If you’re a fan of Ray LaMontagne, you’ll be happy to hear he has announced fall dates, along with an environmentally friendly campaign. He will be backed by an orchestra for two shows in Maryland and then continue on to perform nine intimate acoustic shows across the states. I was lucky enough to catch him recently in Los Angeles where he performed with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. I’ve seen him in concert several times, but hearing his husky, impassioned, voice over a symphony orchestra was even more satisfying then I’d imagined.
The singer-songwriter has hooked up with Trees for the Future, a global program that empowers rural groups in developing countries to restore tree cover. And for every pre-sale ticket sold for LaMontagne’s upcoming fall tour, they will plant a tree. Fans will also soon have the chance to vote for where they would like said trees to be planted. You can find out more about Trees for the Future here.
Do you think more musicians should follow his example? And where would you like to see the Ray LaMontagne Forest?
A new video directed by Heath Ledger has been released by Modest Mouse. The animated clip is for the song “King Rat” and shows humans being hunted and killed at sea by whales, reflecting the late actor’s opposition to the commercial whale hunting which takes place off the coast of his native Australia.
Ledger approached Modest Mouse singer Isaac Brock with the idea for the video in January 2007. According to a press release issued by Modest Mouse, “The video was fully conceived down to the last detail but unfinished when Heath passed away in January 2008. In the interest of fully realizing Heath’s final work as a visual artist, THE MASSES (a film and music company which Heath was partner in) finished the video in his honor, with the support and advocacy of Isaac Brock.” The clip will be available for download on iTunes from August 7th.
In my opinion, the result is a weird, well crafted, and compelling piece of polemic reminiscent of the animated work of Ledger’s friend and two-time director Terry Gilliam. Do you agree? And do you think it is appropriate for the video to have been finished after Ledger’s tragic death?
It is indeed a lovely, bucolic hiking spot in Oregon, but we speak to you today of another kind of lovely, bucolic Oregonia: Indie-pop outfit Ramona Falls, the much-buzzed Portland band sprung from one third of Menomena.
If you like the sort of lush, yearning rock their label Barsuk is known for — namely, Nada Surf, the Long Winters, and, of course, longtime flagshippers Death Cab for Cutie — Ramona is very likely right up your starry-eyed alley.
Listen to the exclusive stream of “Meletric” below, and tell us if you’re feeling suitably melectrified — and intrigued enough to pick up Ramona’s debut, Intuit, when it comes out August 18, and perhaps catch them on their upcoming U.S. tour:
The email from the clip’s publicist is claiming it to be “the first-ever rap literal video,” and while we can’t prove (or disprove) that statement, we can say this is definitive proof that, try as one may, it is very very hard to sing as poorly as Biz Markie:
What do you think, Mixers? Does this one work? Or is there something far too literal about Biz’s video in the first place?
Yesterday, Coldplay mesmerized at the closing night of this year’s very wet and muddy music fest, All Points West, held in Jersey City, NJ. Though there were many other fine performances, including sets by The Black Keys, Lykke Li, and We Are Scientists, none compared to the show put on by the Brit quartet.
During “Yellow,” hundreds of balloons were released into the sky and singer Chris Martin sang “Lovers in Japan” while swinging a Japanese paper umbrella around as colorful confetti poured on fans. The vocalist paid homage to the Beastie Boys (who pulled out from the festival after Adam Yauch was diagnosed with cancer) by performing “Fight For Your Right (To Party),” just as Jay-Z had tributed the trio on Friday with “No Sleep Till’ Brooklyn.” Coldplay also tipped their hat to the late Michael Jackson with an acoustic version of “Billie Jean.”
But it was one of the band’s closing songs, “The Scientist,” that seemed to move the mud-soaked audience the most. With Martin crooning into the mic with his signature falsetto, his fingers like gentle hammers on the keyboard, the heartfelt performance should live long in the audience’s collective memory. Which is a good thing. “You probably won’t see us again for a while,” Martin said, before leaving the stage.
