Entries from February 2008

FREE is your new bicycle. Sorta.

February 27th, 2008

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 mp3s.” […]

[Read more →]

Tags: news

Q: What Made Milwaukee Famous?

February 27th, 2008

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 promo and doesn’t […]

[Read more →]

Tags: video

MEN equals LeTigre minus Kathleen Hanna

February 27th, 2008

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 really […]

[Read more →]

Tags: mp3 · New2Me

Perceptive Travel – An Interview with Jens Lekman

February 27th, 2008

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 […]

[Read more →]

Tags: interview · link

David Bowie’s involvement with Scarlett Johansson’s Tom Waits album exaggerated

February 26th, 2008

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 a […]

[Read more →]

Tags: news

The National’s Matt Berninger talks touring, sounding like “chocolate and wool”

February 26th, 2008

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 […]

[Read more →]

Tags: interview · link · touring

Retro: David Bowie, Heroes (in German)

February 26th, 2008

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). […]

[Read more →]

Tags: video