Museum of propaganda: 2008 remixes

(Originals, BTW.)

Neat: Tim Fite Halloween EP

I like Tim Fite, a lo-fi hip-hop-folk-anticonsumerist-provocateur hyphenated dude in Brooklyn. As he did last year, he’s offering a free Halloween EP on his website. Get it today before it’s gone, and also make sure you get the treat and not the trick. (Nice of him to offer last year’s release, too.)

(Thanks for reminder, BV.)

A very unhappy Halloween

Probably the worst news I’ve seen in months:

Who needs Robert Plant? Apparently not the other surviving members of Led Zeppelin, who are ready to pull the trigger on a tour with a new singer if Plant refuses to join in. Sources tell Billboard the frontman first in line for the gig is Myles Kennedy, who has most recently led the rock outfit Alter Bridge.

When the reunion happened last December, I remember conversations with friends over just how much money we would shell out to see Led Zeppelin. The number got into the thousands pretty quickly, and we’re talking about serious grizzled journalists and biz people here, who are used to getting into many things for free. I think this sends the value down to about $22.50 if it includes a 32-ounce Coke.

Alter Bridge, by the way? Orlando, Florida.

Happy Halloween

‘Girls Gone Wild’ (1929)

“A gilded flapper tries everything — once, but pays the price of her folly in the wildest party of all.”

Museum of propaganda: 2008 remixes

Museum of propaganda: 2008 remixes

You know that big, big Thanksgiving release from an original member of Guns N’ Roses?

Amazing ‘Album Atlas’

The Word, a British music magazine that I have to admit I don’t read very often, has a wonderful web feature called Album Cover Atlas. It’s a Google Map that pinpoints where classic album cover photos were taken. Some are self-evident, of course, like Abbey Road or Live at the Apollo. But I had no idea that Kiss’s Dressed to Kill was shot a block from my house, nor would I likely ever find Phetchaburi Road in Bangkok, where the Clash apparently stood for Combat Rock. Thanks, The Daily Swarm, for pointing this out.

Other neat ones: Teenage Fanclub, Songs From Northern Britain (Aviemore, indeed way up in the Scottish Highlands); the Kinks, Muswell Hillbillies (the Archway Tavern, on a little island in the middle of a major highway in London*). Least interesting: Dave Matthews albums, which are in obvious and/or famous locations like Radio City Music Hall, Red Rocks, Charlottesville, the Gorge.

You can contribute to the project yourself, and so far there are about 600 entries. That sounds like a lot, but spread over the entire planet that leaves lots of unannotated terrain. Can’t wait to see all the dots on the map of say, Manhattan or London once this hits a critical mass.

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* Years ago I saw a short documentary about the making of the album. Muswell Hill was where Ray and Dave Davies were born, and in the film Ray complained about the bulldozing and gentrification of what had been a working-class area with lots of salt-of-the-earth pubs like the one pictured.

Museum of propaganda: Driving Miss Hitler

Part two!

Museum of propaganda: Women in wartime 7

Four-word reviews from CMJ

Didn’t see quite as many bands as usual this year due to other work, but here are the sniglets I wrote for the Times’ ArtsBeat blog:

• Pattern Is Movement: Lumberjack looks, sensitive ululations.
• Princeton: Aww, indie Lauper cover!
• The Lisps: Peppy co-ed pop candy.
• Women: Four boys, strangled chords.
• Oxford Collapse: Snarling, invigorating punk chants.
• Faunts: Bubbly guitars feel weightless.
• Crystal Stilts: Juxtaposition: gloomy and scrappy.
• Lykke Li: Playful, ingenious Swedish glamazon.
• Hayes Peebles: Li’s opening strummer; sympathize.
• Shugo Tokumaru: Haunting, inviting acoustic virtuosity.
• Audrye Sessions: If Radiohead were emo.
• The Dutchess & the Duke: Wistful folky dirges. Inauthentic.
• Jay Reatard: Punksplosive. Go man go!
• The King Khan & BBQ Show: Garage’s essence, wonderfully deviant.
• Mission of Burma: Postpunk will never die.
• Shout Out Out Out Out Out: Electro Edmontonians embrace excess.
• Growing: Two guitars, such din?
• Holyhail: Hate saying “generic,” but ...
• Psychic Ills: Throbbing drones, migraine-loud.
• Sian Alice Group: Ended with apocalyptic crash.

Extended play:

• The Muslims: One-chord surfers. Gnarly.
• Shock Cinema: Potent, dark, tough; unshocking.
• School of Seven Bells: Feminized MBV, perfectly executed.
  
• Pendulum: Glowstickers, you’re easily pleased.

(Acknowledgments.)