Monday Music Roundup

What a wonderful soccer-filled weekend. I love the simplicity, the urgency, the grace & beauty of the sport. The luck of the Irish (or something!) was with me this weekend because I did (mostly) well on my predictions and am tied for first place with a couple other “music lovin’ mofos” in our bloggers’ World Cup pool. Woo hoo!

Here is a linguistic/soccer-related question that occured to me this weekend during the Angola vs. Portugal game. Perhaps one of my global readers can enlighten my ignorance. I kept hearing the announcer mention the Portuguese team “Benfica.” It caught my ear because it sounds like a bit of racy slang in italiano (‘fica’ means fig, and is also slang for a, uh, certain part of the female anatomy. Ben, short for bene, meaning good). So what gives with the word “benfica”?! I know it must not mean the same thing in Portuguese, but how widespread was the jesting in Italy when ex-Fiorentina coach Trapattoni became the coach in 2004 of benfica? Anyone?

Or is it just my pathetic Italian-as-a-second-language misunderstanding, and I am embarassing myself? Wouldn’t be the first time.

Enough of that nonsense, here’s some tunes.

“Cemetery Song“
Jon Auer
This has got to be the peppiest pop-song-about-a-dead-person ever penned. From former Posies member Jon Auer‘s fine outing Songs From The Year Of Our Demise (available on eMusic), the harmony-laden Beatles-esque sound fits in among 15 tracks Auer wrote for this themed-album, all written about the loss of a friend and the facets of grief. Despite the subject matter, this low-key album is surprisingly not depressing. Check out the free single (“Six Feet Under”) on label Pattern 25′s website, and buy the album on eMusic.

“So Hard To Find My Way“
Jackie Greene
A fantastic upbeat, retro-sounding tune combining piano, banjo, and Memphis horns. From his new CD American Myth, Jackie is delving into more poppy arrangements than the harmonica-folk of his previous efforts, but it sounds good to me. I really like this chap and think we will be hearing a lot more from him.
(PS – Did you download that Esthero/Sean Lennon duet “Everyday Is A Holiday” a few months back? I swear this song is its musical twin).

“Universal Frequencies“
His Name Is Alive
Wow, it must be the summery weather, but this week’s music roundup is shaping up to be a string of ’60s pop sound tributes. This lovely offering, as will become apparent in about thirty seconds to whomever listens to it, is a complete and straight-up homage to the Beach Boys (notably, Good Vibrations & the whole Pet Sounds album). His Name Is Alive admits to listening to Pet Sounds incessantly during the writing & recording of their 1996 album Stars on ESP, from which this comes. It’s fun and kind of trips you out to hear something that could pass so smoothly for the Beach Boys, but with the addition of a female voice to the layered harmonies. Another eMusic find.

“Wait” (Beatles cover)
Ben Kweller
Let’s just keep the momentum going with more Beatles. See, all these songs thus far are the perfect accompaniment to some strollin’ in the sunshine. No better music for that kind of business than the Fab Four, eh? Ben Kweller was born to sing retro pop confections, and this is a feel-good cover from the Razor & Tie 40th anniversary tribute album to Rubber Soul (This Bird Has Flown, 2005). If you don’t have the album, buy it on eMusic — it’s also got some sweet tracks by Ben Harper, Ben Lee (it’s a Ben bonanza!) The Donnas, Ted Leo, and Sufjan Stevens.

“Into Oblivion“
Lisa Germano
And here’s the exception to the blissfully happy lineup of songs so far this week. I’ve heard of Lisa Germano in connection with Eels, but over the years she has also worked with David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Johnny Marr, U2, Sheryl Crow, and John Mellencamp. From her latest solo effort In The Maybe World (July 18, Young God Records), this song is tailor-made for a sleep mix. Lisa’s lushly rich vocals fronting the best song Sigur Ros never wrote. Close your eyes and picture; a piano underwater, laying on your back floating on an iceberg, walking through a dark forest at 3am. Sonic bliss.

Off to catch some of the Italy v. Ghana game. Forza azzurri!

Can you hear it or are you old?

Okay, so quick test to see if you are as young as you think you are (ha!). Perhaps you’ve read about the new ringtone that high school students are using in class because only they can hear it and not their teachers (due to a normal disappearance of the ability to hear higher-register tones as we age).

I must admit I am pleased that I can hear it (and it is DANG annoying). I may be 26 but don’t write me off as old yet! I’m kind of surprised that my ears still work well at all because of my truly unfortunate habit of going to really loud concerts and often not wearing earplugs (it sounds all muffled and under-watery when you wear earplugs!). Shame, shame, I know.

