2007 Bloggies: Best Weblog About Music [view: normal]

CNN reports that Los Angeles County Coroners performed an autopsy on Michael Jackson earlier today. But in a press conference this afternoon, operations chief Craig Harvey declined to give Jackson's cause of death. "The cause of death has been deferred," Harvey told reporters.

Harvey said that the coroners had requested additional testing, which are expected to take four to six weeks. He also sa...

Last night in Los Angeles, Wilco and Feist performed their duet "You and I" live for the first time outside of the studio. And thanks to the magic of YouTube, we can all watch it. (Via Stereogum)

"You and I" appears on Wilco (The Album), out June 30 on Nonesuch. For more live Wilco action, stay tuned to http://wilcoworld.net and Wilco (the iPhone app) this Saturday night 10 p.m. CDT for a webcast of the band's show at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, California.

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"Just watched a documentary about GG Allin and my day has been officially ruined."

-- If that's not a ringing endorsement of Pitchfork.tv's current One Week Only feature-- Hated: GG Allin and the Murder Junkies-- from the Decemberists' Colin Meloy, we don't know what is. (via @colinmeloy)...

Trent Reznor hasn't been shy about declaring his disdain for Chris Cornell's recent Timbaland-produced dance-pop experiment Scream. But in a new interview with Sound Opinions, the radio show/podcast from Chicago-based rock writers Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot, Reznor went a little deeper.

Reznor spent most of his career on Interscope, the same label that released Scream. And, as he revealed in the interview, Interscope commissioned a Timbaland remix of the 2005 Nine Inch Nails single "The Hand That Feeds", a remix that Reznor called "laughably terrible."

It was part of what Reznor saw as a misguided attempt to give Nine Inch Nails some street cred. He mimicked a faceless Interscope exec: "Well, this urban thing is really taking off. You'll get it in the club. You know, what if we had Dre or somebody…"

So it looks like this is never going to happen. Unfortunately.

A couple of things to consider here. First, Timbaland is one of the few producers who can plausibly claim more influence over the last decade-plus of recorded music than Reznor can. Second, Reznor actually has worked with rap beatmakers before-- including Dr. Dre. Dre helped mix "Even Deeper", a deep cut from The Fragile, and Reznor remixed Puff Daddy's 1998 single "Victory". Is Timbaland really that much worse than those guys?

Still, this interview is pretty hilarious. The full text of Reznor's comments are below. (via TwentyFourBit)

In the case of Cornell, I don’t know Chris. I do know what label he’s on now, and I do know who’s whispering in his ear. And heavily on the With Teeth album, I turned that record in and I would get back, "Hey you know, you might wanna… maybe we need to put some beats on this record."

I’m not making this up. "What do you mean, beats?"

"Well, this urban thing is really taking off. You’ll get it in the club. You know, what if we had Dre or somebody…"

And the part of me that wants to be the open-minded artist says, "I’ll consider that." I even went so far as Timbaland doing a-- trying to do a-- remix at Interscope’s dime of "Hand That Feeds", which was laughably terrible. And when I turned in Year Zero, which I thought had the coolest beats I’ve ever come up with, I hear "Yeah, we need some cool beats." It’s like, "You know what? Suck me."

And I’m sure there was someone whispering in Cornell’s [ear] and he can put that off as some kind of socio-cultural experiment, but what it was was a money grab. And when you do that, you’re saying to other people that look up to you [that] it’s okay to do that. And it’s not okay to do that. It isn’t.

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Back in 2006, Stars singer Amy Millan released Honey From the Tombs, an album of statuesque Emmylou Harris-like alt-country that felt a million miles removed from the epic new wave of her other band.

On September 8, Arts & Crafts will release Masters of the Burial, Millan's second solo album. Millan recorded the album in rural Ontario with Broken Social Scene producer/sound engineer Martin Davis Kinack and features guest appearances from Feist, Evan Cranley of Stars, and others.

The tracklist contains a cover of Death Cab for Cutie's "I Will Follow You Into the Dark". Millan previously covered "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" on a 2007 KCRW EP; however, it has been re-recorded for the album.

We've got the tracklist and album cover below.

