Anti- is doing an incredibly cool promotion of Neko Case's latest song, "People Got A Lotta Nerve," from her upcoming release, Middle Cyclone. For every blog that posts Neko Case's new song, Anti- will donate $5 to the Best Friends Animal Society. Here's the song. As far as the song, it hasn't won me over...yet, but I said the same thing with 'Star Witness' from her excellent Fox Confessor Brings The Flood album.
Once upon a time, the unlikely collaboration between Switchfoot frontman Jon Foreman and Nickel Creek wunderkind Sean Watkins was tentatively named "The Original Sean Jon." We can only assume Mr. Diddy was not amused -- or that Watkins and Foreman came to their senses -- but in any case, the long-gestating project recently saw its official release under the nom d'art of Fiction Family. The vibe is low-key, thoughtful, singer-songwriter acoustic rock, but these two are restless enough souls to throw in all sorts of twists on what was essentially a homemade two-man album passed between them for a couple of years before completion. Available via the FF Web site or iTunes, and take note that the boys are out playing shows now through Feb. 7.
Fresh on the heels of news about a new Depeche Mode album in '09, we're featuring DM and Tears For Fears in an all-80s retrospective this January on the Daily Vault. If moody British electro-pop is your thing, you won't want to miss this.
On March 17, Coheed And Cambria will release Neverender, The Children of the Fence boxset, a release chronicling last October's historic four-night event featuring the band performing each of their four albums in their entirety on four consecutive nights. The shows took place October 22-25 2008 at New York’s Terminal 5 and was the first time that Coheed had performed the saga that connects the albums in order. Nearly 11,000 of their most passionate fans flew in from all over the world and lined up all day in the rain to get the best spots on the floor for Neverender’s New York dates, prompting three other sold-out Neverender stands in LA, Chicago, and London. The box set documents the New York stand (as well as clips from all three other cities) in one massive package that will include four live DVDs, four live audio CDs, one documentary DVD, a 10x10 hardcover 48-page photo book and a 7-1/2” custom metal dragonfly. A condensed two-disc DVD will also be made available. Pre-sales for the box began on Friday, Dec 12. Fans who pre-order it will get their names included on a “Children of the Fence” page inside the book, and the first 3,000 copies will be signed by the band.
Pearl Jam fans (e.g. our own DV alumnus Benjamin Ray) will be laughing that it took me a week to catch up to this news, but hey, better late than never. And the news, as reported in this MSNBC article, is big. In this reissue-crazy era, it may not exactly rate screaming headlines when Pearl Jam decides to rerelease their milestone 1991 debut disc Ten. But how about when they reissue it with both a digitally remastered mix of the original album plus a complete stem-to-stern remix of the same album by Brendan O'Brien, the producer who made his name helming the band's subsequent four albums? Plus six unreleased tracks from the Ten era?
It seems like you read maybe once a week about a country artist crossing over to the pop charts. What happens less often than, say, a Jimmy Buffett album that sounds like he means it, is a pop artist crossing over to scale the country charts. What happens, well, pretty much never, is an African American pop artist scoring a #1 country hit -- which is exactly what Hootie & The Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker did this past September. This Washington Post article explains how the lead singer for one-album wonders / best-selling bar band Hootie made the transition to country music and how surprisingly well that transition has gone.
Electro-pop forefathers Depeche Mode have completed their frequently rumored new album and are preparing it for a spring 2009 release, coinciding with the band's planned world tour. Lead vocalist Dave Gahan describes the album in the LA Times' Pop & Hiss blog as "a great record" that will have 12 tracks with an outward-looking feel, and will feature tons of vintage analog equipment courtesy of inveterate eBay shopper and bandmate Martin Gore.
It turns out the musical riddle "what do Sesame Street and Rage Against The Machine have in common" actually DOES have an answer -- the music of both has been used as a form of psychological torture on prisoners held at the U.S. interrogation facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And now at least some of the parties whose music has been used as the aural equivalent of thumbscrews are objecting.
The Langerado Music Festival -- held for the first time this year at Bicentennial Park on Biscayne Bay in Miami -- is back for a seventh year. This morning festival organizers announced an initial artist lineup for the March 6-8, 2009 event that's enough to make any festival-fancier drool. Try: Death Cab For Cutie, Snoop Dogg, Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, Thievery Corporation, Slightly Stoopid, Dashboard Confessional, Flogging Molly, Gym Class Heroes, Mute Math, Black Kids, The Pogues, Matisyahu, The Disco Biscuits, Umphrey's McGee, Robert Randolph and The Family Band, Michael Franti and Spearhead. Artists will perform on multiple stages throughout the three-day event and more artists are still to be announced. Tickets go on sale this Friday December 12th at 12pm EST, with no additional service charges when you purchase through the Langerado Web site.
As a founding member, co-chief songwriter and co-lead vocalist of the most important and influential band in the history of popular music, Lennon’s musical legacy would have been secure if he had never played another note after the Beatles broke up in 1970. But he did, creating a complex, at times uneven, but never dull body of solo work that includes some of the most indelible songs and performances of the era.
'Tis the season for overspending, and the desperate-for-your-cash music industry is cranking out the box sets in hopes of enticing a few more of your dollars our of your wallet. That would be the cynic's way of viewing the cornucopia of new holiday-season box set releases, at least. For the innocent, acquisitive music-lover (and most of us have one hiding under our world-weary, cynical shell, c'mon, admit it), it's a bonanza of new purchasing opportunities.
In the latest evolutionary cycle of the now nearly unrecognizable "music industry," video games have become a sort of booster rocket for music sales. In a recent post, New York Times Freakonomics guest blogger David Edery -- also a manager for Xbox Live Arcade -- notes that Rock Band and Guitar Hero have generated millions in catalog sales for bands like Aerosmith and The Who, and even gave a noticeable bump to sales of Motley Crue's recent single "Saints Of Los Angeles." 
As a special Thanksgiving gift, starting today (Tuesday) and for the next week, DavidGilmour.com will host clips from the DVD edition of David Gilmour's latest release, Live In Gdańsk, for fans to watch. Different songs will be featured every day; over the course of a week fans will be able to catch “Speak To Me/Breathe/Time/Breathe,” “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” “Fat Old Sun,” “Wish You Were Here,” and the non-album song “Wot’s… Uh The Deal?” as well as other songs from the DVD.
For another, there's Bruce Rusk's review of a recent Nine Inch Nails concert -- sounds like Trent & co. are putting on quite a show this winter.
Sometimes you just have to tip your hat, though. And this week our competitors over at PopMatters have outdone themselves with a superb series celebrating the 40th anniversary of the release of one of the most important albums in music history, The Beatles, a.k.a. The White Album. Not content to simply publish a review -- or several reviews -- PopMatters enlisted a substantial chunk of its writing staff to deliver a track-by-track analysis of the album plus an overview, dividing the double LP up into four sides and releasing first the overview and then analysis of one side per day all week this week.
The key is a code included in the packaging of every copy of the new album. Entering the code on the band's Web site unlocks a dossier containing the outline of a murder mystery and profiles (with photos) of 11 suspects. As Pollstar explains it, "To solve the mystery by eliminating one suspect each week, fans must use the full album packaging (lyrics, the mugshots and info provided), their historical knowledge of Mudvayne and the video for the first single, 'Do What You Do,' as well as weekly clues revealed on the band's Web site."
