Tuesday, April 17. 2007
iTunes sends me little love notes throughout the week, and today I idly clicked on "What Light," the only available cut from Wilco's forthcoming album Sky Blue Sky (Nonesuch, due out May 15).
I thought about buying it and then I saw a review saying something to the effect of great song, but hey, save a buck, Wilco has it as a free mp3 for download on their website.
So I went and they did so I did.
Your turn.
Sunday, April 15. 2007
I've noticed something about the reviews I've read of Stephen Kijak's documentary Scott Walker: 30 Century Man. Most of them end up being more about Walker's music than the film.
The intense focus on the music rather than the man isn't an accident, nor even a concession to Walker's legendary privacy, but a genuine reflection of Kijak's own focus. When I interviewed Kijak in Austin, the entire hour was spent talking about almost nothing but the music. So don't see this film expecting an uber-cool alt/indie version of a VH-1 special. Scott Walker: 30 Century Man isn't an industry "music bio."It's a film documenting what director Kijak called "the evolution of a songwriter over time."
David Bowie From Scott Walker: 30 Century Man |
That evolution has covered a lot of territory, from his early years as a 60s UK boy band pop star, to his presence today as a composer of work so experimental and abstract it defies categorization. Scott Walker has crooned ballads to an orchestral accompaniment, and created percussion by thwacking a side of pork. He brought Belgian singer Jacque Brel into vogue with Scott Walker Sings Jacques Brel and his still-iconic performances of Mathilde and Jackie. He entered the consciousness of a new generation of listeners with the stunning compilation Boy Child: The Best of Scott Walker 1967-1970. He's influenced everyone from Lulu to David Bowie (who executive produced and appears in the film) to Sting to the Smiths to Brian Eno to Marc Almond to Radiohead to Pulp (he produced We Love Life, and Jarvis Cocker is all over the film) to Dot Allison, and dozens, even hundreds, of other musicians. And once you've seen it, there's something else anyone who has listened to alternative/indie music in the last forty years will quickly realize: Even if you didn't know Walker's name, you've been listening to musicians influenced by him all your life.
Continue reading "Review: Scott Walker: 30 Century Man"
Thursday, April 5. 2007
I interviewed filmmaker Stephen Kijak in Austin during SXSW last month (my review of his music doc Scott Walker: 30 Century Man will be out in the next few days, in time for you East Coasters to catch it at the Tribeca Film Festival in May), and in the midst of a long rambling discussion of basically every single bit of music he and I had listened to in our entire lives, he asked if I was familiar with Wrecking Ball by Emmylou Harris.
Now, despite my anti-country black-nail-polish youth, I got the Emmylou love a long time ago, and her live Lillith Fair duet of "Angel" with Sarah McLachlan owns me body and soul. Nonetheless, I was genuinely unfamiliar with Wrecking Ball. It was produced by Daniel Lanois, who I knew originally for his work with Brian Eno, but who also has produced Peter Gabriel, U2, Ron Sexsmith, Bob Dylan, and a long list of others. It got released in 1995 - hell, it won a Grammy - but let's just say 1995 was a rough year for me and leave it at that.
Anyway, I got home from SXSW and immediately plunged into covering the pet food recall story, and only a few days ago got around to playing the Wrecking Ball CD I ordered from Amazon based on Stephen's raves about it.
Then I fell down dead.
This album is just beautiful. I've heard complaints about the sound mix/production value, but on a marginally decent system (mine), it sounded beautiful. Hell, it sounded great on my computer speakers.
Of course Harris is best known as a country singer, but this album completely transcends genre. Lanois' production is as atmospheric as anything he's ever done, but in combination with the strong melodies of the songs, and Harris' killer vocals, the album manages to sound edgy and completely accessible at the same time.
Wrecking Ball isn't exactly a hidden treasure. The biggest names in music collaborated on it... U2's Larry Mullen is keeping the beat, Lanois produced and wrote two of the songs, Neil Young sang along. There are a number of covers - including Bob Dylan's "Every Grain of Sand" and Young's "Wrecking Ball."
Harris' voice has never been clearer, more nuanced, more expressive. And it's not just that she has a great voice; her phenomenol phrasing brings every bit of meaning to the lyrics. I'm not sure there is a better female vocalist recording today.
If you held a gun to my head, I'd probably say that "All My Tears," "Deeper Well," and "Wrecking Ball" are the strongest cuts on the album. But most likely I'd just have to let you shoot me, because there's not a single track on here that isn't pure brilliance.
I you, like me, missed it, you should fix that. And if you didn't miss it, but haven't heard it in a while, you should fix that, too.
And I may need to send Stephen Kijak roses or something.
