Author Archive
Free Music Monday: Ghostly International, Yo La Tengo and Jeff Mangum
December 6th, 2010 by Colin Jones
This week we feature the first night of Hanukkah shows from Yo La Tengo, a secret Jeff Mangum show and a compilation from Ghostly International.
Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel has some free new tunes on offer this week.
NPR, those mighty masters of free music, are giving us a taste of the label Ghostly International. The Ann Arbor music makers are releasing the digital-only compilation “We’ll Never Stop Living This Way” and NPR is streaming it until Dec. 14. Label-members Gold Panda, School of Seven Bells and Matthew Dear all make appearances on the 30-track compilation. Head over to NPR Music to listen to “We’ll Never Stop Living This Way.”
Try to think of someone else who released one good record a decade ago and finds the kind of love Jeff Mangumdoes. Guess what—you can’t. Last Saturday, the founding member of Neutral Milk Hotel played a secret show in Bushwick at The Schoolhouse to much fanfare and a crowd of around 100 people. We couldn’t make it but International Tapes was there and has select recordings of the show. Cuts performed include Neutral Milk classics “King of Carrot Flowers” and “Two-Headed Boy.”
The Hanukkah season is upon us, and that means the annual Yo La Tengo shows over in Hoboken. For eight nights, the best shows in town aren’t even in town. Jeff Tweedy and members of Wilco recently joined the Ira and company. NYCTaper was there for the first night of action and has the recording over at his site.
Free Music Monday with Ryan Adams, Mogwai and Sufjan Stevens
November 22nd, 2010 by Colin Jones
This week we feature new material from Ryan Adams, Mogwai and a video from Sufjan Stevens.
Ryan Adams is quite the enigma. He has shifted from melodic folk, country and right into metal. Now, the sometimes serious musician and all around weird guy has new material from his band The Cardinals.
The new record “III / IV” takes its songs from a 2007 session with the Cardinals that ended with over 60 songs because this is Ryan Adams and why the hell not. To add to the madness he writes that the double album is a “concept rock opera about the 80s, ninjas, cigarettes, sex, and pizza.” You can download the new cut “Destroyers” off “III / IV” over at Adams’ PAX-AM label.
Back in July, Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite told us that there was a new record in the works for the Scottish prog-rockers. And so there was. Mogwai are set to release the brutally titled “Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will” on February 15 via Sub Pop. But until February you can listen to the new cut “Rano Pano” below which isn’t Mogwai’s brooding best but still does the job.
Sufjan Stevens is known for his odd creativity on his records. Take the aborted yet gorgeous “States Project” for example. With his newest release “The Age of Adz,” Stevens has delved further into the electronic. Now it’s gone visual. The video for “Too Much” features some twitch-step dance moves, a throbbing pile of trash and some tripped-out lights. It’s also perfect for the staggered nature of “Too Much.” Check out the video below or over at Pitchfork.
Free Music Monday: The Decemberists, Stereolab and Michael Jackson
November 8th, 2010 by Colin Jones
This week we feature a new cut from The Decemberists, Stereolab’s new album and the return of Michael Jackson.
Those bards of despair, agony and literary parlance, The Decemberists, are returning on January 18 with the grandly titled “The King Is Dead.” But over at their website Meloy and company are giving away the first single off of the new LP, “Down By The Water.” The band has taken an almost country-esque tone here with Gillian Welch guesting on the track. But beneath the sad-eyed single, a Springsteen grandness comes through brightly with a jangle open and a booming chorus. Head on over their website or enter your email below.
Music history is cyclical and it is no surprise that 90s indie superstars Stereolab are back. Retuning with their 12th album, “Not Music,” the band has expanded into something more accessible. There’s pop melodies and crunchy choruses abound on this one. NPR Music has the entire album streaming on its website until the release on Nov. 16.
Michael Jackson will never die, or that’s what his back catalog is attempting to prove. Over at the website http://breakingnews.michaeljackson.com/ROW/ Michael’s estate have released the track “Breaking News” in advance of the album “Michael” set for release this December. And boy does this cut love MJ. The chorus is literally his name and seems to be a set up for an impossible comeback given his death in June 2009. Will Michael live on forever? Only time, and record sales, will tell.
Free Music Monday: Anti-Witch House Mix, The Rally to Restore Sanity and Cee-Lo Green
November 1st, 2010 by Colin Jones
This week we feature Christopher Weingarten’s retort to the Witch House genre, a mashup from The Rally to Restore Sanity and the new album from Cee-Lo Green.
