Sunday Coffeehouse - Katy Perry's Cover of MGMT's Electric Feel ( A Decidedly Unelectric Feel)

As you know, I am currently mildly obsessed with Katy Perry and bring her up constantly. During a recent conversation, an infuriated person pointed out to me that this was the most interesting thing she had ever done - a live cover of Electric Feel done accustically for Live Lounge on BBC Radio 1.

I love it...cheers...

I like this song - "Work" by Hockey

Is this a cover of something?

Vampire Weekend - How fun are these guys?

Music Video That Makes Me Happy

Aside from being an infectious song, these guys decided to make a video that invokes the opening to #5 on the Hose's official list of the Top 10 Movies of the 90s.

Happy thoughts all around....

Sunday Morning Dancing

Read an article about Julian Casablanca's new album in the NY Times and decided to check the album out. Loved it, I figured between that, our recent conversation on Synth Pop and my recent obsession with Matt & Kim I would share this mix with you.

Wooo

Pretty Songs - "Blood" by The Middle East

'Blood' The Middle East

Fun at Work

Noting that any “Best of the ‘00s” list is not likely to change much between now and December 31, the website pitchfork.com put up its list of the 20 greatest songs of the decade. Such lists are always very subjective, of course, but I always enjoy them. I mean, it’s not like they are going to put BAD songs on the list, right? This list has a very nice write-up on each song, and a link to listen to each one. Unfortunately, it does not have a link to listen to all of them in a row, so you need to keep flipping back.

There is more electronica in this selection than one would expect from a completely neutral observer, but it is still a nice mix that covers the bases from Arcade Fire to Z, Jay. I went through it this afternoon at work and have the following comments:

1. I had not heard of 9 of the songs – a staggering 45%. What was I doing this decade?

2. Remix to Ignition by R. Kelly made the list. Catjjy and I love this song. In our house, for the past six years, Friday does not kick off the “weekend.” It kicks off the “Freakin Weekin.”

3. My list would be completely different, but there are one or two omissions from this list that surprised me. Seven Nation Army, for example, blew my socks off when KB1 played it for me in 2003. Where is it?

4. This list has Crazy in Love at #4. Any credible list has to have it in the top 10. My favorite bit of commentary from the list maker: “If someone told you that the sheet music for Crazy in Love was just a bunch of exclamation points on a staff, you would believe them, right?”

5. The #1 song surprised me, but as I listened to it again today I realized that it is a pretty freaking good song.

Awesome Sunday Morning

Three underwear despoilages after finding this link in September's Wired, I have managed to navigate away from that blissful site to share my ecstasy: Beck and friends re-record The Velvet Underground and Nico. With Nigel Godrich. In one day.

As has previously been mathematically proven, Beck + Nigel Godrich + Lou Reed material = a male, wannabe-angsty, 30-something's hetero- / retro- menage au trois extrordinaire . Or maybe that's totally gay.

Anyway, further fueling Xtian's obsession with Actors dry-humping along side Musicians, this recording also features Giovanni Ribisi from the awesome flic Boiler Room sitting in with Beck. (Ribisi's twin sis is married to Beck).

Listen to "Sunday Morning" first. Then go change your drawers.

Outdated Concert Review: All Points West (Friday)

I woke up Friday morning excited, disappointed and fearful.

More...I was excited because I had taken the day off to go to All Points West with my pregnant cousin and her husband. She was an old school hip hop fan who was excited to see Q-Tip and The Pharcyde. Her Husband was pumped about the National, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and other. I wanted to see all of these bands but was most eager to catch Ra Ra Riot. After all, I had continue my ongoing obsession with Alexandra Lawn. We were all disappointed because the Beastie Boys would not be headlining (Get better MCA). We were nervous because there had been a torrential downpour at 5am and i was convinced we were doomed.

