Music: If You Don't Love This Video There is Something Wrong With You

The BPA fet. David Byrne and Dizze Rascal, "Toe Jam". Is it any surprise that Norman "Fatboy Slim" Cook is involved in this?

Music: Marnie Stern is Awesome

Marnie Stern continues to shred on the guitar like nobody's business and unlike, say, Joe Satriani she can write songs too. See the adorableness that is her new video "Ruler" here:

Music: Weezer Vid is Net Pleaser

New Weezer album cover or Village People 2.0? Emo Scarface Guy, Dweeb, Puny Cowboy and Tattoo Enthusiast

In the last post I whined, as I so often do, about record companies that don't understand that music videos are advertisements and ought to be embeddable by anyone. Along comes Weezer to prove the point by cleverly producing a video that asks (maybe too hard) for viral love.

Oh Weezer, how can I say no? With a catchy melody hewed from pure power punk goodness and hilarious and poignant cameos from the Chocolate Rain dude, the numma numma kid, Chris Crocker and a bunch of other YouTubers "Pork and Beans" is a must to display here. Lets hope the rest of the new album manages to put memories of their last two to rest...

Oh, and nice 'stache Rivers...

Music: This Week's New Releases

Portishead: "Go on, drink it..."

Compiled By Noah Mallin

Portishead come back after 11 years with their atmospheric gloom-mongering intact. Their new one, Third (It's their third album, natch) is readily identifiable as the work of the pioneering trip-hop threesome but the beats have grown more abstract and the rich production is studded with off-kilter glitches and unexpected detours. Here's the video from "Machine Gun":

Philly's leading hip-hoppers The Roots continue in a serious vein with Rising Down. The new set won't feature the song "Birthday Girl" which the band's fans decided was just too darn commercial and lighthearted (though not creepy despite the fixation on the age of consent) to fit into the harsh survey of modern life that is the new record. Here's the video for "Risin' Up":

Santogold has been getting a great deal of hype around N.Y.C. for their self-titled debut. The duo of frontwoman Santi White and John Hill have weathered many an M.I.A. comparison but the album actually has a fair share of guitar based songs to go along with tracks helmed by Diplo and M.I.A. producer Switch. Here's the video for "L.E.S. Artistes":

Back in the early 70s Tom Petty was just a guy in this band Mudcrutch who moved out to L.A. in search of fame and fortune. The record company was all, "Dude, you don't need those guys Tommy -- you're the real star...ditch those losers..." And he was like, "Uh...Okay," and took off with guitarist Mike Campbell after one album. Guess the guilt has been eating him up 'cause he got the old band back together to record a new album. Here's the video for "Lover of The Bayou":

Finally Madonna does her embarrassing Mom who dresses too young and fakes a British accent routine on the lamely innuendo'ed Hard Candy (Mtume did it better with the song "Juicy Fruit" way back when..)

Music: Today's Disco Rock Song of The Day -- You've Been Dissed by Alan Parsons

"I'm recording a tasty lick you wanker..."

An Ongoing Unearthing by Noah Mallin

Before he invented Dr. Evil's laser, Alan Parsons was an engineer at EMI's studios. He's the man responsible for the crystalline sound of both The Beatles Abbey Road and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon. Inside Parsons was a recording artist struggling to emerge -- it finally did on The Alan Parsons Project's first album Tales of Mystery and Imagination in 1975.

Parsons and his Project really hit it with the follow-up 1977's I, Robot, a much more faithful rendering of Isaac Asimov's sci-fi classic than the later Will Smith film would prove to be. In amongst the beautifully arranged art rock was their first single, the chilly disco of "I Wouldn't Want To Be Like You." Like many rock bands doing disco (see Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in The Wall Pt. 2"), the use of a disco arrangement is meant to be a bit of a putdown, a satire on the facelessness of a producer-driven medium. The fact that Parsons himself gained fame from his knob-twiddling skills only adds a level of irony.

The Alan Parsons Project would have several more hits after this, most notably "Eye in The Sky", but none that attempted the booty-shaking cool of "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You." The video features a guest appearance by Univac which is likely shamed by today's Macbooks and a very naughty flower-hating robot.

Music: Today's Disco Rock Song of The Day -- The Beach Boys Track Sand Onto The Dancefloor

An Ongoing Expose by Noah Mallin

In the annals of rock bands who dabbled in disco, few chapters are sadder to relate (or to listen to) than the Beach Boys and their foray into the genre. As we've already seen the year 1979 would prove a fateful one for many a seasoned musician. For the venerable Beach Boys their 60s peak was long past. A brief nostalgic comeback had ensued in 1974 but they wanted to be relevant hitmakers dammit!

