Beale Street Music Festival preview

This weekend is the first big event in our Summer Road Trip series - the Beale Street Music festival in Memphis. The lineup is eclectic, almost bizarrely so. Here are some of the names we're looking forward to seeing.

JAMES TAYLOR
Ten years ago, I worked security at the Post-Gazette Pavilion and had the chance to attend a James Taylor show, but I declined and I've regretted it ever since. James Taylor's music is so sweet and soothing. I could listen to "Carolina On My Mind" forever and not get sick of it. I have high hopes for this performance.

SNOOP DOGG
Snoop has been playing a lot of festivals lately - he's finally discovered that's where the money is. The hip hop shows I've seen are generally not that impressive - just a lot of demands to "throw your hands in the air" and shit like that. But Snoop has a catalog of hits that's almost unmatched in the rap world. Hopefully he'll bring something original to this show.

AL GREEN
It's Memphis, and the Reverend Green will be glad to see me when I haven't got a prayer. Al Green is just one of those people you have to see once in your life.

JERRY LEE LEWIS
Somehow, this man is still kicking. He's 73 years old and he can barely string together a coherent sentence, but he's still up there on stage getting his paper. And it doesn't matter if he's nearly senile, because rock n roll as we know it wouldn't exist without Jerry Lee Lewis. He is the ultimate legend, and I can't wait to see him play.

FALL OUT BOY/ALL-AMERICAN REJECTS
These two bands are happy to fill my quota of emo-pop for the weekend. Fall Out Boy's reign of skinny pants and run-on song titles is just about over, but they've left us with a ton of catchy tunes. The Rejects aren't quite as good but the kids love to sing along to "Move Along" and "Dirty Little Secret."

Also playing: Bonnie Raitt, George Clinton & P-Funk, Rise Against, The Steve Miller Band, 311, The Roots, Elvis Costello, KoЯn, Katy Perry, John Lee Hooker, G Love & Special Sauce.

Recent listening: What a Catch, Donnie

I'm not overwhelmed by the new Fall Out Boy album, but one track has grabbed me - "What a Catch, Donnie." It's a song that starts out as a slow piano ballad, with the chorus "I've got troubled thoughts and the self esteem to match."

Three minutes in, out of nowhere, Elvis Costello appears to sing a verse. Then, the song takes off into a soaring final chorus, with appearances from an all-star cast of emo characters - Brendan Urie of Panic at the Disco, Travis McCoy of Gym Class Heroes, William Beckett of The Academy Is..., Gabe Saporta of Cobra Starship, and others. While FOB singer Patrick Stump continues singing the chorus, the guest vocalists take turns singing lyrics from previous Fall Out Boy songs in the background.

As Amanda Palmer once sang, "Don't tell me not to reference my songs within my songs!"

It's a clever idea, and it's well done.

Video: Fall Out Boy - What a Catch, Donnie (unauthorized fan video)

Musicians I'm Afraid to Admit I Like

submitted by Deena

Ladies and gentleman, for your ridicule and general amusement, I give you...

Maroon 5

I was listening to pre-Maroon 5 in junior high, back when they were a garage pop band called Kara's Flowers. Their pop sensibilities haven't changed, but they did grow up a bit. Although I don't feel their sophomore effort, It Won't Be Soon Before Long, was as good as Songs About Jane, there is still something I find innately attractive about their tunes, whether it's the mild funk influences or the pillow-talk lyrics...yeah, probably the pillow talk lyrics.

Erasure

Although they've had some huge U.S. hits like "A Little Respect" and "Chains of Love," nobody seems to remember this band from the 80s, let alone the fact that they're still together and making music. While the tunes that made them famous are, in a way, disposable synth-pop tunes, their albums contain a range of songs, both catchy and introspective. And as a singer, I appreciate the refined quality and range of Andy Bell's vocals.




AC/DC

For some reason I'm always ashamed at my fondness for AC/DC, though they certainly have enough credibility, having been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003 and named 4th and 7th on VH1 and MTV's Best Hard Rock Act countdowns, respectively. To me, their songs are some of the best rock anthems of all time. I also think it's awesome that despite the death of lead singer Bon Scott in 1980 (after the release of Highway to Hell), the group jumped right back into the game to release their best-selling album of all--Back in Black.