Rather than bore you to tears I will simply grade the acts we saw
College Humor Live (doing something stupid) - D
Fleet Foxes - B. Just not My thing.
Ra Ra Riot - B+. Would have been an A if Alexandra Lawn had actually followed through and humped her cello
Pharcyde - B. Maybe a little dated but who doesn't love "Passin Me By", no Fat Lip...who's a total genius. of course, I saw five minutes of this so my grade my not be that fair.
The National - A+. See Below
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - B. I am little over Karen O
Q-Tip - A
Jay Z - A- (great opening. he did "No Sleep In Brooklyn" as a shout out the Beasties)

Here's the National doing Mr. November.


After four hours of rain the whole thing turned into a Refugee Camp...but that's not all bad.

Outdated Concert Review: Wilco Wappinger Falls, NY 7/18/2009

Last night, I joined Killer B, Beerock and Mark (nickname pending approval) for the Wilco show in Dutchess County NY.

The show was great. It was outdoors. The environment was awesome - a light breeze and some clean country air. Wilco was awesome live and went for about 2 hours. Conor Oberst was tight and a great opening act.

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KillerB put the whole event together. 1 Point for him.

Tickets were like $35 dollars but he suggested we spend an extra $25 dollars for some all you can eat BBQ. We needed to quickly deduct 1 point from his score. This was the worst idea ever. Had this concert taken place in Nashville, I am sure it would have featured awesome smoked meat, ribs whatever. But the residents of Dutchess County NY have a severe misunderstanding of what a Summer BBQ is. About 30 seconds in, I noticed there was nothing to put in my hamburger bun. Not only were there no ribs, there was no hamburgers. What kind of half ass BBQ is this?

Conor Oberst was dressed like the love child of Stevie Ray Vaughn and Prince. I approved.

There were lots of families about. Lots of people committing to being cool even while holding a 2 year old in their arms. The kids were into it. Dancing constantly. I can safely say I saw no one cry (except for Beerock during "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart"). Even during the first encore, well after 10, kids were just passed out on the grass - peaceful. Good job kids! Bad job parents.

My favorite mom was a woman who flew in from San Diego from the show. She dragged her 7 year old daughter along, who wore the cutest Wilco Trucker hat.. The mother made note of us after her daughter overheard me expressing concern over the hamburger bun and three pieces of lettuce on her plate. She asked several questions and made a few comments about flying in from San Diego. The tattoos on her arms made me want to do her right there in the open air or possibly back at her hotel room with her daughter locked in the bathroom. These are the thoughts I have.

I had never seen the Big Dipper before but I did last night. Awesome. What kind of ghetto Boy Scout troop was I in?

Outdated Concert Review: Pete Yorn at Joe's Pub 6/18/2009

An 11:30pm show is a tough sell all around. Especially on Thursday night with aspirations to work on Friday. Still, I am a pretty big fan of Pete Yorn. I have seen two of his shows and have a pretty strong opinion of his albums and what worked and what did not. So I went out into the rain solo to check out what turned out to be a great show. I was also curious to see exactly who else would brave the weather and timing to go see a moderately successful singer/songwriter who has never had a great hit


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Before going to Joe's Pub I went to the Pinche Taqueria on Lafayette because I had not yet eaten dinner. While munching on some el pastor, I thought about the song "Burrito" and the similarities between Pete and I. We are undercover NJ natives with a west coast flavor on top, much like the lime I was applying to tortilla. I started humming "Life on a Chain" for no reason in particular.

The line outside of Joe's Pub was eclectic to say the least. There were several middle aged couples in line. One could only assume that they were Montville, NJ natives out to support their triumphant native son - several without tickets hoping to get in. Maybe not though, maybe they picked "For Us" as their song for their vow renewal ceremony last summer in Sea Girt because their daughter liked it and played too much in the car one summer and mom found herself humming along.

There were two 40 odd year old women, one far more fit than the other. I was convinced that the more fit had endured a bad break up in mid 2003 and found solace in "Come Back Home". Her friend is a happy mother of 3 who leaves her husband with the kids once a month to relive her youth with her developmentally arrested friend. They both have inappropriate crushes on Pete.

