Watch Video For Passion Pit’s “Little Secrets” (The One With All Those Kids Screaming “Higher and Higher! Yay!”); Video Looks a Lot Like Tron, But Not Nearly As Good (It’s Only Marginally Better Than Tron Legacy) [Youtube]
Someone Decided a Sleigh Bells/Weezy Mash-Up Was a Good Idea; We Bring You “Fireman on the Ground,” Which is Terrifyingly Abrasive. Elsewhere, Check Out Our Pictures of Sleigh Bells Playing Our October Feature Show [Prefix]
Stream Brooklyn’s Crystal Antlers Covering Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” Which Is Great In a We-Sound-Like-High-Schoolers-Covering-Dylan Kind of Way [Fader]
Your Favorite Post-Collegiate, Post-Ironic, Afro-Bombastic Pop Band Vampire Weekend Announce Winter US Tour; Contra, In All It’s Fantastically Despised Glory, is Released January 17; Elsewhere, Stream New VW Track “Cousins,” Which I Despise Fantastically [NME]
King Khan and BBQ Show Issue Statement About the Band’s Arrest; All Interested Parties Remain Unphased and Unsurprised by Fact that These Guys Keep a Good Stock of Shrooms in Their Tour Van [Pitchfork]
Stream New Beach House, “Norway,” off the Upcoming LP Teen Dream, Released January 26 (I Know, Usually, at the Very Mention of Beach House, I Would Imply How Boring They Are. But, This Song Quite Gorg……. – Whoops, Fell Alseep Again (Kidding, It’s Really Good) [Gorilla vs. Bear]
Watch Possibly Seizure Inducing Video For Beyonce and Lady Gagas’ “Video Phone;” I Know You’ve Always Wanted to See Beyonce and Gaga Wield Enormous Guns…Give Into That Urge [Spin]
NME Releases Hilariously “NME-Esque” List of Their Top Albums of the Decade; Top Ten Includes the Strokes (at Number 1), Libertines (Number 2), Primal Scream (Number 3), The Streets (Number 9)…Well, You Get it. They Like Brit-Rock. A Lot [NME]
compiled by Max Sebela
Jay Z and Alicia Keys Delay Performance of “Empire State of Mind” at Yankees/Phillies World Series To Thursday; Jay Set to Censor “Empire” For the Performance, Meaning All Uses of “Shit” Will Hopefully Get Changed to “Shoot,” “Poop,” or “Barnacles” [Brooklyn Vegan]
Watch Superchunk Frontman/Merge Records Founder Mac McCaughan Cover Merge Artists Spoon and the Magnetic Fields; He’s Playing “Come Back From San Francisco” Which Is One of the Loveliest of the 69 Love Songs [Spin]
Download Brand New Lil Wayne Mixtape No Ceiling Right Now; Man, The Next Weezy Mixtape May Be Live Mixed From Prison. Possible Prison Titles “Robitussin Prison Blues,” “Me and T.I. Out in the Stockyard,” “My Daddy (Remix)” [Nah Right]
Watch Strokes Frontman Julian Casablancas Sing/Laugh/Be Merry/Look Creepy During a Tonight Show Performance of “11th Dimension;” Upcoming LP Phrazes for the Young Released November 3 [Prefix]
Stream Swedish Duo Air France’s Remix of St. Etienne’s “Spring;” It’s Light and Organic, Unlike Most of Air France’s Material, Which Sounds Almost Directly Ripped From the Soundtrack of Sega’s Sonic Adventure [Gorilla vs. Bear]
Watch Video For Basement Jaxx’s “My Turn,” Which Makes Heavy Use of One of the Most Underrepresented Figures in Nature/Pop Culture: Bears With Swords [Stereogum]
Norwegian DJ Extraordinaire Lindstrøm To Record 40 Minute Version of the “Little Drummer Boy”; Elsewhere, I Pull Out My “List of Things I Really Don’t Need” And Add a 40 Minute Version of “Little Drummer Boy” [Pitchfork]
Watch Brooklynites Real Estate Jam Through a Bunch of Tracks in Uncomfortably Close Quarters in the Tripwire’s Studio; Imagine That it Must Not Smell So Good in that Studio [The Tripwire]
compiled by Max Sebela
September 12, 2009
#1: A Prologue
THE NINETIES-IST
One Saturday night about six months ago, I was standing outside Academy Records in Williamsburg. It was one of those rare Saturday nights in New York, one where everyone you know decides to go out of town and, just as you get all set to go party, you find yourself in the middle of the perfect stay-at-home-and-catch-up-on-Grisham night. Not one to sit at home on a Saturday night, I found myself hanging around N. 6th Street, trying vainly to stir up a ruckus.
