A shit-ton of new music
February 17, 2010
I couldn’t think of anything better to describe this post than “a shit-ton of new music.”
Seriously, check this out:
Probably my favorite producer/DJ/artist from the Ed Banger Records crew is Breakbot. I love his remixes and original material, but his new track “Baby I’m Yours” is easily his masterpiece, even if it is under 3 min. long. It’s on his latest EP of the same title, and you should go get it now at Beatport. Or wherever you can find it. I also love the Siriusmo remix… Look for one or the other to be a a featured track in my upcoming Spring 2010 Mixxxx.
So I’ve been talking a lot about the Morning Benders lately. Well, that’s because they’re smart and know just how to milk hype and anticipation for all it’s worth. They’ve been slowly releasing a steady trickle of tidbits- mp3’s, videos, interviews, etc…- and it’s working because they’re ALL OVER the blogosphere. But I honestly love them and thus I’m joining the parade. Today they released another free mp3- the full studio version of “Excuses,” the song played in the video clip I posted last week. Grab it at You Ain’t No Picasso. It can found a million other places as well, but I’m linking to YANP because that happens to be where I saw it first.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen any action from Brighton Beach, UK’s The Pipettes. This is probably because they’ve undergone about 3,278 lineup changes since their last US appearances. When I first discovered them I went totally crazy for the whole gimmick of cute girls, singing pretty harmonies, dressing up in polka-dots, doing coreographed stage moves, and bringing back the girl-group pop vibe of the Phil Spector era. I must say that initial excitement has long worn off, and they quickly fell to the far back of my mind. Now they’ve completely re-vamped their image and sound, as well as shrunk to apparently 2 frontwomen. Check out the funky spaced-out disco imagery at their website, where you can also download their new single “Our Love Was Saved by Spacemen.” Honestly, the sound matches the imagery, but I’m not sure I’m sold on the new sound. It’s catchy and fun without a doubt, but something just doesn’t quite click like the old lineup/sound/imagery did.
SXSW officially announced the schedule of showcases and I’m going to spend at least a good hour tonight looking over it, but at first glance a few things popped out to me:
Wed. night at Emo’s, Emo’s annex, and Emo’s Jr., the latter of which is the Rough Trade showcase culminating with the Morning Benders. Also on Wed. is the Next Big Nashville showcase at Maggie Mae’s featuring The Ettes and a few more Nashville acts, and the Girls Rock Austin showcase at Submerged, feature Those Darlins and The Coathangers.
Thur. night the Beauty Bar hosts the IHEARTCOMIX/Green Owl showcase, which features some great new electronic artists, but faces stiff competition for the electro crowd from the Dim Mak showcase at Elysium which features the Crystal Method and Steve Aoki. The Cedar Street Courtyard, though not any specific “showcase,” will feature She & Him. The Young Turks showcase at the Mohawk Patio looks awesome. Of course the biggest is Broken Social Scene at Stubb’s.
Fri. night Cedar Street Courtyard will host Nashville’s own American Bang. Club DeVille hosts Neon Indian and CLASSIXXX. The Bright Antenna showcase at the Ghost Room features Magic Wands, which are interestingly listed as a Nashville band… The Cool Kids and Miike Snow will be at the Mohawk Patio.
Sat. night the Austin Shores stage looks pretty rad with She & Him, Justin Townes Earle, Deer Tick, and many others. The Beauty Bar lineup would appear to be the Fool’s Gold showcase, though it’s not listed as such… The Chicken Ranch showcase at Headhunter’s looks good, with Nashville’s own The Clutters and We Were the States on the bill. The Mohawk Patio looks good yet again, with Turbo Fruits and Surfer Blood.
Frankly my head almost exploded just glancing over it. More SXSW to come. Holy shit I can’t wait.
Oh, and if that didn’t make your head explode, then celebrities upside-down will.
Bonnaroo rant/BISB/Morning Benders
February 11, 2010
After some thinking, I have this to say about the Bonnaroo 2010 lineup: 1/2 good, 1/2 FAIL. Part of it is just my personal taste, but part of it is just plain WTF?
First the bad part: the headliners. The combination of Stevie Wonder, Jay-Z, Kings of Leon, and Dave Matthews Band (the 1st 4 listed in the lineup, thus assumed to be headliners) is pretty weak compared to Phish/Springsteen, or Metallica/Pearl Jam, or The Police/Tool. As much as I hate Phish, they were a HUGE score for the festival last year, and IMO, they needed someone like the widely-rumored Paul Simon or Paul McCartney to really stand up the last few years. I don’t think Jay-Z, despite his legendary status in the hip hop world, can quite fill the shoes of past headliners. Stevie Wonder is awesome and I’m glad he’s playing but somehow I just don’t see him as quite headliner material. DMB has played Bonnaroo before, and of course will please the hippie crowd, but will also draw a considerable number of collar-poppin’ fratastic douchebags.