How’s this for a birthday celebration on a summer’s eve? This past Saturday, indie-rock stalwart Dean Wareham popped the cork on his 46th in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park with wife Britta Phillips — as well as Lou Reed, Dennis Hopper, Nico, and Edie Sedgwick. In truth, Lou & Co. appeared in celluloid form, projected on a screen while Dean & Britta performed their songs for the multimedia project 13 Most Beautiful…Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests.
A brainchild of the Andy Warhol Museum and the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, 13 Most Beautiful (available as a DVD) gathers a baker’s dozen among some 500 black-and-white films shot by Warhol between 1964 and 1966. For his subjects, the Pop-art maestro recruited both luminaries (Susan Sontag, Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg) and unknowns from his Factory acolytes and hangers-on, asking them to sit still and unblinking in front of a tripod-mounted camera for as long as possible. Warhol went on to screen some of the four-minute films as part of his groundbreaking multimedia performance tour de force The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, accompanied by music from the Velvet Underground and Nico. Fittingly, the Warhol Museum invoked the Inevitable by commissioning Wareham and Phillips, veterans of the VU-influenced Luna and seasoned soundtrack composers to boot (The Squid and the Whale), to score the hour-long film compilation.
Equally fitting, the evening in Prospect Park kicked off with Brooklyn’s own torch-bearers of throwback psychedelia, Crystal Stilts. Fronted by Brad Hargett — whose vocals recalled Morrissey as his shades and mop of curls all but screamed “young Lou Reed” — the quintet barreled through a pummeling (if sometimes ragged) set of surf-guitar-powered garage punk, goosed by feverish keyboard riffs. The Stilts may not have roused the Prospect Park crowd, perhaps becalmed by the midsummer swelter, but their retro-tinged stylings served as an apt warm-up for Dean and Britta’s evocation of Andy Warhol’s 1960s.
In contrast to Crystal Stilts’ bare-bones ferocity, Dean and Britta launched their set and the film series in understated fashion with the “Richard Rheem Theme,” a discofied electro composition as sleek as the coolly handsome Rheem, a wealthy Warhol hanger-on, himself. Things moved into high gear, however, with “Teenage Lightning (and Lonely Highways,” D&B’s jangly guitar-pop evocation of the equally handsome Paul Johnson, a speed-freak hustler and sometime Edie Sedgwick BF who practically commanded the camera with scowling bravado. (It bears mentioning that Johnson, who was struck by a car in 1982, was one of four screen testees in 13 Most Beautiful who came to an untimely end.) As for the Factory Girl herself, her slightly stunned onscreen affect (she was recuperating from a car crash at the time) juxtaposed hauntingly with the swooshing synthesizer flourishes of “It Don’t Rain in Beverly Hills.” Equally arresting: a tweedy pre-Easy Rider Dennis Hopper, nodding and laughing over a blues-rock instrumental; and future cult-film queen Mary Woronov, as severely beautiful as Rock ‘n’ Roll High School‘s Miss Togar yet with a glint of wry amusement.
Notwithstanding Dean and Britta’s precisely tailored compositions, their most memorable musical selections were two covers: For Nico, Britta’s folk-rock rendering of Dylan’s “I’ll Keep It With Mine” offered a honeyed counterpoint to the German chanteuse’s almost-robotic version (not to mention Nico’s fidgety, restless screen presence). And as Lou Reed in sunglasses nonchalantly chugged a Coke on screen, Dean shed his vocal reserve to growl out the great, obscure VU raver “I’m Not a Young Man Anymore.”
After that live-wire moment came a capper of devil-may-care insouciance – a radiant Baby Jane Holzer brushing her teeth and smiling, to the strains of “Knives From Bavaria,” Dean and Britta’s drolly whimsical song of romantic obsession from 2003′s L’Avventura. To wrap up and send parkgoers into the humid night, Dean reached back even further into his musical catalog – to the rousing Galaxie 500 chestnut “Fourth of July.” A month late, perhaps, but it worked.
