I know many of you would have expected The Pogues & Kirsty McColl performing "Fairytale of New York"but I found this performance by Coldplay which I thought was great-due to the sing-along by the crowd!
Just found out tonight that the Beav has never heard the song "Blame It" by Jamie Foxx. All I got to say is man you need some more MTV or VH1 "Jump Start" in your life brother. You've got no excuse not to have heard this one but I guess you can blame it on the ah-ah-ah-alcohol.
Since the band, Better Than Ezra is playing tonight at the Farm, I thought I would add their tune, "Porcelain" from their Deluxe album to the Bushido for all of you "Ezralites". This song is "so good, yeah, you know it's so good" all right so that's a kick back to when the band was still blasting on the radio and we didn't have to ask people if they were still together (obviously they are and have released seven records since Deluxe) although Travis McNabb packed up his drum kit to join a much more "babe" friendly country band called Sugarland, Michael Jerome has taken his place on drums and evidently, the word on the street is Better Than Ezra still rocks.
For every passion or profession, there's a handful of meaningful places significant to your craft; the sort of place where the hairs of your neck stand on end when you cross the threshold entering into the hallowed ground: artists have the Lourve, architects have Rome, kids have Disneyland, stoners have a strip-mall with a Taco Bell, 7-11 and Gamestop, Christians have St. Peter's (which artists and architects dig as well), rednecks have monster-truck rallies and rock musicians have among other places, the Abbey Road Recording Studio. Most people only know of Abbey Road from the famous Beatles' album (Abbey Road) cover of the band walking single-file across the cross-walk with a VW Bug up on the curb, which the average person would probably assume the album is simply named after the street and not the studio at #3 Abbey Road, St. John's Wood, London UK.
"Her Majesty" The Abbey Road Studio is stacked in history. From Blumlein's inventions to EMI's recordings of a laundry list of talented musicians: the Beatles, Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”, Fiona Apple, Oasis, U2, Foo Fighters, Mika, Stevie Wonder, et. al. And let's not forget the mixing of such movies as "Star Wars-1, 2, 3, 5 & 6", "The Lord of the Rings Trilogy", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", etc.
Serendipity (aka: "Golden Slumbers") Just by happen stance, I was up late the other night watching some quite bizarre British series) when I saw the commercial for "Live From Abbey Road" and thought, plenty of room on the DVR, let's see what this show is all about. I cut it on as I was doing some tinkering on some bottling equipment in the brew-house and I heard the Black Keys in the shorts-introductions. Yahtzee! There's Dan Auerbach carrying his kid into the studio, giving a little chat on his way into "work". I immediately wanted to call Dale and every other person I shopped the Keys to when I was back in Ohio (how do people from Akron not know of these guys?) in June, but alas, it was a bit late for a phone call, so this post will have to do.
"Come Together" "Live From Abbey Road" is split into performances by three different artists, with a bit of filler, "get to know the band" material in between sets. The show kicked off with The Hoosiers (which I think I first heard about on MOKB) a British band who came to the states to ride the colonist's scholarship gravy-train by playing "football" (read soccer) at Indiana University. They thought Indiana was "sofa-king" awesome, they named their band "the Hoosiers". (Dude, there's about 47 states that are so much cooler than Indiana, but to each their own.)
"I Want You (She's So Heavy)" I digress; as the folks at My Old Kentucky Blog note, "They will more than appeal to all fans of the whole brit-pop/new wave/falsetto lead vocals trend that was in full effect a couple years ago." The Hoosiers' first tune, "Goodbye Mr. A" a bit campy in an ELO type of way, but still good enough to toss on the iPod. Their next tune, "Run Rabbit Run" is a little ditty about spousal abuse and loving a woman who doesn't dig you, instead she wants the guy who treats her like crap and beats her. The singer who still cares for her wants that "rabbit to run" (assumingly back to) him-which appears, despite being in a rock and roll band this is the songwriter's first experience with the unwriten rules of dating crazy women with "Daddy-issues". (Special message to the songwriter: You need to write a follow up to the song, something along the lines of "You're sofa-king crazy and I am running rabbit"). Finally, the guys wrap things up with a cover of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" as if people haven't been doing that one since "the world has been turning". Nonetheless, it's a decent cover. It's not as good as What Made Milwaukee Famous' cover of "You May Be Right" but is gets the job done as covers go.
