Homer, everyday since birth

Impressive or not?

Japanese TV never fails to entertain

Redo the NBC Chimes

Interesting article here about bands redoing the NBC "G-E-C" chimes: (video to accompany)

"I don't imagine we'd be a very good candidate for the early morning show," Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne tells EW.com's Hollywood Insider blog of his band's chances of landing the a.m. slot with their recently filmed spin on the NBC network's memorable series of three chimes.

The Lips-- along with T.I., the B-52s, B.B. King, and others-- made their way to Los Angeles last week to record an eight-second spot for the network's rejuvenation of the 75-year-old ditty, according to Hollywood Insider. The spots will begin airing between programs around Thanksgiving.

In a must-see video clip accompanying the story, Coyne shows the EW.com crew his amazing-looking, double-necked, "Guitar Hero"-fashioned hybrid axe and reminds them that "the notes [in the NBC theme] are set in stone, as handed down from the Biblical creator, whoever it was who made those notes, the cosmic player." Weird, but I still say "Knight Rider" is weirder.

Take Away Show Friday - Four of my favorites

I didn't have time this week to search out new shows so I'm posting four of my all-time favorites:

(the one that kicked it all off here on DJ and my personal favorite)
One of my all-time favorite videos:


("hey ya" cover meets take away show...destiny)

New Brett Dennen

Brett Dennen works in a shoe store:

Wrestling Gimmicks...the worst of the worst

13 Worst Wrestling Gimmicks...ever. (Koko B. Ware, I remember him...ridiculous)

Off his rocker

http://view.break.com/584896 - Watch more free videos

Ref's Take the Cake

I mean, wow, he clearly follows him and takes him out.

Seriously, wow.

Ball, Face, Sand

Adele - who knew?

It's rare that I hear an artist for the first time on SNL and really like them. Usually, if I haven't heard the musical guest, it's because I've purposely avoided them. I had never heard of Adele before Saturday, and I am very impressed with her. She's got a strong, soulful voice. Here's the video for her single "Chasing Pavement".

And here's a clip from her album, "19". It's a little different from the other songs on her album, but I'm a sucker for the bassline.

When Acting and Music Come Together for Brilliance

GI Joe Go, He-Man No Go

Latest news in cartoons come to the big screen.

Take Away Show Friday - Port O'Brien "I Woke Up Today"

PORT O'BRIEN #1 I Woke Up Today
Uploaded by lablogotheque

Take Away Show Friday - Port O'Brien "Don't Take My Advice"

PORT O'BRIEN #2 Don't Take My Advice
Uploaded by lablogotheque

Tony Danza Loves News Shows

Wow:

Update - Ray Lamontagne album "Gossip in the Grains"

Since posting the review of his latest album I had a chance to listen to it and I am very impressed. Never before has he combined so many great and different sounds on an album without straying away from who he is. "You Are the Best Thing" is his upbeat soulful sound, "Let It Be Me" is his classic lonesome song, "Sarah" is a great change of pace but sticks with his somehow upbeat relaxed style and also features a mandolin so I love that. "He Me, Hey Mama" features the banjo and a southern blues sound that he's never done before. "Henry Nearly Killed Me" is an upbeat bluesy song that comes across very well for being different from his norm. Finally I wanted to highlight two bonus tracks on iTunes in "Empty" and "Be Here Now" both live recordings and both great. Those are two of my favorite songs of his and I'm glad they including them on some album. "Empty" has this sounds that puts me in this great longing mood every time I hear it...so good.

Do yourself a favor and go to iTunes and take a listen. You might just be buying his album after you do. I did.

Andrew Bird New Songs

Andrew Bird Previews 3 new songs and 1 redone song in NYC. Bonus: they are all videos. From what I hear, I like, especially Fitz and the Dizzyspells.

Fitz and Dizzyspells


Masterswarm


Natural Disaster


The Confession

Album Review - Ray LaMontagne "Gossip in the Grain"

One of my personal favorites just released his third album "Gossip in the Grain". I have no opinions of it yet as I haven't heard it so I'll leave Allmusic to do my bidding. Anyone have any thoughts on the album?

