Tag: video

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Slackday: Theme Time Time with Cadillac Sky

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In addition to being talented musicians and songwriters, the members of Cadillac Sky are also a bunch of goofballs. It’s part of what we love about them. Their YouTube account features, along with some performances and some interesting behind-the-scenes documentation, something called “Theme Time Time”, which is basically Matt Menefee and David Mayfield acting like dorks and exercising their playing fingers at the same time. All under a minute long, the clips are a nice way to get a smile and hear some good picking.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhHAjj13HRQ]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2hClojlyh0]

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Obsess Much? : Dan Auerbach never stops

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Okay, in terms of making this Cadillac Sky Week at NTSIB, this may be cheating a little, but since it’s my blog and you can’t stop me…

Dan Auerbach – of Akron, Ohio’s the Black Keys, if you don’t know by now – loves music. This may seem an obvious thing to say about a musician, but it’s more true of some than others. To quote the man himself from his Nonesuch feature page, “I’m pretty obsessed with making music and with recording, I’m always thinking about it. It drives my family crazy. But it’s what I do.” Auerbach likes being on both sides of the recording console and in his “spare” time, he lends his help, and his home studio, to a long list of bands. Here is a gathering of Auerbach-produced songs from bands ranging in vibe from bluegrass to blues to punk.

Cadillac Sky – Nashville, Tennessee


Obviously, we here at NTSIB love these guys and encourage you, again, to pick up their new album, Letters in the Deep, and catch them live if at all possible.

Buffalo Killers – Cincinnati, Ohio

Hacienda – San Antonio, Texas
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo09-bn8TjY]
You might also recognize these guys as the Fast Five, the name they used when touring as Auerbach’s support band on his solo tour. They’ll be in Cleveland, Ohio, at the Beachland Ballroom on June 19 when they open for Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.

SSM – Detroit, Michigan

Patrick Sweany – Nashville, Tennessee

The Ettes – Nashville, Tennessee
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqzTIqqRjiQ]

Radio Moscow – Story City, Iowa

Brimstone Howl – Omaha, Nebraska

Jessica Lea Mayfield – Kent, Ohio
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o672fxTF1vc]
Jessica is gearing up to release a third album, and the early word fro
m her brother David is that it is mind-blowing. She’ll be opening for the Black Keys when they play Nautica in Cleveland on July 24.

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Slackday: Welcome to Collinwood

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There’s going to be a damn lot of good music happening in Cleveland’s Collinwood neighborhood this weekend. Arts Collinwood will be hosting A.L.L. Fest Saturday from 1:00 to 8:00 P.M. A collaborative effort between the AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland and Arts Collinwood, the fest will feature food, drink, art, opportunities to record video messages, write letters and paint messages to bring attention to the importance of funding for HIV/AIDS programs and, at the top of our list, good music. NTSIB is going to make a point of catching Muamin Collective and This Moment in Black History before we get our tail down the street for Cadillac Sky’s show at the Beachland Ballroom.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bTZkN3zknU]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0YZhpO7SDY]

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Bits: The Wu is coming through, Strummerville by Letts, the story of K Records

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  • There’s never a shortage of news from the Wu-Tang Clan, and our first four items are devoted to them. Up first: The Wu will be playing the Rock the Bells festival tour at the end of August, performing their masterpiece Enter the Wu-Tang Clan (36 Chambers) in its entirety. This year’s bill also includes Rakim, KRS-ONE and Slick Rick, among others.

  • Raekwon has released a new mixtape, Cocainism, Vol. 2, and you can download it here.

  • Pollen, The Swarm Part 3 is on its way, and you can download the first track, “Roll with Killer Beez”, here.

  • It was inevitable: RZA is making a kung fu film. The Man with Iron Fists was co-written by RZA and Eli Roth and will be directed by and star RZA.

  • Filmmaker Don Letts has produced a documentary about the creation of Strummerville, the foundation that carries on Joe Strummer’s work of promoting music from beyond the fray, and the DVD of the film is being sold exclusively through the Strummerville site where you can also watch a trailer for the film.

  • Pitchfork’s One Week Only feature this week is The Shield Around the K, the story of K Records, the independent label founded by Calvin Johnson of Beat Happening in 1982 and still operating to this day.