Yes, Halloween is over and you’re probably nursing one hell of a wicked hangover. But that doesn’t mean the music has to end. Last week, music critic and 1000timesyes.com‘s Christopher Weingarten posted what could double as a antithesis to the Witch House genre popularized by Salem and a Halloween mixtape. Now that the holiday has passed, Weingarten’s mix, Fuck NoOoOO: The Anti-Witch House Mixtape, is just a damn good collection of tunes. The mix is available for download at Weingarten’s website and features tracks from Ben Frost, Big K.R.I.T. and Tobacco.
Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Comedy Central held the massive Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear this weekend and brought along some special guests. In what could be equated as the largest and sloppiest live mashup, Cat Stevens, Ozzy Osbourne and The Roots took turns dueling “Crazy Train” with “Peace Train.” It was like the “Deliverance” banjo scene but without the whole sexual assault thing later. The real crazy part: that CSPAN actually broadcasted it live.
We (with the rest of the world) were pretty damn excited when Cee-Lo Green dropped the amazing and soulful “Fuck You” this summer. Now Mr. Green is about to release “The Lady Killer” on Nov. 9 and NPR, like always, is streaming the album until it’s release date. The new record from Cee-Lo is a slinky and silky brew of typical ribald, neo-soul and hip-hop. Head to NPR Music to stream the entire album.
Free Music Monday: Brian Eno, Kanye West and John Vanderslice
October 25th, 2010 by Colin Jones
This week we feature music from Brian Eno’s new album, Kanye West at Brooklyn Bowl and John Vanderslice’s CMJ performance.
-The mystery man is back and, aparently, better than ever. One thing you have to give Brian Eno credit for is always keeping to his own path. On his new release “Small Craft On A Milk Sea,” Eno has brought together the creative experimentation that has earned him the title of iconoclast with his true song writing abilities. The former member of Roxy Music and oft collaborator with David Byrne remarkably still sounds fresh after 30 years. If someone like Eno can still pump out gems like “Small Craft” then what does it say about his bloated and tired contemporaries? Eno’s new release is streaming over at NPR Music until its release on Nov. 2.
-The strange thing about CMJ this year is the most surprising performance didn’t even happen at CMJ. Instead, Pitchfork upstaged the entire festival with a surprise performance from Kanye West at it’s rival gathering, #Offline. After three nights of performances at the Brooklyn Bowl, Pitchfork brought out Kanye to finish off the show with a mini-set featuring his G.O.O.D. Friday singles. Ye’ threw down with “Monster,” “Runaway,” “Devil in a New Dress” and others. Check out this video from Time Out New York of Kanye performing at the 600-capacity venue in Brooklyn.
-But let’s not count CMJ out. Between the amazing Brooklyn Vegan shows in, where else, Brooklyn, to the dark and dingy LES basement shows, it turned out to be a pretty decent year. NYC Taper was at a few of the events and managed to capture a beautiful show from all around folky guy John Vanderslice. Vanderslice performed the 11 song set on Saturday at the Mercury Lounge. The entire show is available for download over at NYC Taper.
Free Music Monday: Sean Lennon, Avey Tare and Dan Deacon
October 18th, 2010 by Colin Jones
This week we bring you new music from Sean Lennon, Aninmal Collective’s Avey Tare and the Dan Deacon Ensamble
-Sean Lennon has a lot to live up to. As the son of the slain Beatle and all around legend, Lennon has stayed quietly in the shadows, releasing little gems over the past decade. Now he returns once again for a collaboration with Charlotte Kemp Muh on “The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger.” The beautiful psych-pop collection whirrs by in a blissful and melodic haze. Head on over to NPR Music to listen to the album in its entirety before it’s released on Oct. 26.
-We’re always on an NPR kick here at Free Music Monday, but for damn good reasons. One reason: AnCo’s Avey Tare is streaming his debut solo album “Down There” with NPR. The album sets itself as a somber piece of experimentation that ruminates on death, divorce and, of course, crocodiles. Head over to NPR for a first listen of the entire album until it is released on Oct. 20.
-It’s pretty much common knowledge that Baltimore’s Dan Deacon is a little off his rocker. Each album seems ready to teeter over the edge of sanity into some Wham City doom cavern. So it is a little refreshing to hear this concert from last Friday at the Ridgewood Masonic Temple in Brooklyn. The musical structure is a bit more ordered and it’s nice to hear Deacon and his Dan Deacon Ensamble at their best. Head on over to NYC Taper for a download of the entire show.
