Ed. Note: Remember that whole “I’m only going to write about movies and TV” thing? Well, that embargo doesn’t account for my friends. Here is Puck Daddy and The Two-Line Pass‘s own Ryan Lambert’s review of Weezer’s concert in Boston last night, and his thoughts of the Memories tour in whole:
They played the songs in a detached-but-slavishly-faithful sort of way, with one exception. In the middle of the second set’s eighth song, “In the Garage.” In it, Weezer frontman/mastermind/arguable-band-ruiner Rivers Cuomo made one slight shift in inflection, putting a little extra oomph behind the word “stupid.” As in, “I sing these stupid songs.”
And that’s really all you need to know about Weezer’s Memories tour.
The Thermals, a Portland, Oregon-based rock three piece, exploded onto the indie rock scene in 2006. Their album, “The Body, The Blood, The Machine” took Pitchfork and its denizens by storm, which isn’t much of a shower. It;s a lo-fi, straight-ahead rocker that is catchy (but not too catchy) and stands as a missive to the George W. Bush White House and its startling predilection to mix religion and government. They take this battle righteously, the music churning along as if they’re on a mission from God to set the record straight. Their latest album, Personal Life, takes a step back from such big-picture themes and turns towards introspection, losing some ferocity in the trade-off. It’s an odd conceit as they already accomplished melding a personal story with a rollicking sound on their fantastic 2009 album, Now We Can See.
I can finally sleep soundly. Li’l Wayne has FINALLY been released from Rikers. And it’s not a day too soon! Someone this clearly innocent shouldn’t have to spend a day in jail. I mean, have you even HEARD Tha Carter III, greater courts of the state of New York? Clearly you haven’t. The only thing this man is guilty of is having a silky-smooth flow and some odd, distorted voice thing in studio. And drinking syrup. And getting caught with a gun and some coke and some ecstasy. Read more of this post
This weekend’s mix comes from my pal Erik, an all around music guy. He is an active musician, actively creating songs for FAWM each year, as well as tons of stuff I have no idea how to access. A graduate from NYU he is a certified studio engineer, traveling across America to record various artists. With help from his brother, he was listening to Doolittle and Primus before I ever bought my first two cds (The Lion King soundtrack and Salt N’ Pepa – Very Necessary) so he kinda knows his shit.
His mix, entitled “The Act You’ve Known for All These Years,” is a little bit of a musical education as well as a sneak peek into the dark, twisted art of music sampling. This hour-long .mp3 is a collection of the original songs that were sampled to make contemporary hits. You can download it by clicking this link. A complete track list and synopsis of who took what is after the jump.
And remember – this only achieves total heaviosity if y’all get involved, too. It’s a one hour long .mp3 with a common theme (“Songs that remind me of Thursday” “Down” “Wet” “The Best Before Weezer Sucked Ass”). You can use Garage Band, the free Audacity, anything you like. Make the file, upload it to mediafire, and email it to me (kingmanton at gmail) with a track listing and maybe yooouuu could have a featured mix some weekend. Come share your awesome musical taste with a relatively decent-sized audience! Read more of this post
In the long, long ago–back before this blog had a gimmick, if one can imagine–I succumbed to itemizing the best music over the last decade. Because all the cool kids all do it it’s always fun to find out what ten songs hit people the most over the previous decade; “the best” is impossible. And in doing so, you figure out if you’ve missed something vitally important along the way. Yeah, for a publication like Rolling Stone it’s some sort of coronation but when you have friends with similar tastes, it’s essentially a gimmick that leads you to good music in the end. Either songs of haven’t before or haven’t heard in a while, it’ll affect you in some way. Or to turn your nose up to them from that point forward. Y’know, whatever.
You can find the lists here. But one list that was never posted came from my friend Erik, who is contributing to tomorrow’s edition of Mixtape Weekend. No big deal…if it wasn’t probably the best written of the group. You, dear readers, who have no one to blame but myself. I got lazy and kept pushing it off until it was February, and then kind of besides the point. But now, in the interest of sharing music (and in October), here is his list. It rules. Tune in for his equally-awesome mixtape tomorrow. Without further ado, here’s my pal Erik’s Top Ten of the Decade: Read more of this post
All songs in this hour-long mix has the letter “b” as the first letter in the artist’s name, the title of the song, or is a cut from an album that starts with the letter “b.” Yes, I know, rocket science. But I did throw in some other rules. Any artists’ name is just the last letter, so there goes Bob Dylan, and no “The” before a B. It’s a B to kick it off or nothing, folks. I also unabashedly threw in some hits, so it should be a fun–if a bit sonically chaotic–experience. You can listen to it here, if you’re so inclined.
As always, the track list is after the jump, just in case you want to play “guess the song.” Read more of this post
I’m fairly certain I’m completely out of the loop. Apparently this great video from the Henson Company came out last year and I never saw or heard of it (despite the 16 million other views it received). Saw it for the first time this week and thought hey, maybe the rest of you missed this banner event as well. So watch many Muppets singing Bohemian Rhapsody, in a way only they could. For the record, Animal’s part is by far my favorite.
