I did an LNMC last year featuring Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova and their Academy Award-winning song from the movie, Once.
Hansard (late of The Frames) and Irglova have formed a new band, The Swell Season, and their album, Strict Joy, was released in October of this year.
Here they are singing an acoustic version of Feeling the Pull and a studio version of Low Rising, both from Strict Joy.
We're not trying to start any lawsuits here, but let's face it; some songs just sound too much like other songs to be a coincidences. Or do they? Music doesn't usually come with footnotes or bibliographies, so on Friday nights we engage in wild speculation about where our favorite songwriters might have owed someone a hat tip. Welcome to Friday Night Ripoffs (?) at the LNMC.
"Warning" (the title track from your DJ's favorite Green Day album) sure sounds a helluva lot like The Kinks' "Picture Book". Green Day are clearly no stranger to the creative lift (See: "Boulevard of Broken Dreams/Summer of 69 or Brain Stew/25 or 6 to 4) and to me, this sounds too close for chance. What do you think? Coincidence or theft? What other songs pose that same question to you?
(h/t to Dylan for the heads up on this one.)
Michigan native Brendan Benson has been making compelling and charming power-pop records since 1996's One Mississippi, but for better or worse he's best known as being one half of the singing/songwriting part of The Raconteurs along with better-known Michiganite-by-way-of-Nashville Jack White. "Cold Hands (Warm Heart)" is an adorable song with an adorable video.
Every Monday night, C&L's Late Nite Music Club showcases an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: Minnesota.
As previously noted, festival organizers all over the country have been having to replace the Beastie Boys, who cancelled their tour due to MCA having to undergo surgery for cancer.
Today, via Twitter, San Francisco's Outside Lands Festival announced that they were replacing the Beastie Boys with "the greatest band in the world": Tenacious D, the musical comedy duo featuring Superstar Jack Black and Kyle Gass.
This is the second post in a series called Friday Night Ripoffs(?). Here's the deal: every Friday, two songs, where one of them might very well be a gigantic ripoff of the other.
Commenter PLH225 came up with tonight's in the discussion of last week's thread. Did Jack White borrow a little too gratuitously from Joe Jackson for The Raconteurs' "Steady As She Goes," or is it just a coincidence?
Tell us what you think, and leave some suggestions for next week's plagiarism investigation in the comments.
For Louisiana, I was trying to decide between a contemporary zydeco act and the greatest sludge metal band of all time, and decided to err or the side of regional specialty.
The up-tempo washboard and accordion based zydeco genre has been Louisiana's musical monopoly since the 1950's, and Chris Ardoin is one of the top nouveau zydeco musicians around. He's been playing accordion since he was 2, quite nouveau himself.
I can't find out for the life of me what this song is called, but I like it aplenty.
Every Monday night, C&L's Late Nite Music Club showcases an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: Maine.
(Thanks to reader Walter for this tip!)
This week's installment of the 50 State Strategy brings us cellist/singer/songwriter Ben Sollee of Lexington, KY. No, he might not sell as many records as My Morning Jacket but to my ears he's the most accolade-deserving Kentuckian.
Check out more at his site.
Every Monday night, C&L's Late Nite Music Club will feature an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: Louisiana.
Wichita, KS is home to the greatest rock and roll dive bar in the whole country, and Split Lip Rayfield, America's finest alt-bluegrass band. The band suffered a brutal blow in 2007 when founding guitarist Kirk Rundstrom in 2007 succumbed to esophageal cancer. This was one of his final performances.
Every Monday night, C&L's Late Nite Music Club will feature an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: Kentucky. Will we get bluegrass two weeks in a row?
William Elliott Whitmore, from Lee County Iowa, has earned a dedicated following by touring with loud, heavy acts like Converge and Clutch. If you think metalheads only like it fast and loud, think again. A deserving representative of Iowa's musical mantle, indeed.
Every Monday night, C&L's Late Nite Music Club will feature an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: Kansas.
