January 30th, 2009

Coachella Lineup Announced

No, this isn’t one of those spoof Coachella posters — above’s the lineup for this year’s festival, probably the best multi-day music fest happening on the globe these days…. No big surprise reunion this year (sorry, Smiths fans), but a Leonard Cohen sighting will be cool. And it will be interesting to see how Throbbing Gristle goes over with the kidz, or if Amy Winehouse will still be alive by showtime. Repping Philly is Dr. Dog on Saturday, April 18th.

Tickets go onsale today at noon ET/9am PT. Three-day passes are $269 and single-day passes are $99, and this year there is a layaway option. More info can be gleaned here.

January 29th, 2009

The Best Music-Related Super Bowl Commercial Ever?

I do believe so:

January 29th, 2009

Jesus Hits Philly!

Looking for a little something different, musically speaking, this weekend? Sure, Christmas was a month ago, and Easter is still a ways away, but any time is a good time for Jesus Christ Superstar, which is at the Academy of Music — as part of their “Broadway Series” — for a five-show run beginning tomorrow (One show Friday, two shows Saturday, and two shows Sunday). Even better is the fact that this run stars Ted Neeley, who played Jesus in the 1973 film version of the Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd Webber rock opera. I recently watched JCS (for the first time in ages) on On Demand, and man, it still kicks a ton of ass, even for a non-religious Jew like myself. It’s too bad that Carl Anderson — who destroyed as Judas in the film — died in 2004, and hasn’t been resurrected for this weekend’s performances … but it should still be a good time nonetheless. Tickets are $25-100. More info here.

January 29th, 2009

Another List Of Has-Beens And Sell-Outs

Clearly, the phrase “jumped the shark” jumped the shark a long time ago, but there will never be a shortage of musicians who slide into the washed-up pile, or music journalists who write about them. Like Shawn Amos, whose recent GetBack blog posting first skewers Bret Michaels (fair enough, since he’s the fallen-celeb douchebag du jour) and then lists five more artists whose credibility has gone down the toilet. On Elton John, Amos writes, “In the ’70s Elton was a drug-fueled, balding, angry piano man. And he made some great music because of it. Then in 1990 he hit the wall. He cleaned up his act, battled his addictions, and got a hair transplant. Now he looks like a piano-playing Al Franken.” I kinda like that last bit. His most “controversial” (but spot-on) inclusion seems to be ex-Soundgarden howler Chris Cornell: “In the history of arranged musical marriages, Audioslave is the worst. The headiness of the former Rage Against the Machine members mixed with the hedonism of Cornell was not inspired. The union felt like a desperate move by a quickly aging post-grunge dude not wanting to fade away. Two solo albums and a James Bond film theme song aren’t changing my mind.”

The posting has already inspired 2300+ comments, including this one from “fawk ewe”: “Wow. You have revealed a stunning lack of character and musical taste by putting Chris Cornell on this “list.” He’s managed to reinvent himself successfully on multiple occasions, and he’s done so with integrity and hard work. Audioslave especially was an inspired combination of a great band without a singer and a great singer without a band – they complemented each other amazingly well, wrote and performed great songs that were not tailor made to appeal to passing fads, and put on an amazing live show. I’ve never heard anyone deem this band’s creation as a “desperate move.” If anything, their inclusion here seems more like a desperate move on your part to come up with a #5 for an extremely cynical, caustic, and ridiculously arbitrary list that I am stupider for having read. The joke is on us though, as we all read it, and you got paid to write it. Way to go.”

People care!

January 29th, 2009

Grammys Growing

With all of the performances slated for the upcoming Grammys, how are they going to fit in time for all the stupid acceptance speeches, and crowd reaction shots when someone gets snubbed, and that tool from the music industry that comes on near the end to congratulate himself and the RIAA and whatnot for being totally awesome and selling lots of albums and fostering careers when in reality the whole damn thing is crumbling right around him? Oh right, who cares? Anyway, U2, Rihanna, Kid Rock, and Robert Plant & Alison Krauss — who together released the kind of record that Grammy voters usually drool over — have just been added to the approximately 394 artists performing at this year’s show on Sunday, February 8th on CBS. Truly, the Grammys haven’t been good since Ol’ Dirty Bastard stormed the stage:

January 29th, 2009

Ben Franklin Lookalike Is A Vice “Do”

You’ll recall last year Vice magazine—the hipster bible that’s not as good as it once was, but not nearly as terrible as people now pretend—ranked the guy who dressed up as Elmo at the Mad Decent Block Party a “Do.” Now Ralph Archibold, Philly’s premiere Ben Franklin lookalike, is also a “Do,” pushed over the top by his colossal “gunt,” a word we were hoping to get through life without ever learning.

Best comment on the item: “i heard this guy on his cell phone when i walked into a bathroom at a hotel near independence hall. he was complaining about the politics of historical re-enacting then told the person on the other line, ‘i’m over at the omni…taking a dump.’ i love philadelphia.”

Philadelphia: It’s better when you gunt. [Viceland]

January 29th, 2009

Half The Love For CDs

File this one under “I knew it was bad, but this bad??”: DigitalMusicNews.com reports that CD sales have dropped by more than half — a stunning 54.6% — since the peak sales year of 2000. That year, CD sales surpassed 943 million units, according to figures compiled by Nielsen Soundscan, while in 2008, Nielsen has determined, CD sales totaled 428.4 million units. I smell a bailout request from the RIAA!