Ok first off this is not an old clip this was a show Jane's Addiction played a few days ago and it is the muther fucking ORIGINAL line up! Yes Eric Avery is back! I've been meaning to do a long Jane's Addiction blog post but this will have to do until I get to that(which will probably be never).
This past friday I scored some free tickets to go to the All Points West Festival @ Liberty State Park in Jersey City, New Jersey and see Radiohead. Their whole set was great and I'm always amazed at how they can translate what they do on record into a live performance and sound even better! This song was probably the highlight for me.
Ok, this video is probably one of the most awesome things I've seen in a long time. It's basically a recreation of John Carpenter's classic horror film The Thing, but it's made using fucking G.I. Joes!
If I had any musical talent what so ever I think I would like to make music like
The Black Keys. They're Raw, Bluesy, Punk and Heavy.
So I found this video in a odd kind of way. I was originally searching for a video of Old Dirty Bastard's Baby I Like it Raw, and off to the side I saw a Buckethead video. Now I've always have heard of this guy but have never listened to his music. Actually that's a lie, it just so happens that in 1992 he was one of the founding members of the band Praxis, which as it turns out I have one of their albums on cassette(you know that ancient way that music was once sold and distributed on). So that whole time I never realized that that was Buckethead. Now for a guy who wears a Michael Myer's mask and a fried chicken bucket on his head he sure can play the guitar. His music ranges from avant garde jazz to speed metal. Just watch and listen to this video. When I heard it I was just simply blown away.
So to keep in line with the Metallica theme I started with my last post, I figured I'd tell you all about Beatallica. Yeah you read that name right. Beatallica do mash-ups of The Beatles songs and Metallica songs. Essentially they Metallicasize(if that's a word) Beatle songs or Beatlesize(again if that's a word) Metallica songs. The singer for this band sounds just like James Hetfield. In fact, if you closed your eyes and just listened to these guys you would swear that it was James Hetfield singing these songs. Check out this video of them. Also before anyone says these guys suck, take a step back and remember these guys are just trying to have some fun and don't take it too seriously.
To make a long story short Apocalyptica are classically trained musicians who play cellos. They started out playing all cover songs most specifically Metallica songs but have since moved on to playing and recording original music. The video below, is of them playing the Metallica song "One". I just love how they all bang their heads even though they're playing cellos(heavy metal is heavy metal no matter what's it played on I guess). A funny thing will happen as you watch this video you'll slowly but most assuredly start head banging along to the music.
Here's a nice video to start off the work week. Enjoy.
When most people hear the name Jimi Hendrix they automatically just think of him as a guitar player. Yet, if you were to really listen to Jimi, I mean really listen to him you'll quickly realize that he was also a fantastic lyricist and alot of his song lyrics verged on poetry. Here's a great example of Jimi's lyrical power.
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This is the last of the CMJ related posts, it sure has taken me awhile to finish them all. I guess I've been wasting my time elsewhere.
The other movie screen I got to see during the event was for the movie Wristcutters: A Love Story. This film is a feel good dark comedy about love and suicide starring Patrick Fugit and Shannyn Sossamon. Patrick's girlfriend breaks up with him and he decides to end it all. He slits his wrists but unfortunately finds that there is no end only an afterlife that is strangely similar to his old life except much suckier(is suckier even a word?). In this strange purgatory limbo where everyone who has committed suicide ends he, he finds a job at kamikaze pizza. Soon he is befriended by a Russian punk rocker that killed himself by pouring beer over his electric guitar while on stage, thus electrocuting himself. Patrick soon discovers that his ex-girlfriend has also committed suicide so him and Eugene(the Russian Punk Rocker) set out on a road trip to find her. Along the way they pick up Sossamon, who claims she's not suppose to be here and is in search of The People in Charge so she can straighten out this misunderstanding. They also come across Tom Waits who is running some sort of magical hippy commune.
