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Taking a cue from our 'Lil Triggers' series, America Hearts' Jess Matthews finds a marriage this morning between music...and eye wear.
America Hearts play the Rock and Roll Hotel this Friday night (8/27) and the Sockets Records Showcase on Saturday (8/28) at Hexagon in Baltimore.—Ed.
"I got these goggles when I was about 17. I was a snowboard instructor during high school and most winter days I rode down a small Pennsylvania Mountain listening to Appetite for Destruction on my Walkman. I was not supposed to have that Guns n Roses tape, so it was recorded over a Ducktails Cassette.
My friend Susan gave me these sweet yellow shades when we went on a company-sponsored vacation to Mexico. Aside from people on free corporate trips, the all expenses paid resort was filled with honeymooners and older couples who seek out warm locations with free alcohol the way reptiles look for sunny rocks.
The lobby and surrounding pools played musak, including a surprising amount of Guns n Roses songs. A live reggae band played by the pool one day, while someone came around with a monkey you could have your picture taken with. In this picture, I am getting a drink at the pool bar during water aerobics.
When I was touring Europe with Edie Sedgwick, we had a very sweet driver from the Czech Republic named Ales. After the first few days, I asked Ales not to play metal, particularly the Czech blast-beat kind, before noon in the van. He was ok with that and played Czech Hip Hop, Monty Python, Tenacious D, and Hank Williams.
The music was accented by a woman’s voice from the GPS that gave him directions in Czech. By the time we arrived in Prague, we could all tell people to make a left at the next intersection. At the end of tour, Ales said he wanted me to have the sunglasses. When I said I couldn’t take them, he said, ‘C’mon! I’ll get another pair at the gas station in Brno!”
I bought these sunglasses in San Francisco and lost them somewhere in South Africa, which is where I’m driving in this photo. You can't go more than a few hours without hearing a Michael Jackson song on the radio there. You are just as likely to hear 'Heal the World' or 'Scream' as anything on Off the Wall or Thriller. Although I was prepared by seeing an African documentary on Michael Jackson on the flight over, I was still surprised to meet dogs named Michael and Jackson in sea-side lodges." —Jess Matthews
It's perhaps easy to say "like father, like daughter" when one hears that Antonia Bennett,Tony Bennett's daughter, is forging quite the career in her own right as a jazz vocalist. But whereas I always feel Tony embraces a song with a warm, welcoming bear hug, Antonia sidles up to a melody—insinuating her arching, breathy vocals ever so nuanced, yet romantic and warm. And knowing.
And within a week where we're pitching past life's travails, I found listening to Antonia's new 6-song EP 'Natural' in preparation for this ticket giveaway to be quite the breath of fresh air—a welcome vocal approach, reminiscent of Chet Baker's recordings with whom she shares a cover in "The Thrill Is Gone."
Using the American Songbook as her foundation, Antonia explains, “I take each of the songs that I do as a story, with a beginning, middle and end – like a monologue – and I try to do my best to tell that story,” says Antonia. "I grew up listening to the American Songbook, and a variety of artists singing those songs. Singing these songs is like a home-cooked meal, like comfort food, something that is a part of me. The way I grew up, if you were going to take a song that was done by many of the great artists, you should bring a piece of yourself into it. Interpretation is an art form.”
She goes on to say, “We wanted to find wonderful standards that haven’t been overdone. In fact, none of these have been in my show repertoire. I used to sing “Puttin’ On the Ritz” when I was a little kid on stage with my Dad. I grew up singing it and love it. And if you’ve ever seen Young Frankenstein, you gotta love it!”
So, convince yourself as we have a pair of tickets to see Ms. Bennett along with her legendary father at Wolf Trap, this coming Friday night, 8/27.
To win, simply leave a response in the comments to this post as to why you should be awarded the pair of tickets. We'll choose the most convincing response by 5PM Thursday evening, 8/26.
That's right - it's a rerun. Allyson's on vacation this week but she'll return next week to give ol' #MusicMonday the finger. Or the whole fist. Who knows. Enjoy this gem from the archives. —Ed.
Snoop Dogg made aTrue Blood-themed music video. Twitter is a-buzz: all day yesterday, Twits (alt: Tweeps) obediently retweeted the following:
@TrueBloodHBO: #MM #musicmonday "Oh Sookie" by @snoopdogg http://itsh.bo/ohsookie #trueblood
Let’s parse this. I’m unfamiliar both with True Blood and the oeuvre of Snoop Dogg, so I need to take things slow.