My sincere apologies if this test confirms your aging and depresses you at all on this beautiful Monday morning. You are still wonderful.

Take the test: Listen to the sound here.


Monday Music Roundup coming in a bit.

Mazzy Star: B-Sides, Rarities, and Live Stuff

Do you remember how wonderful Mazzy Star was? Hope Sandoval could be in my top trifecta of female voices with her sultry, lazy, laconic sound. I wrote about her a good while back on the Monday Music Roundup and I said of that song, “I picture a voice coming out of a black, black room – like you are sitting somewhere in the dark and suddenly you hear this lolling voice, like a slowly swirling river, out of nowhere.” A sound like no one else, a distinctive voice which I didn’t realize I missed until I came across this great collection.

You need to populate your newfangled iPod with the seductive mid-’90s sounds of Hope Sandoval & David Roback, and this fan-produced assemblage of live cuts, b-sides, and other rarities is a superb and painless way to do it.

01. Fade Into You (live)
02. Ride It On (live acoustic)
03. Sometimes Always (live)
04. I’m Gonna Bake My Biscuit (originally by “Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe,” b-side to “Fade Into You” single)
05. Under My Car (another b-side to “Fade Into You”)
06. Tell Me Now (from the Batman Forever soundtrack, b-side to U2′s “Hold Me, Thrill Me…”)
07. Hair and Skin (originally by Green on Red, b-side to “Flowers in December”)
08. Tell Your Honey (b-side to “Flowers in December”)
09. Had a Thought (b-side to “Flowers in December”)
10. Flowers in December (radio edit)
11. Sometimes Always (I’m pretty sure this is just the studio version with Jim Reid from Jesus & Mary Chain’s Stoned and Dethroned. Still gorgeous.)
12. Ride It On (live)
13. Ghost Highway (live)
14. Blue Light (live)
15. Into Dust (live)
16. Bells Ring (acoustic)

DOWNLOAD ALL THE MAZZY STAR GOODNESS AS A ZIP FILE, for the love of all things good & holy.

By the way, according to the Hope Sandoval website, Capitol will release The Mazzy Star Anthology and a deluxe CD/DVD in 2006. Wasn’t this supposed to be released in April 2005?

And this was VERY interesting, from an article in Los Angeles CityBeat about Massive Attack: “Perhaps the band’s next album, Weather Underground, due early next year, will break through. Marshall says the crew has already recorded 15 tracks, with TV on the Radio and Albarn contributing, and the possibility that David Bowie and Hope Sandoval will step in later.” I would think that would be a smashing collaboration.

Also highly worth checking out is the track she collaborated with The Chemical Brothers on, “Asleep From Day,” plus she contributed the vocals to a version of Air’s “Cherry Blossom Girl,” but I can’t find it. Can anyone send it to me? Got it now! Thanks!

PS – Everytime I talk about Air, I am compelled to say “AirFrenchBand” (all one word) like my dear friend Jenn always does. Just to clarify.

Dude, we’re gettin’ the band back together!

This is one of the funniest comments I’ve gotten in a while on my blog (intentionally funny? unintentionally funny? who knows but it made me laugh):

Posted by Calle Sjönell to “Stone Roses Day on Torr’s site“
5:37 am (8 hours ago)

(the regular part)
“I saw your post on The Stone Roses and figured I had to tell you this; I have put up a website dedicated to reunite The Stone Roses.”

(the hilarious part)
“I have put aside 2000€ to the Stone Roses Therapy Fund if they would want professional help to get Ian Brown and John Squire to start talking to each other.

Visit www.stonerosesreunion.com for more information.”

–Posted by Calle Sjönell to I AM FUEL, YOU ARE FRIENDS

That’s fabulous to pay for their therapy. If we all started funds like this, just imagine the possibilities of bands we could get back together! Let’s brainstorm who needs it the most.

People (like me) Gonna Talk: James Hunter

I’ve found your best new summer album. James Hunter‘s crisp retro sounds on People Gonna Talk (2006, Rounder Records) are equally at home drifting out of an old jukebox at the back of a diner or your iPod speakers at your next summer picnic.

Hunter has a voice that mightily channels Sam Cooke, songs with horns a la James Brown or Van Morrison, hints of rich surf guitar, and harmonies that would make the Temptations turn their heads. This feels like a record full of oldies that you somehow missed – you pull it out, put it on the turntable, and there is a sense of recognition, like you’ve heard them before. Hunter does absolutely nothing new, but the laid-back retro goodness suits me just fine.

