Tag: Music

Girl Talk – Feed the Animals

Posted on by mygoodgomez
part of the cover art for feed the animals

This whole “give music away for free” distribution method is really catching on! Next up: Girl Talk’s Feed the Animals. After mentioning the album multiple times in recent interviews, Gregg Gillis has finally released the latest Girl Talk album, and it definitely carries on right where Night Rippers left off.

For those who are new to Girl Talk, the music is best described as a mashup of many other songs that combine to create entirely new songs. Essentially Gillis takes 10-20 samples from old and new songs, arranges and layers them ontop of one another, and spits out some genius concoction that is Girl Talk. His ability to take music from nearly every genre and weave them together so flawlessly is amazing.

Getting back to Feed the Animals, please take a look at the album’s Wikipedia page. Scroll down to the tracklist and be blown away at how many songs were sampled from to make this record. In a single song, Gillis takes from Kraftwerk, Genesis, Michael Jackson, The Velvet Underground, and Justin Timberlake.

One thing that I’ve noticed from Night Rippers and Feed the Animals (not so much with Secret Diary or Unstoppable) is that the songs blend into each other, and each song isn’t extremely separate from the songs adjacent to it. I think this is due to the massive number of samples used and the quick twists and turns taken in each song. Don’t get me wrong, I still love both of the two latest albums, but they play as an hour long mashup instead of individual song arranged to fit together.

Many of the songs are constructed through trios of samples layering one songs beats, another’s instruments, and yet another’s vocals. Here are a few of my favorite trios from the album:

  • BLACKstreet, Kanye West, and Radiohead
  • Busta Rhymes, The Police, The Cure
  • Timbaland, Stardust, Yo Majesty
  • Salt ‘n Pepa, Deelite, Nirvana
  • Fergie, Kraftwerk, Earth Wind & Fire

So all-in-all, I love this album. It’s a great piece to put on with headphones and just test your music knowledge skills to see exactly how many songs you can recognize (more points for beats than vocals). While I know that most music that is good takes some time to create, I really am blown away at how well all of these samples mix together.

Converse Rock Star Ads

Posted on by mygoodgomez
julian casablancas, santigold, and pharrell williams
julian casablancas, santigold, and pharrell williams

You know an amazing ad campaign the moment you see one. The one’s you have to think about can be good, but I don’t think that an effective ad doesn’t need to be pondered much. Converse’s recent ads featuring both dead & alive pop culture icons has been blowing me away since I first saw an image of it back a few months ago.

These ads break everything down to basics, while staying far away from any abstraction. The black and white photographs are perfect and just further the idea of simplicity that the ads convey. But the thing that really sends it over the edge (and makes them shoe ads) is the overlapping of each icon’s feet. It might be cliche, but it’s very fitting that what connects these artists is their shoes.

When showing other people these ads, they don’t seem to recognize most of the icons. Regardless, each person’s pose and composition lets any viewer know that they are bad-ass. No one dislikes the images, and as they follow their figures down to their feet, that last connection of the spread legs leading to the shoes hits every time.

Finally, a song supporting these ads has been released featuring Santogold, Julian Casablancas, and Pharrell titled “My Drive Thru [Play] [Play].” It’s a nice summer song and perfectly captures what this concept wants to say.

Thus far, here are the artists that have been featured in the many mix-mashed combinations:

  • Santogold
  • Bradford Cox (Deerhunter, Atlas Sound)
  • Common
  • Joan Jett (Joan Jett and the Blackhearts)
  • Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day)
  • Kid Sister
  • M.I.A.
  • Sid Vicious (the Sex Pistols)
  • Pharrell (N.E.R.D., the Neptunes)
  • Karren O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)
  • James Dean
  • Hunter S. Thompson
  • Ian Curtis
  • Julian Casablancas (the Strokes)
  • Jona Bechtolt (YACHT)
  • Frank Carter (Gallows)
  • Eleanor Friedberger (Fiery Furnaces)
  • Sophie Kasakove (Care Bears on Fire)
  • Morgan Quaintance (Does It Offend You Yeah)

Update (7/9/08): A video has been released for this song. Sick 2D special effects.


