Thursday, July 28, 2011

Late Night Pick of the Night: Beyonce

I gotta go with the fabulousity and the incredible legs of Beyonce tonight on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon at 12:35 AM on NBC.  Throw in Julianne Moore as one of the guests who I have had a crush on ever since she played Amber Waves in "Boogie Nights" and it's two babes for the price of one!

Bon Iver, All Time Low, Elvis Costello, INXS, Berlin

This week's big show is current indie darling Bon Iver at The National on Saturday night.  Tix are $32.50 in advance and $35 day of show.  Doors open at 8, show starts at 9 with opener The Rosebuds.  Bon Iver is so cool right now even Kanye West asked him to do some vocals on his last album.  You'll probably dig Bon Iver if you like Ray Lamontagne, Nick Drake, or Bonnie "Prince" Billy.
Here's Bon Iver doing his song "Calgary" on "The Colbert Report":

And as an added bonus, here is Bon Iver doing a beautiful cover of a song Prince called "an American classic". It's Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me / Nick of Time":


Thursday night at The National is All Time Low.  Tix are $20 in advance, $23 day of show.  Doors open at 6 and the show starts at 6:30 with openers Mayday Parade and We Are The In Crowd.  These guys fall into that goofy party band mode that was once populated by blink182.  This is their current hit "I Feel Like Dancin'":


Monday night is the new date for the July 20th Elvis Costello and The Imposters show at Innsbrook that was postponed a couple weeks ago.  General admission tickets are $21.50 in advance/ $25 at the gate, Gold Circle Seating is unavailable, Skybox tix are $100.  For General Admission, ages 10 and under free.  Gates open at 6:00pm.  There is no opener so Elvis will be on around 7pm.  Here's EC & The Imposters when they were young and hungry performing "The Imposter" at the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea in 1979:

BTW, if you see something you like on YouTube, my friend Matt A. sent me a link to this handy-dandy "Clip Converter" that takes the audio from the video and turns it into an mp3 or whatever audio format you prefer.  I just used it to download that tasty Bon Iver cover you heard up above.  HERE is the link.

Tuesday, if you aren't at the Flying Squirrels game where the Phillie Phanatic will be making an appearance, you can get your 80's on with INXS and Berlin at The National.  Tix are $30, doors open at 7, show starts at 8 with Berlin.  Unless INXS has learned how to cheat ol' Death himself, original lead singer Michael Hutchence will not be with them.  JD Fortune has stepped into those big shoes.  Here's a little taste of what he sounds like.  This is "Don't Change" from their recent show in Denver:


Berlin does have their original singer, Terri Nunn, but no one else from the original band.  Here's my favorite Berlin song, "Metro", when the band apparently adopted the plastic sex doll look.


From Moviefone's Best Music Scenes in Movies, we come to a classic David Lynch moment from "Blue Velvet".  Dean Stockwell in heavy pancake makeup lip synching to Roy Orbison's "In Dreams".  Watch how perfectly placed the actors are in the shot with Kyle McLachlan, with the dancer in the background and the hick who looks like he's seen this act before and loves it.  I also love Dennis Hopper's building slow burn.


I believe we have finally come to the end of Paste Magazine's list of The 25 Best Music Videos of 2010.  Drum roll please!  The #1 music video of 2010 is the Rube Goldbergian setup for OK Go's "This Too Shall Pass".  So fun!


Amy Winehouse.  She could have been huge.  Now she's just dead.  What a waste.


That's it. Have a great weekend!

Tony Jordan

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Late Night Pick of the Night: Lykke Li, Grace Potter, School of Seven Bells

Check out Last Call with Carson Daly tonight at 1:35 AM on NBC for an all music show with Lykke Li, Grace Potter, and School of Seven Bells.

If you want to see some live Grace Potter from filmed at the Chicago House of Blues click HERE.  It's 48 minutes of the show so it's a nice chunk.  It's only going to be up for a limited time.

Friday, July 22, 2011

All Good Webcast Schedule, Late Night Pick of the Night: The Knux

Here's the lineup for this weekend's All Good webcast.  All Good happened last week so these are all recorded.  Note that all times are CST for some reason.  Now if we're on daylight time and that is Central Standard Time, I think that means these times work for Eastern Daylight Time.  Anyway, I'll tune in at 2 PM our time and see if they are on.  If they aren't, I'll come back at 3.  The webcast can be found HERE.

