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Ah, another album from my youth. It’s amazing to consider the number of copies this damn thing sold according to the accompanying clip. Dig it.
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 The inaugural Outside Lands Festival will take place in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, with Jack Johnson and Tom Petty already confirmed, and Radiohead rumored to be performing too. Hanson will hit the road again for their The Walk Tour ’08. The guys will also be playing SXSW on March 15, a performance that will be broadcast live on Direct TV. The spring tour will be supported by Stephen Kellogg and The Sixers and “One Tree Hill’s” Kate Voegele. Coheed and Cambria are currently on tour supporting Linkin Park, and there are a few remaining dates that you can check them out (more…) |
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“Popular Creeps” from the great Horseshoes and Hand Grenades album.
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My head tells me that I shouldn’t like Kerli. One listen to her voice tells me that she worships at the altar of Amy Lee – the song is smothered with Evanescence-style melodrama as well – and the lyric is straight from Alanis Morrisette’s notebook (“I know that you think of me when you’re beside her / Inside her”). But I find myself irresistibly drawn to the Estonian beauty. I feel like Oz in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” when the band fronted by the female wolf comes to Sunnydale and plays the Bronze. He’s dating Alyson Hannigan, Alyson freaking Hannigan, but damned if he could resist the singer’s siren song. I’m Oz, Kerli’s the wolf. The wolf also made an appropriately creepy video for her brooding lead single “Love is Dead.” It starts with her horribly aged, standing in front of a CGI background that shows, well, death. As the video goes on, she gets younger, and everything behind her does, too. We get stuff from 20-year-old girls pitched to us all the time. None of it sounds like this. She’s not reinventing the wheel or anything, but you have to love a young girl with some depth. She covers Bauhaus’ “She’s in Parties,” for crying out loud. Hopefully the full-length album, which drops April 22, will follow up on the promise of this single. Embedding, sadly, is disabled, but I highly recommend checking her out. And in case you still need more convincing, here’s a picture of her.
See what I mean? You’re drawn to her too, aren’t you? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to lock myself up in my cage, so I don’t accidentally eat anyone when the full moon hits. Filed under: Pop and Rock Babes and Songs and Artists and Videos and External Music and Seen Your Video Comments: 1 Comment |
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Hi again, dear readers. Yours trly here once again to announce yet another new feature debuting on ESDMusic this week. I call it the “Bullz-Eye Hi-Fi.” Here I will be bringing you all the latest links to our weekly music reviews. If you need a refresher course on where you can find the main vein for most everything music-related on Bullz-Eye.com, then head over this way, but in the meantime, here’s what the stylus is finding its groove in this week on B-E: Bauhaus - Go Away White - I check out the new and final Bauhaus disc. Was it worth the wait? Can it possibly live up to expectations? Jeff Giles serves up three reviews this week, covering Alex Nackman’s Still Life Moves, Richard Julian’s Sunday Morning in Saturday’s Shoes and Paul Thorn’s A Long Way from Tupelo. Our in-house musical doctor Mojo Flucke is doubling up on the grooves this week , giving his critical opinions on both Marah’s Angels of Destruction and The Raveonettes’ Lust Lust Lust Black 47’s Iraq is placed under the proverbial microscope by Jim Washington, while our good man Mike Farley weighs in on The Afters’ Never Going Back to OK. Finally, Mr. Pop Goodness himself, Will Harris takes us on a retro trip for the new release of Michael Jackson’s Thriller: 25th Anniversary Edition. We also have four new Quick Takes in the hopper, kicking things off with a look at Paddy Casey’s Addicted to Company. |
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Last night’s “American Idol” results show was less fluff than usual, more results…but two of the results were surprising, one bordering on shocking, at least to me. That can only mean that those idiots who purposely mess with the voting are at it again (you losers know who you are). Either that, or America is just ignorant. So first they did some bit on Simon Cowell blatantly flashing the “L” for loser sign to either Ryan Seacrest or various others during the auditions. Whatever…we all know he’s a wiseass. Then came the ’70s medley, which did one thing in particular…it exposed how bad some of these singers really are. Okay, on to the results (more…) |
