Weekend craziness/Meemaw/meteorites
January 22, 2010
Combined science/music post today. Not much time….
A meteorite about the size of a fist crashed through the roof of a doctor’s office in Virginia on monday. Reports say that it was traveling about 220 MPH when it hit the roof. There’s a common misconception that all meteorites hit the ground as a fireball and cause a crater. The truth is only the really big ones, about car-size and up, actually have enough inertia to keep up those kinds of speeds all the way to the ground. The smaller ones that reach the ground have long since been slowed by the friction of the atmosphere, and usually hit at speeds anywhere from 100 to 300 mph, depending on the size and weight. I don’t want to spend much time on this so go here or here for more info.
Now for the music.
I mentioned a while back that beloved Nashville scrap-punkers Meemaw decided to end their hiatus. Well, the time has come! It all goes down tonight at The End, along with Marj!, So Jazzy, and JEFF the Brotherhood. I don’t really know if you can quite call it an interview, but please do check out this gem of a video segment of them talking/playing a new song/goofing off over at Nashville’s Dead. Good times.
Unfortunately this had to happen the same night as a ton of other good stuff in town.
One of the aforementioned other things is the special edition of Happy Valley at the Cannery Ballroom, where I will be running the Generation Domination photobooth. It’s part of Mercy Lounge’s 7-year anniversary party, but unlike the other show upstairs, it will cost a meager $5 to get into. The FREE show upstairs will consist of The Non-commissioned Officers, The Ettes, De Novo Dahl, Apollo Up, and the two secret guests have now been revealed- The Features and Turbo Fruits. That has to be the most amazing lineup of local rock I’ve seen in a long time.
On Saturday Mercy is once again the place to be, as the last day of their week of free shows consists of Space Capone, How I Became the Bomb, Heypenny, Madi Diaz, Tallest Trees, and Armed Forces. This amazing lineup will be followed by the return of BFF, featuring yours truly and Fan Fiction of Nashville Nights on the decks, and we promise to keep your butt on the dancefloor till the wee hours.
In case you missed the memo, BFF was a weekly dance party held by me (Burgers) and Joseph (Fan Fiction) at Mad Donna’s in east Nashville. That location turned out to be not quite right for what we were trying to do, so instead of keeping BFF as a monthly staple, we decided to just let it be the branding we use whenever/wherever we spin together. There are two upcoming BFF-related events, the first of which I just mentioned, and the other is Feb. 5th at La Paz. More details are in the pipeline about that, but I’ll say now that it’s probably going to be the official afterparty for the Features’/Cortney Tidwell/Majestico show which just a block away at Exit/In. It’s gonna be a blast y’all.
Have a great weekend!
Wes Anderson/weekend stuff
January 15, 2010
First, you must watch this delightful stop-motion award acceptance speech from Wes Anderson. It will improve your day drastically:
(Via Clusterflock)
Now, for what’s going down this weekend….
TONIGHT: I will be at the End taking pics of Jemina Pearl/The Ettes/Daniel Pujol. Also of interest- FREE Glam Rock cover night at Mercy Lounge, featuring members of Superdrag, the Shazam, Matt Friction, Dave Paulson, and more. Also- Natural Child cassette release show @ Springwater, with Diarrhea Planet, Daniel Pujol (guess he’s playing 2 shows tonight?), State Champion, and Giving Up.
SATURDAY: My So-Called Band, Guilty Pleasures, Long Players, Weekend Jimmy & the Easy Party @ Mercy Lounge, FREE. It’s the kickoff to Mercy’s 7-year anniversary bash, featuring 7 FREE shows. (But since the Glam rock night is free too… I guess they’re technically having 8 free shows in a row.) More on that in future posts.
Last but not least, two awesome local independent businesses, Halcyon Bike Shop and Grimey’s New & Preloved Music, have been nominated for the “To Love a Local Business” competition at Intuit, the company that markets QuickBooks. It’s a competition for a series of $5,000 grants and one $35,000 grant. I’d be more than happy to see either of these businesses get the grant(s). Vote for Halcyon or vote for Grimey’s. I don’t care which you vote for, just VOTE.
