Rihanna. Way to set a good example for all those little girls who look up to you. Way to post a picture on your account yesterday of you hugging your boyfriend, oh yeah the same boyfriend who put you in the hospital with his fists a few years back. The man who literally hit you in the head so many times it caused you to black out. Way to go.
This Sunday is Richmond's Annual Holiday Parade and well we can only hope that it doesn't end like it did two years ago. I wrote about it then, and I'm writing about again now. The Rudolph Balloon failed, yet I don't know what was funnier about this next video. The actual balloon being popped or the commentary. Enjoy.
This song just came across my radio and I had to stop for a moment and listen to it in its entirety. Easily my favorite Bright Eyes song, its so simple yet so beautiful. Nothing much else to say but enjoy it.
Do you know how I know this? Easy, Mariah Carey is dressing in ridiculous costumes and singing carols. Hey Mariah, it may just be my opinion but I think you are getting a little too old for these outfits.
I know that the lead guitarist for your band is a huge phish fan. Yet that does not make it acceptable for you to make these shirts for your crew. Stop it right now. STOP IT.
Neil Young stopped by the Daily Show last night to talk about his new Memoir called Waging Heavy Peace. Its a very interesting interview and if you are a fan of Neil's its defiantly worth the watch.
My favorite part was when he talked about what happens to a record when it is taken and made into a mp3. "You lose the soul. You lose the feeling, you lose what makes you feel good, what makes music live. If you were Picasso, and you made a Picasso, and then it came out and everybody saw it and it was a Xerox of Picasso? That's what it feels like."
Now I have always found it interesting the approach that older artists that have been in the business for as long as Neil has to the digital music age. To see the business of what they do change so much. It was interesting to finally hear Neil's take.
Welcome to Thursday. We officially only have two more days left of this week and then it will be a much needed weekend. I don't know about you but I've been spending an awful lot of time at work lately and well as much as I love my job I would really like my life back. January can not come soon enough!!
Anyways we are off to another day here. So far my morning has consisted to walking into my office to hear my office mate blasting "Gangnum Style" as if she just discovered it. Also Linday Lohan is in jail again. Not too surprised there. NYC had its annual Christmas Tree lighting last night. They used a tree from a town near me in NJ, good to see the home state represented. Finally Grace Potter is gracing the cover of the new Relix. Have I mentioned how excited I am for her show in DC next week?
While Adele has been relaxing at home for the last few months with a new baby her album '21' is still setting chart records. Her record has become the 21st album to sell more than 10 million copies since Nielsen SoundScan began keeping track in 1991.
It took her only 92 weeks to reach this milestone which is also known as diamond status. The last release to sell as many copies in a shorter time was N'Sync's 2000 album 'No Strings Attached', which needed 43 weeks to sell 10 million copies.
I have been tracking this movie for what has seemed like two years and finally in less than one month its set to be released. Now yes I know I will probably have to go to this one solo, sit in the back of the theatre with a big thing of popcorn and a soda and cry to myself. But omg is it going to be worth it!
For anyone who doesn't know the Les Miserables story you have about one month to prep yourself for the movie that I fully expect to bring home the Oscar. Its the first movie in history where actors were allowed to sing live rather than recording a studio version of the songs before filming. Something that may not seem like a big deal but if you think about how hard it is to film some of these scenes while singing live you will understand that it in fact is a huge deal.
Well there is no doubt that if I lived within traveling distance to the O2 Arena in London I would be there for tomorrow nights show. I wouldn't really care what it would cost, this sounds like the show of the year.
Eric Clapton and Florence and the Machine frontwoman Florence Welch will join the Rolling Stones onstage at their "50 and Counting" anniversary show tomorrow night. They kicked off the tour on Sunday there with former members Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor reuniting with the band and Jeff Beck and Mary J. Blige also taking the stage.
So its almost December and the reality that I am not counting down to Phish New Years is finally sinking in. Feels a little bit weird, I'm not going to lie.
I know I posted an Ellie Goulding song earlier, but I don't really think that people are giving this British import enough credit. The control this girl has over her voice is absolutely incredible. Take a look at the next video where she performs her hit "Lights" acoustic in Ryan Seacrests studio. Nothing but her and a piano. Not many artists are willing to do that anymore.... and not many sound better than the original record.
