Months after the death of Amy Winehouse. the first posthumous album has been announced. It's Lioness: Hidden Treasures, containing unheard and unreleased material from Winehouse and is slated for a December 5th release. There's also material that was intended for her third album. Here's a track that leaked today, featuring the rapper Nas:
Remember when Ricky Gervais hosted the Golden Globes and caused such a ruckus when he poked fun at "Hollywood royalty?" One of his targets (well deserved if you ask me) was that year's Johnny Depp/Angelina Jolie movie The Tourist. In this funny little video, Johnny (wearing his full Hunter S. Thompson uniform) proves that he carries a grudge for a long time, as he pays a little visit to a startled Mr. Gervais:
Now rumors are flying that Ricky will indeed return to host the Globes. Here's the scoop.
Here's what I saw when I was roaming around before the show opened, including an encounter with a Seattle TV celeb:
And here's my quick tour of a bunch of the important cars at the show this year:
I'm going to get a close-up look at some of the notable cars at the show, like the Fisker Karma and the Lamborghini Aventador. Check back tomorrow and through the weekend. And for details about the Seattle Auto Show, which runs through Sunday, go here.
The Fray dropped by for a session in the Carter Subaru Mountain Music Lounge on Monday morning. No show in town; they were just letting everybody know that their new album is on the way in February.
Isaac Slade, the Fray front man, wanted to play me a couple of top secret tracks from the new CD, so he got out his iPod . . .
. . . and crawled under the desk of our promotion director, Kelly, so he could play the iPod through her speakers:
We listened to the new stuff, which is quite epic-sounding. Big. And Isaac sings with reckless abandon. He attributes that to the guy who produced the record, Brendan O'Brien, who's worked with Pearl Jam, Springsteen and others. He encouraged Isaac not to strive for perfection, but to be more spontaneous and raw with his vocals -- and you can hear the difference.
They did a great session in the Lounge:
and then -- bust out the fake smiles! -- we posed for pix afterwards:
The new Fray album Scars & Stories will be here on February 7, and then comes the tour in the spring.
Here they are singing "Heartbeat," a song from the new album, in the Carter Subaru Mountain Music Lounge:
Okay, maybe I get a little carried away when it's time for the Seattle Auto Show.. What can I tell you? I geek out on the cars just a little bit. Which is why it was pretty cool that they gave me the brand new VW Beetle to drive for a week, because it's one of the new cars you can check out at the Auto Show. Tomorrow, I'm actually going inside the CenturyLink Field Event Center to get up close and personal with the new cars, concepts, green cars, trucks and everything else they've got this year. Until then, here's Part Three of my Beetle adventure:
Here's that link I was talking about: www.seattleautoshow.com for show hours, prices, parking info, etc. See you there!
" . . . but most of the songs on this album were written without one."
Florence + The Machine are headlining our Winter Warmth concert on December 8 at the WaMu Theater (along with The Head and the Heart and Mat Kearney. Details and tickets here.) And -- perfect timing -- Florence is on the current cover of NME, the British music magazine, and they did a little chat with her about her new album while they did the photo shoot for the cover. She's very soft-spoken!
You like cars? Me too. That's why this is an exciting week around here -- the Seattle Auto Show starts on Wednesday. Just to get me even more revved up than I already was, the Auto Show people thought I might like to spend a week behind the wheel of the new Volkswagen Beetle. Not the New Beetle that came out in the late 1990s after a long hiatus, but the NEW New Beetle that's longer, lower, wider, and quite a bit sportier. It's just one of the dozens of new cars you can see at the show, which runs Wednesday through Sunday at the CenturyLink Field Event Center. Here's Part Two of my Beetle adventure:
Only one more day till the show opens! Find out more about the show by going here. See you there! (And more about the Beetle on my blog tomorrow.)
Okay, granted, this guy's a NASA engineer, so you expect him to come up with something brilliant, but really . . . this is the perfect costume for right now.
You can read more about Mark Rober and his giant brain here
I'm a bit of a car guy. Hey, when you grow up in Detroit, it's hard not to be a car guy. So every November, when the Seattle Auto Show comes around, I get pretty excited and start geeking out on cars as only a . . . well, as only car geek can.
My friends at the Auto Show thought they'd rev up my anticipation just a little bit more by tossing me the keys to the brand new redesigned 2012 Volkswagen Beetle, which is just one of the many new rides you can check out at the show, which runs this Wednesday through Sunday at the CenturyLink Field Event Center.
Here's Part One of my adventures with the 21st Century update of an automotive icon:
You want to join me at the Seattle Auto Show? The Beetle's just one of the new cars you can check out, sit in, and fantasize about. For more on the show, go here. See you there!
Just to whet your appetite for The Mountain's Winter Warmth concert on December 8 (for details and tickets go here) check out this live performance by The Head and The Heart on the Letterman show. It's a real hootenanny!
Davis Guggenheim directed one of the all-time great movies about rock & roll, It Might Get Loud. (If you haven't seen it, rent it. It's brilliant.) He also directed An Inconvenient Truth, but let's leave politics out of this for now.
His new film is another documentary, called From The Sky Down. It's about the making of U2's milestone album Achtung Baby (which came out 20 years ago this November.) It's airing Saturday night (10/29) on Showtime, and then it'll come out on Blu-Ray, Netflix, iTunes, etc.
I talked to the director about the movie and about the album:
They may be winding down their 30-year career, but they're not getting lazy right at the end. Check out these TWO videos for the song "We All Go Back To Where We Belong," one of the new songs that's on the 40-song retrospective Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982-2011, and the final R.E.M. single.
I love the song -- it's R.E.M. in a sort of wistful mood, and even though there's really nothing happening in either of these videos, you can't take your eyes off these two people. Check them out:
First, a version featuring the actress Kirsten Dunst:
And then there's this version with poet/performance artist John Giorno:
Over at Seattle Met magazine, they asked our city's chefs and restaurateurs to share their pet peeves about us -- the diners who visit their establishments.
Yes, that's what Steven Tyler looked like after falling in the shower before a concert in Paraguay. Tyler talked to Matt Lauer on the Today Show this morning about why it happened and whether or not he's still sober:
I've been told I have a size XL head, but this is ridiculous . . . .
There's probably not enough time for this year, but I think these guys are on to something. How about a giant hand-made 3D head mask that looks almost exactly like . . . you!
That's what they're doing over at You3DMe. You upload a front shot and a side shot of your face (very similar to a mug shot, if you've ever been in that situation.) They send you back a giant 3D version of your head. Like the ones in this video:
Or, if you're crafty, and you own lots of glue and stuff, they can just send you PDF files of the components and you can assemble them yourself.
To tell you the truth, their website is kind of a mess right now, and I can't even figure out how much it actually costs. But it's a great idea, so I hope they work out the bugs in time for next Halloween. Or maybe shoot for Fat Tuesday?
Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, aka The Black Keys, dropped by The Mountain for a quick chat in advance of the release of their new song "Lonely Boy," which you can listen to below, but first . . .here's how they described the song, sort of:
I asked them about the teaser video that featured a sleazy used car salesman trying to unload a crappy El Camino (that's the title of the album -- El Camino)
The new album El Camino drops on December 6, but the first track of the record is here. (BTW on Black Friday, which is also Record Store Day, the day after Thanksgiving, you'll be able to pick up a limited edition 12" reverse-cut vinyl version. Yes, reverse-cut -- you drop the needle near the label and it works its way toward the outer edge of the disc. Crazy!)
There's nothing more tedious than leaving work here in the Canned Ham building around lunchtime, getting in the elevator on the 16th floor, and stopping six times for people who could just as easily take the stairs from, say, the 3rd floor down to the lobby. What if there was a faster way to exit the premises? Well check this out:
It's a giant slide -- basically a tube, from the top floor to the lobby, designed by a Belgian artist. On the left is the actual installation at the Tate Museum in London, and on the right is a sketch of the tube he's installing at a museum in NYC. You can read the full story here.
When's someone going to wrap one of those around the outside of this building?
Portland's Decemberists are putting out a six-song, acoustic-ish EP on November 1 called Long Live The King, and tracks seem to keep leaking out. The songs were recorded during the King Is Dead sessions, but they didn't quite fit stylistically with that full-length, so now we get to hear them.
Yesterday this song appeared, a stripped-down tune called "E. Watson."
And this is a kind of a twangy song called "Foregone."
Um, I think this is for real. Here's a brand new Herman Cain campaign ad, starring Cain's chief of staff Mark Block, that was just posted to his official YouTube channel. It's a typical bland, sort of cheesy spot, just like dozens you've seen before, until you get to the 40 second mark. Then you'll see something I bet you never saw in a campaign ad:
Some highlights from Neil Young's Bridge School benefit concerts over the weekend:
Neil and fellow Canadians Arcade Fire sing "Helpless"
Eddie Vedder does solo acoustic version of Pearl Jam's "Just Breathe"
And here's good news if you've always been jealous of people who got to see the Bridge School shows:
The Bridge School Benefit Concerts 25th Anniversary Edition will be released on Monday (October 24) and feature a three-DVD set and a two-CD collection that includes unique live performances from many of the phenomenal artists whoâve performed over the past 25 years.
In addition, Neil Young and his wife Pegi Young have made the concert film available for viewing at movie theaters in select cities for one night only on the same day (Monday night.)
In Seattle it's at the Harvard Exit Theater on Capitol Hill. You can buy the tickets here.
The film features some of the biggest names in music, whoâve been involved with the annual concerts including Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Pearl Jam, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, The Who, Tom Petty, Simon and Garfunkel, Neil Young and Crazy Horse performing rare, acoustic versions of songs never heard anywhere else.
All proceeds benefit The Bridge School, a non-profit, innovative organization educating children with severe speech and physical impairments through the use of augmentative and alternative communication systems and assistive technology.
The Coldplay Mylo Xyloto media blitz is on. They'll do a Coldplay Radio Takeover on The Mountain Monday night at 6:00. But they dropped by The Colbert Report last night, and Chris Martin sat for an in depth conversation with Steven Colbert, touching on many topics: Stealing an American actress for his wife, dancing like Radiohead, and the "rivalry" with U2:
For hardcore chocoholics, this looks INSANE!
For a PDF of the entire weekend schedule, go here. A few sessions that caught my eye:
Wine & Chocolate Pairing
Creating Chocolate Sculptures
Exploring Salted Caramels
Chocolate Mixology
Chocolate Body Care
Women In Chocolate
Chocolate In The Raw
and Did A Slave Make My Chocolate?
That ought to just about cover all the chocolate bases. All the details of this weekend's festivities are here.
If you know me, you know I can't say no to dog-related charities and events. So once again this year, on Saturday (10/21) I'm hosting Dog-O-Ween, the annual benefit for Citizens For Off-Leash Areas (COLA.)
This year it's in Magnolia Manor Park, in the 3500 block of 28th Avenue West in Seattle's Magnolia neighborhood. As you can probably figure out, you dress your dog, and maybe yourself, in a Halloween costume and pandemonium ensues.
This park is actually the future site of Seattle's next off-leash area, and Magnolia's first P-Patch will go there too. But first, we have our way with it as the dogs show off their style.
There'll be prizes and raffles and booths with every possible product and service for your pet.
So join me! You can make a last-minute decision to head over to the park on Saturday. I guarantee you'll laugh, and your dog will be confused.
For more details, directions, and photos from previous events, click here.
Just like the guy who appeared as an infant on the cover of Nevermind, this little lad who posed for a couple of U2 album covers is all grown up now. And he's still friends with the members of U2.
His name is Peter Rowen, who appeared on the covers of U2 albums Boy when he was 5 (1980) and War when he was 8 (1983.) Now he's a 37-year-old photographer and father living in Dublin. At the time, he lived across the road from Bono and somehow got tapped for the photos.
Rowen remembers a few things from the later photo shoot.
The first is disliking the soup that was served by the photographer's wife. "And the other memory is that Bono was driving us back from Dun Laoighaire, Ireland [where the photo was taken]. He was talking to someone in the backseat and someone shouted to watch out for a car. Two memories from the day: I didn't like the soup, and I was nearly in a crash."
Following the Republican debates on Tuesday night, Sarah Palin had some harsh things to say about how candidates get to "escape actually answering the questions." She thinks the hosts of the debates should work harder to force the candidates to answer the questions they were asked by telling them, "no that's not what I asked you -- here's what I asked you; please answer it." I have to say I completely agree with her. John Stewart does a better job than most of these debate moderators at getting to the truth, and he doesn't even pretend to be a journalist.
The only glitch in all of this is that Sarah is guilty of the same evasive techniques that she accuses the candidates of using on Tuesday night:
I think that's what she would call a "gotcha" video. Still, what she said is totally right. So . . . there. I said it. Sarah Palin and I agree.
Not strange at all . . . . William Shatner interpreting the Queen classic, from his new album of spacey cover songs Seeking Major Tom. Watch and wonder:
BTW there are various guest musicians throughout the album; this track features John Wetton of King Crimson and Asia.
Something you don't see very often: A religion attempts to tear down stereotypes and explain itself to the general public. Something else you don't see very often: A rock star talks about his religion. Check out this video in which Brandon Flowers of The Killers discusses the merits of growing up Mormon and avoiding the sex, drugs and rock ânâ roll lifestyle. No matter how you feel about organized religion, or this particular religion, out of all the outrageous things a rock star could do, standing up and talking about your faith actually seems pretty bold, doesn't it?
Maybe you didn't think you wanted to see Coldplay frontman Chris Martin riding a unicycle in an elephant costume. Fair enough. But that's what happens in the just-released video for the band's song "Paradise." Martin said the video "could be the biggest mistake we've ever made, but it's definitely the most elephant-y unicycle-type video I've ever seen."
Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Kristen Wiig, Sean Penn, Matt Damon, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen attempt to use their star power to brainstorm some ideas to save the world on behalf of the Clinton Global Initiative. Think there's no such thing as a bad idea when you're brainstorming? Think again:
It's actually a tease for an insurance company, but it's pretty cool. You type in your address and your last name (don't worry about privacy -- it's part of the story line.) The robot stomps through your neighborhood and eventually blows up your house. Or your ex's house, or your office, or your ex-office. (In the example above, I blew up the Canned Ham building, the home of The Mountain. Just for fun.)
You need a fairly robust computer for this to run smoothly, but it's pretty clever. Check it out here or click the image above to go to the site.
Oh boy. Check out this video from 1991 featuring Herman Cain, at the time the CEO of Godfather's Pizza, singing an ode to his pie, to the tune of John Lennon's "Imagine."
You have to admit, he doesn't have a bad voice . . .
Big night for Bill Clinton over the weekend as he celebrated 10 years of his foundation. A highlight: Lady Gaga serenaded Clinton with a personalized version of her hit "Bad Romance." (It was actually a little awkward, what with his wife and daughter sitting there too.)
If you're pressed for time, here's Gaga doing "Bill Romance:"
"How cool is it to be 65 and you get Lady Gaga, come on?" Clinton asked the crowd in a short speech in the middle of the show, which also included performances by Stevie Wonder, Bono and the Edge, and Usher.
You can check out the details of the evening here.
Or . . . what the hell. Here's a video of the entire evening. Settle in for a love-fest:
And here's the Bono/The Edge portion of the night:
You already know that R.E.M. is looking back on their 30-years as a band with a 40-song compilation called Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage: 1982-2011, which drops on Nov. 15. The collection includes three new songs: âA Month of Saturdaysâ ââHallelujah,â and this one -- âWe All Go Back To Where We Belong.â
It's a wistful and melodic finale to a long career, and it's probably the last-ever single release from the band. Enjoy:
Here's how an instructor and the receptionist at a skydiving school in San Diego kill time when things are a little slow: They started having sex on a plane, and finished having sex in the sky, as they drifted towards the ground.
Here's the coverage, sanitized for your protection:
Some guy in Hawaii named Jamie eats the hottest pepper on the planet -- the largest and spiciest part of the notorious Bhut Jolokia Chili Pepper, a.k.a. the Ghost Pepper . . . and it isn't pretty.
You request what's next using the last letter of the song we just played. We scramble like maniacs behind the scenes to find all the songs. And we're doing it all day long, from 6am to 6pm.
The studio phone numbers: 206-233-8984 or 800-676-1037 or text us: 62305.
There's another Republican debate tonight; this one's all about the economy. Can Rick Perry recover after a string of lackluster performances? Can Mitt Romney solidify his front-runner status? Okay, it doesn't sound that exciting, unless you look at it this way:
The Black Keys are teasing the release of their 6th album, El Camino, which is coming on December 6, with an entertaining little fake used car commercial. (If you're a Breaking Bad fan, you'll recognize Bob Odenkirk aka Saul Goodman as the sleazy car salesman:)
The band also has a website, WannaBuyaVan.com, which directs you to call (330) 510-1206 and talk to "Pat or Dan" (Patrick Carney or Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys) about the van they are trying to sell you. (Go ahead, call.)
The only flaw in the whole thing is that the vehicle in question, as any car guy can tell you, is definitely not an El Camino; it's an old Chrysler minivan. (Okay, John, don't be such a car geek.)
BTW, before the Black Keys put that album out, they're playing a pizza party for a Mountain Workforce listener. Here's the scoop.
I know, that sounds like a bad ointment commercial. I'm actually talking Dungeness crab.