Tuesday, April 3. 2007
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
Music fans will now be able to download songs from iTunes and play them on any digital music player - not just the iPod -- after Apple Inc. and EMI announced a new deal Monday.
The new deal also means that consumers will be able to share the songs with their friends, without restrictions.
In a press conference in London, Apple CEO Steve Jobs and record label EMI said that the record label will sell tracks that are free of digital rights management technology, or DRM, the software that prevents songs downloaded from iTunes to be widely shared.
Full story here.
And in other news, also from the SF Chronicle:
European Union regulators are investigating Apple Inc.'s iTunes online music store for possible violation of competition rules, a British newspaper reported Monday.
More here.
Friday, March 16. 2007
I just spoke to Jeff on the phone. His voice sounded ragged, but he assured me he'd had a really good night's sleep, possibly as much, he said, as six hours.
Clint is apparently dead still sleeping.
I should never have left those two in Austin unsupervised.
I've been holding off on posting my review of Scott Walker: 30 Century Man until I've transcribed the hour-long interview I did with filmmaker Stephen Kijak, not the easiest thing in the world to do with a carpal tunnel syndrome flare-up caused by two long liveblogging sessions.
Hopefully the boys will have some good video and photos and reports ready to upload for us in a little while - I know Jeff got some great footage of REM's Peter Buck last night, if he can only access enough brain cells to download it and write something.
I feel bad but I honestly didn't know that part of my editorial duty would involve getting those two Lojacked. I'm so sorry.
Here is some more Ask a Ninja blogging, this time with me and my tiny little laptop. Kent Nichols on the left, me and said tiny laptop in the middle, Douglas Sarine on the right, club kingsnake booth in the background.
And as soon as I have this interview transcribed, I'll post my thoughts on the Scott Walker music doc. Short review: Great film, and hopefully the reclusive genius will find a few new fans when it starts showing on the American art house circuit. Those who don't like Walker because they think he's pretentious may change their minds when they actually see him interviewed and watch the footage of him recording The Drift, but those who don't like him because his current work baffles them will most likely not. And fans will think they've died and gone to heaven. Interviewees include Brian Eno, Johnny Marr, Marc Almond, Lulu, Dot Allison, Radiohead, David Bowie, and a lengthy list of other notables in experimental, alternative, and pop music. I got chills, but then again, I'm a complete freak.
Wednesday, March 14. 2007
Pete Townsend Keynote Interview - photo by clint gilders - staff photographer |
Pete Townshend’s keynote address to the SXSW Music Festival is being held in the same room where I liveblogged Dan Rather’s keynote interview at the interactive part of this conference a couple of days ago – same stage set, and lots of the same people. Quite a few less laptops in evidence, though. And with less than 15 minutes to the start, plenty of empty seats, although people are streaming in – I think they may be making people without badges wait until the last minute to come in, not sure.
It’s now only 6 minutes until the address is supposed to begin – still more than half the seats are empty, and the number of rock ‘n’ roll as opposed to indy/geek types is growing. Probably not so much now with the Rather crowd. And a lot more camera equipment.
I shall now amuse myself counting Grateful Dead t-shirts.
Four minutes now…. I can’t help but think this is a disappointing turnout, although I don’t really know what they were expecting.
I also noticed when the music festival officially opened, there was suddenly a deluge of tan, white haired, industry types from LA with cell phones glued to their ears. It’s not that the tech crowd didn’t have cell phones glued to their ears. It’s not that I didn’t. It’s just these guys do it in a certain self-important way quite different from how geeks do it.
It should be starting now, but people are still pouring in. There’s a girl who is probably young enough to be Pete Townshend’s granddaughter, wearing army fatigues and a Grateful Dead t-shirt.
Here we go. Welcome to SXSW XXI etc. Then more etc. “It is entirely reasonable for kids, and adults, to devote their passions and their lives to rock and roll.�
Standing ovation for Pete. Chants of “Pete, Pete, Pete.�
Continue reading "SXSW: Pete Townshend"
Clint and I saw Scott Walker: 30 Century Man, the new documentary on musician Scott Walker, last night - Clint wasn't familiar with Scott Walker, and was entranced (my word) by Walker's more recent works, while I found Walker years ago via Bowie and Eno and freely admit to being more appreciative of his middle period than either his early pop star days or the experimental music of his last two albums. Then again, Clint is a musician and I'm not, and Walker is typically revered by musicians.
I'll review it more fully lately, but I thought the documentary was brilliant and should be interesting even to those who've never heard of Walker - at least, those with an interest in music. I was very surprised to see how articulate and witty Walker is, given his extremely reclusive nature. The technique of having the musicians interviewed for the film listen to Walker's music on camera is something I've never seen before - I loved it.
