While the band is holed up recording the follow up to the hugely successful (well, relatively, mind you, but still) 3 Rounds and a Sound, I’ve had to get my fix with the random three or four track EP.  What’s nice is that on most of the EPs the band, which is primarily six musicians strong now, mixes up the songs in both tempo and instrumentation.

The iTunes EP, (available on iTunes) includes newly recorded versions of “One Red Thread,” “3 Rounds and a Sound,” and “The Story I Heard,” plus a cover of Gillian Welch’s “Look At Miss Ohio” and an unreleased Blind Pilot original, “Get It Out.”  The band absolutely kills it live, with an added urgency and emotion that swells with each tune.  Plus? Singers Israel Nebeker and Katie Claborn (her banjo has superpowers) suck you in with a radiating warmth.

As an added bonus the session was mixed by Tucker Martine (Laura Veirs, The Decemberists, R.E.M., Death Cab for Cutie) in Portland.  Certainly it’s five bucks well worth spending.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Even though the rumor that the mysterious improv piano man was Ben Folds was put to rest, I’m still holding out hope that all of this is an elaborate Andy Kauffman-style prank from Mr. Folds.  The inadvertent publicity alone!

So back to the concert in Charlotte.

Folds dressed up like the internet sensation, broke out a webcam and performed a tribute to the “piano improv guy,” tickling the ivories and playing out on-the-spot songs to his Chatroulette partners and 2000 screaming fans.

So the mystery endures and whether or not Ben Folds and “Merton” are one in the same, this is a great move on his part to add fuel to rumors.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And not because it’s literally kick ass, but because it’s a music video for the first single of the upcoming Matthew Vaughn flick Kick-Ass. Which, unfortunately, doesn’t come out for another month.

The song pretty much blows, but I suppose maybe this is what Freddie Mercury would sound like if he were making music in the aughts.  Anyways.

The Big Star frontman passed away today.  From Commercial Appeal (via Stereogum):

The singer and guitarist, best known as a member of ’60s pop-soul act the Box Tops and the ’70s power-pop act Big Star, died today at a hospital in New Orleans. Chilton, 59, had been complaining of about his health earlier today. He was taken by paramedics to the emergency room where he was pronounced dead. The cause of death is believed to be a heart attack.

His Big Star bandmate Jody Stephens confirmed the news this evening. “Alex passed away a couple of hours ago,” Stephens said from Austin, Texas, where the band was to play Saturday at the annual South By Southwest Festival. “I don’t have a lot of particulars, but they kind of suspect that it was a heart attack.”

If you have a second, take a second to dig into Dan Griffin’s review of the Big Star box set — as fine an obituary as you will likely read on the power of Alex Chilton’s music.

One of the five best songs ever written in music history; everyone here is just straight pimpin’ it.  Basically, Gladys Knight was never better and the Pips, well, jesus they’re rocking blue velvet suits with fuchsia ruffled shirts and dropping dance moves like they’re sleeping.  This.   Right here.  Is the epitome of cool (that and Steve McQueen in Bullit).

One could probably write an interesting comparative study between She & Him’s new video for “In the Sun”, which is the first single off of Vol. 2, and Britney Spear’s video for “Hit Me Baby (One More Time)”.  The differences and similarities are fairly obvious and speak volumes about sexuality, female confidence and well, talent.  When you have it you don’t have peddle in sexual fantasies.

Here, we get the same school scenario, only Zooey is all wholesome and quirky.  Her dance moves are fairly awkward and not quite on time with the song.  Yet somehow, like all things Zooey, it comes across as whimsical and charming.

I have recently concluded that of all the Velvet Underground songs that hit me in just the right way, and to be sure there are too numerous to namedrop here, “Sweet Jane” has to be right up there.

Thankfully, for all involved it has nothing to do with President Obama watching that guilty pleasure Nick Cannon flick, but rather Virginia State University sent The Trojan Explosion, an 8-person drumline, to play in the Cross Hall of The White House on February 26, 2010.  The group was there to honor historically black colleges and universities in the United States as Obama signed a renewal of the executive order investing $850 million into the schools.

The only thing that could have made this better is if Southern and Grambling were also there and the three engaged in all-out drumline warfare, similar to what happens during the Bayou Classic.

It includes an awesome cover of Neil Young’s “Revolution Blues”, which segues nicely into a slower-tempo’d “Union Blanket.” Johnson does Shakey proud, channeling both his vocal delivery and indignant pathos Young is famous for.

“Johnson tackles the theme of love – or is tackled by the theme of love – with the acceptance of a minister, as if he’s been sent here for this particular and very specific reason, to explain these wrinkles and these elations with all of his faculties,” writes Sean Moeller.  “Sam Cooke sings about the grapes that are meant for the vine and the apples that are meant for the tree and Johnson sings that he’ll be “the sweetest apple on your tree,” taking the sentiment just a little further.”