“You Can’t Win” – James Hunter

“Kick It Around” – James Hunter

I had a really hard time picking which songs to post, so also make sure to stream other great tunes on his MySpace page, such as the title track “People Gonna Talk” and the slow-dance-at-the-sock-hop tune “Mollena,” with the simple innocence of the lyric that makes me smile: “Guess I could fall into a whole world of trouble over you.” Listen to the smooth-as-butter way he sings it.

Buy it pronto, it’s the best disc yet for the 2006 summertime blues; drivin’ around with the windows down, or layin’ in the hammock with a big glass of lemonade. I don’t know how a white boy from Colchester, England does it, but this is good stuff that should be listened to over and over all summer long.

Paul McCartney’s Mix-CD For New Girlfriend A Little Self-Indulgent

From The Onion, June 7, 2006

LONDON—The mix-CD that ex-Beatle Paul McCartney created for Steffina Graves, his new girlfriend, is a “sweet gesture,” but “limited in terms of variety,” according to the 27-year-old Graves. “‘Baby I’m Amazed’ may be great, but I don’t know if anyone needs two different versions,” Graves said Tuesday. “And I’m not sure anybody really liked ‘Say Say Say.’” Graves, however, praised the psychedelic, Sgt. Pepper-inspired collage of McCartney photos on the CD cover and booklet as “very creative,” and noted that “At least the CD has one Badfinger song on it, even if it is a cover of ‘Love Me Do.’”

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PS – Note to self: DO NOT change picks for the World Cup pool right before the game. Sweden and Trinidad & Tobago will then TIE, you would have been RIGHT and gloriously IN THE LEAD, but you changed it in a moment of doubt. Dah!

My eyes are opened: Kenny Rogers is *everywhere*

Recently I ruminated on the Kenny Rogers twin who frequents my gym. Thanks to a reader tip, I have now learned that apparently the formula for living life as a Kenny-Rogers-lookalike is a fairly easy combination of distinguished graying beard, jolly eyes (lookin’ a little pinched now, post-plastic-surgery), and paunchy belly. Extra points if you can sing “The Gambler” (as I am wont to do in karaoke) or have ever met Dolly Parton.

Meet the many men who look like Kenny Rogers on the HILARIOUS time-wasting site:
MenWhoLookLikeKennyRogers.com.

I’d better bring a digital camera next time I go the gym and try to snare me some photographic proof that I have the actual Kenny at my YMCA. Oh, and I guess I gotta feature some music from The Man himself:

This old-timey song is a winning combination of pathos: a handicapped man, injured doing his “patriotic chore” in a “crazy Asian war,” a tartlet of a woman who has “painted up [her] lips and curled and rolled [her] tinted hair” in preparation for her no-good vamping out on the town while crippled boyfriend sits at home, watching the shadows move across the wall and fantasizing about readying his shotgun to stop her heartless ways. Man, it’s got all the elements. Not to say that it is exactly my kind of song, but it’s one you should know.

“Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town” – Kenny Rogers

The ever-quirky Cake covered this on their Wheels EP from last year, and I love it. Note the additional rage-filled ending.

“Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town” – Cake

The Killers, of all people, also took a stab at it as a b-side:

“Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town” – The Killers

And an emphatic addition from friend Brian, with rip-roarin’ electric guitar from Jason & The Scorchers:

“Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town” – Jason & The Scorchers

That’s three more covers of this song than you ever needed. But for an old guy, Kenny’s continued relevancy is kind of notable. And his continued appearance in everyday life around me is a bit disconcerting.

New Counting Crows (co-written w/ Gemma Hayes): “Hazy”

From the upcoming live Counting Crows release New Amsterdam: Live at Heineken Music Hall (due June 20), here is a previously unreleased track, “Hazy.” I was thinkin’ all along that Gemma Hayes actually sang on this track, and I was mightily looking forward to it, but turns out she just co-wrote it. It’s still really pretty.

“Hazy” – Counting Crows (co-written with Gemma Hayes)
(Fixed link.)

The story behind the song – Adam Durtiz writes:

“I got an email from Lisa asking me for the lyrics to ‘Hazy,’ which, as you may or may not have heard, is the previously unreleased song written by Gemma Hayes and myself . . . Unfortunately, the truth is I honestly have no idea what they are. I never wrote them down. Gemma and I created the song a week earlier drunk out of our minds around 5am at a piano in a bar. By the time we played the Amsterdam shows, she had left the tour. I had lost my mind, and I couldn’t stop thinking about her (Elvis had also presumably left the building). I was just sitting at the piano in the Heineken Hall getting ready to play “A Long December” and I started trying to remember the music to “Hazy” and making up the rest as I went along. It’s all stream of consciousness. I wrote it and sang it off the top of my head. It’s just me trying to express exactly how I felt at that moment. I couldn’t play it now if I tried.

