I stumbled across this video on YouTube today. It was one of the featured videos. First and foremost, The Bridges, you are not Eisely so quit it. And just because you inevitably had some blockbuster songwriter doctor up some “hit” for you, doesn’t mean that you are even remotely good. I’ll link to this video only in an effort to explain myself, knowing full well that to some degree I’m still promoting them. My only hope is that it remains negative promotion and you cats don’t decide that this crap is good.
Yeah. You’re all pretty much unbelievably beautiful. Some might even argue perfect. Not me… but some people. But 1. what is up with that weird voice, 2. tell your idiot drummer to stop flailing around and pretending to be some kind of pop icon drummer who looks like the singer of that High School Musical type showtunes “pop” band ____, and 3. at least come with some type of sincerity with your shit. Good luck and all, but right now The Bridges, you suck.
Who knows, maybe I could be way off, but these fools seem like a blatant attempt of some bigwig that thinks he knows “what the people want”. Might as well have been put together by P. Diddy. We’ll see what else they come out with and if it comes across with as little realness (if that’s a word) as this does.
I also think I was fooled by that Duffy chic (I even felt strongly enough to have blogged the shit out of her. Idiot.), who still is pretty damn cool and I do dig most of her shit, because at least she seems like she might write her stuff. But I did hear an interview with her on World Cafe one day and it totally ruined her for me. Maybe it was just her Welsch accent and over-bearing personability, but something seemed off. Too off to be real in any capacity. So, as far as I’m concerned, she might be some Lou Pearlman type pop creation, too. Granted I’m still listening to her shit, but no - I will not buy your album. You either The Bridges. You either.
Duffy’s album “Rockferry” just came out in the U.S. on May 13, but it’s been getting some radio play on independent stations - like WYEP here in Pittsburgh (because heaven forbid mainstream radio put anything new and actually good into rotation). However, she is being touted as the next, though wholesome so thereby starkly opposite, Amy Winehouse, if not only for the obvious soul
influence in her vocals, so she does showcase the ability to break into the pop charts quite easily. Who knows, maybe we’ll start hearing Duffy every 5 seconds at Lava Lounge instead of the same 3 shitty Winehouse tracks on repeat.
It’s funny, though, because she’s kind of the counter-Winehouse at the same time, at least when it comes to looks and lyrical content; seemingly no drug addictions, blonde hair and an amazing smile. She typically wears beautiful dresses/gowns (whatever you want to call them) when she performs and is just a plain jane normal girl smiling and having fun (and sometimes hula hooping with the guys from We Are Scientists) in the few “off stage” videos I’ve seen of her.
The song that initially caught my eye is this one:
The only problem with the album is that there are only 10 songs, too few to add to my ears’ queue of enjoyable sound, but not a one of them is really bad in any capacity so you just put the album on again and it all works out. Here’s another one that stands out.
The Hourly Radio is a 3-piece, Dallas-based band that I stumbled across yesterday (classic guitar, drums, bass). They were a part of the SXSW lineup this year so got their fair share of hype for a short time, but right now I’m jamming to the track “Crime Does Pay” - so should you.
The Hourly Radio “Crime Does Pay” Download / Listen
On a totally different vein, another band I find myself chancing upon often enough over the past day or two is this band Dead Rock Machine from Paris. I actually fell ass backward into their myspace during the classic “find a band you like, click to their top friends, give a listen, like, click to the next, listen, like, click top friends, and so on. The forever impressive Santogold referred me along to these guys only because they seem to be prolific New Comment posters. Despite how much I don’t really like it, I mean, Myspace is just ridiculous with its networking ability. So anyway, these guys are pretty cool. As soon as I can find the tracks myself, I’ll post something to make your life easier. In the meantime, check out their myspace. The track “Why Don’t You Dance Boy” has made its way to my default profile song. I know, huge! This is them live in March this year… simple, fun, grooved up.
An absolutely fantastic performance -or- an absolutely creepy performance. Man I love me some Fiona Apple. She is definitely reclaiming the spot of “current obsession”. Just the same, I don’t know if my refound obsession is fantastic or creepy either.