Friday
2:00 - The Werks
2:30 - That 1 guy
3:00 - Galactic
4:00 - Keller Williams
5:15 - Warren Haynes Band
7:45 - Toubabe Krewe
9:00 - STS9
11:00 - Big Gigantic
11:45 - Umphrey's McGee

Saturday
2:00 - Zach Deputy
3:00 - Marco Benevento
3:30 - The Rex Jam
4:00 - Yonder Mountain String Band
6:30 - Papadosio
7:15 - moe.
9:00 - Karl Denson's Tiny Universe
9:45 - Primus

Sunday
2:00 - Hot Buttered Rum
3:00 - Everyone Orchestra
3:35 - Infamous Stringdusters
4:35 - The Bridge
5:35 - All Mighty Senators
6:35 - Greensky Bluegrass
7:35 - Dark Star Orchestra

Tonight's late night pick of the night is alternative hip-hoppers (or should we say hippity-hoppitys) The Knux on Last Call with Carson Daly.  That's on at 1:35 AM on NBC.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Late Night Pick of the Night: Freddie Gibbs & Death

Let's head out to the fringes tonight on Last Call with Carson Daly at 1:35 AM on NBC.  Two acts on there tonight.  The first is new gangsta rapper Freddie Gibbs who the LA Times says "boasts the rare ability to be both crude & refined."  Then, check out proto-punk band Death.  They were formed by three brothers who hail from Detroit in 1971 and broke up in 1977 after making some much-lauded proto-punk music that few people had heard.  Flash forward to 2009 when their music is released on a new label and two of the brothers (one had died) reform the group to get the acclaim that had eluded them the first time around.

John Butler Trio, Lucinda Williams, Elvis reschedules, Three Sheets to the Wind

If you were angry about missing Elvis Costello last night (Wednesday) at Innsbrook, you've been granted a second chance.  Elvis (or someone in his band) was ill so the show has been rescheduled for Monday August 1 and will remain as "An evening with". All tickets purchased for the July 20 date will be honored for the new date. Tickets for the new date will be on sale soon.  Any patron seeking a refund may do so at the point of purchase.  If you purchased online from Ticketstobuy, you will be contacted directly via email.
Thursday night, yacht rock tribute band, Three Sheets to the Wind will be doing their monthly gig at The Republic.  The band starts at ten and it's free.

It will be miiiiiiighty hot this weekend but you can stay indoors and enjoy the replay of last weekend's All Good Festival on iClips.  They haven't posted the schedule yet.  I'll put it up here when they have it but is will start on Friday afternoon and run all day Saturday & Sunday too.  Possible bands on the webcast include Widespread Panic, Ben Harper, The String Cheese Incident, Yonder Mountain String Band, Furthur, Primus, Pretty Lights, moe., Umphrey’s McGee, STS9, John Butler Trio, Dark Star Orchestra, Warren Haynes Band, Keller Williams and many more.

Another webcast on Friday is Coldplay live at the iTunes Festival in London.  You can watch this on the iTunes Store, via iTunes on PC/Mac and on the iTunes Festival app for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.  Check out http://www.itunesfestival.com/row for all the info.  This will start at 4:15 PM our time.  Here is Coldplay's latest, called "Every Teardrop is a Waterfall":


Saturday at Innsbrook, The John Butler Trio will play.  General admission tix are $17, Gold Circle Seating not available (dont' know if this means they aren't having GC or if they are sold out of GC) and Skybox tix are $75.  Gates open at 6.  The opener was previously advertised as Gomez, however, now it just says Ian Ball from Gomez so I guess its just the one dude.  Apparently Gomez recently announced they are cancelling the remainder of their North American tour, including the 4 dates supporting John Butler Trio, while band member Ben Ottewell recovers from vocal loss. Here's a trailer for their upcoming DVD, "Live From Red Rocks", which will give you a nice little sampler of their music:


Tuesday night, alt-country queen Lucinda Williams will be at The National.  Tix are $25 for Standing General Admission, $30 for reserve balcony, $35 for reserve orchestra.  Doors open at 7, show starts at 8 with a "special guest".  Lucinda recently recieved a nomination for the Americana Music Association Awards Album of the Year for her album, "Blessed".  The full nominees for Album of the Year are here:
ALBUM OF THE YEARBand of Joy, Robert Plant
Welder, Elizabeth Cook
Harlem River Blues, Justin Townes Earle
Blessed, Lucinda Williams

