Tag: news roundup

NEWS ROUNDUP: Parquet Courts, Bernie Sanders, & Animal Collective

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  • Parquet Courts Debut New Songs

    The Brooklyn-via-Texas punks performed “Dust” and “Outside” on WFUV, and also announced an upcoming album titled Human Performance. “Dust” has a loping, cowboy Western feel, spacing tendrils of guitar riffs between suffocating lyrics: “It comes through the window, it comes through the floor/ It comes through the roof, and it comes through the door/ Dust is everywhere/ Sweep.” As you can see in the creepy video – which features dust personified- dust is a metaphor for the distractions of modern life. In a way, the song is a more subtle version of the band’s “Content Nausea.”

 

  • Bernie Sanders Gets Musical Endorsements

    I’m not saying that anyone should base their vote on what celebrities think of the presidential candidates. But if they did, I think we know who would win; members of Vampire Weekend and Dirty Projectors  joined Bernie Sanders onstage to sing “This Land Is Your Land” during a Iowa City rally for the candidate on January 30th. If you live in Brooklyn, you may have also noticed a bunch of shows dedicated to raising money for Sanders. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has earned only the endorsement of Kid Rock, and the wrath of Adele and Steven Tyler for using their songs without permission.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEXAUZrMvSE&feature=youtu.be

 

  • Listen to Animal Collective’s “Lying in the Grass”

    On the cartoonish, slightly schizophrenic track, voices bounce around, occasionally running into a glitch or a saxophone lick as the song builds. Listening to “Lying in the Grass” is like following instructions to make an origami box, only to realize you’ve somehow made a crane. Maybe that doesn’t make sense, but it’s kind of pretty, which sums up the track. Check it out below:

 

  • Johnny Cash Lives On, In Arachnid Form

    Fourteen new species of tarantulas have been recently discovered in the United States, and one of those, Aphonopelma johnnycashi, has earned the namesake of the country singer Johnny Cash. Why? It lives near Folsom Prison, and is jet-black, the color that Cash was known for wearing almost exclusively. It’s almost too perfect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5Ts4M3irWM

 

RIP Maurice White

Maurice White founded the incomparable Earth, Wind & Fire. He passed away yesterday from Parkinson’s at age 74, six years after he was inducted into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. His band was one of the most renowned, universally liked musical groups- for a thorough obituary, see The New York Times.

 

  • Philly Musicians Bill to be Withdrawn

    Remember that bill we mentioned last week, the one that would require all performers coming to Philadelphia to register with the police? Maybe you even signed the petition to stop it. Well, a spokesperson for Mark Squilla, the councilman who proposed the bill, has said that he intends to withdraw it. That definitely falls under the category of “good news.”

 

 

NEWS ROUNDUP: FJM, Elliot Smith & Philadelphia

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We’re not going to talk about Kanye’s Twitter breakdown. Here’s some real music news instead:

  • FJM Posts Creepy Lullaby to SoundCloud

    Last weekend, most of us were stuck inside while snow piled up, and it looks like the cabin fever got to Father John Misty pretty early. On Saturday, he uploaded a hilariously terrifying lullaby to SoundCloud. According to its description, the song was written for a Stephen Colbert skit but had to be cut for time/content. Well, the content is a super creepy description of a very, very bad dream, which includes a pile of dead birds, maggot-filled Lunchables, and human hair hats.

  • Unreleased Elliot Smith Track Now Available

    The upcoming Elliot Smith documentary Heaven Adores You will feature a new mix of the track “True Love,” which was originally recorded in 2001 with Jon Brion. According to the documentary’s producer, Kevin Moyer, it was one of the last songs Smith played at Largo, a L.A. music club where Smith would usually play after-hours sets. He also said that the gentle, haunting track originally started out as focused on love, but then shifted to drugs: “My love had gotten so strong, just to try to being back on my own/ I had to go to rehab.”

