Birthdays: Shirley Manson

Happy Birthday! Shirley Manson turns 42 years old today.

There are only maybe a handful of musicians who I would piss my pants if I ever met. Not surprisingly, kick-ass female rockers are at the top of the list, including Melissa Auf Der Maur, Emily Haines, Alison Mosshart, and of course, Shirley Manson.

I’m beyond disappointed that her record label is shelving her new album, which apparently they believe is too “noir” to turn a profit.

"I've had a really successful career. I don't really need to do anything for money and I certainly have no intention of doing that. I just want to live a creative life and sing songs that have some meaning for me personally," she says in an interview with The Scotsman.

You can catch her on The Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles this fall as well. But mostly, I'm rooting for that album release.

What's up, b? Wasabi

Cover songs! My guilty pleasure.

I really like this cover of “Superstar” by Dallas group, Shock of Pleasure. The electronic chill out vibe hits the mark. Karen Carpenter would approve. I would listen to this a lot more if I was sad, drunk, or in love. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish one from the other.

Shock of Pleasure- Superstar (The Carpenters Cover)
(Buy their EP on iTunes)

So how many of you remember Cibo Matto from the glorious 90s? After seeing them perform on Sessions on West 56th, I bought their second album, Stereo Type A. I remember getting my friend to listen to “Sci- Fi Wasabi,” and she turned to me and inquired as to why I was listening to such crap. Sci-Fi Wasabi was not top-40 material, but hearing Miho Hatori rap about economic duality gave me chills, I admit. This is a cover of Nirvana’s About A Girl. Somehow I can imagine Kurt Cobain crossing his arms up in heaven, all snug in his grandpa sweater, and nodding along.

Cibo Matto- About A Girl (Nirvana Cover)
(About A Girl is from the Moonchild-Sampler. Checkout the album, Stereo Type A, here)

I Know The Way These Things Begin

I still get chills whenever I hear, Caramel by Suzanne Vega. An acoustic-y version from one of my PBS favorites.



Loving the bass intro on that...

Side note, Sessions on West 54th was one of the greatest programs on public television!

Who Would You Rather Be?

After all this is gone,
Who would you rather be?
The Beatles or The Rolling Stones?

There’s a lot thinking going on these days about where my future is heading, so it helps me, I think, to just let it all go, and figure out what kind of direction I want for myself. (Easier said than done) They say these early years make the bulk of a quarter life crisis, and it couldn’t be closer to the truth. Sigh.

In any case, the bright side to my inclination for quick distractions helped me discover Metric’s acoustic version of Give Me Sympathy, which is off their forthcoming album. It was performed at Coachella for SPIN. I heard other live versions of this song, but I think I like it better acoustic. It gives it a little something extra, no? In fact, I love this song so much, I woke up this morning humming the melody. Wouldn’t surprise me if I was singing it in my sleep.

Emily Haines, now there’s a cool chick I admire. She and the guys are touring the festival circuit these next two months, and they’ll also be at All Points West in Jerz! It’ll be hot.

Metric- Give Me Sympathy (acoustic)
watch the performance here

Shake Your Tambourine

These days I’m getting into a band called The Duke Spirit, with a fresh faced gal named Liela Moss as the lead singer. She’s got Sharin Foo’s haircut, Grace Slick’s spirit, and an attitude to boot. Although they’re billed as more of a soul/altrock/grunge group, The Duke Spirit’s aural persona sounds like a modern day Jefferson Airplane, which is fitting since they are a fixture on the festival circuit. Times have changed since the Monterey Pop Fest, but musical roots are alive in the bands today.

The Duke Spirit will be appearing at the All Points West in New Jersey, and the American Eagle Music Festival in Philly. Don’t forget to pack your tambourines!

The Duke Spirit- The Step & The Walk
(Buy the new album, Neptune)
(myspace)

Watch the video for their single:

The Lady Reincarnate

I’ve been collecting covers of Elliot Smith’s "Between The Bars" for a little while now, and although I can’t say the collection I’ve amassed is particularly impressive, there is one cover that stands out, and it belongs to Ms. Madeleine Peyroux.

Unlike the other covers I have heard, which are distinctly Elliot Smith, her cover has Lady Day stamped all over it. From the surreptitious gloom haunting the intimate vocals, she may as well light up a cigarette and take solitude on the stage of a smoke filled jazz bar. If Elliot Smith and Billie D had a love child, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was this amazing young woman.

This track comes from her second album, Careless Love.

