I‘m actually pretty excited about this. As a guy who already spends far too much time communicating with others around the world, Google Wave should make it much more interactive and much quicker. This is truly the future and the title of this post is not a lie. Seriously, goodbye email; it’s been a nice run.
The guys over at Web Monkey explain it far better than I can, so head over there to read the article, but for a more fun version and visual demo, check out the video belowof the unveiling/presentation. Yeah it’s almost 90 minutes long, but just watch the first 10 minutes or so; you’ll get the gist. Damn that “playback” feature is wicked.
I know we have some Yeah Yeah Yeahs fans here, because they were ripping on Metric a while back (mostly genial ripping, to be sure). And while I still have to confess to liking Metric a teeny bit more, I’m glad I listened to Goon and picked up It’s Blitz!, which is easily one of my favorite albums of the year so far. I like it a lot better than Fever to Tell, my previous outing with the YYYs – the mix of upbeat, dance-type songs with mellower numbers feels a lot more balanced.
And they released the video for “Heads Will Roll” yesterday, and though I’m honestly okay without Teen Wolf in my music videos, it’s pretty enjoyable. At any rate, the song is great and Karen O is hot. I rest my case.
Priest, meanwhile, is preparing for its summer tour, during which the band will play its 1980 album “British Steel” — which includes “Living After Midnight” — in its entirety from front to back. “All of us around the world have our respective headphones on, ready to dive into the deep end together,” Halford says of preparations for the tour. “It’s very bare-bones in terms of production, which in essence makes it a lot easier to re-learn in rehearsals.” (Source: Billboard.com)
Judas Priest will be returning to the road this summer with a stop at the “Taste of Minnesota” for a free show. I was excited before I heard this little tidbit of news, now I’m ecstatic. British Steel is arguably regarded as their finest moment and it will be very exciting to hear what they do with it live.
British Steel Tracklist:
“Breaking the Law” – 2:35
“Rapid Fire” – 4:08
“Metal Gods” – 4:00
“Grinder” – 3:58
“United” – 3:35
“Living After Midnight” – 3:31
“You Don’t Have to Be Old to Be Wise” – 5:04
“The Rage” – 4:44
“Steeler” – 4:30
I used to be a drummer back in high school and Tommy Lee was one of the guys I tried to emulate. This was some pretty rad shit back in the day – still is actually. Audio is NSFW.
Unbelievably sad news to report tonight as former Wilco multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett has passed away. Jay was a very influential player in taking Wilco from their early days in the Alt-Country scene and helping transform them in to a highly respected and critically acclaimed American band. I was lucky enough to be at the First Avenue show featured in the “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” documentary. He was a remarkable presence on stage and he will be missed. He was only 45 years old.
I take a lot of shit from a lot of people because I like Coldplay. That is until I crack them in the jaw with iron fist and ninja like reflexes. In fact, I’m not afraid to admit that last year’s Coldplay record was one of my favorites on the year.
One more reason to like them? Just give them your email address and they’ll give you a free download of thir live album. I just did it and it took seconds. Anyway, if you want some free music by one hell of a melodic band, head over to Coldplay.com and get the hookup. Sounds like a good trade to me.
Me too. That’s why I had a ball for the last many minutes checking out their live performance over at Spinner studios. I’ve included one below, but you can check out four or five more over HERE.
Wanna win the national Beat Box championship competition (yeah, apparently there is one)? You gott get by this girl first. Good luck. I never really had much interest in BeatBoxing… until now:
One of the best videos you’ll see all year.
The new Grizzly Bear album “Veckatimest” is out May 26th.
Artist: Paul Steel
Title: I Gave Her My Number (2008)
Editing and AE compositing: Tomas Nils Bustad
Producer: Passion Pictures
.
“It ain’t that big. The whole United States ain’t that big. It ain’t that big. It ain’t big enough. There ain’t room enough for you an’ me, for your kind an’ my kind, for rich and poor together all in one country, for thieves and honest men. For hunger and fat.”
