A decade on, the Coen brothers' woefully underrated
O Brother, Where Art Thou? [alt] is remembered for
a lot of things: its sun-drenched, sepia-rich
cinematography (a pioneer of
digital color grading), its
whimsical humor,
fluid vernacular, and
many subtle references to Homer's
Odyssey. But one part of its legacy truly stands out:
the music.
Assembled by
T-Bone Burnett, the soundtrack is a cornucopia of American folk music, exhibiting everything from
cheery ballads and
angelic hymns to
wistful blues and
chain-gang anthems. Woven into the plot of the film through radio and live performances, the songs lent the story a
heartfelt, homespun feel that echoed its cultural heritage,
a paean and uchronia of the Old South.
Though the multiplatinum album was recently
reissued, the movie's medley is best heard via famed documentarian
D. A. Pennebaker's
Down from the Mountain, an
extraordinary yet
intimate concert film focused on a night of live music by the soundtrack's stars (among them
Gillian Welch,
Emmylou Harris,
Chris Thomas King, bluegrass legend
Dr. Ralph Stanley) and wryly hosted by
John Hartford, an accomplished
fiddler,
riverboat captain, and
raconteur whose struggle with terminal cancer made this his last major performance. The film is free in its entirety on
Hulu and
YouTube -- click inside for individual clips, song links, and breakdowns of
the set list's fascinating history.
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Dec 22, 2011 -
107 comments
Ye olde rock and roll time machine, part two: recently found
photos of a Stooges performance at a suburban Detroit high school from 1970.
posted by NoMich
on Dec 15, 2011 -
19 comments
On December 12, 2011, world-famous harpsichordist
Gustav Leonhardt played what appears to be the last recital of his sixty-one years long career in the Théâtre des Bouffes in Paris. Clips from the concert were uploaded on youtube yesterday.
Suitable for the sad event, a melancholic Prélude by
d'Anglebert first.
[more inside]
posted by Namlit
on Dec 14, 2011 -
9 comments
In the year 1968, at the height of her powers, one of the greatest singers America has ever produced was in Stockholm, where she served up a breathtakingly powerful and characteristically soulful performance that, lucky for us, was filmed by Swedish television. You know who I'm talking about, of course. "Lady Soul" - parts
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6 and
7.
[more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Oct 15, 2011 -
19 comments
Over three nights at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood in December 1983, Jonathan Demme filmed Talking Heads'
Stop Making Sense. The band performed
"Psycho Killer," "Heaven," "Thank You for Sending Me an Angel," "Found a Job,"
"Slippery People," "Cities,",
"Burning Down the House," "Life During Wartime," "Making Flippy Floppy,"
"Swamp," "What a Day That Was," "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)," "Once in a Lifetime," "Big Business/I Zimbra," "Genius of Love" (as Tom Tom Club while David Byrne changed into the Big Suit),
"Girlfriend is Better," "Take Me to the River," and "Crosseyed and Painless."
"Thank you. Does anybody have any questions?"
[more inside]
posted by kirkaracha
on Aug 1, 2011 -
65 comments
People, Let Me Get This Off My Chest is a 65 minute compilation of stage banter by Paul Stanley of KISS.
Paul repeatedly reminds the Army that they’re getting their money’s worth... , that the next tune is the first time they’ve played it on tour, that he was talking backstage to someone... about what kind of alcohol that people in the area like to drink, that they’re just getting started, and that he’s got an “uzi of ooze” in his pants.
posted by Trurl
on Jun 4, 2011 -
69 comments
Full Utah Phillips concert from 2007:
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8. If you don't know who Utah Phillips is, be prepared to meet one of the great performers of our age, telling funny stories and cracking jokes, singing great songs, and generally being a world treasure. If you want to know more about this great singer, songwriter, and peace and labor activist, you can watch
an hour long documentary on him from Democracy Now that was made after he passed away in 2008.
[previously]
posted by Kattullus
on Dec 15, 2010 -
26 comments
Opening Night: October 8, 1985 at the
Barbican in London. It scored mixed reviews, but word of mouth still took hold. In the 25 years since that first show, 45,000 performances have been produced in 42 countries, 308 cities and 21 languages that have been seen by 56 million people. It is the third-longest running show in Broadway history. 40 cast recordings have been released. And on October 30th, 2010, a special concert production of the play based on the book
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
will take place at The 02 Arena in North Greenwich.
