I fell in love with Zoey Deschanel's voice the moment she sang a duet from the shower with Will Ferrell in Elf. She has been the prettier half of She & Him for a few years now. M. Ward has been the steady musician but their paths crossed on a movie set and it just became the perfect opportunity for collaboration.
Then get yourself in the Christmas spirit by watching them perform "The Christmas Waltz" on the Tonight Show. Their look,performance and stylings take you back to the 1950s Christmas time. The Kodachrome colors and coziness of sitting close in a T-Bird blend through M. Ward's guitar and Zoey's vocals. She & Him perform "The Christmas Waltz" on The Tonight Show
Siamese Dream is arguably the best Smashing Pumpkins album and is certainly vintage Pumpkins, to say the very least. Produced by Butch Vig, (Garbage, Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and Foo Fighters) Siamese Dream is an album driven by guitars and is a classic alternative juggernaut from the nineties.
This edition of Siamese Dream has been digitally re-mastered and includes an expanded three discs (two CDs + DVD) edition of the 1993 classic. The box set features the re-mastered version of the original album plus a bonus CD consisting of 17 previously unreleased or alternate versions of Siamese Dream-era songs, a DVD containing a previously unreleased 1993 live show from The Metro, 13 postcards featuring original album collages and a 24 page booklet that includes lyrics, photos, liner notes and track-by-track annotations by frontman, Billy Corgan.
Danny Clinch released a book in 1998 called Discovery Inn that collected many of his iconic images. These photos are now being made available on an interactive app for the iPad available for download on Apple's iTunes store for $2.99.
The app includes photos of Radiohead, Johnny Cash, Phish, The Beastie Boys, and Eddie Vedder. In addition, the app also includes exclusive unreleased music from Blind Melon and a virtual tour of Danny Clinch's camera collection.
Thick as a Brick is a concept album, and the fifth studio album, by the Englishprogressive rock band Jethro Tull released in 1972. Its lyrics are based on a poem written by a fictitious boy, Gerald Bostock, said to have been adapted to music by Jethro Tull—although the band's Ian Anderson in fact wrote the lyrics himself. The album features only one song, lasting nearly 45 minutes. To accommodate the album on LP vinyl and cassette, the seamless track was split on both sides of the record.
The epic is notable for numerous time signature and tempo changes (which is not uncommon in the then-emerging progressive rocksubgenre of rock), as well as a large number of themes throughout the piece, resembling a typical classical symphony in this regard, rather than a typical rock song. Released in 1972, Thick as a Brick was Jethro Tull's first deep progressive rock offering, four years after the release of their first album. Not only was the musical structure complex, but many instruments uncommon in rock music were added. Whereas in prior numbers the band were content with guitars, drums, piano, Hammond organ, and Ian Anderson's signature flute, Thick as a Brick included harpsichord, xylophone, timpani, violin, lute, trumpet, saxophone, and a string section.
Band leader Ian Anderson was surprised by the critical reaction to the previous album, Aqualung, as a "concept album", a label he has firmly rejected to this day. In an interview on In the Studio with Redbeard (which spotlighted Thick as a Brick), Anderson's response to the critics was: "If the critics want a concept album we'll give the mother of all concept albums and we'll make it so bombastic and so over the top."Ian Anderson has been quoted as stating that Thick as a Brick was written "because everyone was saying we were a progressive rock band, so we decided to live up to the reputation and write a progressive album, but done as a parody of the genre." With Thick as a Brick, the band created an album deliberately integrated around one concept: a poem by an intelligent English boy (named Gerald) about the trials of growing up. Beyond this, the album was a send-up of all pretentious "concept albums". (The simile "Thick as a brick", in English, is an expression signifying someone who is "stupid; slow to learn or understand".)
Anderson also stated in that interview that "the album was a spoof to the albums of Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer much like what the movie Airplane! had been to Airport". The formula was successful, and the album reached number one on the charts in the United States.
