"Whether writing as herself, or through one of the many voices she heard in her head, Previn's sinister riverboat chansons revealed the pain, games, lies and loneliness behind the L.A. free love myth. 1971's Mythical Kings And Iguanas was, perhaps, the peak point of Previn's eerily confessional style containing the searingly honest
Lemon Haired Ladies and
The Lady With The Braid, both of which recount encounters between young men and single older women in chilling detail. Her third album, Reflections In A Mud Puddle was a concept album based upon her life with her father, and contained the astonishing
Doppelganger, a Weillian Sympathy For The Devil in which the world's evils are found to lurk in all of us. "
Singer-Songwriter Dory Previn has died. (
previously on Metafilter).
posted by The Whelk
on Feb 22, 2012 -
13 comments
Day at Night was an interview series on the public television station of the City University of New York that aired from 1973-4. CUNY TV is in the process of digitizing and uploading the 130 episodes that were produced, with 46 done so far. The episodes are just under half an hour in length. Among the people interviewed by host James Day are author
Ray Bradbury, actress
Myrna Loy, medical researcher
Jonas Salk, singer
Cab Calloway, writer
Christopher Isherwood, nuclear scientist
Edward Teller, comedian
Victor Borge, tennis player
Billie Jean King, linguist and activist
Noam Chomsky, composer
Aaron Copland, actor
Vincent Price and boxer
Muhammad Ali.
posted by Kattullus
on Jan 16, 2012 -
6 comments
After Kad & Olivier sign off and the Satisfaction production logo fades, viewing audiences are oftentimes treated to a cold open of an empty talk show set... one that quickly becomes the impromptu dance floor for a shameless Frenchman making an absolute giddy fool of himself while lip-syncing pop songs alongside a menagerie of...
wait, *what*?! That's right.
The Late Late Show's Craig Ferguson appears to have
a not-so-secret French admirer -- one who's not above ripping off both his opening titles and
his signature dance sequences (including
the iconic animal puppets):
"ABC" by The Jackson 5,
"Flashdance" by Irene Cara,
"On the Floor" by Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull,
"Waka Waka" by Shakira,
"Men in Black" by Will Smith,
"Let's All Chant" by the Michael Zager Band,
"Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by Wham!,
"It's Raining Men" by The Weather Girls, and
"Vive Le Vent (Jingle Bells)" by Tino Rossi.
Luckily, Ferguson's sense of showmanship is
more prodigious than litigious -- he responded to Arthur's "
homáge" by booking a pair of translatlantic crossover shows, with Arthur visiting LA that week and Ferguson flying out to Paris just last month. Video of both shows (plus lots more) inside!
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Jul 11, 2011 -
12 comments
BLVR: This is all a pretty analytical approach to improvisation, where I think a lot of people consider Phish’s music to be just “made up on the spot.”
TA: We’re the most analytical band, in some ways. We’d talk and talk for hours about this stuff. I see improvisation as a craft and as an art. The craft part is important. There’s a lot of preparation and discipline that goes into it just so that, when you’re in the moment, you’re not supposed to be thinking at all.
The Believer - Interview with Trey Anastasio
posted by lemuring
on Jul 2, 2011 -
41 comments
Legendary hip hop producer DJ Premier interviewed in
the XXL Icon Interview and
The Smoking Section. Remarkably candid conversations about his life in East Coast hip hop, with interesting stories about his work with Jay-Z, Biggie, Puff, Nas, Jeru the Damaga, Group Home, Suge Knight, Christina Aguilera and of course, Guru. On finding records to sample:
"Well, there’s still diggin’ spots. If you’re in that world like I am, you know the spots, you see everybody—Just Blaze, Alchemist, Large Professor, Pete Rock—we still pop up in those spots. You got Big City records, you got Turntable Lab, you still have A1, you got Academy, you know. I’m not gonna tell you all the digging spots."
posted by the mad poster!
on Dec 20, 2010 -
11 comments
"I was listening to the radio and it’s one of those moments where you have to stop what you’re doing and pay full attention.”