Snoop Dogg (proper noun): A West-coast rap icon, guided to ascendance in the mid-90s by Dr. Dre; Snoop’s real name (Cordozar Calvin Broadus) is empirically more awesome than his stage name. If you have ears and went into or past a school dance, a nightclub, or bar between 1994 and 2004, you have heard “Gin and Juice” or “Drop it Like it’s Hot,” two of Snoop’s inescapable hits.
True Blood (proper noun): An HBO drama based on Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels. Like every popular thing in the world, the show and the novels feature vampires.
Sookie Stackhouse (proper noun): The main character on True Blood, played by Anna Paquin, who, to me, will always be Rogue or that chick with the geese in Fly Away Home.
Fanfic (noun): Abbreviation of “fan fiction,” a genre of storytelling in which devoted fans write stories about their favorite fictional characters (and in which SHIT GETS WEIRD YO).
Snoop Dogg has created the music video version of fanfic about Sookie Stackhouse, using the True Blood set, and this music video is being promoted, on Twitter, by HBO.
Now that I know what’s happening, here are some thoughts on the video:
First, THE LICENSE PLATE HAS FANGS. Now I kind of want a car. To give it fangs.
Second, the whole backlit dance sequence looks an awful lot like the Sparkle Motion performance in Donnie Darko. I’d like to think that means this video contains fanfic-within-fanfic, but more likely the choreographer just got lazy. (I'd link to the Sparkle Motion dance, but the only video on YouTube has dumb 4chan captions with pedobear references Do not want.)
Third, is this song supposed to be…good? I don’t know hip hop well, but “I wanna do bad things to you,” and “You ever been to LA?” just seem lazy. I don’t hear a single clever line. Maybe this is just what happens when one listens to the Beastie Boys to the exclusion of everything else for a few months in high school, but I rather expect all such music to contain gems like “I got stories like J.D.’s got Salinger,” or “I got the girlies in the coop like the Colonel’s got chickens.”
Fourth, while we’re talking about lyrics and chickens: “I got a whole lotta eggs for her to eat, and these eggs come with a lot of cheese and grits.” Maybe I’ve got my anatomy wrong, but…I don’t think Snoop Dogg has eggs. I very much hope this is a reference to something that happens on the show, because otherwise this metaphor is unthinkably gross.
Role #mmodel: twimomof3: I am listening to "Total Eclipse of the Heart (Glee Cast Version) [feat. Jonathan Groff]" by Glee Cast ? http://bit.ly/c4jZgo #musicmonday. Of course you are, twimomof3.
My #musicmonday pick:Shadrach, the Beastie Boys song quoted above. I know every word, and for a while, I thought that meant I could rap.
It arrives with the departure of the cards in the mail and the phone calls ceasing. The flowers wilting. The roar of support and steadfastness matriculating into the pattern of daily living, as if the comfort for a while is not the clicking and clattering of your own brain but the distraction from it.
You're left as you always are - by yourself - and the patterns and the work-a-day routine of just going on. Forging ahead. New patterns. Fewer things to attend to then more of a different variety.
Famously it was Jimmy Carter who gave what became known as the 'Malaise Speech' in 1979 decrying the confidence of the nation's citizens in their own greatness and ingenuity to forge a glorious destiny beyond their immediate concerns. Ironically, the word 'malaise' was never uttered in the speech.
"Often you see paralysis and stagnation and drift. You don't like, and neither do I. What can we do?" Carter asked.
After the events of almost two weeks ago now, like always, it's the songs, the music, the records that hasten a return to some spiritual normalcy beyond the malaise.
The lazy days of summer are among us and last night a mild breeze rolled through the canyon as Mercury (the messenger planet) went “retro” as in retrograde.
All these signs from nature breezing about, I’m once again reminded of my simple mission; to create a dope “mix” of classics and great new bands. While I put this show together I was day dreaming about rock shows of summer’s past. Like that hot summer night in 1973 when Sly and Family Stone never showed up to take us higher.
In the end, this week’s Idelic Hour became about the bands of 2010 hitting summer tour stages to promote their fall releases. PO PO, Pete Yorn, No Age, Dearhunter, Damien Jurardo, Black Angels, The Sister Ruby Band, Wild Nothing and Autolux.
So while it’s warm, catch a show, take off your shirt and wave it in the air. Fall is around the corner.
Streaming and The Idelic “hit of the week” Fitz and the Tantrums' Dear Mr. President keeps us dancing like the summer of '73!
