John Fisher

I guess it's cool. but I kind of have to agree with the people commenting on this website who are not impressed. One comment: “when is Peter going to actually produce some new material? He spent the last 10 years doing nothing more than trying every conceivable way to recycle old material. If he’d written one new song a year, he’d have enough material for a new album by now." Point taken . . . . but if you'd like to learn more about the app go here.

I know it’s not exactly prime bicycling weather right how, but if you’re looking forward to commuting on two wheels, but you find it a hassle to bring along your lock, check out this genius idea: A seat post with a built in lock.  Two 20 inch cables retract into your seat post when you’re riding, but when you lock the bike you pull them out, run them through the frame, and lock that baby down.  It’s kind of brilliant.  And no lock clattering around your seatpost while you ride. It’s called InterLock and it’s $39 bucks, or it will be if they get the Kickstarter money they need to launch it for real.. Here's a very informative four-second video that shows it in action:
 

 

 

Oh wait, here's the inventor actually explaining the whole thing:
 

 

To order, or contribute some Kickstarter money, or just learn more about it, go here.

 

 

Since he topped the list of Rolling Stone's 50 Funniest People Now (see blog post below) I thought Louis C.K. would be a good choice for today's comedy.  Comedians do a lot of traveling . . .  and Louis really doesn't like traveling to Buffalo.

 

Everybody likes to laugh, right? Who makes you laugh? Rolling Stone thinks they've got the definitive list of The 50 Funniest People Now. They explain how they put the list together:

Here they are: The 50 actors, stand-ups, TV hosts, Twitterers, radio personalities, septuagenarians and sports analysts making us laugh the most right now. In making this list, we took the "now" part seriously, and focused on comedians' recent work. That meant excluding some all-time greats who aren’t very active as funnymen (or aren't doing their best work at the moment) in favor of people who are truly killing it out there these days.

 

The members of the Allman Brothers Band have been sitting on some personal recordings of their shows which they've never released to the public -- until now.  They're mining their vaults for two new albums, both of which capture the band's early-1970s live performances. I don't know about you, but I never had a chance to see them back in the glory days, so these two releases should go a long way toward illuminating just what the band was all about and why their live shows were so legendary back in the day.

Here's the scoop from AllmanBrothersBand.com:

The 2/11/72 concert in their Macon, GA hometown is the ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND’s first show there after the death of founding guitarist DUANE ALLMAN and features the group as a five-piece with all original members: keyboardist GREGG ALLMAN, drummers BUTCH TRUCKS and JAIMOE, bassist BERRY OAKLEY and guitarist DICKEY BETTS. Never-before-heard in the bootleg market, the Macon performance showed the band in ferocious form, just two months before their legendary EAT A PEACH live album was released.

The band’s 5/1/73 show at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, NY marked a much different line-up for the ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND.  Keyboardist CHUCK LEAVELL (who would later go on to the Rolling Stones) had joined the group in mid 1972 just before founding bassist BERRY OAKLEY’s untimely death. Jaimoe’s childhood friend LAMAR WILLIAMS was chosen to replace Berry Oakley six months prior to the Nassau recording. Four songs from this set had not appeared on any of the previous live or archival releases: “Come & Go Blues,” “Wasted Words,” “Jessica” and “Ramblin’ Man.” Like the 2/11/72 Macon show, this concert is from a two-track reel-to-reel soundboard master tape.

 

Both albums will arrive on February 12, and more rare perfromances from the Allmans' vaults are in the works. And if they hit the road anytime soon and stop in the Northwest, you'll be the first to know, if you join the club.

This Tuesday, Fleetwood Mac is reissuing their blockbuster classic Rumours in a new deluxe package that contains all kinds of extras and unreleased material, including a dozen live tracks recorded during their 1977 world tour at stops in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Nashville, and Columbia, South Carolina. Right now you can listen to all the live tracks, all the way through, thanks to Rolling Stone.  As they describe it:

The disc features Fleetwood Mac favorites like "Rhiannon" and "World Turning," as well as plenty of  Rumours highlights including a swooning rendition of "Dreams," a stomping version of "The Chain" that comes to a raucous conclusion, and the heartbreaking closer "Songbird."