And because you know I can’t let an opportunity to push the Black Keys pass, here’s a web exclusive of the guys performing the excellent “Ten Cent Pistol” during their appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last week. (And you can see their televised performance of the bangin’ “Howlin’ for You” here.)

http://widget.nbc.com/videos/nbcshort_at.swf?CXNID=1000004.10045NXC&widID=4727a250e66f9723&clipID=1231142&showID=243

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Slackday: Hip Hop, Ya Don’t Stop

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Hi, I’m white. Very, very white. As the subtitle of this post has probably already informed you. But I grew up in the time when hip hop was breaking into the mainstream, when Run-D.M.C. was as big as any rock band. It was just as divisive a genre then as it is now, and some people – those who didn’t know that the roots of hip hop went much deeper – were convinced it was only a novelty that would fizzle out after a year or two. But then, as now, there was really good music to be found for those willing to listen.

I’ll admit, I’ve never been as into hip hop as other genres, but there have always been MCs I’ve been excited about. I’ll be seeing one of those MCs in my first non-festival hip hop show when GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan hits the Grog Shop Saturday, and I’m fucking jazzed about it. In tribute, Slackday is about some of the hip hop songs that stuck with me from my youth.

First up, it’s gotta be Run-D.M.C. I still think “King of Rock” is pretty badass.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXzWlPL_TKw]

This next clip is dedicated to my friend Amanda because, as we are linked at the brain, when I brought up the idea of an old school hip hop Slackday, we both thought of this admittedly terrible song – “I Got a Man” by Positive K. (And Amanda informs me that K did both the male and female vocals.)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvYIpa1Ulvw]

A Tribe Called Quest’s “I Left My Wallet in El Segundo” stuck with me from the first time I heard it playing at a friend’s house back in 1990.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WILyWmT2A-Q]

Enter the Wu-Tang Clan. (Yes, I know that was cheesy. It’s Slackday. Shut up.) Along with predecessors like Public Enemy, N.W.A. and Ice-T, Wu-Tang came stronger and more aggressively than the hip hop the mainstream was used to hearing. They scared the shit out of white people. That’s right: Ice-T used to be scary. But unlike many “gangsta rappers”, these artists had depth and style.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GDPZpRmTg0]

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Bits: free Jay Bennett album, Hell and Half of Georgia and The Famous shows, listen to Peter Wolf Crier, the Black Keys on late night

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  • The Jay Bennett Foundation, an organization supporting music and education started by the late musician’s mother and brother, will be releasing Bennett’s final solo album, Kicking at the Perfumed Air, as a free download on July 10 (a portion of physical album sales will go to the foundation). You can take a listen to two of the songs from the album at Pitchfork.

  • NTSIB friends Hell and Half of Georgia and the Famous have shows coming up. HaHoG will be playing Alex’s Bar in Long Beach, California, on June 5, and the Famous will be playing at the first annual Brewfest, hosted by the San Francisco Giants, on May 29 at AT&T; Park in San Francisco.

  • Inter-Be, the debut album by Peter Wolf Crier, is up for free listening at Spinner.com. They’ll be playing the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland on July 22 with the Builders and the Butchers and Heartless Bastards. There’s no way that show could be anything but killer.

  • Because you know we can’t help ourselves mentioning them right now, the Black Keys will be playing The Late Show with David Letterman tonight and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon tomorrow. If you’ll be in NYC tomorrow, you can enter the Band Bench Sweepstakes for a chance to hang out in the bleachers on stage for the performance.

This sweet-ass video of the excellent “Too Afraid To Love You” from the new Black Keys’ album, Brothers, gives a glimpse into Dan and Pat’s time at the historic Muscle Shoals Sound Studios.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=11883860&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

“Too Afraid To Love You” by The Black Keys from Jorge Ortiz on Vimeo.

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Notable shows in the greater Cleveland area & GZA at the Grog Shop!?