With their punky/shoegaze DIY take on the classic girl group combo AND their hyper-intelligent vinyl record aesthetic, Brooklyn's Vivian Girls could easily be The Vinyl District's house band. If we had a house. Which would have easily burnt down now. For certain.
And they're certain to be testing the fire codes in that back room of Comet Ping Pong Sunday night, August 22nd. Joining them are DC's Brett and the Whispers who I'd like to think of as a supergroup. Because they're both. Wear something flame retardant.
We've got a pair of tickets to award one winner who sufficiently pleads his or her case for them in the comments to this post. We anticipate some top-notch arm-twisting as well.
We'll choose our winner Friday at noon to give you some time to make your case. Remember to leave us a contact email address so we can get in touch with you, ok?
Paul Collins, the 'King of Power Pop' might also be 'The Hardest Working Man in Showbiz' given his never ending, country to country, city to city touring—which chugs into DC's Comet Ping Pong on Friday, August 20th.
Touring in support of his brand new release, 'The King of Power Pop,' expect an evening of sweaty rock and roll, sharp hooks, and tight choruses culled from his decades-long career. (Hell, the guy was on the Mike Douglas AND the Merv Griffin shows...)
And yep, we've got a pair of tickets to award one winner who sufficiently pleads his or her case for them in the comments to this post. We anticipate some top-notch arm-twisting on your part for this top-notch bill.
We'll choose our winner Friday at noon to give you some time to make your case. Remember to leave us a contact email address so we can get in touch with you, ok?
"When I moved in with my boyfriend, one of the things that I considered to be a very serious decision was what we should do with our record collections. Folklore seemed to say that merging the collections together too soon was a bad idea & that it would lead to eventual heartbreak if the relationship ended. But it also seemed really weird (and sad) to keep them separate. After some quick deliberation, I filed them all together alphabetically (mine sleeved, his without) in our living room.
I discovered something interesting during this process: there are only a few doubles in our combined collection of nearly 500 records. There are exactly six, all of them purchased while we were dating, but before we moved in.
What does this mean? Hidden in the 1% of our records where our buying habits intersect, is there some clue to the foundations of our relationship? Do these six records hold the key to increasing our happiness, solving quarrels or predicting the future? Or are they just popular records we both happen to own through blind chance? (Being a Gemini, Ian Svenonious would probably say that there is some sort of power to be found in doubles, and perhaps the number six or twelve might have some cosmic significance, but I'm a Libra & this isn't his blog post).
As I listened to these records, I began to think of the types of relationships they might represent. How would the couples embodied by these albums meet? Would they have kids & grow old together or flame out in a fit of passion? Here's what I imagined:
1. Elliott Smith – XO | Sensitive, corduroyed boy and sensitive, flannel-clad girl share coffee over long silences while it rains outside. Their love runs deep, but so does their emotional baggage. Regardless, I figure they have what it takes to make it through the long haul.
2. Peter Bjorn & John – Let’s Call It Off 7” | She says "Let's Call it Off!" He says "(I Just Want to) See-Through." The eternal push and pull of side A versus side B. Their friends just wonder how many times they can flip the record and play it again. Good thing the music is catchy.
3. The Points – S/T | Under a glittering rain of spit beer, love blossoms. When they break up, he cuts her head out of all their old pictures. Then they get back together. And break up again.
4. The Raveonettes – Lust, Lust, Lust | Kohl eyeliner and skinny jeans are virtually all that they share in common. Luckily, their relationship isn't based on conversation.
5. Vivian Girls – S/T | He knows what she knows, he feels what she feels. Unfortunately, all that is fleeting & it doesn't end well.
6. Title Tracks – Every Little Bit Hurts 7” | Love hurts. They meet at St. Stephens when she gets caught in the undertow of an impromptu mosh pit & he helps her up. Her mom gives him a ride home. They make plans to meet again at Comet Ping Pong on Friday night:"
Holly plays bass & sings in Black Telephone with her boyfriend, Tom and their friend Rory.Find them at their Official Website and Facebookand at Comet Ping Pong this Friday night (8/20) with The Paul Collins Beat, Title Tracks, and Mother's Children.
One December a million years ago, 'Yesterday And Today' was a holiday gift along with Milton Bradley's Air Trix.
The Air Trix board game "is a skill game where players must move a styrofoam ball suspended on a column of air through various obstacles. The obstacles include running the ball through a ladder, into a bucket on the seal's nose, through the weather vane, landing on a helicopter, and picking up a mail bag."
