MUSICBLOGR – Music Video Blog

Crash13 believes that if you’ve never heard the hip-hop/acid house/jazz combo of Portishead, today is your day. The band’s consistent inconsistency is what’s made them last 15 years with only three full-lengths. There are few acts as legitimate and as interesting as Portishead; get into it.

Unfamiliar claims that catchy pop rock band Thieves and Villains are one of the hardest working bands ever. If you’re looking for music with integrity to back it up, this just might be your thing. Check ‘em out!

If there’s a cake, she’ll jump into it; if there’s a line, she’s cross it–Katy Perry doesn’t exist inside of those coloring lines, folks, so you can always expect a little wackiness from her. So, what about this getup she’s sporting? Daring and dazzling, or too tacky?

As it happens, there were two piano-pounders performing in Los Angeles last night–Ben Folds at the Palladium and Jack’s Mannequin over at The Wiltern. I’m really stoked the Ben Folds request went through (thanks LiveNation!) because I feel like SoCal gets more chances to see Jack’s than not. Anyway, I’ll freely admit I’m only a casual fan of Mr. Folds, but I’ve had friends who endlessly looped his live DVD as if they didn’t own anything else, so I absorbed some of their fandom.

Before Ben took the stage himself, he introduced songstress Sara Bareilles, who in turn introduced four A Capella bands who were having a sing-off to score some time with Mr. Folds. Have you ever experiences a capella music? IT’S MAGICAL. There are no instruments, just voices but but… well, watch this. There were 2 groups from USC, one from UCLA and one all the way from Stanford. When it came time to determine the winning group by cheer-vote, Josh Groban joined Sara on stage–the audienced was most stoked for USC’s Reverse Osmosis, who performed “One Angry Dwarf.” Let me tell you, though, all those groups had jaw-dropping talent.

 

Setlist:

Effington

Brainwashed

Sentimental Guy (introduced by Ben saying, “This is about what goes on between a man and woman, or a boy and a girl–and about the peanut gallery who should shut the fuck up)

Dr. Yang

Hiroshima

Annie Waits

Jesusland

You Don’t Know Me ft. Sara Bareilles

–He put altoid cans in his piano at this point, which made it sound more like a keyboard–

Free Coffee (w/ marching snare drum)

–Ben had previously commented about he only lived in LA for 6 months (in 2000), but that he wrote the next song during that time. It’s a song about a man who worked at a newspaper for 25 years. Ben commented that he really liked newspapers and hopes they don’t all die out.

Fred Jones Part II

–Ben talks about how he is the father of nine year-old twins, but that they actually have different birthdays because his daughter Gracie came out after midnight. Thus, she also missed his album deadline, so she didn’t get her own song until she was 4 years old.

Gracie

–He talked about how he had a publishing deal before he had a record deal, which required him to write a certain number of songs to get paid. He wasn’t into writing “crap” just for money, but around the time the twins were born, he sucked it up and churned out a few.

The Secret Life Of Morgan Davis

One Down (the second song he wrote before he took lunch that day)

–He played a jingle that he wrote for a Japanese radio station

Brick

Narcolepsy

Landed

Fair

–The kickass audience harmony

Not The Same

The Bitch Went Nuts

Army (cool audience harmony again)

Rockin’ The Suburbs

*encore*

Still Fighting It ft. Josh Groban

Underground

Bitches Ain’t Shit

(i don’t know if he played one after this, I left)

 

All in all it was a spectacular show, that man is crazy talented. I think even those who aren’t a fan of his style can even acknowledge that.

 

I was so mesmerized by the way he got the whole audience to be his orchestra!

If you get the chance to see him, you should do it. Highly recommended.

Time for your daily dose of Paramore news. In the category of things I said like a year ago but appreciate anyway, MTV is calling Pmore the new No Doubt.

Denver Westword blog has a great Q & A with Hayley, where she discusses growing up under the watchful eyes of her fans, fame, vocal changes and how she’d still be dying her hair even if she didn’t have to get on stage every night.

One of the interesting parts of the interview is where their mingling with Twilight is addressed:

WW: You guys have been swept up in Twilight-mania lately. But my daughter mentioned last night that “Decode” is actually only in the movie for about thirty seconds. Did that bother you at all that there isn’t more of the song in the movie?

HW:: “I Caught Myself” is in it for, like, thirty seconds, and “Decode” is the third song in the credits. It’s so far back that I don’t think anyone at the movie even heard it (laughs). Which is totally fine, because any press and promotions done with Twilight and the soundtrack had “Decode” all over it. Obviously, we did a video for it and everything. I don’t think we really understood we were going to get all that from the movie when they told us, “Oh yeah, you have the third end-title track.” We were like, “Okay, well, at least we got it in there somewhere.” And then all of a sudden, we’re making a music video for the song with clips from the movie in the video, and we’re doing all this stuff, and we went out to California and did the premier. It became this big thing all of a sudden and it’s been really fun. I knew the books were big, but I had no idea the movie would blow up and the soundtrack would blow up with it. It’s kind of cool.

WW: Are you involved in the soundtracks for future films? Are there any plans for that?

HW:: No, there are definitely no plans. I feel like Twilight, as much as we fought for it, was kind of a fluke for us. It did blow up and do what it did and we weren’t expecting that at all. But I don’t want to be known as the Twilight house band, so I think it’d be better if we leave it. Because it was such a great thing, maybe it’d be better to leave it there. Obviously, if we change our minds and everyone’s cool with it, fine. But we don’t have any plans to do any more of those soundtracks.

Read the full interview here.

I definitely appreciate when a band knows when to reign it in with projects. I mean, it works for Linkin Park to be the Transformers house band and all, but that route isn’t for everyone.

Today’s dose, the immensely talented singer-songwriter Fiona Apple, has had her fair share of controversy. But it’s her integrity and her mature songwriting that have led her to the top. Sappysuperunknown10 shares her love of the woman’s challenging music and we hope you’ll give her chance.

What do Riotous rock stars do on their off days? Tweet tweet, that’s what.

Ms. Williams joined the ranks of Pete Wentz, the MCR guys, Oprah–you know, the rest of the web-capable universe– as yelyahwilliams yesterday.

I’m sure this is thrilling for those LJ hawks who refresh for journal updates because they know she responds frequently. AND now you can be all “awww” over the messages her and her man (xChadballx) send eachother.

Brings a new meaning to public displays of affection, doesn’t it?

Did we already know the album is coming out in September? Well, if not, now you know.

The Paramore/No Doubt tour makes a stop in Fresno, CA this evening.