LCD Soundsystem - new album news, kind of?

thanks to punkguy.com for the image

I always look forward to James Murphy's bloglings but, the ones about new albums are my favorite MySpace surprise :)

Also, some comments about his visit to the Mtv Movie Awards with pal Aziz Ansari from Human Giant:

'making a record'

"making a record is strange. last time i made a record i had a pretty brutal and miserable experience. then i made something that wasn't the record, went back to said record, and had a great experience. it all worked out. this time i'm having a pretty great experience. i like the record more, but have no idea if that means it's better or anything. it's just more fun. the shitty full-days of lying on the floor stuck in my own head about things has been pushed back into hours, or only one hour, here and there. i also get to swim in the morning, and do things like that. which is good. which makes the record better, i think. because now when i'm not actually working on the record, i'm doing something i like and that occupies my mind, rather than sitting in a room with my head in my hands wondering if i still know how to make music.

i was very hungover today, mainly because i drank a lot of drinks with alcohol in them yesterday. i accompanied my tv star friend to the mtv movie awards because it seemed like the most hilariously hollywood thing i could possibly do right then, and wound up at times pretending to be either his publicist or body guard, which was very funny. i also ate a lot of these skewers with a shrimp and a green olive on them. they were good, but not substantial enough really to soak up the shitty free beer that they have at these things.

while at the awards, i learned a few things:

1. will ferrell is very nice in person, and must be exhausted with how much effort he puts in to seeming like a decent, regular guy. i met him very quickly and he was so absurdly nice that i felt like a dick for all the times i was wooden and awkward with strangers at a festival or something.
2. danny mcbride is fucking hilarious. and pretty much like you expect.
3. eminem is a better actor than you think.
4. pr people and "young hollywood" seem like, literally, different species of animal.
5. young, self-satisfied, confident celebrities are weird to be near.
6. the more excited young people are about an actor/actress, the less likely i am to recognize them. there is an inverse relationship formula for volume-of-screaming to person-i-recognize that i'm working on.
7. jason 'mayhem' miller has a very large head. and that's coming from ME.
8. talking for 2 minutes with ben stiller about something totally unrelated to the mtv movie awards while at the mtv movie awards makes people audibly say "who is that talking to stiller??" in total, unselfconscious earshot of the subject (me) while said subject (still me) walks back to the bar area. they'll actually point.
8b. being at an event thrown by a company called "music television" pretty much ensures that you will not be recognized by anyone at all except for the people you show up with, previously know, and danny mcbride.
9. comedians are funny in person, but not the way you think.
10. hollywood likes to stratify, and being the +1 of a tv personality makes you pretty low on the list, but if you've just said hi to will ferrell, and he looked at you in some way that could be interpreted as "familiar"--largely because he's kind, and you blurted something about him using "north american scum" in "stepbrothers"--you can basically walk into any room you want and take beer for the next 5 minutes. it's like getting an invincibility pill in pac-man. you can feel the power start to blink after you cruise out with 4 beers from the 3rd dressing room, so you should probably head back to your friends and share the beers.
11. chris isaacs likes his dog.
12. forest whittaker is disarmingly friendly.
13. i, as a person, am oddly frightened (i'm saying frightened here--not intimidated) by jim carey.

i think like being a largely anonymous dude in a weird band that most people don't know about. it's nice. i wouldn't want to be a movie star. i mean, i feel like i knew that, but it's good to have your feelings validated like that once in a while. because it's easy to sit back and say "i wouldn't want to be a movie star" when it's totally not a salient point... but being there, with everything seeming so easy for them, still didn't make me want any of it. except the free stuff.

today i woke up late, sat around in a horrible state, until i went in the pool and played "goodminton" (which is badminton where the object is to keep the birdie in play as long as possible), ate in n' out burger, and watched several episodes of the BBC show "ashes to ashes", which has amazing music.

tomorrow i'll wake up early, do a little jiu jitsu stuff, swim, shower, get into my making-a-record outfit, eat an avocado and a hard boiled egg, make an amazing coffee, and get to work on a new song. gavin russom (gavin and delia, black leotard front, black meteoric star) is here for a few days, so maybe i can get him to wrangle some synths with me. i have a good feeling about tomorrow, frankly. and i'm also terrified that i'll never make anything good again.

that works.

oh: my tv friend is aziz ansari. thanks, aziz."


For the record, Murphy's blog was in neon green font - sorry if I didn't do the entry justice.


VIDEO: LCD Soundsystem - 'Losing My Edge'

Radiohead back in the studio...

Image courtesy of MSNBC

I'm surprised at myself that I'm not more excited - I guess I've just come to expect the studio report leaks (this one via the BBC) that have come to produce only great things. Here is the story from the BBC - I know the Radiohead board is buzzing too :)

Radiohead in studio
The Oxford band have started work on the follow up to In Rainbows

18 May 2009 - Radiohead have started working on the follow up to their 2007 album In Rainbows.

Bassist Colin Greenwood told 6 Music the Oxford band have been busy in the studio over the last week with producer Nigel Godrich.