Beside me were two twenty something blondes, who learned every word to musicforthemorning after when they were in high school and were convinced that love felt exactly like the lyrics to "Strange Condition" and "A Girl like You". Later, during the show, the would sing along aggressively and dance a most awkward dance.

I sold my spare ticket to 30-something guy standing outside by himself. I could hear him playing "Crystal Village" on his iPod and I got the sinking feeling that in mid 04 he embarrassed himself trying to play that song acoustically for a girl who's hand he was desperate to hold.

75 minutes later, I was singing along to the chorus for "The Man". I am sure some casual observer noted that I was alone but singing with earnestness. The story that this observer came up with for me, I would not dare guess. I hope its a good one.

Counting Down

I know this crew is disproportionately made up of Scarlett Johansson music fans. So just in case you aren't on the listserv I figured I would take this opportunity to point that the single to her forthcoming duet album with Pete Yorn, Relator (Vinyl) comes out June 20th!

Reserve your copy now! or you know just stare at this picture indefinitely

I don't get Rascal Flatts

Two pudgy guys and a girl? WTF?

Concert Review: Ra Ra Riot

Evil Twin #2 and I went to see Ra Ra Riot at Webster Hall on Saturday April 4th. The show was great. For those who aren't paying attention, Ra Ra Riot is a Syracuse birthed rock band who supplement the traditional guitar, bass, drummer band components with a cellist and a violinist. This addition and the speed at which they play make for a pretty rocking experience overall. It's quite a site to behold, watching this two woman string section rip. I was captivated and not alone. At one point ET #2 remarked "Wow, the violinist's bow is disintegrating"

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You learn things at concerts that are not intuitively obvious. The tickets were for "18 and over" so I assumed the fan base would be the Gossip Girl set. Yes, there was some of that but not as much as you might think. In fact, near as I could tell ET #2 and I were surrounded by lesbians. I knew this for a number of reasons. One, there was a lot of girl on girl possessive touching. Two, I was standing next to a woman who looked like she had just won a Morrisey look-a-like contest in 1989. She had a better pompadour than I could ever pray for, and I hated her for it. It was like my very own live version of "The L Word".

Edging into this crowd was a small but noticeable set of far too excited frat boys. They bounded liberally along to "Too too too fast", and what I could only describe as a fierce cover of Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love". Brilliant. We hypothesized they were Syracuse grads. That could be true, regardless they were serious fan. This was all not without its tension. One frat boy exuberance caused him to repeatedly bump into a nerd hot lesbian in square rim glasses. Inaudible over the music, I could see her mouth "I will slap you" to frat boy more than once.

We were left to ask ourselves, what are all these people doing here? One Answer: Alexandra Lawn. Even it was not planned this is what they found themselves doing. No doubt about it.

For a little over an hour, this woman ripped through songs on her cello; stomping, preening, sweating and singing to a very tight set. At several points, she was a woman possessed half playing, half humping her cello. ET #2 noticed a woman in front of us who snapped what could only be 100 photos of her on her camera. It got to the point where everyone was just looking at her. ET #2 admitted she felt bad for the violinist. I assured her that there were different strokes for different folks. While Ms. Lawn was essentially sex and a cello, some out here were turned on by the hipster dream that the violinist represented, an attainably hot virtuotastic force, ironically dressed in a white and black poka dot skirt.

Of course, I never bothered to look up her name. I did, however, bother to spend 30 minutes looking through flickr fan photos of past Ra Ra Riot gigs to find the a few choice close up photos of Ms. Lawn. There were a lot to chose from.

Here's a full set they did at NoisePop in SF last month. Professional quality concert video, worth watching

A Little Bit

Thursday Morning Mix

I am trying out a company called 8tracks. In honor of this I made the gayest mix I could think of.

Anyway, so far so good.

