
Holy FUCK this would've been awesome to see! On Halloween night, in Philadelphia, Ted Leo and Chris Wilson of Ted Leo at the Pharmacists, Atom Goren from Atom and His Package, and some dudes from Paint It Black and Franklin played a Misfits cover set in full make up (and Leo's case, wig). They called themselves TV Casualty, and thank christ there's video of the entire show.
(Parts 2-6 are all lined up and waiting for you on Pitchfork.)
Shook Ones' latest full-length, The Unquotable A.M.H., is one of my favorite local records of the year. I'm a broken record, I know. I've said basically that same thing here and here already (although there I said it was the best record of the summer and summer's over, so they've graduated to year, since it's still fucking fantastic).
Anyway, they just released a video for the song "Silverfish." It's cute. It's like an old pop-punk video you'd find on one of the Cinema Beer compilations circa 1998 or something. Well done, boys.
Seattle chillwaver Big Spider's Back (aka Yair Rubinstein) played live on KEXP yesterday at noon—you can stream the set here. Now some joker has made a perfectly faded and blurry and color-saturated video (it's the chillwave aesthetic!) for his song "Warped", which you can watch here:
Warped from Karla Santos on Vimeo.
In my attempt to avoid posting the most obvious Halloween music video of all time*, I wanted to post Dusty Springfield's "Spooky." But not only is the 60s classic YouTube-nonexistant (Seriously? Like, not even a bad recording-of-a-recording of the song under a moving photo montage of Dusty press photos? Has YouTube let me down?); you can't even buy it on iTunes unless you buy the entire Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels soundtrack, which apparently I am too cheap to do.
So sometimes when you set out to find one thing, you find another. In this case, I stumbled upon The Puppini Sisters, an immensely talented and annoyingly-named Verve recording act. Uh, is it weird that I kind of love this? Especially the way they go "mmm-hmm-op" barely moving their lips?
Speaking of Wiz! He's back with the new Dizzee Rascal video.
If the singles from Tongue 'N' Cheek have so far mined late '90s big beat ("Bonkers") and Ibiza-styled trance ("Holiday"), "Dirtee Cash" is full-on late '80s crossover acid house, which continues the album's deliberately low-brow through-line of mainstream British dance history and works as a sort of follow-up to the "Pussyole (Old Skool)" Wiley-bait that Dizzee put out a couple of years ago before his hit-or-miss abandonment of grime credibility.
Wiz hears the song, in any case, and conjures up a black-faced, beauty-contestanted, rugby shirted, mandolin enhanced, Margaret Thatchered, 'The Wicker Man' book-bonfire dance of death.
As you do.
It's a nice change of pace, both visually and musically. Not as sure-fire a trick as earlier ones. Until you realize it's only a vague update to the 1989 number-one "Dirty Cash" by The Adventures Of Stevie V.
"Road Rage," from the album, should've been the single anyway.
But it is! Or will be.
It's now the next song scheduled for release.
Pop telepathy! Bam!
Which reminds us. Remember when we wanted an extended all-aboard-the-trance-train version of "Holiday"? (We do.)
Bam!
And how, for the last year, we obsessed, again and again, about Little Boots properly unleashing "Earthquake"?
Bam!
We love it when E.S.P. demands come together.
The Black Whales just released a video for the song "Diamond Divide," from their new self-titled full-length record.
If you're unfamiliar with the local band, here's what I said about them many a couple moons ago, when they played Bumbershoot.
The Black Whales play the Sunset on November 7th.
Tegan and Sara's new album, Sainthood, was released yesterday. It as produced by Chris Walla and it was a twending topic on Twitter! (Sorry.)
Here's the video for the album's first single, "Hell":
I have to list to AFI's The Art Of Drowning.
I don't care how ridiculous the band has become over the years (more so than we could've ever imagined, surprisingly)—The Art of Drowning is still a great punk rock record and it always sounds best in late October.
Just look at those impermeable faces, those sweeping moves, those flowing clothes....
We can no longer make R&B that has this kind detachment, control, elegance. Black elegance can never be retrieved; it can only recede. "The pain of too much pleasure..."
I stopped caring about taking Weezer seriously years ago. But their new song, "(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To" is far less annoying than "Beverly Hills" or "Pork and Beans." And the video is isn't bad either. I mean, they get punished for all their sins! They're getting shot with arrows, getting their hands cut off, getting hit by a truck... it's cute.
What do you think? Hate them more? Hate them less? Never hated them at all?
