Video: Neil Young - "Double Rainbow"

It's got nothing on the original (see below), but Neil clearly understands the emotional weight of seeing something so intense. All the way.

Via Thrasher's Wheat.

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MP3: Screaming Females - "I Don't Mind It" from Castle Talk, due September 14 on Don Giovanni.

Man, every new song I hear from this band is better than the previous one. Marissa Paternoster's vocals are becoming as powerful as her guitar playing. And the songwriting is so tight on this one. In a better world, "I Don't Mind It" would be a hit single and inspire tweeners everywhere to ask for guitars for their birthday. If the rest of the album is this good, we're in for a treat.

Screaming Females: iTunes, Amazon, Insound, wiki

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Jon Spencer rules. Eye Weekly recently asked the Blues Explosion man if he regrets wearing "rubber pants" in the 100-degree Chicago heat at the Pitchfork Festival. His response his classic Spencer:

No! I don't know what the fuck is up with these squares today. I'm in a rock 'n' roll band and I was there to play rock 'n' roll. I didn't go there to work on my tan or play hacky-sack. Jesus Christ, what's this world coming to? Everybody gets so upset about me trying to look good! I'm getting to be an old man, but I've got a job, and I'm going to do it the best I can. Fuck these squares.

Awesome. Spencer also points ramps up his feud with Chicago critic Jim DeRogatis ("this fucking asshole"), and I gotta say: I tend to get a kick out of DeRo's vitriol but in this case the dude is way off. To simply dismiss the Blues Explosion as "blackface parody" and "making fun of black music" is to virtually ignore the entire history of rock and roll. Spencer's oversized self-aggrandizement has certainly always been tongue-in-cheek, but to question his sincere love for the foundation of this music is preposterous and shameful.

Jon Spencer fucking is rock and roll, man! How can you fail to see that? Dang!

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: iTunes, Amazon, Insound, wiki

Photo by Jolie. See AMP's JSBX photos, too.

There was a scene sometime back where Don Draper is in an elevator with a woman and two dopes who are regaling in sexual conquests and fantasies about office girls. The woman is clearly uncomfortable with the conversation and Draper responds with a pointed but subtle gesture by telling one of the cads to remove his hat in the presence of a lady. He puts a fine point on it by removing the hat for him and shoving it into loud mouth's chest. It was what Mad Men creator Matt Weiner described as an illustration of "the coarsening of America" that took place as a bi-product of the liberated 1960s. From the looks of season four's premier, that coarsening has infected Mad Men itself.

Season Three ended shortly after the Kennedy assassination, putting it in late 1963. Given the fact that Don Draper is talking to an Advertising Age reporter about the crazy year his upstart agency has just had (culminating in what appears to be a ground breaking ad for Glo-Coat Floor Wax), we can guess that we're somewhere in 1964 or so. That means it's a Mod Mod Mod World and by the looks of the décor at the new Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce's headquarters, Manhattan has gone Pop Art.

Continue reading "Mad Men - Public Relations" »

MP3: Mark Olson - "Little Bird of Freedom" (feat. Jolie Holland) from Many Colored Kite, out now on Ryko.

The former Jayhawk and Creekdipper has a new solo album out. Olson recently talked to the Huffington Post:

"Little Bird Of Freedom" is a song about the things we start out in life, and what we hope to do and hope to become. What happens to us when those things don't work out for us, and how we adjust ourselves and keep going is the basic morality tale of the song. I worked it up on an electric guitar, but I messed around with it quite a bit over the course of a year.

Mark Olson: iTunes, Amazon, Insound, wiki

Dang, I was kidding a while ago about Eminem and Susan Boyle, but dude's looking unstoppable. I just read Spin's cover story on him, and now I'm going to have to listen to the album, I guess. Interesting character.