Since Max did an Indiana band for the Music Club, I thought I'd throw in a plug for the Indianapolis Children's Museum, which my kids and I visited just this morning. It rocks. The dinosaurs crashing out of the building (above) is almost as cool as the new installation which will be completed this summer: a full-sized brachiosaurus mother and child peeking under the roof of the atrium entrance. (artist's rendering)
Open Thread below...
Alt-country/goth/folk troupe Murder by Death has spent the better part of the decade providing an alternative to John Cougar Mellencamp in Bloomington, Indiana's musical history. After the Great White tragedy, they stopped setting their drums on fire at the end of every show, but a good band does fine without such frilly accouterments.
Every Monday (we bumped it this week to pay respects to Kenny Rankin), C&L's Late Nite Music Club will feature an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: Iowa.
Why Oh My God, a Chicago-based organ/bass/drums/madman combo, isn't playing packed arenas is just one of those things I'll never understand. Once my old band opened for these guys in Kansas City, and they were so absolutely electrifying that when they were finished (after getting called for 2 encores by a screaming crowd of 30 at 1am on a Monday night) our drummer suggested that we all just stop playing music altogether because we'd never measure up.
Tour dates are popping up on their MySpace. Don't miss out.
Every Monday, C&L's Late Nite Music Club will feature an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: Indiana.
I have to admit, I was a little proud of the Late Nite Music Club being one of the only music blogs to have maintained an American Idol-free season, but I'm breaking the streak. There's plenty to be found about AT&T's nefarious dealings on the other part of this site, but it looks like we can add one more item to the pile.
NYT:
AT&T, one of the biggest corporate sponsors of “American Idol,” might have influenced the outcome of this year’s competition by providing phones for free text-messaging services and lessons in casting blocks of votes at parties organized by fans of Kris Allen, the Arkansas singer who was the winner of the show last week.
Representatives of AT&T, whose mobile phone network is the only one that can be used to cast “American Idol” votes via text message, provided the free text-messaging services at two parties in Arkansas after the final performance episode of “American Idol” last week, according to the company and people at the events.
There appear to have been no similar efforts to provide free texting services to supporters of Adam Lambert, who finished as the runner-up to Mr. Allen.
It's very tempting to try to build some horrible plot from the very top of AT&T to derail the sexually ambiguous (and clearly more talented) Lambert's train, but I'm going to keep such wild speculation in the mere realm of the noddingly acknowledged. If this turns out to be true and coordinated, expect the public outcry to be more charged than one would expect in an "election" with stakes so seemingly low. A miniature culture war played out in the final days of 'Idol', and since the vote disparity between 'Idol' competitors isn't revealed, torches and pitchforks may make their way out to try to pry some answers.
Some solace for Lambert and his fans: Season 5 competitor Chris Daughtry's credible rock act has a multi-platinum disc. Winner Taylor Hicks is currently in a Los Angeles production of Grease. I think you'll be just fine, Adam, no matter what AT&T did to you.
Doug Martsch and Built to Spill, the darlings of Boise. Choosing a song was arduous because there are so many great ones; Big Dipper and Twin Falls come to mind first.
After disbanding the short-lived-yet-loved Treepeople in 1995, Martsch started Built to Spill along with Brett Netson and Ralf Youtz. Despite a number of lineup changes, the band ended up both the most popular and lasting of the 90s slacker-pop groups (though I don't think I'd be saying that if Pavement had stayed together.)
Pour some of your forty-ounce out for Andy Capps, the drummer heard here on 'Car', who passed away three years ago last week.
Every Monday, C&L's Late Nite Music Club will feature an act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com. Next week: Illinois.
We're quite excited to welcome Nanci Griffith to the Late Nite Music Club for a live chat tomorrow at 4PM Pacific/7PM Eastern. Come by and ask her about her new album The Loving Kind, which comes out June 9th, and about her three-plus decades singing her songs, singing other people's songs, having her songs sung by other people, and much more.
In the meantime, enjoy the classic 'Love at the Five and Dime'.
Check out www.nancigriffith.com for more.
