The Madcap dies
Syd Barrett, possibly the single most notorious embodiment of all that what was great, awful, brilliant, insane, beautiful and ugly about the psychedelic movement of the late ’60s, has finally died. I say finally because if you’ve ever read much about him, it’s fairly obvious that he’d been living on borrowed time since sometime in 1967. Even though just about only notable things he had done since releasing “The Madcap Laughs” was to show up during the recording of “Wish You Were Here” looking extremely overweight and bald, it was clear that the rest of Pink Floyd hadn’t forgotten about him. If you saw Roger Waters on tour in 1999 or Pink Floyd’s Live8 performance, you would have seen/heard the tributes to him.
LONDON - Syd Barrett, the troubled genius who co-founded Pink Floyd but spent his last years in reclusive anonymity, has died, a spokeswoman for the band said Tuesday. He was 60.
See you on the Dark Side of the Moon, Syd.
Red Hot Chili Peppers to play at Apple Store opening?
The word on the street is that 58th or 59th Street near 5th Ave. in New York City will be closing down tonight around 6 p.m. for a “major live band” to play at the opening of Steve Jobs’ latest affront to God.
Curbed seems to think it’ll be U2, which was my first guess. My sources tell me, however, that it’s going to be The Red Hot Chili Peppers. This actually makes a lot of sense, seeing as how Apple held listening parties for the release of Stadium Arcadium in its stores, and gave away iTunes cards for free downloads of “Dani California.”
It’s a total mob scene anytime Apple opens a new store, but it’s a safe bet that this will be many times more insane. I’m going to try to be there, so check back for updates.
Chili Peppers top the charts
I don’t know how newsworthy this is, but I figured I’d write since I have to wait until Invasion is over before I can watch tonight’s TiVo’d episode of Lost. I was sort of happy to see the Red Hod Chili Peppers have the No. 1 album at the moment, since a lot of what tops the charts these days is utter crap, and this album most definitely is not. This would be the first time they’ve hit No. 1, according to Nielsen/SoundScan.
The Chili Peppers’ two-disc set, “Stadium Arcadium,” opened with sales of 442,500 copies, a record for the Los Angeles-based quartet.
Its previous best was 282,000 for its last studio release, “By The Way,” which opened at No. 2 in 2002. The band’s biggest commercial success was the 1999 album “Californication,” with sales of 5.3 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
The article goes on to say that Californication is their top-selling album, but the RIAA disagrees. They say it’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik.
If you haven’t picked up Stadium Arcadium, and you have any interest in the Chili Peppers, I highly recommend you give it a spin. I’ve got a review in the works, but an album with 28 full-length songs takes a while to take in fully, and free time is scarce these days.
Apple Corps. loses to Apple Computer
There’s not much to say about this just yet, because there really aren’t any details, but the news out of London is that The Beatles’ record label, Apple Corps., has lost to Apple Computer in their trademark case. The judge has ruled that Apple is not a music company, merely a distributor. Hopefully this will mean that Beatles’ music may eventually end up on iTunes, or at least some online service.
I hate to see The Beatles lose, but let’s face facts: if you’re dumb enough to confuse the two you’re probably too stupid to use a computer or appreciate The Beatles’ music.
I’ll get some more details up here as soon as somebody has a full story on the decision.
UPDATE: Here’s the story.
Keith Richards must be rolling in his grave
So it’s been about a day-and-a-half since the NFL, with help from the referees, made sure the Steelers won Super Bowl XL, and I really don’t have anything insightful to say about it. In fact, I’ve been avoiding ESPN’s postgame coverage altogether, with the main reason being I hate Ron Jaworski with a passion.
And I’ve never been one of those guys to say something like, “Oh, and the commercials sucked too!” in a post-Super Bowl conversation. The commercials have sucked for a while now. Commercials always suck. That’s why they’re commercials. Continues after the jump »
Gorillaz to play at the Grammyz
Sometimes I like to take something awesome and then completely ruin it just for the hell of it. I love a good slice pizza, but every once in a while I’ll move the refrigerator and rub it on the floor there. That’s how I feel about Madonna accompanying Gorillaz as they open the Grammy Awards.