Fun stuff right? More fun, my friend Spike and I thought, would be to replace the suspended in-air styrofoam ball with...well, ...spit. What can I say - we were creative kids.
Not surprisingly, the spit had varying results. It worked for a second there, then it'd come lobbing down into the hair dryer-like device that kept the styrofoam ball aloft. Shortly thereafter this device seemed to take on what I'll call - a smell.
Soon the game and the smell were relegated to the shelves, but what stayed handy however were the yellow sticks from the game on which the items would be suspended. They were about 13" long and the width of some light jazz drum sticks. And they became my first drum sticks.
Like a joke that takes painfully long to come to a conclusion, the marriage of Air Trix, spit, and The Beatles' 'Yesterday and Today' - specifically 'And Your Bird Can Sing,' ignited a life long love affair with all things: drum kit and blisters.
Power pop legend Paul Collins plays Comet Ping Pong Friday night with DC's Title Tracks, Black Telephone, and Ottawa's Mother's Children (for which we have free tickets.)
Paul's touring behind his latest release, the aptly titled "King of Power Pop!" and we've got three copies of the LP that Paul notes is "...the record that connects the dots, from The Nerves to The Breakaways to The Beat to today—this is the record that puts it all together!"
Oh yea, it's a limited edition of just 500 on swirl-colored vinyl.
"King Of Power Pop! is the new studio album by Paul Collins, one of the originators of the power pop sound. Paul got his start in the late seventies as the drummer for the legendary Nerves (with Peter Case and Jack Lee) later forming The Breakaways with Peter Case, and finally starting The Beat, or Paul Collins Beat in 1979.
King Of Power Pop! is a complete return to his roots, to power pop, the sound he helped create and popularize, a sound that has seen a resurgence in recent years, a sound that is here to stay! Produced and engineered in Detroit by Jim Diamond (Dirtbombs, The Go, White Stripes, to name just a few), King Of Power Pop! also features Eric Blakely on guitar and backing vocals, Diamond on bass, and Dave Shettler on drums (SSM, The Sights). Motor City guests include Wally Palmar of the legendary power pop hit-makers the Romantics, as well as pop icon Nikki Corvette of Nikki & The Corvettes.
The catchy cover pop art is the work of legendary artist William Stout. The album includes 11 new songs, one new recording of the Breakaways classic "Many Roads To Follows" (the demo version featuring Peter Case can be found on the Breakaways release "Walking Out On Love"), and two covers, for a total of 13 great high-energy power pop songs."
As mentioned above, we've got three copies of the swirl-colored LP to put in the hands of three of you. Plead your case for one of them in the comments to this post and the ones with the memorable hooks and catchy choruses will be awarded the new LP.
We'll close this one next Wednesday (8/25) and as always, remember to leave us a contact email address!
Back in May we ran a week-long series we called 'Lil Triggers.' Y'know this or that which suddenly ignites a reflection or memory and sends you off elsewhere.
Last evening before dinner I had a package delivered—my mom's wedding ring and wedding band. In a baggie, in the mail. The same rings with picture perfect clarity I can recall on her finger or cooling themselves on the window sill while dishes were being washed.
Let's just say this week might just be a bit tougher to get through than I thought yesterday.
This week, instead of trying to distill themes from an entire day’s worth of #musicmonday tweets, I’ll go hour by hour and look for some microthemes. Because I am an alchemist, I will find them. And because I am a windbag, I will stick to the morning hours and leave the afternoon and evening for later columns.
3–4 am (Eastern Time): This hour is pretty much dominated by @MMHero, who was tweetin’ some pretty solid garage rock. I’m a sucker for fuzzy guitars and scratchy vocals, so @MMHero makes me happy. In between that and the usual crush of people selling tickets to shows via the #musicmonday tag, there are a few Norah Jones suggestions and Silverchair. I’ve been writing this column for a few months now, and have concluded that many Twitter users think it’s still the ‘90s despite overwhelmingevidencethat we are actually living in the future.
4–5 am: More @MMHero, plus a ton of tweets in Indonesian. I think. #Indonesia65 is hashtagged, and August 17 is the 65th anniversary of Indonesian independence. Other than that, I can’t tell you what the Indonesian tweets are talking about, or what they have to do with music. I don’t speak Indonesian. In fact, I just had to look up whether “Indonesian” was in fact a language. I’m actually quite bright, I promise, but once I accidentally said “Puerto Rican” when I meant “Portuguese” because it had been a long day and I was tired and they both start with P and have some Us and Rs in there but even though I knew when I said it that it wasn’t a language I still get nervous sometimes that things I think are languages are not actually.
