You Decide: Scarlett Johansson

Yahoo Music just unveiled the music video for Scarlett Johansson’s debut single Falling Down. The Dave Sitek produced (TV on the Radio) full-length album of Tom Waits cover songs, Anywhere I lay My Head, will be released on May 20th with appearances by David Bowie and Nick Zinner (The Yeah Yeah Yeahs).

MP3: The Teenagers – Starlett Johansson

New Death Cab for Cutie Tunes

Ben Gibbard and Co played an exclusive in-studio live set for Daytrotter, based out of Illinois. The set-list included two new tracks Cath and Talking Bird from The Narrow Stairs out on May 13th.

The Set list:
A Movie Script Ending
Cath **
Styrofoam Plates
Talking Bird
The New Year
Why You’d Want To Live Here
>download mp3’s here<

See Death Cab on Tour at these Local Venues:
6-10 Brooklyn, NY – McCarren Park Pool *
7-17 London, England – Brixton Academy

- Anthony

Ting Tings song on new iPod commercial

I caught the new iPod ad in full today and thought the song sounded really familiar. Upon further investigation I discovered that the song was indeed The Ting Tings‘ Shut Up & Let Me Go. Perfect song for this campaign and great exposure for them. You can’t miss the ad…it’s on at least once every commercial break.

The Ting Tings are a really fun indie-electro duo from Manchester. Their tunes have been tearing up the dancefloors across the UK for a while and are now looking to bring their brand of poppy dance punk to the US. Caught them at Union Hall last month and really looking forward to their show at Southpaw on June 20th (tix are cheap and still available). Check out tunes from their upcoming album, We Started Nothing, on their myspace page.

«click to see more photos of The Ting Tings at Union Hall»

Foals at Bowery Ballroom

Foals played the Bowery Ballroom on Thursday, April 24th. Was my first time seeing them and was thoroughly impressed. They deftly ran through their song catalog with energy and determination. The saxophone is a brilliant touch to the songs and sounds amazing live as well. The crowd seemed pretty into it but was relatively tame, barring the annoying couple GRINDING next to me. GRINDING TO FOALS! only in America.

Highlights for me included Mathletics, Electric Bloom and Cassius.

live footage I took of Cassius:

Killed time w/ Anthony before the show at this charming, taxidermy kitsch watering hole: Home Sweet Home
Ridiculously awesome happy hour ($3 well drinks until 9:30pm!), great tunes and perfect location (Chrystie St., just one block up from the Bowery) is going to make this place a permanent pre-show staple.

«click to see more photos of Foals at Bowery Ballroom 4/24/08»

Costello Love

Next week I’ll be heading to Liverpool for a few days to do the press for the MTV Brand Spanking New Music tour. I’m very excited
Hearing new tracks from The Fratellis (not sure how big they are stateside) Alphabeat and The Ting Tings

If you’re unfamiliar with these bands check out their Myspaces. Alphabeat in particular are leading a new trend in commercial, yet perfectly expectable pop music (Sam Sparro please step forward)
Also playing are The Pigeon Detectives, The Rascals and The Metros.

This Sunday I’ll also be attending the eagerly awaited Love Music Hate Racism carnival in east London. It marks the 30th anniversary of the Rock Against Racism gig that The Clash played 30 years to the day.
Should be a good day – check out their website http://www.lmhrcarnival.com/

Erol Alkan DJing at FIXED next Saturday!

I would literally go anywhere to see Erol Alkan spin. The brilliant mixmaster behind Trash, the greatest club night EVER, is hitting the decks all over the world and returning to FIXED at Studio B in Brooklyn next Saturday, May 3rd.

Erol’s recently taken on the role of super-producer having worked on The Long Blondes latest, Couples as well as the Mystery Jets new release, Twenty One. I also believe he’s working with Late of the Pier. busy busy!