Madonna and the Gorillaz will perform together for the first time at the 48th Annual Grammy Awards, which will be presented Wednesday at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
The 47-year-old pop star will sing with the Gorillaz, who will be appearing in 3-D animated color. The brainchild of Blur frontman Damon Albarn, the Gorillaz are a melding of rock and hip-hop that represents band members as cartoon alter-egos created by animator Jamie Hewlett.
At least it’ll be in color.
The Gorillaz are nominated for four awards, but there’s no word on who will be accepting for them.
Dr. Feelgood story
This story would be so kickass if it happened when I was in the 6th grade. Motley Crue have been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the band’s genesis.
Tommy Lee, Mick Mars, Vince Neil and Nikki Sixx are now among a select group of 2,301 that also includes Rin Tin Tin and Ryan Seacrest.
“We’re across the street from the Erotica Museum and Frederick‘s of Hollywood. This is a perfect place for us to be,” bassist Sixx told an estimated 600 screaming fans.
Unfortunately, I moved on from the Crue a long time ago (like 7th grade), unlike FM radio and some of my coworkers.
Jesus talks
Kanye West is made to look like Jesus on the new issue of Rolling Stone, with the following cover line: “The Passion of Kanye West”
You can just hear the magazine buzz!
According to the New York Daily News, the cover shot was photographed by David LaChapelle, who is known for doing controversial spreads, including a Britney Spears kiddie-porn doozy from the late 90s.
Here’s your token response from religous types, as Catholic League president Bill Donohue checks in:
“At first glance, it appears that both Kanye West and Rolling Stone are equally culpable of misappropriating Catholic iconography. But on closer inspection, it looks like Rolling Stone deserves the lion’s share of the blame.
“West is a young rapper who is hard to peg. On the one hand, he eschews gangsta rap and likes to sing lyrics like, ‘They say you can rap about anything except Jesus/That means guns, sex, lies, videotapes/But if I talk about God, my record won’t get played.’ On the other hand, he is capable of saying plainly foolish things, e.g., the government is responsible for the spread of AIDS among blacks and gays.
Living la vida dorado
Start printing more of those Golden Shower T-shirts, Kodesex. We’ve got a new fan.
Singer Ricky Martin, currently immersed in Year 7 of the Latin Explosion, apparently told Blender magazine that he enjoys sprinkling his liquid waste.
“I love giving the ‘golden shower.’ I’ve done it before in the shower. It’s like, so sexy, you know, the temperature of your body and the shower water is very different.”
…
Even though everyone’s pretty much known for a while that Martin’s career is over, this pretty much confirms there’s no chance of a revival. Unless he and R. Kelly decide to do a duet.
After some began questioning his ability to run a humanitarian foundation as a result of the comments, Martin squirted back, as Yahoo! Music news reports.
“At the time I granted the interview never did it cross my mind that my comments would spark this absurd and sensationalist public discussion. I cannot avoid speculation about my career and life, but I cannot allow those for whom my foundation works to be affected because I am a public figure.”
Everything you never wanted to know about Alicia
Alicia Keys is one of those artists who wins gazillions of awards, gets her songs played a hundred times a day on pop radio, and yet I don’t think I know anybody who actually listens to her music in any other context. Well since you’re probably not actively listening to her, the powers that be have decided that you need to be fed more Keys.
The coming-of-age story will follow a girl from a biracial family. Keys, 24, was born to a white mother and a black father, who split up when she was two. She was raised in the gritty Hell’s Kitchen area of New York by her mother, started learning classical piano at six, and frequently ventured up to Harlem to absorb the lifestyle.
The story of a girl from a biracial family growing up in the gritty Hell’s Kitchen rapidly gentrifying Clinton neighborhood of New York sounds like it might be interesting, but why Alicia Keys? I hate the say it, but who the hell cares? Why take a half decent premise for a show and ruin it by attaching a non-compelling celebrity name to it that can only serve to limit the scope of the series?
For more fun with Alicia Keys, check out the Wikipedia discussion on her entry there. It makes me wonder if the show planned for UPN will cover her actual life, or the more interesting life that she/her publicist/her label have concocted for her.