Coachella ’08: Day 2

Posted on by mygoodgomez

Heading back to the polo fields after an exhausting Friday, we knew that we’d be in for a treat on Saturday. From my standpoint (and that of many others) it was the strongest day by far. After the peanut butter sandwiches and water-bottles were loaded into the backpacks and the sunscreen amply applied, we trekked back to the pat-down lines and started Coachella Day 2. Here are the links to the different shows we saw on Saturday: Institubes, the Teenagers, Uffie feat. DJ Mehdi, Dredg, Boys Noize, Erol Alkan, Hot Chip, Portishead, Prince.

Saturday

Institubes (Para One, Orgasmic, Surkin)

A record label full of electro DJs is always a nice way to start a chock-full Coachella day. One nice thing about getting to Coachella near to opening (aside from the short lines) is that you have the ability to lay down in the tents and just listen to music. No more worrying about keeping your spot. Para One, Orgasmic, and Surkin served up the Institubes flavored electro for about an hour and a half, but I didn’t stay for the whole time, I had other stuff to get to.

The Teenagers

I’d say that I was pretty excited to see The Teenagers. The new album is interesting. It’s not really full of songs, but I can’t think of a good noun to apply to what they make. Too bad this sounded like crap. Maybe it was because I was sitting at the back of the tent, but the boring backing tunes with the annoying/incomprehensible voice didn’t make for pleasent listening. But this is Coachella where music is everywhere all the time, so I left.

Uffie feat. DJ Mehdi

Leaving The Teenagers for Uffie & DJ Mehdi was a bad idea, but it was my only choice. Uffie really is the odd girl out on Ed Rec, and she sounds like crap live. She isn’t much of a rapper, and there isn’t any stage presence. One thing that was interesting was the guys running around the stage with Uffie and rapping along with her. Don’t know who they were, but I hope that they don’t try to ride up with her, they won’t get anywhere.

Dredg

Talk about a stark change in pace. Dredg was the fresh gust of wind that I needed, and their show was one of my favorites for the weekend. I was introduced to Dredg about a year ago, and I’ve been hooked on their progressive rock style ever since. The lead singer of the band has an amazing voice, but I was worried that it would be a studio voice and he’d be all over the place live. Not so. I couldn’t have asked for a more solid performance.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t too many people watching the show at the Outdoor Stage. This is Dredg’s first year at Coachella (performing at least) even though they have 4 LPs already out. They really do deserve more attention than they get; they just don’t have a marketable edge even though their music is amazing. I hope that their upcoming album stays true to their honest sound, they’ve been at it for a long time and I hope they get a break soon.

Boys Noize

Beginning my last 2008 Sahara Tent run was Boys Noize, and I was fully prepared to have my face melted off. After the best DJ set of the weekend, it sufficiently was. I find it really interesting how France has such a firm grip on electro right now with Ed Banger and Institubes throwing out DJ after DJ, and here we have this single German guy who’s killing all of their efforts. I don’t mean to make it sound like a war of sorts, but Boys Noize is the dictator of all things electro right now.

His set consisted heavily of material from his album Oi Oi Oi, but he threw in some Bloc Party and Daft Punk for size. I must say that his remix of Feist’s My Moon My Man is one of the best remixes (more like a re-interpretation) that I’ve ever heard, and I was so glad that he played it during his set. He did his trademark move where he puts the headphone-strap over his eyes and continues DJing a few times. All in all, it was just a electro set to rule all electro sets.

Erol Alkan

I don’t know too much about Erol Alkan other than he doesn’t tour in the US too much, so it was pretty cool to see him here. Following up Boys Noize is no easy task, and considering Alkan didn’t really play any recognizable songs, I think of his set as a way to wind down from Boys Noize. It was a pretty high energy show, but you can’t really top the best. I enjoyed the show, but I was really waiting around for Hot Chip.

Hot Chip

I saw Hot Chip last year at Coachella for the first time, and they blew my socks off. They have such a high energy show that it’s impossible not to love every moment that they are on stage. Lets consider a few things that changed this year from last: 1) Sahara Tent baby! 2) New album out 3) Later set time. All of these things contributed to an great performance that (by my standards) topped last year.

I think the biggest component of their live show that made it so incredible at Coachella is that they have a ton of material to play and a very short time to play it in. This means that they forego all of their slow-mid tempo songs for the raving mad ones. All of Made In The Dark translates perfectly to a live performance, and the seamless flow from song to song doesn’t let the energy drop at all. It was pretty clear that they’ve worked on tidying up the loose ends over the past year. So much damn fun.

