The Current Music Blog: July 24, 2009 Archive

Today In Music History: Come And Get It

Posted at 6:06 AM on July 24, 2009 by Steve Seel (0 Comments)
Filed under: Music History

Gary Cherone (vocals, Extreme) is 48.
Jennifer Lopez is 40.

1965 - The Byrds were at No.1 on the British singles chart with their version of the Bob Dylan song "Mr Tambourine Man". It was the first Bob Dylan song to reach No.1.
1967 - The Beatles meet Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for the first time, whose lecture on Transcendental Meditation (TM) they had gone to hear at the Hilton Hotel in London. That same day ...
1967 - All four Beatles and their manager Brian Epstein signed a petition printed in The Times of London newspaper calling for the legalization of marijuana.
1978 - The movie Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released, featuring The Bee Gees and Peter Frampton.
1982 - Survivor started a six week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with "Eye Of The Tiger", taken from the film Rocky III. Survivor went on to win the Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance for the song.
1990 - A wrongful death trial involving Judas Priest opened in Reno, Nevada. Parents had charged in a lawsuit that the band's Stained Class album contained subliminal messages that drove two teenagers to attempt suicide.

Today in 1969, Paul McCartney recorded a demo of his new song "Come and Get It" at Abbey Road studios in London. McCartney gave the song to The Iveys, soon to become known as Badfinger. It would be one of Badfinger's biggest singles.

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Friday at 10KLF

Posted at 10:10 AM on July 24, 2009 by Julia Schrenkler (0 Comments)
Filed under: Live Events

Lindsay Kimball and I are comparing calendars this morning. As she recaps last night's shows, I'm looking ahead. We have a pretty good day at 10KLF in the works, and you can tag along:

* Follow the thecurrent10kl Twitter feed for brief updates. Mornings are slow, but the action ramps up continuely during the day and evening. Scroll back in time to discover just what happened at the Wilco and Atmosphere shows.

* On the event page, Watch the photostream for pictures of the festival grounds! We'll also get band pictures including images of Cloud Cult, Corey Chisel and Wandering Sons, and Trampled by Turtles.

* Listen to The Current at 4 p.m. to catch Lindsay Kimball giving Mary Lucia the scoop.

We're not alone up here though. I'll be uploading pictures from Matt Perkins, and if you're at 10KLF you can even share your festival photos with MPR. Know I'll work them into the slideshow. The Current's Jade drove up and had this to say about the evening:

"I got up to the 10KLF yesterday just as Mason Jennings was hitting the stage. After being swooned and soothed by the local songster, Wilco took over to the theme of the Price is Right and did a little face-melting...and created a little glow stick riot."

I expect there will be plenty more of that today. Follow along and find out!

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10KLF Update - Music and rain are quite the combination

Posted at 9:56 AM on July 24, 2009 by Lindsay Kimball (0 Comments)
Filed under: Live Events

Last night was a barrage of music from start to finish. I'd just finished checking in with Mary Lucia and conducting an interview and Theft of the Dial with Glenn Kotche, the drummer in Wilco (which we'll be airing some time next week probably), so I didn't make it into the concert bowl as The Honeydogs took the stage at 6 p.m.. Here's one of the wonderful things about 10KLF - while I wasn't actually in the venue, I could hear their whole set quite easily from anywhere. Whether I was working or grabbing dinner, I was still able to rock out to the Honeydogs from wherever I was.

Mason Jennings began his set around 7:30 p.m. His set moved from politics to the politics of love. At one point he asked the audience if they wanted to hear some love songs. "Yes. Please." was immediate response. He played songs from most of his albums including some of my faves - "Lemon Grove Avenue" and "Be Here Now."

Clouds were coming in and had an ominous look to them as Wilco stepped on stage. I had my fingers crossed that they'd be in sparkled jumpsuits like they've got pictured on their new album, but they were rocking normal attire. They were also rocking their hits - "I Will Try to Break Your Heart," "Jesus Etc," "Impossible Germany" as well as a bunch of jams from their new album, "Wilco (The Album)." As their set was coming to an end, there was lightning in the west as Jeff Tweedy made the announcement that Wilco will be coming back in the fall. They'll be at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul on October 2nd. And here's another heads up - sign up for Cross Currents, The Current's weekly e-newsletter for the link and password for the Wilco ticket pre-sale. The link will be in Wednesday's Cross Currents for the pre-sale taking place next Friday.

After the Wilco set finished, the throngs of people shifted to the other three stages in the bowl. Many of them made their way to the Field Stage, like me, for Atmosphere's set. The lightning was becoming more frequent, and we weren't too far into the set before the rain started falling. I took shelter underneath the emergency exit just east of the stage. The big fat drops of rain didn't deter the music. When the rain let up shortly thereafter, people came out of their rain shelters and headed back to the stage. But that wasn't the end of the rain. An intense down pour with lightning and thunder cut the set short, and we raced back to our campsite to get out of the rain.

There are a bunch of photos from last night and more 10KLF coverage here.

