Photo by Steve Cross
First of all, I can’t even explain how awesome the Those Darlins album release show was saturday night. They TORE IT UP! Go look at the tons of pics I took, and read the great review over at Nashville Cream. NOW. Then go check out the new Lake Fever Session featuring Hung Up On Me, Snaggletooth Mama, and DUI or Die.
Something else that blew my mind: reading that MGMT will be opening for Paul McCartney for two dates at Fenway Park in Boston. One year ago if you had told me MGMT would be opening for Paul McCartney I’d have laughed in your face. What a difference a year makes… (Via Brooklyn Vegan)
Spoon have been in the studio again, and already have new material coming out in form of an EP called Got Nuffin. Stereogum posted a link to Amazon this morning where you could stream it, but for some reason Amazon has since taken that down. No matter, it’s always good to hear new Spoon material. They have the uncanny ability to just keep on making good music, and they don’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.
For your daily eye-gasm, take a look at the Boston Globe’s Big Picture blog. I’ve linked to this blog several times before, as well as posted photos from the International Space Station, but I challenge you to ever tire of such beautiful imagery, because you can’t. Today’s post includes the image I posted last week of the Russian volcano, along with 34 others. Feast your eyes.
The Spirit and Opportunity twin rovers that have been operating on Mars for a mind-blowing 5 years now are starting to show their age. Spirit has been stuck in some sandy dirt for a couple of weeks and engineers are having quite a time trying to get her free. They’ve even created a website called “Free Spirit” to chronicle the progress being made. Basically, they have to take different types of dirt from earth and blend them together to simulate the martian soil as closely as possible, then build a dummy replica of the rover and try to position it exactly how the real rover is positioned in the dirt. No one at NASA ever dreamed that these 2 rovers would last this long (the original mission plan was for only a few months!) so it’s not a huge loss if they can’t get her free. At least Opportunity is still in good shape.
Weekend shows/New Mew/Zooey Deschanel
June 26, 2009
It’s been a while since I mentioned Zooey Deschanel on here. With her new movie 500 Days of Summer coming out July 17th, what better time than now? I was quite pleased to find a She & Him covers of The Smiths’ Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want on Stereogum this morning. Her beautiful voice is a perfect fit for the song and I honestly can’t stop listening to it. Go please your ears and stream it now. Also, at the bottom of that post is a video of ZD and Joseph Gordon-Levitt talking to each other about karaoke.
Also on Stereogum this morning was a brand spankin’ new Mew track, Repeaterbeater. And this one is downloadable! I’m definitely looking forward to the new Mew album, but I really don’t feel like typing out the album title because it’s a frickin’ poem.
The A.V. Club reports that Big Boi is promising a new Outkast album in the near future…. I’m not holding my breath though.
This kind of cracked me up, then made me sad… apparently a Bolivian TV station was fooled into airing scenes from LOST as footage from the French flight 447 crash in the Atlantic Ocean. Really? I have a hard time even pitying someone so gullible. Via Kottke.
Dave Paulson did a great write-up of Those Darlins in the Tennessean, as did Sean Maloney in the Scene. Speaking of Those Darlins, that’s where I’ll be saturday night taking pics, at their album release show at Mercy Lounge with the Black Lips.
Other weekend fun-to-be-had:
As I mentioned yesterday, I’ll be doing the photobooth at Happy Valley tonight at Aerial. Obviously the other big news for tonight is How I Became the Bomb+Kindercastle+string section covering ELO’s Out of the Blue in its entirety live at Mercy Lounge. You should probably be at one of these two places tonight. Or go to Mercy and then come to Happy Valley afterward… cuz that shit goes till 230 or 3am!
Oh, and R.I.P. King of Pop.
This is really one of the most random/bizarre things I’ve seen in a while. Apparently Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin joined with Snoop Dogg and some other rappers on a song called “Rocket Experience.” No, that’s not a typo. Buzz Aldrin collaborated with Snoop. On a song in which he actually raps. Well… I guess you could call it rapping… The video is up on Funny or Die. Be sure to watch the “making of” video too. I don’t even know what to make of it, but it’s entertaining to say the least. Grab the song off iTunes, because they’re donating part of the sales to the ShareSpace Foundation. Today’s kids need a lot more science in their lives. Via Universe Today.
Of Montreal does a lot of cover songs live, but this time they’ve taken it to the studio covering Prince’s “Computer Blue.” Grab it over at You Ain’t No Picasso.