I'm interviewing director Stephen Kijak this afternoon, and Clint's coming along to take photos. Tonight I'll also be liveblogging Pete Townshend's keynote address from SXSW here on club.kingsnake.
Update: The review, plus an interview with Stephen Kijak, is here.
Tuesday, March 13. 2007
I was clearing out spam, I mean, approving comments, on the blog this morning, and there was one from someone who'd seen one of our "My snake is bigger than your snake" t-shirts on someone on an airplane, and wanted to know how she could get one.
I've also been on a crusade to get every woman at SXSW here in Austin to wear one, because it just seems so subversive somehow.
Tonight I'm dragging Clint off to see the US premier of Stephen Kijak's documentary about the reclusive and elusive cult musician Scott Walker, Scott Walker: 30 Century Man. I'll be interviewing Stephen on Wednesday and asking the question: how did YOU discover the music of Scott Walker? I found him on a roundabout journey that started with Patti Smith. It's a long story.
But for now? I'm handing out t-shirts.
Sunday, February 25. 2007
I love my iPod. I cannot lie. And I have spent, oh, a very very lot of money in the iTunes store buying music all locked up so that even though I own it, I don't own it, because unlike all the songs off my CDs (that I also bought and own), you can't play your iTunes music on anything other than your iPod.
Welcome to the age of Digital Rights Management, or DMR.
So if you shellac a one-atom-thick layer of DRM over a product, you get the full power of the American legal system as a weapon to use against competitors. Apple may have created a successful "Switch" campaign by reverse-engineering Microsoft products like PowerPoint to make Keynote, an Apple program that lets you run old PowerPoint decks on your Mac, but Microsoft can't create a "Switch to the Zune" campaign that offers you the ability to play your iTunes Store songs on a Zune, Microsoft's latest abortive iPod-killer.
Although Apple's DRM is wholly ineffective at preventing copying, it does manage to raise the cost of switching from an iPod to a competing device. Every iTunes song you buy for 99 cents amounts to a 99 cent tax on switching from an iPod to a Zune. That's because your iTunes songs won't play on your Zune -- or on any other player, save those made or licensed by Apple. Jobs tries to skate around this in his memo, suggesting that only a tiny fraction of the music on iPods comes from his music store, and so the anti-switching effects are minimal.
The rest of this is at Salon - if you're not a subscriber, you can get a free day pass to read the article. It's worth the trouble.
Monday, February 19. 2007
This week's free download in the iTunes store is a song called "The Guide" from Australian band Borne. I usually grab the free downloads, and most of them don't grab me. This one does.
The iTunes review says lead vocalist Cameron Tapp's voice is a more soulful and rougher version of Bono's... I'm not quite sure I agree with that, but it's not totally off. They also compare him to Chris Martin, which is just wrong. I'm not a Coldplay fan, so maybe I'm too prejudiced to hear it, but Tapp's voice is much more expressive and smoother than Martin's, while still having a rough edge to it that appeals to me much more than Martin's.
I'd describe this as a piano-swelling-into-guitar lovesong squarely in the indie rock tradition... yearning, minimally produced, the slightly sappy edge of the lyrics taken off with the raw vocal.
Go get it.
Thursday, January 25. 2007
I covered the Lucy Lawless concert ... you know, the actress/singer who played Xena: Warrior Princess for six years and then took the country by storm last year on the cheesy but entertaining Celebrity Duets ... for another publication. And when JeffB suggested I review it here, I gave him a skeptical look and said, "Jeff, honey, trust me, there is nothing 'alternative' about Lucy Lawless' music."
He shook his head. Well, perhaps I should say he shook it metaphorically, because we were on the phone. I have no actual knowledge of what he was doing with his head during this conversation.
"She's 'alternative' because of Xena," he told me.
And because I'll basically take any excuse to talk about Xena, anywhere, anytime, I smiled and agreed.
Lucy Lawless' two sold-out concerts on January 14 and 15 at LA's famous Roxy Theater were strategically scheduled during the 12th Annual Xena: Warrior Princess convention in Burbank, and were accordingly full of Lucy's biggest fans. That might be why her Saturday night performance was not plagued by the nerves that occasionally weakened her voice on Celebrity Duets - Lawless' fans love her and she loves them, and there's nothing like love to lubricate the vocal cords.
The love was so palpable that even the Roxy tech guys mentioned it, telling actor/director Michael Hurst that they had never seen such a fan reaction, even when Springsteen was there.
The two opening numbers, Muse's "Feeling Good" and Etta James' "Jump into My Fire," suffered from major sound mix problems, and finally Lawless asked her audience to turn around and face the sound booth. These folks, she said sweetly, “Want to hear me.� It worked, and the next day she laughed about it, saying being threatened with 500 angry Xena fans is “worse than being threatened by one angry Xena, because Xena has one ounce of compassion."