Kraftwerk

Admittedly, Kraftwerk isn’t really my favorite band/group. I completely understand the massive impact that they have had on every genre of music that uses any kind of electrical instruments (they formed back in the 70s), but their music hasn’t aged well in my opinion. While I’m sure some people were blown away, I guess it was cool. It was exactly what every YouTube video makes it out to be any nothing more. The screen behind them was nice, but again, exactly what’s happened at every single one of their tour dates for the past 5+ years. I will concede that their music translates amazingly to a setting like Coachella. Their sound is so big that it just fills the fields with the electronic bleeps and pops of the past. Good, I guess, didn’t wow me.

Portishead

This is where my night turns golden. Portishead hasn’t done much of anything (as a group) for the past 10/11 years, and I’ve listened to Dummy countless times since discovering the group as my interest in Massive Attack grew. Some music is awesome because of the great show that goes along with it (Daft Punk), some music is great because of its intensity (Rage Against the Machine), and some music is great because of the emotions that pour out of it (Portishead).

Portishead was by far my favorite act at Coachella 2008. Regardless of the fact that I probably won’t ever see them again and any other factor other than the music that makes the existence of their performance at Coachella great, it really was the music that got me. Beth has said in interviews that lyrics are her way of communicating to people, and it really shows. In between songs, you could hear her faintly saying to Adrian and Geoff, “Say something… just say something into the microphone…”

Their twelve-song set consisted of the best songs from Dummy, Portishead, and Third. It really was a hauntingly moving experience. As a fan, it’s nice to know when artists acknowledge some sort of connection with you, and as Geoff was walking off stage, he shot out, “Thanks for waiting so long.” As anyone who’s listened to Third all the way through, it was well worth the 10 years.

Prince

The surprise headliner for Saturday night was Prince, as everyone knows. Following Portishead isn’t an easy thing to do, but really, this is Prince we are talking about. I wish that I had more to say about his show other than it was what a perfect funk/soul/R&B show is. He played about 20 songs in total over 2 hours (he ended at 1am, not midnight). The set was made up of 80s songs, plenty of covers, and some of his more recent singles.

Here are some of the highlights from the performance: Morris Day and Sheila E. opened with a few songs with Prince on guitar, Prince covered Radiohead’s Creep (perfect choice for the Coachella crowd), he also covered the Beatles’ Come Together, and the encore was a double dose of Purple Rain and Let’s Go Crazy.

Seriously people, Portishead brought the melancholy, and Prince brought the party. It was one of the best nights of music I’ve been to.

These incredible pictures of the Coachella weekend are from Mick 0, Caesar Sebastian, and Jevon Feinblatt.

NIN’s The Slip is 100% Free

Posted on by mygoodgomez

On May 5th Trent Reznor announced the immediate release of the Nine Inch Nails album titled The Slip. Along with the release new came word that the album was available for free download in MP3, M4A, FLAC, and WAV formats and comes with a PDF booklet. Unlike the release of the recent Ghosts I-IV, Reznor did not give fans the option to pay for The Slip. In the NIN.com blog post, Reznor gave fans this note:

(thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years – this one’s on me)

As a long time fan of NIN, I headed right over to the download page, got my copy of The Slip in FLAC, threw it into iTunes, admired the album art (though I still don’t understand what it means), and played through the new material. 

Album Review

The first thing I noted about the album was its relatively short length. At 43:45 it’s well under an hour, which is fine by me. If there’s one thing that I’ve recently noticed it’s that I don’t really have the patience or time to sit still through a full album if it lasts longer than an hour. Whether an hour genuinely is a good marker for an album or if I’m just abnormally impatient isn’t too important, I’m just glad that The Slip can be taking in from start to finish is one sitting. 

On to the actual musical contents of The Slip. The album opens with the intro track “999,999”, which leads into “1,000,000”. “999,999” is a fairly generic building of an ambient industrial sound-scape that Reznor seems to be enjoying more and more these days. 1,000,000 is a more traditional NIN song with a distorted guitar, a simple drum line, and Reznor’s vocals all layered on each other once for verses and reverbed back on each other for choruses. The rest of the album follows in similar fashion with a few more “single-quality” songs, a piano ballad, and a 7 and a half minute sound-scape arriving near the end of the album. 

One feeling that I got from The Slip is that Reznor isn’t so much interested in straightforward industrial music anymore. I guess the feeling has been building since With Teeth, but The Slip is the first full NIN album that I could almost categorize as alternative metal. I don’t think I like this feeling, but I loved Year Zero, and I sorta like The Slip. Hopefully this feeling is only coming on because The Slip feels like a promo for the upcoming tour that NIN will be embarking on (which I already have tickets for). 

