Category Archives: News

October 15, 2009 · 10:00 PM

Jam of the Day – In The Balloon Over Colorado

If you were watching/reading basically any major news outlet today, then you’ll already be familiar with this “balloon boy” fiasco that has captured the nation’s attention. After local authorities and others spent hours searching for Falcon Heene and tracking the flight path of the giant helium balloon that was “accidentally” released while his brothers “thought” Falcon was inside one of its compartments, it turns out that the kid was just hiding in his garage the whole time. How do the police possibly think that this was a genuine mix-up and not a media stunt? Here are some facts that seem to give it away as a hoax to me:

1) Brian Stelter, who covers the television industry for the New York Times, reports that immediately after the Heene family’s experimental balloon lifted into the air, possibly carrying a six-year-old child, his father Richard Heene called Channel 9, KUSA, the NBC affiliate in Denver, to enlist its help in finding his son;
2) Falcon’s parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene, were featured on the 100th episode of ABC’s prime-time program “Wife Swap” in March 2009 because of the popularity of their three boys from their FIRST appearance on “Wife Swap;” and
3) In an interview with CNN’s “Larry King Live,” Falcon said he heard his parents call for him from the garage. When asked by his father on-air why he didn’t respond, the boy replied, “You guys said we did this for the show.”

Come on cops. Get it together over there!

There seems to be an inverse relationship between how much this family sucks and how much this song, from Neutral Milk Hotel’s triumphant second album In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (1998), rules (sorry, Falcon, you’re a cute kid but your dad seems “appall[ingly]” douche-y). So listen up and just remember that there are some people in this world who are famous for reasons other than being attention whores, like for making great records.

Neutral Milk Hotel – In The Aeroplane Over The Sea:

-Drew

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September 23, 2009 · 7:55 AM

Jam of the Day – Too Soon To Ignore The Rising Oceans

In New York this week, the ongoing UN meetings are covering a range of topics, one of the most important being climate change. For policy makers, as the Times reports, this debate has been “an intricate challenge: building momentum for an international climate treaty at a time when global temperatures have been relatively stable for a decade and may even drop in the next few years.” Seriously, this is a challenge? Of all of the important issues being debated in these meetings, one would think that the future survival of the planet would trump them all. Skeptics that are trying to stall these discussions and treaties to further their own political agendas are being incredibly short-sighted, and it won’t be long until they are going to be faced with a disastrous climate situation and rising tides that they can’t ignore.

heyocean_band_photo All these doubters need take a queue from the name of Vancouver-based jazz/pop band Hey Ocean!, and deal with the issue head on. From what I have heard of Hey Ocean! so far, they are pretty adept at blending various musical styles into some solid pop-tracks that they showcased at SXSW this summer. Band members Ashleigh Ball, David Beckingham and David Vertesi released It’s Easier To Be Somebody Else in 2008, a fusion of playful, lyric-driven ballads. Today’s jam is the first track off of It’s Easier To Be Somebody Else, “Too Soon.”

Hey Ocean! will be in NYC soon, playing two nights at Piano’s on October 8th and 15th, so if you like what you hear, mark your calendar.

Hey Ocean! – Too Soon:

-Melissa

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September 15, 2009 · 7:48 AM

Jam of the Day – Animals Rule!

For those of you living under a rock today, you may have missed that there was a HUGE UPSET last night at the U.S. Open. Twenty-year-old Juan Martín del Potro defeated reigning U.S. Open champion Roger Federer. Known for his savage forehand and enormous stature, del Potro is a bit of an animal, but maybe that’s just what it takes to play some really exciting tennis and defeat a champion player like Federer.

Other foreigners making names for themselves as animals tonight in New York City are the members of Sweden’s Miike Snow. Their first album was recorded in Stockholm and released in May 2009 by Downtown Records, and their debut U.S. single, “Animal,” is excellent. Singer/songwriter Andrew Wyatt worked with producing team Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg to create the album. I would tell you to check out the show they are playing with Jack Panete tonight at the Mercury Lounge, but their shows today and tomorrow are both sold out, so you’ll have to settle for enjoying this jam here and checking them out the next time they’re in town…

Miike Snow – Animal:

They also did a pretty cool remix of another ev2bk favorite jam, Passion Pit’s “The Reeling”, which you can listen to here:

-Melissa

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August 25, 2009 · 8:00 AM

Jam of the Day – Drumming Song To Signal the Rise of the Machines

One day the machines will rise up and rule over us all!

It’s not a new fear, it’s just one that keeps coming up in the news and popular culture everywhere lately, maybe because it’s becoming more and more of a possibility. According to a recent Times article, a group of computer scientists who have been “impressed and alarmed by advances in artificial intelligence” is debating about whether there should be “limits on research that might lead to loss of human control over computer-based systems that carry a growing share of society’s workload, from waging war to chatting with customers on the phone.”

Although this seems like the opening scene to any number of recent movies in which the machines rise up, kill everyone, and take over the world, this meeting actually happened last month in California. The group of researchers, which included roboticists, leading computer scientists, and artificial intelligence researchers, generally agreed that it would not be possible for centralized “superintelligences” to spring up spontaneously, although they did acknowledge that robots who can kill on their own are already here, with more advanced versions to come soon. Some of the potential threats of this new technology becoming widespread include the possibility for criminal manipulation/exploitation, and possible threats to human jobs. With The Singularity – the notion that there will come a moment when humans will create smarter-than-human machines, thus ending the “human era” – looming, the panel is looking for ways “to guide research so that technology improve[s] society rather than move[s] it toward a technological catastrophe.” One way they are proposing to keep this technology from getting into the wrong hands is to conduct research in a “high-security laboratory.”