This exemplifies everything I enjoy about Eric Johnson’s songwriting.  He’s romantic, in the vein of Ralph Waldo Emerson, nimbly tiptoeing the delicate footbridge connecting love and nature and that underlying energy that just connects everything together.

Mp3: The Fruit Bats – “Revolution Blues/Union Blanket”

Also: The Fruit Bats stopped by NPR’s World Cafe to chat and play some music.  I could think of a million worse ways to spend 20-minutes.

This is pretty much the fiercest fight song ever laid down on acetate.  And, like Merlin says, “it’s one of the few hip-hop songs that I, you, Stephen Merchant and Bob Dylan all know by heart“  As the story goes, Bob Dylan recited a full verse of the song during Episode 2 of his “The Theme Time Radio Hour.”

It would be awesome if Stephan Marchant could get this animated for The Ricky Gervais Show; how great would it be to have an animated LL Cool J interacted with that threesome?

Now, however, the UK government has determined the studio is worthy of a Grade II protected-status historic site.  But what does that mean?

“It has huge cultural importance and a very special place in the hearts of recording artists and music lovers alike,” said a government statement. “The new listing status will ensure that, although changes to the interior are not prohibited, care must be taken to ensure that any alterations with respect to its character and interest are fully considered.” 

So there you go.  Revitalization will be much more difficult now.

Anyways, both redesigns are a bit bland, but really it’s the writing and usability that ultimately matter and that change is for the best.

It was surprising then, that they hadn’t released a new album within a year or so to build momentum.  Aside from touring, the band released a few videos in 2009 and then nothing.  They just laid low, there were no leaks, no Mp3s, no nuggets of anything new in the pipeline.

Well, thankfully, that’s about to change.

I don’t know for how long you’ll be able to stream their sophomore album, American Spiritual, until it will be released via Los Angeles’s Acetate Records on April 6th, but first impressions are very positive.  It’s a generous slice of that amalgamation of outlaw country, soul, r&b, blues, rock — really it’s a prototypical southern rock sound, except the band is from San Diego. Go figure.  (Thanks, Matt!)

It’s good to have the gang all back together, no? [via]

Wired just premiered the new video for Liars’ track “Scissor.” It’s off their fifth album Sisterworld, which I haven’t had a chance to listen to yet because the album hits on March 8th. 

Well, sell the world’s most famous recording studio.  Abbey Road is up for sale!

There’s no indication of how much the studio would be worth, but you’d have to imagine it’s an astronomical figure.  Really, wouldn’t it be fitting if both Ringo Starr and Sir Paul McCarthy were able to partner up and purchase it?

The Daily Swarm posts a bunch of Prince rehearsal videos from 1984.  This could be the find of the week.

“If it were possible to draw a line through a lifetime’s worth of despondency and misanthropy back to a single lo-bias cassette tape, my first copy of Meat Is Murder would have a lot of blood on its hands. All of the blood, actually,” writes Zack Pennington of Parenthetical Girls. “In my early teens, I had the sort of contempt for the Smiths that’s typically reserved for closet case homophobes — they were the musical manifestation of everything that I feared and hated about my pubescent self: hypersensitivity, self-absorption, morbid desperation, and above all else, sexual dread. Then there was Meat Is Murder, and suddenly I had found my enabler.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Doug Fieger, founder and frontman of the power pop band the Knack, best known for their hit “My Sharona”, passed away on Sunday after a five year battle with cancer.  He was 57.

Wait, what?  How is it this this is the first time I’m hearing that R. Kelly has another 15 chapters planned for his bizarre musical hip-hopera, Trapped in the Closet.

According to the Guardian: “To date, Kelly has released 22 chapters of his R&B soap opera. What started as a six-chapter series in 2005 blossomed into a twist-and-turning epic, with drugs, guns, priests and a “midget” stripper. While “incalculably bizarre”, Trapped in the Closet has even been credited with helping to “save” musical theatre. Each “episode” is a short musical, with dialogue sung over a repeated chord progression. The most recent volume was released on DVD in 2007, and another installment had been promised for the summer of 2009.”

It should also be pointed out how quickly we forget that R. Kelly (or was that his cousin J. Kelly?) peed on a 13-year-old. But Trapped in the Closet, yo.

No joke.  I’m from Barcelona’s latest LP, 27 Songs from Barcelona, is being made available online in full, for free, one song at a time.

The album features one song from each member of the 27-strong pop group and was inspired by Kiss’s 1978 release of four solo albums simultaneously.  Again, no joke.  As of this writing, the band has released fourteen of the twenty-seven songs. [via]

Still undecided about the new Spoon album, or rather where it fits into the hierarchy of their discography.  It is, by no means, disappointing.  Here’s the video for “Written in Reverse,” which in some respects is the most Spoon-y of songs on Transference. [via]

Apparently, the people of the Philippines also know this and will kill anyone that performs this song during karaoke.