Continue reading "Lawless at the Roxy"
Thursday, January 11. 2007
This little gem of alternative rock came out last October, just when I was in the middle of moving, and I only sat down to listen to it the other day. Too bad, because its angsty folky geeky jangly dissonant vibe would have been the perfect soundtrack to my hellish move.
Some people find Nathan Willet's voice annoying, others worship it. It's perfect for songs such as "Hang Me Up to Dry" or "We Used to Vacation," perhaps more on the annoying side of the spectrum on cuts like "God, Make Up Your Mind," sung in his falsetto. Or maybe you'll love his falsetto.
I don't know if they're really doing anything new here, and I'm kind of easy for bands that give me the jangling chiming guitar sound, but their music is clever and fun.
"Hang Me Up to Dry" is the free download of the week on iTunes if you want to check it out for free.
Monday, January 8. 2007
I just got back from New York, and if there's one trend I picked up on in the clubs, it's that the 80s have made a massive resurgence on the dance floor.
Between the remixes and remakes of 80s songs, and just plain old playing 80s hits - I swear to you, I heard "Billie Jean" FIVE TIMES - it was completely frightening.
They say New York is the city that never sleeps, and that's both true and apparently contagious, since I got roughly four hours of sleep over the course of four days. It's been a long time since I got home from a night out, changed, and went out dancing.
The hotel I stayed in had a DJ.
Please consider this my application to renew my lapsed membership in the "I Love New York" club. Thanks.
Friday, December 29. 2006
It is now Friday December 29 and it is time to play WTF Friday, the game where you tell us the first 10 songs that come up on your music player when you hit the Random or Shuffle button. At stake is a classic kingsnake.com T-shirt and the a chance to win the monthly grand prize, a black 30Gb video iPod. Also we welcome Metal Blade Records as a contest sponsor this month, so everyone that wins a shirt or iPod will also get a copy of Metal Blade's 2006 Summer Sampler with 18 bands including Cannibal Corpse, Unearth and more!
December will be the last month we run the iPod contest. We have one iPod left, and Microsoft never got back to us when we asked them if they wanted to give away some of their Zune players. It's been fun, and we will find some other contest to play with.
Here is my list... and remember, this is Christie, NOT Jeff, today!
1. In My Arms - Erasure
2. Suzanne - Peter Gabriel
3. Long-Forgotten Fairytale - The Magnetic Fields
4. Seen And Not Seen - Talking Heads
5. When Love Comes To Town - U2
6. Should I Stay or Should I Go - The Clash
7. To the One I Love - R.E.M.
8. You Look So Fine - Garbage
9. Malaria - Shriekback
10. The Price I Pay - Billy Bragg
Thursday, December 21. 2006
Peaches
Peaches
Hometown: Toronto, Canada
http://www.peachesrocks.com/
Club Kingsnake Peaches Photo Gallery
Friday, December 16, 2006
The Fillmore (San Francisco, CA)
Also: Whitey
I didn't have a camera pass, so you'll have to content yourself gazing at the huge gallery of Peaches concert photos shot by Jeff Barringer at her show in Austin, one of which is on the right. I personally contented myself gazing at Peaches' drummer, the hotter than hot Samantha Maloney.
Whitey opened. I wasn't impressed. I am not ready for the 80s to be back, and I didn't like Gary Numan the first time around, either, so really, we didn't need his reincarnation. The friends I was with commented that it seemed like a Saturday Night Live skit, and you know, it did. Let's just say, not for me, and move on.
Peaches is also not for everyone. In fact, she's proabably not for too much of anyone. But those who love her love her madly, because she's completely unashamed, balls-to-the-wall, and raunchy. She slathers it with politics and genderfuck, and she holds nothing back at all.
Her Wikipedia entry refers to her music as "electroclash," and why the hell not, I have no idea what else to call it. It's kind of techno, kind of rap, kind of punk, kind of bad art school performance art, kind of strip show, with a veneer of rock and roll. Her band was hot, she was working the crowd and they loved her, and there's no better way to see Peaches.
I didn't get a set list, but "Two Guys for Every Girl," "AA XXX," "Shake Yer Dix," "Boys Wanna Be Her," "Stick it to the Pimp," and "Rock Show" were standouts.
I find it hard to understand how Peaches can ever find any vestige of mainstream success, as nearly every song she sings is absolutely filthy, but she's been on a lot of movie and TV show soundtracks (including the L Word recently), as well as being featured in.... are you sitting down?... a Gap commercial.
Jeff commented that the audience in Austin was almost all women - the audience here was 50/50, so I'm not sure what the deal was in Austin.
She sweated, stripped, rocked, and got gross.
And did I mention her drummer was hot?
|
|