The Music Court

Busy days stink! It is 12:19 in the eastern morning right now and I cannot wait to go to sleep. Yet, before I take my nightly slumber I thought I would provide you faithful readers with some links for your morning consumption. I promise the lyricist of the day section will be back up and running next Wednesday. So, let’s see what we have here in link world.

The Flaming Lips, the spacey Oklahoma City rock band, will be the first night headliners at the Bonnaroo music festival on June 10. You want a little icing on the cake. After a full set of their music, the Flaming Lips will perform a recreation of Pink Floyd’s perennial album Dark Side of the Moon. Sounds fun!

Now, on a more unfortunate front, yesterday marked the 51-year anniversary of the plane crash that took the lives of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper and has forever been marked The Day The Music Died. In honor of their legacies I shall post my favorite Buddy Holly song below.

Happy Monday everyone. The weekend in Philadelphia was great and while I did pass Citizens Bank Park and shout numerous obscenities towards it, my consumption of a real Philly cheesesteak from Jims was eye-opening (in a food kind of way). But, now I am back in Binghamton and Monday means links.

The Who’s Super Bowl set-list was somewhat revealed by Pete Townshend, lead guitarist for The Who, in an interview with Billboard. In a show that will hopefully not include any wardrobe malfunctions, Townshend stated that the show will include a “compact medley” of their signature classic-rock anthems.”We’re kinda doing a mashup of stuff,” the guitarist tells Billboard. “A bit of ‘Baba O’Riley,’ a bit of ‘Pinball Wizard,’ a bit of the close of ‘Tommy,’ a bit of ‘Who Are You,’ and a bit of ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again.’ It works — it’s quite a saga. A lot of the stuff that we do has that kind of celebratory vibe about it — we’ve always tried to make music that allows the audience to go a bit wild if they want to. Hopefully it will hit the spot.” The show should be rock n’roll at its finest so don’t just use halftime as a break to get more food.

Check it out: http://www.billboard.com/news/the-who-s-pete-townshend-the-super-bowl-1004063669.story#/events/the-who-reveals-super-bowl-set-list-1004061611.story

CD Release

Smoke and Mirrors by Lifehouse

Lifehouse, which is oddly enough a rock opera from The Who, in many 20-30-year-old’s minds is a one-hit wonder band. “Hanging by a Moment,” which was released in 2000, is a great song. “You and Me,” despite its success as a single off of their self-titled 2005 release, is corny as heck and it is pretty bad. Anyway, while most people think of the band as a classic one and done, they have hit success with numerous other songs and have sold over 5 million records worldwide. In my opinion, they still released their best song first, but success has always found its way to the alt. rock band from the shores of Malibu. This new album is looking to combine the rock n’roll with the marketability that gave them their permanent spot in alt-rock fame.

Check out the album: http://www.amazon.com/Smoke-Mirrors-Lifehouse/dp/B002TUGX5K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1265038530&sr=8-2

Joe Walsh has lost his mind and is suing himself. Well, not really himself, more like his doppelgänger. Ah…no not the person can’t even be considered that. While Joe Walsh is indeed suing Joe Walsh, the second Joe Walsh is not anything related to the Eagles’ rocker. He is actually a Republican congressional candidate in Illinois who decided it would be absolutely legal to take Joe Walsh’s song “Walk Away” and change the lyrics around to suit his campaign. I don’t understand this. First John McCain decided that he wanted to use Jackson Browne’s “Running on Empty” in his campaign so he just took it without permission, then we see Eagles bandmate Don Henley also battling with a Congressional candidate named Charles DeVore over the use of songs in a campaign. Politicians, can I please suggest something? STOP USING SONGS WITHOUT PERMISSION. There is a United States Copyright Act and if you are too dumb to realize it please stop your campaign!!! Man, politicians can be dumb sometimes. Joe Walsh’s case is special because there is a possibility that people may believe that the Eagles’ Joe Walsh supports his name-brother (which he certainly does not).