A Sunday Smile

Went to see Beirut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with Killer B #1 and some of the kicks-n-giggles crowd. A few thoughts come to mind

• Neat show. I was down on the idea of watching a rock-n-roll show at BAM, as you know, its an orchestra house but Beirut was supported for more than half the show by what looked to be a full orchestra of 30 or so. The fuller sound benefited from the space


• Beirut is what happens when 60s french pop, waltz and some more eastern European elements have an orgy and make a baby. I'm not entirely sure what is happening, there are all these extra legs and arms and ukuleles. Still its cool; amazing even.


• Killer B #1's wingman skills are severely lacking...

They were on Letterman last week performing "Sunday Smile" just to give you a sense of what I mean

Oh No...

I think Scarlett is great across several dimensions. I don't even think she has a bad voice. It's not great but its cool sounding. After she issued an album of Tom Waits covers she decides to cover one of the great songs, Jeff Buckley's - "The Last Goodbye". The cover itself lacks...it just lacks.

What is wrong with her?

Goodbye, Ryan

Randomly, when I lived in Berkeley, I went through a fairly intense country phase. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to sort out the progression from Uncle Tupelo to Wilco, and subsequently coming up with a position,simultaneously pro and con, on the Old 97s....the sort of thing you do when you have nothing to do but smoke some pot and contemplate the universe I guess.

One of my favorite discoveries from that time was Ryan Adams. His first solo album, Heartbreaker bordered on inspired. Gold, a later effort, had one of the prettiest songs ever on it - "When the Stars go Blue"; a song later covered by Andrea Coor. By the time I came upon him he was already shifting gears, aggressively playing with arena rock on 2002's Rock-n-Roll.However, between the recently released Demolition, his collection of b-sides, and tracking down his older work as the frontman for Whiskeytown I had more than enough to keep my engaged. Of course, when I finished all that he was good enough to release a pair of EPs - Love is Hell Part I and II (2002).

You might see a pattern forming here.

Back in NY, I read Ryan had taken up with Parker Posey and started a band. I was pumped. A few years earlier I had relegated Ryan to someone who was capable of nothing more than one or two perfect melodies per album. Of course, I liked Cold Roses (2005). So did a lot of people. He rewarded this new found faith by releasing the terribly forgettable Jacksonville City Nights and 29 over the next 8 months. He was suddenly everywhere. He was even modeling in a John Varvatros ad.

I was done.

In 2007, I saw Ryan sing "I Taught Myself How to Grow Old" on Letterman and almost cried myself into a stupor. I told ET #2 about the song. ET #2 likes her songs sad, like me. She agreed it was great. I remembered what I enjoyed about his stuff. Articles trumpeted Ryan's new found sobriety and hailed the album Easy Tiger was one of his better works in years. Best of all, his band was growing around him and his stuff was better because of it.

Rather than rush out the next album 3 months later, he and the Cardinals toured extensively. I liked 2008's Cardinology a lot. Finally, I thought we were on the cusp of something great, rather than one or two great songs surrounded by a lot of crap. Of course, these hopes were fleeting.

Last week Ryan announced he was quitting music for a while so to focus on his writing.

He has 3 books planned for 2009.

2008: The Year in Music

2008 was a pretty good year to be a music fan. A lot of neat new artists that I really liked emerged (Black Kids, MGMT, She & Him). Other artists that I have great fondness for came back (Kings of Leon, The Submarines).

Overall, I have been really drawn to electronic sounding, dance-able music. Is that new? I guess not. The front end of this mix is electronic heavy but it lightens up noticeably towards the back and very quickly becomes more acoustic and vaguely country towards the back end...

In case you are wondering, the best people I saw live this year were Radiohead, The Roots(that's always true though), Kevin Drew (with the rest of the Broken Social Scene), Julieta Venegas (who rocked an accordion and brought a brass section with her to Central Park!) and and surprisingly The Dandy Warhols...who were pretty good...I know...crazy

I am hoping to see Bon Iver in the New Year...that should be great.

If you guys loved anything else that I missed, please let me know...