The authorities do not know exactly how many people have been killed warbling “My Way” in karaoke bars over the years in the Philippines, or how many fatal fights it has fueled. But the news media have recorded at least half a dozen victims in the past decade and includes them in a subcategory of crime dubbed the “My Way Killings.”

The killings have produced urban legends about the song and left Filipinos groping for answers. Are the killings the natural byproduct of the country’s culture of violence, drinking and machismo? Or is there something inherently sinister in the song?

Also in this fine piece of karaoke journalism is the fun fact that a Thai man killed eight people after a rendition of John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”

I’m not really sure what the point of a trailer for either an LP or a book is, but in the case of the new Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach, (out March 9th) which again features Damon Albarn as the main music man and artwork from Jamie Hewett. 

Only this time the album is chalk full of weird cameos, including Snoop Dogg, De La Soul, Lou Reed, the Fall’s Mark E. Smith, Gruff Rhys and the Clash’s Mick Jones and Paul Simonon.  R&B crooner Billy Womack shows up on the first single (already leaked) “Stylo” along with Mos Def.

Perhaps more interesting is that Mos Def doesn’t just have a cameo but he’s also been made a part of the animated band as the character “Sun Moon Stars.”

Plastic Beach

1. “Orchestral Intro”
2. “Welcome To The World Of The Plastic Beach” (feat. Snoop Dogg and Hypnotic Brass Ensemble)
3. “White Flag” (feat. Kano Bashy)
4. “Rhinestone Eyes”
5. “Stylo” (feat. Bobby Womack and Mos Def)
6. “Superfast Jellyfish” (feat. Gruff Rhys and De La Soul)
7. “Empire Ants” (feat. Little Dragon)
8. “Glitter Freeze” (feat. Mark E Smith)
9. “Some Kind Of Nature” (feat. Lou Reed)
10. “On Melancholy Hill”
11. “Broken”
12. “Sweepstakes” (feat. Mos Def Hypnotic Brass Ensemble)
13. “Plastic Beach” (feat. Mick Jones Paul Simonon)
14. “To Binge” (feat. Little Dragon)
15. “Cloud Of Unknowing” (feat. Bobby Womack)
16. “Pirate Jet”

Pure, sweaty, grungy rock’n roll at it’s finest.  This is the band performing during their CD release party at Mosebacke in Stockholm, Sweden.  Pick up a copy of their album, Balcony and Cigarettes – you won’t be disappointed.  It’s full of toe-tapping rock anthems.

Mp3: The Sweet Serenades – “I Can Never Die”
Mp3: The Sweet Serenades – “Mona Lee”

The question I have is who will be the guest stars?  Will we see appearances from Feist, Liz Powell, Amy Milan, Jason Collett?  Any wildcards we don’t see coming?

This Morrissey Ouija Board, is unfortunately sold out, but it was designed by Etsy-user Maasproductions.  It’s a custom made silkscreen wooden board measuring 1″ x 17″.  It also comes with that heart shaped thingie (I know so specific) that moves around the board.

As the creator says, “Take this Morrissey Ouija Board down to the cemetery gates and channel the ghosts of dead poets to receive answers to life’s perplexing questions.”

Done and done.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Hopefully, they will make more soon! [via here/here]

Her older sister may have won all the Grammy’s last night, but it’s become glaringly obvious that Solange Knowles has surpassed Beyonce when it comes to the reservoirs of coolness puddling at the respective feet.  That’s including Jay-Z as arm candy.

During a recent New York City concert with of Montreal (the one that feature actress Susan Sarandon spanking a gaggle of men dressed as piggies, no less), Solange came out during the encore and absolutely killed this cover of the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.”

Between this and her cover of Dirty Projector’s “Stillness is the Move”, well, what else can you say really.

On another note, of Montreal also debuted a new song tentatively titled “Teenage Unicorn Fisting.”  You can check out the entire show at NYCTaper.com.  Totally worth it, if you’re an of Montreal fan.

Mp3: of Montreal with Solange – “I Want You Back”

Mp3: of Montreal – “Teenage Unicorn Fisting” (new)

Why is that the Grammy’s seem like the least relevant awards type of thing? Is it because of the differences in the way people consume music versus movies/television?

Anyways. Congrats to Taylor Swift and Beyonce and I guess Lady Gaga, who didn’t dress up like a tampon, but did her best Marilyn Manson impersonation.  There was also some 3D thing, but really I’m feeling a sudden sense of meh-ness wash over me.

I’m not a huge fan of The National, some of their songs are top notch, including “Mistaken for Strangers”, but most of their work is just flat, monotonous and boring.  Here, Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent takes one of the band’s most fiery songs and flips it into something soothing and delicate.

