Playlist of the Week, 03.07.08

1. Rocky Took a Lover - Bell X1
2. Lately - The Helio Sequence
3. Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' 2008 - Akon/Michael Jackson
4. What You Thought You Need - Jack Johnson
5. A&E - Goldfrapp
6. The Girl You Lost to Cocaine -Sia
7. Dream - Alice Smith
8. Sexual Seduction - Snoop Dogg
9. Everyone Knows Everyone - The Helio Sequence
10. Sweetest Girl (Dollar Bill) - Wyclef Jean

Reactable: A Musical Interface with Tangible UI

Musicovery

Interactive web radio based off your mood: Musicovery

Two Years He Walks the Earth. Ultimate Freedom.

Into the Wild
A film by Sean Penn.

"There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society whare none intrudes,
By the deep sea and the music in its roar;
I love not man the less, but Nature more."
–Lord Byron

Music for the Motion Picture Soundtrack by Eddie Vedder.

Bumbershoot 2007

Countdown to Bumbershoot

Just 2 more days...

The fine folks at nuTsie.com created a comprehensive playlist featuring the 2007 lineup! Listen: Bumbershoot '07

Hello Boys & Girls

Today we're going to teach you some fun facts about salmon
and a brand new dance: The Salmon Dance
Official Site: Chemical Brothers

Songs of Mass Destruction

"I feel closer to my own cutting edge than before and my voice seems to be in it's prime" - Annie Lennox

The video for the new single Dark Road premiered on Amazon last Monday. Haunting...beautiful song. Permalink for this content: http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/7011:7008

"I think it's one of my most powerful pieces of work to date. We're all living in such complex and challenging times fraught with uncertainty, and too often underscored by a sense of powerless despair. I have a sense that people will connect with what I'm trying to convey here. Music is still a great vehicle to communicate, and express the soul."
- Annie Lennox

October 2, 2007 release date.
Official Site: Songs of Mass Destruction

The Honeyed Sound of Rebecca Kilgore

Rebecca Kilgore is one of America's leading song stylists. Her voice and guitar skills have also brought her international acclaim. You might recognize her from NPR's Fresh Air with Teri Gross, or as a guest on Garison Keller's A Prairie Home Companion. That's how I first came to know of her, and was thrilled to discover she's lives in Portland and performs here often.

In 2003, she was inducted into the Jazz Society of Oregon's Hall of Fame, and has been a strong advocate for America's original art form, interpreting the great vocal jazz of the ‘30s and ‘40s. Her exposure to the swing jazz is credited to her father's record collection and for the driving rhythm guitar behind Count Basie's band. Rebecca also educates and teaches jazz vocal repetoire and swing guitar.

This year she collaborated with The Harry Allen - Joe Cohn Quartet along with vocalist Eddie Erickson to perform music from Guys And Dolls with Joel Forbes and Chuck Riggs. Most recently, she partnered with Lyle Ritz on ukulele for I Wish You Love which can be heard here ~ courtesy of CD BABY.

Visit her Official Website

Playlist of the Week, 08.17.07

1. Get Together (Jacques Lu Cont Remix) - Madonna
2. Savane - Ali Farka Touré
3. A Strange Education - The Cinematics
4. Dancing With Myself - Nouvelle Vague
5. Can I Get Get Get - Junior Senior
6. Be Good Johnny - Colin Hay
7. Under Pressure - The Used/My Chemical Romance
8. Air Aid - Menomena
9. Waiting For My Real Life to Begin - Colin Hay
10. Little Boxes - Elvis Costello

#1 Pick goes to birthday girl Madonna, who turned 49 yesterday.

Along with a new album (expected later this year) Madge has teamed up with Annie Lennox on Lennox's new album, Songs Of Mass Destruction.

Jacques Lu Cont = a moniker for Stuart Price.