Tristen in Paste Magazine/New Polaroid Camera
January 14, 2010
Photo by Steve Cross, with editing by Jeremy Ferguson and Tristen
Nashville own indie singer/songwriter darling Tristen is featured today on Paste’s “Best of What’s Next.” Check it out here. Tristen has been doing quite a bit of touring recently as a solo act accompanied by cellist/vocalist Larissa Maestro. Her debut album will be out soon. She’s releasing it herself last I heard. Way to go Tristen!
The Polaroid film format & camera aren’t quite dead yet. As we all know, the film production was abandoned, but was recently revived again. Now a new line of re-designed cameras will be hitting the market later this year. Thank GOD. This will still be a niche market, but nostalgia is becoming more and more of a hot commodity, so I see no reason why this Polaroid resurgence won’t continue. (Via Gorilla vs Bear)
Also of photographic interest- American Pixels is a project wherein Joerg Colberg processes his photographs with a weird compression algorithm called ajpeg that doesn’t focus on preserving image quality, but on creating these rather surreal images. (Via Kottke.org)
Also of note, according Nashville Cream’s post on this same topic, HP Witchcraft is former Wooden Wand frontman James Jackson Toth’s new project with Bingham Barnes of Glossary and Tyler Coppage of We Were The States.
Check out this unreleased demo track from The Whole Fantastic World:
The Whole Fantastic World-Colussus
According to Stereogum, Pavement will be headlining the Pitchfork music festival this coming July. I can’t imagine that they’d be willing to do that and then pass up on opportunities such as Coachella and Bonnaroo. Of course I sincerely hope the latter becomes reality. Unless something drastic changes between now and then, I’ll probably be there again this year covering for the Scene, and since I’ve never seen the band live, I really hope they end up at Bonnaroo. An actual Nashville appearance wouldn’t hurt, either.
Kings of Leon NOT opening for The Features/New Morning Benders
January 11, 2010
I don’t know where these rumors get started, but don’t get your hopes about Kings of Leon opening for The Features at Exit/In Feb. 5th. My inside sources say the rumor isn’t true, and that the probable openers will be Majestico and Cortney Tidwell. So chill out, people! It would be rather hilarious if it were true, as most Nashville rock scene purists have said for years that the roles of The Features and Kings of Leon should be swapped. Also if it were true, Elliston Place would be a total clusterfuck that night. Who knows, though, maybe a Followill or two will be hanging out backstage? Oddly enough, Hipster Runoff mentioned KOL in a weekend post about the future of Bro music and Bro fashion. He has a point.
Update: apparently the Nashville Cream did some digging at the exact same time I did, because just as I was about to hit “publish” they posted an update saying the same thing.
One of my favorite recent/new-ish bands for the past year or so has been The Morning Benders. I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend their full-length Talking Through Tin Cans from last year, and am happy to see them prepping a new LP for release this spring. It will be called Big Echo and will hit the market on March 9th. They were kind enough to release a new track from it called Promises and you can grab it for the price of your email address at their website, or just go grab it at You Ain’t No Picasso.
Meemaw reunion/Fitout/Soundgarden
January 5, 2010
You’ve probably already seen at least one of these music news items by now, but hopefully not all of them, if so, just ignore this post.
Local DJ hero Justin Kase has officially released a few of his remixes in full-form to the blogosphere via Nashville Nights. Go grab his remixes of Ke$ha’s Tik Tok, Little Boots’ Earthquake, Matt & Kim’s Good Ol’ Fashioned Nightmare, and his own original track Gil as reworked by another local electronic music icon (IMO) Makeup & Vanity Set.
