New Brendan Benson/Jenny Lewis video/earthquakes
July 10, 2009
Brendan Benson wasn’t nearly as well-known prior to joining up with Jack White in The Raconteurs. He had out some solo albums that were great, but his new album is looking to be far beyond “great.” If the rest of the record is as good as this first track “Don’t Want To Talk,” then it could easily make its way into my top 5, maybe even 3 albums of 09. This song is just packed full of awesome. RCRD LBL posted it for download today, and you’d better go grab it. NOW.
Jenny Lewis has a new video out for the song “See Fernando” from her latest album Acid Tongue. Stereogum posted it yesterday. It’s very visually pleasing and let’s face it… Jenny Lewis is just pretty, though she doesn’t actually have as much screen time as one would hope… I got to see her at Bonnaroo and thoroughly enjoyed her set, especially when Elvis Costello joined her for “Carpetbaggers.”
As for this weekend… we’ll probably stay in tonight and catch the new episode of Eureka on SyFy. Saturday I’ll be doing a photobooth for the Miller Made Music/Lightning 100 free show at Exit/In with the Non-Commissioned Officers, Mean Tambourines, Perrin Lamb, and Mikky Echo. It’s a free show so you have no excuse not to come. Then on Monday be sure to check out the 2nd installment of the Nashville Cream decades 8 off 8th series. This one will cover the 70’s and I heard Caitlin Rose and Tristen’s covers are gonna be especially awesome.
I’ll the science to a minimum today. All I have to say is this:
The unusually nice weather we’ve been having lately is about to come to an end. These past few weeks have been a few degrees cooler than usual, and temps even stayed shy of 90 for a string of 8 days. But the biggest story was the humidity, or absence thereof. It’s been agreeably dry lately, which makes the heat MUCH more tolerable. The reason for this was that the Bermuda High Pressure System which normally dominates the summer weather in the southeast was relatively weak and further east than normal for this time of year. The clockwise circulation around the Bermuda High channels hot and humid air from the Gulf of Mexico right into the American southeast almost all summer long. This is what causes our typical “dog days of summer” weather, and sadly it’s about to return westward and re-establish itself over Bermuda. Also, El Nino is officially here, so get ready for a wet winter.
Have a great weekend!
Via Ironic Sans
That image kinda made my day this morning. Click to get to the actual Ironic Sans post.
I’m pretty stoked to announce a DJ gig next week with one of my all-musical heroes Matt Mahaffey. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m an avid sElf fan and basically love anything the guy has done. The event is a benefit at Mai for Voices for Planned Parenthood (VOX). It’s next Thursday July 26th and starts at 10pm. DJ’s will be Matt Mahaffey, Me (DJ Burgers), and DJ Busta Window (Kelly Kerr). There’s no cover and 5% of the bar sales will go towards VOX. From the press release:
This special one night only event will be used to raise funds for PPMET’s Volunteer Program and area college and university student-run organizations known as “Vox®: Voices for Planned Parenthood.” Anyone who supports Planned Parenthood® can join Vox® as its members are a composite of young professionals and post-grads whose progressive values and volunteer spirit reflect the diversity of Tennessee.
I came across some amazing photos from the Glastonbury Music Festival today at the Boston Globe’s Big Picture blog. Do give it a look, your eyes will thank you.
Some more updates on the new “SyFy” series Stargate: Universe can be found at io9 today. They’ve also launched a new website for the full Stargate franchise. Give the Universe section a good look-over if you’re interested. It contains quite a few video clips and images of the new cast as well as the set.