This FIXED is bound to be a fabulous night out. see flyer below for all details:

Peaches En Regelia

Hello my fellow homo-sapiens…the last couple of weeks have been good, nothing major to report from London town really. Last week however, I did get a rare glimpse into the world of celebrity. I was lucky enough to be given a pass to see Noel Fielding at the Royal Albert Hall in aide of Teenage Cancer Trust. It was an interesting affair and kinda confirmed my own thoughts that the Mighty Boosh are no longer a cult thing, they have become incredibly mainstream. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. Great universal love, it’s all good man. His show was incredibly sketchy and not in the comical sense. For those of you unfamiliar with the shaggy-haired lathorio, he’s a comedian who is the brains (alongside Julian Barrett) behind The Mighty Boosh (google it) it’s a very funny, if not a surreal program and is considered of marmite tendencies. Noel himself was very funny, but the support comedians were not…which is a shame, because it could have been a great show. Anyways, afterwards I went to the afterparty (as you do) and stared in an uncomfortable nature as Lily Allen looked like she was stripping for the cameras. It was surreal like watching a movie! She’s was incredibly fucked and most of all, lonely – everyone was vying for her attention and she’s only one person.

I’ve always liked Lily Allen (despite her not so great show…) I think she’s smart, clever and her new songs are opting a interesting direction but I didn’t like this side of her really, but i guess she’s only human. I then cautiously watched a London Paper journalist peering on, I was making a mental note of the kind of story he would print in his column the next day and wondered how fabricated it would be – it was. He created stories that she was coonodling with Gavin and Stacey star; James Corden, who I’ve very slowly started to find very attractive…

That was the last ‘cool’ party I went to, I’ve been reading the Pamela Des Barres book ‘I’m With The Band’ it’s fucking brilliant. I’ve been meaning to read this book for a while as people kept telling me I’d love it. And I do. It’s not a sordid account of her conquests but a sweet rendition of her rock n roll loves. I actually cried when she described being heartbroken by Jimmy Page and Mick Jagger gorgeous red lips caressing her already sore thighs. Pamela is a pretty inspirational human being, not in the accomplishment sense, because if you look closely she hasn’t really achieved much, but the way she relays her stories makes you want to walk up to the next rock star and try and shag him! Pamela was a frail and naive lady, music was her heroin and men was her down and upfall. The way she talks about Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa makes you sad that you weren’t living in those times…
I must stop talking about Beefheart, everytime I see his name in print, my heart skips a beat, he does something to me I could never explain. I love Floyd, Zappa, Roxy Music but Beefheart will always remain close to me.

I think Lori Maddox is next…!

This photo was taken the next Page dumped Pamela…

Lately I’ve been re-listening to some music, Nirvana, Weezer and Morrissey god I love these people. I’ve also been thinking about religion a lot lately, which is really starting to scare me – I stand at the bus stop and think, ‘oh shit in a moment, the bus will come and I will no longer be staring at the corner store’ we really do have so little time left on this beautiful planet I intend to cherish every moment!

Captain Beefheart once said that God is like the perfect musical note. If that’s his ideology of the higher being then I love this beautiful man as much as a did yesterday.
Wow I churned this shit out in 15 minutes I feel like Lester Bangs – minus the cough syrup

I’d rather have you as a husband for 47 years than fuck you for 47 minutes.

The beautiful Don Van Vliet

an utterance of truth

I have been housebound the last few weeks so I have no exciting hot gossip from London town, but I must confess something…I really wanted not to like The Last Shadow Puppets, but today they entered abruptly into my world! Each day Steve Lamacq keeps me company as I sit and write, today’s writing consisted mainly of flux, the search for a posthuman language and DISplacing place, but back to what is important….

as much as I wanted to ignore this band I don’t think I can. There have been many sighs and whispers from me, I saw them on Jools Holland and claimed they were ripping of muse. BUT I have to say my mind is changing. They joined Steve Lamacq for a chat and although a certain Mr monkey Alex does irritate me, especially with his ideas that this band are fresh and modern the music is growing on me. Yes they have a massive sound and yes it is very good and yes the lyrics are dark, but modern and new it is not! There is a certain familiarity to the filmic sounds which they are creating and for me the only freshness to be taken from this is the dear Mr Rascal. So although the music has changed my mind, songs like Only The Truth are examples of great musicianship, a bitter taste is left in my mouth. I may just be spending too much time indoors, but I do wish these sounds the best, I just hope that all this hype only helps The Rascals and their summer of festivals!!!

hear the interview here

xox

Radiohead go green for Conan, Lily’s new tunes, and is America ready for Russell Brand?