I love crab, but I have to admit I'm a little self-conscious about my crab-cracking technique. Hey, I grew up in Detroit. We didn't do a lot of crabbing back there when we were kids; we were playing kick the can in the alley. If you're secretly hoping to polish your crab skills, here's you chance, courtesy of Taylor Shellfish in Seattle.
Using Taylor's exclusive custom crab cracking tool,
James Beard Award Winner and SAVEUR Contributing Editor,
Jon Rowley, will share his nifty techniques for cleaning and cracking Dungeness crab so meat segments come out intact and no mess! Participants will learn how to set up and enjoy a convivial Northwest crab feed including beverage pairing.
They're doing it every Monday in October; it's $20 a person and that includes half a crab, a bib, and a glass of vino. Get the details and the tickets here.
Waking up in the middle of the night to find yourself spooning with a warm, soft, furry four-legged friend can be very sweet. But dog behaviorists will tell you it's a bad idea because it makes the dog think he's one of us, not a subservient domesticated animal. Fair enough. I think I've already lost that battle with my dogs Zoe and Gizmo.
But there's also disease to consider. And when people start talking about bubonic plague, well -- that gets my attention.
What do you think? Join the conversation on our Facebook page, or on Twitter it's @1037themountain.
When Foster The People showed up on Saturday Night Live, we expected them to lead with their big hit "Pumped Up Kicks," and they did. But when they came back for their second song ("Houdini") look who joined them . . . smooth jazz icon, Seattle native, the sax player you love to hate -- Kenny G. And guess what? He didn't suck:
I'm a cyclist, so I'm bummed that I only just now learned about the Bicycle Film Festival. Apparently it happens in cities all over the world (of which Seattle isn't one!) and it's a whole festival of films featuring bicycles. (Duh.) They say it's " a platform to celebrate the bicycle through music, art and, of course, film," and that it's "a major catalyst for the urban bike movement, one of the most powerful and culturally relevant forces of the last decade." That sounds cool to me.
Here's a trailer for the festival, and if you want to see/learn more, go here.
The Schilter Family Farm in Olympia has a Sounders-themed corn maze covering five acres. As you can see, the very intricate design features a tribute to Olympia native/Sounders star Kasey Keller. Fun, right? And, it really is a maze. And mazes are fun, right?
Hours, directions,etc. for Schilter Family Farm here.
Mat Kearney did a live studio session for the music website Daytrotter the other day, and his gift to you is four live songs, available for streaming or for downloading:
"Here We Go", "City of Black & White", "Rochester", and "Hey Mama."
Seattle is beginning the long process of letting go . . . saying goodbye to that long gray monstrosity we call the viaduct. And now, from the Washington State Department of Transportation, a chance for you and 24 of your friends to commemorate the beginning of the end with . . . well, with something fun on the actual viaduct.
How would you spend 30 minutes on the viaduct? WSDOT is sponsoring a contest where one lucky person and 24 of their friends will win access to the viaductâs downtown section for 30 minutes on Oct. 22. To enter, answer the question "What would I do with 30 minutes on the Alaskan Way Viaduct?" in 100 words or less and send it to viaduct@wsdot.wa.gov by Sunday, Oct. 16. If your idea is selected, you will be escorted to a private section of the viaduct to follow through with your proposal.
My idea was to take my two dogs, Zoe and Gizmo, plus my new son Dawson in his stroller (and his mother) and just let the dogs run wild up there for half an hour. But then I read the fine print: no pets.
Fine, I thought -- we'll get a bunch of friends together, bring along some champagne and hors d'ouevres, and raise a glass to the future of the Seattle waterfront. Oh, wait -- no alcohol, either. Gee, WSDOT, you're not making this easy. The rules:
Rules and restrictions
No more than 25 people allowed on the viaduct as part of the winning party.
The winner is limited to 30 minutes only.
The winning submission is selected at the discretion of WSDOT.
WSDOT has shared rights to any media product.
Safety will be a priority consideration for the feasibility of all contest entries.
No alcohol, flammables, explosives, or pets allowed.
Any activity taking place will be an appropriate distance from the railings.
Winning participants should be prepared for October weather.
Do not harm the viaduct structure.
Still, you could probably have some fun up there. Think you might want to enter? Click here.
R.E.M. is calling it quits after 31 years, so . . . time for a retrospective. On November 15th, R.E.M. will release their 40-song career retrospective Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage .
Because they're R.E.M., they have to break new ground even as they break up. The cover of the album is being billed as first-ever GIF album cover -- it's animated. You can see it in action here. Also because they're R.E.M. they found it necessary to put out a high-energy trailer for the compilation. Here you go:
In addition to classics like âRadio Free Europeâ, âOrange Crushâ, Man On The Moonâ, and âEverybody Hurtsâ, the compilation will also include three new songs (âA Month of Saturdays, âWe All Go Back To Where We Belongâ, and âHallelujahâ), which were recorded with producer Jacknife Lee following the release of their most recent LP, Collapse Into Now. âWe All Go Back To Where We Belongâ will serve as the lead single and will hit both the radio and record shelves on October 18th.
The compilation will also include liner notes written by R.E.Mâs four founding members, Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Bill Berry. Said Mills in an issued statement: âWorking through our music and memories from over three decades was a hell of a journeyâ¦We realized that these songs seemed to draw a natural line under the last 31 years of our working together.â
Soccer star and Richland, Washington native Hope Solo steps up her game to nude action figure on one of four covers of ESPN The Magazineâs third annual The Body Issue that appears on newsstands Friday.
The other cover stars are Olympic snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler, Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin and New York Mets shortstop Jose Reyes.
And then inside the magazine, there are 18 other athletes, naked.
The women are Olympic gymnast Alicia Sacramone; Sylvia Fowles of the WNBA's Chicago Sky; LPGA rookie Belen Mozo; track and field star Natasha Hastings; hockey player Julie Chu; tennis player Vera Zvonareva; surfer Steph Gilmore; roller derby skater Suzy Hotrod and bowler Kelly Kulick.
The other men are: Seattle's beloved Olympic speedskater Apolo Ohno;Steven Jackson of the NFL's St. Louis Rams; hockey player Ryan Kesler of the NHL's Vancouver Canucks; UFC fighter Jon Jones; IndyCar racer Helio Castroneves; snowboarder Louie Vito; boxer Sergio Martinez; marathoner Ryan Hall and Paralympian Jeremy Campbell.
Don't worry -- it's all very tasteful. It's not even NSFW. The magazine comes out on Friday, but you can check out the gallery today, here.
Since yesterday afternoon, the TV networks have been running the part of this 2005 commencement speech at Stanford where he talks about death. Scroll ahead to 9:00 if you just want to watch that. But everything Steve Jobs says in the speech about work, love, loss, passion . . . and death, is quite profound:
"Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become."
""If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on."
"When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma -- which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice."
"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure -- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."
Remember Sean Young? She had a pretty respectable movie career in the 1980s -- Dune, No Way Out, Stripes, Wall Street, Blade Runner . . . .
Well things have been a little slow for her recently. David Letterman caught up with her last night, and even though she seems to have a decent attitude, things don't exactly seem to be going her way:
I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing Martin Scorsese's epic music documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World, which debuts tonight (Wednesday) on HBO. We're talking three-plus hours over two nights -- lots of new footage of George and the Beatles, plus interviews with George Martin, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Pattie Boyd, Astrid Kircherr, Yoko Ono and even Phil Spector, who was interviewed before being sent to the gray bar hotel. It also contains clips and photos taken by Harrison himself.
Everybody knows this classic R.E.M. tune, "Radio Free Europe,", right?
Well now that the band is calling it quits and they've apparently been cleaning out their lockers at R.E.M. headquarters, some early demo tapes have surfaced.
Check out an early mix of the song here. It shows that even the most accomplished bands were new and young and unpolished at one time.
And if you're hungry for more, go here to check out the very rare "Cassette Set" demo tapes. It's an actual download, for hardcore R.E.M. fans only -- but fascinating to listen to.
What else is buried in R.E.M.'s 30 years of demos and swag? A Michael Stipe bobblehead? Bill Berry's bongos?
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This is probably for hard-core Floyd fans only, but it's a really great timeline of the band's career and music over the last 30 years. It was put together as kind of a promo for the box set that contains newly remastered versions of all 14 original Floyd studio albums. Things get a little Spinal Tap-esque at times, but if you have any interest in the band, where they came from, and how they evolved, take 17 minutes and check this out. Hey, it's shorter than "Echoes" from the Meddle album, or just a few seconds longer than "Dogs" from the Animals album . . .
Finally! Behold the cover of our next CD, Live From The Mountain Music Lounge, Volume 17.
We got a ton of great submissions for the cover art from the Mountain tribe, but Erica Peto's cover seemed to capture the perfect Carter Subaru Mountain Music Lounge vibe. You can buy the CD starting November 8th at participating REI stores, and you know us -- we're not putting out a CD without a party to celebrate its release.
So join us at the EMP's SkyChurch Tuesday, November 8th for our annual CD Listening Party. You'll hang with Shawn, Marty, and me, we'll mix and mingle, Shawn will wear some kind of fetching frock, you'll get your own copy of the brand new CD, and we'll enjoy a live set from Mountain fave Shawn Mullins, who's on the new disc.
All the details and the link to buy the tickets are here.
And -- bonus! -- you can win tickets to the release party and your own copy of the CD when you join me at 9am, Shawn at noon, and Marty at 3pm during the Mountain Workforce.
Let's face it -- fall can be a little depressing around here. It's nice to have something to look forward to.
You know Caffe Ladro, right? The indie coffee shop in Downtown Seattle, West Seattle, Capitol Hill, Fremont, Bothell, Edmonds, Kirkland, Lynnwood, etc . . . .
You may remember that the logo on their cup is a tall man, but during October, he's going to be a short man, in honor of National Dwarfism Awareness Month.
Sting celebrated his 60th birthday over the weekend at a star-studded bash at NYC's Beacon Theater. Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Lady Gaga, Will.I.Am, Mary J. Blige and lots of Sting's other pals joined the fun. Rolling Stone says:
Toward the end of Sting's 60th birthday bash at New York's Beacon Theater last night, Bruce Springsteen took a moment from his set to joke about his friend. "I've known Sting for about 25 years," Springsteen said. "But our friendship is a little unusual, because every time I read about Sting in a magazine, I don't recognize him. I've read, 'Sting can make love for 29 hours.' I wonder why he never mentioned that to me. After four hours now, you're supposed to seek medical attention ⦠Anyway, stay hard brother, stay hard."
Here's a low-fi video of Bruce joining Sting for a Police classic:
So . . . you remember last January, when the Decemberists put out their album The King Is Dead? Some of their best work, a band at the top of its game, an impressive live show, yada yada yada? Within a month the album was Number One on the BIllboard Top 200 Albums chart -- a first for the band.
Well they're going to follow that record up with an EP called Long Live The King. This one will contain just six tracks -- acoustic-ish stuff that they recorded during the King Is Dead sessions, including a cover of an old Grateful Dead song, "Row Jimmy," which was on the Dead's early 70s album Wake Of The Flood.
The Dead's live version of the track could easily run 9 or 10 minutes or longer; here's a live version that the Decemberists did back in January in a record store in Portland, Maine, where they managed to keep it under 7 minutes:
Look for the Long Live The King EP to be officially released on November 1.
Wrapping up Pink Floyd Week on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, our hometown boys tackled a haunting song from The Wall on Friday night. Check out Pearl Jam doing "Mother:"
Last week, there was a big buzz about a new scratch 'n' sniff children's book called New York, Phew York.
The author, Amber Jones, told The Guardian:
âI work in Times Square and one day while I was walking to the train I got a delicious whiff of pizza. As I was looking in the window at the pizza, deciding if I should buy a slice, I didnât realize I was stepping in horse manure. I went to the corner to make sure I didnât get any on my shoe and was engulfed by shish kebab smoke from a food cart. Itâs then I thought âthere should be a scratch-and-sniff guide of New York.â Viola! The idea was born.â
Amber said if this book sells, she'd consider branching out with books about other cities. So here's my question: What smells would you put in a scratch 'n' sniff book about Seattle?
Saltwater and car exhaust on the ferry dock? Coffee? Salmon? The smell of damp leaves decaying in the rain? Beer and bratwurst fumes emanating from a Husky Stadium tailgate party? Give me your ideas on our Facebook page or tweet us @1037TheMountain
UPDATE!
Here are the responses I got from the Mountain Tribe. Breathe deep:
Dried seawood on the beach.
Saltwater & coffee
Rain
The aroma of Tacoma paper pulp
The smell of leaking natural gas
Low tide
Open air sewer ponds â yay!
Coffe, pine needles, tide flats
The Arboretum, on a humid night, smells of trees and herbs.
Coffee, salmon, fir fire smoke, wet wool, salt water beach mixture, forest after a rain and downtown street â mixture of exhaust, garbage & people
Wet dog? used book store? damp pine trees?
Coffee, salmon, saltwater, and that smell that happens right before summer rain
The gum wall in Post Alley
The smell of evergreen and wet organic material breaking down after a heavy rain on a mild spring day
Elliot bay when the tide is out!
Fish and "other" pike market smells
Fran's chocolates or maybe bubble gum from gum wall in Post Alley.
I've been here for five years, from San Diego. The smell of Seattle is pleasantly clean. However, I live near Marysville...and oh my gawd, if you've ever been there in the summer...its pretty embarrassing when you have visitors.
The smell of Pike St Market! Fish, Tea, doughnuts, lavendar, fresh fruits and veggies!!!!
Salt water, fresh water, rain, Ivarsâ on the waterfront, evergreen trees. Dick's burgers, Ezell's, magnolias, cherry blossoms, sweaty bikers, fir trees, coffee, salt water, the Theo chocolate factory, rain, chicken coops, wet dogs.
Garden show flowers in february!
and perhaps the ultimate Seattle smell:
The smell of wet wool socks, in sandals!
Pink Floyd Week continues on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and tonight the week caps off with Pearl Jam doing "Mother," a song from The Wall.
I thought last night's Floyd cover was pretty cool -- the title track from Wish You Were Here got a little bit of a twang thanks to country superstar Dierks Bentley. (He's a country superstar, right? That's not my strongest musical genre.)
Personally, I like it when a cover version gives a song a whole new vibe, or interprets it in a completely different way from the original, which I think is what happens here. And yet all the loneliness and alienation of the original are intact.
You'd think she would have released this by now, but but the song only recently became an official single, so here you go: the official video for Adele's "Someone Like You." It's all stark, moody, black and white, featuring Adele strolling the streets of Paris under somber gray skies -- a perfect evocation of the bittersweet vibe of the song.
"Words are very unnecessary; They can only do harm." The lyrics of Depeche Mode -- but who'd have thought they'd be interpreted by British singing sensation Susan Boyle? Her new album, Someone To Watch Over Me, is coming out in November, but you can have a sneak listen to Susan doing DM here.
Be honest -- if you didn't know who it was, wouldn't you think it was a pretty good cover? Maybe kind of Tori Amos-ish? Maybe?
The ACLU, working for you . . . . . They uncovered a secret document that reveals "the data retention policies of Americaâs largest telecoms" -- in other words, how long your cell provider keep your private information. The full story is here, in Wired
Here's a taste:
Verizon, for example, keeps a list of everyone youâve exchanged text messages with for the past year, according to the document. But T-Mobile stores the same data up to five years. Itâs 18 months for Sprint, and seven years for AT&T.
That makes Verizon appear to have the most privacy-friendly policy. Except that Verizon is alone in retaining the actual contents of text messages. It allegedly stores the messages for five days, while T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint donât store them at all.
And here's a whole bunch of pie charts to illustrate the whole thing:
The bottom line: If you're going to be doing some Weiner-ish texting, choose your carrier carefully, because deleting may not be enough!
I'm just going to warn you going in that this isn't going to make a whole lot of sense. It's like a bad poetry slam featuring a presidential candidate.
But see what you think of . . . . Bad Lip Reading, starring Rick Perry:
And just in case you think I'm being all lefty and smug here, these lip reader guys have Obama covered too. As he likes to say, "We're creepin' between the bullfrogs:"
(At the end of each video, you'll find links to more Bad Lip Reading videos.)
Everybody's whining about the changes coming to Facebook, the main change being the Timeline, which is basically a scrapbook of your entire life, from right now all the way back to the day you were born.
It's been a long journey for INXS since the death of their lead singer Michael Hutchence in 1997. That's a tough one to recover from. The changing-lead-vocalists thing doesn't usually work out very well for bands. AC/DC probably did it the most successfully. Van Halen tried and succeeded, for a while. And let's not even talk about the "New Cars" with Todd Rundgren as the frontman. Fail.
In 2000 the band came back with some Aussie guy named Jon Stevens handling lead vocals. That lasted less than 3 years. Then came the TV show Rock Star: INXS and the arrival of Canadian singer J.D. Fortune. He had a decent run with the band until 2009 when they fired him with a handshake in the Hong Kong airport, due in part to his alleged drug use. They patched things up, did an assortment of shows with J.D. throughout 2010 and early 2011, but now it's official -- J.D. Fortune and INXS have parted ways once again, and Northern Irish singer-songwriter Ciaran Gribbin is the band's new frontman for their forthcoming tour of Australia, South America and Europe in November & December.
