Misc. Music Archives
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I have a pair of tickets to giveaway for this Friday's gig at the Rock and Roll Hotel featuring D.C.'s own Soft Complex and Howard Wolfson's favorite band, Glasvegas. Should be a lot of fun. All you have to do is email me the name of your favorite D.C. band and your favorite band from Scotland. Please put "Ticket giveaway" in the subject line. I will pick a winner on Friday morning so make sure you check your email.
Tracklisting and whatnot. Fluxblog (aka Master of All Things Pavement) gives us the pros and cons of the choices.
Brighten The Corners is probably my least favorite Pavement record, only because I never owned the physical copy and didn't spend the appropriate amount of time with it to ever make it to regular rotation. Probably because at that point I was waist deep in Britpop and also still listening to Wowee Zowee two times a day. BTW, you need to cop that Wowee reissue if you don't have it yet. I say best.
I bought The Bends on vinyl from Costco over the weekend.
Costco.
Vinyl is back, baby! Amazon is stocking 250,000 titles these days.
Nnnnnoooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wrote up the my experiences and thoughts on the attack on Noel Gallagher in Toronto for my friends at Blurt Online.
Check out my photos of Paul Weller at the 9:30 Club from Saturday.
Site adds 'More Cowbell' to any song.
This just in: P4k hates KOL. But they have a nice interview with Paul Weller.
Annie Liebovitz talks photography.
Michael Stipe answers your questions.
Stevie Wonder plays "Superstition" on Sesame Street. And it is teh awesome. [via]
I got tangentially know the Shudder to Think crew when I worked at Epic Records in the mid-90's. I worked the very underrated 50,000 B.C. to college radio when it came out and I met and hung out with Craig, Nate and Stuart a few times. They were such genuinely nice people, it was impossible not to become fans of the band. It also helped that no one else in the company got their music, which made me like them even more. They had one of the best EPK's ever, which showed footage of them playing Lollapalooza (back when it was a traveling festival) and some big, burly frat-looking dude watching Craig do his thing and then looking directly into the camera and saying, "OMG! That dude it totally gay!" Maybe you had to be there...
Anyways, I was a bit disappointed with their set at V Fest in Baltimore. They just seemed a bit...off. Like their legs weren't under them yet. It was a completely different scenario in Toronto, however, where they hit the stage and went directly to 11. It had been a rainy and cloudy day before their early afternoon set, but the sun broke out just before they started. Craig looked up at the sky, smiled, turned to the audience and said "Hi, we're Shudder to Think [pause] and we bring the sunshine." Truth. Welcome back, guys.
[Photo Gallery]
Shudder to Think at the 2008 Toronto Virgin Music Festival
They are playing a hometown show at the 9:30 Club on October 10th. Don't miss it!
So I am finally getting around to putting my photos from the 2008 Virgin Mobile Festival online. I'm also trying out a new feature on information leafblower, namely new photo galleries hosted here on the site. Chan Marshall will be my guinea pig. Honestly I was less than impressed with her set at VFest, the first time I had ever seen her. But I can't really say I am a fan, so no surprise. She has a great voice, but nothing she did really grabbed me. This would be the pattern for the day on the North Stage.
[Photo Gallery] Cat Power at the 2008 Virgin Mobile Festival
[mp3] Cat Power | Metal Heart
I received an embarrassment of great mp3's delivered to my inbox yesterday.
Could I be more excited about The Peth finally releasing their debut album? Of course not! The Peth include actor (and former member of Super Furry Animals) Rhys Ifans on vocals and my good friend Daf Ieuan (I can spell his name without looking it up and he has beaten me at FIFA on the Playstation, so I am allowed to call him good friend) who mans the drum kit for the Super Furries for his day job. Here's the first single, the appropriately named "Let's Go Fucking Mental." Sounds like an energetic slice of Fuzzy Logic. Yes please.
[mp3] The Peth | Lets Go Fucking Mental
If you go sign up for it on their site, you can get a free Chemical Brothers, "Hey Boy Hey Girl (Soulwax 2ManyDJ's Remix)." Or you could look for it other places on the interwebs.
Another record I am excited for is Sam Champion's Heavenly Bender. You can buy it at Amie Street right now for just $3! Here is a track off the record.
[mp3] Sam Champion | Be Mine Everyone
Lastly, Ra Ra Riot are doing the "Let's Give A Group of Bloggers Exclusive Video" thing. Watch:
"Dying Is Fine (Attic Session)" on P4K
"Too Too Too Fast (Attic Session)" on Stereogum
"Ghosts Under Rocks (Attic Session)" on Brooklyn Vegan
"Oh La (Attic Session)" on My Old Kentucky Blog
LA Times: What blogs do you read on a daily basis?