Here's Lucinda doing "Can't Let Go" from 1998:


It's not too late tonight so we can finally return to those two lists we were counting down.  On Moviefone's Best Scenes in Movies, we were up to #37.  This is from "The Wedding Singer" and features Billy Idol, Adam Sandler and the always cute Drew Barrymore on a plane set that has no basis in reality since there is entirely too much leg and aisle room.  And in this clip, you get some bonus Steve Buscemi singing!  Buscemi does no wrong!


We are at the penultimate video on Paste Magazine's 25 Best Music Videos of 2010 list.  This is Arcade Fire's "The Wilderness Downtown".  If you go to wildernessdowntown.com you can customize the video yourself.


Have a great weekend!  Stay cool, physically and mentally.

Tony Jordan

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Monday, July 18, 2011

Late Night Pick of the Night: Bono, The Edge & Spider-Man

Tonight on Letterman, Bono & the Edge from U2 will be on as they continue to try to salvage something from the troubled Spider-Man musical and there will also be a performance from the musical.  The album got pretty bad reviews (49 out of 100 on Metacritc) so I'll be interested to hear if they music is as bad or at least mediocre as the critics say.  Letterman is on CBS at 11:35 PM.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Late Night Pick of the Night: Foster The People

Check out indie rockers Foster The People tonight on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.  Hopefully Craig will bust out the bunny puppet with the foul mouth.  The show starts at 12:35 AM on CBS.

Jason Isbell, Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Bayside, 3 Sheets to the Wind

Jason Isbell (formerly of the Drive-By Truckers) and his band, The 400 Unit, will be performing at Colonial Downs racetrack on Saturday as part of the Virginia Derby festivities.  Jason will be playing in the Party Zone and will do two full sets.  The party starts at 3 PM and here is what you get for your $30 ($35 at the door) admission: "a program, tip sheet, deluxe BBQ dinner, 3 beer/wine tickets, live music on the concert stage with Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit (formerly of Drive By Truckers) who will play two sets, a disc jockey spinning tunes between races, a come back admission pass & more."  You can listen to a show Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit did for NPR's World Cafe HERE.

If you want to go the Derby and are looking for something a bit less expensive and more BYO, you can do the Hoot on the Hill with yacht rock provided by Three Sheets to the Wind.  Here is what you get for your $10 ($20 at the gate) admission: "track admission & access to the first turn BYOB area. Party with the Richmond Ski Club, 30 Hooters girls and enjoy live “yacht rock” music all afternoon & evening with Three Sheets to the Wind. Bring your own pop up tents, portable chairs, grills, coolers, food & alcoholic beverages! We’ll have a giant betting tent set up, port-a-johns and a mini-jumbotron to see racing action."

Wednesday night, the great Elvis Costello & The Imposters will be at Innsbrook.  There is no opening act and EC & TI will come on around 7 PM.  General admission tix are $25, Gold Circle Seats are $50 and if you want to go Platinum Experience (Skybox), you can fork over $100.  Unfortunately, they will not have the Fabulous Spinning Songbook at this show, which is a giant carnival wheel (think Wheel of Fortune) that they spin which has song titles on it.  Whichever song it lands on, they play.  Guess the Innsbrook stage is not big enough to support the wheel.  Regardless, they'll play a great show and I'm sure they'll choose a fine setlist from the multitude of songs EC has.  You can get a glimpse of the wheel, along with some fabulous go-go girls, in this clip of the band doing "Peace, Love & Understanding" in St. Louis earlier this month:


Also on Wednesday, the lovely and talented Emmylou Harris will be playing at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens as part of Groovin' in the Garden.  Gates open at 5:30 PM, music starts at 6 PM.  Opener is "a guest".  General Admission Lawn seats are $45 in advance, $55 at the gate. Children 10 and under are free.  General Reserve Seating are $75 in advance.  Here is Emmylou performing "Six White Cadillacs" on Letterman recently:


Also on Wednesday, Bayside will be at The National.  Doors open at 6, show starts at 6:30 PM.  Why so early?  Because you get 4 bands for your $15 ($13 in advance) admission charge!  Those four openers (in order of appearance) are Holly Would..., Mayfair, and Transit.  Bayside play power pop (think Weezer, Green Day, My Chemical Romance, The Cure, blink-182, Foo Fighters).  Here is the video for their latest single, "Sick Sick Sick":


If you missed Three Sheets to the Wind at the Virginia Derby, you can see them on Thursday night (7/21) at The Republic.  Show starts at 10 PM and there is no cover charge. 