Local scrap-punk purveyors MEEMAW are re-uniting for at least one show after a year of hiatus. More at Nashville Cream and Nashville’s Dead. I was starting to get tired of them toward the end, but now I’m ready for more MEEMAW. Gimme gimme gimme. This flyer is absolutely priceless:
Meanwhile, Brooklyn Vegan continues to blow their load over JEFF the Brotherhood. And the Soundgarden reunion. No, I’m not joking, Soundgarden is reuniting. I have to admit I was totally into them through most of high school, and because they were one of many bands that were an integral part of my formative years, I’d like to keep them a distinctively retrospective affair. They were just soooooo 90’s… how could they ever do anything good by reuniting now? I think they’re a band that should stay in the past.
Goodbye aughts: stuff to do tonight
December 31, 2009
So it’s New Year’s Eve. Inevitably everything in this post is somehow related to that fact. First of all, what to do tonight. Since I’m working the Generation Domination photobooth at Mercy Lounge’s “Happy Endings” party tonight, I must plug that first. But plugging is kinda pointless at this point, because if you haven’t already gotten tix, you’re pretty much SOL. According to a facebook message from 1:10am last night (this morning), there is only 1 VIP package left. The VIP package is for four people. Email drew@mercylounge.com for details. But honestly, it’s probably already gone by the time you read this. For a very visual representation of what else to do this NYE, check out the Nashville Scene’s official NYE flow chart:
Click through to see the bigger version at Nashville Cream
Nashville Is Dead has some details on a few select shows as well, most notably the (unofficial) Infinity Cat NYE show at the End.
Also of interest, i09 gives you ten reasons to live through the next decade. Among my favs: Ridley Scott’s return to sci-fi filmmaking, green development and progress toward 100% renewable energy, the LHC and possibility of finding the Higgs-Boson particle, and I totally agree with their #1 choice being the Mars Science Laboratory. I would, however, add to that the joint Mars program between NASA and ESA that I mentioned yesterday.
Now here’s the video to George Harrison’s “Got My Mind Set On You” just for kicks, via Yewknee’d.
Happy New Year, and we’ll see you next week!
BFF tonight/weekend stuff/Battle Pod 4
December 18, 2009
Obviously the big story today is that the 4th BFF (featuring myself and Fan Fiction DJing) is happening tonight at Mad Donna’s! This month we’ve decided to add beer specials to the mix, but the bar hasn’t told me what they’ll be yet. But get there before midnight to take advantage of that. Oh, and this time we have a fog machine to enhance your dancing experience. Mad Donna’s is on the east side, just a blog past 5-points on Woodland. It’s at the corner of Woodland & 14th St. across from Lipstick Lounge. In case you missed my last post, be sure to download my latest mix- the Burgers Winter 09 MIXXXX. For a tracklisting see my last post. And for a sampling of Fan Fiction’s style, just check his awesome music blog Nashville Nights. For even more info on this and more BFF’s in the future, join our Facebook group!
If you’re not feeling the east side, or not feeling the dancing vibe, my band Powerbrrrd is also playing Matt Friction’s Christmas on the Block show at Exit/In tonight. We’ll be on 2nd in a pretty awesome lineup of your favorite local bands playing Christmas tunes. But obviously I’ll be speeding over to Mad Donna’s right after we play to do BFF.
It should also be noted that Jeremy Ferguson, who runs the Battletapes recording studio, has posted his 4th “Battle Pod” podcast. It features some lovely Christmas covers by Lylas, Tristen, Jonas Stein (from Turbo Fruits), and others. Go grab it now.
Other weekend stuff:
Saturday: Holly House Winter Formal @ Mercy Lounge. This show will feature Tristen, Caitlin Rose, Eureka Gold, Shoot the Mountain, Non-Commissioned Officers, and more, all playing in each other’s bands covering various Christmas songs and whatnot. I’ll be doing a photobooth, and it’s part of Mercy’s 2nd annual “Winter of Dreamz” sponsored by Sweetwater. Oh, and there’s an indoor snow machine…
By then I’ll be so tired I won’t care anymore, so that’s it for this weekend.