Mr. Sun Manu Chao the French-born singer and political activist, performed "Bongo Bong/Mr. Bobby", "Bienvenidoa Tijuana" and "Politik Kills". Pretty easy going jams for songs so controversial-I guess you have to listen to the words. I thought this was my first intro to Manu Chao, but I was wrong, I have his song, "Me Gustas Tu" in my iPod-dang that thing has stuff in there I don't even know about.
"The End" Something I didn't know was how the Black Keys got their name, to which Carney tell a story about how a his dad had befriended a local artist and the guy would call and leave these bizarre messages (i.e. "Jim Carney pick me up a pound of pipe tobacco and a 2-liter Diet Coke-you're a 'black key' if you don't). Auerbach took in all of the history of the place referring to the Blumlein microphones still around the place, that he thought "Blumlein" was just a name engineers threw around, turns out he's a real guy. (Alan Blumlein invented the stereo system) (Link to Alan Blumlein's bio on Abbey Road's site). The best though was when the guys were in the small room off of the studio and talked about the history of the Beatles going in there to eat "sandwiches". And of course, I can't leave out how the guys make their music-by jamming! Btw, the Black Keys will perform at the following locations near the Holy City: the Orange Peel in Asheville (Oct. 3) The House of Blues in Myrtle Beach (Oct. 4th) and the Disco Rodeo in Raleigh (Oct. 5th). For you folks in Ohio, you can check the Black Keys out at the LC Amphitheater on Oct. 9th.
For more on the Black Keys' performance, click here to go to the Sundance Channel's Abbey Road page.
Thirteen years ago today, Jerry Garcia died of a heart attack after checking into a drug-rehab facility in Forest Knolls, California. I thought that I would include this video of one of my favorite Dead tunes, "Box of Rain"-one of the few songs sung by Phil Lesh, and the song he sang to his father (who was terminally ill with cancer) on his death-bed. As a few of you know, one of my claims to fame is that I was at the last Grateful Dead Show at Soldier Field in Chicago on July 9th, 1995 and the Dead performed "Black Muddy River" for their first encore and then returned on stage to perform "Box of Rain" their last song performed together in their 2,314th Show as Jerry died a month later.
One of my favorite movies (and soundtracks) is "The Last Waltz" one of the first movies to fill the genre of "rockumentary". Marty Scorsese put together a brilliant piece of The Bands last performance or "last waltz" if you will. Now he has turned that same genius to capture the Stones (another Bushido favorite) over a two-day period at the Beacon Theater in New York City in fall 2006. Here is the clip of the Stones performing, "Jumping Jack Flash".
I remember when the magazine Rolling Stone reported that Marty was filming the Stones at a concert during Bill Clinton's birthday, and I am glad to finally see the flick heading to theaters. Look for special guests: Jack White, Buddy Guy and Christina Aguilera to drop in for special appearances as Dr. Jon and Neil Young (amongst others) did for The Band. Also, I am sure there will be some great clips of the guys back-stage. If you don't have the bucks to drop to see the Stones live this will probably be your next best thing. Posted by The Bushido
Indeed, we will get into the spirit of Charleston's Fashion Week with a little music and a handful of the world's hottest models courtesy of our old friend George Michael and his "Freedom '90" video. By old friend George Michael, let's just say we don't go to the bathroom together like a bunch of chicks, but still the old wanker knew how to stock a video full of form and pulchritude with the likes of Naomi Campbell in the body suit at the end of the video and dancing in cowboy boots and lingerie in the beginning of the video, Linda Evangelista as the short-haired blond hottie singing under the sweater, Christy Turlington is the floor crawling brunette with the big brown eyes, Tatjana Patitz is the blond (German) model smoking and Cindy Crawford steaming things up in a bathtub and straddling the chair with her long legs spread harking back to a flash-dance for those who remember. For the ladies, that's Scott Benoit and Todo Segalla as the male models in the video. Enjoy this six minutes and thirty seconds of art and pleasure.
Don't remember the freedom back in the '90's For you young kids out there that's a dual-cassette-tape deck below the "new" CD player that que's the music and the big music player is a juke-box that explodes at the end of the video, which symbolizes George Michael's new start at music leaving his pop-roots with Whaam! in the past. Naomi Campbell's dancing in the beginning of the video in lingerie and cowboy boots should still be en vogue, if not, we've gone severely off track as a society at large. If you notice, Naomi is dancing with a thick cord attached to her headphones, way before the thin-ear-buds' wires, headphones used to have thick cords and a copper plug to attach to your sound system.
