When David Medsker and I were in Chicago covering Lollapalooza earlier this month, we were sitting around in our hotel room discussing music and such, natch. I had mentioned to him that Ace Frehley was recently in a pretty amusing Dunkin’ Donuts ad. Ace was always my fave member of the original lineup, not just for his playing, but becuase he didn’t take the whole thing so damned seriously and straight faced as Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons. Anyway, here’s the recent Dunkin’ ad with Ace in full Kiss attire makin’ some moolah.
Category: Artists (Page 148 of 262)
Ben Folds used to awesome. In concert, he still is, a consummate entertainer, and MySpace-aware fans point to his October 2006 live MySpace concert–requests only, the site’s first such event of its kind–chronicled on the Live at MySpace DVD as evidence of that.
But on the studio recording side, many of his fans are right to feel his songwriting has become almost too serious, his lyrics too jaded, to bear. Gone is the insouciance of the Ben Folds Five of the 1990s, the light drama of “Emaline,” the innocently poignant “Brick,” the simple chords . . . the subtle aspects of Folds that are gone and replaced–at least for the moment–with heavy-handed songs like “Bastard” and “You to Thank,” two back-to-back cuts on Songs for Silverman that sound like classic Folds pop but are so bitter and whiny that they just leave one cold.
Tim Halperin
Enter Tim Halperin, a TCU student and Folds devotee.
In between classes and other pressing needs that hamper the fun of dorm-dwellers (like having a television too small to read the score of the football game he and his pals are watching, chronicled in his “Life in the Dorm Room,”) this guy records whimsical piano-pop loaded with the delicious chordal curlicues we Folds fans love to hear.
These low-budget productions mean that his voice, piano, and songwriting skill must carry the day in cuts like “Nice to be Free” and “Mary.” They aren’t encumbered by effects and rich sonic backgrounds behind which the singer-songwriter can hide. It’s just his voice, his piano, and very basic backing tracks. Halperin’s vocals and piano playing stand up to the test.
And perhaps that is what is missing from Folds’ layered, heavily produced studio creations of today: That low-budget innocence of his 20s. Halperin’s stuff, while perfectly original in its own right, recalls the Naked Baby Photos era of the Five. Go give him a spin, and if you want his cuts on your iPod, go to his Garage Band page and download away. He claims he’ll let us know when a CD’s coming out; we’ll hold him to that.
What do you for a singer who might possibly, but probably not soon, if at all, hit rock bottom due to drugs and drinking? Why, you boycott their products, naturally! At least, that’s what Amy Winehouse’s father-in-law is instructing everyone to do.
“Perhaps it is time to stop buying records,” Fielder-Civil said. “It’s a possibility, to send that message,” said Giles Fielder-Civil (wow, what a name). However, Winehouse’s own father said it would do no good and when she and her hubby hit rock bottom, then they may have a change of heart. Or wind up dead.
Consider…bubble-goth.
Or, better yet, don’t. Especially not if it’s anything like the God-awful cover of Bauhaus’s “She’s in Parties” that’s been provided for your listening “pleasure” by Estonia’s latest export, Kerli.
His name is Remy Shand, and he put out a fucking phenomenal debut album called The Way I Feel in 2002…and, then, he vanished.
I mean, vanished.
His website hasn’t been updated in about four years. The MySpace page that exists for him doesn’t include any of his music and has no information beyond what was in the original press release for The Way I Feel. According to Wikipedia, the most up-to-date news brief on his site- from October 2003! – suggested that Shand was was working on his second album, to be called Day In The Shade, but that briefing has since been removed, and, obviously, the album still remains MIA.
You’ve gotta give the guy credit: in a world like ours, it’s an impressive accomplishment to disappear so successfully. But, dammit, I want more Remy Shand music!
In the meantime, however, we can still reminisce with a few of his videos…
The Way I Feel
Take a Message
See? Don’t you want more Remy Shand music now, too…?
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