Friday, April 6, 2007

Keytar sighting

As recently as two decades ago, the keytar flourished in the wild. But excessive poaching pushed the instrument to near-extinction. Nowadays, the most likely place to see a keytar is at a nature reserve or preservation society.

Due to their extremely migratory nature, it's hard to determine how many keytars are left in the wild. And when they are seen, they usually hide in the back; so there was excitement in the crowd last night at the Casbah when a keytar appeared front and center.


The keytar used to have no fear of man and would stay in plain view for hours. Now, they usually scurry away after a couple of minutes, like this one did.


The keytar came out for a song during Wet Confetti's opening set last night. Their bottled-up energy made for a good warm-up before the Thermals' complete unleashing of energy.

My City's a sucker: These two guys

These guys were spotted during the opening act at the Thermals show Thursday night, although spotted is not the right word. They were impossible to miss. I know the genus of annoying concertgoer exists across the world. Here are two of the San Diego species.


Guy in the ant T-shirt: Stop doing the robot. Stop doing your herky-jerky little shadowboxing dance routine. If you want to be the center of attention so bad, form your own band and get on stage.


And to his friend standing to the right of him there: Be a friend; shut him down.

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Cashing In: Peter, Bjorn & John

In some of the least-surprising news of 2007...



The Peter, Bjorn & John whistle-fest "Young Folks" has shown up in an add for AT&T wireless (what you used to know as Cingular). The PB&J/AT&T mash-up leaves me wondering: did it really take this long for someone to pick up the super-catchy, seemingly made-for-licensing song, or had the band turned down/resisted previous offers?

Once more, with feeling: Peter, Bjorn and John — Young Folks (MP3)

Cashing in: The New Pornographers II

A while back I did a Cashing In post on the New Pornographers' "The Bleeding Heart Show" being used in a commercial for the University of Phoenix. In an interview today with Pitchfork, frontman Carl Newman talks about how the deal went down:




Pitchfork: I saw an ad for one of those quasi-legit universities, the University of Phoenix, and it happened to have a song of yours in the background.

Carl Newman: Yeah, I know. It's weird, isn't it?

Pitchfork: What's the deal with that?

Carl Newman: It's one of those things that just, you get a call, and somebody said "hey, the University of Phoenix wants to use the end of "Bleeding Heart Show" in a commercial." And I thought, "eh, fair enough." And I really honestly didn't know that University of Phoenix was a huge online university. I actually thought it was, like, the University of Phoenix; like, every city has its big university, you know? And I thought, "oh, it'll show in the Southwest." It seemed kind of odd to me, like, I've never heard of a university having a TV commercial, but I thought, oh well. All of a sudden, people started saying "I saw your commercial during 'Saturday Night Live'" or "I saw your commercial during 'American Idol'," and I thought, "what the hell is up with that?" Then I began to realize that, well, I guess we inadvertently signed up to be in a big commercial. How about that?

Pitchfork: Does it seem odd to be connected with a sketchy university?

Carl Newman: You know, if University of Phoenix is some kind of scam, then I suppose I'd feel kind of stupid for being a part of it, but you know, I can't really say that I have much of an opinion, you know? It's a university, or a school, and it might be a crappy school, but it seems like letting a crappy school use your song is probably better than letting the best business use your song. I'm not overly political, but if Wal-Mart wanted to use the song, I would just go, "fuck off, no chance in hell." But for a lot of other things, I'm not so precious about our music. A lot of work went into it-- you record your song and you mix it and you put it out and it's there in the world, and as for the rest of it, I can't really stop people from doing with it what they want. Songs always mean the same thing to me regardless of whether they're in a commercial or playing in the background on "The Office" or whatever. I don't really have any... I'm kind of shocked that I have to talk about it.