The future of architecture is here. It’s extremely hard to believe, but bendable concrete has indeed been invented. Not only is the stuff bendable, but it heals its own cracks too! Basically it’s all in the chemistry- when a crack occurs, the newly exposed dry concrete then reacts with the CO2 and moisture in the air to create calcium carbonate which acts just like scar tissue on skin, and the crack fills. I can see this being used in earthquake-prone areas and literally making the buildings almost completely quake-proof. Absolutely ridiculous. Via EcoGeek.
Mountaintop removal mining is literally a crime. I applaud the 100’s of dedicated citizens who have made their way to the West Virginia and Kentucky mountains to stage civil disobedience sit-ins. Yesterday NASA climate scientist James Hansen was arrested in one of the sit-ins, along with actress Daryl Hannah. I hope more celebrity and other high-profile people are willing to be arrested to help save these beautiful mountains and the planet. This is only one small part of the over-arching coal problem. The sooner we can stop using coal to generate power, the better. It’s absolutely filthy and despite what the commercials tell you, there’s no such thing as “clean coal.” It’s an oxymoron and here’s why. That’s probably the only thing on which I disagree with Obama. No coal-burning plant in America is “clean,” even though lots of research has been done on the technology. That’s because it’s expensive and impractical. Coal is not renewable. We’ll eventually run out of it just like we’ll eventually run out of oil (it’s all dead dinosaurs afterall!), so why the hell waste money and time trying to make it “clean?” We need to be putting ALL of our efforts toward 100% renewable sources of energy NOW, and say goodbye to fossil fuels FOREVER.
God Help the Girl/Moon probe/eruption photo
June 23, 2009
After hearing 1 track from Belle & Sebastian frontmant Stuart Murdoch’s new soundtrack God Help the Girl, I’m totally sold on getting it. Check out this A.V. Club review of this soundtrack for his yet-to-be-filmed musical of the same title. I think I’m gonna fall in love with this album/soundtrack based on the review and listening to the new version of the single Funny Little Frog from B&S’s last album. I’ll let you know once I have it. I foresee a trip to Grimey’s in my near future to pick up both that and the Those Darlins album. Speaking of them… the track Red Light Love has just been posted over at Nashville Cream. Go grab it.
I’ve been a little lacking in the science department lately, so here’s a good chunk of science news and goodness for you.
NASA just launched a probe bound for the moon. The mission is called LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter), and its purpose is to check for frozen water on the surface or just below it, as well as more accurately map the surface. This is all to help us better prepare for our eventual permanent base on the moon. More at Space.com.
Virgin Galactic is hard at work building the much-anticipated Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert. Check out the website for some cool renderings of what it will look like.
This bit of news has been floating around for at least a week now, but it’s still pretty significant and worth posting. We now have absolute, rock-solid evidence of an ancient lake on Mars. We’ve been pretty damn sure water once flowed on the surface of Mars for at least 5 years now, but this latest observation of an ancient shoreline by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has erased all doubt. The Daily Galaxy has more on this, as well as this eye-gasm of a photograph taken from the International Space Station as it passed over Sarychev Volcano while it was erupting on June 12th:
Next Big Nashville 09/New Order/Blur
June 17, 2009
I guess the biggest news today is that the reunited Blur finally played some shows recently in the UK, and the announcement that 3 members of New Order have joined with Blur bassist Alex James to form a new band called Bad Lieutenant. More on that story at Brooklyn Vegan.
I’m a little late in posting about this, but if you’re a Nashville band (or actually, any band, really) you can now submit to play the 4th annual Next Big Nashville festival/conference being held this October 7-11. This year’s festival is now open to any band, from any city, though according to their blog, a Nashville connection does help:
“While NBN is obviously focused on shining a spotlight on artists from the area, our submission process is open to artists from anywhere (that means you Iceland!). A Nashville connection certainly helps, but our event is about a celebration of the creative center that is Music City, and much like the party our Austin friends throw every year in March, everyone is invited.”
I’m glad they ditched the rip-off scheme that is Sonicbids in favor of this submission form through American Songspace. I’m definitely looking forward to this year’s festival!
Right off the heels of his big success with The Wrestler, Darren Aronofsky is working on a film adaptation The Black Swan. While I’m unfamiliar with this book, the story sounds intriguing and the idea of Aronofsky working with Natalie Portman makes it a must-see in my opinion. Via Kottke.