Fall Out Boy

I suppose a lot of chicks like me dig these whiny pop-punkers because either A) we want some guy to pine over us like they do in their songs or B) we like that their voices are high enough that we can sing along. And though I've lost a lot of the hormonal angst of my youth, I appreciate these guys as a voice that a new generation of tweens can identify with. Bonus points for their clever, entertaining music videos.

Carpenters

Call me a sap, but the simple, sentimental songs of the Carpenters get me every time. Karen Carpenter's vocals should serve as a reminder to all aspiring Whitneys and Christinas that sometimes you don't need to sing screechingly high or with an excess of exaggerated runs in order to sound beautiful. Some of the best love songs of all time, and one of my favorite holiday songs--"Merry Christmas Darling."

I now stand with my back towards you, faithful readers, ready for my flogging...

Saving the world: There's a right way to do it, and a wrong way

Causes 1 is a Darfur charity album featuring tracks from Bright Eyes, Bloc Party, Death Cab for Cutie, and the Black Keys, among others. Proceeds go to three organizations: Doctors Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam America.

The album will be available for download on iTunes for 90 days only. A good cause, and a good product.

MP3: Bright Eyes - Coat Check Song (live)

Meanwhile, have you checked out the latest Fall Out Boy video? It's for the Babyface-produced "I'm Like a Lawyer with the Way I'm Always Trying to Get You Off." The video was shot in Uganda and seeks to draw attention to the plight of that nation's children, as its civil war drags on. This is undeniably a good cause, but the problem is that images of Ugandan refugees are interspersed with footage of the band performing the love song in a field. It's downright bizarre.

Read more about the story behind the video at mtv.com.

2007 MTV Video Music Awards: Minute by Minute

Tonight at 9 pm are the 2007 Video Music Awards, from the Palms in Las Vegas, and I'm blogging as it happens. I've barely paid attention to the nominees, and I don't even know who's hosting, so I'll be going in cold, which I think is a good thing. I've seen pretty much every music awards show of the past 15 years so I'm pretty much obligated to watch...

7:19 pm
I just went to the Wikipedia page for the awards show and learned that all the genre-specific awards have been done away with. That means no Best Dance Video, Best Hip Hop Video, Best Rock Video, and, for fucks sake, no Viewers Choice Award! What in God's name is MTV thinking? There are only 12 awards now, including such bullshit categories as "Most Earthshattering Collaboration," "Monster Single of the Year," and "Quadruple Threat of the Year," which goes to someone who is in music, movies, TV, etc.

This is absurd. Now, I'm completely unable to take these awards seriously. I'm going to spend the next hour and 40 minutes bitching, until Britney takes the stage to open the show.

8:07 pm
Sway is interviewing Rihanna on the pre-show. I like Sway, he's a cool dude. I was never a huge Rihanna fan but "Umbrella" is undeniable and might be the single of the year. Sway throws it back to John Norris, who appears to have some sort of small rodent on his head. I like John though; I'm glad MTV has kept him around amidst all its new teenage VJs. John actually knows music and knows how to conduct an interview and ask questions other than "What are you most looking forward to tonight?"


9:00 pm
Britney is on stage and there's an extreme closeup. She looks cross-eyed. She doesn't even have a mic on - she's not even pretending to sing live this time. I kind of admire the honesty, I must say. Oh wait, there is a tiny mic under her hair. The track is decent but I'm quite underwhelmed by this performance. She's barely even dancing. It looks like she's going through the motions. I have to say, I don't think she looks too bad considering the craziness of the past year.

Edit: Maybe I spoke too soon, after seeing this photo:


9:05 pm
Sarah Silverman does some comedy... I'm not a fan of the new trend of award show hosts insulting the attendees, but she's not too inappropriate this time. Her best line is saying of 50 Cent, "It's so cute that he's still alive." She also says of Britney - "She is 25-years-old and she’s already accomplished everything she’s going to accomplish in her life." Alicia Keys comes out and cuts to Pete Wentz, whose microphone is off. Whoops!

9:12 pm
They're announcing the nominees for Monster Single of the Year. One of the 11 nominees is "Lip Gloss" by Lil Mama. I've never even heard of this song. The winner is Umbrella by Rihanna. This might be the only award I agree with all night.

