First, I must point you to the official Next BIG Nashville schedule. It’s up, and it will probably change, but it’s there so start planning which sacrifices to make. Planning your schedule at these types of music festivals is always a delicate balance between seeing people you know and like, and branching out to see some new acts you might not get to see otherwise.
Secondly, I have some exciting news that some people know about, but others don’t. I will be doing a photo documentary project with Those Darlins next week; joining them on a week-long leg of their tour with Strange Boys and Gentleman Jesse & His Men. I got the idea after the death of famous rock photographer Jim Marshall last year. News of his death got me thinking about his photographs, and how a lot of the truly iconic shots are very casual, candid, off-beat images taken off the stage. I thought about how I could do more of that type of behind-the-scenes work (not that my images will ever be as iconic as Marshall’s shots of Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and the like), and I thought of Those Darlins. I’ve known them for years, they’re some of the best people I know, they have room in their van, and after some discussions with their awesome manager John “JT” Turner, this idea is now becoming a reality. They’re what most would consider a mid-level act, but they’re headed for higher places and I think it’s the right time to do this type of project with a band like them. Those Darlins know how to party, and I think the results of this little experiment will be interesting. So, if you’re in Chapel Hill, D.C., New York, Cambridge, or Brooklyn, I hope to see you at one of the shows! Obviously, I may not be posting much next week…
My other news is simply that Miami Horror is awesome and you should go buy their album now. Seriously, I’ve been seeing mp3’s from these guys popping up in the blogosphere for a few months and I kept thinking “oh, this is an awesome track… nice…” But just yesterday I saw my friend Joseph’s review of their debut album on his blog Nashville Nights and it finally clicked in my head that these guys were different than your average “3 or 4 singles a year” DJs/producers. I urge you to checkout the quality interview Joseph did with them as well… I totally agree with his sentiment that it’s hard to find a good, quality dance floor album these days. There really are no sleepers or filler on this album- pure quality all the way through. Honestly this material is exactly what I personally want out of electronic/dance music: it’s got a great disco-ey, funky groove to it, smooth bass lines, and most of all the songs are songs, not just a bunch of loops layered together that build and fade (via trancewave). If you like Cut Copy, AIR, or Neon Indian, you will love this record. This is the best thing to come out of Australia since Silverchair. J/K J/K J/K
Miami Horror-I Look To You (Ft. Kimbra)
Oh, and the link to buy the album goes to Amazon. Fuck iTunes and their non-mp3/non-DJable formats. And while I’m at it, fuck their new ugly skin/layout for iTunes 10, too.
Headed to Portland, OR!
October 16, 2009
Hey kids, the GF and I are headed to Portland, OR today to visit our good friend Chris Freeman and just see the city we’ve heard everyone rave about so much. We’ll be back Monday afternoon. So this will be the last post till at least Tuesday. That being said, here are some tasty tidbits for your browsing pleasure:
Be sure to check out the results of this year’s Best Of Nashville reader’s poll in the Scene. I’m just happy The Features won best local band. Over Kings of Leon. Not that I have anything against KOL, it’s just cool that the readers appreciate all The Features’ hard work for the past ~15 years.
The official Next Big Nashville photogallery is up. It includes photos by me, Jonathan Kingsbury, Dylan Reyes, Jordan Jaquess, and Bradley Butcher. You can see the full galleries for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, or you can view a more selective culling on the official NBN flickr photostream.
This may be old news to some, but Beck has started a pretty awesome new project on his website called Record Club. He’s bringing in various musicians from other bands to contribute to the recording of a full album in one day. They’re all cover albums and the musicians do not get a chance to rehearse together before the session. He also videotapes the whole thing and uploads one song per week to his website. The one currently up is Leonard Cohen’s Songs of Leonard Cohen featuring Devendra Banhart, members of MGMT, and many more. I think our own hometown hero Matt Mahaffey appears in at least 1 or 2 of the previous session videos, in which they covered The Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground & Nico. (Via Brooklyn Vegan)
Speaking of Matt Mahaffey, Rock Sellout did a cool interview with him last week.