The flying piece of paper flying into the room was something we did as kids called, "making paper airplanes" (unlike regular crashing airplanes, a paper airplane does not make juke-boxes or guitars explode during impact). The metal thing glowing in the corner of the room was a space-heater used to heat rooms. Also, the metal thing whistling at the end of the video was a tea-kettle (used to heat water) on a radiator (a metal device that released heat before central-heating and air). Finally, the dude doing crunches by hanging upside down was the cool thing to do back in the 90's-that is if you had a threshold, a metal bar and ankle straps to clip in with to your metal/chin-up bar. (See Michael Keaton in the Batman movie). Posted by The Bushido
Jazz matriarch and legend Etta James will be on Austin City Limits tonight! Born Jamesette Hawkins in Los Angeles on January 25th 1938, James influenced countless female artists from Tina Turner to Janis Joplin. A soulful singer who fought a rough life filled with drug addictions and the assorted racism of the 50's and 60's, James knows how to bring down the house and I tell you, "I'd rather be a blind girl than to see her go". Enjoy this clip with her and Dr. John. Posted by The Bushido
Country singer-songwriter, Brad Paisley (link to his You-Tube site) will perform on Austin City Limits tonight. Brad is known for his tongue-in-cheek hits along side his more serious songs, normally as a duet with legends of the business. Catch Brad Paisley on ACL tonight or set your Ti-Vo, because I am sure it will be "time well wasted".
Here is the link to his video "Celebrity"-quite humorous. Sorry I couldn't get any of his videos, but the "Embedding (was) disabled by request".
It might just be too much for my senses, one of my favorite rockers parrying up with #5 on the “Bushido’s Musical Crush List” cutting an album together (and produced by T Bone Burnett), Raising Sand and touring this summer (the Raising Sand tour-yes hippies, Bonaroo will be one of their stops) right after the news of Zep’s reunion rocking of the Garden. I just saw this video on VH1 (laugh if you must but if you are working on sketches and don’t have a sound-system hooked up on your room, VH1 plays some sweet tunes in the wee-hours of the morning) and ran to the computer to add it. I’ve heard a little bit of the album and it will certainly be an addition later today. Dang, what a great way to start a Friday.
WTF is going on in this video? Now, you all know, I am pretty liberal, but even this made me scratch my head. If you haven't heard of Sia then you are missing out, granted her video "Buttons" earned this week's Wednesday's WTF? But I really dig her song (as well as performance at Boston's the Paradise) "Electric Bird" from her new album Some People Have Real Problems; enjoy!
The G-Man sent me a copy of Neko Case’s performance “Live at Disney Hall” (11-16/2007) hosted on NPR and I must say, I have embraced Case’s Country noir-Indie style of music. Neko Case (real name) hails from Tacoma, Washington and graduated from the Emily Carr Inst of Art and Design in Vancouver, Canada where she collaborated with bands (i.e. The New Pornographers, The Sadies and Carolyn Mark-whom she tours with as the Corn Sisters) before graduating and losing her student visa.
Case moved to Seattle after school, cutting two records (The Virginian and Furnace Room Lullaby-2002) as Neko Case and Her Boyfriends before heading to the Windy City for a more conducive environment for her work. She dropped her boyfriends in Chicago and released Canadian Amp with six covers on the album, including country and folk legends Neil Young and Hank Williams. It was rumored that her next album, Blacklisted was in response to Case having a “wardrobe malfunction” while performing at the Grand Old Opry in 2001 and not being invited back, but evidently, that’s just part of the “mill”.
A few more collaborations, an election win (32% of the vote) as the "Sexiest Babe of Indie Rock" in a Playboy.com Internet poll, a spot on Austin City Limits in 2006 (see video) and now a performance now, “she’s going to Disneyland”. If you dig on Dolly Parton or the slow deep depression of Neil Young’s Harvest Moon, then pull up a chair and put on some headphones, because Neko Case will be your cup of tea, and while you are at it, go pick up her latest album, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood (2006) or get in the holiday spirit with her single, Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis or catch her on tour with The New Pornographers. (Photo courtesy of NekoCase.net)
The Magnolia Electric Co. is good. I have a feeling this “Low-Fi” video won’t do this performance justice. Here is a video of an old Songs: Ohia tune, “I've Been Riding With The Ghost”. My bad, I totally spaced during the jam and ended the recording. If you haven’t figured it out by now or listened to Songs: Ohia or Magnolia Electric Co. before, I’ll go ahead and tell you, their songs average from 6 to 8 minutes per. People are starting to stare at me as I hold up my phone, either they are impressed with my ability to hold a 2.3 ounce device above eye level for close to 10-minutes at a time (it’s all kinetics baby) or they are quietly judging me for poaching their beloved Indie Rock with obvious plans to put this video on the Bushido Way or even worse You-Tube, then everyone will know about Magnolia Electric Co. And then the band will become main-stream and suddenly everyone in this room right now will lose cool points and we won’t be “sofa-king” clever and ironic.
