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Bennett smoking one of millions of cigarettes during the filming of IATTBYH.
Mark and I watched I Am Trying to Break Your Heart last night in honor of Jay. We're seeing Wilco July 18th at Dutchess Stadium in Fishkill, NY, with Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band.
Recording was done for this weekend's "takeover" of Sirius Radio's AltNation by Rivers Cuomo of Weezer and actor and Coconut Records frontman Jason Schwartzmann (two Coppola posts in a row, what are the chances?). They don't actually start the song until 4:40 but Rivers sings it quite beautifully, and Rainn does a more than serviceable job on bongo.
Like Air and Daft Punk, this French band is from Versailles, but unlike their neighbors, Phoenix are not a techno outfit, but more of a straight-up indie rock band (though with some techno elements), who sing in English. In other words, they sound like they could be from Brooklyn.
Frontman Thomas Mars (looking right at you, above) is director Sofia Coppola's boyfriend and father of her two-year-old daughter. They met when Mars was helping with the music for Coppola's directorial debut, The Virgin Suicides, one of Anneliese's favorite movies when she was a teenager.
Below, this seven-and-a-half minute opus off the nicely titled new album starts out instrumental and ambient, morphs into a (still wordless) dance number at about 3:45, and then at 5:45 completely folds on itself to become a lovely rock ballad (with vocals).
And while these vids are still up, catch the band on SNL last weekend, doing Lisztomania and 1901. As somebody said, they couldn't be from Brooklyn because they actually looked like they were having a good time on SNL, lol.
You really have to read 35-year-old Portland, OR native M. (Matt) Ward's Wiki to get a feel for the kind of people he has worked with in his 10-year career. He is an absolute top-shelf songwriter with a warm, sexy voice, and his records are impeccably produced. The latest is fantastic, and features Ward's She & Him collaborator Zooey Deschanel, the great Lucinda Williams and Jason Lytle of Grandaddy. Highly recommended.
Very nice recent Vanity Fair interview with Ward here.
I'm very grateful I've had the chance to go to spectacular venues like Radio City Music Hall, so when I see a video like this, I can really imagine what it was like to be in that very big and very beautiful room participating in this communal spectacle of half-a-Beatles-reunion. Quality is poor but this is a must-see anyhow. Paul (66) and Ringo (68) share a mic and everybody knows all the words.
There's a better quality video of just Paul doing Drive My Car over here. And Ringo reaches WAY back into the catalog for Boys, here. The whole gang (including Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, Sheryl Crow, Donovan, and Mike Love of the Beach Boys) does I Saw Her Standing There, here. This was a benefit for transcendental meditation organized by movie director David Lynch.
The thunderous applause that follows is of course a thank you not only for this performance but for almost 50 years of art and entertainment from these guys. It's basically a thank you for rock and roll as we know it.
I have a feeling Sir Paul is going to actually kill headlining at Coachella in eleven days. And with Morrissey (49), Franz Ferdinand (Alex Kapranos, 37), and Leonard Cohen (74) playing right before him, night one is quite excellent, if a bit on the older side for the festival. I wonder what the kiddies will think of all these geriatrics...
Good gracious this guy is a performer. I saw him 27 years ago open for the Rolling Stones at the enormous LA Coliseum. He was the first act on a bill that also included George Thorogood & the Destroyers and the J. Geils Band. Prince came out (this was two years before Purple Rain) and utterly KILLED, but he was booed and pelted off the stage by the Stones' macho fans after only ten minutes. It was the best ten minutes of the entire day; the Stones (on their first "farewell" tour) totally sucked.
Unlike U2's similar recent stunt, Prince's three nights on Leno was TV worth watching (on YouTube, of course). Catch Dreamer here and Feel Good, Feel Better, Feel Wonderful here. And if you'd rather see Prince wail on a song you KNOW, check out his blistering performance on While My Guitar Gently Weeps at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The band includes Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne of ELO and Dhani Harrison (George's son), but Prince completely murders all on the solo.
The extremely articulate Amadou does most of the talking but occasionally Mariam or their latest producer Damon Albarn has something to say in this fascinating interview with the blind, married, French-speaking music makers from Mali.
This looks like a must-see even if your kids aren't little anymore. This is the trailer for the long-anticipated Spike Jonze film of Maurice Sendak's iconic children's book Where the Wild Things Are. Soundtrack is Arcade Fire's excellent Wake Up from their 2004 debut, Funeral.
Aaron and Bryce Dressner of The National just produced a stellar compilation to benefit AIDS research called Dark Was the Night. It features mostly new songs and some cool collaborations by just about all the best indie artists operating these days (check out the tracklist here).
As this Dutch review put it, "'Dark Was The Night' is een fraaie staalkaart van al het nieuwe talent dat momenteel in het Amerikaanse muzieklandschap rondloopt." ("Dark Was the Night is a delicious menu of all the new talent currently inhabiting the American musical landscape." Below, Leslie Feist of herself and Broken Social Scene with Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service.