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Shows worth checking out this week in and around Cleveland:

The Beachland Ballroom & Tavern

  • Sat, May 22| 9 PM (8:30 PM door)
    Benefit for the Waterloo Feral Cats
    Prisoners
    Rainy Day Saints
    Kyle Sowashes
    $5.00
    Tavern | All Ages

  • Mon, May 24| 8 PM (7:30 PM door)
    Trampled By Turtles
    One Dollar Hat
    $10.00
    Tavern | All Ages

  • Tue, May 25| 8:30 PM (8 PM door)
    April Smith
    & The Great Picture Show
    American Swill
    $8.00
    Tavern | All Ages

  • Thu, May 27| 8:30 PM (8 PM door)
    The Dust Busters
    Roots of American Music Trio
    $10.00
    Ballroom | All Ages

  • Thu, May 27| 8:30 PM (7:30 PM door)
    Members of Morphine
    and Jeremy Lyons
    $15.00
    Tavern | All Ages

Grog Shop

  • Mon, May 24| 9 PM
    Mono
    Twilight Sad
    $12

  • Tue, May 25| 8 PM
    Good Old War
    Yukon Blonde
    Audra Mae
    Teddy Novotny
    $8 adv
    $10 dos

Happy Dog

  • Sat, May 22| 9 PM
    Brian Olive
    The Clovers

GZA is coming to the Grog Shop on May 29th. The Grog Shop? What? For $15 a pop, I won’t argue.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyt0tAwDAPc]

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Slackday: Deeper Shade of Soul

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This day has left me haggard, and it’s not even half over yet, so this week’s Slackday is going to be full of soothing soul sounds of the ’60s and ’70s.

Well, of course there was going to be a Black Keys tie-in. I was excited when I learned that the Keys would be covering Jerry Butler’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”, and they didn’t disappoint me. Here’s the original, with Butler in a stylin’ suit.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-PKQHNXPRI]

I will drop whatever I’m doing whenever I’m doing it to listen to “Me and Mrs. Jones” by Billy Paul. (Stick with this one. Paul starts out a little weak, but he ends strong.)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgautjFHHgg]

I couldn’t find a clip of the more recent performance of “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me” by Mel Carter that I’ve seen, but you can get a very good idea of just how impressive Carter’s voice still is here.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45_8zWktVNE]

And I can’t end this post without including the song that gave us today’s subtitle. Please don’t sue me if you get nostalgia whiplash off of this one.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5PNYNQqnvk]

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Rebirth of the Cool: Video Killed the Radio Star

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Follow me, children, back to the long-forgotten oh-how-we-wish-we-could-forget dawn of the 1980s. It was all about geometrics, big shoulder pads and bright colors. Everything was flashy and bold. The music video, instead of just being a novelty promotional tool, was becoming a commodity in the music industry. If you didn’t have a music video for each of the three singles from your album, you might as well not bother breaking out the Moog because no one was going to be interested in your songs. When MTV launched on August 1, 1981, the first video to play was for a song recorded in 1979 that seemed a prescient tale: “Video Killed the Radio Star” by Buggles.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwuy4hHO3YQ]

In 2005, Ben Folds Five put their typical piano arena anthem stamp on the tune.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4UBNBgE2lg]

More recently, vibrant bluegrass act Cadillac Sky orchestrated the song, in a lovely and near-ironic twist, with the instruments of their genre, making the tune warmer and more joyful than one might have thought possible. Here they are performing the song with friends at the midnight jam at Merlefest in 2009.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4l8I-ejQ1M]

In this age of the internet, the idea of a video star seems as quaint as did the idea of a radio star back in the early ’80s. Perhaps someday in the future, someone will rewrite this song as “The RFID Chip Killed the Internet Star”.

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Bits: Happy Black Keys Day!, Alan Moore box set, Dio lost, Curtis remembered, Conrad Plymouth travels

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  • I’m tempted to make this an all-Black Keys Bits post, but I won’t. That being said, holy shit, the new album drops today and it is glorious. And they’re giving away a copy of the deluxe, limited-edition CD over at HearYa.

  • Comic book genius Alan Moore is in music news again as he collaborates with photographer Mitch Jenkins and a roster of musicians, including Mike Patton, on a box set that includes a story written by Moore, illustrated by Jenkins with an accompanying score on CD or vinyl.

  • Metal legend Ronnie James Dio lost his battle with cancer on Sunday, and today marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis.

  • Our friends Conrad Plymouth give a brief glimpse of their journey to SXSW.

  • And back around to the Keys. In concert with the official release of Brothers is the premiere of the video for the lead single “Tighten Up”. The guys continue their fine video tradition of hilarity and violence. With no dinosaur puppets in sight.


The Black Keys “Tighten Up”
http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=104927443,t=1,mt=video
The Black Keys | MySpace Music Videos