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Music News Round-Up / TK
Music | December 4, 2008 | Comments (23)
Before we get started, some miscellany: we’re going to be running a series beginning on December 15th of our favorite musical discoveries of the year — either a new release, or simply a band that you found and fell in love with this year. If anyone is interested in helping us out, please email me here.
Moving right along…
Let’s start with the worst news of the week (and a hat tip to my buddy Virg for alerting me to this particular piece of nightmare. Damn him. Damn him straight to hell): Creed is reuniting. Creed. Yes, the worthless pile of pig vomit that is Scott Stapp will once again be over-emotively yowling yarling his way into the airwaves. Seriously, look at that toolshed. Eat a bag of dicks, Stapp.
*shakes fist at God*
In slightly better, if not more bizarre news, 90’s hardcore/punk juggernaut The Jesus Lizard is also reuniting. This is actually good news, but somewhat surprising. If you, like me, have ever seen a Jesus Lizard concert, then like me you also probably quickly concluded that a) those guys are fucking intense, and b) frontman David Yow is not long for this world. Anyone who performs that drunk (and usually ends up naked and demonstrating the “Tight and Shiny”) can’t be. Yet there he will be, playing a limited number of shows next year. I for one am quite fired up about that. Do me a favor? Go find the album Liar and listen to the first track, “Boilermaker.” Then go break something.
Also, don’t google “Tight and Shiny”. You’ll regret it. Trust me.
This ain’t new, but in more movie-related news, Ennio Morricone, the master composer responsible for the score of basically every Spaghetti Western as well as gorgeous classics like The Mission and The Untouchables, has signed on to write music for Quentin Tarantino’s long-awaited (and infuriatingly spelled) Inglourious Basterds. Morricone and Tarantino together has the potential for all kinds of awesome, so go home and watch The Good, The Bad and The Ugly in celebration.
Continuing with the music/movie news, noted self-promoter, rapper and Beyonce-humper Jay-Z is apparently going to be featured in the soundtrack to Notorious, the Biggie Smalls biopic starring Jamal Woodward and Angela Bassett. Which is weird, because I figured the soundtrack would feature, you know, Biggie Smalls. But Jay-Z’s not one to let a commercial opportunity pass. Anyway, here’s the video for the new track called “Brooklyn (We Go Hard).” It’s actually pretty slick.
Jay-Z on iLike - Get updates inside iTunes
And in the just flat-out weird yet fascinating news, the Vancouver Opera’s Opera Live! is doing a series of opera/anime/manga crossovers.
…
I don’t really have anything to add to that. It’s strange enough on its own. Seriously, check it out. It deserves a firsthand look. I don’t know much about opera, but I find the concept pretty interesting.
Aaaaaand, in “Axl Rose is still a narcisstic douchebag” news, apparently Dr. Pepper said they’d give people free Dr. Peppers if Chinese Democracy was released before the end of the year. Believe it or not, a bunch of whiny fans bitched on release day because they didn’t get their soda (mind you, this was neither an official partnership or promotion). And then, Guns N Roses demanded an apology and got their lawyers involved. Now Dr. Pepper is striking back.
It’s a fucking soda, people. Get a life.
Last but most definitely not least, folk singer/civil rights activist Odetta Holmes (known as simply “Odetta”) died on Tuesday. For those who don’t know much about her, she was also known as the voice of the civil rights movement, and Martin Luther King, Jr. himself called her the “Queen of American folk music.” She was also a powerful influence on great artists such as Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. She had a ridiculously prolific career, touring with everyone from Pete Seeger to Madeleine Peyroux, and was still captivating audiences with her live performances up until two months ago. I’ll leave you with a video of hers (from 2005, singing “House of the Rising Sun” and at the age of 74 still bringing it), and this perfect quote:
“If only one could be sure that every 50 years a voice and a soul like Odetta’s would come along, the centuries would pass so quickly and painlessly we would hardly recognize time”< /blockquote >- Maya Angelou
TK can be found wandering aimlessly through suburban Massachusetts, wondering how the hell he got there while yelling at the kids on his lawn. You can find him raising the dead in preparation for world domination at Uncooked Meat.
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Comments
Posted by: meh at December 4, 2008 4:06 PM
Well fuck me, Odetta is gone. RIP. She was amazing. One of my big musical influences.
K putting on Deep River in loving memory.