Madeleine Peyroux- Between The Bars
(Buy Careless Love)

Beat On, My Metal Heart

Oh, Chan... Chan, Chan, Chan. You are the rare and enigmatic one.

Did y'all catch her performance on Letterman a couple of days ago? She sang her heart out, mimed the shizzile out of that song, and was like, "talk to the hand." I mean, maybe she jot down some lyrics to jog her memory. It happens, you know? Songs are generally made up of lots of words. Can't expect to remember all of them. Sheesh-- she's not a dictionary.

Oh, Chan... we love you.

Cat Power & The Delta Blues- Metal Heart (Live on Late Show with David Letterman)

(Buy Jukebox)

Gypsy Death... and You

Midnight Boom was released last month, and I’m in love with it. It seems that The Kills have done some serious editing in terms of their drum machine. While the music is not appropriate for interstate highway chases like on their last two albums, it’s kind of perfect for the pit stop. The occasional pull-over, let’s stop and think about our overwhelming badge of coolness.

Understandably, the duo gets a lot of flack for purporting an aura of intense secrecy and mythology, even giving each other little names like VV and Hotel—right, it’s drivel to anyone else except the two of them. Kate Moss excepted perhaps.

It’s been reported that Alison Mosshart is having issues with her bandmate’s girlfriend. No doubt, three’s company, and I bet the rumors of a Hince/Moss gypsy wedding in the works can only add oil to the fire. I would personally hate to see this affect the quality of their music, and their live show. Mosshart has banned Moss from appearing with them onstage or intruding on their live act, which I hear is electric—addictive, sweaty guitar licks, ferocious chain-smoking, sexual energy. It sounds pretty amazing. Haven’t seen them live yet, but they’re making their way to New York again (Webster Hall, May 1st!) Come next month, I hope I only count 2 people on stage…

And here is just Alison, doing her thing. Go girl.



The Kills- Gypsy Death and You
(Buy Keep Your Mean Side)

Two things

I'm going to take a little break from posting before the super duper exciting Interpol/Cat Power concert this Friday at MSG.

So getting on with it,

1) Erykah Badu is slated to release her new album "The Kabah" on October 23rd, but I haven't heard a peep about the new record. There doesn't appear to be any press on it, and a single hasn't been released. What does this mean?!? I could really use some new Baduizms.

2) Melissa Auf der Maur has been hinting about the release of her second solo record, "Out Of Our Minds" aka OOOM on her blog for some time now (make sure you turn off the creepy sounds streaming on the site). It's going to be a multi-media venture with a companion film and comic book. The website for the album is up, but there's not much content so far-- just teasers, and no release date is set. The new sound and the new look is kind of eerie and creepy, but I love how she's open-minded and unafraid of experimentation. Read about her new album in her interview with Billboard here.

Be back soon.

We grow together

I have taken a liking to late night walks. It’s not terribly safe, but despite the occasional glance over the shoulder, it’s a pretty peaceful neighborhood. The streets are deserted, cars speed down the otherwise abandoned boulevard, and nobody can hear me singing--- loudly, and probably off key. It’s so therapeutic, and I think it’s a great way to scare off potential muggers :)

On the walk from the subway, I’ve been listening to Fiona Apple. She writes these epically poetic lines, “You can use my skin, to bury secrets in,” that just blows me away. When you’re in that state of mind, anything remotely moving and poetic can be amazing with the right delivery—and she definitely delivers with the contemplative piano, and her soft, gravelly voice. I never get tired of this song. It seems like each year it takes on another meaning. Music and I, we age gracefully. Go figure.

Fiona Apple- I Know (link expired)
(Buy When the Pawn)

Feist razzle dazzles McCarren Park

A tad late for the wrap up, but Wednesday night was the Feist show in McCarren Park. Wow, what can I say—I love Leslie Feist. Just after sunset, she took the stage, and draped her silver sequined arm band over the microphone. She proudly showed off her new acoustic guitar and asked the crowd to help her name it, and promised she’ll call her guitar this name for the rest of its time on earth. After she said she would take suggestions via paper airplanes, Sofiblu ended up relaying airplanes towards the front of the audience for a bit of the night. The best name someone recommended was “McCarren.” Of course, if you’re going to play in front of thousands of New Yorkers, you gotta show Brooklyn some love.