One thing that made me feel better was, right around the time that commercial started showing up, there was also the Outback Steakhouse commercial with Of Montreal in it. And I thought, "thank God, that's really going to deflect some attention away from us." At least we didn't give our song to Outback. Now I'm afraid if I accidentally say something about the University of Phoenix that a hammer is going to come down on my head, or I'll find myself in a lawsuit. My official stance is, "I fully support the University of Phoenix," but to back that, I honestly didn't know what it was. But then again, if I did know what it was, I'm not sure that I would have said no. We're just trying to get by in this world. When you play music for so long and don't make any money, and people start offering you money for things that involve no effort on your part, you start going, "I'll do that."


Pitchfork interview with Carl Newman
Cashing In: The New Pornographers

Thermals concert preview

So here's your future...

After playing an opening slot at a House of Blues show a few months back, The Thermals return to the much more fitting confines of the Casbah tomorrow night. No knock against the band — they fired up a large, focused crowd as the surprise opener for Sleater-Kinney's farewell shows in PDX — but their power pop/punk hybrid sound is just built for bouncing off the walls of a small club.

The Thermals — Returning to the Fold (MP3)
The Thermals — Test Pattern (MP3)

The opener is another Portland band called Wet Confetti. Their debut, "This Is So Illegal, Do It Fast," was lo-fi to a fault, but their latest album, "Laughing Gasping" is a leap forward. A great band for those who are bummed about Pretty Girls Make Graves breaking up or for people who could never get into them in the first place.


Wet Confetti — Sorry Dinosaur (MP3)

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Not about music, but...

...but this is so weird that I'm compelled to point it out.

The New York Times has a story about the mass worldwide popularity of Wrestlemania (I'm tired of hearing people treat the whole Donald Trump hair thing like a real news story, too, but 80,000 people went to it ... it is Wrestlemainia, hear it roar/in numbers too big to ignore.)

Late in the story, as the reporter wrote about the people he talked to in the stands, came these paragraphs:

...The big night is finally here. An hour before doors open, thousands crowd the stadium loading dock, hoping for a glimpse of the stars. Inside, the physical production puts even the biggest rock concerts to shame. A stage and proscenium the height of a small office tower loom over the west end of the stadium, feeding a runway to the ring in the center of the floor.

Randall Godfrey, 33, middle linebacker for the San Diego Chargers, is sitting just a few rows from the ring. “Wrestling is definitely more punishing than playing football,” he says. “I mean, we wear pads. They don’t. Football is hard, but it can’t compare to the physical punishment these guys take in the ring.”...

Weird for so very many reasons. I guess we know how he's spending HIS offseason.

The other album out ... Sunday?

The "Airbag" single has always been the jewel in the Radiohead completist's crown. Billed as a mini-album, the seven-song disc came out after OK Computer in 1998 and quickly fell out of print.

According to Amazon, a limited edition re-release is planned for April 8, which is this Sunday and is the latest in a series of non-Tuesday release dates previously posted. So who knows what Sunday will bring.

Despite its collectors' appeal, the album has a lot working against it. When "Airbag," isn't followed by "Paranoid Android," there's immediately a letdown. And, like most B-sides, you can see why these songs were left off the album.

But the instrumental "Meeting in the Aisle" and the track "Polyethylene" stand out. Plus, it has some of Radiohead's trademark artsy/creepy liner notes, this time in the form of a questionnaire with check boxes next to statements like "What a clean city. I'm kind of sleepy," "We plants are happy plants," and "Everything I do/say is suspect."

Good Sunday reading. Jesus would approve.

Radiohead — Polyethylene (MP3)
Radiohead — How Can You Be Sure? (MP3) (Live version of B-side on "High and Dry" single)

TV on the Radio recap

Baby Heisman reader Emily went to Sunday night's TV on the Radio show and survived a poor choice in footwear (Emily, flip-flops are never a good idea, especially at a sold-out-to-the-rafters show) to report back with the details...