Whatevs. Check out the first 5 seconds of this video…
Listening to an interview with her on World Cafe ages ago, back when her first album came out in frickin 96 - which makes her 19 YEARS OLD!!! I don’t know if this interview was actually when she was 19 or what because I’m looking on their website to hear this song again (she did a version of “Sleep to Dream” that was just unreal) or if she just did an old track. I could have sworn that the host said she was 19 at the time, but I could be wrong. Anyway, she was/is/will continue to be such a ridiculously phenomenal artist. It baffles me really. 19… when Criminal came out. Looking all smoking and actually making incredible music. Then comes out with 2 more unbelievably fantastic records… Nuts.
So, this video came out I think like 2 years ago, but given my recent kick in the pants to wake up and rediscover how much I liked Fiona Apple, I just now found out that it exists. Zach Galifinakis is a frickin genius and apparently has been for quite some time. I wish I could just embed the video, but of course she’s on Sony so heaven forbid that they let people embed their videos… hell, at least they didn’t pull them completely off of YouTube like idiotic NBC. So watch this video for “Not About Love” with Zach Galifinakis lip-syncing the whole thing. It’s fantastic. Here’s what you have in store for you if you haven’t seen it yet:
Fiona looking how you’d expect - soft, sultry, “deep”…
Zach - being Zach…
Some other World Cafe archives that you should take a listen to:
Sara Bareilles, who is a new artist out and about these days with that track saying something like “I’m not gonna write you a love song”. If there was any speculation that she may actually be really cool and might have written that song in response to the label telling her to write better songs, it is apparently true as outlined in the interview. She is just plain awesome, too. I’ve decided 100% that I just flat out like her. (Kind of like liking Nicole Atkins. You kind of feel like it might be gay and that there’s some level of idiocy that just hasn’t come through yet, but turns out they are just awesome peeps, doing well for themselves). I think Sara Bareilles actually is from some place in Northern California “as far north as you can get”. She makes jokes about everyone in the town growing pot. Her parents are like insurance adjusters and loggers and shit. Pretty pretty pretty good if you ask me. Take a listen fo realz.
Also, give this one a moment of your time. Cat Power was on last night and OH MAN is she an idiot. Stark opposite of everything else I’m talking about here. I really thought I liked her, and don’t get me wrong, still do like her shit, but OH MY. She is either all smoked up, a complete retard, or on some kind of depression drug that morphs her mind into idiocy (which could actually be true because apparently she had some mental breakdown Mariah Carey style after her first album). All she talks about the whole time is … well just listen to it because it made me flat out uncomfortable at times. I’m not saying that I won’t listen to her music… but I’ll be listening with a new ear of regret.
Take the time. Click those “Listen Now” links. And make it happen. Let me know what you think.
If you’re not familiar, there is this web on-demand video service… thing… called Joost that is pretty sweet. They basically have hundreds of “channels” with hundreds of shows and video whatnots on there. You have to download an app for your computer, but it is definitely cool - so do it.
I’ve been watching old Dick Van Dyke episodes, for example, and a bunch of Michael Showalter Showalter - which is obviously hilarious and needn’t be explained. It’ll just go from one show to the next automatically like regular TV programming if you don’t control it yourself and today The Ben Stiller Show came on. I TOTALLY forgot that show ever existed! About 4 minutes into it I realized why I had forgotten… because it sucks balls. Ben Stiller, Andy Dick, and Janeane Garofalo are the cast members. It’s honestly baffling that the three of them somehow were able to formulate a career after that show because it is honestly one of the most unfunny things I’ve watched.
Anyway, so I came across this weird show that puts up these 5-minute episodes called Dorm Life. This show is the quintessential “funny enough to make me watch it, funny enough to make me chuckle 2 to 3 times based on principle of a joke, but not really delivered all that well and not really that funny when it comes down to it.” You know, the kind of show that immediately makes you think, “You know! We should be doing this kind of thing - because we’re hilarious…” You know, that kind of show.
So, anyway, it’s funny enough to tell you to watch it. The whole premise is pretty lame in that it just mocks freshman year dorm life when you first start college, but the observations are quite humorous (again, if not only on principle and not so much on follow through). They’ve got a website that you can watch the episodes without Joost. Check it.
This is pretty frickin cool. Guitar… Theremin… Drums…
Liam Finn has this track on WYEP that I’ve been loving on for the past month and never knew who it was. So today it was on the radio on my way to work right when I was parking, so I made it a point to run inside and check the YEP playlist. Thanks to Indie Muse for posting this video along with some tracks.