L.A. (Light Album) turned out to be a mishmosh of styles but right there at the beginning of Side 2 (ask your grandparents kids) was a nearly 11-minute long remake of their 1967 Wild Honey track "Here Comes The Night" discofied within an inch of it's life. It's hard to know what Brian Wilson thought of this, the video clip below makes him appear to have been pulled from the bottom of a Santa Monica dumpster especially for their appearance that night. If it's any indication, his centerpiece on the album was a meandering stab at "Shortnin' Bread". Not pretty.

Music: Rock Goes Disco - Dr. Hook, Opthalmologist

Archival Grave Robbing by Noah Mallin

Dr. Hook made their careers as stoned country rockers singing about making it to "The Cover of Rolling Stone" -- a song that eventually made their wish come true. Many of their jokey early songs had lyrics supplied by Where The Sidewalk Ends author Shel Silverstein.

A bankruptcy and a change of labels in the mid 70s led them to the path of disco perdition as it would many another band. Their sense of humor and legendary stage antics have led some to believe that all of their disco material was tongue-in-cheek. This is entirely possible, but for Key Party Nation their songs about lust, love, and more lust struck a chord, giving them their biggest string of hits.

Central to this pearl necklace of commercial acceptance was 1979s "Sexy Eyes" a Lothario's come-on notable from a band who's frontman Ray Sawyer sported an eyepatch. "I was sitting all alone/watching people get it on with each other..." is an opening line worthy of Plato's Retreat, if not Dylan. It's telling that Sawyer doesn't sing this-- he would leave the band in disgust a year later. As always, if the video shows as "Not Available, hit refresh in your browser. It's just the YouTube demons acting up...

Music: Today's Rockers-Turned-Disco Video of The Day -- Dispatches From the Golden Age of Disco Rock

An Archival Spelunk by Noah Mallin

(If the vids show up as unavailable, hit refresh in your browser -- it's just the YouTube demons getting fresh)

The late 70s and early 80s were confusing and disturbing times for many in the music industry. For some of the great titans of rock and many of the little titanettes punk, disco, and new wave were confounding forces. Some plowed ahead, others chose to dip a toe in the funky stuff and try out this thing the kids were calling "disco." Even some new bands saw the merit in a quick easy hit off disco's crystalline white powder.

Starting today I will be presenting a new video every day (or thereabouts) of a rock band trying their hand at disco. Of course I wanted to start off with a biggie so today I bring you one of the all-time disco-rock classics, "I Was Made for Loving You" by Kiss.

Kiss of course started out as glam rockers, honing a metallic sheen that by the mid 70s would prove to be a formative influence on the hair bands of the 80s like Motley Crue. In 1979 though, they found their energy diluted by a rash of solo albums and the rising disco tide. Peter Criss sat the accompanying album Dynasty out and future World's Most Dangerous Band drummer Anton Fig was on the studio drums. Their response was this classic (shown "live", with Criss):

Music: Oh Astro Puts Lionel Richie in Blender Where He Belongs

Oh Astro are the "found art" kind of musical miscegenators who think its perfectly a-ok to make smashy with Lionel Richie's "Hello", Hot Chips' "Boy From School", and Fujiya and Miyagi's "Ankle Injuries." As if this flaunting of copyright conventionality weren't enough they have also dished out this video for their song "Hello Fuji Boy" which melds the whole potpourri to clips from the kitschy Kroft classic TV show "The Lost Saucer" starring Ruth Buzzi and Rock Hudson widow(er) Jim Naybors.



Oh Astro - Hello Fuji Boy from Oh Astro on Vimeo.

Music: MTV Bans Gnarls Barkley's New Video -- Not For Epileptics

Gnarls Barkley go gonzo...

Just like some other sites out there, we are a music curating interweb TV station too. This April Gnarls Barkley will release the follow up to their album St. Elsewhere and its megahit earworm "Crazy." Though the new one is named after another TV show, The Odd Couple, they've pretty much dropped the dressing-like-movie-pairs routine for new video "Run."

MTV has taken the unusual step of banning the video because the strobing may cause seizures and other medical maladies due to the so-called Harding Effect (future band-name alert!). Of course the network has pretty much banned all videos in favor of witless reality programming so no harm, no foul. Make sure to bite down hard on your belt before watching!

The Interwebs: TV on The Internet -- Pitchfork to Start Incredibly Snobby Hipsterish TV InterNetwork, You Know, For The Kids

Pitchfork, not content with wielding the unholy power to force bands like Vampire Weekend down our throats, is launching an all-music Internet TV network. This may sound akin to an all ventriloquism film network on the radio but we hear its the new coming thing. For real. Sez the 'fork:

"In recent years, independent film networks have dedicated themselves to the respectful and intelligent treatment of classic and underground cinema. But independent music has never had a permanent home. So today, we're proud to announce the April 7 beta launch of Pitchfork.tv, the first-ever music video channel dedicated to documenting independent music as it happens. As a visual extension of the music coverage Pitchfork has provided for more than a decade, and a means of updating and advancing the music television format, the online channel will bring you closer to the artists you love, through original mini-documentaries, secret rooftop and basement sessions, full concerts, exclusive interviews, and the most carefully curated selection of music videos online..."