"I saw TotR last year at the Casbah and fell in love with the band. I was hoping for a similar experience at the Belly Up. I got it — maybe a little too similar. I can’t tell you that it was the same exact set that was played last year, but there were definite similarities. Examples: In the middle of the show the lead singer, Tunde Adenimpe, threw water on the audience (thankfully, as it was incredibly hot), and during the encore they invited the opening band on stage for a song.

"I cannot fault TV on the Radio, however. They put on an amazing show. And, really, why fix what isn’t broken. The vibe that the band gives off is amazing, and the crowd feeds off of it. They really love what they do, and you would be pretty hard up to find a group with more stage presence. Tunde flails and dances across the stage through the entire set. His bandmates get out of his way when he’s busting a move. There are some moments when you half expect someone in the audience to yell, “Hallelujah!” and faint.

There was an announcement before the band came on that no photography of any kind was allowed during the performance. I thought that this was an April fool’s joke. Tunde, just last year, broke out his own digital camera at the Casbah to take pictures of the audience to send back to his mother in order to prove “he did work.” Though those of us who defied this rule were not scolded, it was a very serious request."

Emily says that, between being packed in and trying to hide the camera just in case, she didn't get any good photos. Here's a shot of the set list, courtesy of S.D. Dialed In (Kensington stand up!)


Monday, April 2, 2007

My City's a Sucker: David Vandervelde

Fuzz-rocker David Vandervelde has, sadly, stayed under the radar since his debut album came out earlier this year. In-studio performances on tastemaking radio shows like WOXY and KEXP are likely to help, but his weekend plans certainly won't raise his profile around these parts. Vandervelde is playing L.A. and then ... Costa Mesa?

Go figure. He's the last opener, if you desire to drive up.


David Vandervelde — Jacket (MP3)
Stream David Vandervelde tracks on Myspace

Friday, March 30, 2007

An excuse to post one of my favorite songs of last year

The indie juggernaut that is TV on the Radio rolls into town this weekend for a show at the Belly Up that sold out with the speed usually reserved for bands like Radiohead or the Arcade Fire.


(They look about as natural and relaxed in this photo as a cheetah in a zoo, don't'cha think?)

The band's "Return to Cookie Mountain" topped tons of best-of lists last year. I tried three separate times to get into the album with no luck (that's just me). But, like just about everyone else, I fell in love with the track "Wolf Like Me."

If you missed this song the first time around, check it out. You probably won't find it on many other blogs, because posting about TV on the Radio is SOOOOOOO 2006.

TV on the Radio — Wolf Like Me (STILL highly rec.) (MP3)

MIMS Watch 2007

Modest Mouse may be bringing the heat at No. 1 on the album charts, but MIMS' "This is Why I'm Hot" continues to follow me around like a circus clown that may have more sinister ideas than just turning balloons into poodles.

Over the weekend, there was a parody on "The Soup" on the E channel. It was so out of left field it was kind of funny, though.

But back to Mr. MIMS himself. In hip-hop, a great way to stay hot is a superstar collaboration (although "This is why I'm hot/ I'm hot 'cause I collaborate" doesn't flow so well). So who is MIMS working with now? Kanye? Nope, hotter. Timbaland? No, HOTTER, dammit! Behold:


Oh hells yes! Zune! It's cross-promotion that fits like a glove: Music Is His Salvation, and the Zune is the salvation for music fans.

For those of you who don't have your ear to the street, Zune is the Microsoft MP3 player that has been vilified worse than the idea of a Snow/Tag Team double-bill.

So this is why MIMS is hot this week: He's on the side of a Zune bus.


The MIMS album drops Tuesday. Will it hit No. 1? Did you ever you think I would write this much about MIMS? Nah, me neither.

To bring this post full circle, The Seattle Times contacted Modest Mouse frontman Issac Brock about the band's album hitting No. 1. He (gasp!) was kinda cranky about the whole thing. Click here to read the story.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Bloc Party tonight on Letterman

It's so coooolllllllld in this ... house.



