We got this yesterday and we’re excited for two reasons. One, Aimee Mann kicks ass and two, we’ve finally been respected enough (at least by one agency, thanks Girle Action!) to pass along MP3s.
This is especially exciting since we were recently webslapped by the long arm of the Raconteurs who didn’t want us to stream their song.
Enough anger. Below you will find a new song from Mann titled “Thirty One Today” that will be off her seventh studio album @#%*! Smilers due out on June 3.
And, as you can probably guess, the song is about Mann’s personal best at chicken nugget eating. Don’t buy it? Fine. It’s about the depressive state of aging.
“I thought my life would be different somehow/ I thought my life would be better by now…”
Thanks Mann. Whenever I need a melodic song with depressive undertones, you constantly deliver the goods. In fact, to prepare, I’m going to take your advice and get loaded and watch CNN.
June 2 Los Angeles, CA Largo
June 6 Anaheim, CA House of Blues
June 10 Los Angeles, CA Largo
June 12 Minneapolis, MN Minneapolis Zoo
June 13 Milwaukee WI Pabst Theater
June 15 Manchester, TN Bonnaroo Music Festival
July 9 Boulder, CO Chautauqua Auditorium
July 11 Denver, CO Denver Botanical Gardens
July 12 Park City, UT Deer Valley Resort
July 14 Saratoga, CA Mountain Winery
July 15 Rosebud, OR Stewart Park
July 16 Seattle, WA Seattle Zoo
July 24 Calgary, Alberta Calgary Music Festival
We got Metric’s upcoming “Metric: Live at Metropolis” at the office a month ago and, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been super laze checking it out (although it is partly beer and Nintendo Wii’s fault).
The DVD shows, in full, a show the band played at the Metropolis in Montreal. To be honest, I didn’t know much about Metric prior to getting this. I only knew that vocalist Emily Haines and gutiarist James Shaw are also part of the super indie rock group Broken Social Scene.
After seeing this concert footage, it’s safe to say that I am now a fan.
First: the quality. It’s great. It captures the show in clear view, from different angles, but also preserves the energy that Haines and Shaw exude on stage. It’s completely hypnotic.
Haines: What is it about the strung-out-looking indie chick that I dig so much? And I love how she dances with the keyboards by bending her knees to the left and right.
Trailer for “Live at Metropolis”
Concert tracklist:
01. Live it Out
02. Glass Ceiling
03. Wet Blanket
04. Too Little Too Late
05. Poster of a Girl
06. Patriarch on a Vespa
07. Monster Hospital
08. Handshakes
09. The Police and the Private
10. Hustle Rose
11. Combat Baby
12. Dead Disco
13. Love is a Place
Philly/Brooklyn rockers Marah have announced a tour starting this month in support of their new album Angels of Destruction!
The album was released on Tuesday. It’s the follow up to their 2005 album If You Didn’t Laugh, You’d Cry which Stephen King liked a whole lot. Really though, how could you possibly dislike a band that gives props to Mummers?
Marah’s albums tend to be heavily produced — banjos on top of carnival sounds on top of sports announcer voice overs. This album is certainly no exception. But it’s good. And their live shows are legendary for their intensity.
To quote the band’s blog: “P.P.S. – shows to follow will be mega!”
For a band that’s been known to go several years (and multiple successful albums) without a tour, maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise that R.E.M. waited 27 years to drop a live album. But as R.E.M. fans have come to learn, good things come to those wait… and wait… and wait a little more. I’ve seen R.E.M. at least a few times over the past 11 or 12 years, and R.E.M. Live, released today at long last, has all the best elements of a the band’s live gig (almost).
#1 - Micheal Stipe. Stipey brings the energy from the very first track “I Took Your Name.” From there, he and the boys rock into “So fast, so numb” and there showcase one of my favorite features of any live show, but a R.E.M. show in particular: when Stipey breaks out of the vocal routine so familiar from the album and lets loose, holler-singing the chorus — “LISTEN! This is NOW! This is HERE! This is ME!” — as if there’s a specific someone at the back of the auditorium he’s trying to convince. Later in the album, there’s some cool, kind of surprising (however brief) harmonizing on “What’s the Frequency Kenneth?” Then, of course, there’s the banter — a little shy, a little political, a little ironic, never overbearing or intrusive. It’s all here, so it’s just like being there.