Here's how it happened, according to a story in Billboard:
Ciaran met INXS' Andrew Farriss two years ago at a mutual friend's party in Sydney, Australia. He wound up "sitting on a balcony, singing 'Mystify' with the guy who wrote it... pretty surreal."
Now he's done that one better; Gribbin is the new frontman for INXS.
The Irish native is currently in Australia working on new material with Farriss -- including a track called "Tiny Summer," which is streaming in demo form at INXS.com.
You can listen to that here. I think he sounds kind of like Morrissey from The Smiths, at least on that first track. I kind of think they're smart to find a guy who doesn't necessarily sound like Michael Hutchence, who can maybe put a new spin on some of those classic songs from Kick and Welcome To Wherever You Are.
Billboard says:
Gribbin hits the road with the group on Nov. 3 for a six-show run through South America, Europe and Australia, and INXS hopes to be in the studio shortly after that to work on a new album.
"Without a doubt I was a fan" of INXS, the 35-year-old Gribbin tells Billboard.com. "I remember 'Kick' like it was yesterday. I remember seeing the guys on MTV and then on Jools Holland's BBC show...watching as a kid, just blown away by them. INXS definitely played a huge part in my musical education as a songwriter and something I aspired to, so to be in the band now is pretty amazing."
Farriss adds that after getting INXS' last singer, J.D. Fortune, through the 2005 TV show "Rock Star: INXS," Gribbin's arrival was "very organic. It wasn't high-pressure or anything. I just enjoyed the guy's company and really enjoyed his voice and listening to his songs, his music. Later on I realized the collaboration, artistically and especially songwriting, could be something that would be really, really good for (INXS). So far that's been true."
Gribbin does have some experience under his belt -- he's been in a band called Leya and a solo artist under the name Joe Echo. Here he is in action:
It's hard to get fans to accept a completely different singer. But when you look at the incredible catalog of songs INXS has under their belts, you kind of want to see it work just so you can go hear all those hits live sometime. What do you think? Can they bring back the magic? Feel free to weigh in on our Facebook page or on Twitter it's @1037TheMountain.
Whoa. Here's what happened on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night when Pink Floyd founding member Roger Waters joined the Foo Fighters to do "In The Flesh" from the legendary Floyd album The Wall.
I hate to be one of those new parents who foists their kids on everybody, so feel free to ignore this page . . . BUT: Look at that kid!
I must have said something hilarious to make him smile like that. But we do have our serious moments, as well.
He's a little champ who's already been out in the world for numerous rides in his stroller, dinner at a restaurant where he sat quietly at a table outdoors (okay, UNDER a table in his car seat) on one of the last warm nights about a week ago, some shopping at U Village, a trip to the dog food store . . . . he's up for anything. And yet, he loves his quiet time, too.
Okay, enough of Dawson Lane Fisher for now. I just had to share. I don't want you to think fatherhood is making me all soft . . . .
Some geeks with some high-tech gear have figured out a way to grab very slow motion video of water balloons hitting people's faces. I know; it sounds too simple and stupid to even be worth your time. But isn't that what you say about pretty much every YouTube video that makes the rounds? And then you watch them and forward them to your friends.
Read a little about these guys and see more videos here
Maybe this will take conservative viewers' minds off of Chaz Bono . . . .
TV judge/CNN "journalist"/Dancing With The Stars contestant Nancy Grace had a little wardrobe malfunction after a zesty dance performance on the show last night. Let's face it -- it's a lot to ask of a dress to contain all of Nancy Grace when she's cha-cha-cha-ing across the dance floor, and last night her dress wasn't quite up to the task. Nice comeback by the host, Tom Bergeron: âOn the European version that would be perfectly fine."
And what's with the shots of the audience sitting there in stunned silence? Are we supposed to believe they were that shocked and offended by her floppy top? I don't buy it.
It's Pink Floyd Week on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Last night James Mercer and The Shins dialed down the energy and cranked up the psychedelia for this haunting interpretation of "Breathe" from Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album.
Tonight on Fallon, the Foo Fighters take on "In The Flesh" from The Wall, joined by Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters. Set the controls for the heart of the sun . . . or just set your DVR.
Finally! Sweet justice for one of the Northwest's most beloved bands. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame just revealed their 2012 nominees, and Heart is on the list.
You know the drill . . . to qualify, the act must have released its first single or album 25 years ago. More than 500 voters will decide who land a place in the Cleveland exhibit. (They usually narrow the list down to five or six inductees.) They'll be inducted on April 14.
The list:
· Beastie Boys
· The Cure
· Donovan
· Eric B. & Rakim
· Guns 'N Roses
· Heart
· Joan Jett and The Blackhearts
· Freddie King
· Laura Nyro
· Red Hot Chili Peppers
· Rufus with Chaka Khan
· The Small Faces/The Faces
· The Spinners
· Donna Summer
· War
The Foo Fighters will help celebrate Pink Floyd Week tonight when they perform "In The Flesh" from The Wall on Late night With Jimmy Fallon -- and Floyd co-founder Roger Waters will join them.
Meanwhile . . . .
Here's a video you may have seen . . . . I like it because it shows how cool the Foo Fighters are and how idiotic the members of the Westboro Baptist Church are -- you know, those evil hate-mongers who picket at the funerals of US Iraq War veterans for some twisted reason than only makes sense to members of this "church?"
The church members were picketing a Foo Fighters show in Kansas City (why? who knows?) and instead of confronting the demonstrators, the Foos put on a little live show for the folks.
The protesters seemed to enjoy the down-home sounds of the band, but if they'd been smart enough to actually listen to the words, they might have been a little less appreciative. In case you're having a hard time deciphering the lyrics, here they are:
Keep It clean, my mama said keep It clean x2
Driving all night, got a hankering for something
Think I'm In the mood for some hot-man muffins
Mmmm, Sounds so fine, yes indeed
Keep It Clean, my Daddy said keep it clean x2
Ain't looking for a fight, ain't looking for trouble
Howdy Mr. Right have you met Mister Bubble
Hey, put 'er there, ain't she sweet.
Rubbin' and a lovin' and a scrubbin' and a truckin'
Maybe if we're lucky just a little bear huggin'
Know what I mean, Keep it clean
(Solo)
Rubbin' and a lovin' and a scrubbin' and a truckin'
Maybe if we're lucky just a little bear huggin'
Know what I mean, Keep it clean
Rubbin' and a lovin' and a scrubbin' and a truckin'
Maybe if we're lucky just a little bear huggin'
Know what I mean, Keep it clean
The cool thing about that clip is that Grohl obviously knows how to read a crowd. He got his point across in Kansas City with humor . . . . but maybe you remember earlier this summer at a show in London when he was a little harsher to a d-bag in the crowd who he spotted instigating a fight (THIS ONE'S NSFW:)
I think marriage to Zooey Deschanel is making Death Cab For Cutie front man Ben Gibbard extra sentimental these days. Here's what Ben told Spinner about the very sweet new video for Death Cab's song "Say Young, Go Dancing."
"I liked the idea of moving backwards. In the beginning you see this couple who are in their 70s, and throughout the video they move through these corridors and become younger and younger and I think it's a rather touching way to show these two people.
"With all of these songs that I write, I want them to have as much universal appeal as possible and certainly don't feel like I want to undermine the complexity of the lyrics at times and make that happen."
Well this is pretty intense, but I thought you might enjoy hearing what Lou Reed and Metallica sound like when they create music together. I think you'll agree: It sounds like Lou Reed's legendary raw and time-worn voice backed by the patented thunderous power of Metallica. Big surprise!
As you might have read here a month or two ago when I revealed the cover art, the Lou Reed/Metallica album's called Lulu -- it's coming out on November 1. When I head that the first song from the record would be called "The View," I thought, "What? Is there a new theme song for the popular daytime ladies TV gabfest?" Um, no. This song would give Elisabeth Hasselbeck an aneurysm. It's definitely not for the faint-hearted.
Maybe I'm just getting sentimental now that I'm a father, but I think this is kind of sweet.
On the heels of R.E.M.'s announcement that they're calling it quits as a band, Coldplay -- during a concert in R.E.M.'s neck of the woods, in Atlanta, on Saturday night -- offered this tender version of one of the band's most emotionally potent songs:
That's my son Dawson Lane Fisher. He was born on Monday, September 12, at 10:59pm. He weighed 7 pounds, 9 ounces when he was born, although I have a feeling he's grown a little already.
I won't even attempt to describe the whole experience; we're obviously not the first people to have a baby, so this may be old news to you. It was such a profound and beautiful thing to be a part of, all the more so because we had him naturally, at home, in our bedroom, in a birth tub.
Here we are together moments after he arrived:
I realize I look a little like Hef in that robe, but since I'd been behind Melinda in the tub for the last hour or two of labor, I was soaked, and I needed to quickly get out of my wet clothes after he got here. The easiest thing to put on was a robe.
And here he is with his mother the next day:
Now it's Saturday. He's five days old, and today he went for his first stroller adventure out in the real world. Here he is all bundled up, strapped in and ready to roll:
I'm going to take another week off so I can begin to figure out if it's possible to get enough sleep to actually come to work first thing in the morning. There's really no difference between day and night right now; we're just following the best advice we've heard about living with a newborn: SLEEP WHEN THE BABY SLEEPS!
Thanks for all the good wishes!
Talk to you on the morning of Monday, September 26.
It's not exactly Cuban Pete from The Mask, but it's definitely Jim Carrey singing Radiohead. I'm not sure how or why it happened, but last Friday he jumped up onstage at Arelene's Grocery, a music club on New York's Lower East Side, and here's what happened.
Among the many heartfelt 9/11 tributes over the weekend was this rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner" by Cyndi Lauper before the U.S. Open on Saturday night. Nice of Cyndi to give of herself and add some star power to the anthem. But . . . oops! She screwed up the lyrics. Don't you, like . . . practice before you do a gig like that?
I'm not sure who the amateur play-by-play guy is on this YouTube video of the incident, but he'll give you a heads-up when Cyndi's about to flub the words:
The teasing continues! Here's another new song from Coldplay's Mylo Xyloto, which will officially drop on October 24. This one's guaranteed to be the cellphone-up-in-the-air singalong anthem of the band's live shows.
Lots of 9/11 tributes and ceremonies and dedications over the weekend; the biggest, understandably, in New York at the site of the twin towers (now the National 9/11 Memorial) where President Obama, former President George W. Bush, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former NY Governor George Pataki, current NY Governor Andrew Cuomo, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former NYC Mayor Giuliani participated in the event. Lots of healing words, lots of platitudes.
But from what I could see, the most moving part of the whole thing was this subdued and incredibly powerful solo performance by Paul Simon of "The Sound Of Silence." Paul wrote the song in early 1964, just a few months after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which in the lives of many of us was the most shocking, senseless tragedy we would experience until September 11, 2001 (with maybe the exception of the death of John Lennon.)
Watching Paul Simon sing this nearly 50 years after he wrote it makes it clear how timeless and relevant the song remains. And it reminds me how songwriters, and their songs, can convey so much more that all the rhetoric of all the politicians. Left or right, cynical or honorable, the people we elect to run our cities and states and our country are rarely as articulate and honest as our best artists.
The morning of 9/11/01 was one of the most surreal days I've ever spent in my radio career. My partner Mike West and I saw the smoking gash in the first tower on TV shortly before 6am Seattle time, and while we were taking that in -- thinking it was just a bad accident on the part of a pilot who was way off course -- we both saw the second plane hit the other tower. And then, like everybody else, we knew were were dealing with something big and bad. The rest of the morning was a jumble of fragmented updates, confused reactions, and nervous glances out our 16th-story windows as we wondered if planes were headed for skyscrapers in every major city in America.
In the days following 9/11, it was tough for comedy. Nothing seemed funny for awhile there. It was certainly hard to do a radio show. I can only imagine the soul-searching that went on in the offices of the late-night talk show hosts. But thanks to the urging of New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, on September 17, 2001, David Letterman returned to the air with his first Late Show after the attacks.
My memory of watching that hour is as vivid as my memory of watching the attacks six days earlier. The New York Daily News called it "one of the purest, most honest and important moments in TV history" and a valuable service to the community.
In some ways it seems like a long, long time ago, and in other ways it seems like only yesterday. One byproduct of the 9/11 attacks in 2001 was a new genre of music -- the post-9/11 song. I think Bruce Springsteen gets credit for being the first major artist to address the events of 9/11 in a big way, on his 2002 album The Rising.
But lots of artists figured out ways to process their feelings via music: Ryan Adams, Gorillaz, Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris . . . . Check out these songs, and the stories behind them, inspired by the events of 9/11.
Here's a very cool montage of pretty much every major film that includes shots of the towers of the World Trade Center, going back to when they were still under construction in 1972-73. I guess at the time all these films came out, we took the towers for granted, but now when I see the them, I get a weird feeling knowing their ultimate fate. I think in the months after 9/11, there were even a few directors who actually went back and digitally removed the WTC from films they'd shot shortly before the attacks, so as not to upset moviegoers. That seems a little silly ten years later, but there's definitely an emotional resonance when you watch these clips:
If you ask me, the most powerful film starring the twin towers is Man On Wire, the 2008 documentary about the French guy who illegally walked a tightrope between the two buildings in 1974. It's flat-out one of the best movies I've seen in the last few years.
Like no other footage from 9/11, the movie gives you a vivid picture of the incredibly huge scale of the buildings. I kept thinking as I watched the film that the tightrope walker and his support team planned their caper every bit as meticulously as the terrorists planned their attack. I'm not sure if that was the point of the film at all, but it's just what occurs to me when I watch it. And then, on the most basic level, the images are all the more intense because of the eventual demise of those buildings. Here's the trailer:
I'm going to be a father, probably -- hopefully -- sometime in the next few days. The kid's due date is actually today -- September 9. We're going to be very natural and relaxed about labor; he'll get here when he gets here. But just to make sure things keep moving forward, I asked Mountain listeners to text me some tips for encouraging labor when the due date has arrived.
Here's what I got:
*Sex
*Fresh pineapple
*Black licorice
*Long walks
*Blue cohosh tea
*Massage the Achilles tendon at the back of the foot
*Acupuncture
*No suggestions but be careful of the black licorice. Too much & it will raise her BP to a unhealthy level. Good luck & congrats!
*U know how the baby got in there well yeah do that again a few times have fun
*What got you into this 'situation' will get you out of it. ;-) Worked with both my kids.
*Not to sound like a perv but our doctor suggested the same thing that got you in this situation to begin with. A little afternoon delight;)Good luck!
*Voula's chili omelette has been known to induce labor.
*Golfing. Really. Worked for my wife
*Sit on the washing machine on spin cycle. towels off balance are best!
*Squats
*Have a beer â my midwife suggested it and it works!
*Get her in the HOT TUB. That will relax her and she will go in labor.
*Eggplant! Parmesan or babaganoush
*fill up on spaghetti.
*Bumpy ride railrroad tracks
*Badminton worked really well
*Castor oil. 3 Tblsp. Works like a charm. I took it for my second child. Had a quick and easy delivery. Even my doctor told me it works
*Cayenne pepper! I went into labor w/both of my kids after fixing recipes that called for cayenne pepper. First time was a surprise, second time was by design:)
*Have hot sauce and hot sex to get labor going!
*It's Rootbeer floats for sure. CONGRATULATIONS! Yours, Maggie Mae
*Now this is risky for u but kiss her in all the right places for a lengthy session :-)
*Papaya induces labor
*Balsamic Vinegar
*Chinese food
*Garlic. 24 hrs later: a baby!
Thanks for all the great suggestions . . . I'll let you know how it goes.
On both nights of their two-night stand at the Paramount, Fleet Foxes did a brand new song. Or rather, front man Robin Pecknold did the song, all by himself. It's called "I Let You," and it's super sad, but quite beautiful. See what you think:
Last night Pearl Jam joined Jimmy Fallon for the first of two nights. (They're on again tonight.) They rocked a brand new song called "Ole." You can download it free here, and here's PJ blowing the roof of the joint with the new song on Fallon last night:
The new Wilco album is coming out on September 27. It's called The Whole Love.
Yesterday I put up a quite entertaining video of Jeff Tweedy from Wilco covering the Black Eyed Peas. (It's here.)
Now comes an actual music video for an actual song from the new album, and I gotta say . . . love the song, LOVE the video. It's just a non-stop barrage of images from arcade games to vintage studio equipment to . . . . well, I'm going to have to watch it a few more times to figure out what else is in there, and what it really means. But I like it.
See what you think:
As always, I'm glad to get your opinion on our Facebook page.
There are a lot of problems in the world right now, but this makes me feel pretty great: Ben & Jerry's is introducing Schweddy Balls Ice Cream.
Inspired by a SNL sketch with Alec Baldwin in which a cookie-maker named Pete Schweddy shares his tasty homemade balls with two public radio hosts, Ben & Jerry's describes the new flavor:
Available in both pints and Scoop Shops, this flavor is Fair Trade vanilla ice cream with a hint of rum and is loaded with fudge covered rum and milk chocolate malt balls.
Two kinds of balls, in other words.
Ask for it by name!