New Chili Peppers album details
There’s not a whole lot to be said here, aside from the fact that it’s in the works and it probably won’t be the next “Blood Sugar Sex Magik.”
The double album, set for release in April, is produced by long time collaborator Rick Rubin, and was originally intended as a trilogy, released six months apart.
Sounds good to me. Just don’t load it up with ugly DRM like greatest hits CD. If the Crap Filter team wants to rip their CDs to a more iPod-friendly format, that’s just what they’re going to do, dig?
Via Pop Candy.
Roll over Beethoven, and tell Mozart the news
Could researchers have found the skull of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?
Is there any way we can treat this in some cheap fashion, like the opening of Al Capone’s vault by Geraldo?
Researchers said Tuesday they’ll reveal the results of DNA tests in a documentary film airing this weekend on Austrian television as part of a year of celebratory events marking the composer’s 250th birthday.
The tests were conducted last year by experts at the Institute for Forensic Medicine in the alpine city of Innsbruck, and the long-awaited results will be publicized in “Mozart: The Search for Evidence,” to be screened Sunday by state broadcaster ORF.
From ‘Ghost’ to Ghostfaced Killah
Hey Justin, looks like music is off to a good start in 2006. Patrick Swayze wants to be a rapper.
I’m serious.
Here’s more from AllHipHop.com: The World’s Most Dangerous Site (Really, I checked it out — It’s fucking dangerous):
After years of being indirectly involved with Hip-Hop music, actor/pop singer Patrick Swayze is finally experimenting with rap music.
Swayze recently said he was experimenting with “rap rhythms as an emotional undercurrent for ballads.”
Well, he ain’t exactly got the lingo down yet, but give him time. When he blows up I’d love to see a freestyle rap-off between him and Kevin Federline on the streets of Beverly Hills.
Biggie: Still dead. Stereotypes: Doin’ fine
Science has proven time and time again that you can’t get people together to appreciate the songs of the Notorious B.I.G. (all three of them) without someone getting shot, stabbed, or blown to pieces. For your consideration:
Three people were stabbed early Wednesday at a Manhattan club that was hosting a record release party for a new collection of duets featuring slain rapper Notorious B.I.G.
Detectives also were investigating a shooting near the club, named Exit, that occurred around the same time. It was unclear if the two incidents were related.
Authorities could not confirm reports that the party was attended by Sean “Diddy” Combs and Notorious B.I.G.’s mother, Voletta Wallace. The two co-produced the new “Duets” record, which pairs the rapper’s vocals with Eminen, Jay-Z and other artists.
Now that’s just classy as fuck.
I don’t know what’s more disturbing: The fact that Biggie’s music is a magnet for worst people out there, or the fact that they won’t let him fucking die already. In a related note, I’m curious as to how Sean “Currently-Diddy-But-Could-Change-Any-Minute-Now” Combs will die. I’ve narrowed it down to choking on either his own ego or Biggie Smalls’ balls.
That’s right, I rhymed. Remember that after I die.
Pandora’s Music Box
Every time a person discusses terrestrial radio I am reminded of a visit to a Comm Law class I had in college in spring 2001 by a local AM producer. He informed us that “FM will be dead in a few years,” to which I heartily agreed.
I did not, however, agree with his assertion that AM would be what rose back to prominence. That statement is like saying that cassettes are going to make a dramatic comeback and destroy digital music. (Seriously, you’re retarded. Go feel empathy for the kids in The Ringer). Sorry big guy. You’re getting tossed in the sucking whirlpool as well. Continues after the jump »
Happy Holidays from Lil’ Kim, from the big house
Rapper Lil’ Kim, currently imprisoned for perjury, recently took time out from her busy schedule to wish her fans Happy Holidays. She did so through a letter, which can be viewed on her Web site.
The guards checked it twice to find out whether it was naughty or nice. Actually, it was a little predictable for such a renowned lyricist.
This seems like a good time to mention that my alma mater — Syracuse University — once taught a class about the lyrics of Lil’ Kim called “Hip-Hop Eshu: Queen Bitch 101—The Life and Times of Lil’ Kim.” Kim even came to speak to the class one time.
