Pearl Jam promo video for new album

Here is a 5 minute promotional interview video with Pearl Jam, which is very reminiscent of the Single Video Theory DVD (1998) released for the Yield Sessions. Directed by Danny Clinch (who also did that Ryan Adams featurette), it contains interview clips of Ed, Stone and Mike mixed with the band playing in-studio and working on the new material (“Pretty much every song was written, like, looking at a body of water,” says Vedder). Songs featured include World Wide Suicide, Life Wasted, Comatose, and Severed Hand.

This makes me very very happy on this good Friday.

Thanks to The Sky I Scrape for the tip-off.

Grizzly Man Soundtrack

So I watched Grizzly Man the other night, the unsettling documentary of Timothy Treadwell, who lived among the grizzly bears in Alaska’s Federal Preserve for 14 summers. His last summer with “his friends,” he was introduced to how seriously bears take the concept of friendship, and he was eaten, along with his girlfriend.

I thought it was an interesting film, one that left me feeling a bit uneasy and maybe even a little angry (?) at Treadwell’s misguided passions. He claimed repeatedly that he was “protecting” the bears, even though officials point out that the bears were not in any great danger (and it is unclear how him camping out near the bears was protective to them). He gave them weird names (Mr. Chocolate, Aunt Tabitha, Sgt. Brown), spoke to them in baby talk when they would look askance at him (“Don’t you look at me that way, Mr. Chocolate! You STOP that!”), and even orgasmically felt the fresh steaming crap from a grizzly (“It came FROM her! It was just INSIDE OF HER!”).

I was left with perhaps a feeling of sadness, too, because Treadwell clearly had these gaping emotional needs that the bears somehow filled, but it eventually killed him, rather gruesomely. As one reviewer wrote, “His death was pointless, avoidable — and quite possibly what he wanted.”

One bright spot in the film was definitely its soundtrack, by British musician Richard Thompson. It’s a lovely acoustic symphony with strings, steel guitars, and MOOD. Treadwell’s footage which they used was breathtakingly gorgeous, and this soundtrack captures some of that feeling. Here is the (short) opening track off the soundtrack as a sample. Recommended for a lazy weekend & available on eMusic.

Tim & The Bears – Richard Thompson

Richard Ashcroft belts it out for Reeg

Richard Ashcroft recently appeared on Regis & Kelly to perform an acoustic rendition of “Break The Night With Colour”. If you are like me and would rather poke forks in your own eye than listen to Regis’ nasally voice (or, even worse, Kelly or Lisa’s perky one) at ungodly morning hours, I now bring you the video:

Odds & ends

1) How would you like to get an international mixtape every month from some kind soul somewhere in the world? This very cool project does just that when you sign up for it. What a neat idea. Thanks to Jeffro for the tip.

2) Clea runs a great blog called (sm)all ages, which I think I have mentioned before, because, as she says, no one should have to listen to The Wiggles. Ever. If you don’t know who the Wiggles are, consider yourself fortunate (but picture four or five grown men dancing around in brightly colored turtlenecks singing the most godawful music possible in an unbelievably chipper manner). In any case, we tag-teamed it for a post recently when I sent her the list of the Cool Kids’ Lullaby Mix and she posted a few of the songs up.

So now you know what you would listen to if I adopted you.

3) You may remember the organization Sweet Relief from the excellent compilation album they put out in 1994 (featuring Victoria Williams covers, including Crazy Mary by Pearl Jam). Williams was their first beneficiary, due to complications from her multiple sclerosis, and now they have expanded their misson, to “provide financial assistance to all types of career musicians who are facing illness, disability, or age-related problems.” They have a neat new concept that allows you to donate $4.99 to them by texting, and in return get some cool ringtone choices. Participating artists include Tegan & Sara, Jars of Clay, Pearl Jam, OK Go and Glen Phillips. Listen to some of the ringtone songs on the MySpace page for the effort.

4) Speaking (again & as usual) of Pearl Jam, their label J Records has reported that the band will appear on Saturday Night Live on April 15th (this very weekend). This will be the first time that the band has visited the show since their legendary 1994 performance (follow that link if you want to relive it via mp3).

5) Some interesting news about a Big Star covers album coming out next month with several artists that I like contributing. It’s been finished & shelved since 1998, and is finally looking like it will see the light of day. Tracklist looks like it has some good songs on it. The tribute includes:

1. Gin Blossoms – “Back Of A Car”
2. Afghan Whigs – “Nightime”
3. Matthew Sweet – “Ballad of El Goodo”
4. Juliana Hatfield – “Don’t Lie to Me”
5. Idlewild – “You Get What You Deserve”
6. Whiskeytown – “Give Me Another Chance”
7. Kelly Willis – “When My Baby’s Beside Me”
8. Teenage Fanclub – “Jesus Christ”
9. Posies – What’s Going On?”
10. Wilco – “Thirteen”
11. Big Star -”Hot Thing”

6) Moroccan Role has a new Futureheads track up for download called “Skip To The End.” It’s got a catchy sound with some na-na-naaas and that fabulous thick accent. I am dancing around to it right now (while seated & typing), which is harder than it sounds.