BTW, Alec Baldwin returns to host Saturday Night Live for a record 16th appearance on September 24.
From the Sky Down, the documentary on U2's 1991 album Achtung Baby, will open the Toronto International Film Festival tomorrow. On Friday, Bono and The Edge will sit with director Davis Guggenheim to discuss the film, and they're looking for questions. If you have one, post it on Twitter before 9am Seattle time on Friday using #THESKYDOWN. Then check out the live chat at U2.com Friday at 10:30am Seattle time.
The 20th anniversary reissue of Achtung Baby will be out on November 1st in five different configurations -- on CD, DVD and vinyl, and in digital options.
Among the extras are the documentary, unreleased songs, demos, remixes, B-sides and videos as well as variouis U2 swag. All the details about your options are here.
I'm always talking about how I love Wilco, but sometimes they test my patience -- too precious, too obscure, possibly a little humorless. Well forget all of that and watch Wilco front man Jeff Tweedy as he interprets the words and music of The Black Eyed Peas at some kind of book release party in Chicago. This is a classic:
BTW, the new Wilco album, The Whole Love, is coming on September 27.
And you'd better take her seriously, because she said it in a British accent.
During a press conference at the Venice Film Festival, a guy came up to Madonna and handed her a bouquet of purple-blue flowers. Madonna took the bouquet, smiled, and said "thank you." Then she turned to the person sitting next to her, rolled her eyes and made a sour face while tossing the flowers under her chair, saying to her companion, "I absolutely loathe hydrangeas. He [the fan] obviously doesn't know that."
Gee, I didn't know that either. Did you know that? Do you know the floral preferences of any of your favorite musicians, actors, politicians, or coworkers? And that British accent -- come on, Madonna, you're from Michigan. So am I. Granted, you've spent a lot of time in the U.K. But you're still from Michigan. How come you sound like Judi Dench?
Less than a week until the Bike MS Ride. Am I ready? Good question. I mean YES! Of course I'm ready. Maybe not as ready as these guys:
. . . but I've definitely been doing some riding, in between counting contractions and waiting for our son to arrive. (He's not here yet.) Over the weekend, I did a ride I'd never done before, in all my years of cycling in the Northwest -- the Mercer Island Loop.
From my house near the Arboretum in Seattle, I head south and cross the I-90 bridge. Great views, the wide-open expanse of Lake Washington, and the fumes of a thousand cars zooming by on the freeway. Exciting!
And then you're on The Rock. I guess it's no surprise that this is a lovely ride -- gentle hills, lots of water views as you ride past the entrances to some BIG houses. I kept expecting to see Paul Allen cruising along the shore in, oh, I don't know, maybe a hovercraft? But no luck.
Down West Mercer Way, around the bottom of the island, then back up East Mercer Way, and look -- a historical monument! (Well, a plaque on a rock, anyway.)
Finally, back across the bridge and up along the lake toward Madison Park, with a quick stop in Leschi:
That was about a 25-mile ride, which is good prep for Bike MS this Saturday and Sunday.. You can do a full 2-day ride through Whatcom, Island and Skagit Counties. Or, there are four route options on Day 1 and two on Day 2, which you can pick depending on your fitness level and how much time you can spend on the ride. But trust me, there's a ride for your cycling level. All routes are figure-8 loops that start and finish at Rider Village at the Skagit County Fairgrounds in Mount Vernon. That's some beautiful country up there, too -- it's a scenic ride.
The new Feist album Metals is coming on October 4, and then she begins a tour that brings her to Seattle's Moore Theater on November 17.
Over Labor Day weekend, Feist debuted a bunch of her new stuff at a secret show in Los Angeles. Here's a fan video of the lead track off the new CD, "How Come You Never Go There:"
Videos of four more new songs, the complete Metals track list, and the entire tour itinerary are here
There's a great recap of the Labor day weekend PJ20 festival in Wisconsin at Consequence Of Sound. Here's a taste:
âSo, welcome to Pearl Jam 20, Queens of the Stone Age 14, The Strokes 12, Liam Finn 14, Mudhoney 23, and John Doe 34,â a breathless, sweat-soaked Eddie Vedder regaled late Saturday night. Under a thick mop of hair, the acclaimed Pearl Jam frontman smiled humbly, staring at his thousands of die-hard fans, as he clenched his bottle of wine in celebration. From floating atop a surfboard in the Pacific Ocean to rolling through 30+ songs at Alpine Valley in East Troy, WI, Vedder has lived an envious dream â one that heâs not even sure is real. âItâs hard to imagine. Itâs really against the odds.â
But it wasnât just one big fanapalooza. This was a festival, after all. Each dayâs activities began with promising sets by newcomers like Star Anna and The Young Evils and continued on with familiar faces Glen Hansard, Liam Finn, and Dhani Harrisonâs thenewno2. These performances took place nearby on two alternate stages. They didnât offer up anything unusual, or attract too much activity, though on Saturday, as gray skies and relentless rain made everything rather grungy (how fitting, right?), Hansard strummed out a fitting rendition of Hal David and Burt Bacharachâs âRaindrops Keep Fallinâ on My Headâ. Many poncho-wearing spectators joined along for that one.
"He's locked in an 8-track world, and he's got a one-track mind."
I have no idea what VMWare is, or why it's bad, or what Microsoft's actually selling here, but I like this groovy parody of a 70s dude with a Fu Manchu mustache in a skanky van.
I love the Northwest, but I have to be honest -- I think there are a lot of bad drivers here. (And of course, I'm not one of them. Isn't that the way we all look at it?)
Apparently Allstate crunches the numbers every year and puts together a list of the cities with the worst drivers, and . . . it doesn't look good, people.
If #1 is the city with the best drivers (that would be Ft. Collins, Colorado) and #193 has the worst drivers (that would be Washington, D.C.,) where do we rank?
Way, way down the list. Seattle ranks #147. If it's any consolation, Bellevue does a little better at #145, and Tacoma ranks #141. That's better than L.A. (#182) and San Francisco (#185,) but not as good as Portland (#128) or Boise (#2? WTF?) Seattle actually dropped from #128 last year. So not only are we bad, we're getting worse!
Maybe it has to do with our affection for dawdling in the left lane, which we do a lot around here, even though it's illegal, as I've already pointed out here. Or maybe we're too polite at 4-way stop signs -- "You go." "No, YOU go!" -- which slows things down. Whatever. How about if we all try really hard to do better next year -- agreed?
Freaky, right? Is that title written in blood? I wonder if it's real blood. I kind of think it is. And if so, whose is it? Maybe we'll get answers to those questions and more if we keep checking back at this Lulu website.
The album drops on November 1. I have no idea what it's going to sound like, but this artwork makes me want to hear it. And it makes me a little afraid of hearing it.
Here's a shocker: Almost half the drivers in Washington State don't realize that it's illegal to impede traffic in the left lane. Have you ever seen someone plodding along at exactly the speed limit in the left lane of the freeway, while two lanes of faster-moving traffic whiz by to the right? I'm sure that driver in the left lane feels completely within his rights because "hey, I'm driving the speed limit -- all those people passing me on the right are breaking the law because they're speeding!"
Not true, because in Washington, the left lane is technically a passing lane. You're not supposed to stay in the left lane.
Here's a good article about it from the P-I. I've actually talked to Washington State Patrol troopers about this. They'll tell you that even though speeding is illegal, they'd rather have all the traffic moving at about the same speed -- even a litle above the limit -- rather than some self-righteous twit enforcing the speed limit by poking along in the left lane way slower than the general flow of traffic. (Okay, they didn't call anybody a "self-righteous twit:" those are my words.)
Here's a riveting video from the Washington State Patrol on the subject. Watch and learn:
Thanks for your cooperation.
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Just like a thousand other dads, Bruce Springsteen was in Boston yesterday to drop his son Evan off for the new semester at Boston College. Unlike a thousand other dads, The Boss borrowed a guitar from a busker in Boston Public Garden and started noodling a little bit.
Here's how it went:
I like the way a couple of people rush by as if it was SO important to get somewhere -- buzzing right by Bruce just sitting on a little wall, pickin'.
Skillet was one of the first Seattle food trucks to expand to an actual bricks-and-mortar location. It's been open on Capitol Hill for awhile now . . . so how is it?
Let's find out from Seattle Met's Kathryn Robinson. Here's our conversation:
By now you've probably seen the rundown on the cast for the new season of Dancing With The Stars: Nancy Grace, Carson Kressly (Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,) Rikki Lake, George Clooney's ex-girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis, Rob Kardashian, LA Laker Ron Artest, some other people who I forget . . . and Chaz Bono, the daughter of Cher, who was born Chastity Bono but realized she was a man trapped in a woman's body and has undergone gender reassignment surgery to correct that.
And that's the issue for a lot of DWTS viewers -- they're having a hard time wrapping their brains around the idea of Chaz Bono. I took a look at the DWTS message board and I was STUNNED by the hatred:
EEEWWWW! Will NOT watch this season of DWTS!!!!
Forget the fact that this recklessness has ruined DWTS, you have truly found a way to ruin America. This lifestyle is awful and you better stop being so plitically correct about it.
I can no longer watch this show with my children. Why must you shove this filth down our throat?
To be fair, lots of people came to the defense of Chaz, but jeez! So much hate! Okay, I lean a little to the left/liberal/tolerant side (maybe that's an understatement,) but I'm really having a hard time understanding how the inclusion of Chaz Bono hurts anybody, and it amazes me that people work God into their complaints, as if He has nothing better to do than judge the lifestyles of the contestants on a reality show. Sad!
You can check out the cast and see the viewer message board here.
If you're a little bit of a tech geek like I am, maybe you remember a year or two ago when Microsoft started showing off Surface -- kind of a giant iPad-slash-flat-screen TV, with legs, that seems made to order for tables in bars. Or in your rec room, if you have one.
Well apparently there are some techies over at the New York Times who have some ideas about how this technology might work to save newspapers and satisfy guys like me who like to geek out on cool technology.
Check out what they've done:
Can you buy one? Not quite yet, but later this year. How much? According to this, about $7600.
And if it's anything like my iPad, you're going to have a really hard time keeping that surface -- I mean Surface -- clean and free of fingerprints, not to mention crumbs, orange juice stains, spilled cereal milk and droplets of gravy. (But I guess you get those all over a real newspaper, too.)
Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs, emerging artists from Ellensburg by way of Seattle, have just released the official video for their song "Alone In This Together," the title song from their record, which features a guest appearance by Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready. (He's been a big supporter of the band -- almost a mentor, really.)
See what you think:
PS . . .Catch Star Anna in a free performance tonight (Thursday) at West Seattle's Hiawatha Park. Details here.
The guys behind JibJab started out making funny animated videos that mocked politicians. That evolved into a huge e-card business -- their online cards have been sent more than 800 million times. And now, they're bringing their JibJabiness to kids' books on the iPad.
Your child and family become the stars of the book, thanks to the ease of using the iPad 2's built-in camera.
A one-book-a-month subscription to the JibJab Jr. line will cost $3.99 a month and can be canceled at any time. Additional books cost $3.99 apiece. Buying books without a subscription costs $7.99 each.
Watch this video to see how it works:
Good idea? Cool use of technology? Or just another sign that civilization as we know it is crumbling?
Personally, I think it's cool, and in a few months when I'm reading to my kid, I'm going to try it. I'd love to get your opinion, though. Jump on our Facebook page to weigh in.
And here's one of the videos that made these guys famous, w-a-a-a-y back when George W. Bush and John Kerry were vying for the White House:
Brad Oberhofer was a 20-year-old kid making music in his parents' basement in Tacoma -- until the house burned down. (Not Brad's fault.) Brad moved to Brooklyn to finish his songs, rounded up a band so he could actually play his music live, released a bunch of stuff on indie labels (Inflated Records and White Iris,) and now he has a real record deal, with a full-length album coming next year. Oh yeah, and he's working on a symphony, too.
Oberhofer has put out one last single on the White Iris label, an epic gem called "Gotta Go." I'd describe it as Ramones meet Springsteen with a little Brian Wilson thrown in, too.
It's true! WSDOT is going to raise ferry fares, unless you drive a car that's less than 14 feet long. Then you save money.
Vehicle size category changes: The proposal creates a new size category for cars less than 14 feet, with the fare to eventually be 70 percent of the standard vehicle fare. This new fare category intends to encourage small car use to maximize ferry deck space. This change will be phased in over three years, starting with the fare set at 90 percent of the standard vehicle fare on October 1, 2011, and then set at 80 percent of the standard vehicle fare on May 1, 2012, and finally set at 70 percent of the standard vehicle fare in 2013. Also under the proposal, the standard vehicle size is redefined as 14-22 feet â currently, the maximum length for a standard vehicle is 20 feet.
I don't think too many of us are driving 20-foot-long vehicles, but on the other hand, we're not driving 14-foot cars, either. I did a little research, and here's what I found:
A Toyota Sienna minivan is 16 1/2 feet long
A Ford Explorer is 16 1/2 feet long
A Honda Accord is just over 16 feet
A Subaru Outback is 15 1/2 feet
A VW Jetta is just over 15 feet
A Mazda3 is 14 3/4 feet
A Toyota Prius is 14 1/2 feet
A Nissan Leaf is 14 1/2 feet
A Mini Cooper is 12 feet
So it doesn't look like too many of us right now are going to save money on the ferry because of the shortness of our cars. Too bad we can't save based on the shortness of our attention spans. That would be . . . . um, what was I talking about?
Well this doesn't really answer the question. But after Steve Carell's departure, I think some people may be predicting that this show has jumped the shark. I disagree. Watch this video and you're reminded of how the show is packed with great characters. That's what makes TV shows good -- the characters may be quirky, and in some ways may be stereotypes, but they're all believable in their own way. Anybody who's ever endured the drudgery of a job in a boring office can relate. This makes me look forward to the new season:
What do you think? Feel free to comment on our Facebook page.
Here's a relic of the 1980s, which I'm sure you remember in its original form on the soundtrack of Back To The Future by that relentlessly sunny crooner Huey Lewis. "The Power Of Love" gets a little more ragged interpretation in this version by Brooklyn indie rockers The Hold Steady. Props to the band for tackling a song that clearly doesn't have a lot of emotional resonance for them. Lead singer Craig Finn's vocals may sound a little sketchy at first, but give it a chance:
From Spin comes this breaking news about the Foo Fighters:
Dave Grohl and Co. may have revealed their most insane clip yet. Ever want to see the guys drop trou and lather each other up with soap in a rest stop shower? Today's your lucky day. They've created a short that is sure to grab attention and hopefully sell some tickets: The guys hang out in a truck stop sporting white trash wigs and trucker hats, before heading to the shower for some R-rated action. Guitarist Pat Smear looks horrified by what he discovers.
You remember Sinead O'Connor, right? "Nothing Compares To You" was her big hit in 1990? She tore up a photo of the pope on Saturday Night Live?
Well these days, Sinead is lonely. Very lonely. She's looking for male companionship, and she's not shy about it:
". . . Inanimate objects are starting to look good as are inappropriate and/or unavailable men and/or inappropriate and/or unavailable fruits and vegetables. I tell you yams are looking like the winners. Needless to say what I do for a living makes it hard for me to find men that only want me cuz they like my (legendary) arse. Yet I am in the peak of my sexual prime and way too lovely to be living like a nun. and it's VERY depressing."
SO what exactly is she looking for?
"I want to make lurve. Sweet and filthy LURVE. With sweet and filthy men. If u don't have both sweetness and filth don't apply. I want 'sweet lurve' with music on. Say it again Sinead .. Like u really mean it this time.. I WANT TO BE LURVED STUPID BY SWEET FILTHY MEN WITH MUSIC ON. Ok? We clear? Ahem... Good. Now I wanna know what music you'd lurve me with."
Her blog describes a few of the dudes who have responded to her so far:
"Question one.. "Are you an actual nice man as well as being a mindblowingly filthy freak? have asked he prove he would keep me safe by not revealing to any1 anything that may occur between us...
Have asked we meet in crowded places for few weeks til he's proved to me that he won't exploit me or hurt me by breaking the trust I would be placing with him if I was to play his delicious games...
So.. Oh my GOD!! Total hot sex and gorgeous BASTARD! So.. We'll have to see if he's 'a good egg'. Prayers will be appreciated... "
Okey dokey. BTW, if you're contemplating a hookup with Sinead, here's how she looks at the moment:
Follow the action on her blog or her Twitter feed @howryeh but be careful -- it's definitely NSFW.
Not Blackberrys (the smartphones) -- blackberries (the fruit.)
I was on a bike ride around the bottom part of Lake Washington yesterday (that's right -- training for the Bike MS Ride on September 10 and 11. It's not too late for you to join us. Click here for the details.) It was a hot, sunny day, and the trail was lined with blackberry bushes. But in many spots it's still early in the season. You'll see branches with a few dark purple fruits, but still a lot of red ones, and even quite a few that aren't anywhere near ripe yet. Like this:
So here's my question: Is it okay to pick the ones that ARE ripe, and probably a few that LOOK ripe but AREN'T ripe yet, or should you just wait another week or two when you're pretty sure almost all the dark ones you pick will indeed be ripe and ready to pick? Because it seems like people are pretty damn anxious to get their mitts on those berries, and if they pick a bunch that aren't ready in their search for the berries that are, they're really leaving fewer for the rest of us, right? Does it hurt the plant's future output of berries if too many are plucked before their time? Or are blackberry plants just so invasive and indestructible that it doesn't matter?