Beginning in March 1972, and continuing for about a year, the band performed an upwards of 70-minute-long version of the album. The performance grew in length from 60 minutes in March to about 70 minutes later. Side one of the official album was expanded in concert to about 45 minutes in length with the inclusion of flute, bass and organ, and other instrumental interludes, as well as the instrumentals "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and "Bouree". At the conclusion of side one a 5-minute "news and weather" comedy routine gave the band (and the audience) a break from the intense music. At concerts in Germany and Italy, the news and weather section was done in those native languages. After the "news and weather" side two of the album was played. It began as the official album did but then became much more improvisatory and included a long drum solo (sometimes almost 10 minutes long). The side two section lasted about 25 minutes and concluded, as did the official album, with the coda. The remainder of the 1972 live show consisted of (with only minor variances throughout the year) "Cross-Eyed Mary", "A New Day Yesterday", "Aqualung", "Wind-Up", "Martin's Guitar Solo", "Locomotive Breath", and "Wind-Up (Reprise)".
There are no known official video or film recordings of the tour and Ian Anderson denies the existence of any soundboard recordings of any of those performances. There are, however, at least 30 recordings from the audience that circulate among collectors, so this has been well documented.
Later live performances feature a shortened version of the first side, such as the 12 minutes and 30 seconds version on the live albumBursting Out.
In 2011 it was announced that Jethro Tull would be performing the entire album live on tour for the first time since 1972.
The original LP cover was a spoof of a twelve-by-sixteen inch (305 by 406 mm) multipage local newspaper, entitled The St. Cleve Chronicle and Linwell Advertiser, with articles, competitions, adverts, etc., lampooning the parochial and amateurish local journalism that still exists in many places today, as well as certain classical album covers. Jethro Tull's official website states about the mock-newspaper, "There are a lot of inside puns, cleverly hidden continuing jokes (such as the experimental non-rabbit), a surprisingly frank review of the album itself, and even a little naughty connect-the-dots children's activity." The "newspaper", dated 7 January 1972, also includes the entire lyrics to the poem "Thick as a Brick" (and, thus, to the album of the same name -- printed on page 7) as written by a fictional 8-year-old literary prodigy, Gerald "Little Milton" Bostock, whose disqualification from a poetry contest is the focus of the front page story. This article claims that although Bostock initially won the contest with "Thick as a Brick", the judges' decision was repealed after a multitude of protests and threats concerning the offensive nature of the poem, furthered by allegations of the boy's psychological instability. Subtly scattered throughout the articles are references to the lyrics, to Bostock and Jethro Tull, and to other peculiar parts of the newspaper itself. The spoof newspaper had to be heavily abridged for conventional CD covers, but the 25th Anniversary Special Edition CD includes a partial facsimile; some content is missing, such as a part of the "front page;" however, the picture was restored to its full size including the entire image of "Gerald's chum", 14-year-old Julia Fealey, who in the article below the main one blames her recent pregnancy on Bostock.
Many of you may already know about Big Star. Their huge potential,misfortune,and irony that their first record named #1 Record never got the radio play or attention it well deserved. I won't do them justice in this entry,but my effort is to get you to dig in and enjoy this music you may have missed and learn something about their missed brass ring.
You'll read all the issues that unfortunately roadblocked them into only making three albums, but there has been a cult following ever since the 1970s on these guys. Yeah, they formed back in 1971 in Memphis and were essentially done by 1974 and all 3 albums are in Rolling Stone's top 500 albums of all-time.
"Big Star aren't rock's greatest cult band;they were arguably rock's first cult band."-Pitchfork
This link goes back to the SXSW show that Big Star had planned to kick start them again in 2010 and tragically Alex Chilton died. You'll see how R.E.M,The Replacements,Evan Dando and numerous others were influenced by Big Star Nothing Can Hurt Me- Big Star documentary trailer
I don't necessarily suggest you camp out,but I would suggest you get an early start Friday morning to your local record store in order to find these special issues for Black Friday Record Store Day. Here is a list of the special releases.
