New Jersey Punks Titus Andronicus Had a Really Miserable Time at the Vice Halloween Party (Headlined by Bad Brains and the Jesus Lizard) – Frontman Patrick Stickles Was Thrown on the Street for Dressing Like Ulysses S. Grant; More Importantly, Photos of Stickles as Grant Unavailable [Titus Andronicus]
Watch Gossip Girl Star Leighton Meester Perform Weezer’s “(If You’re Wondering if I Want You To) I Want You To;” “Did R.C. Sleep With L. After the Show? How Pissed Was C., When It Happened…Tune In to Find Out xoxo, Gossip Girl” [Spin]
New York Experimental Post Punk Blah Blah Liars Announce New Album, Sisterworld; Band Name Would Suggest That They Actually Did Not Announce New Album – Liars Definitively Untrustworthy [Pitchfork]
Lil Wayne and Birdman Getting Sued by Spoken Word Artist Thomas Marasciullo for Allegedly Sampling His Vocals Without Permission; Meanwhile, Wayne is Both Going to Jail, and Got Baked at Alec Baldwin’s Daughter’s Birthday Party (Yay Puns!) [NME]
Charlotte Gainsbourg’s “Heaven Can Wait” Featuring and Recorded With Beck; Gainsbourg’s Third Album IRM Released January (And It Sounds Like a Wes Anderson Soundtrack) [The Playlist]
Original Stooges Guitarist James Williamson To Rejoin The Stooges After Death of Ron Asheton [Spin]
compiled by Max Sebela
The Jesus Lizard and Bad Brains to Play Free VICE Sponsored Halloween Party In Brooklyn; Theme of Night: 1994; Year Bad Brains Stopped Making Good Music: 1988 [Brooklyn Vegan]
Norwegian “Take on Me” Writers A-Ha Split After 25 Year Career; I Struggle With Realization That A-Ha Had a Career That Spanned Longer Than the Four Minutes of the “Take on Me” Music Video [NME]
Athens Alt-Rock Trio the Whigs Release New Song “In the Dark;” So if the Whigs are “Alt-Rock Revival,” and “Alt-Rock” Was a Way of Describing “Post-Punk” That Went Mainstream, Does That Mean the Whigs are Simulating an Invented Genre, and Are Then Inherently Meaningless? (No, This Song Shreds) [The Tripwire]
Stream Glitched-Out, Doo-Wop Garage Pop Cover of “I Only Have Eyes For You” By Sweden’s Summer Camp – Starts Abrasive; Ends Blissfully Saccharine (In a “I’m Listening To This On My Gameboy” Way) [Gorilla vs. Bear]
Watch Former Be Your Own Pet Frontwoman Jemina Pearl’s Video For “I Hate People;” Features Thurston Moore As a Bespectacled Fry Cook (Which He Should Probably Take Up a Career As), and Cut Outs of Iggy Pop Singing With Pearl; The Entire Thing as Strange as It Sounds [Stereogum]
White Stripes to Release Early Outtakes Through Jack White’s Third Man Records Vault – I May Set Up My First Paid Internet Subscription in Like 5 Years For This [Pitchfork]
Slow News Day; I Report Story About Soulja Boi Getting Evicted From His L.A. Apartment For Unpaid Rent (Let’s See Him “Superman” His Way Out of This One (I Don’t Actually Want to See That)) [Prefix]
Stream New N.E.R.D. Featuring Santigold, “Soldier” – Heavily Influx of Regatone, With the Most Blistering Production the Neptunes Have Done in a Long Time [KanyeUniverseCity]
compiled by Max Sebela
Either Diplo and Switch are Making a Pointed Critique of Mainstream Nightlife, or They Are Just Really Excited for Halloween. Watch New Cartoon Zombie Major Lazer Video Here [Pitchfork]
For An Even Weirder Partially Animated Music Video, Watch Ida Maria Featuring Iggy Pop on “Oh My God.” Oh My God Is Right. This Shit Is Weird. [PopMatters]
No Age Designed A Vegan Skate Shoe. Very California. Oh Yeah, They’re In New York Next Week, Too. [The Tripwire]
Listen To New Song From Dum Dum Girls/Zoo Music Side Project Woven Bones [Stereogum]
Milkin’ It: Pixies Releasing Dolittle Shows as Live Albums…Ten Minutes After Show’s Are Over! [NME]
Listen To New Devendra Banhart “Wallilamdzi” [Stereogum]
Listen to Snippets Of New Moon Soundtrack. Not Sure How Much We Care…But Have Heard Good Things About Thom Yorke Track [Stereogum]
compiled by Erin Sheehy
Pavement Adds Fourth Show To New York’s Central Park Summerstage 2010; Stephen Malkmus Unaware That By “World Tour,” Matador Expects Them To Leave Central Park [Brooklyn Vegan]
Watch Depraved Web Series Namaste! From anticon.’s Much-Beloved Why?; Why’s Upcoming LP Eskimo Snow Released September 22 [anticon.]