Tix for S.D. show at Viejas still available. They're $35 a pop, but, hey, Ticketmaster fees are less than $10 a ticket. So ... rejoice?

Hello newbies

Hello new readers who found out about my blog from CityBeat. Let me show you around.

Over on the right is an "about" link that tells you what this site is (and isn't) all about. One of the main goals is to fill the gap between mainstream music coverage and the unfiltered avalanche of new music coming out from blogs each day. One of the main ways to avoid just posting new MP3s myself are the Baby Heisman sections and recurring features. There's links to all of those on the right, too.

There's also a link to the Baby Heisman myspace page. There isn't much there, but I will send out myspace bulletins when there are new original stories and features beyond the daily posts (and there are already a couple planned for next month), so send a friend request to get set up for those
Other than that, I just hope you enjoy. The MP3s are up for only a short time and are for sampling only so you can decide whether to BUY an album. And post comments. Post, post, post! What's the fun of music if we don't talk about it.

If you have any questions or comments, notice misspellings (and you will, although I try to catch or fix them all) or you are a band with MP3s you'd like me to check out, e-mail me at babyheisman@yahoo.com.

-Jeremy
The Baby Heisman
The Ronettes — Be My Baby (MP3)

The case for Lily Allen

Last month, some non-music-junkie (not that there's anything wrong with that) friends were visiting. The sun had broke through after a week of cloudy drizzle, and it seemed like a perfect situation to be soundtracked by Lily Allen.

Later, as we sat around the living room having a pre-dinner snack, one of my friends asked to hear "Whatever you were playing when we showed up. The British girl. Really pop-sounding."

The next week, he told me he had bought Allen's album. A couple of weeks later, one of the other friends, who mostly listens to top 40, said she had bought it.


I'm always playing stuff my friends haven't heard of, but I've rarely seen them so immediately smitten. But why not? With her playful vocals, Brit-crooner accent and ska- and reggae-influenced pop beats, she's certainly accessible.

But here's the key: Her music also has brains. The lyrics actually say something, which is something you can't say about the Timberlakes, Stefanis and Fergies of the world. "I'm bringing sexy back" may have more actual words than "getting jiggy with it," but they are equally meaningless.

Allen's music captures pop's virtues (light, breezy, easygoing) without its pitfalls (frivolous, throwaway). "Smile" is one of the best pop songs of the 2000s, or whatever you call them, for that exact reason.

Lily Allen — Smile (MP3)

Last summer, when a mountain of music promotion tried to convince us that Paris Hilton was a pop star, the indie world fell in love with Allen, whose album was only out in the U.K. at the time. As her popularity has grown (her show Friday at the House of Blues is sold out), there's been the usual, expected indie backlash, which is sillier than ever. If my mom starts singing "but you were f*cking that girl next door..." then I'll worry about overexposure.

Allen doesn't just show people that there's more to pop than Top 40, she proves that pop isn't always a four-letter word.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Catching up on the news

I didn't read any music news over my long weekend up north, so I'm still catching up (apologies for no new post since Friday). Between music news, real news, blogs, etc., I'm still playing catch-up.

So here's the stories I'm reading that I missed, in case you missed them, too.

The New York Times had a story Sunday about the further demise of the album, profiling a band that just signed a two-SONG deal. Read it here.

The Wall Street Journal had a story Saturday about the military looking for lesser-known bands (including at SXSW) to play at bases in Iraq to entertain the troops. Read it here.

The L.A. Times had a story Friday about Republicans trying to woo musicians and entertainers. Read it here.

Speaking of the GOP, the New York Times had a cover story Sunday about the extensive spying by the NYPD before the GOP convention. There's some band/music tie-ins, but it's mostly worth reading because it's infuriating and nothing will change unless more people start speaking up. Read it here.

And on a much lighter note, New Pornographers frontman Carl Newman discusses the band's upcoming album with Billboard. Read it here.

New, real, actual posts are coming back soon. Promise.