7) I came across this great quote by The Boss (“El Jefe,” as my friend’s Mexican blog calls him, which I realize is completely a grammatical translation into Spanish, but it made me chuckle for some reason). Anyway, back to the quote from Springsteen, which I found in Readers’ Digest of all places. He ruminates: “Talking about music is like talking about sex. Can you describe it? Are you supposed to?” Yeah, I feel that way pretty much whenever I log onto this thing.

8) If you want to brush up on your cryptic map-reading skills before LOST tonight, you can view that freaky nonsense that appeared to Locke when he was pinned under the big ‘ole door.

9) And FINALLY: What would your favorite celebs look like with grills on their teeth? I am thinking of getting one. You know, just to say “Hey. I’ve arrived.”

Add some more records to the history vaults

I thought this article today in the paper was so very interesting. It just gets me all worked up and intrigued, combining two things I love: history and music. Getting to be a music archivist for the Library of Congress, adding records to preserve by everyone from Fats Domino to Sonic Youth, would be my dream job:

50 Influential Sounds That Won’t Be Silenced
WASHINGTON — A high school band plays Beethoven. President Calvin Coolidge delivers his inaugural address. Fats Domino turns “Blueberry Hill,” a hit for big-band leader Glenn Miller, into a rock ‘n’ roll classic.

They’re among the 50 records deemed worthy of preservation this year by the Library of Congress.

“The National Recording Registry represents a stunning array of the diversity, humanity and creativity found in our sound heritage, nothing less than a flood of noise and sound pulsating into the American bloodstream,” Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said in announcing the choices for 2006.

The library used the occasion to announce a rare find: a 1940 jam session featuring tenor saxophonist Lester Young. The night club couldn’t be positively identified, said Gene DeAnna, head of the library’s recorded sound section, but it may have been the Village Vanguard in downtown Manhattan.

“It wasn’t Carnegie Hall,” DeAnna said at a news conference. “At one point you can hear the MC announcing, ‘The chili con carne is ready, if anyone wants to order it.’”

Loren Schoenberg, executive director of the Jazz Museum in Harlem, compared it to finding a William Shakespeare sonnet or a short story by Ernest Hemingway.

The library also announced it had recently received 186 test pressings of records made in the late 1950s or early 1960s, among them 25 songs by bluesman Robert Johnson. The pressings, donated by blues collector Tom Jacobsen, were used to make the first Johnson reissue anthology, “King of the Delta Blues,” which influenced the Rolling Stones and other groups.

California’s Modesto High School band did well in competitions of the 1920s and 1930s. Few high school bands were recorded until the late 1940s, making the Modesto school’s 1930 version of Beethoven’s “Egmont Overture” a rarity.

Coolidge, known as a man of few words, spoke for 47 minutes in the first broadcast inaugural address, in 1925. Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life” made the list, along with an episode of “Command Performance” hosted by Bob Hope in 1942 and broadcast to the troops on Armed Forces Radio.

Fats Domino recorded his relaxed version of “Blueberry Hill,” adding Creole cadences, in Los Angeles in 1956. Other rock classics being inducted include Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day,” both from 1957; the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Are You Experienced?” from 1967; and Sonic Youth’s landmark noise-rock album “Daydream Nation,” from 1988.

Other sounds to be preserved include a radio broadcast by Clem McCarthy of Joe Louis’ first-round knockout of Max Schmeling in 1938. The audience was estimated at 70 million. “The symbolism of an African-American defeating a citizen of the political state that proclaimed the superiority of the white race was lost on no one,” the library commented.

Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” was performed the same year by the NBC Symphony, led by Arturo Toscanini. The library noted that the work has been called the “American anthem for sadness and grief.”

Every year since 2000, the library has registered recordings “that are culturally, historically or aesthetically important and/or inform or reflect life in the United States.” Last year it unveiled newly discovered tapes of Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane from 1957, a discovery that yielded one of the top-selling jazz CDs of 2005.

From the AP newswire.

Bob Pollard just can’t stop

Some people just get started and then you can’t stop them. I think this is an apt description of the uber-prolific Robert Pollard of Guided by Voices fame. Following his solo release earlier this year, you can now swing by his website to check out songs from the additional THREE albums he is working on, all due next month. Holy moley:

***”Death of the Party” – from the Keene Brothers album, Blues and Boogies Shoes. I really like this one. There is a jangly early-R.E.M. quality to this one, very very nice.