The Ad Astra Rocket Company has been hard at work building a rocket engine that sounds like something straight out of Star Trek. It’s called the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR). This thing will greatly reduce the costs of space exploration because it’s many many more times efficient than our current chemical fuel rockets. Unfortunately it won’t work within Earth’s atmosphere, so we’ll still have to use conventional rockets to get us into space, but once we’re there, these engines will make space travel much easier. They build upon the idea of an ion engine (like the one used on NASA’s Deep Space 1 mission), but VASIMR will use superconducting electromagnets to accelerate the ions to much higher velocities (and thus generate more thrust) than past ion engines. (Via Daily Galaxy)
Nashville’s own independent radio station WRLT (Lightning 100) has announced a new Thursday night concert series called “Live on the Green” that will include Ricky Young, Space Capone, Here Come the Mummies, among others. The events will be co-sponsored by the Mayor’s office and Team Green. It’s good to see outdoor live music events returning to downtown Nashville. Dancin’ in the District, River Stages, and Uptown Mix have been sorely missed these past few years. Kudos to the sponsors for making this happen. The first event will be Sept. 3rd. You can follow them on Twitter for more info.
Photo by James Gooding/Via Pitchfork
I really don’t know how this video clip is meant to be taken. It’s Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt redoing the famous apex scene from Sid & Nancy for a new web series called Cinemash. The sheer fact that the sexes are reversed and they didn’t even attempt to shave JGL’s scruffy chin makes me think it’s meant to be humorous, but it’s still odd. See the clip here. Via Nashville Cream/Pitchfork.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention former Titans quarterback Steve McNair’s death on here. I do follow the Titans (football is my biggest all-American guilty pleasure), and I was a huge fan of McNair. It’s hard to see through the PR spin surrounding professional athletes, but they guy seemed to be a genuinely good person, and he was one hell of a player. The Tennessean has posted a video clip of coach Jeff Fisher’s heartfelt remarks in a press conference yesterday. It deserves a look.
In what appears to be a move taken straight from the plot of I Am Legend, doctors have used the HIV virus to kill lung cancer in mice. This news is simultaneously exciting and terrifying to me. Yes, anything regarding a cure for cancer is awesome, but engineering a retrovirus to do exactly what you want is potentially one of the most dangerous pieces of technology ever created. It’s right up there with the H-bomb. It still has a long way to go before becoming a viable human treatment, though. Via io9.
Cream’s 60’s cover night/new Spoon/snow on Mars
July 6, 2009
The Nashville Scene/Cream is sponsoring all the 8 off 8th Mondays during July, and each week the 8 bands will all perform covers from a specific decade- the 60’s through the 90’s. Tonight is 60’s night and the bands are:
Matt Friction and the Cheap Shots
Roman Candle
Eureka Gold
The Clutters
Kindergarten Circus
Ole Mossy Face
Jacob Jones
Millionaire Magicians
Tigers Con Queso will be on the lineup for 90’s night on July 27th. More info at Nashville Cream. I’ll be there tonight taking pics, so come on out. It’ll be fun.
Hipster Runoff posted the new single Got Nuffin from Spoon today. It’s a good song, so go grab it.
I’ve got a lot of science to dump on you today, so here we go…
Astronomers have been a little puzzled by our Sun recently because it’s been unusually quiet. We reached solar minimum, the lowest part of the 11-year cycle of sunspot activity, in 2008. Normally we’d be seeing some sunspots appearing, marking the beginning of the next cycle, but for some reason the Sun has been strangely quiet this year, and no one really understands why. This weekend marked the first real appearance of sunspots for the new cycle, breaking the stretch of puzzling silence. Space.com has more.
I’ve always loved the large-scale, long-term predictions and statements that Dr. Stephen Hawking is known for. One of his latest predictions/statements is truly fascinating. He proposes that we take a much broader view of the term “evolution” and include not only genetic information (internal), but also external information. Because we now have the ability to communicate external information we are now in a different stage of evolution. Just like so many of his broad ideas, this one really makes you think almost on a totally different level. Read more at the Daily Galaxy article.
Even though communication with NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander ceased last fall, scientists are still evaluating the data collected while it was in operation. The scientists used a specialized instrument on the lander to detect water ice clouds and even snow falling to the martian ground. Yes, I said snow. On Mars. How effin’ cool is that? Learn more about this phenomenon by reading the Universe Today article.