You've seen countless ads on TV about Black Friday shopping at big chain stores,but I expect your record store experience doesn't involve trampling or eye gouging. No, I bet you'd have a great time looking for cds or vinyl that you've had on yours or someone specials Christmas list...think ahead...if you know you're on the naughty list go ahead and pick up what you think Santa might not leave next to the lump of coal.
At this moment I'm digging Spoon"My Mathematical Mind"as I write this blog...music is a fulfilling part of my everyday experience. As a side note, we need to be thankful for the Arts...music is as important to our ongoing culture as anything else.
When we created The Showbiz Kids a few months ago, we had no idea that anyone would actually take the time to read any of our posts and musings on music, but much to our surprise, we have had well over 16,000 page views to date! So, as we reflect on all that we are thankful for today, we would like to say a heartfelt and grateful “THANK YOU” to you, our readers. We’re working because of people like you!
Oh wait...didn't you hear the news? There's going to be a new album and a 2012 tour. Take a look at this article from Rolling Stone magazine.
Five Things We'd Like to Know About Bruce Springsteen's Tour and Album
How involved is the E Street Band? How will he deal with the death of Clarence Clemons? And more
By ANDY GREENE
November 21, 2011 3:50 PM ET
Bruce Springsteen and Steven Van Zandt of the E Street Band perform at the Philips Arena
in Atlanta, Georgia.Taylor Hill/FilmMagic
The news hit last night that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are touring Europe next year, and releasing a new album. The announcement was very thin on details, however – it seemed like a couple of festivals in the U.K. were on the verge of announcing their line-ups, thereby forcing the Springsteen camp to admit that something was in the works. As of now, there are four dates on the books, and a new album on the horizon.
That's about all that we know. Here's a list of five things we'd like to learn.
1. Who produced the album?
A few months back, Ron Aniello posted on his website that he was the producer of a new Bruce Springsteen record. It was taken down pretty quickly. Springsteen has worked with only a tiny handful of producers in his long career, and Brendan O'Brien has been the go-to guy ever since The Rising nearly a decade ago. The thing is, Bruce is always seen around O'Brien's Atlanta studio when they are working together. There hasn't been a sighting recently, leading some to believe that O'Brien isn't involved with this album. Aniello produced Patti Scialfa's 2007 disc Play It As It Lays, so he definitely is tight with the Springsteen camp. Odds are that he did produce the new album – probably at Bruce's home studio – but it's hard to say for sure.
2. How involved is the E Street Band with the new record?
The E Street Band only gets official credit on live albums, and their role on studio albums has fluctuated over the years. Springsteen's 1987 disc Tunnel of Love was ostensibly a solo album, but every current member of the E Street Band (and Clarence Clemons) had some role on the disc – even if Clemons was relegated to background vocals. They were still on the supporting tour, though. So it's unclear if this is another Tunnel of Love-type album, or more in line with Magic and The Rising, where the E Street Band is featured much more prominently.
Muddying the waters even more is a pair of Tweets that former Pearl Jam drummer Matt Chamberlain sent out in April. "When the boss calls you gotta go," he wrote. "Today I'm heading out to NJ to record with that guy from there, so excited." Not only were the Tweets deleted, but Chamberlain then took down his entire Twitter account. Why would Chamberlain be playing drums if this is an E Street Band album? Might he have been called in for some other sort of project? Maybe a Patti Scialfa album? Very hard to say for sure.
3. How will Bruce handle the absence of Clarence Clemons?
Clarence was a huge part of the look and sound of the E Street Band, even if Bruce's music hasn't utilized the saxophone much since Born in the USA. When Max Weinberg had to miss some shows in 2009, his son Jay took over on drums. So Bruce has a history of replacing key bandmates with members of their family –and Clarence's nephew Jake Clemons is a pretty accomplished sax player. (Check out his playing on a cover of Springsteen's "Drive All Night" with the Swell Season below.) It's certainly possible that Jake might join the band. It's also possible that Bruce would bring in a full horn section, possibly with Jake on sax. Keep in my mind, this is 100 percent speculation. We honestly have no idea what's going to happen. It's also possible that there will be no horns onstage. On the 1992/93 Other Band tour the sax parts were mostly turned into guitar parts. Only "Born To Run" got the sax treatment. We'll see what happens.
