A Moment Of Noise

Let’s all raise a simultini in his honor…

Earlier this month, R.E.M. did a series of ‘live rehearsals’ in Dublin to work out new material before a live audience before going into the studio to record their new album. (Current JoeRockhead faves Viarosa even opened one night!) MOJO Magazine was there, and reports:

MOJO heard at least five bona fide future classics. The churning psych-rock of Mr Richards (“Pay attention! Pay attention!” keened Stipe) stood out. Disguised had to be started twice on the Wednesday – Mills and Buck appeared to disagree as to whose fault it was – before revealing itself as a marvellously melodic glam rock animal. Until The Day Is Done takes a folk turn into Automatic For The People territory, and Horse To Water may be the band‘s most intense assault since Monster’s Circus Envy. MOJO’s spies were at loggerheads over On The Fly – what a Wednesday viewer thought brooding and magnificent in a Country Feedback vein was described on the strength of Thursday’s performance as tedious and overlong, with even Buck losing interest towards the end.

Other new songs included Living Well, Middle Distance, Houston, Man Sized Wreath (about “Lillian Hellman giving Dashiell Hammett a blowjob with a mouthful of snow”, apparently) and Accelerate.

The so-called “olive branch” to an audience otherwise treated as (albeit very willing) guinea pigs was the slew of fanbait songs from the back catalogue. Wednesday night saw particularly fine versions of Harbourcoat, Second Guessing, These Days, 1,000,000, Wolves, Lower and West Of The Fields, and the sense that this was R.E.M. putting the lacklustre Around The Sun behind them and reconnecting with what has made them great was palpable.

I’ve been waiting for years for the guys to make another proper guitar rock record — looks like that time may finally be here soon!

[ via PaisleyPop ]

Once upon a time, before Anton Newcomb devolved into a drug addled
caricature of himself, The Brian Jonestown Massacre was a really, really
great band. While Newcomb may have been the brains of the outfit, I have
always maintained that it was blissed-out tambourine man Joel Gion who
was the heart and soul of BJM. 101 Tambourines is the debut of Gion’s
new band, The Dilettantes, and it is hands down my favorite record so far
this year. A joyously thumpy slab of psychedelic San Francisco garage rock,
mixing the gritty swagger of The Velvet Underground with the occasional
dab of Green Pajamas jangle. Oh, and lots of tambourine, of course.
101 Tambourines is out this week, and we’ve got it on sale now for the low,
low price of $10.98. CLICK HERE to check out your new favorite band!

Whoa — three YouTube posts in a row… guess we gotta work on that.

Anyway, here’s the video for Rilo Kiley’s new single, “The Moneymaker.” Let’s hope the rest of the album is better than this, because from the looks of things, I fear that one of my favorite bands has just been major-labelized beyond all recognition. If I heard this song and didn’t know it was Rilo Kiley, I’d probably just assume it was Christina Aguilera doing a bad cover of “Jukebox Hero.” Why do major labels always feel the need to sign cool bands and then strip them of every ounce of character, wit and personality? Why do bands (almost) always feel the need to go along with it? Oh well, at least the video has lots of booty shaking going on…

[ via BoingBoing ]

Corndogorama moves to Lenny’s Bar this year. Will more space = more fun? I’m thinkin’ so. Lots of Rockhead faves are on the bill, including Luigi, Magnapop, The Orphins, Jupiter Watts, Snowden, Hubcap City, Blake Rainey & His Demons, and many others. Plus — there’s a corndog eating contest at 4:30 on Saturday! See ya there!

Required Reading: A lengthy history of The Simpsons from Vanity Fair.

For all the press covering the Live Earth concerts this past weekend, a bizarre order was issued to those wishing to interview Madonna: maintain eye contact at all times! Kinda hard to do with those scary freakish arms of hers…

[ via HuffPo ]

On his way to play the Live Earth gig at Wimbledon this past weekend, Metallica’s James Hetfield was detained by airport security due to the suspicious nature of his “Taleban-like beard.”