Vancouver, BC duo Japandroids perform on Jimmy Fallon Friday, June 8. Picks for the week Monday, April 2 ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live : fun. CBS: Late Show With David Letterman : Silversun Pickups NBC: The Tonight Show with Jay Leno : Def Leppard NBC: Late Night With Jimmy Fallon : Regina Spektor [...]
Everyone's favorite non-couple Don (Jon Hamm) and Joan (Christina Hendricks) share a moment. Perhaps it has to do with not wanting to burn out screens across the country, but it seems Matthew Weiner hasn't gone to the Don & Joan well near enough throughout the years. For "Christmas Waltz," it was their tipsy time at the bar, with Doris Day singing the title song on the jukebox, that anchored the episode. The rest of the various story lines (Pryce's tax problems, Paul Kinsey's return as a Hare Krishna) quickly melt away in memory. [...]
Britt Daniel (Spoon), Sam Brown (New Bomb Turks) and Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade/Handsome Furs) are Divine Fits. Umm... yeah . This should be good. Fresh off the announcement that Handsome Furs are no more , Dan Boeckner shows good reason why that (and the less recent break up of Wolf Parade) aren't such a bad thing. Enter Divine Fits, the new collaboration between Boeckner and Spoon's Britt Daniel. Throw in New Bomb Turks' Sam Brown, and it looks like Merge Records has another indie supergroup on their roster. [...]
The Afghan Whigs reunite to perform on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday. It's been over a decade since we last saw the Afghan Whigs perform together, but like many 90s acts that never quite got their due, they've recently answered the critics call to reunite. Frontman Greg Dulli is curating a day for the New Jersey edition of the annual All Tomorrow's Parties Festival (coming in September) , and it only seemed natural to get the band together for the occasion. Leading up to the festival, though, the band [...]
Beach House release another stunner with Bloom , their fourth album. Maybe it's the effects of a full week of sunny weather, but it's been hard not to feel optimistic about new music, even when there's only a couple albums with May release dates that I'm wearing out in the headphones. One of those releases has been Beach House's latest, Bloom , which expands only slightly on their breakthrough 2010 release, Teenage Dream . Longtime Drake fave Tenacious D stage a comeback, and [...]
"I got a million of them" says Michael (Ben Feldman) to Don (Jon Hamm). What little we've seen of Betty Francis this season has, quite frankly, been just enough, thanks to Weiner's efficient use of the divisive character. Since the theme of this episode centers around jealousy and selfishness, it only makes sense, then, that she resides at "Dark Shadows"' center. "I don't care what's down below, Let it rain, let it snow, I'll be up on a rainbow, Sweeping the clouds away!" - "(Up on the Top [...]
Tenacious D return with appearances on Letterman (Monday), Fallon (Tuesday) and Leno (Friday). Picks for the week Monday, April 2 ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live : Silversun Pickups (REPEAT) CBS: Late Show With David Letterman : Tenacious D CBS: The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson : The Imagineers NBC: [...]
Brian Wilson reunites with The Beach Boys, performing on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Monday. I'd heard the rumors and remained skeptical. Brian Wilson was reuniting with the Mike Love-led Beach Boys? Sure, they performed a song together for the Grammys, but it was cloaked in 50th anniversary nostalgia and their performance, like the Grammys itself, it was a pretty bland offering. But now they've started touring, and reports have come back revealing set lists that are turning my mind around on the subject. And there's [...]
Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) "When did music become so important?" Just how much of Mad Men 's budget went toward licensing The Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows," which helped end "Lady Lazarus"? As pointed out several times in the episode, getting a Beatles' song licensed is pretty much out of reach, and times haven't changed much at all in that regard. So it was interesting to see a song finally put to use. Interesting [...]
Both the music (Beastie Boys) and film (Oscilloscope Laboratories) communities are in mourning. Adam 'MCA' Yauch was taken from us far too soon.
Josh Tillman, reborn as Father John Misty, proves there's life after Fleet Foxes. Welcome to the merry month of May, where promises of summer melt under clouds of impending rain. That's Seattle, though... it's enough to drive a Pacific Northwesterner south, like it did with J. Tillman, formerly the drummer for Fleet Foxes. Holed up in the sunnier environs of Laurel Canyon with "enough mushrooms to choke a horse," Tillman took a different approach to songwriting, adopting some Harry Nilsson along other idioms previously made famous in Laurel Canyon. The result brought forth a [...]