4. When will the tour hit America?
The news blurb last night said that "US date and World tour dates will be coming shortly." We're hearing the tour is coming to US arenas around April, but – again – that's not confirmed.
5. How can they top the last tour?
Though it was technically two separate tours behind two albums, the E Street Band spent much of the time between 2007 and 2009 on the road. During that time, they played halftime at the Super Bowl, Glastonbury, Bonnaroo, eight shows at Giants Stadium and pretty much every arena in America, and all sorts of stadiums across Europe. They also performed six albums straight through, and took requests from the audience most every night. It was just an incredible tour. Now they are hitting the road again, without Clarence Clemons. Topping the 2007/08/09 runs seems impossible, but we're sure that Springsteen is up for the challenge.
Universal Music Group and The Rolling Stones are pleased to announce the release on November 21, 2011 of the re-mastered, expanded, Super-Deluxe, Deluxe and Digital editions of Some Girls, the groundbreaking album which introduced the music of the Rolling Stones to a whole new generation of fans.
Justly considered one of the finest works by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman and Ronnie Wood, Some Girls topped the US charts over three decades ago and remains the best selling album of their storied career. This new package will include some undiscovered gems that include tracks that have recently been unearthed from the Rolling Stones vaults by producer Don Was.
Some Girls is the Rolling Stones' most direct and diverse collection of material, from Mick Jagger's irresistible falsetto on the four-on-the-floor filler Miss You, their eighth US number one, to the country-flavoured Far Away Eyes via the Chuck Berry meets punk snarl of Respectable. And let's not forget the sensuous, Beast Of Burden, one of Keith Richards' finest tunes, which reached number 8 on the US singles chart, the garage rock of Shattered, the album's third US Top 40 entry, and the soulful swagger of the group's version of The Temptations' Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me), another timeless offering in their canon of classic Stones Motown covers.
Following the critical praise and commercial success afforded the re-mastered, expanded editions of Exile On Main Street, which matched the chart performance of the epochal 1972 album, and returned the Rolling Stones to their rightful place at the top of the British charts in 2010, the extensive reissue of Some Girls constitutes the next step in the band's ongoing relationship with Universal Music Group. This started in April 2008 with Shine A Light, the soundtrack from the stunning concert film directed by Martin Scorsese, and has encompassed the reissues of the Rolling Stones re-mastered, post-1971 studio albums, several live albums and classic compilations, and the exhaustive box-set Singles 1971-2006 earlier this year.
Some Girls holds a special place in the history of the Rolling Stones and demonstrates why they remain one of the most thrilling and influential bands of all time. The 1978 album features a Keith Richards' classic Before They Make Me Run, a signature song he stills performs defiantly to this day. Some Girls documented Mick Jagger's love of 70's funk reflected in Miss You, the dance track that wrongfooted many people, made the club and black charts, and made it okay for other mainstream acts at the time to `go disco'.
The 1978 album courted controversy because of Jagger's tongue-in-cheek lyrics on the title track, on Miss You and on Respectable, perceived as a retort to the punk and new wave groups who had borrowed so much attitude and copped so many anti-establishment moves from the Rolling Stones. Ironically, the furore around the elaborate Some Girls package, designed by Peter Corriston and featuring the band members in drag - a nod in the direction of the picture on their 1966 single Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow? - and likenesses of Lucille Ball, Farrah Fawcett, Raquel Welch, Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe that hadn't been legally cleared, necessitating a swift withdrawal and rethink.
Some Girls demonstrated the distinctive and definitive riffing from Keith Richards, with its abundance of unstoppable licks and majestic power chords driving the band into its brand new musical direction. This album not only defined him and his playing, but also defined a new era for the Rolling Stones, which Richards since described as a `sense of renewal'. Some Girls marks the only other time since recording Satisfaction where Richards used an effects pedal to `elevate' the sound.