Secret rooftop sessions with the artists I love!? Finally I can get to third base with Neko Case -- thanks Pitchfork! Too bad you totally sound like tools when you talk about "curating" music videos.

New Music: This Week's New Releases -- Raveonettes, Nick Lowe, AMC, and more!

The Raveonettes: Take a picture -- it'll last longer...

One of the best jobs I ever had was working in a used CD store in Ithaca, New York. I worked for a man named Sven Smith (if you're out there in Blogistan Sven, drop me a line) who had impeccable taste in music and entrusted me with his store for days at a time while he explored the wonders of morphine or hydroponically grown weed. Among his heroes was Nick Lowe, who shared his fondness for well-cut suit jackets. It was through Sven that I learned to appreciate Lowe's first solo album, 1978's Jesus of Cool (retitled Pure Pop For Now People in the States so as to prevent incidents of record store firebombings at the hands of future Mike Huckabee voters). Both titles describe it to a T.

Lowe's first and best is re-issued this week on Yep Roc with lots of juicy extras, some of which come from his Bowi EP, so named in response to David Bowie's concurrent Low LP. Lowe said he wanted to get Bowie back for naming an album after him and not even spelling it right. Here's Lowe in an awesome Riddler-esque jacket doing "I Love The Sound of Breaking Glass":


Mark Eitzel reactivates his American Music Club moniker for a new album of moody sullenness and top-notch songwriting. The new album is called The Golden Age, that sarcastic bastard. Here's the video from their album Engine for the song "Rise":


Ex-Soul Coughing frontman Mike Doughty shows us what he thinks of red-eye reduction settings and dental hygeine with the first video from his new album The Golden Delicious, "27 Jennifers":


Atlas Sound, which is the more melodic alter ego of Deerhoof dude Bradford Cox, release their new one entitled Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See but Cannot Feel. Like, heavy man. Here's the vid for "River Card":


The Raveonettes finally unleash last year's Lust Lust Lust on hard up Americans. Here's "Candy":

Music News: This Week's New Music

Jill Sobule: Alright, you kissed a girl -- now what?

British Sea Power returns this week, if not to the waves then to the dwindling number of record stores nationwide with Do You Like Rock Music? Why yes, yes I do! A more appropo question in light of their new bigger sound would be "Do you like stadium rock" to which I say, "Um, Sometimes..." Here's the creepy puppet-filled video for "No Lucifer":


Straight from a Vasser girl's dorm room circa 1995 comes the tracklisting for Neil Young tribute Cinnamon Girl: Women Artists Cover Neil Young For Charity. You get your ex-Throwing Muses (both Donnely and Hersh) , Veruca Salt, Jill Sobule, Britta Phillips and more. Oh and it goes to benefit the breast cancer prevention industry.
Here's the Fabio-fortified video for Sobule's hit "I Kissed a Girl", in retrospect a clear harbinger of our future moral decline:


Robert Pollard oh-so-casually releases one of the 75 albums he is likely to plop out this year with Superman Was a Rocker. Here's Pollard from 2006 doing one of the best of the 25,000 songs he's released in the last few years, "I'm a Widow":


Alert the kids! On second thought...Michael Jackson sees his high-water mark Thriller re-issued in a 25th Anniversary edition. Oh fuck it, ever see a reptile dance? Well now's your chance. Oh and there's a bunch of lizards too:

Music: Beck's Best Re-Boots With Bonus Disc

Beck is all "I see you jacked my look Michael Cera..."

Many reviews of the new two-disc Deluxe Edition of Beck's 1996 opus Odelay have seemed to include an obligatory Kurt Cobain compare-and-contrast alt-stars of the 90s moment. The standard trope is that Kurt was too raw and full of feeling and fellow blonde skinny boy Beck swooped in post-mortem to lighten the mood and take us all away on a wave of irony. Ah, hindsight.

My obligatory Beck/Kurt connection is my memory of the day Cobain died, when Beck's "Loser" was riding up the charts and MTV actually meant Music Televison. Stone-faced MTV News guy (yes there was such a thing as MTV News) Kurt Loder was explaining that an unidentified body had been found in Cobain's house, and it was a blode male in his 20s. My friend turned to me and said hopefully, "Maybe its Beck..."

"Loser" and the accompanying album Mellow Gold did seem like a wispy thin coton candy strand of irony compared to Cobain's gravitas at the time. There was no reason to imagine life beyond a one-hit wonder for the onetime Beck Hansen whereas Nirvana had already been crowned the band of a generation.