Ray LaMontagne's third album, Gossip in the Grain is as different from 2007's Till the Sun Turns Black as that album was from 2006's Trouble. The deep, heart-of-night atmospherics of the preceding disc have been jettisoned in favor of a brightly lit palette of textures and instruments that legendary producer and multi-instrumentalist Ethan Johns uses to illustrate LaMontagne's considerable ambitions as a writer. The set opens with the singer channeling his inner Memphis soul man on "You Are the Best Thing." Horns, strings, and a female backing chorus underscore LaMontagne's heartfelt uptempo rasp that touches on Sam Cooke as much as it does Tim Buckley with a hook worthy of Stax/Volt. In terms of sequencing, it certainly grabs the listener, but it is also arguably the best track here. "Let It Be Me" follows with a folksier, looser soul groove, where acoustic guitars, a Telecaster, piano, and strings underscore the hypnotic lilt in the verse. But LaMontagne can write a coda and a bridge and he gets his voice right into the meat of the lyric. We may have heard lyrics of this type a thousand times before, as they evoke loneliness and longing, but rarely have they been expressed this authentically and this dramatically. Echoes of Van Morrison's Astral Weeks are apparent in the gorgeous chamber jazz of "Sarah," and eerie, psychedelic British Isles folk — complete with an otherworldly pedal steel — haunts the grooves on "I Still Care for You." LaMontagne and Johns are able to create varying yet webbed atmospheres in these songs. Ray can find a style and write in it as if he'd created it. Johns adds so much depth and dimension in the mix that it feels as if both singer and songwriter will never be able to extricate themselves either from the emotional intentions expressed in his lyrics, or from the sound itself. The most notorious track on this set is the humorous yet tender "Meg White," for the White Stripes' drummer. With its imaginative use of an Ennio Morricone-esque spaghetti western intro, Johns playing Wurlitzer and Mellotron, a Pink Floyd cadenza, and drumming of the sort White trademarked, it's no throwaway; add to this a seemingly sincere offer of friendship and empathy and there is an undeniable emotional appeal. "Hey Me, Hey Mama," has a back porch singalong feel, and features a banjo, trombone, and trumpet. The rambling free-form blues of "Henry Nearly Killed Me, (It's a Shame)" touches on Canned Heat, John Lee Hooker, and the Rolling Stones; it's another high point here.

Gossip in the Grain is LaMontagne's most adventurous recording, yet in many ways it's also the most focused and well executed. The partnership with Johns has become almost symbiotic at this point; his songwriting has become so confident, sure, and expressive — despite the ready intimacy in its subject matter — that he's become a kind of force majeure. One thing is certain, that given the consistency and vision LaMontagne has shown on all three albums, punters are certain to follow him wherever he goes next.

Alligator vs. Python

I know this is two years old but I didn't see it the first time so it's new to me and it's a pretty sweet picture.

In the News

In the News Today:

Irony

Getting into the role with assassins.

I Will Never Take This Camping

Saw this over at the Onion store:


Also good:

Avett Brothers "Murder in the City" Video

Official Avett Brothers "Murder in the City" Video. Officially one of the best songs I've heard in my life as well:



And for more Avett from the very place we saw them last year at the Attucks Theater in Norfolk:


(thanks for these Jason...and happy birthday)

Album Review - Keane "Perfect Symmetry"

I've heard that the new Keane album detracts from their previous very good album "Hopes and Fears". The first line of Allmusic's review captures that very well. I haven't heard the album yet but have heard a few songs and I'm not as thrilled as with "Hopes and Fears", but there is hope for it.

Keane bids adieu to uplifting ballads and ushers in a different style — '80s-influenced pop — with Perfect Symmetry. While the album isn't solely devoted to exploring that new genre, it's certainly the focus, and "Spiralling" appropriately kickstarts the set with whooping vocals and retro synthesizers. "When we fall in love," sings Tom Chaplin in his Wembley-geared voice, "we're just falling in love with ourselves." Coming from the same mouth that once crooned the over-earnest strains of "Somewhere Only We Know," those lyrics are wholly different — a sign that four years spent in the shadow of U2, Coldplay, and other like-minded bands have convinced Keane to make their own Achtung Baby. Of course, that album saw U2 turning sonic experimentation into something entirely inventive, which Perfect Symmetry doesn't quite accomplish with its own mixture. This isn't quite art, after all; it's mostly just fun, shot through with a self-consciously cheesy approach that's engineered to sound little like the department-store rock of 2004's Hopes and Fears. "Fun" seems to be at the top of the band's agenda, though, and Perfect Symmetry accordingly succeeds in doing away with most of the pre-conceived notions that accompany Keane records. The "old" sound doesn't even surface until midway through the album, when the album's title track offers up a combination of sparse piano notes (later giving way to dense, double-fisted arpeggios) and a meteoric melody in the chorus. But that's the exception, not the rule, and Perfect Symmetry sounds more comfortable during its truly unexpected moments: the spacy blips and bleeps of "You Haven't Told Me Anything," the synthesized anthem "Again and Again," and the energetic "Wooooooh!" that opens the entire album. The band's underlying strength remains Chaplin's ability to turn a melodic phrase with grace and dexterity, which fails to lose its vitality no matter the musical context, but Keane's willingness to take these left-hand turns deserves its own share of accolades.