Be sure to make it down to the Exit/In for Monotonix/Turbo Fruits/JEFF the Brotherhood tomorrow. Or if that’s not your thing, Drummer (side project of Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney) is playing at Mercy Lounge, along with the Royal Bangs.
But as I said we’ll be in Portland attending the Scion GarageFest, where 2 Nashville acts just happen to be playing: Cheap Time and Those Darlins.
That’s it for now folks. See you next week.
NBN starts TOMORROW!
October 6, 2009
This year’s Next Big Nashville has really crept up on me. But it starts tomorrow and I’ll be one busy dude for the next 5 or so days. I’m shooting pics for the festival, and here’s where I’ll be found: Wed- Cannery for Nashville Music Awards/Ten Out of Tenn. Thur- Mercy Lounge/Cannery. Fri- Exit/In and The End. Sat- Exit/In and The End. I’ll probably also be at the Yazoo day party/sale on Sat. It’s gonna be a crazy weekend. If you’re totally LAME and don’t have a wristband or badge yet, your absolute last chance to score some freebies will be tonight at Rock N Roll Trivia at Mercy Lounge. Winning team gets 6, yes SIX, wristbands, plus a $100 bar tab at Mercy. Read more about that at Nashville Cream. I unfortunately MUST take tonight off to just chill at home and work on the DJ Burgers fall mix, which will be featured on Justin Kase’s blog, Blogging Is Serious Business. More on that later…
In other news, Vampire Weekend released the first track from the new album for free, and it’s effing everywhere on the interwebz today. YAWN.
I took some photos of Them Crooked Vultures at War Memorial for the Scene last night. I saw about the 1st 4 or 5 songs and it was pretty cool actually… I’ll have to check out their first release whenever it comes out for sure…
Big props to my friend and BFF co-conspirator Fan Fiction for getting tapped to DJ the final NBN afterparty Sat. night at Mercy Lounge.
I have no idea if I’ll even have time to post anything over the next 4 to 5 days, so don’t expect much. Besides, you should be out enjoying NBN, not at home on your computer!
Creed tix drop to 7.79/Next Big Nashville/weekend stuff
October 2, 2009
I find it absolutely hilarious to learn that tickets for the upcoming Creed concert at Sommet Center have dropped to $7.79. I can’t see how this show could go on with ticket prices that low… with the production costs in a venue that big, there’s no way this show could happen without the promoters or someone losing a lot of money. As one Cream commenter said, “these are cheap enough to buy [for] someone as a practical joke..” I hope Stapp & co. get the message here: Your band sucks. Your band is an embarrassment to humanity. Stop now. No one likes you. In fact, even Jesus hates you.
Every once in a while Oddee.com comes out with a truly interesting/ridiculous list of bizarre (insert phrase here). This list of “accidental deaths you won’t believe” is quite possibly one of the most hilarious/terrifying/depressing things they’ve published yet. A stripper suffocating inside a birthday cake? Falling into a vat of scalding chocolate? Being crushed to death by a woman committing suicide? You couldn’t make this shit up…
Next Big Nashville is only a week away! You can still get wristbands and VIP badges here. Don’t think you can just walk up to a venue and be able to pay a cover to get in… that may work in some cases, but I’d say there will be at least a few of these shows that will fill up to capacity with badges and wristbands, and walk-ups won’t be able to get in.
As for stuff to do this weekend, you probably won’t find us out quite as much as usual. As far as I know, I’m not shooting any shows until Them Crooked Vultures on Monday… so the main thing we’re doing is the art crawl saturday night. If you’ve never been, just head down to the Aracade on 5th Ave tomorrow night around 6-7pm. All the art galleries are free and open, and most have free wine and snacks. It’s a great way to hang out, look at some awesome art, and get drunk for free. There’s even a free shuttle to haul your drunk ass around to the other galleries that aren’t within walking distance. I actually have to work Sunday morning so I can’t stay out late Sat. night, but if you’ve ever been to the End, please do head over there for a benefit show to celebrate the life of Stacy Fleeman, the former doorman who passed away last month. Playing are Dharmakaya, Silent Friction, Creeping Cruds, The Billy Goats, Jah’s Addiction, The Destructions, Lovebucket, and Fire Walk With Me. These are all bands that Stacy had some sort of connection with and/or loved. The show will start at 3pm and go late into the night.
