Odds and Sods

Scottish band Mogwai provide the soundtrack for Zidane, a documentary portrait of the iconic French footballer (and head-butter) by Scottish film director Douglas Gordon, and we have a track to share. I am praying that this film gets a DVD release, at least, in the U.S. Vive Zizou!

MP3: Mogwai - "The Black Spider" from Zidane original soundtrack



The official site for The Future Is Unwritten, Julien Temple's documentary on TTT patron saint Joe Strummer, is up and running. The film was huge at Sundance this year, and opens in select cities on May 18. If the trailer is any indication, this will be a favorite music flick of all time.






In a move sure to draw a snide comment from Rich about their forthcoming record, Wilco will play A Prairie Home Companion this Saturday evening. U.S. readers can tune in to their local public radio stations between 6:00 and 8:00 PM Eastern to catch the performance, live from legendary Lake Wobegon. Sky Blue Sky is out next Tuesday, May 15, and if you purchase your copy at an independent record store you'll get some bonus goodies, as Jeff Tweedy will tell you himself.


The weekly Take-Away Shows at La Blogoteque feature videos of some of the finest indie artists around (Arcade Fire, Cold War Kids, Andrew Bird, The National, The Shins, Guillemots, My Brightest Diamond, Grizzly Bear) performing, busker-style, in public spaces in and around France. Bonus footage of six bands is also up this week to mark the first anniversary of the project.


And our Classic Bootleg Series will continue by no later than the end of this weekend. Promise. The next one's a must-have, kids, so don't miss it.

Odds and Sods

GoldenFiddle has the first look at Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan (the circa '66 edition) in the forthcoming Todd Haynes biopic, I'm Not There (which, from the look of things, will be either terrific or a complete disaster).






The Traneumentary is a weekly podcast celebrating the unparalleled artistry and influence of John Coltrane, featuring interviews with such friends and admirers as McCoy Tyner, Terence Blanchard, Jimmy Cobb and (coming up) Sonny Rollins. It's 15 weeks in, with only 3 more to go, but all of the episodes are archived at the site and well worth a listen. ('Trane fans, stay tuned to our Classic Bootleg Series. I'm just sayin'.)


The reunited Crowded House will release a new record, Time On Earth, on July 2. The record was produced by Ethan Johns (Ryan Adams, Kings Of Leon, Ray LaMontagne) and Steve Lillywhite (U2, XTC, Morrissey). Guitar god Johnny Marr features on two tracks, including lead-off single "Don’t Stop Now," which will be available on iTunes on June 25. The record will also include Crowded House's take on the gorgeous "Silent House," which CH main man Neil Finn co-wrote with the Dixie Chicks. The Chicks' version of that song was among the highlights of their splendid Taking The Long Way album last year. Here, see for yourself:

MP3: Dixie Chicks - "Silent House" from Taking The Long Way


And music critic Sasha Frere-Jones, who's been on a tear lately, profiles indie it-girl Feist in The New Yorker, calling her new record, The Reminder (out next week), "radiant" and "luminous".

Odds and Sods

In The New Yorker this week, Sasha Frere-Jones profiles Prince, calling him "perhaps the greatest living performer in the pop tradition."









Meanwhile, Salon looks at whether iTunes' new "premium downloads" are worth the extra 30 cents a pop, while readers weigh in on the uncertain fate of the compact disc.



Some kind, anonymous soul has posted the Arcade Fire's terrific "White Session," recorded on March 9, 2005 at Maison de le Radio in Paris, for download here.




Finally, the first promo pic for The White Stripes' forthcoming Icky Thump was released this week (click the thumbnail at left for the full-size image). Looks like somebody got a BeDazzler for Christmas.

Odds and Sods

NPR has last Wednesday night's performance by The Good, The Bad & The Queen, at the 9:30 Club in D.C., available to stream or download. Excellent stuff from one of my favorite records so far this year.




RollingStone.com has posted (far too few) audio excerpts from the wonderfully freewheeling interview that Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills gave at the magazine's offices last Monday afternoon, hours before R.E.M.'s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I especially enjoyed hearing about the squalid conditions the band was living in when Rolling Stone named Murmur the best album of 1983, over Michael Jackson's Thriller.


A huge, slip-cased coffee table book that details "EVERYTHING related to the Beatles recording sessions, including beautiful, almost-pornographic photos of every mixing board, mic, tape deck, etc. ever used in a Beatles session," and costs over a hundred bucks? Yes, please! (tip from DJ Cayenne at BGB)


Need a cheat sheet on release dates for upcoming CDs, music DVDs and even books about music? Pause & Play has you covered.

Odds and Sods

Salon's Audiofile podcast this week is a chat with Shins frontman James Mercer.







The new Wilco record, Sky Blue Sky, has leaked all over the place, over 2 months before its May 15 release date, but you can download one track, "What Light," right now with their compliments.






Speaking of upcoming releases, mark your calendars, White Stripes and Ryan Adams fans. The Stripes have wrapped up work on Icky Thump in Nashville and promise to deliver it "as soon as corporately possible," while Mr. Adams will deliver Easy Tiger on June 5. Just the one this year, Ryan?