NASA had to postpone the launch of Endeavour until July 11 at the earliest. The same hydrogen leak popped up again as they were filling the external tank for launch this morning.
Bonnaroo slideshows/Monsters of folk/etc…
June 16, 2009
Photo by Steve Cross
I’m slowly getting back enough will power to blog again. I was so drained by Bonnaroo that I just didn’t feel like posting yesterday. You can see all of my photo slideshows at the Scene’s website. There are a ton of them, so plan out some time if you want to actually see them all. I guess the best parts of it for me were getting approved to photograph Springsteen (only 20 photogs out of the 100 or so got approved), and also getting to photograph the last Nine Inch Nails show in the U.S. Ever.
Honestly though, I must say the biggest surprise for me came from Raphael Saadiq. The former member of Tony! Toni! Tone! released a solo album late last year called The Way I See It and you can bet that I’ll be grabbing it a soon as possible. His music is nothing like the early 90’s jock-jams that TTT was known for. This is a throwback to the R&B sounds of the 60’s. I haven’t heard the full album yet, but as my friend and fellow Scene freelancer Sean Maloney put it during our drive back, “…it sounds like it could’ve come straight outta Detroit in 1967.” Their cover of the Stooges’ Search & Destroy officially blew my mind.
On to some non-Bonnaroo stuff:
Conor Oberst, Jim James, and M. Ward have finally released details of their collaborative album called Monsters of Folk. Yea, the named is kinda weird, but let’s hope the actual songs are better. It would be hard to go wrong with such a powerful combination of musicians, but it wouldn’t be the first time a “supergroup” failed to even equal the sum of its parts. Via A.V. Club
Apparently Steven Spielberg is taking his love of aliens to the networks. I read in this io9 article that he’s currently working on the new unnamed T.V. series and has tapped ER’s Noah Wyle for the star role. Check the article for more deets.
Ironic Sans isn’t updated very often, but when it is, it’s almost always something clever and intriguing. His latest post details an idea for solving the problem of that pesky mess of cables behind your T.V./entertainment center. Answer- make the whole wall out of outlets.
This is old news, but NASA delayed the launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour on Saturday due to a Hydrogen leak. They’ve rescheduled the launch for tomorrow at 5:40am EDT. UGH. That’s 4:40am my time. If you’re crazy and want to get up early enough to watch the coverage, you can do so at NASA TV.
The fine folks over at Nashvillest have attempted to top their famous reader-submitted “CMA Bingo” game this year by having a submission contest for this year’s. By the time you read this the contest will have closed, but look on Nashvillest.com tomorrow to see the winner. I don’t know if anyone can top last year’s though:
Some quick science tidbits before I get into my “rant”….
The Japanese Kayuga probe has been orbiting/studying the moon since 2007 and will make a controlled impact on the lunar surface today. No, it’s not landing, it’s actually going to crash into the surface at full orbital velocity. In other words, it’s going to make a crater. It’s done its duty, so might as well go out with a bang eh?
Remember when I told you about project VORTEX 2? A quick refresher- it’s a huge team of scientists that are currently chasing tornadoes out in the plains to gather data and improve on warning systems/prediction. Actually I think it ended today. But they did capture one piece of truly phenomenal footage when a twister they were filming turned/roped sideways and gave their videographer a view straight down the throat of the funnel. Check it out here. Absolutely amazing! Via Live Science.
Fair warning: I’m about to rant on something. But it’s very much worth ranting on.