9:21 pm
Seth Rogen and the other guy from Superbad make an appearance. It lasts all of ten seconds. Boo.


9:23 pm
The Quadruple Threat award goes to Justin Timberlake, who is in some other room partying. I don't get it.

9:25 pm
They're showing a 90-second clip of Fall Out Boy playing Thks Fr Th Mmrs, apparently sponsored by Rhapsody. Is this live, or is this a commercial? Why do they keep cutting to these mini-performances? It's like MTV is bringing the ADD vibe of TRL to its awards show now. This is about the tenth WTF? moment of the show, and we're only 25 minutes in.


9:35 pm
Kanye and 50 are onstage to give out the Collaboration award to Beyonce and Shakira. I thought that was a terrible song. MTV has been making a big deal about the fact that this year's awards will only air once; I'm starting to become incredibly grateful for that decision.

9:43 pm
Chris Brown is performing, even though I don't think he had any hits in the past year. He's not singing live, either. Apparently, you only get a full performance if you agree to lip sync.


9:46 pm
Rihanna comes out to join Chris Brown. I get my hopes up, thinking they'll do the remix of Umbrella where Chris sings a verse and changes the lyric to "Cinderella", but instead he starts dancing to Billie Jean. I don't have a fucking clue what's going on.

9:56 pm
Male Artist of the Year goes to Justin Timberlake. Now I'm thinking it's a good idea MTV had Kanye host a party in a separate room, so he can't rush the stage to interrupt other peoples' speeches.

10:07 pm
Short clip of Justin & 5o doing the new single "Ayo Technology." Stupid title, good song. Next up, Fergie wins female artist of the year. Um, ok.

10:09 pm
Kanye gets to play a full song. I like that he's performing from a balcony, several stories up in the Palms. That's one cool thing about having the show in this venue. I don't recognize the song, but there's a Snakes on a Plane reference, so it gets points in my book.

10:24 pm
Fall Out Boy win a moonman, and this qualifies as a major highlight to me, given how lousy the rest of the broadcast has been so far. A few minutes later, Rihanna is singing Shut Up and Drive with Fall Out Boy. This collaboration, I actually like.

10:34 pm
It's Alicia Keys' turn to perform. I don't like most of her stuff, but this song isn't bad. Still, it's a toss-up whether I want to keep watching this, or go to bed.


10:44 pm
It's back to the Fall Out Boy party, where Gym Class Heroes are playing Clothes Off!, allowing me to drop in another reference to Jermaine Stewart. Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Garner come out to present Best New Artist and it goes to Gym Class Heroes - no surprise, since their teen fans were likely to be the most active dialing up the phonelines.

10:49 pm
Miss Teen South Carolina ("some people don't have maps") makes an appearance and pokes fun at herself. Finally, a legitimately funny moment!

10:55 pm
Robin Thicke comes on for a 30-second performance. I take him about as seriously as I take Vanilla Ice. Am I the only one who thinks he is a joke?


10:57 pm
Dr. Dre gets the lifetime achievement award. OK, I can buy that. Wait, did he actually get an award, or did he just get a glowing introduction from Mary J. Blige? I don't see any award in his hand. Strange. Dre gives out Video of the Year, and it's Rihanna. It's not deserved at all, but I wasn't holding my breath they'd actually give it to Justice.

11:00 pm
Diddy is on stage and makes a reference to a fight between Kid Rock and Tommy Lee that happened earlier. This is a juicy story that we clearly need more details on. Diddy introduces the Timbaland medley, with my girl Nelly Furtado and Justin finishing it off with Give it to Me.

11:10 pm
Mercifully, it's over. This was quite possibly the least interesting MTV awards ever. I have nothing more to say. Only two months until the Billboard awards!

Your makeup stains my pillow case, like I'll never be the same

CONCERT REVIEW: FALL OUT BOY, +44, THE ACADEMY IS..., PAUL WALL, COBRA STARSHIP
Post-Gazette Pavilion, Pittsburgh: May 22, 2007

The emo-heavy Honda Civic Tour swung through town last night, and being the intrepid pop music blogger that I am, I had to be front and center (actually, front and slightly to the right) to witness it.