5–6 am: Nothing happened in this hour. What the heck, Twitter?
6–7 am: Now everything is in Spanish. This is cool; it’s like world travel. Fewer hostels though. There is one dude, @Quinaitor, tweeting a lot of Thor, Thunderer, and In the Realm of Asgard. I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that these are metal bands.
7–8 am: Holy smokes there are a lot of #musicmonday tweets in this hour! Godsmack Guns N Roses Chris Cornell Madonna (it’s her birthday) Elvis (it’s his… erm…deathday?) Muse Imogen Heap The Goo Goo Dolls (confession: I tell people my first real concert was the Beastie Boys but it was actually The Goo Goo Dolls and I still have the tee-shirt) The Pixies Weird Al (who I have also seen live but sort of against my will) Justin Timberlake (who I would TOTALLY see live don’t hate) EIFFEL 65 (ughhhhhhh) The Foo Fighters Sugarloaf My Chemical Romance Drake The Flaming Lips Alicia Keys The Replacements (endorsed) Arcade Fire (surprised it took them this long to show up) Panda Bear (hey hipster) Sleigh Bells (same hipster) Beach House (yup) Don Henley (hipster: gone) Slipknot (hee)…I’m only about halfway through this hour. People on Twitter have very varied taste.
8–9 am: Things are really picking up. Scanning for trends, I’m still seeing a ton of ‘90s music, with some Katy Perry, Drake, and Taylor Swift mixed in. @MMHero is still going strong, and has been joined by @maggie_price, who is also tweeting the heck out of some reliably solid rock music. There’s a little hiccup around 8:25, as far as I’m concerned, where @MMHero is listening to Bob Marley and @maggie_price is listening to Robert Plant. I have left perfectly good coffeeshops to avoid having to listen to those artists, but everyone else in the universe loves them, so I suppose I should forgive these tweeters’ simultaneous lapses (simulapses?) as they can’t possibly know how much I hate reggae and Robert Plant’s voice.
9–10 am: I will give someone a dollar if they can explain to me why there is so much ‘90s alt-rock on #musicmonday.
10–11 am: LOTS of Linkin Park happening here. I really can’t think of anything snarky to say about Linkin Park that I didn’t already say in high school.
I’m spent. Next week (or maybe not…) I’ll delve into the afternoon hours. In the meantime:
My #musicmonday pick: Yeah yeah Scott Pilgrim soundtrack whatever this song is great. Sleazy Bed Track by The Bluetones: http://tinysong.com/hJHQ.
Role #mmodel: @vicbee says “#musicmonday – I’m waiting for my Dad (to the tune of ‘waiting for the man’)” So…@vicbee’s dad is dealing junk?
I guess it was some point at the beginning of this calendar year, then it got exacerbated a bit when Google decided they were going to unceremoniously start pulling blogs for posting 'unauthorized' music. That's when I think the blog became a bit more general in tone and less about what constituted much of the first two years here. My bullshit.
But last Tuesday morning my mom passed away and I'd be wholly remiss if it wasn't mentioned here in some manner, much the way my dad's passing in 2006 became the impetus for starting this thing. See, I needed a distraction then. A way to move on. Or just think.
Honestly, I don't think I've broken down yet since receiving the all too classic 2:30 am phone call from a dead sleep. All I could mutter was "Oh..." when the woman on the other end of the line placidly told me she had passed. I layed in bed wide awake for an hour dumbstruck until about 3:30 or so when I just gave in and realized sleep wasn't going to reappear.
I did have forewarning this was to happen though and was planning on a last-minute emergency trip to the hospice in New Jersey. But she beat me to liftoff, almost sparing me a tortured bedside goodbye. I mean, how do you just say 'goodbye?'
To know my mother you'd realize just how much music informed her life - classical music, mostly. And while our tastes quite often diverged, there were bridges through impasses that we shared, largely by pushing something new (or new, old) in her direction. Later on we found another musical bond among standards whose graceful melodies and timeless wisdom seemed ever ripe and valuable.
So, much like ACDC found a way to move on after the death of Bon Scott and reinvent themselves, perhaps the passing of my mom will get some of this back in the direction it once held and we'll go about DJing some downloads daily.
I mean, if Google does pull the plug, that's OK. We're moving servers soon and we've got huge plans for the new year. (Really. You'll be quite surprised.) I guess I could use the time to focus.
This week though, while we're still alive and breathing, a tribute to my lovely, if not persnickety, mother and some music middle-grounds we reached.