Also from Universe Today- a more substantiated version of the blurb I posted a couple weeks ago regarding the possible back-up to NASA’s new Constellation program. A video clip from the presentation made to an external review committee by shuttle program manager John Shannon has been posted on YouTube. Apparently NASA is taking this proposal pretty seriously and everyone there is waiting on the final word by an executive session as to whether they’ll keep charging ahead with the current plans for the Ares rockets or try this new plan to retrofit the existing external fuel tank/solid rocket booster system to work with the new Orion Crew Vehicle. Watch the video below. As Universe Today points out, this system would be MUCH cheaper and faster to implement. Honestly, I think there’s a decent possibility that they’ll end up going for this and scrapping the Ares rockets. Only time will tell. Full article here.
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.
Justin Kase has been one of the main players in Nashville’s growing indielectro (I made that word up) scene for a few years now. I have a finnicky taste when it comes to electronic/dance music (even thought I don’t really dance… I just like to spin it as a DJ), and his mixes almost always fit my palate. His latest mix Barely Legal Vol. 5 is no exception, and may just be my favorite yet. Go grab it at his blog Blogging Is Serious Business. And grab my (DJ Burgers) mix SUMMERMIXXXX2009 here while you’re at it. Somewhat related: Nashville’s self-proclaimed monthly electrobash Happy Valley is going down tomorrow night at Aerial, and I’ll be doing the photobooth (here are the pics from the last one I did), so come dance and get shot. Kase isn’t DJing this one, though- it’s Coach and RDMD.
This has got to be one of the most terrifying things a person could ever do. These fearless dudes biked a trail on the famous Cliffs of Mohan in Ireland. They were literally inches away from a 600 foot drop…. on a bike. To me, heights aren’t that bad. When I was a teenager we did a lot of rock climbing and rappelling, thus I learned not to fear heights. I could probably stand/walk around on that trail just fine. But on a bike? That’s where it gets me… being on a bike makes it a whole new ballgame. But kudos to these guys for having the stones to do something like this. Via Clusterflock.
Some interesting local news- construction workers working on a new dorm stumbled upon the remains of a holding pen for exotic animals while digging on the Belmont University campus yesterday. It was on land formerly owned by the extremely wealthy Acklen family, and they kept bears, alligators, monkeys, and even a mountain lion there. Apparently historians knew it existed, but didn’t know where until now. Source: WSMV via Nashvillest.
I’ve kept close tabs on the development of NASA’s new Constellation program, but this is the first I’ve heard of a backup plan for getting Americans back to the moon. According to this Discovery News post, NASA has been researching a backup plan in case they have to scrap the Ares rocket system currently under research & development. This backup system simply uses the external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters currently used with space shuttle, except they would replace the winged orbiter with a module that would have a cargo bay and/or house the new Orion crew capsule on top. This would obviously require a lot less engineering since most of the assembly already exists and has proven technology/engineering. Why did they choose to start a whole new project from scratch if they could’ve been working on this the whole time? They might already be far enough along for a full-scale test flight by now if they’d started working on this design when they started the Ares project.
Credit: NASA
Those Darlins in Reuters/2012 bullshit
June 22, 2009
Reuters news agency recently did a short interview with Those Darlins, Murfreesboro’s own “rough-and-tumble” all-girl alt-country trio. Their debut album is out now on vinyl in your local indie record store, and hit shelves in all other formats on July 7th. I’m proud to see these awesome ladies gaining such national attention. I’m even more proud that they are paving their own path by not signing to a major label. JT Turner and the Thirty Tigers staff have done an amazing job of managing them and timing their album release. They will be celebrating their album release this Saturday at Mercy Lounge with none other than the Black Lips. Via Nashville Cream.
My official DJ Burgers SUMMERMIXXXX 2009 is up for grabs. Download here. Tracklist:
Shoot The Mountain-Islands (Dpaul remix)
Thieves Like Us- Drugs in my Body
Evan Voytas- Getting Higher
Passion Pit- Little Secrets
Kennedy- John and Yoko
VEGA- No Reasons
Spinnerette- Sex Bomb (Adam Freeland remix)
Das Racist- Combination pizza hut/taco bell (Wallpaper remix)
Black Eyed Peas- Boom boom (Chew Fu remix)
Yuksek- Extraball (Breakbot remix)
AutoKratz- Always More (Yuksek remix)
Make girl dance- Baby baby baby
Peaches- Serpentine
Want to be totally creeped out? Go look at these images of children that have been digitally altered to make them look like talking puppets. Yea. CREEPY. Via Kottke.