Stream Strokes Frontman Julian Casablancas’s New Synthy (Read: Not Really Worth Listening To) Song “11th Dimension”; Casablancas’s Debut LP Phrazes of the Young Released October 20 [Myspace]
British Art Dance Cutie Goldfrapp To Score Upcoming John Lennon Biopic Nowhere Boy — This Is Cool, But Confusing [Pitchfork]
Lego Iggy Pop to Star in Lego Rock Band; Watch Lego Pop Fall Into Lego Herion, Get Picked Up By Lego David Bowie, And Redefine His Lego Career Through A Lego Series of Lego Albums and Accomplishments [Idolator]
Stream to Pearl Jam’s New Album Backspacer A Couple Days Early…Or Don’t. I Probably Wouldn’t. Backspacer Released September 20 [Spin]
Andrew W.K. To Tour With Calder String Quartet; Shouts of “LETS GET THIS CRECENDO STARTED” Heard From Miles Away; Meanwhile, Quartet Unconditioned To Partying Quite So Much – All Report Hangovers, Immense Fun [CMJ]
Watch New Thom Yorke Video For “All For The Best,” Off The Upcoming Mark Mulcahy Tribute, Ciao My Shining Star; Ciao Released September 29 [Pitchfork]
Insane Clown Posse Fans (Popularly Called Juggalos – Find Them In The Faygo Aisle of Your Local Walgreens) and Slipknot Fans (Called Maggots – Find Them Looking Through Jack Skelington Coffee Mugs At Your Nearest Hot Topic) Don’t Get Along [Prefix]
compiled by Max Sebela
Cymbals Eat Guitars, Real Estate, and JM.Com’s July Feature Band The Drums All Set To Play Online Record Store Insound’s 10th Anniversary Party at Brooklyn Bowl [Brooklyn Vegan]
John Hughes, Director of The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Buehler’s Day Off, And a Major Force In Popularizing New Wave, Passes Away at 59 [New York Times]
All Tomorrow’s Parties NY Finalizes Its Line-Up; Hüsker Dü’s Bob Mould, Black Moth Super Rainbow, and Menomena Join the Already Bomb-Ass 3-Day Extravaganza [Brooklyn Vegan]
San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music Festival Replaces Headliners Beastie Boys With Tenacious D (Man, There’s Going To Be a Stark Contrast Between Hearing Beasties Highlight “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” and Hearing Tenacious D’s Highlight “Fuck Her Gently”) [Spin]
Purchase Everlasting Punk Force Iggy Pop’s New Album Preliminaries For $3.99 Today Only [Spin]
Bob Dylan, A Jewish American and Cultural Legend, Slated To Release A Christmas Album This Winter – How Is It That Bob Dylan Can Be In Recorded Music For 50 Years, And Still Be Really, Really Weird? [Billboard]
Watch Garage Punk Jay Reatard’s 20-Minute Documentary Waiting For Something; Dude Hilariously Insults Just About Everything, From Thievery, To Audiences, To Effort [Prefix]
UK House Duo Basement Jaxx Announce New LP, Debut New Video For Single, “Raindrops” (This Video Is Absolutely Batshit; It’s As If The Mummy Was Set In Moulin Rouge…Only With Techno); Scars Released October 6 [The Tripwire]
Willy DeVille, Frontman Of Early New York Punk Band Mink DeVille Passes Away At 58 [ABC]
by Max Sebela
Wavves Show Disaster at Primavera Sound Festival [Pitchfork]
See NYTimes Talk to Iggy Pop [Brooklyn Vegan]
Hear the Whole of Dark Was the Night Show from Radio City Music Hall [NPR]
Because Anything that Lady GaGa Does is Amusing [Prefix]
Dr. Dre/Pepper [Tiny Mix Tapes]
Artists Protest British National Party [NME]
Major Music Labels Make Nice to Small Companies [NYTimes]
Rock Out This Summer at The Whitney [Brooklyn Vegan]
compiled by Elana Jacobs
May 22, 2009
Iggy Pop: Sick of Idiot Thugs With Guitars
TOP DOG
Iggy Pop recently released an interactive music video for “King of the Dogs,” a song about how cool it is to be a dog. Pop calls the song the most moving track on his newest work, Préliminaires, which comes out this month, on May 25th. “King of the Dogs,” which begins with the appealing lyrics, “I’ve got a smelly rear/I’ve got a dirty nose,” shows a dog in a dog suit rolling around and drinking from a toilet. The King of the Dogs, who bears resemblance to Frank the Bunny from Donnie Darko, sans creepy bunny mask, takes us through a day in his life, from peeing on a construction site to dancing in a nightclub. You can then repeat the video with perspectives from a different dog, choosing from business dog, bum dog, or urban explorer dog.
Pop made Préliminaires after the woman who made Persepolis asked Pop to make a soundtrack for the French novel, The Possibility of an Island, by Michel Houellebecq. In a poolside chat (link below), Pop mentions that he is sick of idiot thugs with guitars, and that he has always loved slow ballads and New Orleans jazz. Préliminaires and songs about dogs are the result.
Overall, the video for “King of the Dogs” is more doggone puzzling than “revolutionary,” as it claims to be, and surely the world has been scratching itself in reaction – and lifting up one leg to relieve itself.
A more interesting Pop/Stooges mystery I would like solved: is the drum beat from Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” a slowed-down sample from The Stooges’ “Nightclubbing”?
You can view a poolside chat with Iggy here. Surely his dental benefits are to be envied.
Also, please visit Iggy’s new website with tacky color scheme: http://www.iggypop.com/
And finally, here’s that video:
by Thomas Wilk
TOP DOG
We liked this story so much, we decided to give you our own take on it…
In more of a humorous story than a relevant one, Iggy Pop was recently made the spokesperson for SwiftCover.com, a U.K. automotive insurance company. It’s a strange move from any perspective – nothing says insurance like a drug-weathered 62 year-old who used to unwittingly cut himself during shows. And nothing says rock and roll like making sure all your tools for destruction and mayhem are safely insured.
The actually ironic and fraudulent part though, is that while a shirtless, strutting Iggy was portrayed flaunting his badass auto insurance, SwiftCover.com refused to cover musicians. David Bowie must have been pissed when the insurance company his good friend was raving so much about told him, “we don’t take business from your kind.” (Even though Bowie lives in New York…and would never have seen the commercial…but still.)
More on Iggy Pop: Lust for Affordable Car Insurance…and False Advertisement