Dory Previn, met composer
Andre' Previn while working in MGM's music dept. in the 1960s. They collaborated on movie music such as
"A Second Chance" and
"Valley Of The Dolls". Andre' divorced Dory in 1969 to marry Mia Farrow. Following this, Dory Previn recorded six original
albums known for their
wit and
confessional tone. Dory Previn unofficially retired in 1976 and has been reluctant to give interviews. However, she released a free online album,
Planet Blue in 2002. She gave a
rare interview to the Times in February. She talked about her influences and meeting Howard Hughes with
Bernadette Cahill in 2005.
posted by The Whelk
on Dec 3, 2008 -
6 comments
For the last year, the Vice TV program
Soft Focus has presented an assortment of
"discussions about art, culture, politics, personal history, personal feelings, fashion, and the like" with a series of noteworthy musicians. Host Ian Svenonius manages to wrangle dialogue with of some of the music world's most colorful and idiosyncratic characters: The Fall's
Mark E. Smith, My Bloody Valentine's
Kevin Shields, The Happy Mondays'
Shaun Ryder, Crass'
Penny Rimbaud, Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV's
Genesis P. Orridge, Cat Power's
Chan Marshall, Thee Headcoats'
Billy Childish, The Specials'
Terry Hall,
Andrew WK, Fugazi's
Ian Mackaye, and Palace/Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's
Will Oldham.
[more inside]
posted by item
on Jan 27, 2008 -
21 comments
Frank Zappa - The Gigantic Spoken Word Project. Numerous volumes of a very large collection of Frank Zappa spoken word releases.
They consist of radio interviews and journalist reporter type personal interviews. During the radio interviews sometimes music was played as background or added before the broadcast in between questions and answers. Sometimes FZ acts as D.J., plays records from his collection and talks to the radio audience. But the main focus of this series is FZ interviews which to me is as interesting as his music. (Just a quick warning; the download mechanism is a tad annoying)
posted by KevinSkomsvold
on Jul 5, 2007 -
6 comments
On May 14th, 1967, the new British pop group The Pink Floyd makes one of their first ever TV appearances. Despite a stellar performance of the song Astronomy Domine, the pretentious host of the show, Hans Keller, has nothing good to say about the band. During the
interview (youtube, performance comes first, interview starts about 5:50 in.
transcript here.), he chastises the band for their "continuous repetition", "terribly loud" volume, and their "proportionately a bit boring" sound.
However, it seems that all Hans' show will ever be remembered for is
this single interview. Pink Floyd, on the other hand.. Well, we all know what happened to
them. Syd Barrett, on the other hand,
was not so lucky.
posted by Afroblanco
on May 29, 2006 -
67 comments
Culture Catch is an online "magazine" featuring vid and podcasts of musicians such as Mark Kozelek, American Music Club, Les Paul and Tony Visconti. Plus: Todd McFarlane, Sir Richard Branson, Henry Rollins, Gisele, David Cronenberg and more.
posted by edlundart
on Mar 30, 2006 -
7 comments
Random Rules , a new[ish] feature of
the Onion: A.V. Club. They ask a rocker/writer/comedian/whatever to set their MP3 player to "shuffle" and comment on the first few tracks that come up. This probably could have been very
boring, but it actually ended up kind of interesting. See
Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse call Belle and Sebastian a “one-fuckin'-trick pony”. Enjoy
David Cross waxing poetic about R.E.M.’s
Murmur. From the main link, read the description of the raw sexual chemistry that existed between David Berman of the Silver Jews and the actress that played Ginger on Gilligan's Island.
posted by ND¢
on Mar 1, 2006 -
137 comments
"The iPod’s a great product. However our experience in dealing with them, as regards licensing music for iTunes, has been quite depressing."
Coldcut member and indie label
Ninja Tune co-founder Matt Black in a pixelsurgeon
interview about the new album, the relative relaxation on sample licensing, and iTunes. For another independent perspective on iTunes see
The 99c Question - addressing the pressures on iTunes from major labels to raise prices.
posted by nthdegx
on Feb 2, 2006 -
21 comments
"The early bird may get the worm. But the second mouse gets the cheese."
Willie Nelson in New York. An Adam Gopnik profile.
posted by semmi
on Oct 1, 2002 -
11 comments