"Beautiful Sunrises" is a pretty good litmus test for whether or not you like music for reasons I can get behind. If you don't appreciate "Beautiful Sunrises" as a unique and untempered piece of genuine expression, then you probably like a lot of bullshit music.
If I could spend five minutes of my life as completely into something as the vocalist of Complete is about being the vocalist of Complete, well then I'd think I had reached some sort of life accomplishment pinnacle.
-
Steve Albini (quote via this electrical audio thread) [more inside]
posted by anazgnos
on Nov 17, 2008 -
135 comments
Love Story: the 2006 documentary about the obscure, semi-legendary 60s L.A. psychedelic band Love, and its leader Arthur Lee. One week only on Pitchfork.TV
previously 2001 and 2006 [more inside]
posted by msalt
on Oct 24, 2008 -
38 comments
It's not so often that a US Top 40 chart hit is a song whose origins can be traced back 300 years, and even less often that such a song would be sung in Spanish. So when
Ritchie Valens went into a studio and recorded
La Bamba 50 years ago this month, he carved himself what would become a special place in American pop music history. It was one of those cases of the B side becoming the hit, though: the A side was
Oh Donna, which showcased a sweeter, croonier side of Valens (singing in English), but was a somewhat unremarkable tune on its own. Here's a
live recording of La Bamba by Valens, who, of course, along with rock'n'roll legend Buddy Holly, lost his life in an airplane crash just as his career was blossoming. Almost 30 years after
La Bamba's original release,
a version by Valens' natural heirs Los Lobos became a hit once again. And, admittedly, I didn't make it through the entire clip, but it's perhaps worth noting, for the record, that a
Barack Obama-related version is available for your listening and viewing, er, pleasure?
[more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Oct 15, 2008 -
44 comments
Concert promoter LiveDaily has an acoustic live sessions program (video starts playing). It's been running since March of this year and so far 33 artists have performed:
Priscilla Ahn,
The Raveonettes,
Black Lips,
Paddy Casey,
Dawn Landes,
Lykke Li,
The Duke Spirit,
Frightened Rabbit,
Foreign Born,
The Dodos,
The Virgins,
Radar Bros.,
Langhorne Slim,
Shwayze,
Joseph Arthur,
Missy Higgins,
Wild Sweet Orange,
Le Switch,
Deadly Syndrome,
Steve Poltz,
Weather Underground,
Imaad Wasif,
Rogue Wave,
David Ford,
Takka Takka,
Black Ghosts,
The Airborne Toxic Event,
Tally Hall,
Lionel Loueke,
Calico Horse,
Rademacher,
Judith Owen and
Carrie Rodriguez
posted by Kattullus
on Sep 30, 2008 -
10 comments
The Guardian has compiled a list of their
top fifty arts videos, the majority being from either rare or obscure sources and uploaded onto YouTube.
posted by djgh
on Aug 30, 2008 -
13 comments
Surely one of the most memorable musician photos ever is this one:
Johnny Cash, making his feelings known with customary aplomb. But did you ever notice he was wearing a jumpsuit in that photo, and not his more standard black shirt/trousers ensemble? Well,
that very jumpsuit just went for a handsome $120,000 at auction. Someone else just paid $300,000 for one of Elvis'
peacock-emblazoned jumpsuits. And remember that little
necklace John Lennon wore on the cover of
Two Virgins? Yep, the
only thing he wore. Fetched a cool $528,000. Meanwhile, in Japan, a
bunch of grapes just went for $910. What a bargain!
[more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Aug 11, 2008 -
21 comments
For Those Who Tried To Rock is a blog about the bands that never went anywhere, for example.
Urbicide,
The Tribulations and
Only One. The band photos are usually accompanied by mp3s and short testimonies, such as this one about
Soft Option: "Flock of Seagulls owned Liverpool when we came together but we were really Depeche Mode fans. Trouble was, we only had one Synth – the Roland pictured above – so on the more complicated songs we covered like Everything Counts (see cassette below) I had to play parts on a Melodica – the small keyboard you blow into. It was my Mother's idea. We went to an all boys school, so the gigs were boys only, which meant we did not get laid but the nights we played were some of the greatest of my adolescence."
[via Carrie Brownstein's Monitor Mix]
posted by Kattullus
on Jun 5, 2008 -
50 comments
Legendary artist Alton Kelley created a graphic style that rocked the world beginning in the psychedelic sixties. His
concert posters, logo designs, LP album covers, and fine art have forevermore defined that time.
Kelley passed away peacefully at home on Sunday, June 1, 2008 of complications from a long illness.
posted by terrapin
on Jun 2, 2008 -
18 comments
A founding father of DIY indie rock, Will Rigby recounts the pilgrimages to locate underground rock legends
Alex Chilton, (during his wry Americana deconstructo anarchy phase), and the 'McCartney' to Chilton's Big Star 'Lennon', the Brydsian Chris Bell. Blogs on bands may not seem to rate but cats with these sensibilities, unlike today, seemed incredibly uncommon then . Also mentioned, the Dbs, Little Diesel, and Mitch Easter. Free Mp3s of the rare 45s included.
posted by celerystick
on May 2, 2008 -
12 comments
This week I've been perseverating on Chuck Berry's great 1964 song "You Never Can Tell", so now you get to too! Unless you're over 50, you probably know it from the
Thurman/Travolta dance in
Pulp Fiction, but here are some other versions worthy of your attention:
[more inside]
posted by ubiquity
on Feb 10, 2008 -
14 comments
The best music of 2007 according to
Stereogum, Pitchfork, All Music, NME, PopMatters, The A.V. Club, Rolling Stone, TIME, MTV, the Guardian, eMusic, Amazon, Spin Magazine, Q, Largehearted Boy, and
more. Among the most frequently listed are
Radiohead, Spoon, Arcade Fire, Of Montreal, Feist, and
The National.
posted by Soup
on Dec 18, 2007 -
68 comments