One last note: I’m really REALLY stoked for the series premier of Stargate Universe tonight on SyFy. I’ve been looking forward to this show for a good 6 months now, ever since the final episode of Stargate Atlantis. It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of the whole Stargate franchise, but I’m still cautiously optimistic about the new direction this show is taking. We’ll see how it goes.
Ben & Zooey married/Next Big Nashville stuff
September 23, 2009
I wish I could post more often, but I just don’t have as much time now that work is really busy again, both at Vandy and the photography stuff. Sorry kids. Posting is going to be more like every-other day or every two days for a while.
Next Big Nashville got a little shout-out on Pitchfork today, as Nashville Cream points out. Kudos! I, along with Johnny Kingsbury and probably some others, have once again been hired by Jason and Co. to photographically cover the festival, so expect to see me running my ass off and loving every minute of it again this year.
Image via Nashville Cream
Also NBN-related is the Nashville Music Awards, which is being re-instated this year after last happening in 2000. It’s poll run by the Scene, and though I have no idea how they came up with the nominations, the voting is very simple: whomever gets the most votes wins. There were obviously some categories which I knew very little to nothing about, but the rules say that you must fill out each category for your ballot to be counted. So, go forth and vote! The awards will be presented on Wed. Oct. 7th at the Cannery Ballroom, as part of NBN. And if haven’t gotten your NBN tickets yet, you’re crazy. Go fix that right now.
So Ben Gibbard and Zooey Deschanel got hitched this past weekend. All you cutesytweeindie people can go cry for a while because the celebrity love of your life is now firmly wed.
Now enjoy this:
Via Clusterflock
New Weezer song/Next Big Nashville
August 26, 2009
If you know me at all you know that I will always be a huge Weezer fan. Rivers Cuomo and Kurt Cobain shaped my childhood more than you can imagine. Hell, I practically learned to play guitar by learning almost every song on the “Blue album” and Pinkerton. It’s widely accepted that Weezer has been in a downward spiral post-Pinkerton. This has been a difficult pill for me to swallow, but I accept that they’ll never be what they used to be. All that being said, they have a new song streaming on their website and it doesn’t totally suck. But I said the same thing about the song “Pork & Beans” from their last effort the “Red album.” P&B is about as close as they’ll ever get to the Blue/Pinkerton-era sound, but the rest of that album was basically just as bad as Make Believe. I hope this is not the case with this next record, but at this point my philosophy for new Weezer material is “hope for the best, but expect the worst.” Seriously though, this new song “I Want You To” is worth a listen, at the very least. Stream it at their website.
Next Big Nashville is quickly approaching and it’s definitely time to buy your wristband or VIP badge. The pre-sale is already over, and ticket prices will only continue to rise as it gets closer. Go the website and order yours now! A partial lineup has been released and it includes some seriously heavy-hitters. Here are just a few:
Lucero
Jemina Pearl
David Vandervelde
Heypenny
The Protomen
American Bang
Madi Diaz
How I Became the Bomb
Howlies
Colour Revolt
The Non-Commissioned Officers
Mikky Ekko
Jeremy Lister
Phosphorescent
Cortney Tidwell
Caitlin Rose
Pico Vs Island Trees
The Clutters
The Scene had some glitches with their database, but they finally have the photobooth pics from the Nashville Cream party up. Check ’em out: Part 1 and Part 2.
It’s been a while since I mentioned Hipster Runoff. I highly recommend reading Carles’ take on the apparently resurgent trend of “sagging.”
