Last year, the Fiery Furnaces covered “Norwegian Wood” (mp3) for the Rubber Soul tribute compilation, and were summarily lambasted across the music-crit sphere, both pro and amateur, online and off. How, in the name of everything holy, they wrote, could a band with only a few years of existence have the chutzpah to radically re-interpret [...]
What were you doing on January 15, 1994? Personally, I can’t remember—I was 17, so it probably involved Pavement, Frank Black, marijuana, or some combination of the three. It was, however, on that date that a guy named David went to a Guided by Voices concert in Memphis, and it changed his life. [...]
The clip, recorded live on SNL in 1977, that forever linked Costello with “punk”. It’s a great act of defiance–apparently of Lorne Michaels, who wanted to keep the irreverence and commentary limited to Chevy Chase falling off ladders as Gerald Ford. It’s a snarling performance, and when I hear that organ loudly kick [...]
Unfortunately, events have conspired to disallow my driving 2.4 hours southeast to see Of Montreal in Picasso-land (Newport, KY). The next-best thing, I figured, was to watch, on a lazy Saturday morning, a live set from a few years back. The next-next best thing, I surmised, would be to share the opening track [...]
Perhaps Voxtrot will be 2006’s version of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah? After I wait for the groans to subside, I’ll offer my evidence. Okay, that’s better. On the strength of only one 5-track EP and some pretty thick blog buzz (Gorilla vs. Bear, Gothamist, Brooklyn Vegan), and with no Pitchfork review, they managed to [...]
While it might not meet the dictionary definition of a side project, Citay, comprising Ezra Feinberg from Piano Magic and Tim Green from The Fucking Champs, among others, certainly feels like one. It may or may not end up as the day job for either or both, but it’s got the experimental, genre-sampling mix-em-up [...]
As far as tried/true rock gimmicks go, adding a choir to a song is relatively harmless–more obvious than, say, leaving in studio chatter at the start of a song, but much more “authentic” than, say, choosing a cover version as your first single. The sound of many voices uniting as one, can take even the [...]
Here are the great things about this clip (source):
“Trompe le Monde” (wmv)
Letterman holds up the old-timey and blindingly unnecessary long box CD for promo purposes.
Anton Fig drums while David Lovering plays maracas, and Paul Shaffer and the other guy from Letterman’s band play keys and electric guitar, respectively, and a guy that looks like the [...]
If “In My Dream” (mp3) held on for four-plus minutes to its “21st Century Schizoid Man”-via-Four Tet opening gambit, I’d be very happy. But then it pulls its sultry female vocalist from behind the curtain and puts her so close to the microphone I can feel it in my spine. Honestly, it doesn’t [...]