You would never think that a film about suicide could be so funny and heart warming at the same time but that's exactly what this film accomplished. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this film, hell(no pun intended) I'm even thinking about going to go see it again, it was that good. Unfortunately though since this is what they call an independent movie,this movie might not be at a local theatre near you, but I really urge you to seek out this movie and see it. After the movie there was an Q&A with the director, Goran Dukic. He had said that the movie only cost $1 million dollars to make, which isn't alot in the movie making world. In fact that's only one 1/20th of what Tom Cruise gets paid for a movie. Someone than asked him what he would of did different if given more money to make the film. He replied, nothing except maybe have better food on the set and some air conditioning since they filmed in the desert where it hovered around 100 degrees fahrenheit. He said the more money you have doesn't necessarily equate a good movie and some times it makes a movie worse, case in point(my thoughts not his) all the new Star Wars movies and any Jerry Bruckheimer movie made, except Transformers which I did like.
Now I don't want to give up where the movie ends up but let me just say that sometimes the person who you think your in love with really isn't the person your in love with. I hope that makes sense because reading that last sentence left me scratching my head. And one more thing, you can end up finding love in the strangest of places, even purgatory.
Wristcutters Official site
Wristcutters @ imdb
Wristcutters Trailer
Related Posts: Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten, CMJ Music Marathon NYC, Photographing Michael Diamond, Brad @ Highline Ballroom, NYC
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I got to see a screening of this documentary a few weeks ago, during the CMJ festival. Originally this wasn't the movie I intended to go see, but due to other factors it was the one I ended up seeing.
As you can gather from the title, this film was about Joe Strummer of The Clash. Julien Temple, the director also did a documentary about the Sex Pistols called The Filth and the Fury, but you might know him better as the director of that cinematic masterpiece, Earth Girls are Easy. I never listened to The Clash growing up or knew much about them. My knowledge of them began and stopped at their Rock the Casbah video. It wasn't until about a couple years ago that I ended up acquiring some Clash records(yes I still call them records although they were really mp3s) and getting into them. So seeing this movie was pretty interesting, in that I learned more about them(specifically Joe Strummer), how they formed and their music. You learn how Joe Strummer(not his real name of course) acquired that name, due to the fact of how he played his guitar. The thing that interested me the most was that Joe was originally a hippy of sorts and started out playing more of a Rock-A-Billy/Folk type of music and you can see that influence in some of The Clash's recordings.
Now like I said, the movie was good in the fact that it provided me with a bit more knowledge about Joe Strummer and The Clash, yet this movie had its faults and to me they are some major faults. The one that was the most glaring was that there are numerous interviews with people who knew Joe throughout his life, but not once are you given any information as to who they are or their connection to Joe Strummer. The movie watching experience would have been more enjoyable if their names appeared on the screen at least once, as they were being interviewed. The other problem was the length of the documentary, although it was only around 2 hrs long which is normal for movie nowadays, the pacing of the movie made it feel even longer. Towards the end of it I was getting really antsy and was just thinking to myself when is this going to end. The first way that this issue could be remedied would be to get rid of a few of the interviews that just didn't make sense or felt so out of place in this movie. The director freaking interviewed Martin Scorsese, John Cusack, Bono(with his corny sunglasses) and Johnny Depp who was still in character as Captain Jack Sparrow. These interviews just served no purpose, they didn't drive the movie forward or add anything relevant to it that wasn't already provided by the other interviewees. So with that said my advice to you if you want to see this documentary, is to wait till it comes out on DVD so you can watch it in chunks and skip past those interviews.
The one thing that stuck with me from the movie was Joe Strummer's definition of a punk rocker. He said a punk rocker is just a hippie with zippers. That's just classic.