I saw Gemma in New York about a year ago and I played it for her. We tried to work out the chords but neither of us could figure out how to play it. So it’s just a moment. It exists there on that tape and nowhere else. That’s kind of why I included it. It’s the quintessential bootleg moment.”

Amen, brother. I LOVE ephemeral “moments” in music, I live for them.

I am looking forward to the entire new live CD, which I hear is amazing. It also features “Four White Stallions,” which is an old-school cover that they do, which I adore. The Crows know how to work it in concert — beautiful arrangments, interesting tags, and a fabulous choice of songs included on the new disc.

Rocking Madison Ave.

From today’s Wall Street Journal:

Rocking Madison Ave.
Advertisers Are Hunting for Fresh Pop Hits That Haven’t Been Heard in Commercials Before

By BRIAN STEINBERG and ETHAN SMITH
June 9, 2006; Page A11

Josh Rabinowitz was searching for a song that would make people eat Pringles — just the right background music for an ad that would somehow convey the emotional appeal of a stack of the Procter & Gamble Co. product.

Mr. Rabinowitz, director of music at WPP Group PLC’s Grey Worldwide, decided to employ an old hit in the ads, but he had to be careful not to use a song that had appeared in other commercials, and he wanted a newly recorded version to make sure the music felt fresh. His team narrowed the selections to three: “More, More, More,” a 1976 disco hit by Andrea True Connection; “Give a Little Bit,” a 1977 rock ballad by Supertramp; and “Everlasting Love,” a single that has been performed by a number of musicians, including Gloria Estefan and U2.

Turns out that “Give a Little Bit” had been featured earlier in an ad for Gap Inc. and “More, More, More” had become “supremely overused” over the years, Mr. Rabinowitz says. The ad team settled on “Everlasting Love” — which Mr. Rabinowitz calls “modern psychedelic anthemic pop.” The spot debuted earlier this year.

Finding hit songs for commercials is getting harder. Thousands of golden oldies are out there, but Madison Avenue is on the hunt for fresh tunes that consumers don’t already associate with products. “A lot of the big, known songs and baby-boomer hits that we have grown up with have been used,” says Mike Boris, a vice president and executive music producer at Interpublic Group of Cos.’ McCann Erickson. (Bob Seger’s “Like a Rock” is so firmly identified with General Motors Corp.’s Chevrolet trucks that it would be hard to employ it on behalf of someone else, ad executives say. Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll” has made a big splash for General Motors’ Cadillac in recent years, and the specialists say it will be untouchable for some time.)

Music supervisors at ad agencies typically don’t set out to use a specific song, let alone a baby-boomer perennial. Creative executives usually devise a specific ad-campaign concept, and send storyboards for a particular ad to an agency executive who specializes in music. Once she gets storyboards, “I start pulling like mad, anything lyrically that can wrap around the concept,” says Melissa Chester, a senior music producer at Omnicom Group Inc.’s BBDO. Casting, story and the product being advertised are among the many factors taken into consideration, says Ms. Chester, who recently matched the 1972 country rock ballad “Melissa” by the Allman Brothers Band to an ad for Cingular Wireless.

Using rock songs in commercials used to be taboo for the music industry — particularly in the counterculture 1960s. Then Carly Simon’s “Anticipation” was heard in a 1970s commercial for Heinz ketchup, and Microsoft Corp. was able to enlist The Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up” to promote Windows in 1995. Amid cries of “sell-out,” the campaigns were attention-grabbing and therefore effective.

Now, having rock backdrops has become so widespread in recent years that it barely raises an eyebrow in the music industry anymore. Music executives are even recycling: Despite the hoopla surrounding Microsoft’s use of “Start Me Up,” Ford Motor Co. took it out of storage for a 2003 campaign.

While songs can always be adapted, Grey’s Mr. Rabinowitz says punk-influenced alternative rock acts from the 1990s, such as Pearl Jam or Nirvana, could be harder to work into commercials. “Generally speaking, the punk attitude doesn’t resonate with the concept of selling.” Still, Courtney Love, widow of Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain, recently entered a $50 million deal with Primary Wave Music Publishing, a newly formed company, that could bring her late husband’s song catalog — which includes the hit “Smells Like Teen Spirit” — to commercials for the first time.