On July 25, Millan will play a free show at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre, and she'll tour this fall.

Masters of the Burial:

01 Bruised Ghosts
02 Low Sail
03 Old Perfume
04 Towers
05 Day to Day
06 Bury This
07 Finish Line
08 Run for Me
09 I Will Follow You Into the Dark
10 Lost Compass
11 Bound

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The Blur reunion tour is set to bring all the hits to London's Hyde Park July 2 and 3. And now you'll have a little more than some YouTube video to remember those shows.

The band is set to professionally record both gigs and sell the results via limited edition double CD and MP3. (Everyone who orders the CD will also get the download.) So if you scream really loudly during, say, "Tender", you coul...

Artist: The Postmarks
Album: Memoirs at the End of the World
Release Date: August 25
Label: Unfiltered

Tracklist:

01 No One Said This Would Be Easy
02 My Lucky Charm
03 Thorn in Your Side
04 Don't Know Till You Try
05 All You Ever Wanted
06 Runaway Love
07 For Better... Or Worse?
08 I'm in Deep
09 Thorn in Your Side (Reprise)
10 Go Jetsetter
11 Theme From "Memoirs"
12 The Girl From Algenib
13 Gone

Notes: Sophom...

Talking to the UK blogger Zoe Griffin earlier this month, Sir Paul McCartney had some nice things to say about Brooklyn synth-hippies MGMT: "I like MGMT. I'd like to work on some more dancey stuff with MGMT. But it has to happen organically ... We need to talk about it. I can't call them. If they called me, I'd say, 'How did you get my number?' But I'd do it."

Well, there's still no word on the McC...

"The band needs to work with a film director, Quentin Tarantino or someone like that. It'd be like, 'Make some music for our film; you guys be the sound of the film'. Spread the word about the idea 'cos I think it's gonna work."

-- Black Francis wants the Pixies to be the new RZA. (via NME)...

Homepage photo by Kathryn Yu

Fleet Foxes played Glastonbury's famed Pyramid Stage today, but before that, lead singer Robin Pecknold played a solo acoustic version of new song "Blue Spotted Tail" for the BBC. It's a haunting, Neil Young-style track that shouldn't disappoint fans of the year-end kings. Download here:

MP3:> Fleet Foxes: "Blue Spotted Tail" (Live on BBC 6 Music)...

Michael Jackson's death continues to dominate the headlines, as the world struggles to come to terms with the loss of the King of Pop. Yesterday evening, we collected some thoughts from the artistic community. This morning, our managing editor Mark Richardson offered a tribute to Jackson's incomparable life and legacy. We've also compiled a selection of Jackson music and video highlights.

Here's...

Photo by Aliya Naumoff

Indie rock exhibitionist and Islands mastermind Nick Thorburn (aka Nick Diamonds) is a restless fellow. From the Unicorns to Th' Corn Gangg to Human Highway to Islands, the 27-year-old singer has cycled through bands, band mates, and styles like an ADD-addled whiz kid over the last decade. And the upheaval continues with the third Islands album, Vapours, due out September 22...

Stereogum is reporting a nice surprise from Merge: A brand new Spoon EP, coming out this Tuesday! Nice! Three brand new songs from one of the slickest, savviest indie bands working.

There's an Amazon page up for the EP, which seems to be titled Got Nuffin and will be out on CD and download formats. That's the cover above, and the tracklist, per Amazon, is below.

Merge isn't offering any more info ...

"The Music Instinct: Science and Song"-- a two-hour PBS special that premiered earlier this week-- aims to answer questions like, "Why do we get goosebumps when listening to music?" with interviews and experiments involving artists and scientists alike.

A couple of the participating musicians are British buddies Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley, who

Earlier this week, we ran a story called "Buy Billy Corgan Lunch!" about how you can win a charity auction to pay for lunch with the bald wonder. Apparently, we weren't the only ones a little surprised that the auction called for the winner-- not Corgan-- to pay for the meal. Billy himself was also taken off-guard.

And now Mr. Infinite Sadness is annoyed at all the negativity going on in the world...

