Tag: video

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Video: Jonathan Coulton, First of May

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One of my favorite Jonathan Coulton songs. Still not safe for work, but now with bonus ASL translation!
 

First of May (ASL) LIVE with Jonathan Coulton - Dallas May 2009

 
The signs are provided by Stephen Torrence and friends; if you’d like a closer look at the signs, you can have that here:
 
Jonathan Coulton - First of May - ASL Song

 

 

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Salt Petal: Sea Monster

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saltpetalac
 
Salt Petal are: Autumn Harrison (Vocals/Accordeon), Rodrigo Gonzalez (Guitar), Hiroo Nakano (Drums), Jesse Herrera (Bass), and Dayna Richards (Trumpet). They are currently from Los Angeles, but have roots in Argentina.

Their music is an effervescent combination of languages – English, Spanish and Portuguese – and styles, including Argentinian folk, Brazilian tropicalia, Cumbia (big brass band sound) and rock and roll.

Sea Monster is their second record, and it is a lush, expansive collection of tunes. It’s hard to pick particular favorites because I’m really fond of the whole thing, but highlights include Por la Luna, Darkest Hours and Es Dificil.

Here they are with their first single, Songs I Used to Love:

Salt Petal - "Songs I Used To Love"

 
 

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Video: Rob Zombie, Dead City Radio and the New Gods of Supertown

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There’s a lot going on here – hippie!Zombie, zombie!Zombie, breakdancing skeleton, various kinds of freaky ballerinas – and it is ALL AWESOME.

The song is Dead City Radio and the New Gods of Supertown, from his new record Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor due out at the end of the month.

Metal Hammer has a tracklist and from the looks of things we are in for a SUPER FREAKY TIME. I’m excited, y’all.

I also have a bunch of questions, like, has there been an apocalypse, and is the radio a communications tool or a framing device or both, and is Supertown like Bartertown or what, but, I suppose all of these things will be answered in time.

Meanwhile, I’ll enjoy the video.

 

Rob Zombie - Dead City Radio And The New Gods Of Supertown

 

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Video: TimLee3, Devil’s Rope

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Watch out, baby girl, preacher man is coming for you and it isn’t loving he has on his mind:
 

Tim Lee 3 "Devil's Rope" (Official Music Video)

 
There is more where that came from; Devil ‘s Rope is the title track of TimLee3‘s new record, which is some A++ swampy, bluesy rock and roll. Devil’s Rope has been stuck in my head for a week now, but I’m also fond of Signal, Cut-Rate Divorce and Judging You.
 

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Video: The Almighty Rhombus, She Didn’t Want Me

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Some thoughts while watching the video for She Didn’t Want Me, from the new self-titled EP by The Almighty Rhombus:

1. How awesome is “The Almighty Rhombus” just as a band name? SUPER AWESOME. A++ use of geometry in band-naming.

2. These dudes and ladies are SERIOUSLY committed to grilling out. (They are my kind of people. Snow on the ground is no reason to skip the cooking with fire.)

3. Ooooh, golden retrievers in shirts gamboling in the snow! Those dogs are having just the best time.

4. Loving Mr. Too Metal For Sleeves and his mad snowboarding skillz.

5. This song is fun, too!

 

The Almighty Rhombus, She Didn't Want Me (Official Video)

 

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Gary Lightbody and The Assembly, This Is All That I Ask of You

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Long ago in a galaxy not THAT far away – i.e. 1999-2000 – I worked in tech PR1 and pitched people as speakers for TED talks2. That was when TED talks were only given in one place! Now they are everywhere!

This is an excerpt from a TED talk given by Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol at Stormont Parliament in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The subject of his presentation was the way the music scene in the region has flourished during the last fifteen years of peace.3

To illustrate his point he gathered up several musicians – David C. Clements, SOAK, Silhouette and the Wonder Villains – to write and perform a song.

If you like it you can buy it, and all of the proceeds will go to the Northern Ireland Music Therapy Trust.

 

This is all that I ask of you: Gary Lightbody and the Assembly at TEDxStormont

 

1 This was when the internet still kind of had training wheels and we were trying to convince print journalists to write about websites.
2 TED was “invitation only” then; my job was to demonstrate why clients ought to be invited.
3 The power of his observations are in their simplicity. For example: “There are so many gigs now. When I first started going to gigs in Northern Ireland, there weren’t that many. Especially from international acts. But now every international act comes to Belfast. And they come here as an essential part of their European tour.”

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A Change Is Gonna Come

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First, I want to emphatically state that I love Now This Sound Is Brave, and I love every single person who has ever stopped by to read even a single post we’ve made in the last three years.

Love, at the risk of sounding precious, is what NTSIB has always been about, founded on and powered by love. I’ve never made a cent from this gig… though I have reaped all kinds of rewards. I just do this because I love music, and I want to share the music I love.