While smoking a cigarette on the street, I happened to overhear a snippet of conversation that set my teeth on edge. Two girls in their early twenties, obviously from money and most likely on vacation from some exclusive private college, walked past Academy. One girl said to the other, “So…do they still make records? And do people still buy…music?” The surprise and disdain in her voice were such that she might as well have been saying, “Remember when people thought the Earth was flat?”
My heart sank at the tone in her voice, because she’d illuminated the problem without even knowing there was one. The mainstream music industry, comically flawed since its inception, has been a creative wasteland for years. While I would posit that the old model for promoting and distributing mainstream music has been showing stress fractures since the fake “vinyl shortage” of the early 70s – in which albums by fringe bands like the Modern Lovers were shelved, the excuse being there wasn’t enough vinyl to meet production demands – it is my astute opinion that the old standard of modern pop music breathed its death rattle in 2003. Sometime after the White Stripes’ Elephant and before Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief (and, in fairness, the industry’s corpse may have kept flopping until Good News For People Who Love Bad News came out in April ’04) the rock-music-as-big-moneymaker model jumped the shark. The last wave of new, compelling rock music (aka the garage rock movement of ’01 – ’03) had failed to ignite: The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and their ilk had all somehow managed to follow up stunning debuts with tepid sophomore efforts. The lifers – bands with no real hits but respectable catalog sales and devoted followers – began jumping ship from their respective labels (either by necessity or design), many realizing the benefits of working with a small organization, many more marginalized by the continued consolidation of the big label infrastructure.
More on #1: A Prologue
Strokes Singer Julian Casablancas To Sing About Ludlow Street on Solo Album [SPIN]
Check Out the IFC Music Movie Nights: “Film and the Folk/Punk Connection” [The Tripwire]
Today’s Piece of Bizarre News: Harry Potter‘s Emma Watson to Star in Marilyn Manson Musical [IMDb]
One Week Only! The Dodos Streaming New Album, Time To Die, Online [NME]
The Dead Weather Playing at Jack White’s Third Man Record Store This Thursday in NYC [Prefix]
Wavves Broke His Wrist Skateboarding, But Still Playing Skateboard Benefit Show [Brooklyn Vegan]
New York Times Company Sells Radio Station WQXR to WNYC Radio [New York Times]
Black Keys Drummer Goes For The Obvious, Starts Side Project Called Drummer [Tiny Mix Tapes]
EMI Cutting Costs, Cutting Off Independent Record Stores [Prefix]
compiled by Erin Sheehy
Citysol 2009 @ Stuyvesant Cove Features Shilpa Ray, Love Like Deloreans, Shwervon!, and More [Brooklyn Vegan]
Stream Byrne’s Benefit EP and See Him at Bonnaroo [Stereogum]
The Antlers Sign to Frenchkiss [Pitchfork]
Radiohead Post-In Rainbows Recording Studio Rendezvous [Prefix]
Black Eyed Peas Buzz – “Imma Be” [Idolator]
Strokes Members Playing Tribute to Dylan at Mercury Lounge [The Tripwire]
Celebrate Brooklyn with Bikes! [Brooklyn Vegan]
Yoko Ono Will Judge Your Haiku [NME]
Thinkindie.com is Your Local Record Store, Online [Pitchfork]
compiled by Elana Jacobs
October 27, 2008
The Strokes: Where Are They Now?
Everyone’s favorite saviors of rock turned scapegoats of an epidemic cultural regurgitation have been absent since the release of First Impressions of Earth in 2006, but only in group form. Every member of the Strokes but lead guitarist Nick Valensi, who was the first to request time off after he and his wife had twins two years ago, has invested themselves in collaborative side-projects. In the case of singer Julian Casablancas, this has been the opening of a Korean barbecue restaurant in Hollywood. Given the cloud of backlash that has hovered over the band since the post-Is This It let down, Casablancas may have made the surest bet against biased reception by presenting us not with another record of songs that are doomed to be labeled nostalgic, but with steaming platters of thick sliced pork belly.
More on The Strokes: Where Are They Now?