Cobra Starship, best known for recording the theme to Snakes on a Plane, opened the show and really impressed me. Frontman Gabe Saporta has quite the stage presence, bandmate Victoria Asher rocked the keytar (I loves me some keytar), and their songs were cool - catchy and slightly more dance-y than the typical emo fare.

We skipped Paul Wall, because who the hell wants to see Paul Wall? The Academy Is... were good, not much different than the last time I saw them. The high point was their performance of their new single "We've Got a Big Mess on Our Hands."

The band I was really looking forward to was +44, the group composed of two-thirds of the former Blink-182. They did an admirable job even though nobody knew any of their songs except the finisher, "When Your Heart Stops Beating," and the one Blink number they threw in, "The Rock Show." Mark Hoppus didn't crack jokes the way he used to in Blink, which was a disappointment, but it's understandable that he wants the new band to move in a new direction.


As for Fall Out Boy, I'm a little perplexed on how to write a review, because it was exactly by the book, 100% what I expected. After following standard concert procedure by opening with track 1 from their new album, they had the obligatory acoustic ballad by the singer, the obligatory drum solo, the obligatory song where the band members go out in the crowd, the obligatory confetti and fire going off, the obligatory crowd sing-alongs, and the obligatory left-field cover (Michael Jackson's "Beat It").

The only thing at all that deviated from protocol was playing their biggest hit (a fiercely energetic "Sugar, We're Going Down") three songs into the set and closing with "Saturday," a song from one of their early, non-blockbuster albums. But that's what they've done for some time now, so even that isn't a surprise.

This isn't to say their performance was bad; in fact, it was the perfect show for this audience. The new songs were particular highlights ("Golden," "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs," "I'm Like a Lawyer with the Way I'm Always Trying To Get You Off".) For many of the young fans in attendance, this was their first concert. Fall Out Boy gave them a textbook example of how to play a rock show - Rock Concerts 101.

My only regret is that the batteries in my camera started dying after Cobra Starship so I could only take a handful of pics the rest of the way. It's rare that I'm that close to the stage, and I was unable to take advantage of it. Lesson learned - that will not happen again!

My 5 favorite bands, May 2007

Since I haven't actually blogged about my favorite bands yet, here is the current list:

1. THE DRESDEN DOLLS
Inventors of the "Brechtian punk cabaret" genre. Amanda Palmer is one of the few songwriters who can make me pay attention to lyrics, as I'm typically more drawn to melody. Her words are emotional, moving, edgy, personal, and humorous. Brian Viglione is one of rock's more underrated drummers. Their powerful live cover of "War Pigs," with only vocal, piano and drums, is worth tracking down.
Recommended: "Sex Changes," "Half Jack"

2. ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI
A quirky Australian troupe that plays the catchiest happy pop songs you will ever hear. I discovered them by complete accident through someone's LiveJournal and was instantly hooked. I've decided to travel to Philly to see them next month and I'm psyched about their new album due out this summer.
Recommended: "It'5!," "Maybe You Can Owe Me"

3. THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS
Their 2005 album Twin Cinema just kept growing on me, and "The Bleeding Heart Show" became my favorite song of the past year. I love how it starts as a slow verse with sporadic drum bursts, and then opens into a glorious final chorus with a repetitive "Hey la, hey la" refrain behind Neko Case's beautiful lead vocal. The rest of the album is equally engaging.
Recommended: "The Bleeding Heart Show," "Sing Me Spanish Techno"

4. FALL OUT BOY
This one's a little embarrassing but if I'm being honest with myself, they deserve to be here. Fall Out Boy's last two albums are clinics in how to write quality, hook-filled rock songs. They've almost established their own emo empire, with Gym Class Heroes, Panic! at the Disco, The Academy Is... and all the other bands they hang out with.
Recommended: "Of All the Gin Joints in the World," "Thriller"

5. PEACHES
Absolutely filthy electroclash songs, almost exclusively about sex. I first saw her live when she opened for Nine Inch Nails and couldn't stop laughing (in a good way) at how far out there she was. I can't reprint any of her lyrics here, but a Google search for "Peaches lyrics" is a goldmine.
Recommended: "Fuck the Pain Away," "Two Guys for Every Girl"

Bands that would be on the list, except they have been inactive lately:
Junior Senior, Sigur Ros, Radiohead