Here is the one X Factor performance from Thanksgiving week that I went back and watched. Much like The Voice I've given up all hope for this show but I'm still pulling for this girl to win the title. I mean she is 13 but sings like an absolute pro. Listen to her slay a song that I'm sure you have heard 1,000 times before. Yet she seems to make it her own. Great job if you ask me. Again 13 years old.
I've talked about the artist Birdy a lot on this blog before. She is young, fresh and has more talent in her finger tips then I can ever imagine to have in my entire body. Here she is covering one of my favorite songs out right now "The A Team" by Ed Sherran.
Haven't heard from 50 in a while. Good to see him back at the top of the charts. Check out his new song featuring Eminem and Adam Levine from Maroon 5. His new album is set to drop at the end of February.
Yeah I don't know about you but I do not find this funny. Mainly because if this happened to me I would have been crying in the corner. Not cool guys not cool.
Lenny Kravitz has signed on to play Marvin Gaye in the upcoming Julien Temple-directed biopic. The film set to start filming next year and will focus on Gaye's time in Europe in the early 1980s.
Although there have been attempts to do Marvin's biopic before, insiders are reporting that this movie has finally secured his music rights.
Well if you are going to play tribute to something this is one great way to do it.
In San Fran on Saturday night a group of mostly indie-rock artists and their friends all took the stage at the Warfield Theatre for a three and a half hour tribute to the Band's swan song, The Last Waltz. It had originally taken place on Thanksgiving, 1976 also in San Francisco. They billed it as "The Complete Last Waltz" and the night featured all 41 songs performed at the original concert, complete with special guests. For example Nels Cline from Wilco played the role of Eric Clapton. Scott McMicken from Dr. Dog played Bob Dylan, Marco Benevento was Dr. John and Eric Johnson did his best Van Morrison.
All and all it sounded like it was a fun show and a cool way for these artists to pay tribute to some of their heroes.
Well alright. We are back here for another day. I promised yesterday my return and just like promised here I am with some new things to report. Here it goes:
-If you have extra cash lying around this holiday season you should really help Drew Kennedy get his album made. He has started a great kickstarter campaign to raise money to fund this next project and while I usually never talk about country music on this blog. This man has changed my approach the entire genre. He is a good guy and a great musician. So do it!
-The Rolling Stones 50th Anniversary Tour kicked off in London.
-Soundgarden performed on Kimmel last night. Wasn't too shaby.
-And in the best headline of the day "Beyonce to direct HBO biopic about herself" Of course.
Hello. I know its been almost a full week since I have been on here, but you can't say I didn't warn you. I traveled up to NJ. Ate fried turkey. Saw a horrible football game. Spent time with friends and family. Drove back to Richmond.
After that I needed a day of work/recovery to catch up. I promise I'll be back with new things tomorrow.
For now here are two of my favorites people to hold you over.
If you have hung out around me long enough you will start to notice that I am a total nerd. I love Harry Potter and the Hunger Games. I enjoy watching all types of Award Shows and well this past weekend my friends and I partook in our usual November tradition of seeing the Twilight movies. And I'm not afraid to say that for as dumb at the actual story is in these movies they did a great job turning the last book into a movie. Did I just admit to reading the books? Yup nerd alert.
Yet the thing I loved most about this final movie is that they re-used my girl Christina Perri's song "A Thousand Years" to end the movie/series. Its such a perfect song. The lyrics are actually my most favorite part:
According to TMZ during Rihanna's latest tour her diet is pretty ridiculous. And they are right in saying that: "the rider for her current "777" tour hilariously resembles a 2am 7-Eleven snack run"
The full list is several pages long but here are some awesome highlights:
Lead singer of the Flaming Lips Wayne Coyne decided to literally close down an entire Oklahoma City airport today when he packed a grenade in his carry -n. Repeat. A grenade in his carry-on. Wow thats a new one.
Thankfully the grenade wasn't live but according to the police report is still triggered an alarm at the TSA checkpoint and needless to say the airport freaked out and shut down the entire terminal.