#2 - Variety variety variety. With 13-ish albums out in the world, you never get to hear all your favorites at an R.E.M. show, but they always do their best to jump around in history, play the number ones, and test their diehard fans and tease the crowd with a few lesser known tracks. So Live’s got “Losing My Religion,” “Man on the Moon,” and “Everybody Hurts” for the radio fans. And for those who didn’t check out after about 2000, there are several tracks from Around the Sun, a few from Reveal and Up, and an unreleased track called “I’m gonna DJ.”
#3 - Still more variety. Another great thing about R.E.M. is the sheer musical genius of Mike Mills… and with that comes an amazing variety instrumentation, which sounds pretty cool on an album — and damn amazing in a live show. I don’t have a great ear for knowing exactly what instrument is playing when, but there are some well placed harmonicas and accordions and a most excellent section of psychedelic keyboard/guitar jamming at the beginning of “Walk Unafraid.”
#4 - The crowd. One of the best things about R.E.M. Live is that it almost encapsulates the energy of being at a live show — the energy that comes from the crowd just as much, if not more, than from the band. In every song, you can hear the crowd wooting, clapping, and cheering. And on songs like “Losing My Religion” and “Man on the Moon” you can hear the full voice of the crowd singing along in unison (”Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!”). Just like being there. As I listened, I found myself singing along, stopping my fingers from typing so I could throw my arms into the hair, and start dancing along.
Even as I rocked out, there were definitely a few places where I noticed the album falls short. Being cued in to Stipey’s lead vocals the whole time is great (ironically, you can understand all the lyrics better here than on any studio album!), but I would have liked if they could have mixed in more of Millsy’s mic. I really miss the richness of his backing vocals and the layers of harmonizing and alternating lyrics, which are really only hinted at.
But I think my biggest disappointment is the absence of “Its the End of the World as We Know It.” The album ends rather anti-climactically with “Man on the Moon.” Maybe that’s lame to say, but whatever. Every time I’ve seen R.E.M., they’ve ended with “End of the World…” so for me that’s part of the quintessiantial live experience. Maybe they didn’t want it to seem kitschy or cheesy… maybe they didn’t want to do the thing you would expect them to do… maybe they really didn’t play “End of the World” as an encore in Dublin (although I doubt it)… But, I mean, c’mon, if they’re gonna make one live album in 27 years, they could at least throw out that much-anticipated bone.
Otherwise, for a live album, I think this one might be close to perfect. Of course, don’t go thinking you can just buy the album in place of actually going to an R.E.M. show. No purely aural experience can recreate the visual magic of Mike Mills’ notoriously colorful concert garb or Stipey’s wild hip-gyrating arm-flailing dance moves. No way. No how.
According to The Tripwire, Daft Punk will be releasing a live album, “Daft Punk Alive 2007″ on Nov. 20, 2007.
Fans of the French-house band will experience unbridled enthusiasm when they go through the track list below. Be sure to change your boxers/panties afterwards.
CD 1
01. “Robot Rock”
02. “Oh Yeah”
03. “Touch It”
04. “Technologic”
05. “Television Rules The Nation”
06. “Crescendolls”
07. “Too Long”
08. “Steam Machine”
09. “Around The World”
10. “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”
11. “Burnin’”
12. “Face To Face”
13. “Short Circuit”
14. “One More Time”
15. “Aerodynamic”
16. “Aerodynamic Beats”
17. “Forget About The Word”
18. “Prime Time Of Your Life”
19. “Brainwasher”
20. “Rollin’ And Scratchin’”
21. “Alive”
22. “Da Funk”
23. “Daftendirekt”
24. “Superheroes”
25. “Human After All”
26. “Rock’N'Roll”
CD 2
01. “Human”
02. “Together”
03. “One More Time (Reprise)”
04. “Music Sounds Better With You”
05. “Stardust (Instrumental)”
This week’s live music releases are a mix of classics and new talent. Right alongside a live album from Jethro Tull and a few Monterey Jazz Festival performances, SXSW Live 2007 comes out today on DVD. SXSW is the first DVD release covering South by Southwest. It features 18 performances from this year including The Bravery, Aqualung, Peter Bjorn & John, Razorlight, Polyphonic Spree, Rachel Fuller with Pete Townshend, Ozomatli, Lee Perry, Rickie Lee Jones, as well as interviews and other clips from the festival.
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” at the office a month ago and, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been super laze checking it out (although it is partly beer and Nintendo Wii’s fault).