Speaking of interesting characters, does it surprise anybody (besides Glenn Peoples) that despite the non-stop internet chatter, a controversial New York Times Sunday magazine profile, and a very cool appearance on Letterman, M.I.A. has still failed to move more than 40,000 units over two weeks? Billboard 200:

1. Eminem - "Recovery" - 187,000 (down 4%; cume: 1,700,000)
2. Rick Ross - "Teflon Don" - 176,000 (debut)
3. Sheryl Crow - "100 Miles From Memphis" - 55,000 (debut)
4. Drake - "Thank Me Later" - 47,000 (down 6%)
5. "Kidz Bop 18" - 43,000 (debut)
6. Justin Bieber - "My World 2.0" - 39,000 (down 5%)
7. The Jonas Brothers - "Jonas L.A." soundtrack - 32,000 (debut)
8. "Now 34" - 27,000 (down 1%)
9. Lady Antebellum - "Need You Now" - 25,000 (down 8%)
10. Lady Gaga - "The Fame" - 24,000 (down 9%)

Continue reading "Eminem Goes 5 for 5 at No. 1" »

Mystery Jets - Serotonin (Rough Trade)

Blessed with a remarkable story, Mystery Jets seem like a band that you'd want to sign immediately after reading their bio before you've heard a note of their demo tape.

The backdrop features a boy with spina bifida, growing up in London with a caring father hell-bent on helping his son find a hobby that takes his mind away from the physical ailment while not being limited by it either. The son, Blaine Harrison, soon discovered that music was much more than a hobby; it became a passion. To facilitate this, his father helped with filling in the open slots until he eventually became a permanent member.

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Video: Superchunk - "In Beween Days"

This is just as good as you'd imagine it would be. Everybody loves Superchunk; everybody loves this song; the whole is just as good as the sum of its parts. So glad this band is back together and doing new stuff.

That AV Club Undercover series is pretty cool. Clem Snide's Eef Barzelay covered Journey's "Faithfully" and it's really touching.

Superchunk: iTunes, Amazon, Insound, wiki

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Carl Barat at the 100 Club
London, England, July 22, 2010

Carl started his twelve-song set with three new songs, including "Run The Boys," and followed them up with familiar Libertines and Dirty Pretty Things favorites. He spent much of the evening mingling with the crowd and the whole night had a friendly vibe in the legendary venue in the heart of London. The gig was arranged by Little Episodes who raise awareness for those suffering with addiction and depression.

The next time I will see Carl will be at Leeds where he will be reuniting with the Libertines...

Continue reading "Photos: Carl Barat Live at the 100 Club" »

Video: Karen Elson - "Pretty Babies"

The latest single from her debut album, The Ghost Who Walks, out now on XL. I like this song—especially the organ—almost as much as I like Elson's false eyelashes, but why do all the dudes in her band dress like White Stripes roadies?

Karen Elson: iTunes, Amazon, Insound, wiki

From a new post on Neil Young's N Y Times, we learn that work on the second volume of the Archives project is well underway. Volume 2 is said to contain "even more content than Volume 1, with many unreleased tracks." Included will be "rebuilt" versions of three unreleased studio albums: Chrome Dreams (1977), Homegrown (1975), and Oceanside-Countryside (???), as well as "Odeon-Budokan live." Before Volume 2 hits the shelves, all four of these albums will be "released in vinyl from analog masters as they originally were created for that format." Interesting...

Chrome Dreams and Homegrown are both fairly well documented with many of their songs trickling out across Zuma, American Stars 'N Bars, Rust Never Sleeps, Hawks & Doves, and Decade. Oceanside-Countryside is rumored to include the pre-overdub versions of material that ended up on Comes a Time.

Odeon-Budokan Live was a live Crazy Horse album produced by David Briggs and Tim Mulligan but never released. These shows from March 1976 in Japan and London were professionally filmed as well. See the complete set lists below...

Neil Young: iTunes, Amazon, Insound, wiki

Via ND.

Continue reading "Neil Young Hints at Archives Volume 2" »

Seeing Phish in Maryland at the Merriweather Post Pavilion got me thinking about one of my favorite musical topics: covers. And Phish is the master of the cover.

They are known for doing whole albums by other bands on Halloween. They've done Talking Heads's Remain in Light and Velvet Underground's Loaded. In 2009, they did Exile on Main Street. I'm not sure if this cover is from that night, but it's brilliant:

Follow the jump for a few more examples of inspired cover choices...

Continue reading "These covers smell Phishy" »