Now for the good part: the tent-playing (or maybe Which Stage-playing) mid-level indie acts. I’m more than elated to see She & Him, LCD Soundsystem, Phoenix, Flaming Lips, Miike Snow, They Might Be Giants, OK Go, The Melvins, Neon Indian, and many more of the “indie rock” acts on the bill. Let’s just say that if I go to cover it for the Scene again this year, I will no doubt be spending most of my time in the tents.
In other lineup news, Vanderbilt’s Rites of Spring lineup came right on the heels of the Bonnaroo announcements, and the list is not surprising, though Phoenix and Passion Pit together make the lineup a tad bit stronger than past years, IMO. Headliners Ben Harper & the Relentless 7 and Drake fit right into the typical RoS formula of putting an up-and-coming rap star on one night, and a frat-pleasing, jam-ish act on the other. But this broad, please-all formula has worked well for the festival in the past, so I can’t blame them for doing what works. This ain’t no Pitchfork afterall.
As most Nasvhillians who pay any amount of attention to the local electronic/DJ scene already know, Justin Kase has been on the road for several months as a the DJ in Ke$ha’s backing band. He also ran a pretty cool, though sparingly updated blog called Blogging Is Serious Business. Sadly, though, he’s putting that blog on indefinite hiatus:
Touring kept me from updating recently, but now i just don’t have any interest to continue this blog. Never say never, but don’t expect anything new for some time to come.
What’s utterly flattering, though, is that he mentioned my blog, along with the obvious Nashville Nights, as an alternative for “your Nashville dancing fix…” Therefore, expect me to attempt to live up to that plug by bringing in a little more coverage of the DJ/electronic/dance scene beside my usual plugs for gigs at which I’m DJing. Don’t expect many mp3’s though, because A) Joseph at Nashville Nights has that very well-covered, and B) I don’t have the time or energy to devote to climbing the HypeMachine charts and getting labels/producers to send me shit to post. I will however, post a link to my last mix, just in case you missed it back in Dec. (Spring 2010 Mixxxx is currently in production for release next month.)
Finally, I was excited to this nicely-done video of the Morning Benders performing/recording the track “Excuses” for Yours Truly with about 50 of their best musician friends crammed into the studio, Phil Spector-style. In fact, as the singer Chris Chu talks about in the interview segment, the song is a bit of a tribute to Spector and his “Wall of Sound” recording method. They even wrote a cute little letter to him which you can read at Yours Truly. Here’s the video. (All of this via Gorilla vs. Bear and Pitchfork)
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.
Burgers winter 09 mixxxx/Morning Benders album due in 2010
December 16, 2009
The official DJ Burgers Winter 09 Mixxxx is here! Download it now and get ready to party down with Fan Fiction & Me this Friday at the 4th installment of BFF at Mad Donna’s! (Mad Donna’s is at 1313 Woodland St. in East Nashville, just a block past 5 points and across from Lipstick Lounge.) There will FOG MACHINES. There will be CRAZY LIGHTS. And most importantly, there will be BEER SPECIALS UNTIL MIDNIGHT! (More on the beer specials soon…)
Tracklisting:
Bag Raiders- Shooting Stars (Shazam Dub mix)
Lindstrom & Christabelle- Baby Can’t Stop (Aeroplane RMX)
Yolanda Be Cool- Afro Nuts (DCUP RMX)
Little Boots- Earthquake (Treasure Fingers RMX)
Ke$ha- Tik Tok (Fred Falke Radio RMX)
A-Trak & Arman Van Helden present Duck Sauce- Anyway
Busta Rhymes Ft. T-Pain- Hustler’s Anthem (Bit Funk RMX)
Fukkk Offf- More Than Friends (Markus Lange & Stereofunk RMX)
The Cataracs- Club Love (Nick Catchdubs & Proper Villains RMX)
Dan the Automator-Rapper’s Delight (TEPR Remix)
Golden Bug- Assassin
Bloody Beetroots ft. Cool Kids- Awesome
Some other random tidbits for today:
Ridley Scott directed a remake of Robin Hood that’s due to hit theaters sometime next year. It stars Russel Crowe and Cate Blanchett…. and judging from the trailer I think I’ll end up preferring the Kevin Costner version… See it at Apple movie trailers. (Via Kottke)
One of the few “new” bands that I’ve been head-over-heels for is the Morning Benders. I LOVED their 2008 album Talking Through Tin Cans, and I just found via You Ain’t No Picasso that they’re prepping their next LP Big Echo for release on March 9, 2010 through Rough Trade. Next year is going to be FULL of good releases….