#10 welcomes the return of WEEDS on Showtime. The song was written by Malvina Reynolds in 1962. Little Boxes is thought to be inspired visually by the houses of Daly City, California (!), as Reynolds lived in nearby Berkeley. In the second season, different artists performed Little Boxes in the introduction sequence of each episode. Reynolds' version was used for the finale of the second season.

For the upcoming third season, more bands will cover the opening. The Decemberists and The Shins will be two of the bands covering the song in the third season.

-via wiki

30 Years Ago: The Day the Music Died

Remembering The King

Did You Know?
· The only Grammy awards Elvis Presley won were for gospel recordings.

· Elvis had an identical twin. Born stillborn.

· Aside from 3 concerts in Canada, Elvis never performed outside the United States.

· More than 20 million Elvis Presley records were reportedly sold on the day after his death.

· Elvis once wrote a letter to President Nixon in which he asked to be appointed as an undercover narcotics cop. Nixon gave Elvis a honorary Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge - a presentation which, in the light of his death (where heavy drug use was suspected), turned out to be pretty ironic.

Local Nostalgia: Portland's Church of Elvis Website

The Phenonema Menomena

Menomena's third studio album Friend or Foe is bizarre, fractured, and totally addictive. If you haven't heard of Menomena, go out and buy their music. The print materials that accompany the CD are hand assembled, its as intriguing as the music itself—the front cover has eight possible permutations, and that's just a place to start.

A large contributor to the band's uniquely layered sound is "Deeler", a Digital Looping Recorder that was created by band member Brent Knopf to record impromptu material. The band uses the recorder primarily in working out new music, it is not used live or in recording sessions. So, don't think of them as a Midi band.

Menomena's on stage next at Bumbershoot over Labor Day Weekend, appearing with their 25 member 'choir' (an assembly of NW artists, musicians and close friends - give a shout out to Abra).

In the meantime, live from Juan's basement: Weird

Siouxsie Solo

Official Site: Mantaray

Playlist of the Week, 06.11.07

1. Tres Tres Chic - Mocean Worker
2. Hey Eugene - Pink Martini
3. 1234 - Feist
4. The Painter - I'm From Barcelona
5. Satellite - Guster
6. All Good Things Come to an End - Nelly Furtado (ft. Coldplay)
7. Who Knew - P!nk
8. Fragilidad - Sting (Rhythms Del Mundo)
9. 2 The Sky - Robin Thicke
10. Unsuffer Me - Lucinda Williams

Did You Know?
Lucinda Williams West tour played to Portland last night at the Crystal Ballroom. She's amazing, worth going to see everytime she comes to town.

Interesting comment on a new track, 'Unsuffer Me', Lucinda scoffed at the popular media conception that it was yet another unrequited love song, not so, she wrote the song about self-enlightenment. It's live performance was the most powerful I've seen in a long time. "Almost like a prayer," she avowed when it was over.

Other random highlights: a dalliance into some classic Door's and the dismissal of an old missionary school lesson, "You can't petition God with prayer."

Everybody turns 25

April 24, 1982 - Sire Records releases "EVERYBODY" on Warner Bros. Records by an unknown singer from Rochester, Michigan by the name of Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone.

The single would reach #3 on Billboard's dance chart. It was included on her four-track demo tape and eventually made it onto her 1983 debut album. -madonna.com

Playlist of the Week, 03.07.07

1. Happy Ending - Mika
2. Writer's Block - Just Jack
3. Asa Branca - Forro In the Dark
4. Me and Mr. Jones - Amy Winehouse
5. Menina - Chimp Beams
6. Pictures - Sia
7. Different Sound - The Teddybears
8. Feeling Good - Nina Simone/Verve Remixed
9. Crosses - José González
10. Champagne - 311

Playlist of the Week, 02.19.07

1. Starz In Their Eyes—Just Jack
2. Australia—The Shins
3. Grace Kelly—Mika
4. Here In Your Arms—Hellogoodbye
5. Disco Friends—Just Jack
6. Exceeder—Mason
7. Lollipop—Mika
8. Into the Ocean—Blue October
9. Don't Matter—Akon
10. Little Things—Lily Allen

Did You Know?
HBO Films Longford debuted this weekend, starring Jim Broadbent (Bridget Jones Dad) and Samantha Morton (Minority Report, In America). This film is definitely worth watching - screenwriter Peter Morgan, Academy Award nominee for The Queen. Incidentally, Morton also portrays Mary Queen of Scots in The Golden Age, due later this fall.