Give Me the Emmy

I screwed up the video the first time, so here it is...

Music on TV

My pick of the week would have been Conor Oberst on Monday...if I had posted this on Monday or if you know Doc Brown.

Monday, October 13:

CBS: Late Show With David Letterman: Ra Ra Riot
CBS: Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson: Conor Oberst
NBC: Last Call With Carson Daly: Cat Power (rerun)
FUEL TV: The Daily Habit: Kool Keith

Tuesday, October 14:

ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live!: Kanye West
NBC: The Tonight Show With Jay Leno: Kings of Leon
FUEL TV: The Daily Habit: CSS

Thursday, October 16:

CBS: Late Show With David Letterman: Ne-Yo
NBC: Last Call With Carson Daly: Hot Chip (rerun)
PBS: Tavis Smiley: T.I.

Friday, October 17:

NBC: The Tonight Show With Jay Leno: Black Kids
NBC: Late Night With Conan O'Brien: Ludacris
FUEL TV: The Daily Habit: Aesop Rock

Saturday, October 18:

Fearless Music TV: The Rumble Strips

9 year old LT

I had no idea.

Seriously, how many of you knew about this?

3 minutes of Seinfeld quotes

Extra Point is Good...and Good.

Kid Gets Nailed by Extra Point Kick

Suicide Squeeze Records

My brother sent me a link to the Suicide Squeeze Records label last week. It has some pretty good artists on there. I recommend checking out: Page France, Modest Mouse (I'm sure you've heard of), Elliot Smith, and Minus the Bear. On the other hand it has some odd music that I skipped over, but it's worth a visit for the aforementioned bands.

Take Away Show Friday - Okkervil River "Love To A Monster"

# 6.2- Okkervil River-Love to a monster
by lablogotheque

Teitur

Teitur - Last.fm. This is a band that I should have dropped everything and made a post about them the first time I listened to them a while back. Teitur comes from the Faroe Islands and brings a very unique sound with him. Good voice, good musicality, good instrument usage, very good melodies and an overall good sound. You'll see when you listen but he incorporates a lot of different instruments for his rhythm and melodies that you usually wouldn't use and it just works. His debut album "Poetry and Aeroplanes" back in 2003 was very good and I recommend going over to iTunes to listen to it all, including the album "The Singer". On the last.fm site listen to all the songs, they are all very good.

I highly recommend Teitur and I think most if not all of you will like him. I wish I had posted him a year ago so that you had heard him earlier.

"New Artist Discovery" label

I've added a new label to all of the artist discoveries that I post called "new artist discovery". If you click on that label (right hand side of the screen under labels) then you'll only see all the new artist discoveries I've posted and not get the other new music stuff like new albums. That was bugging me, now it's fixed.

By the way, the "new artist discovery" isn't always brand new artists, it's sometimes artists I've just heard of or haven't posted yet. It's basically personal to me of when I first heard them. For example, Teitur has been out since 2003 but I only discovered him personally in 2006 and just posted him now. Most of the time it's because I have the procrastination gene and sometimes I can blame it on actual paid work.

iTunes single of the week

There is a pretty good "Single of the Week" on iTunes this week. It's an artist called "Johnny Flynn" and the song is "The Box". It's a fun upbeat, irish/blues/folk song. Worth a free download.

This day, 16 years ago

If this won't make you feel old. On this day 16 years ago House of Pain's "Jump Around" was at the height of his popularity. Remember what you were doing in 1992? Probably listening to this song instead of New Kids on the Block.

Batman Cake

Although not made out of Lego's, this is an impressive cake.

Ecto-1 For Sale

If you have the garage space, make an offer.

New Shipment of Artists

So it's been a while since I've posted any new artists. In fact it's been since August 12th that I posted The Beautiful Girls. I apologize and offer you the promise that I won't do that again...maybe.