I’ve been loving the Morning Benders for at least a year now, and it’s good to know that they’re working on new material. Their debut record Talking Through Tin Cans is absolutely excellent and this demo for Hand Me Downs on their myspace page shows promise for the follow-up. Let’s hope they don’t have a sophomore slump. I enjoyed their live set quite a bit at SXSW, though I’d like to see them do a full-length set eventually. (Via You Ain’t No Picasso)
Brooklyn Vegan posted several photographs of Michael Jackson taken by Kevin Mazur during one of his last rehearsals prior to his death last Thursday. Kind of creepy… I can’t imagine being that photographer. Obviously he will profit greatly from the licensing of those images. It’s certainly an ethical dilemma that I would struggle with, were I in his shoes. The value of those images went way up due to his death, but if I were the photographer, I would want to sell those licenses at a “normal” going rate, even though publications would obviously be willing to pay an inflated amount for them because they’re essentially the last images of him alive. I would definitely feel guilty for “cashing-in” on someone’s death.
From Yale University comes some good news in the world of computing. They’re testing the first version of a quantum processor that could potentially offer a way around Moore’s Law. At least for a while. This team of scientists has their quantum processors already doing basic algorithms, so hopefully it won’t be long before these amazing pieces of technology start showing up in personal computing devices. With this type of processor, I’d surmise that a device the size of an iPhone could potentially have the processing power of today’s supercomputers. I won’t get into exactly how quantum processors work (mainly because I have a hard time grasping it myself) but if you’re really into it, check out the original article on Science Daily. (Via io9)
It’s been a while since we really learned anything cool/crazy about the moon, but now that interest in our only natural satellite has been renewed due to NASA’s plan to put a base there, we’re starting again to uncover interesting things. One such discovery is that there is Uranium there. And it’s even on the surface. Scientists made the discovery after seeing the tell-tale signature of gamma radiation in the data from the recently-crashed Japanese Kaguya Probe. (Via Bad Astronomy)
Also from Bad Astronomy comes this insanely cool optical illusion video that utilizes your eye’s natural blind spot (where the optic nerve connects to your retina). It works best if you view it full screen.
Crazy street art/Tinted Windows/Comet Lulin details
February 25, 2009
Don't Jump!
While I’ve seen several images/web posts about this type of perspective-based street art before, this one is the biggest scale I’ve seen thus far. Edgar Muller lives and works in Germany, and even with several helpers, his projects take several days to complete. This one is called “Ice Age.” This type of art is all based on viewing from one very specific vantage point, creating an amazing 3D optical illusion. I’ve never seen one of these in real life before, but I’d like to. You’d think an artist this talented/successful would be able to afford a decent website design though…. ugh.
One of the few “new” bands that I’m really digging lately is the Morning Benders. They recently did a Daytrotter Session and the results are pretty cool. They did a spaced-out version of one of my favs Doctor, Doctor. If you’re into them, go grab the mp3’s for sure.
Remember when I posted about the new supergroup Tinted Windows comprised of James Iha, Taylor Hansen, Bun E. Carlos, and Adam Schlesinger? Well, they have an album coming out April 21st, and Billboard has the track “Kind of a Girl” posted for streaming. It’s pretty much exactly what you would expect from that lineup. But it sounds very generic and well… just listen for yourself. They’re also playing a showcase at SXSW this year.
Though it’s been in the news for several weeks now, I’ve not posting anything regarding the possible merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, which would result in virtual monopoly in the concert promotion and ticket business. I decided to change that today. Brooklynvegan posted a story about a hearing held yesterday on Capitol Hill regarding the merger. Thankfully it seems as though authorities are going to put this merger under a microscope. I don’t know that much about antitrust laws, but I can’t see how this merger would not be in violation of them. I mean, Ticketmaster is already enormous, and so is Live Nation in the promotion world… if this happens, concert go-ers are screwed because this one company will have the power to price-gouge all they want.
Now for some science-
Sky and Telescope posted a great guide to viewing newly discovered Comet Lulin. This week is the best for viewing, and even in light-polluted areas such as here in Nashville, you should be able to see it with a good pair of binoculars. You have to know exactly where to look, though. Check out the article for the deets and a good diagram. Via Universe Today.
steve cross loves music and science 