Ok all, thanks for a great week. Hope this video will wash away the multiple posts on That Guy and That Piece Of His Anatomy. Come back this weekend for a mixtape that I’ve spent HOURS slaving over JUST FA’ YOU! Now I’ll get back to anxiously awaiting for my Criterion Collection The Darjeeling Limited Blu-Ray to come in the mail. Expect a gigundo piece on that brilliant film sometime next week, methinks. Other than that, be well folks, and see you Monday with a fresh post.
Hello all! Y’know, as we move in to this weekend, right before Columbus Day, we think back to how foreigners came over to this land, raped the land and killed the original inhabitants, and created the Freedom land we enjoyed today. Right?
Well, either way, let’s just stay focused on “foreigners” for the moment. My friend Rich, a Brit (and Villa fan…ugh), was the first one to got us started on this mixtape idea, and his first effort was a great mix of 90s alt-rock by Europeople who weren’t Oasis or Radiohead. So, essentially, I got an hour of great music mixed with a European history lesson. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted from High School.
You can get the mix by clicking here. The track list is again hidden after the jump in case you want to play “guess how many songs on this I know.” Enjoy and have a great weekend, folks! See you on Tuesday. Read more of this post
As a young scamp, I grew up on a healthy diet of 1960s rock, from the Beatles to Derek and the Dominoes and, of course, The Kinks. Unfortunately, I only get a taste of the Kinks Triumvirate: “You Really Got Me,” “All Day, And All of the Night,” and “Lola.” They were wonderful uptempo, catchy rockers, and exclusively the only three songs of the band they’d play on radio. The first two are deceivingly simple, hard driving, just straight up rockin’ songs. Everyone knows that opening riff to “You Really Got Me.” It’s damn near the epitome of rock and roll!
And then “Lola” which is just so catchy. You’re five or six, and saying “lo-lo-lo-lola” is just so darn fun. And you’re singing about this girl named Lola and things are great, and a memory is implanted in your brain about that fun catchy song about that girl. Throughout your life, you’ll hear it in the background on the radio, and whimsically think back to those innocent times as a child, singing about “c-o-l-a cola” and not having a worry in the world. Oh those halcyon days of youth.
Let’s say, twenty years pass. You grow up, get The Kinks’ “Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround Pt. 1″ put some headphones on and sit back to enjoy this incredible album. “Oh,” you realize, “Lola’s on here! I haven’t heard that song in forever!” After waiting for the track to almost magically pop up, the guitar intro begins, and all is right with the world. It just feels like…home. In your happiness, you even mouth the “cola” part, smiling. You continue to listen past the opening and all of a sudden the song you always thought you knew is changed forever.
Because you realize about a full verse in that this song is ABSOLUTELY about a trannie.
Not in some opaque, “brooo you have to LISTEN to the song to really understand the feeeeeeling” way. Blatantly, pointedly about a man dressed as a woman. There is honestly no mistaking it. Plain as day, song about a dude dressed as a woman. The mind spins. “How could I have missed this?” “At what point was I not intelligent enough to simply listen to this song and put two and two together?” Much like re-watching a movie you loved as a child as an adult and realizing you didn’t get half the jokes, it’s just a total mind blowing experience (my example: Major League - the manager PISSES ON DORN’S CONTRACT! That wasn’t on USA Network!).
So please, enjoy Lola above, and if you didn’t realize before, realize it now: The Davies boys are singing about a dude, the entire song, which really makes the song’s massive popularity 3000X times better and the ditty itself a whole lot more fun and ridiculous.
It’s a helluva time to be a fan of music, isn’t it? There have never been more avenues to get new albums, hear new bands, got obsessed about new songs, and there is a never-ending number of them just coming down the pipe. With this gigantic, DIY-powered movement, there are less and less places to find music. MTV relegates it to throwing it into their terrible, mindless shows (save for Fantasy Factory, which rules…seriously) with the catchiest 30 seconds and a crawl at the bottom notifying you of artist, song title, and that you can absolutely purchase it on rhapsody.com. Radio is a joke, as I’ve heard “new songs” by The Black Keys (Tighten Up), Broken Bells (The High Road) and Mumford and Sons (Little Lion Man) for the last five straight months, thereby negating the fact that they’re “new.” The internet is full of sites and blogs that can point you in that direction (such as Track No. 17) but it’s tough to pin point one of them and hone in on it.
So why not throw my hat into the ring with the help of my musically-inclined friends? Every weekend, we’re going to feature one mixtape from people I know and who have great taste in music. Each mix will be no longer than an hour long and feature a single theme, be it break-up music, fall songs, etc. You’re more than welcome to join in on the fun – email me a single mp3 uploaded to a file sharing site like mediafire or zshare, give me a track listing, and maybe it’ll show up in this very space! I know, dreams DO come true! My email is listed on the top right on the site.
Today’s inaugural mixtape comes from my pal nate. At the behest of our friend Rich, nate made a couple of danceable 90s alt-rock mixes, the latest of which I’ll share with you. Some of it’s pretty mainstream, some…not so much. Either way, here’s the link to the file. We try to do a game where you guess the track list, so I’ll throw that in after the break if you want to play along as well. Read more of this post
The latest @ThisAmerLife is devastating, a truly remarkable account on the best and worst of humanity. Stunning story, excellently reported 4 hours ago