Local narco-Americana act the Curious Mystery have a new video for their song "Black Sand" from their K Records debut, Rotting Slowly:
For Charles, some video of local producers Pezzner and Lusine sampling the sounds of the light rail (and is that Freeway Park in there as well?):
Via XLR8R (ignore the ads).
This track from Deru's excellent Say Goodbye To Useless (originally scheduled to come out this year, but now slated for a 2/23/10 street date on Mush Records; you have over four months to save up for it) has received an exquisite video treatment by Howie Shia for PPF House (Shia and Pasquale LaMontagna animate it).
Say Goodbye To Useless abounds with beautiful, lush futuristic funk that's as alluring as a city made out of gold chrome. If you cane fellow hyper-brilliant Los Angelanos Nosaj Thing, Daedelus, and Flying Lotus (or if you just have epicurean taste in electronic music), you will want to carve out some prime headspace for Deru.
Fresh from the people behind Fresh Espresso (Out for Stardom), something new:
Am I trippin' or is this video of Louisiana Ca$h's "Walk Wit a Dip"—which landed in my inbox this morning—a carbon copy of 19,000 other videos shot in the last 10 years or so by rappers looking to blow up—or who've already blown up? Are we tired of this shtick yet? Apparently not. I like watching boomin' hotties in short shorts and tight tops getting low low low in slow slow slow motion as much as the next Y-chromosome-having homo sapien, but this whole approach to musical presentation just reeks of creative stagnation.
Anyone want to defend the aesthetic merits of videos of this ilk? Anyone want to explain why a motherfucker wouldn't be better off watching a random clip off redtube.com while listening to Antipop Consortium, Ghostface, or Dälek?
Spike Jonze and Kanye West's new short film, We Were Once a Fairytale:
Presented simply because it's fantastic and unknown to 99.9 percent of the population (although Christopher DeLaurenti probably has this on flexidisc). Sometimes that's enough.
More on the extraordinary composer Warner Jepson here.
ht: @imprec via Twitter
Perhaps you missed this recent brief segment on Seattle rapper D. Black on KING 5. It's inspirational. Now you can view it at your leisure.
Shabazz Palaces - "Belhaven Meridian" [OFFICIAL] from Kahlil Joseph on Vimeo.
A short clip as enigmatic and cool as Shabazz Palaces itself:
An allegorical short film/music video for Shabazz Palaces shot in Watts, Los Angeles, directed by Kahlil Joseph, cinematography by Matt Lloyd. Featuring a cameo of Dante (Ernest Wadell) from “The Wire” in homage to Charles Burnett’s 1977 classic film “Killer of Sheep”.
Art direction, it should also be noted, by the homie Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes.
This week, Pitchfork is hosting the Pavement documentary, Slow Century directed by Lance Bangs, in its entirety. You can watch it for free here. Pavement, you'll recall, is motherfucking reuniting! This film is a fine way to while away an hour of your morning and get stoked for the band's slow-impending live performances (as is, of course, listening to some old records).
If your week has gotten off to a rough start, here's something that might save it... over a year ago, Chris Walla and J. Robbins wrote and recorded a song together (!) in one day (!!) for NPR's Project Song, and it has finally made it up onto the interwebz.
The two used an image taken by Tom Chambers as their inspiration, then worked together to create sonic magic. You can see a video of the process and hear the song, "Mercury," here.
I love it and I think these two, who never met before this project, should work together more often. (Please?)
But it's 50 million times creepier when (extravagantly) recreated by a 9-year-old.
I hope this is some high-art spoof on the sexualization of children, and not just, you know, sexualized children.
Thank you, Line Out tipper Brian.
OMG!!NEWTWILIGHTFOOTAGE!!!EEEEEE!!!!
Ahem.
(The MTV exclusive has yet to leak to YouTube or anything, so please excuse the commercial at the beginning.)
Footage from Saturday night's show at Nectar, at which local boys Mad Rad were booked to open for Norwegian tracksuit models/electro rehashers Datarock—the headliners had the band cut off because they were, according to the poster of this youtube vid, "getting too close to their midi controller":
Thom Yorke unveiled his new band this weekend, which consists of him, Flea, Nigel Godrich, and drummer Lenny Waronker. I can't listen to it because I left my headphones at home. Please tell me how it sounds in the comments.
The first show took place at the Echoplex on Friday, where Yorke and band performed his 2006 solo album, The Eraser, in its entirety before Yorke sat at the piano and played four new songs solo. They moved the show over to the Orpheum Theatre on Sunday, where they will perform again tonight.