The album cemented the position of guitarist Ronnie Wood, who had joined in 1975, and added his trademark slide and pedal steel playing to several of the album's most memorable tracks, including When The Whip Comes Down and Shattered. He also co-wrote the Shattered B-side Everything Is Turning To Gold. Some Girls also marked a move to the Pathé Marconi Studios in Paris for the Glimmer Twins production team of Jagger and Richards. These factors helped what is arguably the group's most focused and dynamic album, driven by the sans pareil rhythm section of drummer Charlie Watts and bassist Bill Wyman. Some Girls featured fewer guest musicians than any Rolling Stones albums since 1971, but the contributions keyboard-player Ian McLagan, Wood's bandmate in The Faces, saxophone-player Mel Collins, and harmonica-player Sugar Blue - discovered busking on the Paris métro - made Miss You in particular sound brighter than ever.
Amongst many eagerly-awaited extras, the Super-Deluxe edition of Some Girls will include a stunning, previously unseen Helmut Newton photo session from 1978, an essay by esteemed author and journalist Anthony DeCurtis putting the album in its cultural context, and a 7" single of Beast Of Burden/When The Whip Comes Down in its banned sleeve.
Thirty-three years on from its original release, the re-mastered, expanded, Super-Deluxe, Deluxe and Digital editions of Some Girls show why the 1978 album has often been hailed as the equal of Exile On Main Street. Some Girls is both a time capsule and a timeless listen. It features the band at their tightest and toughest, at their most vibrant and vital. It's an all-killer, no-filler, must-have album. It still packs a punch. SOME GIRLS - now bigger, brighter and better than ever.
Originally Published in Rolling Stone By Andy Greene
According to Joe Walsh, the Eagles are going to celebrate their upcoming 40th anniversary with a retrospective tour next year. "Everybody's seen our show, so we have to put together something new," the guitarist tells Rolling Stone. "We've been archiving so much stuff from the band's early days, concert footage and interviews and stuff. Those will be the visuals to go along with the songs. We'll also revisit some old songs and some new stuff."
Walsh says the band plans to tour for four or five months in the second half of 2012 – which leaves him with plenty of time for other projects. He just finished work on a solo album that he hopes to release in February or March, and he wants to tour again with the James Gang. "I just played Cleveland solo and I saw Jimmy [Fox] and Dale [Peters]," he says. "We got together a few years ago just for six shows, just to see if we still had it. And we pretty much did. So, a James Gang tour is on my list. I've just been so darn busy with the Eagles. We played everywhere in the world last year."
The Joe Walsh lineup of the James Gang haven't cut an album since Thirds in 1971. "We should record at least four things playing the way that we used to," says Walsh. "I don't want to use Pro Tools and I want to overdub, because you can't do that live. But if we can do at least four things new and get them on the Internet, I think with that and a cross section of the old stuff, we'd have all we need to go out and try and kick some ass. I hope we get to do that in the first half of 2012. I really hope it works out."
Led Zeppelin II is the second studio album by the English rock band Led Zeppelin, released in October 1969 on Atlantic Records. Recording sessions for the album took place at several locations in the United Kingdom and North America from January to August 1969. Production was entirely credited to lead guitarist and songwriter Jimmy Page, while it also served as Led Zeppelin's first album to utilise the recording techniques of engineer Eddie Kramer.
Led Zeppelin II furthered the lyrical themes established on their debut album, creating a work that became more widely acclaimed and influential than its predecessor. With elements of blues and folk music, it also exhibits the band's evolving musical style of blues-derived material and their guitar and riff-based sound. It is the considered the band's heaviest album.
Upon release, Led Zeppelin II earned a considerable amount of sales and was Led Zeppelin's first album to reach #1 in the UK and the US. In 1970, art director David Juniper was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package for the album. On 15 November 1999, it was certified 12x Platinum by the RIAA for sales in excess of 12 million copies. Following its initial reception, it has been recognised by writers and music critics as one of the greatest and most influential rock albums ever recorded.