R.I.P. Flight of the Conchords/Private Dancer
December 14, 2009
Credit: John Behm via Private Dancer's myspace
Last friday night at the 5 Spot was the first Apollo Up! show in many years, and I showed up ready for some serious mid-aughts nostalgia. My enthusiasm was somewhat stifled by the first band which had a name too long to remember and sounded like Warped Tour circa 1999. Thank goodness Minneapolis’ Private Dancer was up next. As I enthusiastically told the band after their show, it’s been a LONG-ASS time since I’ve seen a band that I knew nothing about and was totally amazed. Try as I might, I find it very hard to describe exactly why I liked them so much… I just did. It’s true, their overall sound is pretty similar to a lot of garage-y 60’s and 70’s revivalists currently flooding the market, but something about them just really clicked with me. I strongly suggest checking them out. No, seriously… CHECK THESE GUYS OUT. To whet your appetite, here’s She’s A Company Man from their debut album Trouble Eyes.
Private Dancer-She’s A Company Man
Of course, Apollo Up! was awesome and Jay Leo Phillips’ guitar tone peeled my scalp as always. For a better review of the show, check out the Cream.
Some sad news came from Stereogum and Pitchfork today. Flight of the Conchords is officially dead. There will be no 3rd season. I’m quite sure we haven’t seen the last of Jemaine and Brett, however, and I look forward to seeing what they do next.
Lilith Fair is making a comeback next year and the lineup is rather interesting. It includes a few names that seem a little out-of-place at first glance: the Submarines, Metric, Janell Monae, Chairlift and Ke$ha…. yes, Ke$ha- the Nashville-L.A. transplant who has our own Justin Kase as her DJ. (Via Music Photographers forum)
Weekend stuff/DAAS/Turbo Fruits get p-forked/beer
December 11, 2009
The A.V. Club takes a look at some of 2009’s strangest/craziest/most ridiculous band names. Some of my favs- Bitches With Instruments, the Whore Moans, Pabst Smear, Gay for Johnny Depp, the Christopher Walk-Ins, OMG! Check it out.
Turbo Fruits’ latest album Echo Kid got a 6.4 on Pitchfork today. I’m a little surprised at how late they reviewed this record considering that it’s a Be Your Own Pet-related project, and that Pitchfork lost their shit over both BYOP and the first Turbo Fruits record… (Echo Kid has been out for at least a few months now…) It’s a damn good record though, and I suggest it.
One of my favorite electronic music artists is actually from right here in Nashville- Makeup & Vanity Set, aka Matt Pusti. He’s recently started a side project called DAAS, and the debut album RASLP is available on Bandcamp for free. Go grab it for a blippy, experimental, atmospheric good time. My bandmate and friend Seth Graves has been doing some fantastic video production work recently, and since the two share some influences Pusti asked Seth to do a video for a song from RASLP. The result is a 4 1/2 miutes of data-moshing AWESOMENESS:
That holiday porter I was telling you about a few posts back is now officially ready for consumption. I tried it for the first time last night and while the spices didn’t come through quite as much as I wanted, it’s still by far the best batch of beer I’ve made thus far. You can buy a 6-pack for 6 bucks, just email/facebook/call/come up to me at a show and I’ll hook you up.
As for this weekend, I’m really stoked to be seeing Apollo Up! tonight at the 5 Spot for the first time in several years. They took a hiatus back around 2007 and I’ve missed their awesome live shows ever since. So that’s where we’ll be tonight.
Saturday we’ll be in Murfreesboro to check out the big YEAH benefit show featuring Those Darlins, Six Gun Lullaby, and special VIP storyteller performance from Caitlin Rose. YEAH is pretty much the best thing to happen to youth in middle TN. EVER. So they are more than worth your monetary support, therefore I highly suggest going.
Sunday night I’ll be taking pics and having a total nerd-gasm at the Star Wars interactive/orchestral event Star Wars: In Concert, which is at the Sommet Center (soon-to-be-Nashville Arena).
Other shows of interest:
Friday- La Paz Late Night w/ DJs Potamus and Hippo @ La Paz. Shoot the Mountain, Hands Down Eugene, & Hammertorch @ The End.
Saturday- Brendan Benson & Cory Chisel @ Exit/In (I wish this were on a different night so I could go!).
Have a great weekend!
steve cross loves music and science 