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Author |
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Friday music blogging: The Avett Brothers
Front-porch singin' for a high country weekend |
David Roberts |
25 Jan 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Last week I mentioned Southern rock as one of the things I'd spurned in my youthful rejection of my native culture, only to rediscover and appreciate it as an adult. A similarly inclined reader wrote in to recommend the Avett Brothers, a band out of North Carolina (not rock, per se, but quite Southern in a folky bluegrassy poppy way). As it happened, I'd just gotten ... |
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| Topics: music (all these topics) |
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Friday music blogging: Ha Ha Tonka
Southern rawk that's not Free Bird |
David Roberts |
18 Jan 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Growing up in the South, I was pretty keen to reject everything connected to the culture, which I viewed -- even before I'd seen any alternatives -- as closed-minded and mean. Sadly, a lot of babies got tossed out with the bathwater (oh, the posts I could write). Among them, southern rock music of the Allman/Skynyrd vintage. Lately, though, I' ... |
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| Topics: music (all these topics) |
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Friday music blogging: Brother Ali
Righteous hip-hop for the weekend |
David Roberts |
11 Jan 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Finally, a little hip-hop for FMB. Brother Ali -- your standard albino Muslim rapper out of Minneapolis -- made some waves in the underground hip-hop world with his debut album Rites of Passage, and then blew up pretty big with 2003's Shadows on the Sun. Then four years passed, during which Ali ran into label troubles, a nasty divorce, and even a period of homelessn ... |
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| Topics: music (all these topics) |
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On the road again?
Radiohead's Thom Yorke on carbon-heavy touring |
Sarah van Schagen |
09 Jan 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Wired this month features an interesting conversation between Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke and musician David Byrne. In it, Yorke, a longtime vegan whose 2006 solo effort focused on global warming, mentions his carbon-related guilt about touring. Here's the relevant clip: Yorke: ... [At] the moment we make money principally from touring. Which is hard for me to reconcile because I don't like all the energy consumption, the travel. It's an ecological disaster, t ... |
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| Topics: celebrity, climate, energy, green living, music (all these topics) |
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Friday music blogging: Albums of the year
The definitive list, if you're me |
David Roberts |
05 Jan 2008 |
Gristmill |
| For no particular reason and in no particular order (save maybe the top two), I give you my sentimental favorites of 2007: Band of Horses: Cease to Begin (FMB) Josh Ritter: The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter (FMB) Okkervil River: The Stage Names (FMB) Wilco: Sky Blue Sky (FMB) Cloud Cult: The Meaning of 8 (FMB) Amy Winehouse: Back to Black (FMB) Rilo Kiley: Under the Blacklight (FMB) Ryan Adams: Easy Tiger (FMB) Gonzales: Solo Piano ( ... |
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| Topics: music, lists (all these topics) |
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The Midem Touch
Live Earth will be honored with music industry green award |
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03 Jan 2008 |
News |
| Posted at 3:46 PM on 03 Jan 2008 Midem, an annual international trade show for the music industry, has created a new green award that it will bestow upon Live Earth later this month in Cannes, France -- because Al Gore can never have too many awards. Also honored will be Denmark's Roskilde Festival, which serves all drinks in returnable plastic mugs, and Switzerland's Paléo Festival Nyon, which is powered entirely by win ... |
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| Topics: green living, music, news (all these topics) |
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2007 enviro song of the year
'Church', from Songs of Shiloh, shows some love for the planet |
Kit Stolz |
02 Jan 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Often our culture equates caring about the planet with envisioning what could go wrong. (Think of dire visions of societal breakdown, disaster, and ruin -- Cormac McCarthy's The Road, for example.) The Road is a powerful novel, but one can express love for our planet and our land in ways other than fear of a horrific outcome. (Imagine if the only way we could appreciate a loved one was to imagine his or her annihilation.) Music especially has this ability to express lov ... |