Many rap songs embrace products and commercial culture, says Mr. Rabinowitz, and work well in ads, barring explicit lyrics. For instance, a reworked version of Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” — originally an ode to the gluteus maximus — was the centerpiece of a Target Corp. ad campaign for children’s backpacks.

While advertisers select songs for any number of reasons – the lyrics cleverly match the action of the ad, or a song’s relative obscurity can get consumers asking questions about the commercial — big, widely accepted hits still trigger a response. With a time-tested classic in an ad, “nine out of 10 people who hear it in an ad are going to turn their heads,” says Keith D’Arcy, senior director at Sony Music Licensing. A recent ad for Fidelity Investments featured the song “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida” by Iron Butterfly.

Some songs even manage to strike a chord in generations that were not among those listening when they played on the radio. Circuit City Stores Inc. trotted out the Cars’ 1978 song “Just What I Needed,” for an ad campaign that started in October of 2004. Focus groups revealed that younger consumers thought the song was “hip,” says Angela Ross, the retailer’s director of creative services. “It’s amazing to me how many people of all ages across all demographics love this song — people who weren’t born yet when the song was new,” she says. Monster Worldwide Inc.’s namesake jobs Web site has used a song made famous in 1977 by Electric Light Orchestra, “Do Ya,” in ads since last year. “This works across multitudes,” says John Kelley, the Web site’s senior vice president of marketing.

Ad campaigns rarely generate a meaningful uptick in sales for the songs used in them, according to data from Nielsen SoundScan. But there are other benefits. Fees can range into the millions of dollars for iconic tunes. Songs by new or emerging artists are usually much cheaper, often because record labels hope to secure placements in ads to help boost the musicians’ careers.

Last year Kellogg Co. paid Atlanta pop-rock band Collective Soul more than $200,000 to use its song “Better Now” in an ad for Special K cereal. That was only one upside for the group. The band was also promoting “Better Now” to radio stations as a single. Singer Ed
Roland says the TV commercial helped drive radio airplay by making the song familiar to listeners, who in turn responded favorably to seven-second snippets played during the “callout research” pop stations use to shape their playlists.

There are some artists who refuse to let their songs be included in commercials — and their refusal makes advertisers crave their work all the more. High on this list are rockers such as Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, R.E.M. and Tom Petty. Mr. Petty’s “Free Fallin’ “ is “a great song with an advertising-friendly hook,” says McCann’s Mr. Boris. Mr. Young’s music “would be so effective,” says Grey’s Mr. Rabinowitz.

Instead, Madison Avenue keeps looking to hit the right notes in ads. The rock band Cheap Trick has a classic song that would seem a natural for any commercial: “I Want You to Want Me.” Unfortunately, somebody else wanted it first: Coca-Cola Co. used the song in a 2001 ad for Diet Coke. So when the band visited Publicis Groupe SA’s Leo Burnett in November, as part of an agency program designed to spark collaboration with popular musicians, using tunes from the past wasn’t necessarily the first thing on anyone’s mind. The agency ended up featuring Cheap Trick in a McDonald’s Corp. ad for the Chicago area only that told customers how to get a wake-up call from the band, which hails from nearby Rockford, Ill.

“Any way you can get exposure in today’s world, you have to take it,” says Collective Soul’s Mr. Roland. “Of course we want to be paid. But first and foremost, we want to be heard.”

Just indulge me for one sec – a few more Vedder items (and some music)

Okay, while every one is busy talking about that other new famous baby and the pics on the internet (even my SISTER sent me the links this morning; it’s like the Baby Jesus all over again, except there were no cameras then) — here’s one I’ll bet you missed altogether.

Yep, that’s Ed Vedder throwing out the first pitch at a recent Cubs game with daughter Olivia Vedder, 2. Pretty dang cute, I must say. Okay, wait, what is this, Hello! Magazine? Here’s some music. Apologies:

June 3, 2006 PJ Show
Continental Arena, East Rutherford, New Jersey

No Surrender (Springsteen cover) – Ed Vedder, solo, pre-show
This is quickly becoming one of my favorite covers EVER that they do.

It Makes No Difference – My Morning Jacket & Ed Vedder
Ed then stays out for the first song of the MMJ set. Nice.

I should have pointed this out before, but didja know that Pearl Jam is selling all of the shows from their current tour on their website, practically immediately following the actual performance? Replacing the discs and discs and discs for sale of tours past, now you just download it and it’s that simple. Very cool & egalitarian, and forward-thinking of them in terms of harnessing the power of the internet to reach the fans.

One other neat feature of their site is that they log every single song Pearl Jam has done/performed/recorded in a searchable database. And you thought I just KNEW that the last time they played Leash was 4/11/94.