“Hello Forever” – from the Psycho and the Birds album, All That is Holy. Kind of weird, huh? Maybe it’s the boombox methodology (see blurb below). Loopy and old-timey, a bit uneven.

“Fairly Blacking Out” – from The Takeovers album, Turn to Red. More electric with a nice pitch to the vocal, actually kind of reminds me of the Matthew Sweet song “Lost My Mind.” This track annoyed me the first time I listened to it, but maybe it is starting to grow on me.

From the Robert Pollard website:
“Bob has three new side projects that will be released in May. Psycho and the Birds, The Takeovers and Keene Brothers are the newest additions to the Fading Captain family. Psycho and the Birds is a new collaboration with Todd Tobias. Bob records songs boombox style and sends them to Todd to dress them up. The Takeovers is a collaboration with former GBV bass player Chris Slusarenko. Chris enlists some of his friends from the Northwest to help out (Sam Coomes – Quasi; Dan Peters – Mudhoney just to name a couple). The Keene Brothers is a collaboration project with Bob and Tommy Keene. It’s pure pop magic when those two get together. The 3 LPs will be released every other week starting on May 2nd.”

Again, why release one album when you can put out 4?
Thanks to MagnoliaFan for the tip.

I look at the sun, I look to the sea, think of the pleasures we’ve known

Ah, the ocean. The sound of the hiss and crash, the smell of the salty air, the arc of the waves. How could you not love it?

The Surfrider Foundation was created in 1984 to help protect the oceans, waves, and beaches through their 60+ local chapters of do-gooders. The foundation has released three CDs (in 1996, ’97, and ’99) and many musicians have donated songs to help raise money for their good cause. Today we’ll take a gander at Music For Our Mother Ocean 3 (MOM3 for short), mostly because I can’t seem to find my copies of MOM1 or MOM2 at this particular moment. Bring a little sunshine through your earbuds:

01. “Little Deuce Coupe” – Brian Wilson & Brian Setzer
(the Brians face off with mostly pleasant results — kind of cutesy but I like ‘em both)
02. “(Put The Lime In The) Coconut” – Sprung Monkey
03. “Summer In The City” – Butthole Surfers
04. “Electric Music & The Summer People” – Beck
(doin what he does best, getting folks up on their feet to shake it a little with some smooth harmonica thrown in back and a slight middle-Eastern sitar vibe)
05. “Snoop Bounce” – Snoop Dogg and members of Rage Against The Machine
(perfect for when you’re showing your steeze, drivin’ around oceanside with your windows down and need something to roll to. “Give em the real street blues, have ‘em slidin’ in their eelskins, groovin’ in their tennis shoes.” Heck, why not.)
06. “Summer” – Lisa Loeb
07. “Ocean Size” (Butthole Surfers’ remix) – Jane’s Addiction
08. “The Whale Song” – Pearl Jam
(former drummer Jack Irons — who was instrumental in the formation of Pearl Jam as we know it — sings lead here, and the intro guitar chords are reminiscent of the moody PJ song “I Got Id”)
09. “Here Comes The Sun” – Allison Moorer
10. “Wild Life” – Paul McCartney & Wings
(from the 1971 album of the same name)
11. “Gone Surfin’” – Gary Hoey
12. “Sea Cruise” – Jimmy Buffett
13. “How Strong” – Red Hot Chili Peppers
14. “Walk Don’t Run” – Everclear
(classic surf jam reinterpreted pretty faithfully)
15. “Wicked Man” – Ben Harper
(also eventually made it onto his album with the Blind Boys of Alabama; fitting because of its gospel undertones)
16. “Mother” – Smash Mouth
(definitely NOT a Danzig cover. Just in case you were wondering what that would sound like.)
17. “Gaia” – James Taylor
(this one is really slow and a little lagging, but James Taylor’s voice always makes me feel good and smooth and relaxed and happy. From his 1997 CD Hourglass, as well.)
18. “Nothing to Say” – Beastie Boys (1:16 of chaos from the Boys)
19. “Sunland” – JKay
20. “Money” – Lit
21. “Winter Waves” – Chris Isaak
(the most pleasing gem of the batch, a lovely little tune that makes we want to learn how to surf on a grey winter day. Pleasant little verses, with some retro throwback spoken words in the middle to the girl who broke his heart. Of course.)

I bought the CD used on Amazon for a mere $3.00. The foldout paper case smells like patchouli and cigarette smoke, but hey, what did I expect for that mere pittance? It’s not an earthshatteringly amazing collection of 100% gems, but there’s a few goodies on here.

Not bad for an afternoon a la playa.

Donate to Surfrider Foundation here, if you feel so inclined. Then go for a walk on the beach and feel all expansive and nice inside.

Third time’s a charm?

