So I was out in Vegas this past weekend for one of my best friend’s bachelor party. This photo was taken Saturday night. Please bear in mind that my boy rocked this outfit FOR THE ENTIRE NIGHT:
Blame it on the vodka; blame it on the Henny
Now I chose this shot because it a) hides his face (also, just in case you can’t tell, those are some Kanye-style pink shades under that hood); and b) it made me think that if Jamie Foxx hadn’t yet recorded “Blame It” and he saw my friend in the lobby of our hotel, he likely would have found inspiration from duder in the green, zipup, one-piece tightsuit, with a drink in one hand, cigar in the other. I don’t know, maybe that’s just me though.
In any case, blame it on the vodka or the Henny or the what-have-you, but either way congratulations dogg! Enjoy the video tribute:
Jamie Foxx ft. T-Pain – Blame It:
And just as a bonus since I couldn’t locate an embeddable version of the real video, check out this sort-of funny sketch comedy cover of “Blame It,” from Totally Sketch!, starring Barack Obama singing about the e-ee-e-economy:
To kick off what is sure to be a summer party weekend, here is the latest from hip-hop/dance-pop super group The Black Eyed Peas.
This track is on The E.N.D., the group’s fifth studio album and the third since Fergie joined the band. The group has become increasingly poppy and has lost some of their earnest hip hop cred over their last three albums, but they have also become hugely successful and are currently topping the Billboard charts. The whole album is already dominating the radio and great dance competition shows this summer, and this high-energy Jam is sure to get the party started.
Earlier this evening, there was a lot of speculation about whether or not Ted Leo and the Pharmacists were going to be able to play their free show tonight at Pier 54, since he said on their website and Twitter that they would do their best as always to persevere and play the show come rain or high water.
Apparently they played!
Ted Leo @ Pier 54 (from Twitpic)
Not so timorous, Ted. Way to give the people what they want. So in honor of his valorous move, here’s a really strange (but secretly hilarious) video of the great jam “Timorous Me.” I’m not sure who this director dude is, but this video is bonkers.
One band that we really wanted to see play at the Siren Music Festival this year, but ended up missing (it’s hard to leave the VIP area and its free booze/food combo), is Frightened Rabbit. This indie outfit from Scotland currently consists of four members, although this number has grown over the band’s life thus far, starting with just Scott Hutchison on vocals and guitar, adding his brother, Grant, on drums and vocals, and later Billy Kennedy and Andy Monaghan, who both play keyboards, guitar, and bass.
One reason why I like them is that their name sounds suspiciously similar to one of my favorite bands, Modest Mouse. The other is that they’re making some pretty great music right now: their second, and most recent, release Midnight Organ Fightscored over an 8 rating from Pitchfork last year, and their live sound is so good that in May they released a live album, Quietly, Now, that is basically the same as Midnight Organ Fight only live, and mostly acoustic, and really really good.
Just so you don’t think I’m making this up, and also since we missed their set during Siren, here’s a video of Frightened Rabbit performing their song “Fast Blood” live at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago two days later. Can anyone else hear a little Braid in there?
I’m not sure how many of you made it to Coney Island for the Siren Music Festival last weekend but, if you did come, hopefully you made it there by 2:30pm, when Bear Hands played. It was such a great day to be outside drinking some beers and enjoying live music! Bear Hands played a pretty tight set, including the song “Frank” that they hadn’t played in a while, and all the regular favorites such as “Golden,” “Sickly Brunette,” and “Can’t Stick Em” before they finished up with a spontaneous-crowd-hand-clap-backed version of “What a Drag.”
Bear Hands @ Siren Music Festival 2009 (7/18/09)
What was really interesting to me is that it seems like some of the songs – most notably “Frank” – have been re-tooled in the studio and are sounding really sleek and sing-along ready. I am expecting a fantastic reception to their full length (probably being released in late winter?), especially if this live show was a taste of things to come.
One of the most fun/funny moments of the show was when Dylan called Das Racist up on stage to perform a rendition of their unexpected hit “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” over the band playing a live cover of Jay-Z’s “D.O.A.” and a hail of “Yeah”s, “Uh-huh”s, “No”s and the general histeria/noise that ensued. Fun times all around, although I wasn’t sure that the crowd really had any sort of idea what was going on.
On a side note, Das Racist is playing a show tonight at Union Pool with our friends The Tony Castles and IN, which should be a really hot sweaty time. Come join us!
There were a ton of great other performances over the course of the day, although we spent most of our time at the Stillwell Stage. But near the end of the night, as the sun set and the general revelry-level creeped up a notch, we made it over to the main stage to check out Built to Spill. They were awesome as always, and ended the festival on a perfect note, right next to the Wonder Wheel:
Over the weekend, I checked out the new movie “(500) Days of Summer,” and, as the narrator tells you up front, this is “not a love story.” So I’m not spoiling anything by relating to you that it deals with breakups, bad relationships, and heartache. But at its heart, this is a comedy, an anti-romantic comedy, and it succeeds in its tongue-in-cheek mocking of the genre. Both of the leads, Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, were pitch-perfect.
Their characters, Tom Hansen and Summer Finn, seem to be a perfectly matched hipster pair, and yet somehow they just don’t work out. The writing of the characters is a little uneven, as only Tom is given a real passion, as a greeting card writer who wants to be an architect, while the character of Summer is somehow less whole, possibly airy by design. They explain that she is beguiling and has a certain charm that’s hard to define, but you don’t really get to the core of what she’s all about apart from “not believing in love.” With his slim stature and crooked smile, it’s hard not to route for Gordon-Levitt, despite his previous stint on one of the worst shows of our time. One of my favorite things about the film is that its chronology is scrambled—so that Tom and Summer’s initial meeting and their eventual break-up occur, in film time, close together and near the beginning, getting it out of the way and letting the film unfold around the much more interesting business of everything that happened in between. It was one of the better new movies I’ve seen lately—overall, A-.
The movie actually had a great soundtrack; there are a few new songs I will be listening to more in the weeks to come, but for today’s Jam, I wanted to feature one of the most haunting break-up songs I’ve heard lately, from Swedish singer Lykke Li. I have been listening to everything new from Lykke Li since I couldn’t get “Dance Dance Dance” and “Little Bit” out of my head last year. Her latest collaboration with Swedish producer Kleerup is equally captivating. His debut album, Kleerup, was released last year in Europe but is getting released in the US next week, on July 28th. The heavy lyrics about a bad relationship are set to dance beats and somehow it works, mostly due to Li’s wounded and lingering vocals. Li will be in the New York metro area soon, when she performs at the All Points West Music Festival in Jersey City on August 2nd. Hopefully ev2bk will be there to check it out!
East Village to Brooklyn 