My girls from the Ellen Show performed at her outdoor concert for One Direction last week and then visited the show yesterday to tell Ellen all about it.
Seriously I can never get enough of these two ever. EVER!!
Back in April I wrote about this band called Alabama Shakes and well if you haven't either gone out to see them live or picked up their new album "Boys and Girls" you are missing out. Read my previous post HERE.
Then listen to this next song "You Ain't Alone" performed live. Its exactly what a live band should feel and sound like.
(And yes I'm posting like crazy. I'm trying to hold you over for the rest of the week.)
My girl Grace Potter is getting all sorts of coverage lately! She seems to be the go to pick for some of these reality show contestants and last night was another feature. I talked about Amanda Brown a few times, she is the girl who deserves to win The Voice. And while since then I have all but given up on the show I did find this performance today and was pretty impressed by it. What I like about this girl is she could make a ton of money just singing songs by Whitney and Aretha but instead she stretches her voice into more of a rock singer. It shows her diversity and wanting to be a different artist. And what better tune then Grace Potters "Stars".
Jennifer Lawrence is basically everything that young Hollywood should be right now. She is fresh faced, funny, super talented, picks great roles and most of all does not take herself too seriously.
She visited the Tonight Show last night and literally had me laughing so hard I had to rewind and watch the interview again. If you have a spare few minutes, do yourself a favor and watch these interviews.
Yup this years Thanksgiving will be spent much like Thanksgiving two years ago. We will load in the car early in the afternoon. We will head to the Jets parking lot. We will fry turkey's. We will eat all the Thanksgiving fixings. We will drink spiked apple cider. We will freeze our ass off. We will finish off the tailgate with the best italian bakery items imaginable. Then we will go inside and watch the Jets dominate the Patriots and pull off the upset of the season.
Well this is good news.... I think. Its been known that Mike Meyers has stayed quiet over the last few years working on a new Austin Powers movie but word on the street today is that he has also been working on a new sequel to one of my favorite movies as a child. Wanyes World!
Word is that he has already finished writing a script for Waynes World 3 which will follow "Wayne and Garth coping with the new era of music, transitioning from access cable to streaming internet and Wayne balancing his marriage to Cassandra".
I don't know about you but that sounds like a good start to me.
Last night the Jimmy Kimmel Show got a special treat when Aimee Mann stopped by to play a cut off of her new album. She brought along a special guest to duet on the song, Shins lead singer James Mercer.
So this morning while I was trying to get out of bed I quickly flipped on my tv and since I went to bed last night watching Jimmy Fallon it turned right to the Today Show where Ke$ha was performing.
I will tell you this if the first sounds you hear in the morning is that girls voice it will definitely change your day.
Moving on.
Oh one last thing:
RETRACTION: Yesterday I wrote a recap of the American Music Awards and someone close to me thought that I was being too hard on a certain artist named Usher. I do understand that Usher has sold millions of millions of records. I do understand that to some he is still relevant. I do understand that he is talented and was here before Bieber. I do understand all of this. I retract my statement that he didn't belong on the show. My bad. :)
Heard this song on the way into work this morning and it caused me into a small panic. Why? Because I knew the song was coming to an end but I had yet to figure it out. Big shout out to the Shazam app that helped me locate it literally in the nick of time.
Yes you read the title to this blog post correctly. Some genius while fooling around on Youtube found out that these two songs just belong together. Please hang around until the 3:00 mark. Its pretty magical.
Every now and again my mind wanders too long on ESPN and I get too into my sports news. Its a problem I've had since I was a child. Today I spent a good amount of time convincing myself that the Jets can take down the Patriots this Thursday. I blame the AMA's last night for giving me delusional ideas. Anyways on Thanksgiving night while you all are passed out from eating too much turkey. I will be freezing my butt off at the stadium for my first Jets home game of the season (a travesty if I do say so myself).
Anyways as I was thinking about all the clothes I needed to take home from the game I stumbled upon Rick Reilly's article about how "All NFL games should be home games". Click on that link for the full article but I will highlight just some of his very true points.
1) At home, you don't have to stand in line to pee. (Although at most NFL games there is no line in the girls bathroom. Bonus!)
