AS WE GET OLDER dreams of stardom inevitably slip away - who wants to be stomping round a stage at an age when a nice snooze holds more appeal than a line of cocaine? But what about management? How hard can that be? Surely you can just look at the fictional likes of Spinal Tap's Ian Faith and Flight Of The Conchords' Murray Hewitt and do the exact opposite and thus guarantee success. But in fact, things can go very wrong indeed, as these case studies show. 1. Brian Epstein The [...]
No real surprises to report. Beyoncé earned a bundle of Grammys. Lady Gaga delivered a rousing - and surprisingly uncontroversial - duet with Elton John . Taylor Swift also cleaned up, though her number with Stevie Nicks sounded a tad off (as did Slash's guitar solo during T-Pain's performance). Best prop goes to Best Comedy Album winner Steven Colbert , who pulled an iPad out of his jacket during his monologue. And kudos to Kings of Leon for admitting they were a tad drunk while accepting the Grammy [...]
Record of the Year "Halo," Beyoncé "I Gotta Feeling," the Black Eyed Peas "Use Somebody," Kings of Leon "Poker Face," Lady Gaga "You Belong With Me," Taylor Swift Album of the Year "I Am ... Sasha Fierce," Beyoncé; Shondrae "Mr. Bangledesh" Crawford, Ian Dench, D-Town, Toby Gad, Sean "the Pen" Garrett, Amanda Ghost, Jim Jonsin, Beyoncé Knowles, Rico Love, Dave McCracken, Terius "the Dream" Nash, Radio Killa, Stargate, Christopher "Tricky" Stewart, Ryan Tedder and Wayne Wilkins, producers "The E.N.D.," the Black Eyed Peas; Apl.de.ap, Jean [...]
It's pretty much a given that casting a musician in your movie guarantees they'll contribute to the film's soundtrack—and if you're lucky, you'll have a hit song to help promote your flick. The most recent example is Taylor Swift's "Today Was a Fairytale," the lead single off the soundtrack to Valentine's Day . The song was on iTunes for a matter of hours before it already hit #1 . (As for the fate of the movie? It has to compete with The Wolfman V-Day weekend, so we'll see whether America is in the mood [...]
As been the tradition of Thieves By Tuesday, I'm posting the seasonal OST of one of my favorite medical dramas on tv, Grey's Anatomy. You know the drill, just click on the links to download. There are alos .ZIP files for those in a hurry. Season 5's OST is a good one. I give it a 8.2/10. Enjoy! Also check out: MUSIC FROM THE SHOW: Grey's Anatomy Season 4 MUSIC FROM THE SHOW: Grey's Anatomy Season 3 DOWNLOAD [...]
Welcome to the first in the new series which features guest postings from a small team of correspondents. Today's words of wisdom come from John Greer , currently residing in East Lothian in Scotland, but someone who was born and raised on the other side of the Forth Estuary in the Kingdom of Fife. And it focuses on someone never featured before on TVV...... "AN ARCHITECT OF SOUND..." Paul Morley [...]
Yeah it's that time again. Too often do we sift through the predictable media cycle of artists yelling how "crazy" their album is or even fixing their lying ass mouths to utter the other "C" word-classic. How about these C's: cut the crap. Each year, the allure of the album continues to decrease thanks in part to overhyped, superfluous projects that only possess a handful of good songs. Not to mention the legion of stans that will stick by anything short of a satanic message their favorite artist puts out. Not I. Air 'em out like spring laundry. [...]
The year 2009 marked the final chapter in what had been music's most fascinating decades. But we don't have to tell you that - the examples speak for themselves. A combination of Internet protocol, aka BitTorrents, and a band named Radiohead led to the destruction of the music industry as we knew it. A rapper from Chicago managed to become both the most talented and the most despised individual on Earth, while a Detroit rocker proved this generation could have a sure-fire Rock 'n' Roll Hall-of-Famer. The Grammys became a joke and something called a "blog" became required reading. Oh, [...]
by QC staff Well, hello there. How've you been? How was the year? What did you do? Who did you see? Why did you make the decisions you made? Did they turn out well? Did your mistakes become happy accidents? Did you hear that song? You know which one. Wasn't It great? How about that show? The one where they... yeah, that one. I almost cried when I saw that part where he... We don't really believe in lists here. We prefer conversation to soap boxing; we enjoy the transfer [...]
It's time for my year-end recap of every band I saw live. In 2009, I traveled all over the country, so only a handful of these shows were in Pittsburgh. The upside of that traveling was that I saw a ton of bands that never made it to the Steel City. 1 Leonard Cohen, Rosemont Theatre, October 29 The 75-year-old Rock N Roll Hall of Famer was in fine form, performing for nearly three hours and playing all of his biggest hits, including a theatrical performance of the greatest song ever written, "Hallelujah." When [...]
