On yet another great show/podcast the guys at Sound Opinions discussed and dissected The Beatles’ Revolver 40+ years later. They’ve got an engineer from those recordings and the discussion covers recording techniques for songs like Tomorrow Never Knows, Rain, Eleanor Rigby, and of course Taxman. Here are the footnotes.
Sound Opinions 117 (skip [...]

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This year’s drawn-out primary season might have you wrestling with election fatigue, but that’s no reason to neglect your duty to participate in Name of the Year’s 2008 Tournament. The first round of voting is going on now.
So let us forget momentarily Messrs. Obama, McCain, Paul, Huckabee, Nader and Mrs. Clinton. The time has come [...]

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Brooklyn by way of Boston trio Appomattox is releasing its debut full-length, AO, on Triple Down Records, but prior to a physical release the band is offering a free download that expires on March 3. We reviewed their self-released EP back in the fall of 2006, but, for the lazy, the band plays a [...]

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Boy George has officially denied kidnapping and chaining a male escort to a wall in his Shoreditch home last April. The Culture Club star’s run ins with the law over the years haven’t been quite as conspicuous as, say George Michael’s have, but they’re certainly more sinister. From heroin addiction to cocaine busts to [...]

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Guilty pleasure: After watching American Idol’s current crop of ladies go down in flames last night, I realized not one of them can even remotely touch the glory of Pat Benatar in her heyday. Even when these girls try to rock out, it’s just kind of sad and puny. I suppose technically some of them [...]

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In recent comments to Uncut magazine about how his bandmate Mick Jagger is a “power freak” and “a bit vain”, Keith Richards revealed himself to be much more nonchalant about his daily routine: “I just go ‘Thank God I’m awake’ and wait for three or four hours before I do anything.” Richards was also [...]

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It’s been a few years since I’d seen Space Ghost. I’d almost forgotten how random and funny it was (thanks KFL). This clip features Bjork as Space Ghost’s wife and special guest Thom Yorke. Space Ghost has just asked Moltar to make 100 copies of the “new Radiohead cd” when he sees Thom on the [...]

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According to Muzzle of Bees, Amie St. is “releasing the entire catalogs of Beggars Group (XL, Rough Trade, 4AD), Matador Records and Polyvinyl Recording Co. — more than 15,000 songs.” and more importantly “All songs are initially free to download and rise in price based on popularity, up to $0.98. All songs are DRM-free [...]

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A: It does indeed sound like Spoon. Must be something in the water in Austin.
To be fair, they’ve sounded the same for years. Here’s Hey Sweet Lady, from their 2006 album, Trying to Never Catch Up. I think they had an album before that as well, which we got as a [...]

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I’ll freely admit that I went to see Le Tigre against my will at the Justice League in San Francisco, back in 2000. It was sold to me as Lesbian punk rock or something like that and while I did go through a Bikini Kill phase, it was brief, and frankly I just wasn’t [...]

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It is a cold Swedish winter and I find myself flying into Stockholm on a £0.01 flight from London with Ryanair. I’ve emailed Jens to say I’d like to interview him for a new web site called Perceptive Travel. I’m honest enough to tell him that I’ve never interviewed anyone before and that I’m not [...]

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David Bowie has commented on his involvement with Scarlett Johansson’s debut album, Anywhere I lay My Head, saying “I’ve seen the press on this and I suppose the record company wanted to spin my involvement a little more than it actually warrants.” Evidently, he added little more than a few “oo’s and ah’s on [...]

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New York magazine has a brief but excellent interview with The National’s Matt Berninger, wherein the soft-spoken vocalist comments on his band’s willingness to eschew staying an underground secret in favor of reaching more fans. But the best part is his reaction to the characterization of his unique vocal style by various journalists:
Critics get [...]

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I’ve always preferred this version, which also happens to feature in Chris Petit’s Radio On.
Speaking of Radio On, here’s a promo snippet:
“RADIO ON was stunningly photographed in luminous black and white monochrome by Martin Schaefer (Wenders’ cinematographer), and driven by a startling soundtrack (Bowie, Kraftwerk, Lene Lovich, Ian Dury, Wreckless Eric and more). Petit’s anti-road [...]

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So, I recently read a Spin article (March issue, not online) about Flosstradamus, Kid Sister, et al. and while I can see how they have arrived at the sound they are pimping, I have to say, for me, it’s an inverse case of the sum of the parts not equaling the whole. Which, I [...]

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Via QuarterLifeParty

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Throw Me the Statue, Grand Archives, Bon Iver, Science for Girls, and The Gutter Twins have bombarded my feedreader this past week and as such I’ve made an effort to grit my teeth and succumb to the hype, lest I fall behind and be unable to converse with the Pitchfork reading illuminati and DC hipsters [...]

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Gawker points to a collection of visualizations of Pop songs. Highly Recommended. (reminds me of this guy’s work, for instance.)

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Vintage Talking Heads performance, featuring King Crimson’s Adrien Belew on guitar. Also, Crosseyed and Painless, Born Under Punches, and Cities. All amazing. With all the talk about Vampire Weekend sounding like early Talking Heads (even from David Byrne himself), I must say they have a frighteningly long way to go before they can touch this [...]

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As a loyal Top 40 listener as a kid, I had a high tolerance for shitty pop music. But there were a few songs that pushed me over the edge. UB40’s “Red Red Wine” comes to mind. To this day, if I hear that song, I can feel my blood begin to boil. However, nothing, [...]

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