This HD trailer for the upcoming Ronald Emmerich film 2012 is total eye-candy (please do watch in full screen), but the marketing for this movie really rubs me the wrong way. There is simply too much misinformation and scaremongering out there regarding the Dec. 21st, 2012 myth. I’ve always considered ridiculous disaster movies a sort of “guilty pleasure,” but this one is going a bit too far with their website/viral marketing campaign. Granted, the first thing that shows up when you Google “2012” is the actual Sony Pictures website, but this Institute for Human Continuity website that comes up when you click the middle link is just ridiculous. It’s obvious this website is meant to look as realistic as possible, with the only hint of its relation to the movie being the copyright info at the bottom of the page. And if you happen to recognize Oliver Platt in that “news feed” section. But trust me, there are plenty of extremely gullible people out there who might think this website is for real. Making an entertaining disaster movie is one thing, but intentionally misleading people is another. It’s just sad that a staggering number of Americans actually believe this hype. I’m not a scientist and I don’t have the time to do a full debunking of this hoax on this blog, so here are some good links regarding the 2012 myth:
2012 Hoax- a website dedicated to debunking the 2012 myth.
A very long, scientific explanation of why the world won’t end in 2012.
Face it, the world will not end in 2012. It’s huge scam intended to make money off people’s ignorance and gullibility.
Weekend shows/The Comfies
June 19, 2009
Benjamin Harper (no, not that Ben Harper) has been a friend of mine for many years now, and I’ve followed his musical involvement even longer than that- ever since I first saw Feable Weiner in Murfreesboro in my early college years. He was their bass player at the time, but left the band in 2003 (2004 maybe?) to pursue his own band, then called The Comfies. He immediately changed the name to Harper and they started playing shows, but soon thereafter he ran into copyright issues with the more famous Ben Harper, and changed the name back to The Comfies. They released an EP titled Close To Me about 2 years ago, but have been somewhat dormant since. Now that’s changing as he’s releasing the 2nd Comfies EP, which is really more of a solo effort from what I can tell. (He played most of the instruments on the recordings.) It’s called The Comfies Present: Benjamin A. Harper in This Ship Is Going Down, and you can grab it now (for however much you want to pay, no less) at their Bandcamp profile. According to his myspace it’s the 1st in a series of 3 new EPs. His songs have sunny, Kinks-y vibe infused with a good dose of pure power pop that will make this EP the perfect soundtrack for your summer. Hopefully he’ll get their older EP up on there soon, too. Be sure to check out the EP release show on July 17th at the End, and the in-store show at Grimey’s on July 16th.
I’m sufficiently recovered from Bonnaroo, so here’s what I’m doing/what’s going down this weekend: Tonight I’m photographing Fleetwood Mac at the Sommet Center, but after that I’ll be heading over to the Exit/In for a Planned Parenthood benefit featuring some good underground Hip Hop and hosted by none other than Big Fella. Yes, the Features are also playing at Mercy Lounge with Black Hollies and the Howlies, but I just saw them at Bonnaroo… and Planned Parenthood is a good cause.
Saturday night I have to shamelessly plug my own band’s show before anything else. TCQ is playing a house show at the Zombie Mansion with The Tits, And The Relatives, and Team Illuminati. There will also be a very special secret guest. Address is 7023 Charlotte Pike, and it will start around 9pm. This will be the final show at this house… at least under the current residents. The show is being put on by Scenario Entertainment. Also going down Saturday night- Shoot the Mountain and Heypenny at Mercy Lounge. These shows may or may not be connected in a very special secret way.
Have a great weekend!
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.
steve cross loves music and science 