Check out the article (which includes some humorous writing from Walsh’s lawyer): http://www.billboard.com/#/news/rocker-joe-walsh-takes-on-namesake-politician-1004063221.story

Mr. Tambourine Man (otherwise known as Bob Dylan) will be performing at the White House Concert on Feb. 10. The concert will be streamed live from the White House website at 5:15 p.m. and will appear the following day at 8 p.m. on PBS. This is only fitting for Dylan to perform. He spent the majority of his time singing for the civil rights movement in the early 1960’s.

Check out the article: http://www.examiner.com/x-21829-Bob-Dylan-Examiner~y2010m1d26-Bob-Dylan-to-perform-at-the-White-House-February-10

This is fun. I get to start the court links today with a baseball analogy. Baseball, the next sport that will depress me (just kidding). When I go to a home New York Mets game against, lets say, the Philadelphia Phillies, there are many fans of the away team that walk proudly in the stadium and, like Phillies’ fans do best, annoy everyone and cause raucous. Yet, just because they are donned in their Phillies gear doesn’t give the Mets the right to throw them out of the stadium. They are paying customers just like everyone else and they came to see a show. Axl Rose has never been to a baseball game.

His long war with top-hat wielding guitarist Slash has taken a turn for the disgusting. At a recent Guns & Roses show (why are people still seeing this decrepit and horrible band live) concert goers (who bought expensive tickets) were apparently forced, at the door, to remove any top-hats or Slash shirts so the hard-core rock n’ roll baby on stage didn’t have see remnants of his old buddy when he bangs through songs like “Civil War” which is about how war and fighting just make the powerful become more powerful, while the little man in the crowd has to remove clothing to see an ageing, fake rocker bounce around on stage and shriek. Yeah, Axl Rose, real mature.

There are reports out in the internet world that the TMZ article was a hoax and this incident never happened. Believe what and who you want to believe. Anyone at the show and want to let us know what was going down?

Check out the article: http://www.tmz.com/2010/01/24/slash-guns-and-roses-axl-rose-clothing-shirts-hat/

CD Releases (Tuesday, January 26)

Nothing is really jumping out at me for a true profile, but, I will list below some CD’s that should be interesting listens

Jason Castro: Jason Castro

The first release from the American Idol contestant whose charm and soft voice got him pretty far in the competition. Yes, he was the one with the long hair. Should be an interesting release with some nice tunes.

Beach House: Teen Dream

The third full-length album from the Baltimore, MD indie-rock band should prove to be 10 tracks of great pop music.

Album cover for Teen Dream

Both albums can be bought on Amazon.com

Prince is a great musician and that is something that no one can deny. He is also a big Minnesota Vikings fan and after witnessing a win to propel the once inept football franchise to the NFC Championship game he went straight home and recorded a “Purple and Gold” fight song. He said that the song came very easy to him because he was so inspired and excited. The Vikings are flattered and plan to put the song on their website. So, I think Prince just set a standard that other musicians who happen to be NFL fans must now match. The Saints, Colts, and Jets all need a fight song. Unfortunately most famous Jets fans tend to be comedians and up to a few weeks ago I would have said that made sense.

Check out the song: http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/sports/prince-reveals-song-for-vikings-saints-game

Where's Waldo?

I also came across some inspiring news today. Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie, the co-producer and co-writer of “We Are The World” which became the most successful charity single ever in 1985, are planning on remaking the classic with a list of singers who will certainly participate. Originally the plan was to simply celebrate 25 years since the original and to raise money for Africa like their original piece did, but after the disaster in Haiti the entire plan was rescheduled for a day after the Grammys on Feb. 1. All money raised will go to Haiti.

Check out the article and the original “We Are The World”: http://www.billboard.com/news/quincy-jones-to-remake-we-are-the-world-1004060769.story#/news/quincy-jones-to-remake-we-are-the-world-1004060769.story