Free Music Monday: The Morning Benders, Belle and Sebastian and Kanye West
October 4th, 2010 by Colin Jones
This week we feature music from Scottish poppers Belle and Sebastian, The Morning Benders and Kanye West.
-Brooklyn via Berkeley indie kids The Morning Benders have been on a buzz tear this year with their monumental debut “Big Echo.” But what we find interesting is this free cover of Bob Dylan’s “Outlaw Blues” they released on their website. The band recorded the song for the cover compilation “Subterranean Homesick Blues: A Tribute to Bob Dylan’s ‘Bringing It All Back Home’” Other bands featured on the compilation include The Helio Sequence, SeaWolf and Laura Veirs.
-After the mediocre yet commercially successful “The Life Pursuit” from 2006, no one really knew where Scottish chamber poppers Belle and Sebastian would go. It turns out, straight back to their melancholia sunshine pop roots. On Oct. 12 the band plan to release “Write About Love” but you can head over to NPR for a listen to the full album right now. Like usual, the album will remain up until the release date.
-It appeared that Kanye West was finally hitting a steady groove in the past few weeks. But after releasing a number of singles off of his still untitled album, it was announced that a rough cut had leaked. As usual, Kanye was pissed but instead of cutting off the free music, he released this monster of “Christian Dior Denim Flow.” Is it a promotional? It is a legitimate song? We have no idea but it features a monumental collaboration with Lloyd Banks, Kid Cudi and John Legend.
Free Music Monday: Sufjan Stevens, The Social Network Soundtrack and Pavement in NYC
September 27th, 2010 by Colin Jones
This Monday we feature new music from Sufjan Stevens, The Social Network Soundtrack and Pavement in NYC.
It’s Monday, and that means some free music heading your way. Free Music Mondays have been on hiatus for a while but we’re back and ready to dish out the best that the web has to offer. This Monday we feature new material from Sufjan Stevens’s new album, “The Age of Adz,” five free tracks from the Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross-produced soundtrack to “The Social Network” and free downloads of Pavement’s shows from last week in NYC
-Sufjan Stevens has been keeping it low key for the past few years. Despite producing the bloated yet engrossing “The BQE” suite for the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the New York musician has been mostly mum on new material. Fret no more fans of complex motifs and experimentation because Stevens is retuning with “The Age of Adz” on Oct 12. The album is a step back from the traditional folk of his “Illinois” and “Michigan” and a reach into glitch-happy electro pop. You can head over to NPR to listen to the full album until its release in October.
-David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network is becoming one of the most buzzed-about films of the year and its soundtrack, produced by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, is living up to the hype. The ambient, haunting piece of music will be released tomorrow but today you can get the first five tracks free. Enter your email below or head over to Reznor’s website to download the tracks and receive a message from Reznor about the production.
-Last week seminal indie gods Pavement took a five-night residency in “The City That Never Sleeps” delivering some of the best shows of their massive reunion tour. If you weren’t able to snag any of the coveted tickets to the Summerstage and Williamsburg Waterfront shows, NYC Taper was there to record all the slacker action. Visit NYCtaper.com for Mp3 downloads of all five NYC shows. Pavement also made the late night rounds in New York for appearances on “The Colbert Report” and “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.” Check out Pavement’s performance of Stereo with the Guest Guitarist contest winner.
What If Hurricane Earl (Or Any Major Hurricane) Comes To New York?
September 1st, 2010 by Colin Jones
Attention: If a major hurricane makes direct landfall in New York, we’re all completely effed.
Hold onto your hats New Yorkers, we could be in for a bumpy ride this Labor Day weekend. While the Category 3 monster Hurricane Earl is not expected to make direct landfall here in New York, we could experience some nasty leftovers if it continues on its current West-bound course.
What does that mean exactly? Well, “Wall Street Journal” writer and meteorologist, Eric Holthaus, laid out a pretty descriptive scene of what would happen. Let’s just say it isn’t pretty.
His Wednesday-through-Saturday timeline is as such:
Wednesday afternoon: Tropical storm watches are posted from the Northern Jersey Shore to Islip, Long Island, with hurricane watches posted for the South and Central Jersey Shore and Eastern Long Island.
Thursday afternoon: Officials close local beaches as six to 10-foot waves begin to batter the coast. (This is also the time when surfers and TV crews turn out in force.)
Friday morning: Tropical storm-force winds begin to pummel the South Jersey Shore.
Friday afternoon: Conditions rapidly deteriorate in South Jersey while heavy winds and rain enter the New York metro area. (Those who hold tickets to Friday’s U.S. Open matches, consider yourself warned.)
