations with Alison Krauss end in mid-May.
• Cons: Zeppelin may be old, they may be ubiquitous, and they may be boomer staples, but of all the geezer reunions headed here this summer, this one has the best chance of turning into a stone-cold, heavy-metal-parking-lot riot. There's a big difference between rolling out the red carpet for MILF-bait like Sting, and openeing the Green Monster to 50,000 teenage hooligans smashed faceless on Red Bull, kind bud, and the opening riff of "Black Dog." Also, not enough money on Yawkey Way: if Zep pull something together, look for five nights at Foxboro.
• Odds: 18-1

3. Metallica

• Pros: Hetfield's jackhammer-guitar blitzkrieg could provide cheap demolition for the three buildings in the Fenway that haven't already been torn down for condo redevelopment. "Yankees Suck" merchandisers clean up with bootleg "Some Kind of (Green) Monster" t-shirts.
• Cons: Release of new Rick Rubin-produced studio album was recently pushed back to September. Time to throw in the (Phil) Towle.
• Odds: 17-1

4. Paul McCartney

• Pros: He's beloved by international corporate sponsors, the douchebags who actually drive the infield green that makes shit like this profitable. Evergreen boomer fanbase still has enough Viagra left in the cabinet to generate the requisite woody when Macca sings Beatles tunes. He's already toured this decade, alleviating the possibility that actual fans, with actual passions, might do something batshit-crazy like jump out of the rafters. Might have already penciled in a summer of laying pipe to one-legged models, but other than that and a festival date in Liverpool, looks like his schedule's wide open.
• Cons: Full-frontal marketing for his 2007 Starbucks release only yeilded in 600,000 in sales. There's nothing new in the release pile, so he's got nothing to sell -- unless there's some juicy Apple/Apple (i.e., iTunes/Beatles) download campaign in the works. In which case he'd have to split the spoils with Ringo and the widows.
• Odds: 22-1

5. Madonna

• Pros: Name a single Red Sox player, coach, or management executive who wouldn't want to see cone bras in Monstervision.
• Cons: Any world tour would be part of her new $160-million Live Nation deal that includes splitting revenue from live performances, CDs, and merch. In the absence of a new album or totally new stage production -- neither of which is on the horizon -- she perfects her British accent at the beach this summer.
• Odds: 25-1

6. U2

• Pros: Almost as Irish as Dropkick Murphys. In event of rain, Fenway distributes plastic glasses and screens U2:3D while the Edge parties at the French Library.
• Cons: Monster seats would have to be removed to accomodate Bono's ego.
• Odds: 20-1

7. Bon Jovi

• Pros: Just bought a $26 million penthouse on Mercer St. in New York. Probably wants to pay cash. Has filled Foxboro in the past and could easily do two nights at Fenway. Can stay for free at his buddy Bill Belichick's house . . . while Bill hides out from irate Patriots fans ("FOURTH AND FUCKING 13?!?!") in undisclosed location.
• Cons: Not old enough.
• Odds: 7-5

2/4/2008 7:48:57 PM by On the Download | Comments [4] |