It’s a sign of the times when observing a day that most people used to think was only reserved for hippies or scientifically enlightened types becomes an uber fashionable badge of social and environmental consciousness and concern. As you probably know, today, April 22nd, is Earth Day. In 2008, however, one day is just not enough and that’s why April has been declared Earth Month.

This initiative’s got everyone on board:
+This Sunday, The New York Times Magazine published a painstakingly dense, albeit noble, guide to reducing the size of your carbon footprint.

+The Discovery Channel launched new channel, Planet Green.

+Major US television network, NBC, is focusing this week on featuring environmentally conscious programming. On Wednesday night, Late Night With Conan O’Brien, will feature green themed guests Seth Green, Peter Greenberg and RADIOHEAD. The band, who were the show’s first ever musical guests back in 1993, will raise environmental awareness by showing an exclusive performance of House of Cards previously recorded in London.

Lily Allen has posted 2 brand new songs on her Myspace page.(thx Popjustice) I Don’t Know and I Can’t Say see Lily expressing her jaded view of celebrity and lamenting some recent personal tragedies. Both seem to be quite rudimentary versions of the songs. Her voice sounds lovely on both but the latter feels more like something you’d expect from the Sugababes or Girls Aloud than the refreshing reggae and brass infused offerings found on Alright, Still. Her awkward BBC 3 chat show, Lily Allen and Friends, has turned me off to her of late but maybe she’ll redeem herself with a thoughtful sophomore album.

Lily’s recently found herself overcome with blonde ambition:

Comedian Russell Brand is making his major US film debut in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the latest installment from the Judd Apatow comedy mafia. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but it seems as though Russell’s character, a debaucherous rock star, is a perfect fit for him. He’s grossly over-exposed in the UK and I got sick of him after a while when the novelty of his cockney comedy with a Dickensian flair wore off. I’m not really sure what American audiences will think of him initially, but he’s bound to get great exposure from his involvement with the popular Apatow set and will surely rise to some sort of cult status among Anglophiles at least.

+USA Today ran a profile of Russell while the BBC pondered how we’ll receive him.

+check out his myspace to hear him performing the hysterical song from Sarah Marshall, Inside of You, as Aldous Snow, lead singer of Infant Sorrow.

+He’ll be appearing on Letterman this Wednesday, April 23rd and on Jimmy Kimmel May 2nd.

Looks like we’ll just have to wait and see if America is ready for THIS:

Another Madonna Knock-Out

Hard Candy// I’m almost embarrassed to admit my anticipation for the new Madonna record, but screw that…I was at the edge of my seat waiting for the album to leak. After much Google searching I finally got my hands on the mp3 leak of the album, leaving the confines my cubicle to walk around NYC to give Hard Candy a listen.

Unlike 2006’s Confessions on a Dancefloor’s hard dancefloor beats courtesy of Stuart Price aka The Thin White Duke, Hard Candy mixes funky dance beats with a urban tinge via Pharrell Williams and Timbaland [Justin Timberlake is featured on 2 songs and Kanye West on 1], but somehow it works. The sound is very reminiscent of Madonna’s early work but a fresh and updated sound that old fans and new will be grooving to.

To be honest, although pleasant to listen to, most of the songs didn’t blow me away. I think it will be a “grower album” — I’ll love it more after a few listens. My choice tracks are “Heartbeat,” “Miles Away,” and “Incredible.” The best track on the album hands down is “Give it 2 Me” a hard dance track [think Bloc Party's Flux meets DFA] which is sure to pack the dancefloor! The album is available at your local record shop on 4/29/08.

Also: Win tickets for Madonna in NYC- just make sure you invite me!

Silent Rave in Union Square, NYC //4-18-2008

Silent Rave: The idea is that everyone meets at Union Square to rave to their own music, Ipod, CD player, walkman, etc. A ridiculous idea but a fun source of entertainment. I snapped this photo on Friday while on my way to Happy Hour.

PS: No MP3 link, I’m scared the RIAA will come searching for me!

- Anthony