I wish I was kidding.
Audio meets visual
Death Cab for Cutie has announced that they will make a series of short films called “Directions” inspired by the songs on their latest album, “Plans.”
The shorts will be viewable on the group’s Web site, deathcabforcutie.com, in early January. Each of the short concepts have been dreamed up by Cutie and will be created by various artistic contributors. However, the band will not appear in any of them.
Here’s more from RollingStone.com:
“We just wanted to pick the best [concepts] and let people do what they wanted to do,” says Harmer, whose production company Otaku House, co-owned by his childhood friend and video director Aaron Stewart-Ahn, realized the collection. Since the band members do not appear in the films themselves, the filmmakers — including Stewart-Ahn — were left to their own devices. “That’s something we really wanted to offer to them,” says Harmer, “to make a video and have complete creative control.”
January promises to be a big month for the band, as they will also make their debut on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” on the 14th.
Ashlee Simpson takes a dive
Ashlee Simpson is like totally swooning for Japan! According to an US Weekly, she thought the island nation was sooooo dreamy that she just couldn’t take how totally rad it was, and passed out in an elevator. The pop princess didn’t forget to totally impress her fans first, and told them , “I love you guys.” How awesome is that? She’s like the best ever.
EXCLUSIVE: Ashlee Simpson Hospitalized in Japan Us Weekly is the first to report that singer Ashlee Simpson, 21, is currently in a Tokyo hospital after collapsing yesterday following an MTV Japan performance. The singer, whose album I Am Me, debuted at Number 1 last month, had just performed hthe album’s title track before the audience when she told the crowd she felt unwell, and said to them, ‘I love you guys.’ She then collapsed in an elevator at MTV Japan and was rushed by ambulance to an undisclosed hospital where she has remained.
You’ve gotta hand it to the Japanese — they know how to treat a girl right. I’m sure she’s being waited on hand and foot by some of those little geishas they have over there. You rule, Ashlee! And way to go for treating our number one pop tart like a queen!
A slave no more
Everybody cheer for Prince, because he’s got himself a record deal!
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Prince, who famously scrawled “slave” on his face during a dispute with his record company in the mid-1990s, said Tuesday he received everything he wanted in his latest deal with Universal Records.
“I got a chance to structure an agreement the way I saw fit instead of the other way around,” Prince said during a news conference to promote a video for his new single,”Te Amo Corazon.”
I’m glad to hear that Prince will be coming out with another album soon. Musicology was pretty good, and he’s arguably one of the most talented performers working today.
Even if you ignore the fact that he’s kind of a prick, the assless pants, the unpronounceable symbol for a name and Batdance, there’s still a lot left to like. Let’s hope he keeps making more good albums and stops thinking he can actually change the record industry.
Awwww, it’s a Grammy
I didn’t get my hopes up. I hope you didn’t either. Honestly, I didn’t know it was happening until this morning.
I’m talking about the announcement of the Grammy nominations — that annual occasion when fans of good music across the country collectively say, “Oh yeah, the Grammys. What a piece of shit that travesty is.”
Topping the nominations, Mariah Carey, John Legend and Kanye West each earned eight. 50 Cent, Beyoncé Knowles, The Black Eyed Peas’ Will.i.am, and Stevie Wonder garnered six a piece. Missy Elliott, Alicia Keys, Bruce Springsteen, Gwen Stefani and U2 received five nods each, while Common, Destiny’s Child, Foo Fighters, Gorillaz, Neptunes, Brad Paisley, Phil Tan, and Gretchen Wilson each earned four.
What, The Black Eyed Peas make music? I thought they just worked for Best Buy. And I honestly think at this point Springsteen could just mumble while strumming his guitar on a CD for 45 minutes and he’d still get nominated. That’s Bob Dylan territory. Continues after the jump »
Saint or Sinner?
Scott Stapp was recently invited to co-host Spike TV’s “Casino Cinema”, one of the 10,000 movie shows that plays a movie and break for vignettes that center around some theme, in this case gambling. (I personally prefer TBS’s “Dinner and a Movie”, but that’s probably due to the fact that I am a fat guy and really REALLY like to eat!) Turns out that Mr. “Arms Wide Open” Stapp likes to hit the bottle… and hard.