The main reason why I don’t have the hots for The Slip like I did for Year Zero is because it’s relatively predictable. Year Zero was so varied and unexpected, yet it flowed perfectly. To me, The Slip seems like an extension of some Year Zero songs where fresh material should be instead. 

Beyond the Music

I started to get into this in the review section, but The Slip doesn’t feel like a full NIN album to me. Maybe it’s because of the fact that I didn’t have to (or even get to) pay for it, but the album seems like a promo for the upcoming tour. Getting away from the fact that The Slip isn’t my cup of tea, Reznor is truly putting his money where his mouth is when it comes to his views on the record industry. 

The models (or experiments) that he has been going through are fairly unprecedented. Please don’t give me any crap about Radiohead, because I don’t think that the release of In Rainbows holds any weight against the release of Ghosts I-IV and The Slip. In Rainbows was amazing, don’t get me wrong, but if Radiohead was serious about trying out new models of selling and marketing their music, they wouldn’t stop after one go around. 

My best guess right now is that Reznor is playing mind games with his fans, and that we are all too willing to play along. Not only is he building loyalty through producing good music, he is now giving us gifts for participating in his experiments. Reznor made well over a million dollars of pure profit with Ghosts I-IV, so in return he’s giving us a full NIN album for free. With the antics that surrounded the release of Year Zero and the distribution methods being used now, Trent Reznor, who is already one of history’s greatest musicians, is soon to be one of the great marketers and business men of the music industry.

PS: Upcoming Tour

Here’s a few random notes about the upcoming NIN US tour. I have my tickets for the Seattle date because I’ll be up in Redmond this summer interning for Microsoft. A friend and I are hoping to snag tickets for the LA date when the presale goes up. The supporting acts this go around include Crystal Castles, Does It Offend You Yeah?, Deerhunter, A Place To Bury Strangers, and White Williams. I’ll be seeing Crystal Castles up in Seattle and Deerhunter in LA! Two amazing openers if you ask me. So exited!

Photos below are from the nineinchnails flickr feed.

Hot Chip @ the Mayan

Posted on by mygoodgomez

If you think seeing Hot Chip twice in three days sounds like fun, let me tell you, it definitely is. I speak from experience. Coachella Saturday = Hot Chip & the Mayan Monday = Hot Chip. Both great, but very different.

I believe that this whole ordeal earned a bit of back-story, so here goes. Back way before February, I bought tickets to a tiny Hot Chip show at the El Rey. It was one of two shows that they were going to be doing in the states, and the other was out in New York. I was so pumped, but the day of the show, it was cancelled due to an illness in the band. After a few weeks, the Goldenvoice email went out announcing a makeup date at the Mayan in APRIL. Talk about a long wait.

Free Blood

So the end of April rolled around, Coachella happened, and I was ready for another dose of Hot Chip (my first dose away from a festival setting). Opening the night was a New York duo called Free Blood. I’d never heard of them before, but I really enjoyed their set. Their sound consisted of pre-recorded tribal/heavy/electronic beats with the guy playing bass and singing along with the girl. While it was a high energy show for a lesser-known opener, one thing that I was impressed by was the fact that they timed their set perfectly. It’s always nice when openers have figured out the right time where you’re enjoying what you’re hearing and you’re not tired of it yet, but you will be in about two songs. They stopped before the two songs. Good set all around.

Hot Chip

I guess I should start the Hot Chip portion of this by saying that seeing Hot Chip in a hot, sweaty, packed Coachella tent is a far different experience from seeing them at a nice LA venue. To be completely honest, I prefer the Coachella environment. It’s something about everyone being packed together and completely in love with what they are experiencing at Coachella that makes it that much better. Then again, seeing Hot Chip at the Mayan was great because of the much longer set time, and it’s just a more intimate setting.

Look down at the set list, it pretty much sums up the fact that their latest album Made In The Dark is amazing live. So many of the songs translate perfectly to Hot Chip’s live performance which is pretty far removed from the sound of their records. The live show is so high energy that it’s hard to recognize that the live songs are the same ones on the albums.