 

 

It's very cool to hear a band at the top of their game, obviously enegized by the thrill of releasing what would arguably stand as their finest work.  (Okay, if you read the book Making Rumours, you know they were also energized by buckets of cocaine, but the music still sounds great.)

Click here to go to the player.


 

Okay, maybe it's too early to judge.  Steve Jobs himself was a pretty intense guy, so I guess that's what Ashton Kutcher is going for here in the first leaked scene from the movie jOBS, which will hit theaters on April 19. Here's Kuchter as Jobs having a heated convo with fellow Apple founder Steve Wozniak, played by Josh Gad (from Broadway's The Book of Mormon.)

Dave Grohl has been working hard on his latest project, The Sound City Players, the band he assembled as part of the promotion for his new studio documentary Sound City. Everybody in the band, including Stevie Nicks, John Fogerty, Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick and Rick Springfield, has some kind of history with the legendary studio in Van Nuys, California that's the subject of Grohl's movie.  (His old band Nirvana recorded Nevermind there.)
 

The group did a show at the Sundance FIlm Festival last weekend; they just announced another show next week in L.A., and there my be more after that. Grohl told Billboard "we plan to do shows all over the world. When I came up with the idea of taking all these performers to the live stage a few months ago, my idea [was] to have video presentations between each performance. We'll have that at the next shows."

 

On the NME website,  Grohl said: "I thought I'd pay tribute (to Sound City) by making a short film and putting it on YouTube. It was right around the 20th anniversary of Nevermind so I thought this will be a nice sidebar that I'm reunited with the board that made that album. Then I got the shortlist of everyone who made an album there and it's not a short list. I called out to as many people as I could, thinking maybe some of them would want to talk and all of them wanted to talk."

 

Here's the band at Sundance with Grohl and Stevie Nicks sharing vocals on Stevie's "Stop Dragging My Heart Around."

And John Fogerty steps up for CCR's  "Born On The Bayou."
 

Megan Mooney shares a few tales of her dysfunctional family.

 

*It looks like a vegetable steamer rack.
*I'm looking for giant flames to blast out of the center.
*Ritz crackers go in the middle?
*It looks like a bacon wrapped roast.
*Looks like a piece of sushi sitting on a bed of greens.
*At first I thought it was a creative cracker/dip bowl....mmm, guess not!

*Looks like cold cuts.
*Sand worm eating a spice harvester!
*Nice bread bowl! The only thing missing is a spoon!
 

Feel free to join the conversation and offer your thoughts on our Facebook page.

 

Dave Grohl of  Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, and fellow Foo Taylor Hawkins, both fresh off helping make Led Zeppelin cry at last month's Kennedy Center Honors, will induct Rush.

We still don't know who's inducting Seattle's rock icons Heart, or the hip hop group Public Enemy.  Stay tuned.

 

The 28th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony is April 18, 2013, at the Nokia Theatre in L.A.  You can try to buy tickets for the event here.  And you'll be able to see it on HBO on May 18.

This looks great. It's The History of The Eagles, Part One. And it's not just some fawning PR thing -- it's a real documentary which they unveiled at the Sundance Festival over the weekend. It shows the bad stuff as well as the good stuff: We see the drugs, the women, the massive success, the bitter feuds, and Joe Walsh discusses the finer points of trashing a hotel room. Part One takes us up to the band's meltdown in 1980, and Part Two picks up when they reunited in 1994. Both parts will air on consecutive nights next month on Showtime -- February 15 and 16.

To check out a full review and watch the trailer, go here.
 