Father John Misty (J. Tillman, formerly of Fleet Foxes) makes network television debut on Letterman , Tuesday. After doing the unthinkable and leaving Fleet Foxes, J. Tillman found himself with a musical identity crisis of sorts. As a solo artist, Tillman had released several fine hazey, folk-tinged albums full of thought provoking lyrics and hummable melodies. When he took the job as a drummer for Fleet Foxes, it became an all encompassing side gig when the band quickly became THE face of indie rock. But all that success did little to hide the [...]
Ty Segall and Timothy "White Fence" Presley combine their psych rock wonder powers for Hair . We're back after taking a week off for a little R&R in Mexico last week (sorry Spiritualized and Moonface... we'll get you next time). This week is marked by a lot of classic guitar-based rock influences. Ty Segall and White Fence hole up in a garage for 30 minutes of psych rock fun, while Jack White puts all his appreciation of rock history into his debut solo release. Elsewhere, White's Raconteur partner Brendan Benson returns with an [...]
Jack White cuts it close on The Colbert Report , with special taped performance to air Thursday night. When looking for source material in the world of rock, it's hard to find one better than the painful end to a relationship. White's marriage to model Karen Elson seems to have paved the way for his first solo release, Blunderbuss , with the new release teeming with plenty stories of a man scorned by his love. White and Elson's split was reportedly amicable and the two remain in good standing (like White [...]
My name is Roger Sterling and I have taken LSD... Please Help Me! From the start, you could tell this was going to be a different kind of Mad Men episode. Between the non-linear sequencing* and the advanced drug use (Ok... who had Roger in their pool as the first Mad Men principal to drop LSD?), "Far Away Places" represented another example of the series experimenting this season. *Normally, breaks for commercials aren't annoying when it comes to Mad Men episodes, but it was [...]
We've been gone for a bit of time in Cabo. Sun, swim and much merriment was had. The kids came back with a new favorite song, and while it's been circulating for a few months already, somehow we've just discovered it (thank you, Cabo).
San Francisco's Girls take their psychedelic pop to Conan on Wednesday. Hey, it's SPRING BREAK, bitches, and I'm in freakin' Cabo right now. Who cares who's playing on the late night talkies, as I'll be 3" inches deep in sand smelling of sun tan lotion and tequila when these are on. But, for those that do care... seeing Girls play on Conan is my highlight for the week, but I suggest setting up your DVR to just tape late night TBS for the week as the twee-folky-bluegrassy Swedes [...]
Alabama Shakes dish some soulful rock on their debut release. There's plenty of post-Easter, post-Passover new releases to sneeze at as you reach for the Clariton amidst all the bloomage (YOU SWORE, NO MORE FLOWER METAPHORS!). It's Spring Break somewhere, so pop in a few of these tasty offerings in your portable media player choice (is it any wonder folks will write 'iPod' even if they don't own one?) and lie back in the break destination of your choice. I'm off to San Jose del Cabo, myself, for a few days of carpel [...]
While the first few episodes this fifth season of Mad Men have had their themes, none have been as tied together as last night's "Mystery Date" was. The main theme being a misogyny, sex and violence; with the grisly murders of Richard Speck (July of 1966) serving as a historical backdrop and The Crystals' "He Hit Me (and it Felt Like a Kiss)" leading us into through credits. In between, we have the newly hired Michael being disgusted by the Speck crime scene photos, which is later contrasted by his being fascinated with his own dark [...]
M. Ward, in support of new album, is scheduled to perform on Conan , Tuesday night. Picks for the week Monday, April 9 CBS: Late Show With David Letterman : Tennis NBC: The Tonight Show with Jay Leno : Esperanza Spalding NBC: Late Night With Jimmy Fallon : Pulp , Seun Kuti NBC: [...]
thus spake drake
Lana Del Rey is the “Queen of Disaster” on New ‘Born To Die’ Leak
Daft Punk - Doin' it right (The Golden Pony remix)
Dave Grohl to join The Rolling Stones in Anaheim tonight
Todd Edwards Essential Mix