And how many should you help yourself to, anyway? I see families armed with several big buckets just hauling away blackberries by the gallon. Is that fair? Later in my ride yesterday, along Rainier Avenue north of Renton, I saw a woman selling the berries at a stand on the side of the road. Obviously she'd just picked them from bushes on public land -- but is THAT okay? The berries belong to all of us, but she grabs them and sells them for a profit?
Maybe a horticulturist and/or an etiquette expert need to offer an opinion on this. I'll admit I do love picking a few fresh berries and gobbling them up during a break on a ride:
But do we all have a right to just help ourselves to buckets of them? Especially before they're really all ripe? You tell me. I'd love your take on this pressing issue, so post a comment on our Facebook page if you have an opinion.
And think about joining me for that Bike MS Ride this year. It's great for all levels of riders, it's a fantastic cause, and it's coming in less than two weeks. Click here for the details.
I'm going to be a father any day now -- seriously! -- so I'm always on high alert for tools that will help me be a better parent. Think the kid would enjoy this book?
It's a heartwarming tale entitled Goodnight, Keith Moon. The late, legendary, hard-partying drummer for the Who is immortalized in this parody kids' book. Rhymes include "two broken sticks and a pile of sick" and "some whiskey and fish and some more in a dish."
(And listen, concerned parents of the Northwest, relax -- no need to call Child Protective Services. I'm not going to let my son read this one until he's at least 5 or 6.)
The toll from Hurricane Irene:
22 deaths, 5 million homes and businesses without power, 11,000 flights canceled, between 7 and 13 billion dollars in damage . . . and then there's your eyeballs if you saw this dude streaking across the screen during a live report on The Weather Channel. It's NSFW, but watch for the guy in the red bathing suit giving everybody a look at his warm front:
This is gross. A Washington, D.C. TV reporter was live on the beach in Ocean City, Maryland, slimed by what he seemed to think was "sea foam." The green stuff was actually the remnants of raw sewage -- a toxic mix of pollutants and bacteria. Ick.
And here's presidential candidate Michele Bachmann over the weekend in Florida, explaining what God is trying to tell us with natural disasters like Irene:
The San Diego surf-rock-indie band Wavves has a new EP on the way called Life Sux, arriving officially on September 20 but of course the leakage is underway, with this wistfully-titled track called "I Wanna Meet Dave Grohl." (You may have missed the worldwide premiere of the song on Sunday night's debut of the new MTV show I Just Want My Pants Back. Wavves are actually doing 20 songs for that show throughout its season.)
I like it when bands do songs that mention other bands, and you know Grohl is going to surprise Wavves at some point by joining them onstage and making their dream come true. Right?
I posted this a few weeks ago, but now the big nights are almost here. It's a Red hot Chili Peppers concert, minus the fragrance of herb in the air, plus the aroma of butter popcorn.
From the Chili Peppers' website:
On August 30th, the same day that âIâm With Youâ hits North American shores, the Red Hot Chili Peppers will perform the entire album in sequence, followed by some of your favorite RHCP songs in a special high-definition cinematic in-theater event, Red Hot Chili Peppers LIVE: Iâm With You. The band will perform from Cologne, Germany live via satellite to select movie theaters around the world.
Here's the trailer:
And the "select movie theaters" around here are:
Auburn 17 Theatres AUBURN WA 98001
Century Theatres Federal Way 16 FEDERAL WAY WA 98003
Alderwood 7 Theatres LYNNWOOD WA 98037
Bella Bottega 11 Cinema REDMOND WA 98052
Thornton Place with IMAX SEATTLE WA 98125
Astronomers have discovered a planet that they believe is made out of diamonds. The planet's about 4,000 light years away from Earth, and it's probably the remnants of a dead star.
"The evolutionary history and amazing density of the planet all suggest it is comprised of carbon," Matthew Bailes of the University of Technology in Melbourne told Reuters. He calls it "a massive diamond orbiting a neutron star every two hours in an orbit so tight it would fit inside our own Sun."
Is it shiny? Ben Stappers of the University of Manchester says probably not: "I don't know I could even speculate. I don't imagine that a picture of a very shiny object is what we're looking at here."
Too bad, because Kanye West was ready to send his people up to grab it so he could wear it on a chain around his neck.
It's a trend -- gross food on the menus of some of Seattle's most acclaimed dining spots. The photo above is from the actual menu from my visit to Madison Park Conservatory. Are diners really demanding this stuff, or are star chefs just trying to impress and outdo one another?
Seattle Met's Kathryn Robinson runs it down with me:
Usually when people in Hollywood get entangled in a romance, they try to keep it on the down low. Not Jim Carrey.
Jim (Ace Ventura, The Cable Guy, Yes Man) has professed his love for fellow actor Emma Stone (Superbad, Easy A, Crazy Stupid Love). He's 49, she's 22, and he says:
âEmma, I just wanted to let you know that I think youâre all the way beautiful. Not just pretty, but, you know, smart and kind-hearted."
âIf I were a lot younger I would marry you.â
He lists all the fun things they could do together. âWeâd laugh all day long, go camping, play Yahtzee.â
âAnd the sexâ¦â followed by silence and a wistful look on his face.
He regrets the big age difference. "I have lines on my face. Sometimes a little gray in my beard. And it takes me a lot longer to pee than it used to."
Already there's tons of web speculation about the video, which is on Jim's website. Is it funny? half-serious? Or just creepy? How about all of the above? Watch and decide for yourself . . . and be sure and watch until the end so you can see his lip quiver at the 1:49 mark:
It's going to be sunny -- or at least NOT RAINY -- for the next week. Do you want to drive through all that sunshine in a dirty car? Hell no. That's why this is important to you:
It's Brown Bear's birthday -- maybe not a holiday you usually celebrate, but today it means a free car wash for you at these Brown Bear locations.
East Side:
3724 Factoria Blvd. S, Bellevue
22121 SE 56th St., Issaquah
15248 Bel-Red Rd., Redmond
17809 Redmond Way, Redmond
3050 228 Ave. SE, Sammamish
South King Co.:
814 Auburn Way S, Auburn
22706 Marine View Dr, Des Moines
34017 Hoyt Rd. SW, Federal Way
800 S Grady Way, Renton
1202 W Meeker St., Kent
621 Rainier Ave. S, Renton
77 Rainier Ave. S, Renton
Tacoma:
10913 Bridgeport Way SW, Lakewood
13204 Pacific Ave., Tacoma
3002 S 38th St., Tacoma
5950 6th Ave., Tacoma
If I told you the sixth most powerful woman in the world lives in the Seattle area, would you be able to guess who that was?
Jean Enerson? Anne Wilson of Heart? Christine Gregoire? Brandi Carlile?
According to Forbes magazine, it's actually Melinda Gates.
In their annual ranking of the 100 women around the globe with the greatest clout and influence, MellyGa (as I like to call her) outranks Michelle Obama (no. 8,) Lady Gaga (11), Oprah (14,) Queen Elizabeth II (49) and Nancy Pelosi (52).
Ahead of Melinda on the list:
1. Germanyâs Chancellor Angela Merkel
2. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
3. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff
4 Indra Nooye, the chief executive officer at Pepsico
5 Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer at Facebook
Congrats to Melinda on putting that whole Microsoft Bob thing behind her and making something of her life.
Ryan Adams' tends to crank 'em out, but he took his time with his 13th album, Ashes & Fire. We won't get to officially hear the whole thing until October 11, but the first track, "Lucky Now," is already bouncing around the web.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' keyboardist Benmont Tench plays on this track, which Ryan has been trying out in recent live shows. Norah Jones sings on three other tracks, and the record was produced by studio legend Glyn Johns -- he's worked with the Who, the Stones, and the Beatles, so he knows what he's doing.
If you haven't heard it yet, here's "Lucky Now" from Ryan Adams:
And, FYI, these bonus items available with your "deluxe pre-order bundle:"
- Flexi Disc containing unreleased track "Darkness"
- 3D Lenticular Photo of Ryan Adams
- Booklet of expanded album artwork including 3D photos
- A pair of Ryan Adams 3D Glasses
Go east, my friend. Wait, not all the way east to, like New York or Boston. Just go across Lake Washington to Kirkland.
CNN Money.com put up a list of the 25 top cities for rich and single people, and Kirkland came in at Number 22.
Here's what they say:
With its million-dollar real estate lining beautiful Lake Washington, Kirkland offers a Pacific Northwestern take on the moneyed beach town. The surrounding region is a haven for tech firms, including mighty Microsoft. Flirt with eligible singles on the stretch of park along the shore. Get to know your new special someone over fish tacos at a restaurant downtown, and if you really hit it off, continue on to one of the numerous local bars. On the second Friday of every month, join the Kirkland Artwalk, a night when downtown galleries open their doors for special shows and demonstrations.
Gee, I must have missed all of that. I usually just stop in Kirkland when I'm riding my bike around Lake Washington, and maybe grab some fast food in the park by the lake before heading north. On the other hand, I'm neither rich nor single, so I really don't belong there, I guess.
Martin Scorsese's documentary George Harrison: Living In The Material World runs on HBO over two nights: October 5 and 6.
The film includes interviews with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Martin, Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle and Phil Spector among others. We've all seen tons of film of The Beatles over the years, but Scorsese dug up lots of new and unseen footage and photos of George and his Beatles bandmates.
Here's what Scorsese said about the project:
George was making spiritually awake music - we all heard and felt it - and I think that was the reason that he came to occupy a very special place in our lives. So when I was offered the chance to make this picture, I jumped at it. Spending time with Olivia, interviewing so many of George's closest friends, reviewing all that footage, some of it never seen before, and listening to all of that magnificent music - it was a joy, and an experience I'll always treasure.
Less than three weeks until this year's Bike MS Ride. Want to join me in Mt. Vernon on September 10 & 11 for the ride? It's not to late. More details here.
Even if I don't have time for a big ride, I like to at least get out there and stretch my legs a little. Here's my latest jaunt:
It's always a big event when Wilco gets ready to release a new album. I'm going to be honest with you -- I love the band, I love everything they stand for, I lived in Chicago for 12 years and so I feel a connection with them, and I even lived in an apartment building across the street from the studio where they recorded in Chicago for awhile. But sometimes they tax my patience with their precious vibe. I don't really think that every Wilco release is the greatest collection of songs ever recorded. But I do find them fascinating and challenging and often satisfying to listen to.
Whatever your level of affection for the band, you should know that the next record's called The Whole Love, it's coming out on September 27, and this is a nice solo performance by Jeff Tweedy of a song called "Dawned On Me" that's going to be on the new album. The video was shot during a photo shoot for St. Louis magazine, inside St. Louis' lovely Peabody Opera House.
While David Letterman was on a little summer vacation from The Late Show, word got out that a jihadist had marked him for death and demanded his tongue be cut out -- it all had something to do with a joke he told about Sarah Palin. Anyway, he was back on the air last night, and here's how he turned a terrorist threat into comedy gold:
The Top 10 thoughts that went through Dave's mind after hearing about the treat:
Johnny Cash is gone (he died in 2003) but the vaults are apparently overflowing with his unreleased music, and there's more on the way on October 11 with the release of Bootleg Vol. 3 -- Live Around The World.
Johnny's record label is ramping up to what would have been the 80th birthday of The Man In Black in February of next year, and here's what they say about Bootleg Vol. 3:
. . . a treasure trove of rare tracks spanning nearly a quarter-century of Johnny Cash performances. The shows date from 1956 (the Big âDâ Jamboree in Dallas, Texas) to 1979 (the Exit Inn in Nashville). Along the way, this deluxe double-CD package of 50 musical performances (39 of them previously unreleased) makes some very exciting stops:
*New River Ranch, a country hoe-down in rural Rising Sun, Maryland (1962);
*Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island (July 1964);
*Annex 14 NCO Club, Long Binh, Vietnam (USO tour, January 1969);
*The White House, at President Nixonâs invitation (April 1970);
*Osteraker Prison in Sweden (October 1972);
*CBS Records Convention in Nashville (1973);
*The Carter Family Fold in Hiltons, Virginia (1976); and
*Wheeling Jamboree in Wheeling, West Virginia (October 1976).
To me, one of the interesting things is how Johnny liked playing what we might think of as tough gigs -- he played San Quentin Prison, Folsom Prison, he did a performance in a Swedish prison that's included in this new collection, and, at the height of the Vietnam war, he brought June Carter Cash and Carl Perkins with him to Long Binh, a huge US outpost in that war-ravaged country. And . . . . at the White House, in 1970, with Richard Nixon? That's wild.
Hard core fans of Cash are going to want to watch for a new book, too:
House Of Cash: The Life, Legacy and Archives of The Man In Black (Insight Editions) written by Johnnyâs son, John Carter Cash. An affectionate and affecting look into the Johnny Cash legend, House Of Cash is a memoir, biography and deeply personal remembrance of the man beneath the black. The lavishly illustrated book features many color and black and white photos, as well as numerous keepsake facsimile documents from the Cash family archives.
I always had the idea that musicians don't publicly trash-talk other musicians. People who realize how lucky they are to earn a living making music generally respect anybody else who's able to earn a living making music, even if their styles are way different from one another.
Boy, was I wrong.
Because there's also a theory that only a musician really knows whether another musician is any good, or on the other hand if he sucks. And when musicians do say disparaging things about other artists, that, my friend, can be pretty damn juicy.
28. David Lee Roth on Elvis Costello
âMusic journalists like Elvis Costello because music journalists look like Elvis Costello.â
18. Nick Cave on Red Hot Chili Peppers
âIâm forever near a stereo saying, âWhat the f**k is this garbage?â And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers.â
15. Elvis Costello on Morrissey
âMorrissey writes wonderful song titles, but sadly he often forgets to write the song.â
9. Robert Smith on Morrissey
âIf Morrissey says not to eat meat, then Iâll eat meat â thatâs how much I hate Morrissey.â
5. Boy George on Elton John
âAll that money, and heâs still got hair like a f***ing dinner lady.â
Harsh! There's more, including Courtney Love on Dave Grohl, and Dave Grohl on Courtney Love. Juicy!
Elvis has a couple of songs on the soundtrack of One Day, the Anne Hathaway rom-com that's getting pretty bad reviews, even though the soundtrack has some pretty good stuff on it: James, Fatboy Slim, Tears For Fears, Tricky, Del Amitri, Black Grape, and Elvis -- his song "Tear Off Your Own Head" from the 2002 album When I Was Cruel, and a brand new song. Let me save you the trouble of actually sitting through the movie -- here's the brand new song from Elvis, called "Sparkling Day."
While summer's still here, I thought you might like to check out something kind of breezy/trippy/folky/sunny from Family of The Year. They've toured with Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes, Mumford & Sons, and Gomez; I loved their first full-length album, Songbook, and now they're back with this song, "St. Croix," which will be on an EP they're releasing on September 27. Three days after that, on September 30, they'll play at The Vera Project here in Seattle.
Click below to read more and listen to the song over at Paste.
Twenty years after Nirvana's Nevermind changed the course of music, history, and life as we know it, Seattle's Experience Music Project has a HUGE celebration in the works.
I thought you'd like to see everything that's going on, all in once place.
EMP celebrates the 20th anniversary of Nirvana's Nevermind with a series of events scheduled from September 20-25, 2011.
Released on September 24, 1991, Nevermind exploded out of the Seattle underground, captivating the music world and becoming one of rock's most influential, genre-defining albums.
Experience Nevermind at EMP with Nirvana film screenings, a panel discussion with radio djs, programmers and record label reps, a benefit concert featuring legendary grunge-era bands, and live performances of songs from the album by a selection of Seattle's most exciting up-and-coming groups. Tickets for these events are on sale now.
Nevermind Live in Sky Church: A Benefit Show for Susie Tennant
Experience Nirvana's Nevermind LIVE as different Seattle groups perform every song on the album.
Performers include The Fastbacks, Krist Novoselic, Vaporland, The Long Winters, Visqueen, Valis (former Screaming Trees), Campfire OK, Champagne Champagne, Ravenna Woods, Crypts, TacocaT, and more.
This show is a benefit for longtime Seattle music industry maven Susie Tennant, recently diagnosed with cancer.
Donations for Susie Tennant may also be made to:
Susie Tennant Fund
c/o Wells Fargo
13273 Aurora Ave N
Seattle, WA 98133
For regular updates from Susie and her family, friends and media can visit her Facebook page: Friends of Susie Tennant.
Date
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Time
9:00 pm
Ticket Info
$15 for EMP members; $20 general admission; BrownPaperTickets.com (But it's now sold out.)
Venue
Sky Church
325 5th Avenue N
Seattle, WA 98109
Breaking Nevermind: A Panel Discussion
Released in the fall of 1991, Nirvana's Nevermind soon turned the world of popular music on its collective ear. Hear from behind-the-scenes players how the album was propelled to prominence in a lively a panel discussion with radio djs, programmers, and record label reps, moderated by EMP Senior Curator Jacob McMurray.