...and tune in today at 4 p.m. where I'll be doing another check-in with Mary Lucia. You can listen to yesterday's check-in right here:

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Preview the Local Show with a free tune from Eyedea and Abilites

Posted at 10:57 AM on July 24, 2009 by Barb Abney (0 Comments)

Earlier this week the local duo Eyedea and Abilites released their third full length record, By The Throat. Today on our Song Of The Day podcast you can grab their tune "Burn Fetish " for free!

Eyedea and Abilites are about to hit the road for a whirlwind tour with Atmosphere but you can catch them this Sunday evening at 6:00 p.m. on The Local Show with David Campbell

If you're a new S.O.D. subscriber, you'll also receive new music from Other Lives, Moby, Eugene McGuiness and The Fiery Furnaces. next week we'll be featuring new music from Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros, Those Darlins, Zee Avi, Generationals and new local music from The Blind Shake.

The guys will be back home and playing a gig with Kristoff Krane at The Varsity on September 4th.

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3 Songs whose meanings allude the requester...

Posted at 12:03 PM on July 24, 2009 by Barb Abney (2 Comments)
Filed under: My Three Songs

Michael Frazier from Cincinnati, Ohio picked today's My 3 Songs set because...

"They are three songs I LOVE from the 80s/90s, but have no idea what they mean."

New Order - "Ceremony"
Madder Rose - "Panic On"
"PJ Harvey - "Long Snake Moan"

Make your "My 3 Songs" requests here.

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So You Think You Can Act?

Posted at 10:28 AM on July 24, 2009 by Steve Seel (0 Comments)
Filed under: 9:30 Coffee Break

It's been a question before on our Musicheads program, and today for the 9:30 Coffee Break, we put it to you on the air: who are some musical performers who have successfully made the transition to acting? (Actors who have made the transition to being a musician will have to be a topic another day ... as Jill pointed out, that seems to be the much more difficult task). Your suggestions we went with:

1) Tom Waits, "Jockey Full of Bourbon"
2) Cher, "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)"
3) Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Higher Ground"
4) Frank Sinatra, "I Get A Kick Out Of You"
5) David Bowie, "Fashion"

Cher, Bowie and Sinatra should be obvious to most ... fewer people might be aware of Tom Waits' movie career, but it's been an extremely distinguished one: from Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law to Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula to Robert Altman's Short Cuts, and tons more. But what about the Chili Peppers? Well, Flea has actually had a number of bit parts over the years, such as in The Big Lebowski and the 2nd and 3rd Back to the Future movies. But it's in Point Break that you get to see Keanu Reaves beat both him and Anthony Kiedis at basketball. Ridiculous.

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Random Vinyl 7/20-7/24

Posted at 12:30 PM on July 24, 2009 by Jill Riley (0 Comments)
Filed under: Random Vinyl

Monday: Donovan, "Mello Yellow" (1967)
Don't attempt to smoke bananas while listening to this record. You won't get high. It's a myth. We played "Museum," which you might recognize as a song that Herman's Hermits covered.

Tuesday: The Mamas & The Papas, "The Mamas & The Papas" (1966)
This album marks the point in the band's career where Michelle Phillips and Denny Doherty's affair was out in the open. Michelle Phillips was kicked out of the band when they made this record and replaced with Jill Gibson. That didn't last long and Michelle was back in the group. Michelle having to sing "I Saw Her Again Last Night" over and over again was probably... awkward?
But, enough about Michelle all ready, we chose to drop the needle on a tune featuring the booming voice of Mama Cass. Written by John Phillips (Papa John), "Words of Love" was a hit single for the group in November of 1966.

Wednesday: The Suburbs "Love is the Law" (1983)
Here's a Twin Cities music gem from the 80's. They got their start releasing albums on the Twin/Tone label, but this one was a little more of the big time for The Suburbs. The record, "Love is the Law" was released on Mercury/Polygram. "Rattle My Bones" is a favorite of Steve's.

Thursday: The Beatles "Yellow Submarine" (1969)
The soundtrack to the 1968 animated Beatles movie. The Beatles didn't have much to do with it though, other than the music of course. They didn't even voice their own characters. We thought it would be timely to feature this soundtrack since the art director for the film, Heinz Edelmann recently passed away. We played the very simple, easy to sing-a-long with song, "All Together Now."

Friday: The Archies "Everything's Archie" (1969)
Archie, Reggie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica were The Archies. Let's not forget Jughead's dog, Hot Dog, who served as the animated band's mascot. They even penned a tune for him. The lyrics of "Hot Dog" are too precious. OK, they didn't pen the song. Jeff Barry did. And they didn't sing and play the songs. Studio musicians did. Hopefully this slice of bubblegum pop brought you back to the time you watched The Archies every Saturday morning on CBS.

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Theft of the Dial: Craig Finn of The Hold Steady

Posted at 1:50 PM on July 24, 2009 by Mary Lucia (1 Comments)
Filed under: Theft of the Dial

The Hold Steady may hold the honor of being the most frequented artists to visit the Current Studios.

Having been on a world wide tour in support of Stay Positive for the last year straight, the band will head back to New York this summer to take a much earned break, to water their plants, kiss their girlfriends, do laundry and start thinking about their next CD which they plan to record in upstate New York.

Craig Finn is never at a loss for words, he has a lot to say in his own music so we knew he would make a perfect Theft of The Dial guest host to talk about other people's music.

Listen

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