Here’s an interesting chart showing the frequency of the most common elements/objects featured on the cover of fantasy books. Of course swords are in the lead, but I’m quite surprised that unicorns are dead last…. (Via Snarkmarket)
RIP Stacy Fleeman and Ted Kennedy.
Attention bands everywhere: the Next Big Nashville deadline for entry was extended until this coming Friday. It was originally today, but last Friday they announced the extension. So get over to American Songspace and apply if you haven’t. It’s only ten bucks!
Those Darlins just keep making bigger and bigger news stories. This time they got a mention on CNN and the New York Times! Check out CNN.com and watch the video clip. They talk about Hannah Montana first, then mention the Darlins at about 2:50 into the clip. Then check out the NYT review here. They also got written up on Brooklyn Vegan for the 368th time….
Tonight is Nashville Cream’s 70’s cover night at Mercy Lounge. It’s like an 8 off 8th in that there’s 8 bands and they play about 3 songs each, but all bands are doing covers of songs from the 70’s. It’s totally free and 21+. It’ll be a blast so come on down.
Oddee posted a blog about 10 very strange bars. My favorite is the bar made of ice. Pretty awesome.
From the science world…
The launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour was scrubbed AGAIN yesterday due to storms in the vicinity of the launch area. They’re going to retry the launch at 6:51pm EDT tonight, but the forecast is still pretty iffy. Basically any afternoon/early evening launch time during the summer months is a shot in the dark because storms pop every afternoon in Florida due to the interaction between the hot/humid air over the land and the cooler seabreeze coming in off the ocean. Basically they’ll just have to get lucky.
In other NASA news, a really cool interactive flash application is up on their website. It’s a panoramic view made of images taken during the Apollo 11 moon landing (except for the image of the Eagle lander, which is obviously CG). You can scroll around from several different viewpoints. In case you didn’t know, this year is the 40th Anniversary of the moon landing.
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.
Two good updates from space via Space.com:
Ever since last November, astronauts on the International Space Station have been working out glitches in their new urine/wastewater recycling system. Yesterday they finally were able to successfully test it and drink water made from their own urine. It’s a bit uncomfortable to think about drinking the water from your own urine, but it may eventually be necessary for people even here on Earth if the population keeps expanding exponentially. The problem isn’t that water itself is in short supply, it’s that the vast majority of it is either undrinkably saline (the oceans) or located too far away from the people who need it. So far there’s not an energy-efficient or cost-effective method of desalinization of ocean water.
The astronauts onboard Space Shuttle Atlantis are scheduled to land tomorrow at Kennedy Space Center at 10:01 AM EDT. They’ve been given the all-clear on the heat shield inspection and are currently getting the shuttle ready for re-entry. As always, nasa.gov will have live coverage and video of the landing.
In other space-related news, former astronaut Scott Parazynski finally reached the summit of Mount Everest yesterday. He’s been at it for a few years now, and last year an injury forced him to delay his climb. This time he made it, and brought along some “moon rocks and remembrances of fallen astronauts.” He was also doing research and collecting samples for various other scientific endeavors. Read more at this Universe Today article.
Turbo Fruits: NBN showcase at SXSW 2009.
The Next Big Nashville website is still the 2008 version, but according to this post on Nashville Cream (which is about sonicbids, not NBN), NBN 2009 will feature a Friday evening of events that will take over the honky-tonks on lower Broadway, as well as an outdoor event on Saturday. This is all good news because those bars are all conveniently located close to each other, much like the bars/venues in Austin for SXSW. It makes it much easier to hop between shows, especially if bands you want to see are playing at nearly the same time, but different venues. I would hope the outdoor event on Saturday is the grand finale throwdown, like the one at Cannery last year.
Please do yourself a favor and go browse through Photos that Changed the World. These are truly magnificent images. Some are very graphic and difficult to look at, but everyone needs to see these photographs. Via Kottke.org.
steve cross loves music and science 