(YouTube Video) [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Aug 7, 2010 -
46 comments
Tucson's own
Calexico has made one of their concerts
available (Nuremberg 2009) for streaming and downloading. Calexico's Joey Burns has also been very busy lately with
Artists For Action, an Arizona organization that is actively speaking out
against AZ's controversial SB 1070. Calexico has a
history of hosting benefit concerts in support of various border issues.
[via]
posted by .kobayashi.
on Jul 20, 2010 -
18 comments
Las Vegas is the final part of the Another Version of the Truth collection, and is exclusively community-created.
Filmed entirely by fans and co-ordinated by Alex Gamble, this release saw the community fly in from around the world, donate technology, skill, and even airfare (fans raised money to send chaonatic, a valued taper, to the concert) to document the final performance of Nine Inch Nails' stunning 2008 tour. Over 200GB of footage was collected, which was meticulously edited together by a team comprising of people from all over the world. [more inside]
posted by hippybear
on Mar 5, 2010 -
17 comments
12 months, a core team of dozens (with a network of thousands) spanning 3 continents, 4 languages, 5 specialist teams, countless sleepless nights... It's finally here. Filmed in Sacramento, Portland, and Victoria by the Nine Inch Nails team, edited and produced by their fans, The Gift is a stunning work in 1080p High Definition video with 5.1 Surround Sound, multi-language subtitles, and artistically-driven ethics. [more inside]
posted by hippybear
on Dec 25, 2009 -
25 comments
40 years ago today, The Rolling Stones played two concerts at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. In the darkness of the audience was a man known to history only as
"Dub"...
[audio auto-plays] [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese
on Nov 9, 2009 -
13 comments
It's every young musician's dream: Quit this town, make it big and come back to show these squares! Well, tonight (and tomorrow)
Muse return home to
Teignmouth in Devon, England (pop. 15,116) to play two home-town, homecoming gigs.
[more inside]
posted by benzo8
on Sep 4, 2009 -
8 comments
There was a historic music festival in the summer of 1969. But it's not the one that took place in Bethel, NY. The
Harlem Cultural Festival ran from
June 29 to August 24 that summer, presenting a concert every Sunday afternoon in
Mount Morris Park (known today as Marcus Garvey Park).
Three hundred thousand people turned out for the
six free concerts, hearing acts like
Nina Simone , Sly & the Family Stone (the only act to play both Woodstock and the "black Woodstock"), Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, The 5th Dimension, Moms Mabley and. Speakers included Jesse Jackson and "blue-eyed soul brother" Mayor John Lindsay. Security was courtesy of the
Black Panthers, since the NYC police refused to provide it. Filmmaker Hal Tulchin recorded
over 50 hours of concert footage, which has remained unreleased.
Historic Films seems to hold the footage; it was supposed to be made into a movie to
premiere at Sundance 2007, but its
release seems to be continually delayed for reasons unclear.
[more inside]
posted by Miko
on Aug 20, 2009 -
19 comments
The stuff of legend, Van Halen's "No brown M&Ms" concert rider (most recently mentioned on MetaFilter
here) has made the rounds by word of mouth, and word of internet, for years. Now, the Van Halen 1982 World Tour backstage rider has been found. It consists of 53 typewritten pages and contains the M&Ms prohibition - which actually says
M & M's (WARNING: ABSOLUTELY NO BROWN ONES) - as well as other interesting demands, excerpted at The Smoking Gun.
Via.
posted by amyms
on Dec 12, 2008 -
91 comments
In 1982,
Steve Wozniak sank a lot of his own money into creating the
US Festivals -- the first large concerts to celebrate the
merging of music, technology (and money). For the second (and final) US Festival in 1983, Van Halen was given
1.5 million dollars, up front, to headline the
1983 US Festival. What did they give back to their fans?
Well, about eighty-four seconds into their first song, David Lee Roth screamed, "
I forgot the f@¢₭n' words!" Along with
a swipe at the Clash, the set that followed remains
evar a
drunken classic of
testosterone-
fueled pop metal campiness. About 3:20 into
this clip, DLR launches into his epic fail version of "God Bless the Child" -- 'nuff said.
posted by not_on_display
on Oct 10, 2008 -
36 comments