Although she didn’t play my two favorite songs, "One Evening", and "How My Heart Behaves", I really enjoyed “Limit to your love,” ‘Sea Lion Woman” (which really got the crowd going), and the demo version of “Leisure Suite.” She said she recently found the four track demos so she and the band re-taught themselves this version. Recordings don’t do her justice. She sounds so amazing live, and her charm just rolls off the stage lik ripples in a sea of cigarette smoke.

(links expired)

Feist- Leisure Suite (demo version)

Feist- Leisure Suite (album version)
(Buy Let It Die)








Feist did an interview with Index Magazine about two years ago. She discussed her songwriting, and mentions Canadian girls.

“I love how Canadian girls manage to look totally hot in their enormous parkas. In Canada, it’s not about fishnets and heels, or other fantasy female stuff. Canadian girls are stalwarts---ruddy and healthy.”

I’m sure she’s just itching to work her parka this winter.

I hear with my little ear...

On Wednesday, I'm going to McCarren Park Pool to see Feist, along with about a thousand of her other closest friends. The “pool” is this crazy huge swimming area that’s been drained to accommodate happy concert goers—like me.

Although I love the energy that comes from huge venues like this one, small and intimate shows are what I hold closest to my heart. It’s the same way I feel about dinner parties. Why have 20 people come to dinner and speak to each person for a few minutes, when you can have five people huddled around a table, deep in conversation, wine glasses emptied, and refilled by the people who make you laugh so hard your cheeks hurt?

So while I look forward to the show on Wednesday, I kind of wish I was in Toronto when Feist picked up her guitar, and probably a milk crate or something, and did a live, intimate street side performance for NXNE in 2004. It’s like you and Feist, and the random happenings of the city. I’m having fun figuring out the little noises in the background, but Mushaboom lets your imagination run a litlte.

What do you hear?

(link expired)
Feist- Mushaboom (live at NXNE, 2004)

Slow down.

On our way to Rumsey Playfield last evening, a friend and I passed two men wearing Aaliyah t-shirts. It didn’t even occur to me till much later that it was six years to yesterday that she died in a plane crash.

In six years, a lot has changed. Mothers who had infants, now have little children. Students who left behind high school, have traded school bags for cubicles. Friends became lovers, lovers are now husband and wife.

When people honor a memory, it makes the world slow down. How much has changed in your life?

(link expired)
Aaliyah- I Miss You
(From I Care 4 U)

How does your garden grow?

Art: Thaw Malin

With the daughters on our arms, into the gardens, we'll run...

- The Rosebuds

My inner Martha Stewart wanted to take up gardening. I imagined myself with a woven basket and trimming shears in hand, tending to a shrub of fragrant and beautiful peonies. Did you know these little suckers take 3 years to bloom?!? Patience, sadly, is not one of my virtues.

Green-thumb, I have not, but I can plant my own playlist.

I heard this song "Get Up, Get Out" from The Rosebuds' Night of the Furies album. It opens with an impossibly catchy rhythm, reminiscent of some 80s new years party. I should get a mirror ball, and we can all put flowers in our hair and bust a move, BYOPS style (Bring your own polyester shirt)! I think there's a good variety here. If you haven't heard Reese Witherspoon sing before, her rendition of June Carter's Wildwood Flower is sweet and demure. Liz Phair's Flower on the the other hand, is everything but--- let's just say, "Boys, if Liz takes a liking to you, it's hard not to get the hint."

(links expired)

1) The Rosebuds- Get Up, Get Out

(Buy Night of the Furies)

2) Sea Wolf- Black Dirt

(Buy Leaves in the River)

3) Radiohead- Fake Plastic Trees

(Buy The Bends)

4) Air- Cherry Blossom Girl

(Buy Talkie Walkie)

5) Ben Lee- Daisy

(Buy Something to Remember Me By)

6) Reese Witherspoon- Wildwood Flower

(Buy Walk the Line OST)

7) Liz Phair- Flower

(Buy Exile in Guyville)

Cat Power's Madison Square Garden show confirmed

Pitchfork confirms that Cat Power will open for Interpol in New York. The former label mates (Cat Power is signed to Matador, as was Interpol for their first two albums) will rock Madison Square Garden on September 14th.

I love Chan Marshall. I know she used to be depressing as all hell, infamous for incoherent sets, and bizzare stage behavior, but I loved her anyway. Everything she sings is poetry. And now she's sobered up, and better than ever.

From her interview in Spin magazine last year:

Do you have stage fright?

It makes my heart beat faster just thinking about it -- all the people and the lights. I don't appear shy, but I'm a very sensitive person.