Howard Wolfson: Brooklyn Vegan, Idolator, Saidthegramaphone, some D.C.-based blogs like informationleafblower.
Obvs.
Seems like every time I turn on the Olympics, it's either diving or boxing. Boooring. I still haven't seen the Redeem team play at all.
In other news, I have 457 saved items in my Bloglines account. Here are a few of them:
Matthew Sweet :: A Career: Thus Far...
A story in Business Week about a thriving newspaper industry in Germany surmises that the problems with US newspapers is not the internet it's the content.
Kelly Shimoda and the Art of the Text Message. Brilliant.
Japan Wins: Most Photogenic Public Works Project, EVER.
10 Pieces of Photo Gear Under $50 You Should Own.
50 photos of people all taken with my 50mm lens. Again, brilliant.
Underworld's setlist at Virgin Fest. I still need to upload those photos.
The Baltimore Round Robin tour sounds like a very Baltimore thing to do. Especially because THEY ARE SKIPPING DC. Seriously, they should just make signs that say "F DC."
MOP + Sesame Street = awesome.
WOXY Lounge Act Recap - Thao w/ The Get Down Stay Down. Although teetering into very Ani DiFranco territory at times, she was pretty damn good at the Black Cat last week.
Sad news. Jerry Finn has passed away. That makes me incredibly sad.
Lastly, Happy Bday to Amanda, one day early.
Last Friday I got an IM from Malitz asking me if I wanted to spend Monday following the Jonas Brothers around town on Monday. At first I thought he was joking, but after he assured me he was not, I immediately said yes. Who wouldn't want to spend the day in close proximity to the biggest boy band in the world? I can hear the indie rock snickers from here, but hear me out. I had a lot of fun on Monday. It was a great experience and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
My new favorite saying is "I am not a photojournalist, but I play one on the internet," and Monday gave me an opportunity to do just that. I shot the band at the White House, a packed press event at Madame Tussaud's, another smaller, more intimate press event at the venue, soundcheck and then the gig itself (You can see the evidence over at Washingtonpost.com).
Perhaps the best part was the way we got this access. We had an actual press pool and our group got to follow the band around in very close proximity all day. A press pool is a very unique (some might say innovative) way to cover a rock band.
The band's head of publicity for the tour was formerly in charge of the press pool following the Mitt Romney Presidential campaign, so this was something she was very familiar with organizing. The number of people in the pool ebbed and flowed during the day, depending on deadlines and whatnot, but we had a cool little group, including Malitz, Fox 5's Stacey Cohan, D.C. media maven Tammy Haddad, tween 'zine Twist Magazine and KOL, the kid's version of AOL. I was on the Fox 5 news at 5 and will be part of a future Newsweek video feature about the whole day.
The band, for their part, was very down to earth (as much as teenage millionaires can be) and have obviously been coached very well in all things media. Every time they entered a room, they introduced themselves and shook hands with everyone and were always incredibly polite. I also have tremendous respect for their work ethic. They had a very full day and still did a three hour meet and greet with a group of 350 or so fans right before they went on stage! When I took the assignment last week I had no idea that it would end up being such big news (well, it is D.C. in August after all) but it was very cool to have a front row seat to the whole thing.
The best part was the event at Madame Tussaud's. When we pulled up, the throng of female teens momentarily mistook Malitz for one of the JoBros. We saw looks of ecstasy turn into agony in three seconds flat. Then we got out and were ushered downstairs and planted on the front row for the statue unveilings. The girls who got access to the event were incredibly loud, all of them were just screaming their heads off the entire time. It was complete pandemonium when the curtain went down and the band was revealed to them, standing next to their wax counterparts. After a quick round of photos and some questions, the band was ushered out of the room just as quickly as they got there. We quickly followed through the same door and them we all slipped out a side entrance back into the venue's garage. After loading the band into their Escalade, we jumped into our van and our small caravan was off to the venue. Only we were being chased by girls running down the street. One of them ran out into traffic! And then we realized that TMZ was tailing us with a video camera. It was straight out of A Hard Day's Night.
Going out on tour with a band is awesome. Even better when you get to go home and sleep in your own bed. And as a bonus, we had enough downtime for me to edit all the photos I took during the day, so I had everything loaded and edited before we even started home.
The new Oasis song is 10x better than ANYTHING on the new Verve record. At least Noel knows what a hook is.
I think we've lost Captain Rock for good. A sad day.
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