    “True Love” and other rare or unreleased Elliot Smith songs will be available on the Heaven Adores You soundtrack, available February 5th. Listen to “True Love” here, or the full soundtrack at NPR, and check out the documentary trailer below.

 

Interesting Revelations Arise About Bowie & Michael Jackson

  • Maybe this isn’t so surprising, but Coldplay’s Chris Martin and  Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers have revealed that the late David Bowie turned down offers to collaborate with and produce the two bands.

    I played a lot of Sonic The Hedgehog as a kid, and the mere mention of the video game gets its theme music stuck in my head for hours. Turns out there’s a good reason it’s so catchy: Michael Jackson wrote a lot of it, but asked to remain uncredited when he realized his music would be translated into synth-y video game sounds instead of gamers hearing his original recordings.

 

  • Important News For Philly Musicians

    A proposed bill in Philadelphia, PA would require all performers playing at venues with a 50+ capacity to give their names, addresses and phone numbers to police. Police would then create a registry of entertainers, and be able to prevent certain acts from playing in the city if their events have previously been associated with violent incidents. A change.org petition against the bill states that, “Not only is it unnecessary and likely to cause a massive administrative backlog, it’s a gross violation of our civil liberties. Philadelphia is currently one of the best cities in the country for live music-this bill would make it one of the worst. We call on City Council to reject this dangerous, costly, and unnecessary bill, and to continue to protect the civil rights of its residents.” We agree- if you do too, you can sign the petition here.

 

 

NEWS ROUNDUP: PJ Harvey, Basement Queens, & Heathcliff Berru

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  • Sadie Dupuis & Lizzo Debut New Song

    Sadie Dupuis (of Speedy Ortiz) and Lizzo released “Basement Queens,” on Wednesday, a song with a meta topic: women taking charge in the studio. The songwriting/recording process for the track was filmed by Google Docs, who sponsored the collaboration (in the video, you can see the two working on lyrics using the computer program). Next up: A Waxahatchee collaboration sponsored by MailChimp.

 

  • PJ Harvey Announces New Album

    The singer, songwriter, saxophonist and guitarist released video previews, and a full track, of  The Hope Six Demolition Project. Set for release on April 15th, the album was recorded in a special studio that let members of the public observe the recording process. The album trailer below hints at a record full of political commentary, and “The Wheel” is a grim look at the consequences of war. 

 

  • Josh Homme & Iggy Pop Also Announce New Album

    The frontmen for The Queens of The Stone Age and The Stooges announced that they secretly recorded an album together, and will be touring to promote it. Post Pop Depression comes out March 18th and also features Dean Fertita of the Dead Weather and Matt Helders of Arctic Monkeys. Homme, who records drums with the Eagles of Death Metal and occasionally plays live with the band, said working on the album helped him process the ordeal his bandmates went through when their concert was a target of terrorist attacks in France. Check out Homme and Iggy’s performance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DngIWkQVPgU

 

  • The Music Industry (Still) Has A Problem With Women

    Twitter exploded on Monday after Amber Coffman, of the Dirty Projectors, shared her story of being groped by Life or Death PR & Management’s former CEO, Heathcliff Berru. After other women in the music industry spoke up about Berru’s pattern of harassing women, many artists who had ties with his firm quickly severed them, including Wavves, D’Angelo, Speedy Ortiz, and DIIV.

    Berru released a statement blaming his behavior on alcohol on drugs, but as this piece points out, substance abuse does not suddenly make someone a sexual predator. As bad as his refusal to accept full responsibility is, what’s just as troubling is that many people in the industry seemed to know about his reputation, yet did not speak up and continued to hire him. The lack of consequences people like him face enforces a dangerous norm in the industry:

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  • Everyone Is Dying

    Glenn Fry of The Eagles passed away this week. He was 67. As all of our favorite rock’n’roll icons start to age, this is going to happen more and more frequently, making the next decade or so a very depressing one. Happy Friday!

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