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| Topics: music (all these topics) |
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Rockin' in a green world
Top green music stories of 2007 |
Sarah van Schagen |
20 Dec 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Here are the Official Top Green Music Stories of 2007, listed in very particular order and determined via a very scientific process (a combination of my memory and Grist's archives): 5. Sheryl Crow proposes a one-square limit on toilet-paper use; TP-users fail to get joke. 4. Oscar awarded to Inconvenient Truth's eco-song. 3. Industry-wide search for eco-song-that-doesn't-suck continues. 2. Summer music festivals go for green, while festival-goers smoke ... |
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| Topics: green living, music (all these topics) |
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Friday music blogging: Wussy
Twangy drone rock |
David Roberts |
14 Dec 2007 |
Gristmill |
| I only heard about this band, Wussy, a few weeks ago, but I'm enjoying the hell out of them. It's a nice mix of alt country twang and fuzzy, Sonic Youthy drone rock. The song is called 'Jonah' and the album's called Left for Dead, but, er, looking now I see it doesn't actually come out until Jan. 8. So consider this a preview, and tide yourself over with their first alb ... |
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| Topics: music (all these topics) |
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Friday music blogging: Bruce Springsteen
Start your weekend with The Boss |
David Roberts |
08 Dec 2007 |
Gristmill |
| People in my, ahem, age cohort were first exposed to Bruce Springsteen via his 1984 album Born in the USA, which came out when I was 12. As a result, for most of my formative years I thought of Springsteen as a bland "adult contemporary" VH1 rocker along the lines of, I don't know, Tom Cochrane (whose little ditty "L ... |
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| Topics: music (all these topics) |
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Where the Streets Have No Name -- But the Skyscrapers Do
Environmentalists upset over Dublin's planned U2 Tower |
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05 Dec 2007 |
News |
| Posted at 10:14 AM on 05 Dec 2007 Bono and his fellow U2-ers are stuck in a melee (and they can't get out of it) over a plan to construct a skyscraper in band members' native Dublin. The tower, monikered U2 Tower in the name of self-love, would be the highest building in Ireland. Ian Lumley of heritage group An Taisce says the building is not the sweetest thing -- it would "be an ... |
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| Topics: celebrity, green living, Ireland, music, news, placemaking, urban planning (all these topics) |
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Friday music blogging: Alice Smith
R&B to prepare for Bali |
David Roberts |
30 Nov 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Alice Smith is a gorgeous new singer out of Brooklyn, doing a variant of R&B that somehow manages to sound both idiosyncratic and traditionalist, modern and timeless. Her debut album has been re-released this year to capitalize on the growing buzz. The debut, For Lovers, Dreamers and Me, mixes R&B, rock, jazz, and pop, with the focus on songs rather than beats. ... |
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| Topics: music (all these topics) |
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A Plan With Garrett
Midnight Oil frontman is Australia's new environment minister |
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29 Nov 2007 |
News |
| Posted at 11:26 AM on 29 Nov 2007 Peter Garrett, former singer for rock band Midnight Oil, has been appointed the environment minister in Australia's new regime. Garrett, who has been a member of the Australian Parliament since 2004, will be a duet with new Minister for Climate Change and Water Penny Wong. sources: Associated Press, Agence France-Presse From the Archives Another Headache. ... |
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| Topics: Australia, climate, elections, international politics, music, news, politics (all these topics) |
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Friday music blogging: The Go! Team
Polyglot funk-rap-noise for an urban weekend |
David Roberts |
09 Nov 2007 |
Gristmill |
| 2005's debut album from The Go! Team -- Thunder, Lighting, Strike -- was a revelation. It sounded like nothing else on the planet. Reviewers fumbled for descriptions: late-'70s-cop-show-theme-song funk meets late-'80s girl rap meets sample-heavy electronica meets low-fi DIY garage production. Imagine walking down an urban street, with different music jammin ... |
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| Topics: music (all these topics) |
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Friday music blogging: Against Me!