Venue
JBL Theater
325 5th Avenue N
Seattle, WA 98109
World Premiere Screening Nirvana: Live at the Paramount
Five weeks after releasing what was to become the seminal album of a generation, Nirvana was on a nationwide club and small theater tour that brought them to Seattle's Paramount Theatre for a very special Halloween 1991 homecoming show. Launching the nineteen-song set with a brilliant cover of the Vaselines' "Jesus Doesn't Want Me For A Sunbeam," the band tore through Nevermind hits like "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Lithium," and "Breed," plus earlier favorites like "School," "Love Buzz," "About A Girl," and a very early version of "Rape Me."
The Paramount concert is the only show ever shot of the band on 16mm film and has been mixed in 5.1 surround sound and stereo from the original multi-tracks. Witness the complete concert for the first time ever with Nirvana â Live at the Paramount, available in DVD, Blu-ray and digital long form video formats on September 27, 2011.
September 27, 2011 marks the occasion of Nevermind's 20th anniversary. On this date Universal Music Enterprises will release a spectrum of re-releases befitting this pivotal classic. With configurations ranging from a 4-CD/1-DVD Super Deluxe Edition, to a standard digital/CD remaster of the original album, the 20th anniversary reissue of Nevermind makes the most of the occasion, unearthing literally dozens of previously unreleased recordings, obscure B-sides, alternate mixes, radio sessions, studio rarities, and live recordings, including the entire 1991 Halloween concert at Seattle's Paramount Theatre.
Date
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Time
7:30 pm
Ticket Info
Admission to the screening is FREE, advance reservation is required. To reserve tickets, contact the EMP box office at 206.770.2702, 1.877.EMP.SFM1 or experience@empmuseum.org.
Venue
Sky Church
325 5th Avenue N
Seattle, WA 98109
Classic Albums: Nirvana - Nevermind Screening
As part of EMP's celebration of the 20th anniversary of Nevermind, join us for a FREE screening of the fascinating documentary Classic Albums: Nirvana - Nevermind.
Directed by Bob Smeaton, this 70 minute documentary details how Nirvana came to record Nevermind and features exclusive interviews with the people involved in the project: Butch Vig, Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, Sub Pop's Jonathan Poneman, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Steve Diggle of The Buzzcocks, and many more. Classic Albums: Nirvana - Nevermind is the perfect companion piece to EMP's featured exhibition Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses.
Classic Albums: Nirvana - Nevermind courtesy of Eagle Rock Entertainment.
Date
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Time
2:00 pm
Ticket Info
Admission to the screening is FREE.
Seating is first-come, first-served.
Venue
JBL Theater
325 5th Avenue N
Seattle, WA 98109
This originally aired in July on cable TV, but now you can immerse yourself in Radiohead's King Of Limbs in all its haunting and eerie glory. They put the whole show up on YouTube, for a limited time. Enjoy while you can:
Earlier this week Anderson Cooper completely lost it while reporting on Gerard Depardieu's public urination on a plane. Total giggle fit. Now, the follow-up, from Steven Colbert:
We've all been there -- you leave a show at Neumo's or The Paramount at 11 or 12 at night, you've got a great parking spot on Capitol Hill, and you're starving. Sure, Dick's is always a reliable late-night go-to, but let's class it up a little bit. Kathryn Robinson from Seattle Met has been out night after night tirelessly checking out places for you to eat while most people are home in bed.
Christine O'Donnell -- former Senate candidate, and NOT a witch -- was plugging her new book Troublemaker with Piers Morgan on CNN, and she didn't care for his line of questioning. Here's what happened next:
I'll say this: Piers Morgan can be a little bit of a tool. But O'Donnell's idea that the interviewee gets to pick the line of questioning, especially when she's a politician, is a little naive. Or maybe she accomplished what she set out to do; by walking off the show she and her book got way more attention than the interview would've normally gotten, so . . .well played, Christine.
If you're a Smiths fan, you have to check this out. It's a documentary about the band that they gave out to the press to promote the release of the band's Best Of compilation in 1992. Now that Rhino Records is reissuing the entire Smiths catalog, they've pulled this gem out of the vaults -- chock full of dated music videos, quaint clips of London in the 90s, some hilarious outfits, Morrissey's trademark dramatic poses, and a very serious narrator telling the band's story:
Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr supervised the reissues, and the whole collection is coming out on September 26.
This band's second album, Through Donkey Jaw, is just out, and if you like your music on the trippy side -- let's say somewhere on the scale between dreamy and drone-y, you might like this. I sure do. The song's called "Christopher," and this video reminds me of a mash-up of every iPhone retro-photo app, all grainy and washed out, and perfect with Amen Dunes' haunting music:
So long, crumbling, seismically vulnerable old Viaduct.
Finally, Seattle decided something. Last night voters said, "Enough already, let's just build the freaking tunnel!" So after more than 10 years, 700 community meetings and THREE ballots, I think it's a done deal -- we're all finished voting on the tunnel to replace the viaduct.
In case you've lost your mojo for this thing over the last few years, let's revisit this video and imagine what our waterfront's going to look like when this thing is finally done, in 2016-ish (unless the giant boring machine gets stuck or a skyscraper collapses because of unstable soil):
I'm not sure how this is possible, but it's true, according to Wonkette, the snarky political blog. If you go to Google Translate, and translate the word "Boehner" from German, you get "Pelosi."
I know all politicians are basically the same, no matter what their party, blah blah blah. But this is strange, don't you think?
It happened over the weekend in Duluth, Minnesota -- just as she did here in Seattle at ZooTunes a few weeks ago, Brandi Carlile brought a special guest up to join her for John Prine's "Angel From Montgomery." At the Zoo, it was Dave Matthews, who happens to live in the 'hood. This time, it was Vicci Martinez, long time Northwest favorite and start of "The Voice," who for some reason happened to be in Minnesota that night.
I've been waiting to see some video of that moment, and finally this popped up:
(Glad to see Brandi and Vicci are pals. There were rumors that if they were ever in the same place at the same time they'd scratch each other's eyes out.)
FYI Brandi's coming back to ZooTunes on August 24. (It's sold out.)
Last week Green Day played a secret benefit show in Costa Mesa, California, and they unveiled a new Amy Winehouse tribute song, titled "Amy," which Billie Joe Armstrong performed solo acoustic.
Here's lo-fi audio of the song, subtitled so you can understand what he's singing:
At that same concert, which was a benefit for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the band played a 90-minute set of stuff they'd never played before (Billy Joe said "to reminisce is to die"), then they did a 10-song encore consisting of Green Day faves like "St. Jimmy" and "Burnout," plus Clash and Ozzy Osbourne covers.
Oh, this is nice. You've got a dude with a beard, and a perky woman who sings with a twang, and they're doing a star-studded duet -- just like Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton 28 years ago.
Read what Pitchfork.com said, and then watch the video, and try not to be seduced by Neko's sultry swaying throughout the song.
With their specific combination of beardedness and hotness, My Morning Jacket's Jim James and Neko Case are kind of a Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton for 2011. MMJ and Case are currently on tour together, and last night in Pittsburgh, they got together to cover the perfectly cheesy 1983 Kenny/Dolly duet "Islands in the Stream". Sure enough, someone in the audience filmed the performance, and we've got the shaky and fuzzy but still clear video below. (In a Tweet, Neko Case apologized for "f*****g up" the cover.)
Interesting rock history factoid: The song was actually written by the Bee Gees. All of them, I guess. It takes a village to write a hit. Or it did back then, anyway.
As somebody posted in a YouTube comment, "Ryan Adams could use a block of wood with shoe laces and he would make beautiful music...A true musician and poet."
It's been a couple of years since Ryan toured the US, but he's got a new album called Fire & Ashes which drops on October 11, and then he's doing a quick West Coast acoustic tour, which wraps up in Seattle on October 21 -- at Benaroya Hall. Fancy!
Here's a sweet live version of one of my favorite Ryan Adams songs, "When The Stars Go Blue," with his band The Cardinals from a couple of years ago:
Let's leave politics out of this. But let's be honest: Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann has crazy eyes.
That's why you must go immediately to Bachmann-eyezed! and watch what happens when Michele's crazy eyes are Photoshopped into other people's sockets -- everybody from Marilyn Manson to Ronald Reagan to Ceasar, the chimp from Planet Of The Apes. And this guy:
See? Even Michele's own husband Marcus looks crazy with her eyes. And everybody knows he's not actually crazy at all.
I've been doing a lot of cycling in a lot of different parts of the Seattle area as I prepare for this year's Bike MS Ride in September. When I'm out on my bike, I try to play nice with others. I REALLY don't want to be one of those d-bag cyclists who inspire drivers to flip them off or run them off the road. But I also know first hand that car drivers can be totally oblivious to everything outside of their 4-wheel cocoons, and that can be bad news for us bikers.
So this seems like one little way to even the playing field between cyclists and cars -- an actual turn signal, that blinks and lights up, just like on a car.
It might work, if it doesn't cost a ton. Of course, the bigger question is: Motorists in Seattle suck at using their turn signals. Will cyclists in Seattle be any better at it?
PS . . . If you want to join me on September 10 & 11, get the scoop on the Bike MS Ride here.
Yes, that David Lynch -- the filmmaker/director/visual artist/actor who gave us Twin Peaks, Dune, Blue Velvet and Eraserhead -- is releasing a solo album.
We've been hearing about it for a long time, and now it's finally here: David Lynch's solo album of electronic pop. Here's the first thing you need to know about this album: It's called Crazy Clown Time. And here's the second thing: It features guest vocals from Yeah Yeah Yeahs leader Karen O on a song called "Pinky's Dream". Those are two very good reasons to get excited.
Listen to this song, called "Good Day Today," and see what you think:
I'm out there on my bike several days a week training for the Bike MS Ride in September. This weekend, instead of heading out of the city on the Burke Gilman Trail, or around Lake Washington, I took a ride through downtown Seattle
First of all, check this out at 4th & Blanchard in Seattle . . . I wouldn't lick it if I were you:
The Olympic Sculpture Park on Elliott Bay -- a fly? A bird? Giant origami?
When the aliens land, this is where they'll disembark:
A Fremont landmark:
The University Bridge in the "up" position. A hassle when you're in a car; on a bike, who cares?
Someday this will be something:
The bottom line: Training rides in the city can be just as scenic as rides in the country. You just have to keep your eyes open.
Want to join me for the Bike MS Ride on September 10 & 11? It starts and ends in Mt. Vernon and it's for riders of all skill levels. ( I mean come on, I'm doing it!) Here are the details.
At what age does a pink suit look ridiculous on a man?
Don't answer that until you've watched the just-released video for "Miracle Worker," the first song from SuperHeavy, the "supergroup" starring Joss Stone, Damian Marley, Dave Stewart, and the man in the pink suit, Mick Jagger.
In case you missed it when Shawn posted it a few weeks ago, here's the band in the studio putting the music together:
I'll confess. I call my iPhone "my little friend." If I can't find my phone, and I ask my girlfriend if she's seen my little buddy, she knows what I'm talking about. That phone is like another apendage. Can't function without it. Which is why I had to admit that I saw a little of myself in a post on the tech site Gizmodo, "Why I Would Rather Be a Smoker Than an iPhone User."
Some of the highlights:
⢠Cigarettes help you better interact with people. You can carry on a conversation while smoking. "Excuse me, do you have a light?"
⢠Activities that are easier to do with a cigarette than with an iPhone: Walk without tripping, talk on the phone, bicycle, stare into the sky.
⢠Cigarettes take a fixed amount of time to smoke. They're distractions with built in timers. Smoking allows the perfect amount of time for a break. Iphone breaks have no time limit.
⢠You can live off the grid and the cancer sticks still work. You donât need a cell signal to light up a butt.
⢠It is way sexier to light up a cigarette after sex then to light up a smart phone. Especially when there is a passcode involved.
This week I was talking on the air about the contest we're having to design the cover of our next CD, Live From The Mountain Music Lounge Volume 17. And I suggested that if you're submitting a design (which you can do here) you should make it creative, not just an all-black cover, like Spinal Tap's Smell The Glove. And then I came across this story on nerve.com: "The 5 Best 'Black Albums' in Music History."
Here's what they said about Spinal Tap:
Smell the Glove was originally released with a cover that featured âa greased, naked woman on all fours with a dog collar around her neck and a leash, and a man's arm extended out...holding on to the leash and pushing a black glove in her face to sniff it.â Unsurprisingly, it was deemed sexist (prompting guitarist Nigel Tufnel to wonder âWhatâs wrong with being sexy?â) and replaced by a literally all-black cover. When he received the new cover art, singer and guitarist Christopher St. Hubbins was less than thrilled, remarking that âThis is something you wear around your arm â you donât put this on your f*****g turntable.â â¨â¨
So . . . if you're thinking of entering your design in our CD cover art contest, remember two things: the deadline is Sunday night, and the all-black cover has been done before. Plenty.
Okay, Chris Martin, enough with the teasing already! Coldplay finally confirmed that the band's fifth studio album, Mylo Xyloto (pronounced MY-lo ZY-letoe), will be released in the U.S. on October 25.
If you like to geek out on collector's editions and stuff, you're going to like this. They're doing the release in digital, CD and vinyl formats. The 180-gram vinyl edition will include a 12" x 36" poster. A special limited edition Pop-Up Album version will also be available, which will include a 12" x 12" hardback book containing graffiti pop-up art designed by David A. Carter, vinyl, CD and exclusive content including photographs, excerpts from the studio diary and the band's personal notebooks.
The "reversible" cover art (above) was just revealed at coldplay.com. Half of the CDs will be packaged with the full color artwork as the cover while the other 50% will have the CD booklet flipped, showing the silver initials "M X" via a die-cut sheet placed over the color image.
They haven't released the track listing yet, but besides "Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall," which you've been hearing on The Mountain, this song, "Charlie Brown," which they did at Lollalapalooza last weekend, is probably on there:
You know what planking is, right? You see the pix on Facebook all the time -- lying face down in an unusual location. Well, planking is over. Itâs so May 2011. Now itâs . . . . horsemaning!
Horsemaning is taking a picture where it appears youâve been beheaded:
It actually goes back to the 1920s â you either totally hide your head in a photo, so it looks like somebody chopped of your head, or thereâs the face-beheading variation, where you hide your head and a second person then exposes only his head and hides the rest of the body to create an optical illusion. You take a picture, put it on Facebook , and hilarity ensues.
Hereâs the thing: in the 1920s all they had to kill time were books, the radio, and whilttling on the front porch. Itâs 2011, people, do something useful with your time!
It happened during a break in the taping of a Conan show. Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes were noodling around with an impromptu version of "Creep," and Conan immediately picked up on it:
I played a little of this on the air yesterday morning, and a couple of listeners asked to see the whole thing, so here you go . . .
Iâve got a tattoo, maybe you have a tattoo â this guy has about half a tattoo, because heâs a big wimp and he chickened out before the tattoo was finished . . . and of course his buddy shot video of him being a big wimp and put it on the web:
It's National S'more Day -- the holiest of all holidays, and there are a ton of celebrations around here, with a gourmet twist, of course, because that's very Seattle.
If you consider graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows an essential part of your camping gear, you may find these a little fancy-schmancy, but over at the Fresh-Picked Seattle blog, there's a huge list of spots around the Northwest where you can get you S'more on today.
For instance, here's what Tom Douglas is doing:
âWe're celebrating this ooey gooey treat by offering artisinal s'mores at the Dahlia Workshop, Dahlia Bakery and the Rub with Love Shack from 11am-4pm! For $3, you can have a scrumptious s'more with homemade marshmallow, homemade graham crackers and a luscious piece of milk or dark Theo chocolate! All enjoyed al fresco with a live fire!â
They call themselves ANONYMOUS, they're a group of "Hacktivists," and they did cyber-attacks on the Pentagon, News Corp, and others. Now, theyâre saying they have vowed to destroy Facebook on November 5th.
Hereâs their robot spokesman in a video they put up on YouTube:
I guess you have to take them seriously; after all â look what they did to MySpace. They wiped it off the face of the earth. What? MySpace is still in busneiss? Get outta here. That's crazy talk.
Now that she has a couple of kids, I guess Sheryl Crow's 1959 Mercedes convertible isn't very practical. That's why she's parting with this sweet ride:
She's donating it to be auctioned off at the Gooding & Co. auction in Pebble Beach, Calif., this August, and the proceeds will benefit victims of the Joplin, Missouri tornado.
"After the tornado in Joplin I was moved to help rebuild a city so close to where I grew up in Missouri," says Sheryl Crow. "My hope is that the auction of my 1959 Mercedes-Benz 190 SL Roadster will bring in funds to help rebuild the schools in the area."
An iconic, grand-touring convertible, the stylish 190SL being offered is white with a white hard top, optional black soft top and sport whitewall tires. Following a comprehensive restoration completed in 2005, the car now has fresh brakes, suspension, a reconditioned Becker Mexico radio with speaker and a new interior of black leather upholstery. Originally acquired by Sheryl Crow in 2005, the 190 SL has since become the artistâs and her familyâs personal favorite. The 1959 Mercedes-Benz 190 SL has an estimate of $50,000 - $80,000 and will be presented without reserve at Gooding & Companyâs Sunday Auction on August 21.
The city of Seattle has plans for a Jimi Hendrix Park at 24th and South Massachusetts. What exactly will that park look like? Tonight you get the first peek, and you can throw in your two cents.