It's finally the last part of my year-end round-up of weekly mixes. The themes included here are: twee, female singer-songwriters, rock, literature, commiseration, numbers, post-punk, Manic Street Preachers, autumn, cover versions, Halloween, Germany, Remembrance Day/war, winter and Christmas. Speechless With Tuesday - The Apartments Friday, Saturday, Sunday - DJ Hell Weekly Mix #77 - Revolt Into Childhood ( Download ) Come Saturday – The Pains of Being Pure At Heart Hit the Ground – The Darling Buds Sensitive – [...]
I realize this is a week late - I apologize. It wasn't just to build suspense; I suppose I decided to get a bit of actual relaxation in when I finally started my holidays four days ago. At any rate, let's dip into what autumn brought for albums. September gave us releases from Sondre Lerche, frYars, The Cribs, The Big Pink, Dragonette, Boys Noize, Yo La Tengo, Noah and the Whale, Sliimy, David Sylvian, Jamie T, The Voluntary Butler Scheme, and surprisingly, Prefab Sprout. Wild Beasts broke through with their sophomore album (being contrary, I thought it wasn't as good [...]
I love Arnold Stang. During the filming of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), Spencer Tracy laughed every time Arnold Stang said good morning to him. It wasn't that Stang was "always on," although he could be when he wanted to, but Stang was just unintentionally funny all the time. When he actually tried to be funny it was doubly hilarious. Stang feigned confusion and indifference about Tracy's incessant laughing, "I guess he found me amusing," he said. It is hard to believe that anybody in his presence wouldn't. Arnold Stang had [...]
I've closed the voting for the Coverville Countdown 2009, and I'm tabulating the results right now. Some old favorites on the list, as well as some new independent stuff that I'm really happy to see made the grade. Starting tomorrow, we'll countdown the top 40 on the last four shows of the decade! And as promised, following the break, see the entire list of nominees: Here is the full list of nominees (minus the songs inducted into the Coverville Hall Of Fame ) '19992 - Red Dirt Rangers [orig. [...]
Lee Fields @ Pop Montreal ( more by Ryan Muir ) tonight in NYC * Hanukkah * Blip Festival * Cage @ BB King's * Ruff Club @ Europa * The Ballet @ Don Hill's * Rob Moose @ The Stone * Ethel @ WFC Winter Garden * Blip Festival @ The Bell House * [...]
Let me tell you a story. In 2007 some notable things happened. I attended the annual music festival SXSW (the image above is of myself and The Lovely Sparrows' Shawn Jones, taken by Abandoned Love Records/Virgin Of The Birds' Jon Rooney), I grew a mustache, and I met a beautiful girl named Andi. She was waiting for her uncle (Eno of Spoon) at the Capitol Hill Block Party. We hit it off and ditched the after-party to get a sprite (her) and coffee (me) at Denny's in Ballard (sadly no longer there) at 1:30am. I [...]
It's a little difficult to believe another whole year has passed since I started this blog - in January, CTRR will hit its second birthday. Once again, I didn't make a weekly mix for every week this year, though I tried to make up for as many as I could. In this part of the series, there are mixes with themes of: lullaby/sleep, Scotland, colours, John Peel, work/unemployment, Valentine's Day, underdogs, cover versions, synthpop, Wales, Ireland, dance, spring, paranoia, and science fiction. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my friend, Roland, who has [...]
ARTIST: Kelley Ryan TITLE: Twist LABEL: Manatee Records STREET DATE: February 16, 2010 GENRE: Acoustic / Singer-Songwriter / Alternative WINDOWS MEDIA STREAMING AUDIO: " About A Girl " NOTEWORTHY: - Kelley Ryan was the front woman for astroPuppees - Don Dixon (REM, The Smithereens) produced and played Bass on the album - Kelley Ryan also worked with Marti Jones on backing vocals and Jim Brock on percussion - Van Dyke Parks composed string arrangements on [...]
The polka-less Grammys shortlist has been been birthed out . Beyonce is leading on the most nominations front, which we think is the music industry's way of telling her she's looking old now. Here - as is now traditional - is the full shortlist. It's bloody long, so if you're not interested in the detail, click here to leap to the bottom . THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF RECORDING ARTS & SCIENCES, INC. Final Nominations List 52nd Annual GRAMMY® Awards For recordings released during the Eligibility Year October 1, 2008 through [...]
Last year , EAR FARM featured 43 bands in our Band of the Week feature... ranging from relative unknowns (such as The Laughing and Bombadil ) to interviews with indie-rock legends (see The Wedding Present and Silver Jews ) to everything else in between. In 2009 we set out to one-up ourselves, and as it turns out we've done just that. This year EAR FARM featured 45 bands as Band of the Week, again flexing our genre chops across the entire spectrum of what we consider to be the best music being [...]
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Massive Attack – Heligoland (Review)
Theme Time: A Mix