New Beats!

Zero 7 The Garden | Out June 6th


"Zero 7, aka Sam Hardaker and Henry Binns, are back with a gorgeous new album, The Garden. It was produced by Sam and Henry and mixed by Phil Brown, who has worked with such luminaries as the Rolling Stones, Brian Eno and Talk Talk. It features vocal performances by Jose Gonzalez, Sia Furler and Henry Binns. The band’s previous albums, Simple Things and When It Falls, were critically acclaimed and rooted them firmly alongside Royksopp & Lemon Jelly as leaders in their field. The Garden sees Zero 7 take a fresher, more upbeat musical direction while still maintaining their trademark sound, and could well turn out to be the soundtrack to the summer." -Amazon.com

**Just Announced**
Sia will be touring with Zero 7 this summer, appearing in the NW @ Seattle's Bumbershoot, Sept. 3rd.

*For a preview of The Garden and how it evloved, check out Zero 7's 10 minute podcast, free on iTunes.

Other Notable New Releases:
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium
The Streets - Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living
Goldfrapp - Supernature
Kate Havnevik - Melankton
Beth Orton - In the Comfort of Strangers
Pet Shop Boys - Fundamental / Fundamentalism

Shiny Disco Balls & The Krump

Details emerge from Madonna's Forthcoming 2006 Tour:

Set List
Hung Up
Where's The Party?
La Isla Bonita
Music
Love Profusion
Get Together
Isaac
Erotica
Nothing Really Matters
Jump
Everybody
Dress You Up
I Love New York
Holiday
Bedtime Story
Hollywood
Skin
Ray Of Light
Sorry
Borderline
Keep The Trance
(new track)
History
(new track)
Like A Virgin

Look + Feel
· Madge is recreating wild scenes from notorious New York nightclub Studio 54. The show will open with a Disco Queen section, featuring girls in sparkling suits, male dancers dressed as pimps and more dancers roller-skating.

· She's been learning how to Krump ( "Did you know" )

· Another section, American Land, will indulge Madonna’s obsession with horses, with video walls showing footage of her riding scantily clad in the pouring rain.

· A third part, Oriental And Eastern, will see Madonna joined on stage by a Kabbalah singer to perform a remix of her brilliant album track 'Isaac'.

· One section will have a Parkour specialist — the wacky sport on the BBC promotional film with a bloke running across London rooftops.

· Producer STUART PRICE has been working on 'Keep The Trance' and 'History', which I hear are both killer tracks, and he has completely reworked 'Erotica' and 'Who’s That Girl', which are almost unrecognizable.

· Madonna has had her wardrobe designed by old allies Jean Paul Gaultier and Dolce & Gabbana, with her jewellery and accessories by Lacroix.

The show kicks off this May in LA.

Playlist of the Week (12.26.05)

1. In the Deep—Bird York
2. I Can't Take it In—Imogen Heap
3. Spin the Bottle— Juliana Hatfield
4. Jackson—Joaquin Phoenix & Reese Witherspoon
5. The Sound of Settling—Death Cab for Cutie
6. I Feel Like Myself Again—Brendan Benson
7. Bye Bye Blackbird—Martha Wainwright
8. Maybe Tomorrow—Stereophonics
9. I Like It—Moby
10. Knock Yourself Out—Jon Brion

Icksnay on the 'histmasay usicmay... for now.

Did You Know?
Joy Division to record new material.
NME.com