"It was very noisy and chaotic and really fun," he said.

"It’s at the stage where we’ve got the big Lego box out and we’ve tipped it out on the floor and we're just looking at all the bits and thinking what’s next?"

"I'm very impressed and grateful for Nigel our producer and his ability to make it all sound vaguely plausible," he added.

Greenwood, who was speaking at the Great Escape music festival in Brighton, where he was helping to launch a new music journal called Loops, gave no indication as to when the Oxford five-piece will be releasing their next record or whether they will be briging it out in a similar format to their last LP.

"It's at the stage where we've got the big Lego box out and we've tipped it on the floor." Colin Greenwood on Radiohead's new album

Last time, Radiohead offered fans the chance to choose how much they were prepared to pay for In Rainbows.

"We were just saying to people how much do you think we're worth?" he added.

"It's like a long term relationship and it was great because it kicked off lots of debate about it."

The band have just finished touring with electro pioneers Kraftwerk in South America which Greenwood described as a "brilliant experience".

"They are one of our musical heroes and it was a real privilege to share a stage with them," he enthused.

"What I like about Kraftwerk is I obviously love the beats but I love their melodies too. They seep into your brain and stay there."

The five-piece are due to headline the Reading and Leeds Festivals this summer for a headline show where they have some unfinished business.

"It was a bit frustrating when we were playing some of our own shows last year because it was light for the first half hour, 40 minutes of the show," Greenwood said.

"So we wanted to do it as it was meant to be seen – darker and louder."

-Jo Youle


VIDEO: Radiohead - Bangers and Mash (Live from the early days of Pitchfork.tv - I love it!)

Dinosaur Jr. giving away new track for free!!!

Go to http://www.dinosaurjr.com/ for a free download of "I Want to Know You'. Great track :)

VIDEO: From '06, recently reformed Dinosaur Jr. play "The Lung" on Mr. Wick's show :)

Review - Silversun Pickups - Swoon

'lush, shoe-gazey hooks wear thin on sophomore outing.'


For a band that got it's name from a local Silverlake liquor store, the Silversun Pickups have certainly made a name for themselves, if not only for the 'Young Folks' like catchiness of their prior album's lead single, 'Lazy Eye'.

'He sounds like Kurt Cobain on helium' an old acquaintance and band mate Ben once said of vocalist/lead guitarist Brian Aubert. He was THE first one to really be on to SSPU's. He knew before the LP was even a glimmer, while they were still doing residencies at small, hipster dives in Los Feliz (I actually have a copy of a recording he did of them early on at one of these shows). While we've gone our own ways since then, I will always give credit where it is due.

That said, the anticipation of their sophomore outing was growing while it was still titled 'TBA'. The first radio single 'Panic Switch' is a gem. It appeals to the synthy, lush-pop direction guitar bands have been affording themselves towards in this recent age of alt-rock (is that term as obsolete as indie-rock now?). Swelled, shoe-gaze hooks with the type of fuzz that makes your back itch dominate.

Texturing, filling the space appropriately while also allowing a track to breathe, their strength, also becomes the monotonous nag that pulls at you upon first listen. It tells of a band desperate to achieve maturity in order to bypass the 'curse of the second album'. As a result, one of the most anticipated albums of the Spring from a rising band has it's development arrested, trapped between dramatic synth-cries and string accompaniments which pin the album to earth, deserting the spacial and galactic exploration of Carnavas.

I would like to see another guitarist added to the lineup if only for touring to allow front man Brian Aubert to really be able to play lead without having to worry about rhythm parts.

Because of his vocals and preferred fuzz-tone, you will always hear the Smashing Pumpkins comparisons. While they are there, they are slight. Corgan's voice sucks (this coming from a Pumpkins fan through Mellon Collie..) and all the studio magic the digital age brought couldn't fix it (auto-tune? please no). Aubert actually has a good and distinct voice. A bright point on the album is the mixing which is far superior than any of their prior albums - they've learned how to allow his voice to mix with the guitars and effects to add another weapon to their arsenal without worrying about him being able to cut through the aural wave.

Their albums have continued to grow tiresome with the same fuzz effect used on seemingly every track they've ever recorded and the predictability of the galloping drum patterns need adjustment - instead of carving a niche, the charm has worn.

While the singles that come off of 'Swoon' will no doubt be on every rock station play list, this album only has a limited number of plays before you find yourself listening to their Pikul EP or in my case, The Mountain Goats??

Final rating: 6.3/10
Key tracks: 'Panic Switch', 'There's No Secrets This Year'

Video: 'Common Reactor' (live, from 'Carnavas')