Coincidentally or not, later that night as I was waiting for a subway, a kid probably no older than 15 comes strolling down the subway platform dressed in text book British punk rocker uniform of the late 1970's. You could of taken a picture of him and put it next to punk rock in the dictionary it was almost too good to be true. He had a 2 foot high mohawk sticking straight up, a Romanes style leather jacket with lots of zippers and tight black jeans on. I'm also sure if I would of gotten a closer look he would of either had a safety pin through his nose or ear and a bunch of extra ones on his jeans or jacket. Ahhh the youth of today.
Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten official site
Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten @ imdb
Related Posts: CMJ Music Marathon NYC, Photographing Michael Diamond, Brad @ Highline Ballroom, NYC
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Only 2 foot '9 inches tall, Weng Weng fights crime in the Phillippines as Agent 00. Track by THE CHUDS (www.myspace.com/chudsunderground) Video edited by John R. www.rroom.org Dedicated to the true Mack... Weng Weng
Last Saturday, my girlfriend received a frantic call from our friend who had given us the CMJ passes. She couldn't find any photographers to photograph a movie screening at Tribeca Cinemas, of the new Joe Strummer documentary by Julien Temple and supposedly a few celebrities where scheduled to show up for the event. (I'll review the movie at a latter date.) She asked if I would be able to do it. Now event photography isn't really my thing mostly because I'm not much of a people person and I've never done it before. I'd much rather go out to an open field and photograph a blade of grass blowing, in the wind. She did get us the free passes and you should always help out a friend in a jam, whenever possible so I happily agreed to do it. So she sent a car to pick us up since we wouldn't of been able to arrive there in time if we took mass transit.
Well when I get there, I'm told that Steve Buscemi and The Beastie Boys are scheduled to show up to the movie. This is going to be interesting, I thought not only would I be photographing The Beastie Boys but also Mr. Pink. So it's getting closer and closer to the start of the movie and no one has showed up yet. Finally, just as the movie is starting I'm told that it doesn't look like either one of them will be making an appearance and I should just go in and watch the movie. Fifteen minutes into the movie, I see a silhouette of a skinny guy with an afro walk into the theatre and I instantly recognized him as MIke D.
After the movie, Mike D is cajoled into standing in front of a CMJ backdrop and having his pic taken, by me of course. When I looked thru my viewfinder I couldn't believe what I saw! Mike D looked like an old man, he looked way older than his 42 years of age. Now granted this wasn't a professional photo shoot, there's no retouching done to smooth out the lines and the flash I used was a bit harsh but still. Gone was the image of the beer swilling, trucker hat wearing young punk hip hopper that I first saw when I was 14 years old during the Licensed to Ill tour. I know that they've matured and have grown out of that phase along time ago but for alot of people that is the image of The Beastie Boys that they hold in their minds. Yet for me, the moment I looked thru that view finder it was washed away for ever. 
Now I had wanted to somehow tie in some Neil Young lyrics "It's better to burn out than fade away" and The Who lyrics "I hope I die before I get old", but I just wasn't sure where I wanted to go with that. It's just at some point should musicians and actors just fade away from the public spotlight when they reach a certain age and appearance so as not to destroy the fans image of them. Take for example Jimi Hendrix, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean and Kurt Cobain(who unfortunately took Young's lyrics to heart) . As tragic as their too soon deaths were and the fact that they will never be able to create more art for us to enjoy and to enrich our lives, we will forever have these lasting iconic images of these artists when they were young and in their phyisical prime, burned into our psyche. Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying that when artists reach a certain age that they should stop what they're doing. There alot of older established musicians still making great music, but maybe they should do it in seclusion so as to not destroy the public's iconic image of them. Am I just being selfish and shallow in thinking this way? Maybe I should stop here so as not to have my argument misconstrued and dig my grave any further. I guess what it comes down to is that I prefer young Elvis to old fat bloated Elvis. I'd love to hear your views on this topic.
Related Posts: CMJ Music Marathon, Brad @ Highline Ballroom
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As I mentioned in my previous post, I had gotten free passes to the CMJ music marathon here in NYC. The first night of the music marathon I had found out that the band Brad was playing over at the Highline Ballroom, a small little music venue located in NYC's meatpacking district.
