Chris Martin

Catching Up On The Week (Feb. 6 Edition)

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Some #longreads for the moments you refrain from laughter due to serious newscasters using the phrase “Pineapple Express”…

We’re really excited for the release next week of Father John Misty’s new album, I Love You Honeybear–his debut, Fear Fun, was a pleasant surprise and the man put on one entertaining live show.  To help prepare you for the new record, be sure to read the profiles on Josh Tillman on Grantland and Pitchfork.

There are few reasons to care about the Grammys no matter what year it is, but the fact that Beck’s Morning Phase was nominated for Album of the Year and as a result will perform with Chris Martin on Sunday’s telecast might spur us to watch.  However, the awards did provide the L.A. Times with the opportunity to talk to Beck and discuss how he feels now that he’s no longer the young buck but an elder statesman for these shows.

If you’ve ever listened to a Sub Pop album from its early days, chances are you listened to an album recorded by Jack Endino.  He was the man behind the boards for a number of the heavyweights of the grunge era, and has continued to record numerous awesome indie bands since then.  Noisey caught up with the former Skin Yard drummer for an interview.

Everybody has been talking about the recent leak of the settlement between Sam Smith and Tom Petty over the similarities between “Stay With Me” and “Won’t Back Down”, and that prompted the AV Club to take a look at other instances of musical “borrowing.”  The first part of the Inventory was released today, so be sure to check on Monday for a few more examples.

And finally, if you still find yourself with some free time this weekend, check out the Albums That Never Were blog, which has painstakingly recreated some of the most famous “lost albums” of all-time, all with meticulous notes about their composition.

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Over the Weekend (May 5 Edition)

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New music, new videos, new articles, and even new music lessons for you this week, so no complaints this Monday.

The Black Keys will be filling up the newsfeeds of most music sites this week, in preparation of the release of their new album Turn Blue next week.  For those who want an early listen, it’s streaming through iTunes, or if you want your new Black Keys given to you in a more piecemeal fashion, Slate has the video of the band performing the new song “Bullet in the Brain” for Zane Lowe.  And for those of you who are more visually-inclined, the band has released a video for early single “Fever”.  It finds the band adopting the lo-fi aesthetic of other videos like “Lonely Boy” and “10 A.M. Automatic”, and features Dan Auerbach as a haggard Evangelical preacher trying to inspire his flock, while looking as if he’s afflicted with the malady from the title.

Coldplay performed two new songs from the upcoming Ghost Stories on the most recent episode of Saturday Night Live, and Pitchfork has the video of the songs, plus Chris Martin’s appearance in a sketch as well as an unrelated sketch about the perils that come with daring to speak ill of the goddess Beyonce.

The Antlers are continuing to tease fans with details of their upcoming album Familiars, providing SPIN with the stream of their latest track “Hotel”, which reminds me quite a bit of Burst Apart‘s “I Don’t Want Love”.  The music is still as gorgeous and haunting as ever, and I can’t wait to hear the new album.  Also relevant to my particular interests is the fact that after seemingly skipping out on Portland for their upcoming tour, they will actually be visiting the Rose City as a part of the just-announced MusicFest NW lineup this August 16-17.

Sharon Van Etten shot an interview and performance with the AVClub for their Pioneering series, and for the occasion she chose to cover Bruce Springsteen’s “Drive All Night”.  Check out the videos here.

For those looking for a #longread for the week, I recommend this Billboard article which excerpts the Fredric Dannen book Hit Men and discusses the long battle over the royalties for Meat Loaf’s mega-selling Bat Out Of Hell album.  It’s infuriating to see the treatment of the original producers by Sony and their continued attempts to duck out of their obligations for proper payment.  In case you had any lingering sympathy for the major record labels, this should help extinguish that pretty quickly.

And finally, for those of you looking for a little help in learning how to play the bass, check out this article from Dangerous Minds which provides an assortment of tracks featuring everything but the bass stripped out, courtesy of the website notreble.com.  Maybe this will help you graduate from Air Bass to an actual Bass.