The reality is that both artists were expert magpies, building their own sounds and stances out of the accumulated weight of music past. Cobain also in his own way did as much to obscure his true self and his subject matter as Beck did with sometimes obtuse lyrics and misleading explanations.

Ultimately they were both expert curators. Cobain shilled for beloved bands of the past that were barely known outside of rarefied circles: The Vaselines, Meat Puppets, Wipers, and many more. Beck reconfigured underground folk, blues, hip-hop, and indie rock styles, and Odelay is in some ways a tip of the hat to The Beastie Boys 1989 masterpiece Paul's Boutique a massive sales flop that accumulated a rabid cult. They both shared a fondness for Calvin Johnson and K Records.

So on to Odelay, an album that holds up magnificently and benefits from the remastering job (as silly as it might seem to remaster an album that came out in the heyday of CD tech.) Beck hired the Dust Brothers, the producers behind the aforementioned Paul's Boutique. Like the Beastie's album, Odelay is a crazy quilt of samples from sources as diverse as Van Morrison's early band Them, Rachmaninoff, and a host of obscure soul singles. These are fused with a strong set of songs that touch on hip-hop, indian tinged psychedelia , hardcore, noise rock and folk blues.

Beck would never sound as simultaneously expansive and unified again as he does here. Subsequent albums, as excellent as they are, tend to explore certain aspects of each of these touchstones. The follow up for example, Mutations, strips away all of the sampling and hip-hop and rock influences to explore a baroque trippy folk.

Expanding Odelay to two discs blunts its impact somewhat with a grab bag of worthy and second string songs and remixes. "Electric Music and The Summer People" for instance, was a b-side in a different, superior version than the one here. The remixes are almost all negligable, as is a clever mariachi version of "Jack-Ass" entitled "Burro" natch.

This gets 4 out of 5 Kurt Loders, but the original album is a stone 5 Loder classic:


Here's the freaky-deaky video for "New Pollution":


And "Minus" live getting torn up!:

Music: Electrelane Glide Off Into That Hazy Place Known as Indefinite Hiatus

Electrelane: Watch out for that chandelier

Awesomely cool all-femme brit band Electrelane has decided to call it quits for now. In a statement on their website they write: "We have decided that the upcoming gigs will be our last for the foreseeable future. After ten years of much fun and hard work, we have realised that we all need a break and time to do other things. This was a tough decision for us to make, but ultimately a positive one."

One of the most interesting purveyors of Krautrock influenced indie rock, Electrelane married hypnotic rhythms with endearing vocals and imaginative arrangements over the course of four albums, two of which were recorded by legendary engineer Steve Albini. No Shouts No Calls, which was released earlier this year, may be their best and most accessible.

Here they are live kicking the stuffing out of Bruce Springsteen's classic "I'm on Fire" :



And here's "To The East" from their latest album:

Music: This Week's New Releases

Neil Young

This week's new music is headed by grizzled vet Neil Young's sequel to a record that never came out, Chrome Dreams II. Like many Neil records following the original aborted Chrome Dreams, II is a Frankenstein's monster of songs from here and there including the epic 18 minute plus "Ordinary People" from his 1988 Bluenotes era.
Here's an odd photo montage of rusted cars set to "new" track "Dirty Old Man":


The non-brothers Ween return with La Cucaracha which sadly is not a Latin-tinged affair but happily is still Ween. Oh, did I mention David Sanborn guests on the track "Your Party"? Here is the live version of new song "Learnin' to Love":



Led Zeppelin frontman and aging eclecticist Robert Plant teams up with bluegrass megastar Alison Krauss for Raising Sand, a collab that's already garnering raves from the music press intelligentsia. Here's a promo vid:



Black Dice blow their load with Load Blown.

Rhino release their redundant Brit Box boxset of Britpop.

Re-issues include Can's Anthology, alt-country pin-up girl Neko Case's first album The Virginian, and Of Montreal's early and very interesting If He is Protecting Our Nation...Who is Protecting Big Oil?

Music: The Best Thread on I Love Music Right Now

The ILX messageboard has outdone itself with it's new thread entitled Can We Get Some Sort Of Consensus About What Music Video Is The Craziest/Most Over The Top On Youtube? A challenge, but one ably met: Some examples...

Samwell's "What What (In The Butt)" -- didn't Eddie Murphy cover this er...territory first?


This Army of Lovers video was disabled from embedding by request but it's a must see!

And finally Lou Reed from his Honda scooter ads era doing "No Money Down" like it's an afterschool special on the dangers of angel dust.

Music: Notorious MSG -- Still Hungry

Purporting to be Chinese food delivery guys, Warped Tour stars Notorious MSG have to be seen to be believed. Check out their website .