Maybe rocker Scott Stapp - former front man for the very pious Christian rock band Creed - was possessed by Satan when he showed up for a taping of the Spike TV show “Casino Cinema” on Tuesday afternoon.
According to multiple sources on the set, the 32-year-old Stapp appeared intoxicated when he arrived at the show’s upper East Side studio and proceeded to terrorize hosts Beth Ostrosky and Steve Schirripa, the producers and the crew members alike with his boorish and vulgar antics on- and off-camera.
DIY ethic and beautiful music
Damien DeRose, aka Peasant, is a 20-year-old musician with something to say and the drive to succeed in saying it. I first met Damien on Myspace, when I started my most recent productions company, world-at-large.productions. I was looking for singer/songwriter types for a showcase I wanted to do and Damien sent me his first CD, “Sow and Scatter”. It didn’t wow me, but I thought his sound would be well-recieved at the showcase I was putting together, so I gave him a call. Continues after the jump »
Dead brings downloads back to life
Well that was brief. It looks like The Grateful Dead has listened to the backlash from their fans and decided to let the Internet Archive host live concert recordings after all.
Band spokesman Dennis McNally said the group was swayed by the backlash from fans, who for decades have freely taped and traded the band’s live performances.
“The Grateful Dead remains as it always has — in favor of tape trading,” McNally said.
He said the band consented to making audience recordings available for download again, although live recordings made directly from concert soundboards, which are the legal property of the Grateful Dead, should only be made available for listening from now on.
Is it me or is that last sentence confusing as hell? I have a feeling that it’s just a clueless AP writer confusing the term “listening” with “purchase.” I can see how they’d make that mistake. If that’s the case, it’s basically what I said yesterday. But I’m not sure what the Dead’s soundboard policy was. Some bands allow limited access to the soundboard for taping. I don’t know if the Dead was one of them. If they allowed fans to tap the soundboard, it would still be a fan recording, and probably no different legally than if a fan brought his tape rig into the concert. I think that what this really means is that live soundboard recordings made by the band are not legal for sharing. That’s perfectly normal.
After all the shoddy reporting is sorted out, the fact remains that the band is a swell bunch of guys for allowing taping and trading. It helped build the community among the fans, even if the fans are smelly hippies.
Dead bands share no songs
It turns out that even aging hippie rock stars aren’t so shamelss that they won’t cash in on their hopelessly devoted fans. Representatives of the remains of The Grateful Dead have angered their living fans by ordering the good folks at the Internet Archive to stop serving up recordings of the band’s live shows.
Representatives for the band earlier this month directed the Internet Archive, a site that catalogues content on Web sites, to stop making recordings of the group’s concerts available for download, band spokesman Dennis McNally said Wednesday.
Fans, who for decades have freely taped and traded the band’s live performances, quickly initiated an online petition that argued the band shouldn’t change the rules midway through the game.
I have to say that both sides have a pretty valid claim. The Dead have allowed fans to freely trade recordings of concerts for decades, since long before anybody ever dreamed of sending them over some far-out computer network, so on that point I have to side with the fans. On the other hand, the songs belong to the band, so fuck the fans, they can do whatever they want. Continues after the jump »
Not Lenny!
Jimi Hendrix just threw up in his mouth again. That’s because he heard the news that Lenny Kravitz is in talks to play the dead guitar god in an upcoming biopic.
That’s right, Lenny friggin’ Kravitz, who has become a cartoon of a cartoon of a rock star, and not Andre Benjamin (a.k.a. Andre 3000 of Outkast), who would have been too perfect I guess, considering he’s a dead-ringer for Hendrix, a way more talented musician and, oh yeah, a decent actor. Continues after the jump »
‘Go shorty, it’s your bat mitzvah’
Ah, to be 12, and Jewish and rich. Or more simply, to be Elizabeth Brooks, whose father, multimillionaire Long Island defense contractor David H. Brooks, went all out for her bat mitzvah.