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Ah, Taco. How you came and went with such a fey flourish! You dominated the singles charts briefly with your synthed-up remake of “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and dared to go the full LP route by also issuing After eight. Seriously, dude. WTF?! Not that I have any room to make too much fun. You see, I bought this album in a record shop at the time it was big (I had already bought the single). Got it and the Atari 2600 cartridge “E.T.” at the same store. Yeah. So maybe you could say I struck out twice that day, but I enjoyed both at the time. But this album now? It’s just too corny for words. While Taco offers up other cover versions of classics like “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Cheek to Cheek,” the real stomach churners are the tracks he penned himself. “Livin’ in My Dream World,” the original b-side to “Ritz” is bad enough. Taco reminisces about doing the Charleston, enjoying sing-along songs, and dancing on the Milky Way. Yech. If that weren’t enough, then perhaps “Tribute to Tino” in which Taco throws up appallingly bad synths in the faces of his listeners to tell them a tale of silent movie star Rudolph Valentino is. “Fairbanks, Chapman, Barrymore had leading ladies by the score like Tino” croons Taco. “Marie Provost” this is not. The title track is also pretty abysmal. “After eight, a rendezvous with Kate! / She works late / I’ve had a hard day watching color TV” sings the Tac, trying to inflect as much of a ’30s style mannerism into his voice as he can. Then he tops it even more terribly with “Kate works each day 9 to 5, serving with true dedication / She serves you sodas, and ice creams, and pizzas, and chilis / And burgers, all kinds…and tacos, too…dig it!” So yeah, basically there was “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and that was pretty much it. After Eight remains one of those distinctly ’80s novelty curios, and prices for CD copies of it are ridiculously overpriced. Still, you can nab the album off of iTunes these days. Taco did continue his career after this, but no one cared by the time his second album came out. It seems like the public didn’t need new versions of “Winchester Cathedral” or other pap such as “Opera Rap.” Yeah…”Opera Rap.” And just to remind you how deeply serious Taco was when it came to puttin’ on his ritz, I’ll leave you with with this image from the back cover of this album:
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When Simon Cowell declared Tuesday night that this season’s “American Idol” was David Archuleta’s to lose, he wasn’t joking. Not only did young David out-class every one of the guys, he left every lady in the rear view mirror as well, because for the most part, they did not deliver the goods on Wednesday night. Here is a recap…. THE GOOD Carly Smithson went first last night, and in the little bit about “what viewers would be surprised to learn,” said she tends bar at an Irish pub in San Diego. I wasn’ t surprised, were you? Anyway, Carly sang Heart’s “Crazy on You,” and for me it was a bit too shouty. But by the end of the night, Carly sure looked good compared to the rest of the field. Randy said it was rough at the start but got better, Paula said Carly is a great singer, and Simon said it was better than last week, and that no other woman in this thing can touch Carly vocally. He may be right. Brooke White strapped on her guitar and sang Carly Simon’s (more…) |
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Soon the whole world will know how much I like the new Marah record, when my review gets posted to the B-E Music section. While there’s nothing obvious to these ears as to why the band went from decent to stellar, some folks out there in the Wikisphere/blogosphere swear it’s thanks to the presence of one Christine Smith, a new member to the band (at least full-time) on keyboards and vocals. Marah fans can’t decide whether it’s the chicken or egg: Does she add a dimension that wasn’t there before, or does her new point of view inspire the Bielanko brothers Serge and Dave to take it to the next level that was always there before but they couldn’t reach…a creative catalyst? The fans, however, all seem to agree that she enhances the live shows. A lot. Whatever. Fact is, Smith is a pretty gifted singer, songwriter and performer. Check out her MySpace, and there’s no doubt her eclectic tastes in jazz, folk, and whatever else merge together to make some fine torchy-sounding songs that are a soothing liniment to ears irritated by too damn much Green Day and Fall Out Boy. The voice. The voice! She’s a star, with her keyboard playing, she sounds like a female Joe Jackson at times, beautiful and dignified, sexy and sultry. Here’s a shot of Smith caught live—on guitar here, but there are other songs from this gig where she’s on piano—performing “Car Alarm Choir Lullaby” at a London club. If you’re not sold by the end, what kind of music fan are you, anyway? |
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Or, specifically Little Washu from “Tenchi Muyo!” Here is a fan-made video for “She Blinded Me with Science” Good stuff.