-The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
[The MP3s available here are for sampling purposes only. Please support the artists by buying their albums and going to their shows. If you are the artist or label rep and don't want an MP3 featured, please email me]
The news today gets me thinking about the Dust Bowl, this looming spectre of the past that I never lived through but which I have grown to appreciate through my vicarious admiration of the works of Ford and Steinbeck. The faux-nostalgia of borrowed cinematic memories has conjured a vision of the Great Depression that feels more real to me now then my domesticated life. As part of one of the first generations in Western civilization unburdened with the hardships of war and financial instability, yet privy to the knowledge of past events, I feel the absence of burden all the more acutely as an affront to my more primal instincts. It is sad to think that in spite of the security I possess there is some additional impulse that longs for upset. Perhaps it is the pull of my biological capacities which require and are designed for more than convenience. Perhaps it is the sublime pull of aesthetics that seeks the sensation of immediacy which conflict offers. Or maybe it is that I am not as young as I used to be and all I can think of is entropy, the personal and the impersonal histories (the Great Depressions) superimposed on one another as a single running narrative.
In the last week I have become deeply disheartened with the state of the world, a sensibility I am usually able to factor out of my thoughts with little trouble – man’s frail absurdity was always something I could sidestep as I pursued my personal interests – but the vile hypocrisies of Church and State have become too boorish to ignore. I want to purge it all, and escape to a place that better suits my newly enflamed mood.
The Ghost of Tom Joad is just such a place. How I want to live inside this song, and sit beside that campfire away from the highway that is kidding no one. Both the original version by Bruce Springsteen and the recent cover by Jose Gonzales (Junip is his side project) do the trick, but if I had to choose I would go with the stark power of Jose’s rendition. I originally conceived of this post around Junip’s version but as I became more enthusiastic with the Great Depression mythology underlying it, I soon decided to make an entire playlist out of it, to flesh out the world of Tom Joad that I long to be a part of. I include the infamous final speech of John Ford’s classic ‘The Grapes of Wrath’, a speech that has yet to make it to YouTube unfortunately, so the printed word will have to suffice. A fervent idealist from a faraway reality, Tom Joad is a man of action who confronts the social injustices he sees all around him, something I admire but do not yet emulate.
01 Junip – The Ghost of Tom Joad
01 Junip – The Ghost of Tom Joad
02 Woody Guthrie – Tom Joad Part 1
02 Woody Guthrie – Tom Joad Part 1
03 Bob Dylan – Workingman’s Blues #2
03 Bob Dylan – Workingman’s Blues #2
04 Tom Waits – Time
05 Leadbelly – Midnight Special
05 Leadbelly – Midnight Special
06 Blind Willie Johnson – John the Revelator
06 Blind Willie Johnson – John the Revelator
07 Bob Dylan – Man of Constant Sorrows
07 Bob Dylan – Man of Constant Sorrows
>
Henry Fonda’s classic speech from ‘Grapes of Wrath’:
Tom Joad: I been thinking about us, too, about our people living like pigs and good rich land layin’ fallow. Or maybe one guy with a million acres and a hundred thousand farmers starvin’. And I been wonderin’ if all our folks got together and yelled -
Ma Joad: Tommy, they’d drag you out and cut you down just like they done to Casey.
Tom: They’d drag me anyways. Sooner or later they’ll get me one way or another. Till then -
Ma: Tommy, you’re not aimin’ to kill nobody.
Tom: No, Ma, not that. That ain’t it. Just, as long as I’m an outlaw anyways, maybe I can do something, just find out somethin’, just scrounge around and maybe find out what it is that’s wrong and see if they ain’t somethin’ that can be done about it. I ain’t thought it out that clear, Ma. I can’t. I don’t know enough.
Ma: How am I gonna know about ya, Tommy? They could kill ya and I’d never know. They could hurt ya. How am I gonna know?
Tom: Maybe it’s like Casey says. A fellow ain’t got a soul of his own, just little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody, then -
Ma: Then what, Tom?
Tom: Then it don’t matter. I’ll be all around in the dark. I’ll be everywhere, wherever you can look. Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad. I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready and where people are eatin’ the stuff they raise and livin’ in the houses they build. I’ll be there, too.
Ma: I don’t understand it, Tom.
Tom: Me, neither, Ma, but – just somethin’ I been thinkin’ about.
-Richard Prince, Untitled (Cowboy), 1989
He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him.
-Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
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