Do you have to play live? Is that part of your contract?

No not at all. I wanted to.

You enjoy playing live? You don't always seem to enjoy it.

That's the thing about me. People think, Oh she's crazy -- she doesn't like to play. But that's not it. It's like tapping into some communal vein. There's always one person who talks to you after you go through this physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological experience. It's a dualship, a communication between the listener and me, even though you're not talking to each other or looking at each other, there's this space that starts living. This space in the universe that we all share, and it opens up, and then we forget we're in a bar. It's like looking at a painting or watching a horse run. It's that thing that keeps us liking life.

This is one of my favorite songs--

Cat Power- Werewolf (link expired)

(Buy it- You are free)

In case you were hoping for Tegan and Sara tickets...

Yeah they've sold out Webster Hall for November 19th. Check their myspace for tour dates and cross your fingers that there are still tickets available in your city. Austin, TX is on the tour by the way. You know, for you Texan Tegan and Sara fans out there.

For the disenchanted listeners who need a song for their mixed tape--

Tegan and Sara- The Con (link expired)
(Buy it- The Con)

When land meets water

Before I leave you and take my vacay in the land of free health care, Labatt beer, and ice hockey, I want to introduce you to Valerie Leulliot. She is the lead singer of the French group, Autour de Lucie, which is an amazing band in its own right. The last time I was in Canada, I bought one of their albums and listened to it all the way back across the border. I'm kinda hoping to do the same with Valerie's solo album, except, I suspect that Montreal is really the only place you can physically purchase French albums in North America, and I am going to be in British Columbia. I believe it's available on Amazon as well, but I will hit up some record stores and see what I can dig up.

Leulliot has one of the most beautiful voices I've ever heard. Whatever language you speak, her music is light, thoughtful and ingenious. When I saw the video for her single, "Mon Homme Blesse" (cracking out my high school French, I think this means, "My Wounded Man"), it just completely swept me away. This is art-- it is as if she is saying, if there were no men and women, land and water would still exist. The sea ebbs and resists, but flows inward to the earth. Who is man? Who is woman? It is all magical.



At least, that was my interpretation. I will be back next Tuesday. Until then, enjoy.

Valerie Leulliot- Mon Homme Blesse (link expired)

(Buy the album: Caldeira)

Southern Comfort

Life's not fair sometimes, but we gotta deal with the pain

Her voice has got me shaking in my bones

Tell 'em honey, tell 'em how love is like a ball and chain.

Janis Joplin- Ball and Chain (live) (link expired)

(Buy greatest hits album here)

"Fat, ugly, and shittier than Winehouse."

This week's New York magazine did a bio on Lily Allen on the aftermath of the the myspace blog where she called herself "fat, ugly, and shittier than Winehouse." Apparently, her album, Alright, Still which blew up in England isn't doing as well in the States, whereas Amy Winehouse's Back to Black is blossoming. Lily Allen haters called her blog post a cry for attention, and a publicity stunt for her clothing line, Lily Loves, for women sizes 6-16 (the website for the clothing line is currently unavailable).

Maybe the girl really does feel fat, ugly, and shittier than Winehouse. If my album was taking a nosedive, and the media was constantly debating my weight, and my skinnier, but equally alcoholic peer was rocketing to stardom, I'd feel pretty shitty too.

However, she's famous for not being too tough on herself for too long. Since that post, she's relocated to New York to work on her second album but admits that so far she's only gotten around to "making youtube videos for other people's songs," On the upside, she's "still eating like a fucking pig." Her words, not mine.

There's the Lily we know and love :)

Lily Allen- Everything's Just Wonderful (link expired)
(Buy the Album: Alright, Still)

Photo credit: Cass Bird for New York Magazine

C'est un jour d'eté...

I am a writer
I am a dreamer
I am lovely
I am brilliant
I am a force
I am mine
I am yours
We are here
mais... Je suis...

Another random find, and I am so glad I found this. Amel Bent is a French singer who rose to fame on "Nouvelle Star" a French version of American Idol. This is a song from her first album, Un Jour D'Eté (A summer day). Her second album, 20 Years, was released on June 18th. She has a beautiful voice that makes me dream about wandering the streets of Paris, madly in love with a Parisian, smiling awake with coffee and lavender, deliriously happy, French rolling off my tongue because that's what happens when you're in love: Naturallement, tu parle francais.

I will be away again this weekend so no posts till Monday.