Friday night: Residents will see the worst conditions as Hurricane Earl makes its closest approach. That means gusts up to 80 mph on the Jersey Shore and Eastern Long Island, with gusts up to 100 mph at Montauk Point. The city could see gusts to up 40mph, higher in the top floors of Midtown skyscrapers.
Saturday morning: Winds and seas return to normal as Earl’s winds shift to northerly and northwesterly directions. Rainfall totals in the tri-state could reach six inches or higher.
Ouch. But it’s not as bad as it could be. Holthaus links to a piece from 2005 by “New York Press“writer Aaron Naparstek detailing what would happen if “The Big One” came to town. From the looks of it, Earl would be a leisurely, daytime walk in Prospect Park compared to this fictional monster. In Naparstek’s story, Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs are retuned, piece by piece, to the rivers and oceans from which they came. Sounds like a gay old time!
He writes:
If a storm like the Long Island Express makes a direct hit on the city, everything below Broome Street will be inundated, some parts under as much as 20 and 30 feet of water. Chelsea and Greenwich Village are completely flooded, with the Hudson spilling over all the way to 7th Avenue. Likewise, the East River and East Village become one, with ocean water surging all the way to 1st Avenue. If you haven’t evacuated before the storm, forget it. During the storm, Manhattan’s east- and west-side highways vanish. Tunnels and bridges become unusable.
Oh, Brooklyn, The Bronx and Queens don’t you worry, you’re joining the party as well.
The outer boroughs also get hit hard. Opposed to that new Ikea being built on the waterfront in Red Hook? Don’t worry. There’s a decent chance it won’t be there after a moderate-size hurricane. Residents of Williamsburg-Greenpoint should seek out a male and female of each species and get in their arks. In a kind of one-two-punch effect, a major hurricane will push ocean water down from the Long Island Sound into the Upper East Side, South Bronx and northern Queens, flooding those areas severely. Vast stretches of southern Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island will be devastated. The map shows Atlantic Ocean storm surge reaching as far inland as Flatbush, just south of Prospect Park, with 31.3 feet of water atop Howard Beach.
Now, I’m going to go home and pack my Armageddon survival kit just in case.
Conan O’Brien Reveals The Title Of His New TBS Series
September 1st, 2010 by Colin Jones
“Conan.” That’s it.
Conan O’Brien is shooting for modesty with this one after his not so surprising loss to “The Daily Show” at the Emmys.
After a set-up featuring a cat-purring drum roll and what he says was exhaustive and expensive research, O’Brien revealed the title—”Conan” Yes, just “Conan.” Not the “Conan O’Brien Extravaganza and Pizza Party Show” but just that simple two-syllable first name. In his own words it’s “simple, pure, like the man himself.” Hey, Conan’s even got a “crappy office” now for the reveal.
In a tweet on Tuesday, Conan talked about the upcoming announcement:
Well we’re sure glad he stuck with just “Conan” but “CoCo” would have been a close second in our book.
“Conan” will premiere on TBS on November 2, and by the looks of this video below Conan and his meager staff aren’t necessarily prepared for the launch.
[Via The New York Times]
Cee-Lo Releases Official Video For ‘Fuck You’
September 1st, 2010 by Colin Jones
All this man wants is some lovin’.
The song of the summer, and possibly the year, finally has an official video. And it turns out even girls in the 1960s were pretty bitchy. In Cee-Lo‘s “Fuck You” generations of lil’ Cee’s get shamefully rejected by the girl of his dreams. Cee-Lo falls on some french fries, gets some fries to the chest and dresses like it’s 1984. It’s always about those damn psychedelic humiliating french fries. To all those girls turning down Cee, seriously, “Fuck You.”
We feel for you, Cee. Would some one give this guy a date, please?
The Drums Cover Arcade Fire’s ‘We Used To Wait’
August 31st, 2010 by Colin Jones
New York band covers their indie-maestro neighbors to the north.
Yesterday, it was all about the Arcade Fire and The Drums. Today we’re bringing them both together. With the release of their “Down By The Water” video, The Drums stressed the influence of 50s and 60s girl groups, but now they’re shifting decades. The Drums have released a live cover of Arcade Fire’s “We Used To Wait” which they interpreted as an 80s tinged up-tempo dance number. It broods a bit, but that’s The Drums and Jonny Pierce’s aim in life.
Listen to The Drums cover Arcade Fire’s “We Used To Wait” below.