Last fall, Guns N' Roses did a residency in Las Vegas -- multiple nights at the hard Rock Hotel.  And now it's going to be a 3D concert film which will be in theaters sometime later this year (as well as a DVD release an some kind of airing on cable TV.)  They've leaked a little of the film, and it's  . . . . explosive.  Literally!  Check out this spectacular rendition of "Paradise City," complete with over the top pyro and scantily clad dancers flanking the stage. Granted, Axl Rose isn't a kid anymore and might benefit from a regular workout plan, but the band still brings the rock:

 

 

 

 

No word on the exact release date for the film, which is called Appetite for Democracy. And if GN'R decides to tour again, you'll be the first to know . . . . at least if you join the club.

 

 

They say we walk 75,000 miles by the time we reach 50, and we cover a lot more ground if we're runners.  One of the keys to safe running -- that is, not screwing up your knees and your feet -- is to replace your shoes when they wear out. Supposedly, a pair of running shoes is only good for 400-600 miles .But how do you know when they're toast?  You use a little device called MilestonePod.  It's a little capsule that clps to your shoe, tracks your mileage and lets you know when it's time for new shoes. It also contains your emergency info, so in case you have some kind of accident outt here, emergency personnel can plug it into a computer and get your medical data.
 

Here's a charmingly amateur video with the pitch from the gadget's creators:
 

 

They're crowdsourcing the funding for MilestonePod, and if you kick in some seed money, you get one for yourself. (It's going to sell for $14.95.) Check it out here.

We all know that one of these days a big earthquake is going to wreak havoc around here, or at least scare the crap out of us. Are we prepared? Probably not.  But here's one easy thing you can do:  Microsoft just launched a new mobile app called HelpBridge. 
 

 

 

The app lets you assemble a list of friends and family members you'd want to contact in an emergency, and when disaster strikes you can quickly send multiple texts or emails to call for help or to let everybody know you're okay.  You can post an emergency message on your Facebook timeline (because that'st he first thing you'd want to do in a natural disaster -- check Facebook!) and you can even send out your location via your phone's GPS so people can find you.

The app also lets you easily donate to aid organizations if -- instead of needing help -- you want to give help in a disaster. HelpBridge works on iPhone, Android, and of course Windows Phone 8 (because it's from Microsoft) and it's free. Read more here.

Here's a Microsoft video explaining the app:
 

");

You know how environmentally aware we are here in the Northwest; here are some observations from Hari Kondabolu.

 

 

 

 

 

Dave Grohl of Nirvana and the Foo Fighters is about to release his documentary, Sound City, about the legendary L.A. recording studio where tons of artists recorded classic albums:  Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, Cheap Trick, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, Guns 'N' Roses and many more.  They're going to screen the film one night only -- January 31 -- and around here, it'll be on the giant screen at Cinerama in Seattle. You can buy tickets for the screening here.  But if you miss that, no worries -- you'll be able to download it the next day, February 1.  Here's the link for that.  Meanwhile, the trailer:
 

 

Okay, so he does refer to the quaint device known as the answering machine, but Kevin James does have some valid gripes about phone ettiquette.

How about flying the 12th man flag on your laptop? I guess they're big Seahawks fans at the Seattle creative agency BAJI,  because they've created some 12th Man wallpapers for your computer desktop or iPhone.  Go there now and grab them.

 

Mitch Hedberg jumps from one random thought to another --  broken escalators, rental cars, and medical questionnaires.

Oh yeah, she's out there. Maria Bamford has some deep thoughts about nutrition, love, and naming your kids.

 

 

Here's the scoop, straight from DavidBowie.com:

"The moment you know, you know you know" resonates from the new single's lyric. Now we all know...David Bowie has been in the recording studio...just when we least expected it!!
 

Yup, that's what I did over the holidays -- I got hitched!  We figured since we already had the kid, we'd go ahead and make it official.  We got married on December 21 at Hotel 1000 in Seattle -- a small ceremony with family and some close friends, and then a big dinner. 
 

Here's a tip that'll make your life easier:  Marry a woman your mother loves too.
 

We squeezed in a mini-honeymoon right after Christmas at the Inn at Langley on Whidbey Island -- beautiful!

I hope your holidays were great. I'll be back on the air on Monday following the Longest All Music Workday Ever.  Stay warm!