Blog: ChordStrike

Choosing a single quotation from Cintra Wilson is like having the objects of all your desires laid out in front of you--food, sex, friendship, music, ideas--and being told you can only have one. How do you choose? In case you haven't happened upon any of the products of this screamingly funny, intensely brilliant writer , Cintra Wilson is a pop-culture critic and author whose first book, A Massive Swelling: Celebrity Re-Examined as a Grotesque Crippling Disease , is one of the most funny, damning, merciless [...]

This just in from our esteemed cohort, Books Editor Dave Callanan : Although his surfing first made me a fan of Donavon Frankenreiter , I've fast become a bigger aficionado of his musical work. His self-titled debut, Donavon Frankenreiter , is an acoustic collection that pairs nicely with lazy Sunday mornings spent on the couch, while the follow-up Move by Yourself , brings a mellow funk reminiscent of early 1970s Stevie Wonder. [...]

You know and love her from the big screen, but more than just a lovely face on camera, Scarlett Johansson also has a powerfully evocative singing voice. On her first album of Tom Waits covers, Scarlett proves that she knows a thing or two about picking good music to showcase her voice while surrounding herself with talented musicians including TV on the Radio , Yeah Yeah Yeahs , as well as the one and only David Bowie . Check out Chordstrike's latest new music interview to learn more [...]

Ronnie Drew, the legendary Irish folk singer and founder of the Dubliners , passed away last week at the age of 73. If you know any Irish music (or any Irish people for that matter), then you probably have some sense of just how important this man and his music have been to the people of Ireland. But it's not just the fans who knew and loved Ronnie Drew. He was also highly revered by his fellow musicians and many considered him to be the best of the best. U2 's Bono, who's own musical career [...]

In the 90's there was the Linda McCartney board tape. [thanks, WFMU] And today, this... via videosift.com It's a great time for a new Don Caballero album. But--whoops!---fans of this band's precise, aggressively dissonant, instrumental oeuvre, may be surprised that, with Punkgasm , the Don sings and, like Linda and Britney, its voice is not hindered by shackles of melody [...]

As my colleague Renata noted in the post below, Esperanza Spalding is indeed young and talented, but she's by no means new to the music scene. She used to be in a Portland, Oregon-based indie rock band called Noise for Pretend and when she was 'round about 16 years old she sang on one of my favorite songs of all time. It's a joint called " Go Figure, Another Warm Day in Paradise ." Download it now and thank me later for making your weekend better. -- Jeff Reguilon [...]

Esperanza Spalding is the freshest face in jazz today. Exhuberant and youthful, this 23 year-old stand-up bass player and vocalist is the youngest professor ever at the renowned Berklee College of Music. She recently stopped by Amazon for a performance and a chat before her stint at Seattle's Jazz Alley . Unfortunately, the Editor (read:me) in question had some technical difficulties with the recording, and it came out sounding like garbled fuzz. So, in lieu of that, check out Esperazna speaking for herself on the clip below, or watch [...]

My colleague Matt Wold and I recently caught up with the Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson, Keith Strickland, and Cindy Wilson, collectively known as the B-52s , backstage at the Seattle leg of True Colors tour. Listen to what America's favorite party band had to say about their new album, Funplex ; spontaneuous combustion; and selling herring off the back of a mule in Ireland. (Yes, you read that correctly.) The Bs haven't aged a bit, and were ebullient despite having just finished their high-octane set, which just goes [...]