You can check out the three concepts they showed at the last meeting here.
And here's the full press release from the city:
Butterflies and guitars, flowers and music, sun and water, and creative use of color will be reflected in the final design concept of Jimi Hendrix Park to pay tribute to the legendary Seattle rock star.
The community is invited to get a first peek at the final design concept at the Aug. 10 meeting, beginning at 6:30 p.m. at the Northwest African American Museum, 2300 S Massachusetts St.
Compiled from three initial concepts, the final design will be unveiled for the community and the public at the third and final public event on Wednesday, Aug. 10. The evening celebration of the collaborative design process will include a presentation and formal unveiling by consulting landscape architects from Murase Associates, and an opportunity for the public to make final comments.
The three-month design process solicited ideas from the community and generated at a brainstorming session in May, focusing on images and icons that define and articulate Hendrixâs legacy. Dozens of comments from community members have advocated intimate gathering spaces and performing opportunities, adequate connections to surrounding neighborhoods, functional walkways and seating, and colorful plantings. Scott Murase said the design concept incorporates a variety of landscape and structural elements inspired by Hendrixâs writings, music and art that will transform the Central District park into a living tribute to the Seattle native.
Before becoming a park, the property served as a parking lot next to the old Colman School, and now is a swath of turf adjacent to the Northwest African American Museum.
The non-profit Friends of Jimi Hendrix Park is leading the development process, which envisions a space that will motivate youth and others to achieve in music and art, and strengthen the cultural pulse of the Emerald City as a primary focal point for multi-cultural events, gatherings, and activities for the community.
Funding for the design work and construction of the park development comes from the Parks and Green Spaces Levy, which awarded $500,000 to the project last December, and from a $76,000 Neighborhood Matching Fund grant. Fund-raising activities by the Foundation, such as benefit concerts and online donations, will raise matching private money for park development.
The mission of the Jimi Hendrix Park Foundation is to create a community space inspired by the electrifying music and story of Jimi Hendrix â a gathering place for individuals of diverse backgrounds and ages - to celebrate cultural heritage, experience community pride, and enjoy innovative educational programming in partnership with the neighboring Northwest African American Museum.
In 2006, Seattle Parks and Recreation renamed the 2.5-acre neighborhood space Jimi Hendrix Park, with the goal of turning it into a community gathering space honoring the Seattle-born artistâs extraordinary life and musical legacy.
More information is available at www.jimihendrixparkfoundation.org and on Facebook.
Seattle Parks and Recreation http://www.seattle.gov/parks/projects/jimi_hendrix/
You think of the former VP and failed presidential candidate as so mild-mannered, but you get Al talking about global warming and he gets feisty. He was in Aspen last week frothing at the mouth as he ranted against people who dismiss global warming and continue to endorse shaky science.
And some of the exact same people â I can go down a list of their names â are involved in this. And so what do they do? They pay pseudo scientists to pretend to be scientists to put out the message: âThis climate thing, itâs nonsense. Man-made CO2 doesnât trap heat. It may be volcanoes.â Bull***t! âIt may be sun spots.â Bull***t! âItâs not getting warmer.â Bull***t!
Listen to Al here . . . This version's sanitized for your protection:
Last week, Guster played the Cape Cod Melody Tent in Hyannis, Massachusetts -- which for some reason features a revolving stage. The band's drummer Brian Rosenworcel said his first concert with a revolving stage was Air Supply when he was 10 years old. So he and band pal Will Forte from Saturday Night Live decided to re-enact that magical moment by singing lead on a tender cover of Air Supply's 1980 hit "All Out of Love."
It's called "Virus," and it's on an album that's officially dropping on September 27 called Biophilia:
This is the third song she's leaked from the new record, and she's also going to release an app to accompany each song. According to Pitchfork, it's Bjork's way of redefining what an album can mean in the digital age, and she also wants to encourage kids to be comfortable with music by using visual components to represent sounds and instruments. (Seeing sounds -- that happened to me once in college when I didn't ask enough questions about the pill some dude was encouraging me to swallow.)
"Virus" is expected to offer some kind of interactive game that will let users play around with viruses and diseased cells, as their actions trigger the corresponding sounds of instruments used in the song -- celeste, gamelan, etc. Hey, did you think Bjork was just going to release an album and leave it at that?
The riots in London seem a little pointless, especially when you watch this BBC footage of some people helping an injured boy to his feet and then helping themselves to the contents of his backpack. Ugly.
That being said, on the lighter side of the riots (okay, that might be a stretch ) here's a guy breaking a little news of his own for the camera as a TV news helicopter flies over the scene:
Unrest and turmoil may tear the world apart, but one thing that unites people everywhere is the universal urge to flash a bare ass on live TV. We are the world!
Personally, I find mariachi bands a little hard to take after, oh, half a song. But take heart, budding mariachi musicians -- somebody LOVES your music. It's this beluga whale at the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut:
Hey, maybe the whale can't actually hear a thing on the other side of the glass, and that's why he's so happy. "I can see you but I CAN'T HEAR YOU! Sucka!"
Weezer's on their way to Seattle for a show at the WaMu Theater on Friday 8/19. They've been throwing covers of current hits into their live sets -- they've done a medley of MGMT songs and even Lady Gaga. The latest was last week in Costa Mesa, California, where they busted out their version of Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks."
It happens to a lot of artists, musicians, writers, painters, poets, bloggers . . . . you sit down to create something new and the well is dry. Nothing. If you're Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, and your job is to write (and record and perform) songs, that's a big problem. Gary told the BBC about his struggles to make new music:
Luckily, he said it all worked out: "It came, in the end, and it came better than it ever did before." Snow Patrol's sixth album, Fallen Empires is coming in November, and it'll contain this song, "Called Out In The Dark." Let's listen:
Early in the new year, the band will tour Europe and then come to the US later in 2012.
It was a high water mark for music in the 1990s, and just like that it's 20 years old. You know U2's not going to let this anniversary go by without a great big hoo-hah. They're planning a re-release of Achtung Baby, and it's not just music -- it's SWAG.
Five physical editions of the anniversary edition of Achtung Baby will be available alongside digital only editions.
1. A limited, numbered Uber Deluxe Edition is a magnetic puzzle tiled box which will contain: 6 CDs including the original Achtung Baby album, the follow-up album, Zooropa, B-sides, remixes and re-workings of previously unheard material recorded during the Achtung Baby sessions. 4 DVDs including 'From The Sky Down', 'Zoo TV:Live From Sydney', all the videos from Achtung Baby plus bonus material. There will also be the Achtung Baby double vinyl album plus 5 clear 7" vinyl singles in their original sleeves, 16 art prints taken from the original album sleeve, an 84-page hardback book, a copy of Propaganda magazine, 4 badges, a sticker sheet, and a pair of Bonoâs trademark 'The Fly' sunglasses. (Did I mention that it's all wrapped up in a magnetic puzzle tiled box? )
2. The Super Deluxe Edition will contain the 6CDs and 4 DVDs, in addition to a 92 page hardback book and 16 art prints in a wallet.
3. The Vinyl Box Set is a limited release containing 4 LPs, two of which are pressed on translucent blue vinyl containing remixes and B-sides. The box includes a 16 page booklet.
4. The Deluxe Edition is a 2xCD set containing the reissue of the original album plus B-sides and rarities.
5. The Standard CD is the original album.
Package Number One will run you about $630. and the prices go down from there. How much for just the puzzle?
It's all coming out on OCtober 31, and you can pre-order here.
This week at Australia's Splendour In The Grass Festival, Coldplay (and a ginormous crowd of fans) sang an impromptu tribute to Amy Winehouse -- the chorous of her song "Rehab," which segued into their song "Fix You." Truly a lighter in the air -- or cellphone in the air -- moment. Here's the audio:
Oh yeah, and last night Coldplay leaked more music from their next album which is coming in October, on Jimmy Kimmel Live -- a song called "Charlie Brown." Enjoy:
When I was a kid, I know we had "brick red," "raw sienna," "yellow green," and "green yellow." But I'm pretty sure we didn't have colors like "asparagus," "purple pizzazz," "shadow," "fuzzy wuzzy," or "beaver." I think I would've remembered those.
Sure, we love to complain in the Northwest about gridlock, tolls, bad drivers, potholes, too many bike lanes . . . Whine away, and then have a look at what happened to a Memphis family, out for a drive one sunny afternoon:
We were driving 65 mph down a highway when my husband caught something out of the corner of this eye...a snakehead coming out from under our hood onto our windshield! Watch what happens after that....
"I've had it with this motherf****ng snake on this motherf****ng car!"
This is a sneak peak at a new Ryan Adams song called Dirty Rain:
Ryan told Britain's Q Magazine that his first new album under his own name since Cardinology in 2008 will be called Ashes & Fire. It'll contain â12 elegant country-rock songs," and guests on the record include Norah Jones and Tom Petty And The Heartbreakersâ keyboard guy Benmont Tench. The official release date might be October 11.
You remember the video for Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark," right? It was directed by Brian DePalma (Carrie, Scarface, Mission Impossible.) It was set at an E Street Band concert where Bruce danced with a with a pre-Friends Courtney Cox as Clarence Clemons played the song's sax solo in the background. Let's be honest -- Bruce looks a little uneasy dancing up there, but it's a nice slice of 80s cheese:
As it turns out, it took some practice before Bruce could master those wicked moves in front of a crowd. First he did his strange dance in an empty studio, clearly struggling with the question of what he's supposed to be doing with his arms. It's kind of sweet to see The Big Man in action, too -- he shows up at the very end of the song. Don't hate me for showing you this -- I'll be the first to admit I would NEVER want to see footage of ME dancing!
Here's the blurb describing Talihina Sky, the gritty documentary about Kings Of Leon:
Who are Kings of Leon? In 2002 brothers Nathan, Caleb, and Jared Followill, along with their cousin Matthew, formed the grungy alternative rock band in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. Now they have millions of fans around the world. But growing up in the South was far from harmonious. Most of the brothers' young lives were spent in poverty, living in the back of an Oldsmobile while touring around the Bible Belt from church to church with the brothers' father, Ivan Leon, a Pentecostal preacher, and their mother BettyAnn, who tried desperately to ground the family during their travels.
Rebelling from the God-fearing gypsy lifestyle in true rocker fashion, the young men turned to secular music and a few recreational drugs in Nashville... and the rest is history etched in platinum and gold. Wisely anchoring this energetic behind-the-scenes documentary is the annual family reunion in the backwoods of Talihina, Oklahoma, where the boys unwind with horseshoe throwing, beer guzzling, and a dip in the creek. First-time director Stephen C. Mitchell sculpts a youthful, honest, and vibrant look at what fuels the creative fire of these budding rock legends, providing fascinating insight for fans and non-fans alike
Check out the trailer and see if you can spot early sings of trouble in KOL-land:
The film screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC last April; the word is that a DVD release is scheduled for October 31.
Here's a pretty heavy concept video. Check out the bass player, Simon Gallup -- he had a light bulb in his mouth to create that "lit from within" efect, and the cloth was there to hide the wire.
Tom Petty "Don't Come Around Here No More"
If people thought Tom was just a typical three-chord rocker from the South, this showed he had a very trippy side with the Alice In Wonderland-themed video. Look for Dave Stewart of Eurythmics as the caterpillar at the beginning, sitting on a mushroom with a hookah pipe.
Radiohead "Fake Plastic Trees"
You know Radiohead's going to make something deep. The director of this video said, "The film is actually an allegory for death and reincarnation but if you can read that into it you must be as weird as the people who made it"
Don Henley "Boys Of Summer"
Another black and white video, which you know always means something fancy's going on. The director, Jean-Baptiste Mondino, was influenced by the French New Wave. Fancy. Don Henley, on the other hand, said he won an MTV Video Music Award for "riding around in the back of a pickup."
U2 "Gloria"
This was the first U2 video that got heavy airplay on MTV -- and look how young they are. The band shot the video on a barge in a harbor near Dublin, and I don't care how cool Bono is now -- in 1981 he was definitely rocking a mullet.
R.E.M. always had artsy-fartsy videos; this one was filmed on the I-10 freeway in San Antonio, Texas, and the song became sort of a suicide-prevention anthem in the 1990s.
Lenny Kravitz "Are You Gonna Go My Way"
I'll say this about Lenny -- he puts a lot of effort into his rock-star look. Check out those wicked dreads.
Alanis Morissette "Ironic"
Alanis gets to be a little schizophrenic in this one, playing the driver and all the passengers in a 1977 Lincoln Mark V. Like an actual 1977 Lincoln, at the end of the video the car breaks down.
Billy Idol "Cradle Of Love"
MTV videos proved to be a great way for budding film directors to get their work out in front of people. Before David Fincher directed Fight Club and The Social Network he did videos for Madonna, the Stones, Aerosmith, Paula Abdul, and this one for Billy Idol, who could only be shot from the waist up because a recent motorcycle accident made it impossible for him to walk.
Godley & Creme "Cry"
Lol Creme and Kevin Godley split from the British prog-rock band 10CC to start a career as a duo, and this song (and its video)marked the high point of their partnership. Without the benefit of today's digital technology, they managed to morph dozens of faces into one another, prompting many slack-jawed MTV-viewing stoners to ask, "how'd they do that, dude?"
This is a little ugly . . . . the story from Rolling Stone:
Kings of Leon cut short a concert Friday in Dallas, Texas after lead singer Caleb Followill told fans, "I'm gonna go backstage and I'm gonna vomit, I'm gonna drink a beer and I'm gonna come back out and play three more songs.
The rocker never returned to the stage, which forced the other members of the band to apologize to the audience. "Caleb's just a little unfit to play the rest of the show," said bassist Jared Followill. "We love you guys so much, but I know you guys fucking hate us. I'm so sorry. It's really not our fault, it's Caleb. He can't play the rest of the show. "
Here's a fan video of the whole thing. Scroll up to 3:57 to hear Caleb check out, and then hear Jared Followill's apology to the crowd:
Over the weekend at the legendary Newport Folk Festival, R&B icon Mavis Staples invited Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy up for this soulful cover of The Bandâs âThe Weightâ.
I know -- "soulful" and "Decemberists" aren't usually in the same sentence. But check this out:
A musical revolution began on this day in 1981 . . . . so we're commemorating the milestone with 30 of MTV's greatest videos for 30 years. You'll hear a set of 10 songs at 9am, another 10 at noon, and the final 10-song set at 3pm. And of course we'll put all the videos here on the Mountain Blog as we go.
Here's the very first few minutes of MTV, just after midnight on August 1, 1981:
Have I mentioned that I'm doing the Bike MS Ride September 10 & 11 in Mount Vernon? I have? Well here I go on another training ride -- Saturday was SO beautiful that I decided to tackle the south loop of Lake Washington -- from my house in Madison Valley, south around the bottom of the lake through Renton, up the east side and across the lake on the I-90 bridge, then home. Here are a few highlights:
Hello Renton . . .
That's a big building. I probably should just get off Boeing property and move along . . .
Cooling off at Gene Coulon Park . . . You gotta love a public park that has an Ivars AND a Kidd Valley.
Refueling with a gelatinous cycling snack . . .
Seahawks training facility. FYI, I checked -- Hasselbeck's locker is already empty.
When you cross the I-90 bridge on a bike, you see a whole world of tall grass, green canopies, and swampy vegetation far beneath the freeway overpasses. Probably snakes and gators down there, too.
Welcome to The Rock. So fresh, so clean, so quiet, so green . . . It could only be Mercer Island.
Aaaannnnd we're back in the city. Construction, roadblocks, potholes, detours . . .home sweet home.
Okay, so we're like 6 weeks away from the Bike MS Ride in September. Want to join me? Keep in mind that it's for riders of all levels. (I mean, come on, I'm doing it -- do I look like Lance Armstrong?) You can ride anywhere from 22 to 92 miles, come on up for just one day or do Saturday/Sunday, and of course it's for a great cause. Join a team, start a team, raise some money to create a world free of MS.
I was the host for Friday night's ZooTunes concert with Brandi Carlile, so I went backstage before her set so I could go up and read some announcements and do the usual DJ jibber-jabber.
When I first went back, nobody was around -- Brandi and her band were still in their trailers. But I saw this guy wandering around back there with his head down, concentrating on the screen of his phone as he did some serious texting. I said to myself, "Hmmm . . . that's Dave Matthews!"
Just then, Brandi emerged from her trailer, we saw each other, she ran over for a hi and a hug, and we chatted for a few minutes. She was super-stoked about kicking off her tour in Seattle, and then wrapping it up at the Zoo on August 24. She promised a Carter Subaru Mountain Music Lounge visit before the August show.
Then she said, "you know Dave, don't you?" (As a matter of fact, I don't, although we've met at a couple of meet-and-greets at concerts over the years.) I asked him what he was doing at Brandi's show -- was he a fan, or was he going to do a little singing tonight? (He cracked that he was stalking her for her whole tour.) Brandi said he was going to join her for one song, and she joked about how they should do a whole album together sometime -- "maybe a country record!" Dave said that'd be cool. I said, "yeah, Dave, don't confine yourself to one musical genre." And he replied, with fake defiance, "yeah -- I won't be put into a box!" Brandi told Dave he should join her when she comes to the Mountain Music Lounge. He said the only way he'd ever play there is if she was with him.