An open request to Ryan Adams: Let’s both of us please show up this time, eh? Looking forward to it immensely. Thanks for trying again.

The Onion: Girls Gone Wild Released Back Into Civilization

Oh, this is hilarious.

“At first, the girls were disoriented,” said Janet Ottley, director of the South Padre Island Wild Life Rescue Foundation. “They were frightened by the absence of familiar comforts such as overt male attention, binge drinking, and camcorders. But over time, we’ve seen improvement: so far, no reports of nipple exposure, so we’re very hopeful.”

Despite the girls’ early positive response, Ottley said that there is still a risk that they could revert to their wild state, so she continued to severely restrict their exposure to the outside world. “Any proximity to a D-list celebrity, a song by Poison, or a neon beer bong could set reintegration back to square one,” Ottley said.

Read the whole article. Beauty.

Kinda reminds me of the time I was at Señor Frog’s in Cancun and the man behind me removed his pants. I just turned around and, ope, there you are! He was wildly cheering, but there was not much to cheer about, I tell ya.

Monday Music Roundup

Back from a lovely and much-needed weekend away with my hubby in sunny springtime Denver, I am in good spirits this Monday. Very good spirits. One interesting thing I read this weekend in the newspaper (while enjoying a luxurious breakfast in bed — just to rub it in a little) was about the first ever Rolling Stones concert in China this weekend, hailed as some sort of a cultural watershed in the ongoing, epic fight of rock ‘n’ roll against communism. Ha.

Chinese rock superstar Cui Jian guested with Mick on “Wild Horses,” and the setlist was, of course, censored: “Beast of Burden,” “Brown Sugar,” “Rough Justice,” Let’s Spend The Night Together,” and “Honky Tonk Women” were all not allowed, but “Start Me Up” somehow was. Oh, sneaky Mick. Apparently the Stones are still largely unknown in China, giving us the best quote of the night:

“So old, and yet he can really perform,” said concert-goer Song Jianghong of Mick Jagger, 62.

On that excellent note . . .

“Grace” (U2 cover)
Nichole Nordeman
Now, the original version of this song is so perfect that it is hard to improve upon it, but this is just different. I absolutely love the personification of the hard-to-wrap-your-mind-around concept of grace in this song (“and when she walks on the street you can hear the strings“) and Nordeman here makes it swankier and a bit jazzy with a grooved-out background. From the U2 covers album (by Artists United For Africa) In The Name of Love.

“Mostly Bittersweet“
Jeb Loy Nichols
This was part of a so-called “Seattle mix” playlist I put together last May during a conference in that rainy city. It’s not evocative of the “Seattle sound” at all, but rather trying to capture to moodiness of the streets and the fog and the water. I really love this song: Jeb Loy Nichols‘ smoky and rough voice, very simple and understated guitar accompaniment, and satisfying images to hold in your mind (“ain’t got a roof, I got a starry crown”). This song is the embodiment of the word bittersweet, which is one of my favorite adjectives (yes, I have favorite adjectives). From his recommended 2002 disc Easy Now, available on eMusic (if you’re not signed up yet, click the banner on the right for some free downloads).

“Twice My Weight“
Meese
So these guys are a local Denver band (which cites Elbow, Sufjan, Coldplay, Trent Reznor, and Ben Folds among their influences) that my sister has been trying to get me to listen to for months now. Spurred on by the local Westword weekly, which had a feature on them this past weekend, I am giving them a concentrated listen this morning and liking what I hear. This track (from their Oh No EP) reminds me of something I cannot put my finger on – if you can call it, you get my undying appreciation. The best part of this tune is the second half when it gets all deconstructed. Check out their MySpace page for a few more tracks. A good one to stream off there is “Old Enough,” which the Westword reviewer said was like “like Death Cab for Cutie driven by Paul Simon.”

“Thriller” (MJ cover)
Ben Gibbard
Speaking of Death Cab, I’ve been meaning to throw this one up for months because, well, it is just so freakin funny. Michael Jackson covers are usually a good idea if done properly, like Prince covers. Does anyone else feel like dancing in a graveyard, en masse? It might be a bit hard with Gibbard’s tempo here, but I think we could pull it off.

“Au Coin Du Monde“
Keren Ann
I breathed a sigh of relief when Jennings decided to begin posting again on his fine blog (albeit in limited amounts) after threatening to stop (due to lack of time, whatever THAT means). As I told him, if blogging is in your blood, you must continue. You can run, you can hide, but you can’t fight the moonlight (or something like that). Here is a fabulous French chanteuse that he turned me on to, Keren Ann. This is from a live set he posted from an art rock restival in France. Check out her lush reinterpretation of Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” as well. A little French mood music for your Monday.

And finally, kids: A Beatles album is coming out, featuring “completely new music.” Well, color me surprised; I didn’t know there was any of that left.