The shameful thing in it all is that I have over 30 artists that have been sitting in a drafted post ready to come out onto their own individual post. Some have been sitting since this site started, some I've just recently discovered. So in order to not keep you waiting for new artists to much longer I'm going to post 30 of their names below. No links yet, but you know how to use the google box if you see someone who interests you. I will post a new one this week...probably. Maybe the overdue Bowerbirds or Teitur. Artists to come:

John Vanderslice, Cass McCombs, The Ruby Suns, Brandon White, Slackstring, Matthew Brookshire, Jason Harrod, Dan Rockett, Ernie Halter, Joe Garner, We Are Telephone, Louis, Speechwriters LLC, Stars, Oh No! Oh My!, Andrew Lipke, The Essex Green, Jf Robitaille, Math and Physics Club, Bowerbirds, Voxtrot, The Format, The John Butler Trio, Teitur, Angus & Julia Stone, Great Lake Swimmers, Wintersleep, Foy Vance, Stabilo, Gary Nock

Daytrotter Sessions - Okkervil River

Double Dosage of Daytrotter today. It's been a while since I've posted one and I have about 10 in the queue. A while back I posted an 8.0 review of Okkervil River's album that was very promising. Since then they did a Daytrotter Session. Definitely worth downloading the songs, especially "April Anne" and "You Can't Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man"(from their ablum, not daytrotter).

I don't know what's changed with Daytrotter not streaming the songs on their site but at least you can still download them for free. They still have their player on the right side of the their main page.

Daytrotter Sessions - Aimee Mann

Aimee Mann recently stopped by the Daytrotter Studio to record a good session. Take a listen, it's good stuff. For some reason you can't play the songs online but you can download them. "Little Tornado" is a good one to download.

Music on TV - October 6-12

Sorry for the late post on this.

Monday, October 6:

VH1: Hip-Hop Honors: Ghostface Killah, De La Soul, Lil Jon, Slick Rick, MC Lyte, Big Boi, Q-Tip, Bun B, Scarface, Chuck D, Cee-Lo, Flavor Flav, Estelle, EPMD, Juelz Santana
NBC: Late Night With Conan O'Brien: Jenny Lewis
CBS: Late Show With David Letterman: the Pretenders
ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live!: Solange Knowles

Tuesday, October 7:

NBC: Late Night With Conan O'Brien: Death Cab for Cutie
Syndicated: The Ellen DeGeneres Show: Kanye West
CBS: Late Show With David Letterman: Tegan and Sara
ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live!: Black Kids

Wednesday, October 8:

Syndicated: The Ellen DeGeneres Show: Kanye West

Thursday, October 9:

CBS: Late Show With David Letterman: Beck
NBC: Last Call With Carson Daly: Young Jeezy, Nas
ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live!: Foals
NBC: The Tonight Show With Jay Leno: Rachael Yamagata

Friday, October 10:

CBS: Late Show With David Letterman: Lou Reed
CBS: Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson: Tom Morello
ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live!: Atmosphere
NBC: Late Night With Conan O'Brien: Dead Confederate

Saturday, October 11:

NBC: Saturday Night Live: Lil Wayne (rerun)
PBS: Austin City Limits: Bettye LaVette
Fearless Music TV: Black Kids, O'Death, Gemma Hayes

Honestly

I think the government should fire them and take back the loan they gave them...this is ridiculous.

D-Fence

17 backflips in 30 seconds

So Many Back Flips @ Yahoo! Video

Anti-Pirate Yacht

The owner of the Chelsea FC is building quite the extensive yacht.

MyKey

Junior can only go 80 mph, so says MyKey.

New Andrew Bird Album

Andrew Bird has a new album releasing in January and has just released a live album. To hear a song from his new album "Noble Beast" listen here. Sounds like it could be a good follow up to his best album Armchair Apocrypha.

Old WAMU Commercial

The Rhythm is Gonna Get You...today

Take Away Show Friday - Kim + Calc "When The River Turns Around"/"Ashes2Ashes"

Kim / Kim + Calc - When the river turns around / Ashes2ashes
by lablogotheque

17 Years of Self-Portraits

Dual Drum Kits

Impressive to say the least, (worth watching the whole thing)

11 year old Basketball Prodigy

Why Go to CNN when you have DJNN?

Video gamers are physically fit?

I wouldn't love my dog that much.

Two roles for Russel Crowe in Robin Hood?

Stephen Colbert and Spiderman?

Album Review - Joshua Radin "Simple Times"

Allmusic has Joshua Radin's latest album reviewed.

My previous posts on Joshua Radin.