Recent show reviews at Pitchfork have featured some really exceptional photography by a New York artist named Kathryn Yu. She has a blog that features some of her work, and regularly posts photostreams at Flickr as well. Her shots of the Arcade Fire shows at Judson Memorial Church last month were the first ones to catch my eye.


The long lost Dylan-Seuss sessions -- genius!











Finally, "Ms. Lefevre," a cheesy video made in 1996 by a Vancouver punk-pop trio called Maow. Why should you watch it? Because their drummer was a little hottie named Neko Case, that's why.


Kathryn Yu recently shot Neko, too. (Thanks, Jo, for the Neko-Maow tip.)

Odds and Sods

Arcade Fire ended their run of five sold-out shows in NYC on Saturday night, and by all accounts each night's performance was better than the one before, as Win Butler steadily recovered from an illness that had him really struggling early in the week. Recordings of the last two shows are online and ripe for the downloading. The show on Friday night was fantastic, and was recorded from the audience by a guy who's known in the taping community for getting consistently exceptional sound. His pull that night sounds almost as good as a soundboard tape, and Hearsay has mp3s posted today. As previously reported, too, NPR did a webcast of Saturday night's show that is now available to stream, with a downloadable mp3 version promised to be up by Tuesday. (If you can't wait one more day and want an mp3 rip of the NPR stream -- sticklers for sound quality beware -- you can grab that right here, right now.) I haven't listened to the Saturday show yet, but reports everywhere yesterday were that it was the finest of the bunch -- one of the best bands in the world right now, firing on all cylinders.

Following up on another old post, the trailer for the DVD portion of Neil Young's forthcoming Live at Massey Hall 1971 release can be seen here, and looks (and sounds) just too damned good to be true. (Via Chromewaves)


Whatevs.org finally re-launched last week, with a brand new look and feel, unleashing six weeks of Grambo's signature, slang-filled commentary on music, movies, TV, sports, advertising, journalism, bloggers and young starlets all at once. It's good to have him back, obvs.

Slate addresses the burning question, "How could a Geordie twat like Sting have fronted a band as great as the Police?"

The only two providers of satellite radio service in the U.S., XM and Sirius, are merging. Wonder what Dylan and Howard Stern will talk about at the water cooler.

And yet another sign that the apocalypse is near.

Odds and Sods

The New Yorker reviews Lucinda Williams' forthcoming record, West, and it's not pretty.







Congrats to the Aquarium Drunkard on his new domain and swanky new design. If you're not familiar with one of the best music bloggers in the business, go check out his rustic new look. You can grab a cool (and rare) Ryan Adams solo show from 1998 -- pre-Whiskeytown break-up -- for your trouble.

Slate's Explainer column, um, explains why Prince didn't get electrocuted while he played (slayed, killed, rocked the house, showed the kiddies how it's done, bizarrely covered the Foo Fighters, etc.) in that downpour at the Super Bowl last Sunday.






The podcast at Salon's Audiofile this week is a chat with Yoko Ono about her new record, Yes, I'm A Witch, which I'm considering checking out only because she duets with Cat Power on one track and, as my mom used to say, I'd listen to Cat Power sing the telephone book.

And finally, I can't believe I just provided a link for people to buy a record by Yoko Ono.

Odds and Sods

I recently discovered that live show taper extraordinaire Sloan Simpson has a blog, Southern Shelter, where he posts mp3 versions of his recordings (some video too). If there's a show of any consequence in Athens, GA, you can bet that Sloan is there with his rig, and he's garnered a reputation in the trading community for making some of the cleanest, warmest and best-sounding recordings around. Check out his blog for live shows by Athens stalwarts like Drive-By Truckers, Of Montreal, Elf Power, Vic Chesnutt and my old pal David Barbe, as well as sets by up-and-comers like The Summer Hymns and Now It's Overhead. My personal favorite: an October 5, 2006 show at the 40 Watt by Dave Marr that amounted more or less to a reunion of the late, great Star Room Boys. That is pure country bliss, friends.

The podcast at Salon's Audiofile this week is an interesting chat with too-nice-and-adorable-for-her-own-good Norah Jones, whose brand new record, Not Too Late, is the first one on which had a hand in writing every song. She's not offended by the term "background music," she'll have you know, because she listens to Tom Waits while she putters around the house.

UPDATE: Norah talks to Jon Pareles of the New York Times as well.


The hugely-anticipated record by a certain 6-member band from Canada that a lot of the kids seem to be fond of has leaked onto the Internets, in its entirety, 2 months before it's release date. I'm just sayin'.







The new show streaming this week at Wolfgang's Vault -- which is still going strong notwithstanding a massive lawsuit filed by Led Zeppelin, The Doors and some other classic rock acts -- is Blondie at The Paradise Theatre in Boston on November 4, 1978. Decent enough, I guess, but not nearly as good as this one.


Finally, who can possibly resist pimping their iTunes set-up with a free plug-in, iConcertCalendar, that scans the artists in your library and generates a calendar of their upcoming shows in your area, complete with links to venue and opening act info. Works on both the Mac OSX and Windows versions of iTunes. How sweet is that? And did I mention it's FREE? (Via Stereogum)

All that, and not a single mention of Wilco or Jeff Twee-- ah, crap.