As you know if you’ve read this blog before, I’m a photographer for the Nashville Scene. Last year I covered Bonnaroo for them and this year I’m doing it again, only this time my photos will be used across most of the blogs and papers owned by Village Voice Media. Photo contracts are quite commonplace at concerts involving big-name artists/bands. Bonnaroo, being the biggest festival in the country, is obviously no exception. They have a blanket contract that photographers have to sign in order to cover the festival at all. Last year its was a pretty basic contract just limiting the usage of your photos to whatever specific publication or wire service the photographer was shooting for. Without any kind of contract, legally a photographer can sell his/her images of a band or artist’s performance to any agency or news publication without a model release from the people in the photos because that is considered editorial usage, which is different from commercial usage (which requires a model release from anyone in the photo). In recent years, as the music industry has crumbled due to its unwillingness to adapt to technology, labels and artist management firms have introduced what are known as “rights-grabbing” contracts that get shoved in a photographer’s face right before they go in to photograph a show. These contracts have gotten more and more outrageous in the last few years, and this year I got my first taste of a full copyright-grabbing contract. I won’t say which artist/s I’m referring to, but suffice it to say that there are a few specific artists every year at Bonnaroo that have a separate contract than the overall festival photo contract, and they also have a restricted list of photographers who will be allowed to photograph them. This year there were 4 that did this. (So far I’ve been approved for 3 of them.) This particular artist’s contract stated that I would have to turnover the full image rights to the label, and that the images could be used only once for the specific publication I was shooting for. After that, the label would then own the images and wouldn’t have to pay me a dime for them. Furthermore, this meant that the label could then use my images in merch, promotional items, or whatever they please, and I wouldn’t get a penny of royalties or any other compensation. If I don’t sign it then I won’t be allowed to photograph the artist. Let it be known that I will certainly NOT be signing such an outrageous contract and that thankfully VV is backing me up on it. They agreed that the terms of the contract were completely unreasonable and didn’t expect me to sign it, and were fine doing without photos of said artist. It’s really pathetic that these record labels are not only screwing their artists out of money, they’re now trying to screw the photographers who cover their artists’ concerts. These people literally must have no shame or dignity. What these contracts do is essentially steal and then exploit. If you’re a music photographer, please read these contracts before you sign them. If an artist insists on such a ridiculous contract, then they are NOT WORTH YOUR TIME IN THE FIRST PLACE! And if the publication for which you’re shooting does not back you up on this, then you are working for the wrong publication, and they are not worth your time either!
Thank you and good night.
P.S. Don’t expect to see many posts on there over the next few days. I have no idea if I’ll have time to blog at all, and if I do it’ll be a very quick blurb about something crazy I witnessed.
Not much in the music realm today: The biggest thing I read was that Jack White is planning a solo album…. I swear the guy must be a glutton for punishment. How can anyone be in 3 bands, run a record label, and still have time for a solo project? He’s a machine. That’s the only explanation.
Also of interest- How I Became the Bomb will be teaming up with Kindercastle for quite an undertaking: covering ELO’s Out of the Blue in it’s entirety on June 26th at Mercy Lounge. Obviously these two local bands are heavily influenced by ELO- HIBTB in the use of vocoders and Kindercastle in their use of thick orchestral string arrangements. According to the calendar both bands will be onstage along with an eight-piece string section. That means 16 people onstage y’all. That means this will be seriously EPIC y’all.
If you’re a Twitterer, you might find Tweemap interesting. It plots all of your followers on a map for you. Kind creepy but kinda cool…
EcoGeek reports on the first easily attainable wind power generator for the home. It mounts on your roof and generates 2,000 kWh per year, which is about 18% of the average household’s energy requirement. It ain’t cheap ($4500 plus up to $1500 installation) but apparently you can get some serious tax credits and discounts due to the stimulus bill and other statewide incentives. This makes me very happy. If I owned a house and could even come close to affording the unit, I’d buy it in a heartbeat.
The National Weather Service has said that conditions are favorable for an El Nino pattern to form over the equatorial pacific ocean this summer. We haven’t had a strong El Nino in a while, so I fully expected one to develop this fall. The good thing is that El Nino ultimately leads to more wind shear in the areas where hurricanes normally develop, which makes it harder for them to develop/strengthen. But it also means more rain in the US southeast, and slightly above-average temperatures during the winter. However, most areas of the southeast have been experiencing a drought for many years now, so more rain is not necessarily a bad thing. For more info on exactly how El Nino works go here.
I love dinosaurs. We all love dinosaurs. They’re pretty awesome because they ruled this planet for several million years, compared to about 200,000 for humans. When we first discovered their remains, we thought they were related to reptiles. Then after some more discoveries and research, we thought they actually had more in common with modern day birds, and even that modern birds may have descended from dinosaurs. Now that last theory has had some pretty big holes shot through it. Turns out the bone structure of birds’ femur provides a major clue that birds simply evolved parallel to the dinosaurs, not from them. Via Science Daily. Read more if you’re interested.
Back tomorrow, and then that will be it for a while as I’ll be photographing at Bonnaroo all weekend.