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Okay, so maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but seriously, if you saw David Archuleta on “American Idol” last night, you have to admit the kid is clearly the favorite to win it all. I mean, just, damn. Anyway, there were in fact nine other guys who sang last night, so let’s recap using our usual formula: THE REALLY GOOD The theme was ’70s, a decade that had some incredible music. David Archuleta, all 17 years of him, ended the show with John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Even before he took the stage, I was afraid that it was not a good song choice. I mean, it’s a pretty simple tune. But young David gave what was maybe the performance of his life. Before he did though, they showed footage of him singing six years ago in a hotel lobby during Season 1 of the show, to the likes of Kelly Clarkson, who was blown away by an even younger David. You have to think now it’s in the cards or something. Anyway, Randy said it was one of the best vocals ever on the show, Paula said it was “ridiculous,” but in a good way because she started crying, and Simon said David is the “one to beat.” In-freaking-deed. THE GOOD It was a night for the Davids of this thing. David Hernandez (more…) |
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Hello, kids! It’s time for ESDMusic’s new feature “New Tunes on Tuesday” wherein we highlight some of the new releases coming out this week. Do enjoy. First up, it’s The Cowboy Junkies’ Trinity Revisited, a one CD/one DVD package that features the Junkies’ going back and “revisiting” their breakthrough album The Trinity Session 20 years later, with special guests Ryan Adams, Vic Chesnutt, and Natalie Merchant. Read all about it here on the band’s official website. Goldfrapp’s Seventh Tree also makes its debut this week. Our own David Medsker gave his own four-star review of the album here on Bullz-Eye last week, and as we all know, Dave’s a trustworthy fellow when it comes to groovy music. Janet Jackson is also rejoining us this week with her new album Discipline that will be available in both a standard and “deluxe” editions, the latter featuring the video for “Feedback” as well as other multimedia clips. You can hear the new song by visiting Janet’s Myspace page. Dolly Parton’s new album Backwoods Barbie is releasing today. The album is her “first mainstream country album in more than 17 years.” Seems like that should be news that old fans can rejoice over. The first single from the album is “Better Get to Livin.” The album is tied in to Dolly launching her own label. You can check out all the news over at Billboard regarding this new venture. Wrapping up the majorly majors, we have the return of Erykah Badu, who is releasing New AmErykah this week. The first single from the album is called “Honey” and you can listen to it right here. Other releases this week include Donny Osmond’s From Donny…With Love (a mix of ’70s covers and reworks of his own past hits); Diane Schuur’s Some Other Time; Death Angel’s Killing Season, and Algebra’s Purpose. |
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“Pebble Mill” was a daytime chat show in Great Britain which regularly featured appearances from the current musical artists of the day, as well as a few who weren’t exactly top of the pops anymore, if you take my meaning. In the case of Dionne Warwick, she was and remained a huge worldwide superstar in 1982, a full two decades on from her first big hit, “Walk On By.” This was one of the many compositions from the brothers Gibb that was taken to the upper reaches of the charts by someone other than the Bee Gees themselves, but it’s got their trademark sound all over it.
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“Discolite” from the great Grand Prix.
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Guilty pleasures. We all have them. Actually, I never had any until recently, because I figured that if I didn’t feel any shame about liking a song, then it wasn’t a guilty pleasure. Ah, what a naïve child I once was. I surely should have known that music would turn on me and become something I didn’t like, and then that something I didn’t like would create something I liked (ahem, “I Want It That Way”).
Filed under: Rock and Pop and Alternative and Electronica and Songs and Artists and Playlists and Videos and External Music and Mix Disc Monday Comments: None |
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