My personal favorites when performed live are “Boy From School”, “Out at the Pictures”, “Shake a Fist”, and (of course) “Over & Over”. There’s something to be said about a band that can recreate the sound of their songs so that they flow together but stay distinct when played live. Hot Chip has perfected this art. 

As I said before, this show was the replacement show for what should have been their first stop in the US back in February, and they acknowledged the fact by saying that they would play their asses off. Honestly, I think they put more effort into the Coachella show. Maybe the shorter set time puts pressure on bands to filer out any sort of filler, but it just had more energy in the air than the Mayan show.

Set List

  1. Shake a Fist
  2. Boy from School
  3. Hold On
  4. Bendable Poseable
  5. Touch Too Much
  6. Over & Over
  7. Out at the Pictures
  8. Wrestlers
  9. Crap Kraft Dinner
  10. One Pure Thought
  11. Ready for the Floor
  12. Made in the Dark
  13. (encore) Don’t Dance
  14. No Fit State / Nothing Compares to You
  15. Privacy of Our Love

The three photos below are from riotphotography on flickr.

Coachella ’08: Day 1

Posted on by mygoodgomez

Coachella 2008 has come and gone, and it was amazing. Two (our trip was cut short) hot days in the desert and plenty of good music later, here’s my rundown of the artists I saw on Friday. I hope my reviews can give you insight onto how great live music is. Here are some quick links to find the artist that you might be looking for (but check out the rest too!): Battles, Dan Deacon, The Breeders, Vampire Weekend, Diplo, Pendulum, Aphex Twin, Fatboy Slim. Head to the bottom to check out some SICK pictures.

Friday

We arrived at the polo fields a little later than we wanted to, but Battles was a great band to start the weekend off with. Seeing as their songs are well over the typical 3-4 minute mark, they only played 5 songs I think. Regardless, the buildup that Battles is so great at accomplishing made every song well worth it by the end. My obvious favorites were Atlas and Tonto (the two songs that everyone knows best), but they did play a few others off of their LP. Great music, but not too much in terms of show.

I had such high hopes for Dan Deacon. After listening to his music and kinda liking it, after hearing and reading about his mind-blowing live shows, after having my heart set on being amazed… this was a downer. Don’t get me wrong, running around in circles and making a massive tunnel in a hot tent is fun, but the whole playing on the same level as the audience doesn’t work. If you aren’t right next to Deacon, or obliviously gone on E, there isn’t too much other than loud, high-pitched electronic sounds peaking the speakers. Sorry, I know that everyone loves his live shows. I must have missed something.

This doesn’t really count as a full set because I came and left midway because there were other bands I wanted to see, but for the few songs I stopped, sat, and listened to, the Breeders impressed me. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise, seeing as (just like the Pixies) tons of major artists site the Breeders as being big influences.

From what I’ve read this week, everyone thought that Vampire Weekend was boring. I must respectfully disagree. I’m not sure what everyone was expecting, but this band is full of Ivy-Leaguers, and their music sounds as such. I don’t know how they could have made the show entertaining other than by playing their music flawlessly, which they did. I thoroughly enjoyed the show and danced a bit. One thing that I did find odd was when they said that they were going to play a “new” song, and proceeded to play something that consisted of dog barks. I hope it was a joke. They played another new song that was pretty darn good. Vampire Weekend is probably the most mainstream indie band right now, well deserved.

Walking into the tent preparing for the amazement of Pendulum, Aphex Twin, and Fatboy Slim, Diplo was a past-time for me. I expected to hear some stuff similar to what I’ve heard from his original material, and it was nothing like that. He played a good mix of electro, a sick remix of Smells Like Teen Spirit, and other stuff that I enjoyed. Another plus? When he played Paper Planes, MIA herself came out onstage and danced a bit. The only part I disliked was when he started to play Burial’s Archangel and one of the massive balloons floating around the Saraha Tent hit one of his turntables. It completely knocked the needle off of the vinyl. I love that song, so it sucked that I didn’t get to hear it through. Good set nonetheless.

Last year, one of the members of Pendulum played a DJ set in the Dome. This year, they were playing a live set, and I was psyched. Pendulum does one of my favorite remixes (the Prodigy’s Voodoo People), and I knew that their mix of drum ‘n bass and rock would turn the Sahara Tent into a pit. I really don’t consider them a drum ‘n bass group anymore. They perform with a full drum set, an electric guitar, a bass, a set of synths, and an MC. Their sound hits so hard, and their set was great. They played Voodoo People and all of their other hits as well as some other newer songs off of their album that will be released soon. They had their wall of lights behind them; it was a complete live performance.