I think it’s safe to say Grizzly Bear has gone mainstream when their new album Veckatimest charts at #8 in the Billboard top 10. It’s crazy to see bands like them and Arcade Fire suddenly become a huge act with such mass appeal. It’s also crazy to see an “indie” band in the company of Eminem, Marilyn Manson, and Winsin & Yandel in the charts. Quite a variety in the top 10 this week, to say the least. Honestly though, I just don’t get the hype about Grizzly Bear. There are some mildly interesting tracks on this new album, and it does seem to be the most interesting thing they’ve released thus far, but for me, it’s a snoozefest. And that’s not just because they’re overall a fairly quiet, chill band. There are plenty of quiet, chill bands that are NOT a snoozefest for me. But these guys are. For the most part. I am very happy to see them doing so well, though. These guys seem to be genuinely interested in making music for the sake of music and are in it for the right reasons. It just so happens that what they’re doing has become very commercially viable, and that’s how it should work.
MGMT released a 2nd “official” video for last year’s dancefloor hit “Kids.” I honestly don’t know why they’re releasing a 2nd video for this song. But who cares? It’s actually pretty good. But pretty terrifying at the same time. Check it out at You Ain’t No Picasso. I tried to find a version that I could embed here, but no luck.
History just loves to repeat itself. Paul McCartney will christen Citi Field, the new home of the Mets, by playing the first concerts there on July 17th and 18th.
A zoo in Germany made headlines in 2005 because of 3 pairs of male “gay penguins” in one of their exhibits. Now one of the couples is successfully raising a chick from an abandoned egg that the keepers gave them, adding to list of evidence proving that homosexuality does indeed a occur in nature and it’s not a choice or a product of human societal degradation as some religious groups claim. Take that, hatemongers!
Since I rambled on a bit about Grizzly Bear, that’s it for this post. See ya tomorrow.
Bonnaroo previews/Space marriage/Toast of Music City
June 3, 2009
My Morning Jacket @ Bonnaroo 2008 Credit: Steve Cross
It’s that time of year again in Tennessee. The hot days and humid nights have settled in for good, and that only means one thing: Bonnaroo is upon us. I’m covering it again for the Scene this year and I’m ready to make my 2nd experience even better than the 1st. I’ve been told that the Village Voice may be using some of my images for other blogs/papers under their umbrella. (For a list of their papers go here.) Normally I would never attend Bonnaroo. Don’t get me wrong- the bands are great, the outdoor setting is great, but the people are generally not so great. Having to constantly deal with mud-caked hippies who’ve done waaay too many drugs and smell like a combination of bad patchouli, port-a-john, and feet is not my idea of fun. Being a member of the press, however, alleviates that concern because you spend a minimal amount of time actually out in the crowds, and NO time in the camping/parking area. Press parking is right behind the stages, and there’s a nice air-conditioned tent with complimentary water, as well as media trailer with wi-fi. Look for my photos on Nashville Cream, and possibly those other papers’ blogs mentioned above. Speaking of Bonnaroo, Nashville’s own music blogger superstar Janet Timmons has been hard at work (along with some help from a few other local bloggers/writers) posting a preview for every artist playing Bonnaroo. Check it out. Will she make it in time?
The Tennessean/Metro Mix is hosting another edition of its annual Toast of Music City poll. Last year some of the top restaurants ended up being Olive Garden, Shoney’s, and Golden Corral. SERIOUSLY?!?!?! WTF?!?!? Get your ass over to the poll and make sure such a travesty doesn’t happen again. Thanks to Nashvillest for reminding me of this.
Improv Everywhere comes up with some of the best pranks/social experiments I’ve ever seen. Their latest was one of their best yet: they gave one lucky NYC couple getting married at the clerk’s office a surprise wedding reception in Foley Square. Check it out.
Speaking of couples, the first weightless wedding is being planned. Though not actually happening in space, it’s the next best thing: the famed “Vomit Comet.” Let’s hope they don’t end up puking on each other during their vows. “I do… BLEGGGHHH!”
Part of the problem with the public image of NASA and space exploration in general is that astronauts aren’t viewed in the same light now as they were back in the 60’s. Back then, media coverage of NASA and its missions was MUCH more extensive than it is now. Those astronauts were literally treated like movie stars. The public adored them and they helped to make people actually care about space exploration. Nowadays coverage of the shuttle launches barely gets onto the bottom of CNN.com. I found a tiny glimmer of hope this morning, though: this new Louis Vitton ad photo taken by Annie Leibovitz on i09. It’s astronauts Sally Ride, Buzz Aldrin, and Jim Lovell. For more info go here. This is totally awesome and I hope to see NASA start caring more about PR and creating a bigger, more positive public image for itself.
Photo by Annie Leibovitz
steve cross loves music and science 