That being said, it has become more difficult to keep up my four-posts-a-week schedule, and now that I’ve started a new day job, it’s become all but impossible.

Don’t toll the funeral bells yet, though. This ship will keep sailing, if I may jump metaphors, tethered by my always-reliable superstar co-blogger, Jennifer, but I will be pushing my opinions on you all less often. (Though I plan to keep hanging around Twitter to retweet and harass everyone.)

It’s not an end, just a shift. And I hope you will all continue to hang with us because we love hanging with you.

 

“A Change Is Gonna Come” – Sam Cooke

A Change Is Gonna Come -- Sam Cooke (Original Version in HD)

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Boxed Wine: Cheap, Fun

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If you missed CXCW last week, you missed out! (Except you didn’t because you can still see the whole thing on the site.) One of the stand-outs for me (aside from performances from our friend Kroyd of the Wind-up Birds with his project Forgets, our friend Pete David of the Payroll Union taking a solo turn, and our friend Christian D. once again inspiring panty-flinging), was a band out of New Jersey called Boxed Wine, who not only played a great cover of Peter Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks”, but also trotted out an original called “Boomerang”.

 

 

Check out their EP Cheap, Fun which includes “Boomerang” as well as two other energetic, catchy songs that will get stuck in your head without making you hate them.

 

 

Boxed Wine @ Bandcamp

Boxed Wine @ Twitter

Boxed Wine @ Facebook

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A Foreign Country: Depeche Mode

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A Foreign Country is a non-regular series in which I write about music I dug in my youth and still enjoy now. The name comes from the L.P. Hartley quote “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there”, because, while I do continue to enjoy some of the music I listened to in my early days, my tastes have changed since then (thank fuck for that) and even the songs I still like are heard through different ears.

 

 

Depeche Mode

 

Depeche Mode initiated me into puberty.

This is an exaggeration, of course. I had already been a fan of Depeche Mode – then composed of Martin Gore, Dave Gahan, Andy Fletcher, and Alan Wilder – for a couple of years when their album Music for the Masses was released. I was 14, and the album brought DM up so high in my estimation that they might have even had a chance of knocking Duran Duran from their throne as my favorite band. It was a great album, an evolutionary step forward in their career, rich and meaningful. And one of those meanings, the one that spoke loudest to my hormone-addled mind, was sex.

In retrospect, though, I see that it wasn’t about sex: Depeche Mode introduced me to desire. I had no solid concept of sex, but songs like “Behind the Wheel” (you’re fooling no one with your clever car allusion, Mr. Gahan) and “I Want You Now” stirred up heat and longing inside me, a deep, full-body-and-mind desire that wouldn’t be elicited by another person until several years later.

 

“I Want You Now” – Depeche Mode

Depeche Mode I want you now Lyrics

 

The thread of desire is stitched heavily throughout the Depeche Mode catalogue from Black Celebration on – “Stripped”, “World in My Eyes”, “I Feel You”, etc. – reinforced by the feminine and feline sensuality displayed by frontman Gahan onstage (“I’m basically an overpaid stripper,” he recently said about his stage presence), and backed by sometimes throbbing, sometimes slinky rhythms.

 

“Personal Jesus” – Depeche Mode

 

The band’s career has had its peaks and valleys, as would any career that’s been going for over 30 years – ever-mounting success, followed by Gahan’s struggle with drug addiction, Wilder’s departure, and some uneven albums – but Gore, Gahan, and Fletcher have managed to hold on, with their nails dug in deeply. And with the release of the first single, “Heaven”, from their forthcoming album Delta Machine, the band may be poised for a new wave of success.

“Heaven” – Depeche Mode

 

There is some sense of personal pride in watching a band you’ve loved since your formative years continue to produce new music as inspired as this when you’re firmly ensconced in adulthood.

Delta Machine is slated for release on March 26, and Depeche Mode will be touring the world throughout the summer.

 

Depeche Mode Official Website

Depeche Mode @ Twitter

Depeche Mode @ Facebook

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Alex Culbreth and the Dead Country Stars: Heart in a Mason Jar

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heartmason

Heart In A Mason Jar is the new record from Alex Culbreth (Parlor Soldiers) and his band The Dead County Stars. They play both kinds, country AND western.

The record is full of things I like, including some honky-tonk swing:
 

 

A variety of melancholy slow jams:
 

 
A sobering, bittersweet love song for a hallucination:
 

 
And a dollop of full-tilt bluegrass:
 

 
And if you need a live performance to sway you, here they are at Ashland Coffee and Tea with Bang Bang:
 

Bang Bang-Alex Culbreth&Dead Country Stars@AC&T 2012

 
They are touring just about all over creation in the next couple of months; go out and see them if they’re stopping near you!