Pendulum -> Aphex Twin. Really? Incredible. There were a number of surprises through Mr. Richard D. James’ set. One was that he actually showed up. Back in 2001, he was billed to play, but cancelled at the last minute and got Squarepusher to replace him. Needless to say, when I saw his face on stage, I breathed a sigh of relief. Surprise #2, he didn’t play his own material. Well, I guess it wasn’t that big of a surprise, but I was kinda naive going into this set.

This hour-long set became the ideal example of how a set should progress. The first half consisted of some ambient techno, hip hop, and other electronic stuff. As the set moved out of this, RDJ moved into more IDM/glitch material. The lazers started to kick in, and the house lights were beginning to freak. Around the 45 minute mark, the full on thrash glitch stuff switched on and the “Come To Daddy”-Aphex Twin I know was blaring through the speakers blowing everyone’s mind. This was when the animal dancers came on stage and completed the out-of-this-world psycho performance that Aphex Twin is famous for. At the end, RDJ looked up, gave us a thumbs up and an ear-to-ear smile. Wow.

It was good that Aphex Twin was as great as he was, because Fatboy Slim came on about 30 minutes late. At Coachella, a festival known for tight set times, that’s not OK. So when the curtains finally unveiled Fatboy’s huge displays, we were kinda tired and pissed. My mood didn’t really change. He didn’t really play any of his own original material; the set was much of the same that I’ve seen in YouTube videos of his other live shows. He has one of the best back-catalogues of any electronic artist, and I don’t quite understand why he wouldn’t exploit that. It’s a great light show, but I left early because it was past 12 and the music wasn’t anything that I couldn’t hear from any other average DJ.


These incredible pictures of the Coachella weekend are from Mick 0, Caesar Sebastian, and Jevon Feinblatt.

Pitchfork.tv

Posted on by mygoodgomez

I have a love/hate relationship with Pitchfork. Their features and interviews are the best of any indie music blog, or maybe of any music blog in general, but their album reviews can be so off topic and elitist that I’ve stopped reading them. That’s all fine, whether or not I read their album reviews isn’t a big deal, what bothers me is the influence that one writer can have over the future of a potentially talented band. Leaving their album reviewing out of the picture and turning to their latest venture: Pitchfork.tv, I’m thoroughly impressed. The site features many different high-quality videos about music and the artists that make it, here are the sections it’s broken down into:

Featured

The featured section serves as the most-recent/best-of content gathered from all the other sections. It it basically a collection of the week’s (or maybe more, it’s only been live for two weeks) videos. Because it’s pretty basic, the featured section should be used as the first place you go to see new content (and it’s the first place the website takes you to).

Shows

These “shows” are what make Pitchfork.tv resemble a TV station rather than just a hodge-podge collection of music videos. Right now, the shows include Interview, Don’t Look Down, Juan’s Basement, Daytripping, and Special Presentation. Interview is self-explanatory; they interview an artist. For Don’t Look Down, an artist simply plays a few of their songs on top of a building roof. Juan’s Basement is both very similar and completely opposite to Don’t Look Down because here the artists are playing in… yes, Juan’s Basement. Daytripping is my favorite so far, it’s where a Pitchfork camera crew follow a band around for a day and engage in all the crazy things that go on. Special Presentation is just a section for Pitchfork to throw all their random features; there isn’t much organization here.

Pitchfork Live

For Pitchfork Live, you get to watch a concert at your desk. If you’ve ever bought a live DVD of your favorite band playing at some fancy (or grimy) venue and sat for an hour basking in the glory while wishing you were there, Pitchfork Live is the same thing.

One Week Only

While the other sections are cool, it’s the One Week Only section that really makes Pitchfork.tv worth-while. Here you can watch a video that is SO special Pitchfork can only show it for one week. Thus far, the videos have been documentaries (one about the Pixies and the other about AIR), and both were amazing. I’m not sure if these videos are rare, but I am sure that these will all be high-quality videos worth your 30-60 minutes.

Music Video

You really don’t need an explanation for this section. It’s full of music videos.

In review, I love Pitchfork.tv. I’ve always loved watching interviews and other shows about artists (XLR8R TV anyone?), and this is just feeding my obsession. Even if you’ve never heard of the bands featured on the site, go check them out; you’ll probably begin to expand your musical horizons, which is always good.

