Back in the late 80's we used to work in a surf shop up in the Bay Area. We had two TV's hanging over the cash register and used to play VHS tapes of videos we'd tape off of MTV and other local video shows. Deeper Shade Of Soul by Urban Dance Squad made it on every tape. Mini-dance parties would break out inside the shop and outside the front door. Lots of Cali kids grinding and rocking out to the beat. STILL a great little jam to this day. One of the forgotten, but not one of the lost.
If there's one thing we love just about as much as music, it's photography. Mix the two together, even better. Kevin Cummins, one of the greats and a favorite of ours, has a new book out documenting his amazing shots of the Manchester music scene. His work with The Smiths, and later with solo-Moz and solo-Marr, is now legendary. Anybody remember the infamous "tattoo" shot of Marr post-Smiths breakup outside the tattoo parlor? His new book, Looking For The Light In The Pouring Rain, contains a collection of his work from the Manchester scene over the past 30 years. A black and white silhouetted shot of Morrissey graces the cover - above.
Cummins recently sat down with the Mirror UKto talk about his work with Morrissey, Marr, The Happy Mondays, and early shots of Madonna taken at Manchester's infamous Hacienda back in the early 80's. Good stuff. Order the book here.
We haven't yet talked about the excellent soundtrack to New Moon. The entire collection embodies a cohesive atmosphere that continues on a consistent path throughout. The gathering of previously unreleased tracks, by some pretty stellar indie artists, offers the ultimate mix tape.
Our top selections include: Band Of Skulls,Friends - never paid them much attention, but we are now. Lykke Li,Possibility - our favorite track. Editors, No Sound But The Wind - of course, we've been having a love affair with this band recently - noticed? Thom Yorke, Hearing Damage - puts Thom back on our map (finally)
And of course, this lady, Anya Marina. Join her in a romp through the woods in the video companion piece to her New Moon offering, Satellite Heart. Anyone else conjuring up a direct link to Morrissey in the "true to you" lyric?
Goldfrapp recently wrapped their score to the new John Lennon biopic titled Nowhere Boy. Alison and Gregory recorded the strings with a full orchestra at Abbey Road Studios.
The film, which tells the story of Lennon as a boy and a young man, debuted this evening at the London Film Festival. Release is slated for December 26th in the UK, no U.S. distribution has been set.
We can't find any musical samplings online as of yet, but have a look at the film's trailer below. We are anxiously awaiting a listen. It will be interesting to see what landscape Goldfrapp has conjured up. Wonder if Alison will have provided any vocals?
The completion of the score opens the duo up to finishing work on their yet untitled fifth album. That is some pretty damn fine news.
We've had a few requests to resurrect our "random video of the week" feature. It's been quite some time ( March 2009 to be exact) and we realized without it, the site is just way too serious. Our randomness usually leans towards the more obscure side of the fence, or at least the more random. About as random and jostled up as our musical taste.
Anyway, let's jump right into the video, #37.
Kangol Kid in the house.
We are taking a look back at one of our favorite hip hop records from the old school days, UTFO'sRoxanne, Roxanne. A classic, and definitely a backdrop to our younger years. We used to tag up pieces of cardboard boxes to break dance on, while flipping through our handmade book of "Breakin" words which included the likes of FRESH and LACE.
Robbie Williams is one of our big guilty pleasures of the year. We always like to keep a little fun in our musical landscape and Williams fits into that perfectly. He recently performed for the BBC at the Electric Poms festival.
Check out the full performance of Bodies, complete with full orchestra, below:
The annual Bridge School Benefit charity show was held this weekend at the usual location, Shoreline Ampitheatre in Mountain View, Ca. Neil Young and his wife started the event back in 1986.
If you've ever been lucky enough to attend one of these shows, then you know how powerful they are. Various musicians coming together for an amazing cause and an excellent night of mostly acoustic performances.
This year boasted the usual set from Young as well as No Doubt, Monsters Of Folk, Wolfmother, Fleet Foxes, Sheryl Crow, Jimmy Buffet, Gavin Rossdale and a solo set from Chris Martin.
See below for Martin's performance of Yellow, still our favorite Coldplay song if we had to pick one. We've got that exact same beanie by the way.
About TheBridge School:
The Bridge School is a non-profit organization whose mission is to
ensure that individuals with severe speech and physical impairments
achieve full participation in their communities through the use of
augmentative & alternative means of communication (AAC) and
assistive technology (AT) applications and through the development,
implementation and dissemination of innovative life-long educational
strategies. The Bridge School is an internationally recognized leader
in the education of children who use augmentative and alternative
communication and has developed unique programs and trained highly
skilled professionals in the use of state of the art assistive
technology.
Click here to read more. A great cause and it's great to see so many folks coming together to show their support and help out.
Finally! In This Light And On This Evening secures a proper U.S. release date via the FADER Label.
The album will officially release on January 19th. The U.S. version will include exclusive bonus material not yet announced.
U.S. fans can head to iTunes to purchase the record digitally for now.
Our top three tracks from the album in order of preference:
In This Light And On This Evening Eat Raw Meat = Drool Blood Papillon
+ For The Money, one of five bonus tracks from the UK 2-disc special edition. Worth the import price as all five songs are a great extension of the album.
Erlend and Eirik took part in a three-song session for Spin yesterday. Check out the guys performing ThePower Of Not Knowing, Peacetime Resistance and It's My Party (yep, a random Lesley Gore cover), below:
Damn it, a dream pairing for us for sure. Two of our favorites will once again share a bill for the first time in twenty years. Nitzer Ebb will open for Depeche Mode on the European/Russian leg of their 2010 tour.
Click here for the full list of dates, venues, etc...
Nitzer Ebb opened for Depeche Mode way back in 1990 during their World Violation tour. We are pretty bummed that we will miss this BUT we do have our very own Nitzer Ebb show here in LA on November 17th at the Key Club.
We choose an nice old school photo of Ebb above, feeling nostalgic this eve. Now how about that new album, guys?
The Trashcans released a video for People from their new album In The Music. We've got to say that over time the album has really grown on us. People is one of the catchier tracks and a song that we were instantly drawn to in the first few listens.
Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool is our third favorite track (the first being Papillon, the second being the title track, In This Light And On This Evening) from the band's upcoming album. I don't think we can express how freakin' in love we are with this record. A beautiful dark synth landscape done completely right for a change.
Check out the guys live at Studio Brussel doing a little acoustic version of Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool below.
Click here for the full session. Track list: Papillon, An End Has A Start, You Don't Know Love, Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors, Eat Raw Meat = Drool Blood and Fingers In The Factories.
MTV will premiere the new Death Cab For Cutie video for their New Moon soundtrack single, Meet Me On The Equinox, tonight. The video will air on the channel at 8:00pm in all time zones.
Need something to tide you over? Check out the below behind the scenes footage from the video shoot, including interview footage with the band discussing the Twilight series, writing for New Moon, and filming the actual video.
For all the Twilight-heads out there, the video will contain scenes from the upcoming film as well.
Thanks to the amazing folks over at The Music Slut for turning us on to this video of Tom Smith performing a rather beautiful acoustic version of Papillon on MTV Germany. Could we love this band anymore right now? The new album is damn, damn fine.
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