Byaahhh!!! Blast you Indie crowd-“Well, my name it is Sam Hall, it is Sam Hall, and I hate you one and all, damn your eyes”(Thanks Cash) Or maybe no one is really staring at me, perhaps I should take my foot off the Budweiser throttle and apply some brakes to this Rock & Roll rollercoaster. Best not, I could offend the Rock Gods and they would show their displeasure with something totally un-cool like another Duran-Duran album but this one produced by Eddie Money (Wait, Eddie Money was Money there for a spell).
Whatever, damn these guys are good. I have a feeling that Molina’s voice will probably come over the phone as feedback-distortion, but what the heck. As Goldfinger just said,“A good tune can get you to the next gas station.” And we are well on our way. This message is brought to you by SunCom iNotes Plus.
2 Opening Acts on Monday nite and the Watson Twins just started at 10 PM. Maybe that decision to play-through wasn’t such a smart idea. Goldfinger and I seem to be on a mission to increase the pile of empties in the Village Tavern’s recycling bin. Just ran into Jay-Bird, he’s here with some dudes from Millennium Music. Jay-Bird is chewing gum and not drinking. Obviously, somebody is going to be hurting tomorrow and that someone is probably not Jay.
Everybody Likes Twins I just had a Brief chat with the Watson Twins after their set; they’re hot in a tall drink of water “Indie” way. The one with the hat-wait they’re both wearing hats, keeps on about them being sisters; hence the name, Watson Twins. You don’t have to sell it sister, I get it. Two over six-foot tall brunettes that can sing, I’d assume in a group of 1,000 people that you were related. Whatever, if solid vocals and rhythm is what you dig in an "Alt-Country Indigo Girls" type of way then you will dig the Twins. This message is brought to you by SunCom iNotes Plus.
As if the melodic banjo and harmonies of Canadian singer/songwriter, Leslie Feist's (aka: Feist) new song ("1-2-3-4") wasn't catchy enough, now it is on the new (3rd generation) iPod commercial.
If bubble-gum drops and lollipops are how you deal with lost love than you just might really dig Feist's entire album.
WTF is going on in this video, “Sleeping Giant” by Mastodon?I am assuming this is some form of bizarre, artistic lecture of the abusive nature of the evil of mankind and the effects on our planet and the cosmos, as the two what would be Obi-Wan Kenobi-esque students, taught by, a guy dressed as Dr. Doom from the Fantastic Four (WTF? Obi-Wan Kenobi is in my spell-check?) I digress; the students watch as the life given provides a very primitive group of organisms, incubation occurs and now man is on the micro-planet-building huts, killing dinosaurs etc; incubate again for a growing city-let the pollution begin, incubate one more time, add two-tablespoons of nuclear power, three missiles, a nasty guitar rift, stir and watch as the planet is turned to ash. "Get it people? Quit f'in up the planet or this is what will happen", seems to be the message from Mastodon-now watch this nasty guitar rift, byaah!
After watching this video, après WTF? I got their massage as wacky as the video was and came to appreciate the band’s creativity. I'll even go as far as to wish the band members were high school science teachers; wait they would never make the cut--too much “Evolution” going on in this video. Sorry guys. Posted by The Bushido
With lyrics such as "Why don't you kick yourself out of the country, your an immigrant too" and "Who's using who, what should we do, you can't be a pimp and a prostitute too" you just know that the White Stripes are back in business. I love the heavy guitar and heart-thumping drums harking back to their earlier work on Elephant and White Blood Cells. Enjoy!
All information and material herewithin, unless otherwise noted, is copyright of J. Trabert/The Bushido Way.
E-Mail The Bushido
@ thebushidoway@gmail.com
Bushido Disclaimer
Disclaimer: Due to somewhat graphic content: pictures of cheerleaders, friends imbibing libations, obscene gestures made by Pres. Bush, etc. this blog should not be viewed by the Amish, Puritans and those under the age of 18 (w/out parental consent). (Photo courtesy of "The 7 Samurai")