Whereas The National’s version comes across as 3 a.m. existentialism after a night of drunken bar hopping and lonely one-night stands, St. Vincent turns the fire and anger into heartbreaking sadness — the notion that your friends would mistake you for a stranger.  It’s one of the saddest thoughts imaginable.

This video above of St Vincent covering The National was taken at Brooklyn Vegan’s Haitian Benefit. [via]

I’d like to say that I was. I like both groups in pretty much equal measure. I grew up with my parents listening to a lot of Beatles. The Wu-Tang came quite a bit later. Being a lifelong record collector of things to sample, I’ve got loads of orchestra records that have got covers of Beatles songs. Once I thought, “O.K., I’m going to do this,” I started going through all my records again. It just then seemed to click.

Pretty much most people I know love the Beatles and Wu-Tang in equal measures and don’t think nothing of it.  It’s hard to trust anyone that feels differently.  Except my parents of course.

The album has also been downloaded approximately 40,000 times since it’s release.

Yup, Luke Snellin pretty much nails my childhood, which, I’m gonna guess was also his childhood of making mixtapes and sitting in front of dual deck cassette players attempting to make the perfect mixtape — seamless flow from Side A to Side B, with a subtle theme running throughout and if planned right the final song ends just before the tape runs out on Side B.

Anyways, his short, “Mixtape” was created for Virgin Media Shorts (Grand Prize winner no less) and has a slight Wes Anderson vibe to it.  Kudos on a job well done. [via]

“There’s a term in the archival community: LOCKSS,” he says. ” ‘Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe.’ The music is going to be fine. It’s the stuff in between that’s really important. In 50 or 100 years, that will almost be more valuable as historical documents.”

On the first song off their new collection, the band is going for a more traditional pop song, trading in their orchestral baroque leanings.  “Evelyn McHale” uses the famous Empire State Building suicide as a jumping off point.

Privilege: Pt. 1 – On Death & Endearments is out 2/23 via Slender Means Society. The vinyl edition is limited to 500 copies. It’s the first of five limited-edition 12″ EPs that will eventually make up the band’s fourth album Privilege in May of 2011. [via]

I just picked up this record a few days ago, and have been giving it the once over.  I like it, certainly worthy off all the accolades.

update: The xx have announced a batch of North American tour dates with a stop at the Crystal Ballroom on 4/14.
03/22/2010 Spanish Moon, Baton Rouge*
03/23/2010 Bottletree, Birmingham*
03/24/2010 Variety Playhouse, Atlanta*
03/25/2010 Cats Cradle, Carrboro*
03/26/2010 Big Ears Festival, Knoxville*
03/28/2010 Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, Washington*
03/29/2010 First Unitarian Church Sanctuary, Philadelphia*
04/02/2010 Paradise, Boston*
04/03/2010 Le National, Montreal*
04/04/2010 Lees Palace, Toronto*
04/05/2010 Wexner Center, Columbus*
04/06/2010 Buskirk-Chumley Theater, Bloomington*
04/08/2010 Lincoln Hall, Chicago*
04/09/2010 Varsity Theater, Minneapolis*
04/12/2010 The Nightlight Lounge, Bellingham*
04/13/2010 Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver*
04/14/2010 Crystal Ballroom, Portland*
04/16/2010 Fox Theater, Oakland^
04/19/2010 Riviera Theatre, Chicago^
04/20/2010 Koolhaus, Toronto^
04/22/2010 Terminal 5, New York^
04/24/2010 9:30 Club, Washington^

* = supported by jj
^ = supporting Hot Chip

During the second encore of Sunday’s Radiohead concert for Haiti, Thom Yorke debuted “Lotus Flower,” a brand-new track presumably one that will end up on their next album.  It’s just him on guitar but it has all the trademarks you’d expect from the band — cryptic and mumbly lyrics, a coiled energy, and some sweeet falsetto.  [via]

And while normally, this type of thing would only get me excited with a single from the album, the news that the album will be the entire band (Neko Case and Dan Bejar’s participation are always the wildcards), but also guest spots from St Vincent, Zach Condon (Beirut), Will Sheff of Okkervil River and the Dap-Kings’ horns section.

It’s like the world’s best musical super-group just got an armor upgrade or something.   The album will consist of nine Carl Newman songs and three from Dan Bejar, for music nerds (like myself) keeping track of this at home.

According to URB, which directs us to Daft World, a song from Daft Punk’s upcoming Tron 2 soundtrack has leaked. Probably not, but we won’t know for sure until Tron 2 is released. Stream it above.  Regardless of whether or not the song above is, in fact, from Daft Punk’s Tron Soundtrack, it’s pretty much insane that they were able to get Daft Punk to do the soundtrack — it’s a perfect marriage between music and movie properties.