The latest film in this vein, Surrogates, coming out in September, looks sufficiently creepy. From what I gather, the premise is that humans spend their lives in the safety of their own homes and control their surrogates (robotic versions of themselves) who are out in the real world living their lives for them, so that their humans can be free of risk or fear. It’s a movie, so inevitably something must go wrong. These ideas seem crazy now, but maybe one day it could happen. Who thought that we would ever have tiny hand-held drones and robots disarming roadside bombs for the army?

One group who seems unafraid of such a phenomenon, and embraces the machine, is London’s Florence & the Machine. Florence & the Machine is the recording name of Florence Welch and the band of several musicians (the Machine) that plays and records with her. Their first studio album, Lungs, was released in the U.K. on July 6th and will be released in the U.S. on October 20th by Island Records. Florence & The Machine’s music has received wide praise across the British music media, including rave reviews by NME Magazine and the BBC. The general public must be pretty behind them too, seeing as Lungs was at the number 2 position its first five weeks on the U.K. charts, only behind Michael Jackson.

The latest release from, Lungs, “Drumming Song” is catchy in a way that will leave you wanting to listen to it again and again. The video, released earlier this month, is a preview to the release of the “Drumming Song” digital EP that will come out on September 14th. Although it’s not an actual machine playing with Florence here, this hard hitting track could signal the rise of something—hopefully we’ll be hearing a lot more from them soon.

Florence & The Machine – Drumming Song:

-Melissa

Editor’s note: Thanks to our London correspondent Eimear for turning us on to Florence & the Machine in the first place.

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August 4, 2009 · 8:38 PM

Jam of the Day – Finally Heading Home

According to reports this afternoon, former President Bill Clinton’s trip to North Korea to try to secure the release of two journalists imprisoned there has been successful. The reclusive, ailing, and by most accounts criminally deranged North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is said to have granted “a special pardon” for the two American journalists – Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36 – after they were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for entering North Korea illegally. The journalists were on assignment for Current TV, a San Francisco-based media company co-founded by Al Gore, researching a report about the human trafficking of North Korean women and the refugees who had fled to China. The two journalists were detained by soldiers on March 17th near the North Korea/China border, were sentenced in June, and have been in prison since.

As White House press secretary Robert Gibbs explained in a statement cited in the Times, “While this solely private mission to secure the release of two Americans is on the ground, we will have no comment. We do not want to jeopardize the success of former President Clinton’s mission.” The Obama administration has tried to keep its diplomatic campaign regarding nuclear weapons separate from this case, emphasizing that this is a humanitarian issue. As Hillary Clinton explained “What we hope for now is that these two young women would be granted amnesty through the North Korean system and be allowed to return home to their families as soon as possible.” We’re with you, Hillary.

Today’s Jam is all about the urgent desire to get home as quickly as possible that these women must be feeling at this point. Imogen Heap just released the first single “First Train Home” off of her latest album Ellipse that is scheduled to drop at the end of August. Heap is a muti-instrumentalist and innovative singer-songwriter whose music is ethereal and hard to shake. I’m not saying it’s gonna get the party started but it could set the mood for a more intimate rendezvous.

As a buzz generator around the new album, Heap set up a series of “#heaptweetups” in New York and L.A. during July, where her Twitter followers and fans could come to special listening parties and preview the album. Heap’s latest “#heaptweetup” listening party is taking place tonight in her hometown of London. For our London followers, entry is free and it will probably be crowded because Heap is also planning on talking about the songs as she previews them and she’ll even be buying the drinks!

Imogen Heap – First Train Home:

-Melissa

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July 30, 2009 · 5:06 PM

Jam of the Day – Burning Spear Walks to Feel Irie

Even though we are, by all accounts, still in the midst of a broad economic downturn, it’s good to know that some scientific researchers are striving on and conducting the kind of important experiments of which Nobels are made. Yesterday Reuters posted a story about researchers from the University of Michigan and Delft University of Technology (in the Netherlands), who recently reported their findings regarding the purpose of arm-swinging in its relationship to walking. My favorite line from the piece is a quote from the researchers’ report: “Although arm swinging is relatively easy to achieve, its effect on energy use during gait is significant.” The cloud of ignorance has dissipated! Keep up the good work guys, maybe you can figure out this whole “leg-movement” thing next. For now, I’m sticking to public transportation.

burning_spear But on a more serious note, if you happen to be walking in Prospect Park tonight around 7:30pm, you might encounter the fascinating sight of a 60+ year old Rastafarian busting it out on the bongos and dropping some roots reggae in your ear. This evening, Celebrate Brooklyn! presents Burning Spear, as part of the continuing free concert series that’s been going on all summer, and which the website claims will be “another epic performance.”

Burning Spear, whose real name is Winston Rodney, is a real granddaddy of roots reggae, having grown up in the same St. Ann’s Bay area of Jamaica as Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey, both of whom had a great influence on Rodney’s life. In fact, you can see a pretty rad (although slightly long) video of Burning Spear, Peter Tosh, and Bob Marley here. Be prepared for a nice long session of reggae jams in the park tonight! It’s the most beautiful day we’ve had in a while, so make the most of it. And to help you along on your way to feeling IRIE, check out this video for the song “Walk,” Burning Spear’s most recent release (May 2009).

Rastaman live up!

Burning Spear – Walk:

-Drew

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