The Current Music Blog: September 18, 2008 Archive

The Stream 09/18/08

Posted at 8:55 AM on September 18, 2008 by Barb Abney

NME's list of the worst of rock star product endorsement.

Brian Eno has scored the music for the forthcoming Spore video game.

MTV's TRL has been canceled.

Today In Music History
1939 - Frankie Avalon was born.
1952 - Dee Dee Ramone was born.
1961 - Martin Beedle (Cutting Crew) was born.
1983 - Kiss appeared without make-up for the first time in an MTV interview.
1984 - David Bowie won Video of the year for "China Girl" at the first MTV Video awards.
1999 - It was reported that D'Arcy Wretzky had quit The Smashing Pumpkins .
2004 - Britney Spears married Kevin Federline.

Live Blogging 09/18/08

Posted at 9:12 AM on September 18, 2008 by Barb Abney

11:05 a.m. Conor Oberst
He and The Mystic Valley Band are playing First Avenue on October 29th.
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11:40 a.m. Sigur Rós
They're playing The Orpheum on September 25th.
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11:15 a.m. Delta Spirit
They're playing The Fine Line Music Cafe with Nada Surf on November 28th.
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10:55 a.m. Local Music - Sam Keenan
He's appearing in a couple of upcoming Drawfire Records showcases...
Locally at Turf Club
In NYC for CMJ at Ivy Brown Gallery.
And he'll also be playing the upcoming Zombie Pub Crawl.
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10:50 a.m. Jen Trynin
Her book is called Everything I'm Cracked Up To Be.
Have you read it?

10:45 a.m. Calexico
Watch the "Two Silver Trees" video.
They're playing The Fine Line Music Cafe on November 22nd.
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10:30 a.m. Beck
He's playing Roy Wilkins Auditorium with MGMT on September 30th.
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10:15 a.m. Local Music - Paul Westerberg
There's a new tune available for download.

Song Of The Day Info - Tricky
Today on our Song Of The Day Podcast we're featuring Tricky with the tune "Past Mistake" from his latest, Knowle West Boy which is our CD Of The Week.
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9:50 a.m.Bob Mould
Is penning his autobiography (watch a nice vintage video here, as well.)

9:45 a.m. Local Music - Atmosphere
They're playing First Avenue on November 2nd.
Tickets go on sale tomorrow morning for the recently added 2nd show at
First Avenue on November 17th.
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9:30 a.m. Local Music - Dan Wilson
He's playing The River Rocks Festival on Saturday as part of Semisonic with Mike Doughty, The Roots, The Alarmists and others.
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9:20 a.m. Mogwai
They're playing the ATP Fest in New York this weekend.
They're playing First Avenue next Saturday night.
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9:15 a.m. Kings Of Leon
Their latest, Only By The Night will be released on September 23rd.
They're playing Orpheum Theatre on November 1st with We Are Scientists and The Whigs.
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9:05 a.m. Local Music - Jeremy Messersmith
His CD release show for the Dan Wilson produced album, The Silver City is at The Varsity Theater on September 25th.
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"My 3 Songs" for Thursday

Posted at 1:35 PM on September 18, 2008 by Steve Seel

Travis Beto of Miami FL writes today, "These songs make me either shake it (try not to break it), jump around like Emilio Estevez in The Breakfast Club, or a combo of them both. I'm guessing that if you have a pulse, at least one of these songs will get you moving as well."

1) Sly and the Family Stone, "Dance to the Music"
2) Prince, "Let's Work"
3) LCD Soundsystem, "North American Scum"

Plus, we covered three different decades there, Travis (leaving out only the 90s). Nice job!

Those Musicheads -- You Know, the Presidential Candidates

Posted at 1:42 PM on September 18, 2008 by Steve Seel (1 Comments)

As I mentioned in the 1pm hour today, just one of the many ridiculous distractions from real substance we get in presidential elections these days -- and there seem to be thousands of them -- is the ritual revealing of the candidates "Top 10 Favorite Songs." One can only imagine that these things became completely bogus, elaborately-vetted P.R. exercises just like everything else long ago (I suppose they could be real, of course -- it seems highly unlikely in this cynical age, but they could also be a kind of mutant hybrid of the candidates' real tastes and a large degree of buffing-and-tweaking done by their campaign staffs). Either way they're still fascinating. First, because it's just so weird to see how the candidates attempts to win votes manifest themselves in such a self-consciously Roland Barthes-esque way. But second, it kinda gets you thinking: doesn't everybody's list of Top 10 favorite songs amount to a sort of succinct sales pitch, at least a little, for who they are?

Anyway, here's the particular Blender article I referenced on the air that features the songs that are supposedly the "top 10" on the candidates respective iPods. You can find this all over the internets of course, but this article in particular has some snarky comments from Randy Newman and Girl Talk at the end (comments that amazingly refrain from making the easy joke about McCain and technology -- although Newman does plop a giant Godwin at the end, sadly).

But here's the thing. Assuming that these lists are either real, crass attempts to reinforce the "brand" their respective candidates, or some combination of both ... what's up with two ABBA songs on McCain's list?

(Update: I forgot to add, if you like musing on this kind of stuff like I do, you might enjoy the conversation that I had on "pop music in politics" recently on Midmorning, along with Eric Danton, Music Critic of the Hartford Courant).

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