Lloyd Grove of The Daily News explains:
Brooks booked two floors of the Rainbow Room, hauled in concert-ready equipment, built a stage, installed special carpeting, outfitted the space with Jumbotrons and arranged command performances by everyone from 50 Cent to Tom Petty to Aerosmith.
Update: Glitter in the slammer
Your Vietnamese child prostitutes can rest safely because Gary Glitter has been arrested.
Glitter, who was permanently kicked out of Cambodia after serving time in the U.K. for possessing child pornography, was apparently trying to flee to browner pastures in Thailand.
Immigration police officer Nguyen Van Phuc said that Glitter was stopped by officers checking his passport as he was preparing to board a flight to Bangkok from Ho Chi Minh city on Saturday.
“One of my colleagues recognized him and detained him at the immigration office,” Phuc said
That’s some good police work, boys. I’m a little concerned that nobody spotted him until he was ready to hop on a plane. Maybe it just me, but he seems like the kind of guy who would stand out in a crowd of Vietnamese people. Continues after the jump »
Move over Jane: it’s Hanoi Gary
Gary Glitter’s at it again.
Police in Vietnam are looking for the British musician whom they believe is having a relationship with a teenage girl.
The police are currently interviewing the girl, who was found at Gary’s rented house in the Asian country. Continues after the jump »
Hello, I’d like to purchase goods or services
Well this kind of sucks.
I’ve been trying my damndest to locate the David Bowie/Arcade Fire collaboration on iTunes, with no luck.
It’s not that it doesn’t exist, it’s that it’s not available to U.S. customers, which is a problem for me. Being a citizen of the U.S. of A, I’m used to getting everything except new video game systems before the rest of the world.
I can’t even find any solid information about it other than what was already known. Nobody seems to even have anything about the fact that it’s only for U.K. customers so far. I’m left to wonder if it’ll be released for the U.S. at all. On the Arcade Fire’s page on iTunes, there’s a broken link that’s supposed to go to an exclusive track. Maybe that’s it, but who knows.
If there’s a moral to this story, it would have to be that if somebody wants to give you money in exchange for something, take it. I’m going to unofficially pin this one on record labels, which are generally to blame for anything stupid that goes on that related to online music sales.
Rap song, football players demean women
It’s always fun to see the reactions of people not typically familiar with the culture of rap music when they suddenly are exposed to it.
Take this latest example where a group of football players from the University of Miami (Florida, not Ohio, oddly), calling themselves the 7th Floor Crew, released a song on the Internet (listen here while you still can) that school officials are none too happy about, as a story on ESPN.com details.
The 7th Floor Crew made a recording referencing multiple acts of group sex, derogatory terms for women and minorities and dozens of curse words that lasts approximately 9 minutes.
Strangely enough, the song was actually made a couple years ago, but has only recently been brought to the school’s attention. There’s a good chance some these players are Vikings by now. Continues after the jump »
Bowie and Arcade Fire make a great team
The man of a thousand personae, David Bowie, is apparently teaming up with Canadian hipster magnets Arcade Fire for a cover of their song, Wake Up, which they performed together at September’s Fashion Rocks event in New York.
The song will be available on iTunes for one week, starting Monday. As one of the few artists who started in the ’60s and survived the ’90s without inserting an awkward rap in the middle of one of his songs, Bowie is solid gold as far as I’m concerned. I saw him perform last year and it was one of the best shows I’d seen in a long time.
I’ll probably also make an effort to see Arcade Fire next time they come around now that I realize they have Bowie’s seal of approval. Wake Up is a solid song to start with, so I’m confident that I won’t be disappointed.
Respek to TUAW.
Buy it again for the first time
In case you missed it, the new Beastie Boys collection, Solid Gold Hits, comes out today. What’s the difference between this and The Sounds of Science, which came out five years ago? Well Solid Gold Hits has 15 tracks, as opposed to the 42 on The Sounds of Science, but it features a few newer ones that you won’t find on The Sounds of Science.
It’s your money, so if CH-Check It Out, Open Letter to NYC, and Triple Trouble are worth $15 to you, then don’t let me stop you.