Led Zeppelin II also features experimentation with other musical styles and approaches, as on the alternately soft-and-loud "What Is and What Should Never Be" and "Ramble On" (which featured Page's acoustic guitar), or the pop-influenced ballad "Thank You". With its mysterious atmospherics, "Ramble On" helped develop hard rock's association with fantasythemes, which had been partly derived from the psychedelic rock genre of two to three years before, but also from Plant's personal interest in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien.[5] This musical direction would later culminate on Led Zeppelin IV (and countless subsequent groups would later carry the influence to further extremes). Conversely, the instrumental "Moby Dick" features an extended drum solo by John Bonham, which would be extended further during Led Zeppelin concert performances sometimes for as long as half an hour.
Page's contribution to this album was significant, as his electric guitar solo on the song "Heartbreaker" was emulated by many younger rock guitarists, and exemplifies the group's intense musical attack. Led Zeppelin II is the band's first album to feature Page playing a 1959 Gibson Les Paul, the electric guitar he helped popularise. His innovative recording and drum miking effects on tracks such as "Ramble On" and "Whole Lotta Love" also demonstrated his considerable skill, resourcefulness and originality as a producer. Rolling Stonemagazine later called Page's guitar riff for the latter song "one of the most exhilarating guitar riffs in rock & roll." John Paul Jones later discussed Page's contributions:
Jimmy started coming into his own as a producer around "Whole Lotta Love". The backwards echo stuff. A lot of the microphone techniques were just inspired. Everybody thinks he goes into the studio with huge walls of amps, but he doesn't. He uses a really small amp and he just mic's it up really well, so it fits into a sonic picture.
The album's material also marked a certain honing of Plant's vocal approach, and signalled his emergence as a serious songwriter. Plant's name had previously been absent from the songwriting credits of the band's first album due to the previous contractual commitments that resulted from his earlier association with CBS Records as a solo artist. His influence on tracks such as "What Is and What Should Never Be" and "Ramble On" were pointers to the band's musical future. Plant has commented that it was only during the sessions forLed Zeppelin II that he started to feel at home as a vocalist in the studio with Led Zeppelin. In a 2008 interview for Uncut, he stated "[During Led Zep I (1969) as far as I was concerned, I thought that I was going to [leave the band] anyway. I didn't feel that comfortable because there were a lot of demands on me vocally—which there were all the way through the Zeppelin thing. And I was quite nervous and didn't really get into enjoying it until II."
"I've been trying to find a way for the terror and the beauty to live together in one song. I know it's possible."
That quote, by Sonny Sharrock, has always stuck with me, well before I ever had the notion to pickup the guitar.
Sharrock had wanted to play saxophone. But because he had asthma, he picked up the guitar. However, he was determined to apply the expressiveness of his idols - John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and Ornette Coleman - to his guitar.
I was first introduced to Sonny through Pharaoh Sanders' influential album, Tauhid. Others likely best know his work on the theme song to parody talk show, Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
His style, his playing, is just other worldly. He comes at the instrument from a place I just can't get my head around.
I could create several posts about Sonny. His music deserves to be heard much more. In fact, that could be on the horizon. Until then, here are a couple of songs that, for me, are simply beautiful. (Perhaps I'll post up the terror on a later date.) First is "Broken Toys" from his album, Guitar.
And then "Who Does She Hope to Be?" taken from his last album, Ask The Ages, and one that reunited him with Pharaoh Sanders.
Thoughts about learning guitar, or about Sonny? Hit me up in the comments section.
I recently had the luxury of finally watching The Foo Fighters' documentary, Foo Fighters: Back and Forth, and it was fantastic. I have been on board with the Foos since the early nineties and their latest album, Wasting Light, is one of the finest albums of their stellar sixteen year career. Yes, sixteen years, you are that old.
If you have the chance, I would highly recommend checking out Back and Forth. A great film that chronicles Dave Grohl's journey from Nirvana to that wacky Mentos commercial guy and the Foo Fighters' rise to becoming one of the last great rock-n-roll bands of the past decade.