As the news of Michael Jackson's death ricochets across the globe, the music world is in shock. Many artists have taken to the internet to react, mostly on Twitter. Here are a few musicians' reactions. ?uestlove of the Roots: I know we make light of me never getting sleep and overworking. But I'll say that he didn't go in vain. I will do my best to slow down as to not overwork myself to the ...

UPDATE: According to TMZ, Michael Jackson is dead. The L.A. Times has confirmed it.

Jackson was 50 years old.

E! News reports that Michael Jackson was rushed to a Los Angeles hospital earlier today after going into cardiac arrest. Paramedics performed CPR in the ambulance. According to E! News, "His current condition is unknown." Jackson's father Joe Jackson confirmed to E! News that Jackson suffe...

Photo by Natalie Kardos

Who: Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy
When: August 8
Where: Emanuel Congregation in Chicago
What: A benefit for Emanuel Congregation

Who: Fleet Foxes frontman Robin Pecknold, Throw Me the Statue
When: July 11
Where: Neumos in Seattle
What: A benefit for the all-ages Seattle music/art venue the Vera Project

Who: TV on the Radio, Chairlift
When: August 7
Where: Double Door in Chicago
What: A benefit for Chicagoan Colleen Malone, who suffers from thyroid cancer

Who: Lightspeed Champion, Adam Green, Chairlift
When: July 9
Where: The Shank in Brooklyn
What: A benefit for Lightspeed Champion/Adam Green collaborator Jon Wiley, who is afflicted with multiple sclerosis

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"I think there's just something about the printed word. It's all very well meeting and speaking with people, and generally it goes quite well. But when the writer has the seclusion of the darkened den, some strange monster develops within him, and something breaks out of his stomach."

-- Morrissey, on music critics (or possibly aliens). (via Filter)...

UPDATE: It turns out the Vampire Weekend cover band is real, or at least real-ish. According to an email from manager Katharine Brandes, the band now has a name, the VW Bugs, and four members, all of whom are former Princeton students. In your face, Columbia! They've also got a MySpace page and a Twitter and everything, and they "are now busy practicing up, tacos in hand." Brandes reports that the...

Artist: Joe Pernice
Album: It Feels So Good When I Stop
Release Date: August 4
Label: Ashmont

Tracklist:

01 Found a Little Baby (Plush cover)
02 Go to Pieces (Del Shannon cover)
03 I'm Your Puppet (James and Bobby Purify cover)
04 Soul and Fire (Sebadoh cover)
05 Chevy Van (Sammy Johns cover)
06 Tell Me When It's Over (The Dream Syndicate cover)
07 Chim Chim Cheroo (Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews ...

Wale is the latest rapper to utilize a bouncy Peter Bjorn and John back beat for a mixtape track, after Kanye West rolled over "Young Folks" on his 2007 tape Can't Tell Me Nothing and up-and-comer Drake swiped "Let's Call It Off" for a cut on his excellent recent So Far Gone release.

Taken from his new Back to the Feature primer, the DC hip-hop hopeful takes on "Nothing to Worry About" from PBJ's ...

Musical visionary types take care of their own. Mark Mulcahy was the frontman for the 1980s Connecticut-based alt-rock band Miracle Legion, who released a few hard-to-find albums of R.E.M.-esque college rock jangle before breaking up in the mid-90s. He also led Polaris, the band who did the music for the beloved Nickelodeon kids' show "The Adventures of Pete & Pete". Since then, he's released thre...

Wilco (the band) stopped by Conan (the late-night show host)'s desk last night to perform a track from the upcoming Wilco (The Album): the rootsy, Summerteeth-y "You Never Know".

And if that's not enough for your Wilco fix, the band will be webcasting this Saturday night's sold-out show at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, California, via http://wilcoworld.net and Wilco (the iPhone app). Tune in Saturday at 10 p.m. CDT.

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Austin360.com reports that Sky Saxon, frontman for the L.A. garage-rock legends the Seeds, died this morning in an Austin, Texas hospital.

After falling ill from an undiagnosed condition last week, the man born Richard Marsh performed a set at the Austin club Antone's on Saturday night but then was rushed to St. David's Hospital early Monday morning, according to a press release. Doctors believe a...