This weekend, rage against war, futiley |
David Roberts |
03 Nov 2007 |
Gristmill |
| A long day of speeches, hearings, and post-hearing drinking has left me exhausted, but never fear, Friday Music Blogging fan(s), I won't let you down. This band, Against Me!, is huge in the punk/emo/whatever scene. Normally I stay far away from that particular genre, but there are rare occasions (see: Fugazi) when a band in that neighborhood tickles an itch. I've gr ... |
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| Topics: music (all these topics) |
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Friday music blogging: Ryan Adams
Have an alt country weekend |
David Roberts |
27 Oct 2007 |
Gristmill |
| I wasn't much into the alt country thing until I met my wife. I'm still not the huge fan she is, but I've found a lot of stuff in the vicinity I enjoy. By far the biggest discovery for me was Whiskeytown, which made some flawless, classic albums back in the '90s. (Get Faithless Street and Strangers Almanac, you won't be sorry.) After he went solo, Whiskeytown singer/songwriter R ... |
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| Topics: music (all these topics) |
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Friday music blogging: The Budos Band
Some sticky old-fashioned funk for your weekend |
David Roberts |
19 Oct 2007 |
Gristmill |
| I know next to nothing about The Budos Band, and don't really want to. I enjoy that they're somewhat mysterious, as though they sprung through a spacetime warp direct from the 1970s, untainted by the 21st century. Their albums are The Budos Band I and The Budos Band II. This song is from the latter, which came out in August. It is called "Ride or Die." If Gristmi ... |
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| Topics: music (all these topics) |
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Friday music blogging: Vampire Weekend
OK, so it's Saturday now -- still time for a tune about punctuation |
David Roberts |
13 Oct 2007 |
Gristmill |
| The music blogs are all abuzz about a new band called Vampire Weekend, based on a three-song EP (the full album comes out in Jan. '08). I don't think you can get the EP at stores, but you can stream the songs on their website. I like it pretty well. It's squaresville for sure -- four lily-white Columbia grads making nerd pop that sounds like Graceland meets Little Creatures ... |
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| Topics: music (all these topics) |
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Franti Up
Reggae artist Michael Franti lets loose on inspiring social change |
Sarah van Schagen |
12 Oct 2007 |
Grist Feature |
| Michael Franti. Photo: anti.com/Megan Gentile "Everyone deserves music, sweet music," Michael Franti sings in the title track from a 2003 album. The man behind Michael Franti & Spearhead -- a band that blends hip-hop with jazz, folk, and funk music -- also believes that everyone deserves health care, social justice, and a sustainable planet. And he makes sure you know it -- ... |
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| Topics: green living, music, recycling (all these topics) |
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Nuke it out
Musicians put together anti-nuke video, petition |
Sarah van Schagen |
11 Oct 2007 |
Gristmill |
| In an effort to excise a nuclear-power provision from the Senate's energy bill, a group of musicians including Bonnie Raitt and Ben Harper has put together a short video and petition. Check it out: Also, it looks like Raitt and some of the other anti-nuke campaigners will be attending the Boxer event tonight. I wonder if they'll be talking nukes. |
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| Topics: celebrity, energy, music, nuclear power, politics (all these topics) |
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Somebody up there loves me
Rocky rocks against coal |
David Roberts |
08 Oct 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Consider the following: Rocky Anderson, maverick mayor of Salt Lake City, is awesome. The Beatles are awesome. Coal is the enemy of the human race. Consider, further, whether this might be the greatest story you've ever read in your entire life. |
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| Topics: coal, energy, music, Utah (all these topics) |
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Friday music blogging: Josh Ritter
A perfectly wrought love song for an Autumn weekend |
David Roberts |
05 Oct 2007 |
Gristmill |
| It's been a great year for music. In addition to fantastic new albums from Cloud Cult, Modest Mouse, Okkervil River, and Band of Horses, there's the latest from everyone's favorite "new Dylan," Josh Ritter. Ritter's talent for marrying hooky melodies with knotty, literate lyrics has won him some passionate fans -- more than one Gristie is nursing a crush (or ma ... |
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| Topics: music (all these topics) |
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Friday music blogging: Band of Horses
A new track from the presumptive album of the year |
David Roberts |
28 Sep 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Listen Play "Is There a Ghost," by Band of Horses: I'm not sure I've ever witnessed an album embraced so unreservedly and immediately by so many indie fans as Everything All the Time, the 2006 Sub Pop debut from Band of Horses. Three of the founding members -- Ben Bridwell, Matt Brooke, and Creighton Barrett -- were in the "quiet core" band Carissa's Wierd, but nothing about that whispery, mildly div ... |
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| Topics: music (all these topics) |
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Friday night sights
Tune in to the Live Earth Concert Special tonight |
Sarah van Schagen |
28 Sep 2007 |
Gristmill |
| A CliffsNotes version of the summer's 24-hour eco-music event will air tonight on MyNetworkTV. The two-hour "Live Earth -- The Concert Special" promises clips of the hottest performances from the seven-continent concert for a climate in crisis -- as well as tips for making eco-changes in your daily life. Check MyNetworkTV for local airtimes and channels. |
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| Topics: music, TV, climate (all these topics) |
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Friday music blogging: John Vanderslice
A sad, paranoid tune to haunt you over the weekend |
David Roberts |
21 Sep 2007 |
Gristmill |
| John Vanderslice is a Bay Area singer-songwriter, once with the band mk Ultra but now a solo artist. He also occasionally helps produce albums in the much-acclaimed recording studio he founded, Tiny Telephone. The studio uses only analog instruments and recording, but Vanderslice dirties the sound up with tons of distortion and effects. He calls it "dirty hi-f ... |
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| Topics: music (all these topics) |
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