3) The average cost of a beer at an NFL game is $7.13. In your fridge, it's about a buck. And it's colder. And you can keep the cap if you want.
6) At home, parking is free. At an NFL game, the average cost to park is $27.35 ($50 at Jets games), according to Team Marketing Report. In San Francisco this weekend, people driving motor homes paid $100. A hundred dollars! And do you know what those people did once they parked those motor homes? Sat in lawn chairs and watched football on HDTV.
7) The yellow first down line.
10) At home, nachos aren't 15 stale round tortilla chips placed in a plastic tray with cold Velveeta cheese squirted into the corner and topped by half a jalapeno sliced thinner than a Matthew McConaughey plot.
12) Your DVR pause button.
18) At home, nobody murders the national anthem for you. Networks don't show it anymore. At stadiums, I've heard renditions that make you want to rip up the turf and crawl under it. One woman in Atlanta tortured every single note, up and down the scales, until you wanted to walk up to her and hand her sheet music. "Here's the actual song. You should sing it some time."
20) Home is much, much cheaper. To take four people to a Dallas Cowboys game with hot dogs and Cokes and some souvenirs will run you $634.78. My God, you could get a 50-inch HDTV at Best Buy for $550 and have enough left to buy 84 beers.
Say what you want about Rick but he is dead on in this article.
Here is a cut off of Phish's new DVD Live from Star Lake (or as I like to call it the venue that finally gave me my "Lizards). Here is "Down With Disease".
Question: Was 1998 the best Phish year? If not what was?
I love the entire new Of Monsters and Men album. If you don't already have it contact me immediately so you can enjoy songs like this next tune called "Mountain Sound". Her voice is just so great on this record.
Okay here goes nothing. And again these opinions are strictly my own and if I offend one of the artists you love well then... this blog is probably not for you.
Moving forward.
Last night was the American Music Awards and well they were terrible! TERRIBLE! Besides some small highlights (looking at you Pink and K. Clarkson) it was a display of everything that was wrong with the music business. Here is the top 10 reasons why the music industry is dying.
1. Justin Bieber basically swept the award show. Repeat. Bieber won ARTIST OF THE YEAR. Are you kidding me? Then he got up on stage and thanked his "haters". I can't even begin to tell you what has gone wrong with this kid. I'll blame everything on his swagger coach. Yes he has one.
2. This collaboration between PSY and MC Hammer was allowed to happen
3. They gave Nicki Minaj "best rap album" she was up against two people I had never heard of before. Really there is nobody else that belongs in this category. Also I loved how halfway through her acceptance speech she changed her voice and talked normal. Stop with the act Nicki we can see right through you.
4. Seriously Usher you are still around? Dont' you have enough money by now that you don't have to wear leather pants and literally run around on stage dancing for 20 minutes. Go home. Take care of your kids. You had a decent career. Stop riding your boy Biebers coattails.
5. Technology is ruining everything!! There was no opening of any envelopes last night instead the awards were delivered via the use of a tablet. Come on.
6. Everything was so bad that I actually enjoyed Ke$ha's performance. Even with a leotard outfits. At least she sung live, something that most people refused to do. It was also at this point of the night I started to question my own sanity.
7. Jenny McCarthy tried to prove herself relevant by literally attacking Justin Bieber on stage after presenting him an award. Girl you should have just married Jim Carrey when you had the chance and spent the rest of your life laughing. Now you are just sad.
(I just noticed that this blog is starting to get very mean. But seriously did any of you watch this show? I'm being pretty nice...)
8. Why is Chris Brown still invited anywhere? And why do we keep giving him awards? Still don't get that one.
9. Artist of the Year went to the girl that sang "Call Me Maybe". Seriously? Things are just laughable now.
10. My final reason that the music world is a dying industry is that this show is allowed to exist without the mention of any good music at all. Happy 40 year anniversary AMA's. We miss you Dick Clark.
Over the weekend my girl Grace Potter did a two night stand at NYC's famed Beacon Theatre. Here are two amazing moments when Warren Haynes showed up for some cover tunes.