We'll see how that goes . . . . but clearly these are two Northwest musical voices that sound sublime together.
This morning I asked Mountain Morning Show listeners to let me know what they were up to this weekend, in hopes of finding things other members of the Mountain tribe might latch onto.
Personally, I'm getting on my bike and riding -- maybe around Lake Washington, or at least the bottom part of it -- because I'm training for the Bike MS Ride on September 10-11 in Mt. Vernon, and I need to feel a little more like an iron man and a little less like a couch potato.
But that's just me.
Here's what people texted me:
Summerfest in Magnolia!!
Yes at the Ste Michelle Winery, Riding the Seattle Century, spending time with my daughters, planning a bachelorette party :) woo hoo!
Bellevue Art Fair
60 mile bike ride. Puyallup to Mudd Mt Dam RT. Training for the MS Bike America.
Going to Ethnic Fest at Wright Park in Tacoma. Noon to 6.00 Sat & Sunday
Bruce Hornsby and Bela Fleck at the Winery, tomorrow ... THANKS TO MARTY AND THE MOUNTAIN!!! Thank You! :-â* B-â)
The Navins at the Tiger Lounge AGoGo! Gonna be an out door rock feat in Georgetown!
This one's been part of Death Cab For Cutie's live setlist for a long time, but here's a nice clean recording of their version of "Twisterella" by the English indie band Ride.
If you're not familiar with Ride, here's the short version of their bio from Consequence of Sound:
Formed in Oxford, UK in 1988, Ride was an alternative rock band part of the early shoegaze movement. After breaking up in 1996, founding member Andy Bell eventually went on to become a member of Oasis and Beady Eye. The band later reunited in 2001 to released a limited edition CD for the BBC. And while theyâre a comparative footnote in the canon of English indie rock, Ride appealed and influenced DCFC enough for the latter to cover âTwisterellaâ off Rideâs 1992 Going Blank Again at a recent Codes and Keys promotional stop at BBC Radio Oneâs London studio.
Oh yeah, and here's the original. Compare and contrast:
Itâs a motherâs worst nightmare. Fresh-scribbed 80s icon Olivia Newton-John has a daughter -- Chloe Lattanzi -- who's a budding rock star.
In the new music video for her single, âPlay With Me,â the 25-year-old Chloe slithers about in deep-set makeup and proceeds to undertake a shocking string of suicidal, self-mutilating acts. She electrocutes herself while soaking in a bathtub with toaster ovens, radios and hairdryers, plays with exacto knives, shows off mangled, bruised arms and poses with a gun to head. She cries tears of blood, then snorts a line of coke and blows the dust straight into the cameraâs lens in a single poof. Fun!
Watch if you want, but fair warning: It's pretty gross, and the song is SO bad:
Okay, if you need something fresh and clean to erase those sounds and images from your brain, enjoy this, You're welcome:
You know that Nirvana's Nevermind is 20 years old this September, right? Here's a glimpse at the album's beginnings -- demos and studio outtakes from the album that changed everything, thanks to a blogger/Nirvana fanatic who calls himself Captains Dead.
Inspired by a thing I saw on Huffington Post, I asked Mountain Morning Show listeners to text me their grossest words -- not words with gross meanings (although in some cases it worked out that way) but words that just sound gross and ugly.
CityArts is a huge music festival October 20-22 that spans a bunch of venues around Seattle with an eclectic lineup: Ryan Adams, Built to Spill, Ozomatli, The Long Winters, Mudhoney, Shelby Lynne, Robyn, Fences, and many many more.
Three -Day, All Access Wristbands starting at $69 on sale NEXT Friday, August 5th at 10 a.m. That gets you into all the venues, all weekend long. Cool! Get all the details and tickets here.
Despite reports from Roger Daltrey that Pete Townshendâs hearing is preventing him from touring, Pete says that The Who will indeed tour next year. According to a post on Townshendâs blog, they're going to take the legendary Quadrophenia album out on the road.
âThe reason I am not on the road with Roger is that this is entirely Rogerâs adventure, one that is bringing him great joy,â Townshend wrote. âI donât belong on this Tommy tour. I wish him well, sincerely, and I look forward to playing with Roger again doing Quadrophenia next year.â
Townshend disputed Daltreyâs comment that a tour would destroy his hearing.
âMy hearing is actually better than ever,â he wrote. âBecause after a feedback scare at the O2 Indigo in December 2008 I am taking good care of it. Iâm 66, I donât have perfect hearing, and if I listen to loud music or go to gigs I do tend to get tinnitus. DONâT WE ALL????â
I always thought Quadrophenia was an underrated album that never got the same respect as Tommy, so this is good. And it almost goes without saying that Pete is also working on a deluxe re-release of Quadrophenia, just in time for the tour.
Here's a band that's known more for their music videos than for their actual music. They did the groundbreaking "treadmill" video a few years ago, and more recently a crazy complicated Rube Goldberg-esque one-take extravaganza. Both videos, great. The songs themselves, meh. My tip for OK Go: Stop making music and just make videos . . . . open a video production company -- you'll get rich!
For this one, "All Is Not Lost," the band teamed up with the Pilobolus dance troupe. Here's what the New York Times said:
"[Front man Damian] Kulash says that having Pilobolus work on the bandâs concept was â'like asking a superchef to make green beans,' and Itamar Kubovy, the executive director of Pilobolus, returns the compliment. 'This cool result needed an enormous amount of calculation,' he says. 'And these OK Go guys led beautifully.'"
(BTW, if you're browsing with Google Chrome, there's a cool interactive version of the video at www.allisnotlo.st)
Here's the scoop on the 20th Anniversary re-release of Nirvana's Nevermind from Britain's NME:
The Super Deluxe Edition, which is due to be released on September 19, will come with a raft of rarities and remixes across its four CDs and one DVD.
These include the full remastered album, accompanying studio and live B-sides, rehearsal takes and the first full official release of producer Butch Vig's pre-album demos recorded at Smart Studios.
A new perspective on the album is offered in the form of the 'Devonshire Mixes' - a Vig mix of the album that differs to original mixer Andy Wallace's version.
Live recordings of BBC sessions and the band's 1991 show at the Paramount Theatre in hometown Seattle - the only known Nirvana gig shot to film - are also included, along with a 90-page bound book of rare photos and artifacts from the 'Nevermind' era.
Stevie Nicks joined Maroon 5 on stage Monday night at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles to sing the Fleetwood Mac classic "Leather and Lace" with Adam Levine. Because he sings like a girl, Adam took the high part:
Maybe you remember when Stevie was a guest earlier this month on The Voice, where Adam was one of the coach/judges -- he had two of his contestants sing "Leather and Lace."
BTW Stevie's going to show up on NBC's America's Got Talent tonight, hopefully not singing a duet with Piers Morgan.
Here's the scoop on Pearl Jam Twenty, the epic documentary in celebration of the band's 20th anniversary -- and there's a lot to digest. First, the movie trailer:
Pearl Jam will debut Pearl Jam Twenty, a definitive portrait of the band as told by Academy Award®-winning filmmaker and music journalist, Cameron Crowe, at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday September 10, 2011. Then they'll release the documentary worldwide on September 20th in select theaters for one night only, with a full week run of the film beginning Friday, September 23rd in key markets. The film will be shown at the highest caliber of theaters in select cities in the U.S. and internationally. Seattle's on the list (obvioiusly) but they haven't revealed the exact theater yet. (For the latest update of theaters and cities showing PJ20, go to www.PJ20.com.)
But there's more: Pearl Jam Twentyâs U.S. television premiere will be Friday, October 21st at 9 p.m PT as part of the PBS âAmerican Mastersâ series, airing during the first-ever PBS Arts Fall Festival. After that, the DVD of the film will be released worldwide on October 25. PJ20 will also be available on Movies On Demand timed to the theatrical release.
Then there's the the Pearl Jam Twenty soundtrack, currently available for pre-order at www.PJ20.com for its release date of September 20. Comprised of a selected track listing by Cameron Crowe, the album is a true companion piece to the film.
Oh yeah, did I mention the book? Pearl Jam is releasing a Pearl Jam Twenty book on September 13. It's an aesthetically stunning chronicle of the bandâs past two decades. Compiled and written by veteran music writer Jonathan Cohen with Mark Wilkerson, the book includes a foreword by Cameron Crowe (and material from all his own band interviews) as well as original interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, and Dave Grohl. The book is also available for pre-order now at -- you guessed it -- www.PJ20.com.
And finally, the PR blurb about the movie:
The film, Pearl Jam Twenty, is told in big themes and bold colors with blistering sound, and chronicles the years leading up to the bandâs formation, the chaos that ensued soon-after being catapulted into superstardom, their step back from the spotlight with the instinct of self-preservation, and the creation of a trusted circle that would surround themâgiving way to a work culture that would sustain them. The film celebrates the freedom that allows the band to make music without losing themselves, their fans, or the music lovers theyâd always been.
âWe put so much into the film â moments, pieces of footage shot by band members, audio snippets, visual bursts, new and old interviews â many different formats, all meant to present an emotional scrapbook of what it felt like to be a member of the band on this twenty-year journey,â said Cameron Crowe. âThe richness of the footage made our path very clear â just tell the story of the band and let the music guide us. It was a joy to make this film, and weâre thrilled share it with the fans.â
The captivating documentary gives fans and audiences an intimate first glimpse into Pearl Jamâs journey culled from more than 1,200 hours of rarely and never-before-seen footage, over 24 hours of recent interviews with the band, as well as live footage of their spellbinding concert performances.
If you caught Matt Nathanson in the Carter Subaru Mountain Music Lounge a couple of weeks ago, or you've seen him in concert, you know he's a total music geek who covers everybody from Bruce Springsteen to Def Leppard in his live shows.
So he's a perfect guest for the the website The AV Club -- they invite bands to come in and pick from an ever-shrinking list of cover songs and put their own spin on it -- right up Matt's alley.
Watch his acoustic take on a Prince classic here, including a funny explanation of why he picked this song:
And then click here and scroll down to read the scathing comments by self-appointed music critics who generally ream Matt for trying this. Or don't click. Why take these ass-clowns seriously?
Matt obviously doesn't -- this morning he tweeted a link to the page with the message
This is why people are making a big deal about the legacy of Amy Winehouse. It's a clip from a 2007 performance on an MTV show called "45th At Night." Backed by the Dap Kings, Amy looks cool and composed -- and it reminds you of how great she sounded when Back To Black first came out.
I remember first hearing that record when it came out in '06 and getting so excited -- she had tour plans, there was a possibility of a visit to the Carter Subaru Mountain Music Lounge, and I thought it would be so thrilling to see her live . . . . but then we started to see reports about shows where she seemed messed up, she cancelled most of a 2007 tour, and the long sad slide began.
Which is why this is so cool: MTV will replay Amy's entire "45th At Night" performance tomorrow night at 6:30, so you can see her when she had it all together and the world was just waking up to her brilliance.
This morning Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam tweeted some news about his other Seattle band, Brad -- they just leaked a brand new song called "Waters Deep." You can listen to it below, and if you like what you hear, go ahead and grab a free download. Thanks, Stone . . . .
This morning we've had some thunderstorms around Puget Sound, and in my house, that means MY DOG ZOE FREAKS OUT!!!! Fireworks, thunderstorms, random gunshots around my neighborhood -- she goes nuts, she starts licking the floor, and she even tries to eat throw rugs when she hears those sounds that upset her.
We have a whole emergency system for when Zoe freaks. First, I close all the windows. Second, I put a Benadryl in a Pill Pocket and encourage her to gulp that down to calm her nerves. (I'm not sure this is recommended by vets, but it helps.) And most importantly, I wrap her up in her Thundershirt. It doesn't totally solve the problem, but do think it calms her down a little. It's like a nice tight hug for your dog, and that seems to comfort her.
Back in June, Moby was the headliner at a music festival in Belgrade, and Amy Winhouse opened for him. She was in bad shape, as he describes in this story:
âThe moment I got out of the car, I knew something was wrong,â Moby tells The Hollywood Reporter from a stop in Rome on Sunday night. âFrom backstage, I could hear the audience booing louder than the music.â
Making his way to the side of the stage while Winehouse was already on, Moby took in the troubling sight. âAmy was just standing there, swaying back and forth and mumbling occasionally,â he recalls. âThe band were playing quietly and looking uncomfortable and the audience was looking on in disbelief.â He, too, could not believe his eyes.
âShe was on stage for about 30 minutes, then she left and was lying down on a flight case backstage surrounded by some people,â Moby continues. âI was horrified.â
On Saturday night, Moby tweeted:
âafter our show in serbia i wish i'd been able to help amy. i'm sorry.â
And here's a little bit of the performance he was talking about. Tough to watch, but a pretty big red flag that something was seriously wrong in Amy's world:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two wraps up the eight-film Harry Potter series. If you've only had time to see, um . . . none of them, relax. Check out these two HP geeks who created a quick and easy way to stay on top of the whole series so you'll know what people are talking about when they discuss the finer points of Hogwarts and Voldemort:
That's the question following the sad news of Amy Winehouse's death.
Sales of her breakthrough 2006 album Back To Black have increased 37 times over since Saturday. Why? Do people think they won't be able to get her music now that she's gone? (Have they noticed any shortage of Jimi Hendrix, Michael Jackson, or John Lennon records?) Were a lot of people unfamiliar with her music, but they figured. "Hey, everybody's making a big deal about her death; maybe I better check her out?"
Actor/comedian Russell Brand knew Amy Winehouse, and he wrote a moving tribute to her on his blog, where he said addiction needs to be treated like any other illness:
Not all addicts have Amy's incredible talent. Or Kurt's or Jimi's or Janis's. Some people just get the affliction. All we can do is adapt the way we view this condition, not as a crime or a romantic affectation but as a disease that will kill.
You've heard it a million times . . . astronauts are up there in outer space, it's time for them to wake up, so somebody down at Mission Control cues up some country song, or U2's "Beautiful Day" or Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World" or whatever, and blasts it up to the shuttle.
Well this week, the Atlantis shutle crew -- currently staying on the International Space Station -- got something a little better than the typical musical cliche cued up by a NASA DJ . . . R.E.M's Michael Stipe actually sang to them:
Here's a cool countdown of Space Shuttle wake-up songs . . . . ."Pigs In Space?" The Magnum PI theme song? Yes! Check it out.
Oh jeez, this is awkward. Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, who were in Talking Heads with David Byrne, are celebrating the 30th anniversary of their TH side project, Tom Tom Club, with a small tour this summer. They pair (who in real life have been married for 34 years!) sat down for an interview with The Quietus, and they had some harsh things to say about their former bandmate:
You have often criticised David as emotionally remote, inarticulate and self-absorbed in previous interviews. He told me recently he had come to the conclusion that he is slightly autistic, do you think this may explain his behaviour in Talking Heads?
CF: Yes, and if you know anything about autism then you know it's not something that can be cured. It doesn't go away. A lot of people are on what's called the 'high functioning' end, and I think in David's case that is very likely true.
You mean he is like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man?
CF: Well, ha, not exactly... but he is an excellent driver.
TW: In Talking Heads, I didn't like it that people would say: 'What is that guy? Is he a moron or a genius?' So I said, 'Oh, he's a genius' â I much preferred that people thought that. But that's not true either, none of us are Stephen Hawking. If that was the case we'd be the Hawking Heads... ha!
When Talking Heads reunited to play the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, Chris called it a 'happy ending'. But is it true you then proposed a full reunion, which David firmly rejected?
CF: Well, I think we all hoped â Jerry and Tina and I â that David would just kind of wake up and think: 'What was I thinking? Talking Heads was a great band, wonderful chemistry, why don't we just take one more lap around the track just for the hell of it?' But I guess in the back of our minds we knew that was not on David's agenda.
So David has completely dismissed any reunion plans?
I'm glad Chris and Tina have stuff going on in their own careers, and I understand why they must be a little frustrated at David's unwillingness to work with them, but I have to say that after seeing a couple of David Byrne's solo shows in 2009 (at Benaroya Hall and The Paramount), he doesn't really need to do a Talking Heads reunion. Those were two of the best live shows I ever saw, ever. And he totally rocked all the Talking Heads songs he played. No doubt it woiuld be great to see those songs done by the actual TH lineup, but after seeing David's shows, I get why he doesn't feel the need to participate. He's pretty much a self-contained genius.
Their Sigh No More album is selling like . . . well, like an Adele album. But they're not sitting around counting their money. They're working on new music. A new full-length on its way next year, so Mumford & Sons have been trying out some new material on tour.
"Home" is a banjo-driven ballad which serves as a love letter to the band's friends, fans and family around the world. Here's a take of the song that they did in a Colorado radio staton's version of the Carter Subaru Mountain Music Lounge:
It happened on Wednesday night in London. The legendary Led Zeppelin guitarist is all excited because his new website just went live. The Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson is all excited because his beard is nowlonger than Jesus' beard:
For the last year the rootsy band of brothers have been working on the followup to I And Love And You in a studio in Asheville, NC with uber-producer Rick Rubin. More than a dozen songs are done, and here's your first chance to hear one of them. It's a heartbreaker called "The Once and Future Carpenter":