So, Music Mix-ers, who among you trekked to Prospect Park this weekend? And what did you think of 13 Most Beautiful: a poignant if slightly faded curio from a bygone era of glamorous excess, or a salient harbinger of today’s metastasizing celebrity culture from an artist ahead of his time? Should the Warhol Museum pull out the Dylan and Sontag screen tests and enlist Dean and Britta to pen a new soundtrack? And just to go out on a limb here, do Dean and Britta rate inclusion in an EW.com gallery of the Hottest Duos in Rock?
Rolling Stoneis reporting that Woodstock promoter Michael Lang has abandoned his plans to hold a concert that would have marked the 40th anniversary of the peace-and-love festival. Lang had hoped to stage an event in September to coincide with Climate Week, but a lack of sponsors has caused him to cancel the show.
While it’s a shame that Lang’s plans have gone up in smoke there are no shortage of ways that you can mark the festival’s 40th anniversary. Ang Lee will release his new, Demetri Martin-starring, movie Taking Woodstock on August 28 and there are a plethora of commemorative music releases, including a six-CD Woodstock: 40 Years On box set that will be reviewed in the next issue of EW. Or you can just check out the footage of a fantastically-sideburned Joe Cocker totally losing control of his arms while performing “With A Little Help From My Friends” at the original event below.
So, Music Mixers, are you bummed that there will be no Woodstock 2009? Were any of you at the first Woodstock or its pair of sequels? And how have you been enjoying this year’s festival season?
It’s been three-plus years since the release of his breakthrough, Youth, and yet Matisyahu (birthname: Matthew Paul Miller) remains the world’s premiere Hasidic-Jewish reggae/dub crossover star (albeit one in a considerably limited field).
Now, with a new studio full-length, Light, due August 25, and an anthemic single, “One Day,” already burning up iTunes, the 30-year-old Brooklyn resident is dropping a exclusive track on the Music Mix; check the spare, “Escape” below:
And a special bonus! A video exclusive, featuring a greeting for EW readers and some unexpected (SWF, we promise) Matis-nudity:
Tell us what you think, readers. Will you be heading towards the Light come August?
2009 is a big year for historic music festival anniversaries. There’s Woodstock, of course, coming up on the big 4-0 this summer. The Essence Music Festival celebrated its 15th year a few weeks back. And then there’s the Newport Folk Festival, which first gathered the finest talents from the booming folk music scene in a Rhode Island park back in 1959. Popular consciousness of the festival’s history often begins and ends with Bob Dylan’s controversial electric set in 1965, but that’s far from the only memorable moment Newport has witnessed through the decades.
The line-up for Folk Festival 50, which is taking place in Newport this weekend, is pretty amazing even aside from the anniversary angle. You’ve got everyone from 90-year-old Pete Seeger, who helped organize the original festival in ’59, to seasoned veterans like Joan Baez and Arlo Guthrie, all rubbing shoulders with hip young folkies like Fleet Foxes and Iron & Wine. I wish I could be there, but I can’t — so I’ve consoled myself by putting together a playlist featuring the best artists who’ll be performing tonight and tomorrow. Hear the first song below, then click through to the jump for the rest.
Are any of you lucky enough to be heading to Newport this year? Who are you most looking forward to seeing? Let us know in the comments!
Joan Baez, “Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word” Dylan famously penned this song while he and Baez were dating, then never got around to releasing it himself. Fair enough: Great though he is, there’s no way Bob (or anyone else) could have imbued his own words with the emotional nuance that Baez delivers here.
If you’re a fan of Ray LaMontagne, you’ll be happy to hear he has announced fall dates, along with an environmentally friendly campaign. He will be backed by an orchestra for two shows in Maryland and then continue on to perform nine intimate acoustic shows across the states. I was lucky enough to catch him recently in Los Angeles where he performed with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. I’ve seen him in concert several times, but hearing his husky, impassioned, voice over a symphony orchestra was even more satisfying then I’d imagined.
A 
It is indeed a lovely, bucolic 
Yesterday, Coldplay mesmerized at the closing night of this year’s very wet and muddy music fest, All Points West, held in Jersey City, NJ. Though there were many other fine performances, including sets by The Black Keys, Lykke Li, and We Are Scientists, none compared to the show put on by the Brit quartet.
It’s been three-plus years since the release of his breakthrough, 