Coachella 2008: MGMT

Posted on by mygoodgomez

mgmt_thumb.jpgThe best way that I can describe the music that MGMT makes is “nostalgic.” For a broad audience, this probably isn’t the best adjective to use, but it was the first word that came to mind when I was going through their debut album “Oracular Spectacular.” Now that they’ve gotten relatively big for a brand new indie band (they’ve done Letterman, SXSW, and have two music videos), I’m pretty sure that they are my favorite recently discovered band that I will see at Coachella this year.

MGMT falls into the category of new hipster bands making music that combines punk, electro, and pop. There’s nothing wrong with this, Klaxons won a Mercury Prize for doing the same, but at a certain point, it’s hard to differentiate between the many bands taking up this formula. MGMT has been able to differentiate itself not by progressively pushing the genre’s boundaries, but by perfecting the art of making an old-sounding new style with keyboards, guitars, and drums.

I’m sure that what you just read is probably a cliche description of many bands now-a-days, but it’s the best I could come up with. Essentially, MGMT is a duo with playful sound that captures what the indie-electro-punk-retro style is all about. Their sound might be psychedelic pop, but not so much as Of Montreal. I think just really good music.

This year they will be playing at both Coachella and Bonnaroo, and it’s probably safe to say many other festivals as more and more dates and lineups are announced daily. As for the Coachella lineup, they are part of what make the midline bands amazing this year. If you miss them this year, don’t come crying to me next year when you’re kicking yourself in the butt.

MGMT Videos

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Cochella 2008: Justice

Posted on by mygoodgomez

justicethumb.jpgSo here we are again with Justice. In case you’ve forgotten, I wrote a post about Justice for last year’s Coachella, but way too much has happened in the past year for me to ignore these “third-liners” (they were “bottom-liners” last year).

So what did I say last year about Justice?

Anyone up for a French house DJ duo? No, I’m not talking about Daft Punk; I’m talking about Justice. Of the entire artist lineup being pushed by Ed Banger Records right now, Justice is getting the best and most press attention (guess I’m feeding the flame.) Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay are the current heroes of French house music.

Back to now: all of the above is still true (and more). These two are still the kings of electro, but they are anything but alone in the genre. This past year we have seen DJs like Boys Noize, Para One (and the rest of the Institubes crew), SebastiAn & Kavinsky (and the Ed Banger crew) all tour nonstop and put out some great remixes. Justice is no longer the unique sounding duo that they were last year, but the release of their debut LP Cross has kept them on top.

Instead of relying on the distorted electro sound that brought them up, Justice has become a genre-crossing mix of disco, electro, pop, and rock. The worldwide phenomenon of electro has contributors popping up all over the globe, and the backlash has been just as great as the support.

This year at Coachella, look forward to a brand new live show (remember last year? they played Cross in its entirety)… Busy P sounds pretty pumped for these guys, and I will not be missing them this year (unless they are pitted against Roger Waters).

Justice Music Videos / Live Stuff

Coachella 2008: Portishead

Posted on by mygoodgomez

portishead thumbIt’s that time of the year again! The Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival will be held from April 25-27, and after months of speculation, the official lineup has been released. Just as I did last year in preparation for Coachella, I will be reviewing some artists that will be at Coachella. Some of these artists I will be very familiar with, and others I will review after listening to them for the first time. To kick things off, here’s Portishead!

Hailing from Bristol, England, Portishead (pronounced with a hard “s”) has been pioneering the genre of trip-hop since the mid-90s when they released their first album “Dummy.” While comparisons of artists can sometimes degrade one’s opinion of them, I think that Portishead is a mashup of Massive Attack and Everything But the Girl (both of which I love).

Portishead’s most recent release, 1998’s Roseland NYC Live was published with a VHS (the DVD came in 2002). The video was (obviously) a live recording of material from “Dummy” and “Portishead” (their sophomore release) played by a massive orchestral enseamble plus drums, a turntable (possibly Geoff Barrow), and a Beth Gibbons. The shear size of the total number of musicians was astounding and created a sonic quality completely different than Portishead’s LPs.

While I love Portishead and am avidly awaiting their third album (titled “Third”), I can’t help but be apprehensive of their live performance. I doubt that they will put a full orchestra onstage, and downtempo probably don’t make for the best shows. Regardless, the sound will undoubtedly be incredible, and I fully plan on seeing them closing Saturday.