Having first heard of Brad way back in 1993, when they released their debut album Shame, which ended up being one of my favorite albums of that year, with its soulful funk grooved rock jams. I had always thought that that was their only offering and that the band kind of just disbanded, but unbeknownst to me they have steadily been putting out albums since then. They're currently working on a fifth album due out soon. So when I saw that they were playing I was pretty excited to go check them out.
Now for those of you who don't know one of the members of Brad is Stone Gossard who some of you might realize is a guitarist for that little known band Pearl Jam. Now although that would be one reason to go check them out the real reason to listen to Brad and to see them live is for their singer Shawn Smith. I had never seen pictures of the other members of Brad so I was surprised to finally see where this extremely soulful voice come from. Shawn Smith looks like a combination of Meat loaf, Ronnie Van Zant(singer from Lynyrd Skynyrd) and one of the actors from the defunct HBO series DeadWood. Looking at this guy you would never expect a voice like that to come out of him, yet it does. Even though Stone Gossard, contributes to the signature sound of the band the real star of this band is Shawn Smith, not only can this guy sing he also has a commanding stage presence.
The one criticism about the show is that they had this special guest guitarist playing with them. This guy looked like your middle aged uncle who still thinks he's in his twenties. He had 1980's style long hair that was pulled back into a pony tail which was just barely covering the bald spot on the top of his head. He also wore sports styled sunglasses throughout the entire performance(maybe he just had a cataracts operation I don't know). I could of lived with those two strikes against him but the camel that broke the straws back would be his constant guitar solos that really just didn't fit in with the rest of the music. He would start his solo and stroll up to the front of the stage and place one foot onto a monitor and get into that cliched 80's style rockstar guitar pose that says hey look at me aren't I so cool! I just didn't get his whole schtick, maybe he was crying out for attention, or just trying to relive his former glory days. He was just so distracting from the rest of the band . What would of been an outstanding stellar show was just a pretty good show, all because of him.
So the next day I did some Googling to find out who this guy was. Well, it turns out his name was Kevin Wood. He was a member, along with his brother Andy Wood of the band Malfunkshun, who some considered the "godfathers" of grunge, along with The Melvins(my favorite) and Neil Young. So, finally the connection was made as to why he was there. You see his brother Andy after Mulfunkshun broke up, formed a band called Mother Love Bone which featured Stone Gossard. Just days before the release of their first album Andy Wood died of a drug overdose. The significance of this is that if that didn't happen Pearl Jam may have never existed since Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament would than go on to form the basis of that band.
So enough with this grunge music history lesson since this post is getting way to long. I will leave you with this, if you have a chance to see Brad live, do so and hopefully they won't a guest guitarist, who is an aging rock star trying to relive his past on stage with them.
Brad @ Myspace
Brad official website
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Last week was the CMJ music marathon here in NYC. My girlfriend and I were lucky enough to score some free passes to it, since one of our friends is the marketing director for the event. The CMJ music marathon was 5 days of, yep you guessed it music. It's similar to the South by Southwest music event in Austin, Texas and the North by Northeast event in Toronto. Essentially the vast majority of music acts that are featured in the festival are unsigned bands trying to get signed to a record label or it's a band that's already signed but is just trying to get more recognition. Peppered throughout these unknown or barely known bands are a few bigger named bands that also play during the event.
Now if going to see live music isn't really your thing, which if that's the case I'm sorry to hear that since it's one of the few things that keeps me young at heart. There are other things to do and experience during the week long event. The most notable of these is movie premieres/screenings with a Q & A session afterwards with the director.
So, hopefully in the next week or so I'll find the time to post some of my reviews and recounts of some of the things I heard, the things I saw and the things I did. So please stay tuned.
