The first time I saw MUTEMATH perform [at a festival in St. Petersburg Florida] it was 110 degrees with 100% humidity. I vividly recall, and will probably never forget, drummer Darren King, finishing the final downbeat of a mesmerizing set, rushing side stage, and puking like day one of high school football hell week. Without a doubt, MUTEMATH goes big, a reputation that has earned them a Grammy nomination and an Alternative Press review as “the #1 band you need to see live before you die.”
Today’s bloggin’ best…
- Middle age indie-dork takeover with Unrest reunion tour. PopMatters
- The Nevermind cover baby now works for Shepard Fairey. Village Voice
- Joaquin Phoenix rapper doc(mock?)umentary is making headway. AV Club
- Chemical Brothers debut new video, “Swoon.” Prefix Mag
- Get your remix on with Pauly D and Baskin Robbins. Examiner
- Janes Addiction debuts with Duff McKagan on bass. LA Weekly
- NIN crowd-sourcing a documentary about the final show. Pitchfork
- Pharrell hung with Obama on Cinco de Mayo. Hypetrak
Hailing from Glasgow Scotland, 4-piece Alternative Rock Outfit Twin Atlantic made quite a splash at this year’s Bamboozled Festival. The boys got the Aquarium Stage rocking as they murdered the mid-day 2:15 slot. Read the full story
If you were born in the 80’s or anytime after, there is an outstanding chance that you owned video games. If you happen to be a part of the male species, chances are a large portion of your social festivities revolved around video games. Remember all those nights of staying up late trying to beat that level of Tetris, or cheating by putting the gun all the way to the screen to better your shot accuracy in Duck Hunt? Video games go hand in hand with childhood memories for a lot of us. I know I personally owned a Nintendo, SEGA, and Nintendo Game Cube. I played Sonic the Hedgehog for hours, secretly thought Luigi was cooler than Mario, and did my share of bragging when I beat my very first game, The Little Mermaid.
Heralded with such flattering titles as “mayor of the mundane”, and “The Cleveland Underdog”, Ohio native Harvey Pekar solidified himself as a graphic novel giant with American Splendor, a series of comics about little else other than the day-to-day monotony of his own insipid life. UCLA recently hosted another in its speaking engagements Titans of The Graphic Novel (if you didn’t get a chance check out our last with Neil Gaiman), and what the audience got seemed a wiser, more contemplative Pekar than the more chemically imbalanced and erratic one you might have seen on David Letterman (see the video below for their much-publicized fight and Harvey’s banning from the show). And for all the wisdom he might have acquired in the first few of his twilight years, he was as curmudgeonly as ever — and the crowd loved him for it.
Today’s bloggin’ best…
- Can you skateboard with an iPad? PopMatters
- Rich and bored Jason Bonham is doing a Zeppelin tour by himself. AV Club
- Roger Waters apologizes to Elliott Smith. LA Times
- Weird remix: Phoenix x Grizzly Bear x Brian Eno. Pitchfork
- Weirder remix: Hot Chip x Bonnie “Prince” Billy. The Fader
- Clipse pull an Outkast, announce two solo records. Hypetrak
- Richie Hawtin auctioning of gear for charity. URB
- I pity the fool who has to sit through the 52-hour freestyle. Booooring Exclaim
- Did Kelly Clarkson rip off Arcade Fire? TwentyFourBit
- Shock and Awe: Die Antwoord MC gets album cover tattooed on his back from promotional use only. Boing Boing
By midnight, the line was 200 deep outside of Soundbar – legions of house heads shivering in the drizzle with muffled kick drums audible from the street. The scene wasn’t entirely surprising – whispers about Green Velvet’s birthday party had floated around Chicago for weeks. The excitement was palpable – not only did the lineup feature Velvet kicking off his new Soundbar residency, but also UK superstar duo Basement Jaxx and Chicago ex-pat Mark Farina.
Props have to be given to Velvet himself for the impressive artists gracing the bill. As Lucas King, owner of React Events and one of the promoters behind the night disclosed, “He called the Jaxx and Farina himself to play the party and arranged everything. Give Curtis [Green Velvet] a ton of love for that.” It’s certainly what he got as house lovers turned out in droves to support, both from the new and old guard, including Chris Santiago of Santiago and Bushido, Lego, James Amato of Potty Mouth Records, Sombionix and Hiroki.
On Red Bull Music Academy Radio, the artist known as Pharoahe Monch (pronounced ‘monch’) examines the music from past and present that’s inspired him. Whereas a few artists tend to meander amongst their picks, and many of their catalog sounds the same, Pharoahe Monch has what some might call a penchant for more bizarre genres/songs. It’s this kind of strange eclectic and often hypnotic sound, which in reality bares little in similarity to his own music, that just goes to show you ya never can tell: listen to tracks like “Welcome to the Terrordome” or “Desire” that alternate and dabble in both harder and heavier hip hop as well as classic R&B. Get a look at the man’s influences now on the RBMA.
This week sees the resurrection of Michael Bolton, the 9th studio release by genre vets Bone Thugs N-Harmony, and more music from the prolific Mike Patton. And speaking of prolific, Flying Lotus unleashes his third album in 4 years, Cosmogramma.
Michael Bolton – One World, One Love
Bones Thugs-N-Harmony – Uni5: The World’s Enemy
Toni Braxton – Pulse
Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record
Court House Hounds [Dixie Chicks' Martie Maguire & Emily Robison] – Court House Hounds
Justin Currie – Great War
Deftones – Diamond Eyes
The Fall – Your Future Our Clutter
Free Energy – Stuck On Nothing [digital release Mar 9th]
Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma
Godsmack – The Oracle
Hold Steady – Heaven Is Whenever
Jackyl – When Moonshine Ansd Dynamite Collide
Greg Laswell – Take A Bow
Rene Lopez – People Are Just People
Minus the Bear – Omni
New Pornographers – Together
New Young Pony Club – The Optimist
Lisa Papineau – Red Trees
Papa Roach – To Be Loved
Mike Patton – Mondo Cane
Nathaniel Rateliff – In Memory Of Loss
Josh Ritter – Runs the World
Walter Schreifels – An Open Letter To The Scene
The Shondes – My Dear One
Tonic – Tonic
Trina – Amazin’
Wake Up Lucid – Look Alive People
Chely Wright – Lifted Off The Ground
Today’s bloggin best…
- Lupe x Pharell x Kanye project was just a wet dream after all. HipHopWired
- It’s Suicide’s time to shine. Forty year retrospective. The Quietus
- LA muggers won’t mess with Captain Jack Sparrow. Brobible
- 140 prom fails. Coed Magazine
- Chuck D and DJ Spooky fight the power in Arizona. DJSpooky.com
- Hella dick move, dude. Roger Waters covers up Elliott Smith memorial wall with street art marketing campaign. LA Weekly
- Condemned music site BBC6 is gaining listeners fast. Prefix Mag
- Johnny Rotten must be laughing: EMI will default on their loans in less than 10 days. Hypebot
- Jack White thinks Meg’s anxiety issues are beat. NME
- Oh Yoko? Hear Trent Reznor’s first track with his wifey. Pitchfork
- Henry Rollins and Glenn Danzig are a loving gay couple. Robot6