Road to Bonnaroo tonight/new New Porn
February 22, 2010
Tonight is the first Road to Bonnaroo 8 off 8th at Mercy Lounge. It’s the first of 4, and the competition is already hot. The lineup is as follows:
Born Empty
Kyle Andrews
Moon Taxi
Mona
The Non-Commissioned Officers
Parachute Musical
Ponderosa
The Privates
One of these bands will be going to Bonnaroo, and you can help decide by showing up and casting your vote. I can attest to the fact that these bands go ALL OUT for this, so even if you’ve seen one of these bands recently, come on out because they’ll pull out every last trick and gimmick they can think of to give them that extra edge. I also urge you to keep an open mind, and don’t come into it already “knowing” which band you’re gonna vote for. For more info, including song samples and videos from each band, visit the Mercy Lounge calendar.
I’m always surprised at how busy the New Pornographers can stay, given that most of their members already have fairly big solo careers. But amazingly, they have another studio album called Together due out on Matador on May 4th. Head over to You Ain’t No Picasso to grab the first free track, called “Your Hands (Together).” I enjoyed the track more than anything from their last album, so I’m hoping the rest of Together is along the same lines. I don’t know if they’ll ever top Twin Cinema, however. That record will probably always stay the top of the NP catalog in my humble opinion.
We Own This Town did a fun little interview with Jessi Darlin, of Those Darlins. She talks about how insanely busy they’ve been, and shares a few road stories. Check it out.
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!
Black Lips get in fight/Those Darlins on YANP/Carl Sagan autotuned
September 28, 2009
You Ain’t No Picasso does a series of interviews called “My First Time With… (insert band name here).” His latest is with Murfreesboro/Nashville’s own Those Darlins. Check it out here. I was rather surprised to know that The Bang Up was Linwood’s first band… or that the first song he wrote was “Shoot that Girl”…. which was one of the best songs from his band the Turncoats. Actually there’s no way that’s the first song he wrote. Linwood, I’m callin’ bullshit on that one buddy. You don’t write a song that good your first time around. Besides, it’s not like this interview’s serious or anything….
Surprise surprise: The Black Lips got into a fight with WAVVES in Brooklyn. To be more specific, Jared Swilley was the one who actually got into it, but he denies the dude (Nathan) from WAVVES was even involved. I don’t understand why, but I’m eternally fascinated by the ridiculous situations those crazy Atlantans get themselves into…
For all the nerds out there, please check out this video of autotuned Carl Sagan clips/Stephen Hawking robot voices. I’m not sure if this is meant to be serious or not…
New Rocksellout/Pavement Reunion/Caitlin Rose video
September 16, 2009
I’ve known Brock Sharp for quite a while now, ever since he was involved with Vacant Cage Records back in the mid 2000’s. They folded back in ’07 and since then he’s been doing all sorts of random music-related things, including starting the Dig For Fire Agency with me. Just last week he was offered the opportunity to take over the music blog Rock Sellout. He agreed, and now it’s up and running again under his command. So go check it out. I may even end up contributing to it some in the future.
Tonight Those Darlins will be joining the Dexateens, the Rustlanders, and Band of Heathens at Mercy Lounge for an Americana Music Awards showcase. They’ll also be joined by a super-secret special guest, and based on the Nashville Cream’s hints and the AMA website, I’m pretty sure it’ll be John Fogerty.
In case you’ve been under a rock the past few days, the long-rumored Pavement reunion is definitely, absolutely, 100% happening. I knew there was something to that 5 Spot almost-reunion-show for Bob N.’s wedding. Maybe they’ll either A) play in Nashville, or B) play at SXSW next year. Or both?
It should be no secret that I’m the world’s biggest Mythbusters fan. That’s why I’m very excited about some of the topics covered in the upcoming season, which debuts October 7th. Can you build a sailboat out of duct tape? Or a cannon? Does a muddy car really get better gas mileage than a clean one? (WTF?) And the one I’m most interested in: does having multiple drinks with various liquors give you a worse hangover than sticking to one liquor all night? If the episode tackling that one is half as funny as the one testing other alcohol/sobriety rumors, then it’s gonna probably end up being one of my fav episodes of all time. CAN’T. WAIT. (Via Gizmodo)
I’ll leave you today with this video containing various drunken antics and a few performance clips from Caitlin Rose’s trip to the Monolith Festival at Red Rocks, CO. Wish I could’ve gone!
First of all, please go check out the Nashville Cream review of last night’s Dead Weather show at War Memorial Auditorium. And look at my photos. I’m kinda proud of a few of them. Honestly, though, I did enjoy the show more than I thought I would. It was cool seeing 2/3 of Green Day walking around in the crowd. I may actually get the Dead Weather album now… I’d only heard “Treat Me Like Your Mother” up until the show. I think I just enjoyed the performance more than the songs though. Allison Mosshart is one of the best frontwomen I’ve ever seen and she really knows how to sell the show. Obviously she did a lot of limbo-ing when she was a kid, because she executed the steepest backbend of anyone I’ve ever seen. Go to the Cream review- they used the pic of her backbend to head up the post.
This is kind of old news now, but in case you’ve been away from the interwebs for a few days, Those Darlins are considered a “breaking band” by Rolling Stone. Way to go girls! If they keep going on their current track, they’ll be world-famous in another year or so.
Time Magazine is trying to define and pinpoint something that is undefinable and infinitely elusive: hipsterdom. When will people learn? (Via Brooklyn Vegan)
Local Honey owner Shea Steele has been kicking ass and doing all kinds of cool stuff lately, and she pretty much sums it all up in a blog post from yesterday. She and Amanda Valentine were both potential contestants on Project Runway, but they didn’t quite make the final cut to be on the show. Though when asked about it, they say they were just relieved to have the pressure off their chest. While it would have been really cool to see one or two Nashville local designers on the show, it would have probably consumed at least 6 months of their lives, and they have other things they’d probably rather be doing.
On the books for this weekend:
Photographing Green Day at Sommet Center tonight. Kinda wish I got to stay for the whole thing, but they don’t usually let photogs back in after shooting the first 2-3 songs. After that we’ll probaby just watch Eureka and chill for the rest of the night.
Saturday night I’m taking photos at the Annual Davidson County Democratic Party Honors Dinner, and after that I have no idea what to do.
The most important thing is that Monday is my 3rd 8 off 8th, and you should come. As always, it’s FREE, 21+, and starts at 9pm SHARP.
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.
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.
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:
steve cross loves music and science 