One more thing, if your wondering what CMJ stands for, your not alone. I was in the dark about it too, so I came up with some of my own ideas that ranged from the very catchy Christian Music Jamboree to the plainly obvious College Music Jam. Finally I had to ask my friend who had gotten me the passes what CMJ exactly stands for. As it turns out it stands for College Music Journal. Well if you ask me that just doesn't have the same ring as Christian Music Jamboree but what do I know I'm not a marketing director.
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Radiohead is releasing their new album, In Rainbows today(Oct. 10th). This is their first studio album in 4 years, since Hail to the Thief. You might be saying big deal so Radiohead has released a new album. Well you see the big deal is that Radiohead no longer has a record contract with EMI, that ended with Hail to the Thief, fulfilling their contractual obligation of 6 albums. So with no record deal they decided to offer their newest album straight to their fans with out having to deal with a middle man(i.e record stores) as a digital download.
Ok, Ok you may still be saying big f'ing deal, well Radiohead is allowing you the fan to determine how much you want to pay for the new album yourself. Yeah you read that right, YOU set the price! So if you want to pay a penny for it you can! Although you'd be a bit of a cheapskate if you did that. You could also conceivably not pay anything for it and set your price as nothing and I'm sure alot of people will be doing that, hell it even crossed my mind. Yet I determined that Radiohead is a good enough band(understatement of the year) for me to shell out some of my hard earned cash. So I went to their site typed in a price I deemed appropriate, payed it and 3 minutes after downloading the DRM free album, I'm listening to it. It couldn't of been any easier.
Could this be the way of the future for bands to sell their music, just totally bypassing record companies all together? Or is this really something thats only feasibly for more established bands who already have a built in fan base? I guess only time will tell.
Official Radiohead site: Dead AIr space
If you haven't already clicked the In Rainbows link above than click here to purchase it.
For more Radiohead goodness check out this blog
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Yes, you did read that right! I found out about this story over at Annie Atomic v2. A&P grocery store is sueing two former employees/college kids for $1 million dollars in damages due to a video they posted on YouTube. The video is a gangsta rap spoof incorporating vegetables as props and subject matter, since the duo, who go by the name of Fresh Beets, worked in the produce dept of the grocery store. The duo filmed the 4:15 minute video at their place of employment yet during hours when they weren't on the clock. After about a week of the video being on YouTube there was one complaint lodged to the corporate headquaters of A&P. The duo was suspended from their job and then a week after that were formally fired. Which in my opinion is a justified response by management due to the fact that it was filmed at their place of work, now whether if I would of fired them or just given them a stern warning and the silent treatment had I been their boss is debatable.
One would think that them getting fired would be enough of a punishment. Yet in someone's infinite wisdom over at A&P corporate headquaters, they have decided to file a $1 million dollar lawsuit against the recently fired rappin duo. Can someone explain to me why would a large corporation file such a claim against two college kids who have just been fired from their $10 an hour job(if that)? Do they plan on setting up a payment plan if they win the case? You would think that there would be someone smart enough at A&P to realize that if they just simply fired the two boys, ignored the video and left it at that that that would be the end of it. Yet by filing this lawsuit they are just giving the video more exposure and giving themselves some very bad press. What do they believe they will gain from this besides making themselves look like a big bad corporate entity?
Well the two upstart rappin filmmakers have a website/blog where they keep everyone updated on the goings on in regards to the video and lawsuit. There is also a link on the site where you can send comlaints to A&P. So far over 600 people have sent in complaints from the site, to A&P in regards to the outlandish lawsuit.
Here are links to their website: fakelaugh.com, myspace page and last but not least my I present the actual video that has caused such a response.
Ok this video is simply mind boggling and the hook. I can't even begin to fathom how long it took them to do this stop motion video using dice and dominoes. The band/artist is Fujiya & Miyagi, an electronica alternative band(never heard of them before), the song is called Ankle Injury and it was directed by Wade Shotter at Factory Films.