First is Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" followed by a version of the Rolling Stones classic "Gimme Shelter"
No seriously. I am asking you this question. I have yet to meet anyone who has straight out said "I hate her" "I dont' like her music" "I don't know any of her songs".
Girl is flawless. She basically put the entire music industry on her back last night when she performed a greatest hits medley on the American Music Awards. (Seriously one of the only highlights I have from the two hour shit show).
More on the actual show in a minute but props to where they are due now.
Hello there. I know its been a while since I've visited. My bad. Life has been pretty hectic these last few weeks and with Thanksgiving this week I can't say it will slow down. Yet I do have at least two days to get on here and let you know that I have been listening to a ton of new music lately and I do have a lot to say. So this is a warning... Get ready!
On the dock for today:
-Round Up of the diasasterous American Music Awards last night.
-Results from my trying to get Rolling Stone tickets this morning (1 in a 1,000,000 chance here)
-New Monster of Men song
-Pink Storytellers where I heard this song and I have loved it ever since.
That is just a few not to mention some new live Phish and my thoughts on early holiday music.
With no Phish NYE this year I'm hitting up some local shows to get my live music fix. The one I am easily the most excited for is Grace Potter and the Nocturnals at the 9:30 club in early December.
I haven't seen Grace in at least 5 years and since then her name has been everywhere. Hell USA Today just named her the best female rock voice out right now.
My girl Anne Hathaway did a great job hosting SNL this weekend. She not only showed off her acting chops with some great impressions of people like Katie Holmes, but she also showed why everyone on the planet should run out and see Les Miserables next month. This girl can sing!
Well you can't say they didn't make a good run at it.
After 35 long years together the band announced onstage yesterday in Australia that they are officially calling it quits. The band was halfway through its opening set for Matchbox Twenty when the drummer Jon Farris told the audience that this performance was in fact that bands last.
Farris and his brothers Andrew and Tim were the original founders of the band with singer Michael Hutchence back in 1977. In the mid 80s they hit their peak with songs like "Devil Inside" "Never Tear Us Apart" and "Need You Tonight".
After Hutchence committed suicide in 1997 the band struggled for years before they held a reality show competition called "Rock Star: INXS where they found J.D. Fortune who carried the band until Ciaran Gribbin (above) took over in Sept. 2011.
Here is my favorite performance from where else... Wembley Stadium.
The Avett Brothers covered "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel and well.... it was awesome! Check it out. And yes Phish covered this song earlier in the summer.... seems NMH is getting some great press lately!
Hello and happy Friday. We did in fact make it through this extremely long week, or maybe it just felt that way due to my lack of sleep every single night. Either way I'm a tad delirious but still here.
Here is a video flashback of Billy Joel singing one of my favorite songs back in 1975 at the BBC.
A woman was killed on her way to see Linkin Park perform in South Africa when a gust of wind blew over a promotional billboard. The temporary scaffolding outside Cape Town's Green Point stadium collapsed shortly before the show, injuring 19 others, 12 needing medical attention.
The band put out a statement on its website "We wish to express our deep sadness and concern for those injured and our heartfelt condolences to the family of the fan who died as a result of her injuries".
I go to a lot of weddings. At these weddings I usually love to dance. This is in my nightmare of what I think I may look like during some of these ceremonies.
This video makes me so happy I can not even contain myself. Take a look at the next video and meet girl football star Sam Gordon. Yes I said it. Girl football star. While most parents would hate to see their little girl getting tackled by a bunch of boys, when it comes to Sam their is one small problem. They would have to catch her first. The female running back rushed for 1,911 yards, scored 35 touchdowns, averaged 8.2 yards per carry and wasn't afraid to take a few hits when she had to.
Yes I am talking about the band Civil Wars and not the actual Civil War. :)
Bad news for Civil Wars fans who were hoping to catch the duo out on their latest tour. They announced yesterday that due to "internal discord and irreconcilable differences of ambition" they have canceled the rest of their tour dates. This news is not good. Although they promise to have new music ready in 2013, I do not have a great feeling about it.
Not going to lie.... this is pretty neat! Sony is celebrating 125 years of music history with this amazing video. Within a 150 square meter wall space they made a timeline on the wall that features nearly 1,000 of their signed artists.
