One of the year’s best songs (so far) gets a seizure-inducing light show of a video:
ELSEWHERE: Kings of Leon fans are an angry bunch. Phoenix New Times music editor Martin Cizmar riled ’em up with his review of Tuesday’s show at Mesa Amphitheatre. They call him a ponce, git, tit, loser and turbo nerd (whuh?) … and that’s just the half of it.
To celebrate seven years as one of best weekly hip-hop nights in the Valley, the Blunt Club has booked a headliner worthy of such an anniversary bash: Gift of Gab, one-half of Blackalicious and a member of the Def Jux-backed Mighty Underdogs, is the featured guest next Thursday’s throwdown.
If you’re skeptical about why the man calls himself the Gift of Gab, take heed. My guess is, we’re in for some ridic freestyles next week.
Related:
The Mighty Underdogs: Want You Back (video)
The Mighty Underdogs: War Walk
While you can subscribe to the great Lounge Act podcast, the folks at WOXY.com are also cool enough to split these sessions into mp3s for individual consumption (which I used to do a lot until people asked me to stop).
The latest Lounge Act session comes from The Walkmen, who are in town tonight (Tuesday) as the opener for the sold-out Kings of Leon show at Mesa Amphitheatre. And I guess I wasn’t the only one who found this pairing a little awkward given the venue sizes of this tour. Singer Hamilton Leithauser makes it sound like the transition was a little tricky for The Walkmen: “We’ve been adjusting … we were a little lost at the beginning, I think, in the big rooms, playing some of our slow songs. It didn’t really translate that well.”
Sounds just fine here.
Get the rest of the mp3s here.
If it’s loud, cathartic and Scottish, I’m probably into it. (In all honesty, if it’s quiet, uplifting and Scottish, chances are I’m into it.) Between The Twilight Sad and Frightened Rabbit, I’ve been introduced to a whole different level of anguish through song than I’m used to, a real visceral gut punch.
Few albums in recent memory are as striking in its imagery than The Twilight Sad’s Fourteen Autumns, Fifteen Winters (2007). So I was happy to see Pitchfork unload a new one, Reflection of the Television, the first single from the band’s forthcoming Forget the Night Ahead (Sept. 22).
Reflection isn’t quite as unnerving and intense as the best work off Fourteen Autumns, but it simply feels like the calm before the storm. I’m excited to hear the rest of the album, which singer James Graham discussed with Pitchfork.
Somewhere between The New Danger and his acting career, I fell out of love with Mos Def.
Black on Both Sides was such a certified classic that I wanted so badly to like The New Danger, an album in which Mos was clearly to make some sort of lofty artistic statement (but only he knew what that really was). I thought maybe if just I kept the album in my iTunes library it would somehow reveal itself to me. Alas, its fate rested in the digital trash can. And who the hell knows what was going on with True Magic … I barely blinked when that came out.
So with my interest in Mos at an unfortunate all-time low, I mustered just enough strength to check out the tracks from his forthcoming album The Ecstatic (due out June 9). (I’d already wasted my time watching Something the Lord Made, so what’s another few minutes?) I’m happy to report that this (so far) sounds like what should have been the follow-up to Black on Both Sides. I’m not ready coronate Mos again, but the three tracks released have me somewhat hopeful.
Check the new video for Casa Bey below:
It’s not uncommon for me to wake up with any number of Telekinesis songs in my head, such is the pull of its contagious pop.
That was the case this morning, and wouldn’t you know … a new video for Awkward Kisser, from the full-length debut Telekinesis!, is out.
Remember: Telekinesis plays the Rhythm Room on May 20 as support for Margot & the Nuclear So and Sos.
I meant to post this last week when I saw it at URB, but a designer/artist by the name of Logan Walters has taken it upon himself to redesign the covers of Wu-Tang Clan-affiliated albums in the style of the classic Blue Note look. The results are fantastic.
Says Walters: ” … almost all of the Wu-Tang album art was horrible (ODB’s two albums being the only real exceptions) — no offense to the original designers, but as iconic as they might be they’re looking pretty dated these days.” It’s a brilliant concept and Walters seems to have nailed it, right down to the yellowing edges of each cover. He’s gone so far as to replace the originals with his designs in his iTunes library. Can’t say I blame him. You can check out all the covers (and he’s adding more) at his Flickr set.
And while we’re on the topic, El Michels Affair has another mp3 available from its album of instrumental Wu-Tang interpretations, Enter the 37th Chamber. GZA’s Duel of the Iron Mic – El Michels calls it Duel of the Iron Mics … plural – gets the reworking here, complete with movie-clip sampling that appears in the original.
Not sure how I missed this one, but I didn’t stumble upon it until browsing around the Brassland site. The National perform So Far Around the Bend, from the excellent Dark Was the Night compilation, on Jimmy Fallon.
The band is joined by Nico Muhly, who arranged the song.
While I’ve soured quite a bit on how Kings of Leon have fully embraced the artificial appearance of a walking rock cliche, I don’t think I had quite a full grasp on the band’s popularity until I learned today that its May 19 show at Mesa Amphitheatre is now sold out.
In a sometimes-finicky/apathetic concert market, KOL managed to sell out a nearly 5,000-capacity venue at $45 a ticket. Not to mention the show starts at 5 p.m., when it will be 100-plus degrees, but, hey, it’s a dry heat. (Everyone probably just wants to see The Walkmen, right?) Of course, this means the Craigslist market can be exploited, with some people willing to pay up to $160 for two tickets.
So, tell me: Why is Wilco playing El Paso and Tucson and skipping over Phoenix? I gotta believe Wilco would just as easily sell out Mesa Amp.
P.S. On a related note, if anyone is willing to sell an extra KOL ticket, my wife would truly appreciate it.
So, let’s see here … we have another promising Scottish band on FatCat Records, home of The Twilight Sad and Frightened Rabbit. Yeah, I think I can get behind this.
Much as I wanted to hate the name, it’s kinda clever. But what came first? The band name or this Threadless T-shirt?