Pretty happy that the country chose the right candidate during the election on Tuesday. Obama won pretty convincingly and sent a message to the Republican party that the face of the nation is changing and if they don't smarten they are going to fold all together.
Also big congratulations to Tim Kaine who won the Virginia Senate seat. I worked with this man when I worked at AHA, he is a good person and will be a great Senator.
That is about all from me about the election. I am glad its over. I am glad Obama won. I am glad to not have to deal with this again for another 4 years.
Here is the video for a great song off the new Mumford and Sons album titled "Lover of the Light". It was both directed and features Idris Elba, its surprising yet very well done.
Here is my favorite performance from the Ellen DeGeneres Mark Twain Award Ceremony. Its Jason Mraz with his silly song "You Did It". Yet it really gets good when half his guitar strings break at the end and he keeps going without missing a beat.
Great performance. Still can't believe this is Candace's brother. Crazy!
NBC called in the big guns on Friday night for the Hurricane Relief Concert hosted by Matt Lauer. The commercial free telethon featured performances by Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, Christina Aguilera, Mary J Blige, Sting and Aerosmith.
While I did not actually catch the concert live I was able to see most of the performances via Youtube and did my part by making a contribution to the Red Cross.
The telethon also featured several prominent actors and tv personalities with ties to the area. NBC's own Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon as well as Kevin Bacon, Jon Stewart, Whoopi Goldberg and Danny DeVito.
Here is what I thought was the best performance of the night.
I do believe that Mr. Fallon has the best late night show on television at the moment. Not only does he have the best studio band in the world with The Roots but he gets guests to do amazing things that you would have never even dreamed of. For example this next video of Christina Aguilera, The Roots and Fallon performing "Your Body" with only the use of things found in Jimmy's office.
The Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts in Brooklyn continued yesterday and it was nice to see the outpouring of support for a community that is obviously still suffering. Outside a 150+ year old Church volunteers were distributing blankets and clothing to victims from the hurricane.
A little extra help was added by Phish frontman Trey Anastasio. He and his wife pulled up with bags of diapers and batteries and handed them out to people who were waiting for supplies. The guitarist told a local magazine that a friend of his lives in Red Hook and "his house is under water. I've spent the day helping him, putting out dry wall. It's really bad here. Really bad".
Hope everyone had a nice and relaxing weekend and I hope that my friends and family up north have finally regained some sense of normalcy now that the power is back and help is on its way.
Back to the picture above. Yes that is what you think it is. A blurry picture of what could be a Bigfoot spotted near Utah. I found the report on the front page of Yahoo this morning and well if you have had any conversation with me over the last year about this subject. I went from absolutely non believer to a "well, maybe there could be a chance".
Here is the report from Utah (complete with video)
The video below is like most typical Bigfoot videos, it was on a shaky camera from some hikers who got terrified once it stood up and ran for their lives. Well if you think about it, that is what anyone in their normal minds would do right? Anyways they capture the video and then bolt through the woods later saying "We ran straight to the car after that, leaving our tent and everything behind. It's probably still up there." This was located up in Utah's Provo Canyon.
Many people are busy analyzing the video as we speak but according to the Yahoo report even healthy cynics are pretty impressed with what they have seen so far. They note that "witnesses don't appear to be acting. If they were, the skeptics say, they'd be a lot more vocal, and fall into the overacting trap. They also don't stick around to get a great shot, which also rings of a very natural reaction, but didn't help when it came to capturing a better image."
Either way the video of what clearly looks like an animal resembling Bigfoot is extremely compelling.
The hikers also say they were standing there for a good chunk of time even before recording what they believed to be a bear at the time, while he was trying to get the camera to work.
"But when it stood up and looked at us -- and we assumed it was a bear up to that point, but when it stood up and looked at us it was a massive animal. We didn't know what it was. I mean, none of us believe in Bigfoot so... We've talked about it over and over again since it happened and all of us are positive that thing wasn't a bear."
And here you have it folks. The first Sasquatch sighting of the season!
"With so much at stake at this critical moment, our voices - and our votes - matter more than ever. And after everything President Obama has done to stand up for women in the past four years, its time to speak, act and vote."