That'll be it for this week.  Have a great weekend!

Tony Jordan

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Late Night Pick of the Night: James Blake

Tonight, check out electronica newcomeer James Blake on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.  James' self-titled debut album is getting rave reviews.  Here's a pretty cool video for James' song "Give A Man A Rod":

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

NPR: Pop's Punching Bag: Hating The Black Eyed Peas

From the NPR blog, "The Record", comes this article called Pop's Punching Bag: Hating The Black Eyed Peas.  (Thanks, Joan!)  In it the writer, gives six reasons people give for hating the BEP and then tries to knock those reasons down.  But I don't think its any one of these reasons why people (including myself) hate BEP.  Its because of ALL of the reasons.  They have managed to take all those things and wrap them up into one annoying, over-commercialized package.

In the end though, music is subjective and if you like them and you can dance to them, more power to you.  But I don't want to hear them.  I'll be happy when they're gone.  And I don't think they will one day be lauded and critically acclaimed. I think they will be one of those bands people hear 10 years from now and cringe and go "Wow, I can't beleive people liked that in the '00's".

Late Night Pick of the Night: The Strokes

The Strokes will be on a Conan repeat tonight at 11 PM on TBS.  Here's the Strokes latest video for "Taken for a Fool":

Monday, July 11, 2011

RVA Music Festival

Missed the initial announcement but here is the web site for the RVA Music Festival taking place in Shockoe Bottom on Sept. 11 from 2 PM to 10 PM.  Great to see someone creating something like this in Richmond!  The lineup was not posted on the web site yet but it was posted on their Facebook page.  Besides the Sunday lineup there will be an upcoming announcement about acts playing local venues on Saturdary night.
MAIN STAGE SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 11th, 2001

featuring
GIRL TALK
BEST COAST

with support from regional talent
The Trillions
Diamond Center
White Laces
The Silent Age
Climbers

2nd STAGE - Local Talent
No BS BRass Band
The Goldrush
Black Girls
Luggage
Antero
Proverbial

DJ TENT & VIP -
The Reinhold (PLF/RVA) / VIP
Mr. Jennings (PLF)
Doddie (Audio Ammo)
Long Jawns (Audio Ammo)
Bobby LaBeat (Audio Ammo) / VIP TENT
Akasha (PLF)
Turnstyle (Jesse & Joanna)
Drew & Mau (Steady Sounds) / VIP TENT

*MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED!

Most Critically Acclaimed Albums of Year (so far), Late Night Pick of the Night

Metacritic has produced their list of the Most Critically Acclaimed Albums of Year (so far) and topping the list is an album you can download for free from the artist's web site.  There are also at least a couple of the bands on the list coming to Richmond in the near future, those being Iceage and Gillian Welch.

Tonight's Late Night Pick of the Week is a project from one of Animal Collective's founding members, Noah Lennox, which goes by the name Panda Bear. You can see him on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon at 12:35 AM on NBC.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Darius Rucker, Jack's Mannequin, O.A.R.

Haven't had any "Late Night" picks this week because I've been slammed at work.  It's the end of the fiscal year (yes, boring state money stuff) and, as usual, I put off until the end of the year some things I should have kept up with during the year.  So it's completely my fault and once again I find myself wondering why I did this to myself and vowing that this year will be different. We shall see.

Darius Rucker, former lead singer of Hootie & The Blowfish, comes to Innsbrook on Thursday night.  Tix are $17 in advance, $20 at the gate for general admission.  Show starts at 6 PM with opener TBA and Darius will hit the stage around 8.  Darius is hitting it pretty big on the country charts these days.  If you liked Hootie and the Blowfish but always thought "These songs really need a twangy-er guitar" than this show is for you.

Jack's Mannequin will be at The National on Friday night.  Tix are $20 in advance, $25 day of show.  Doors open at 6, show starts at 7 with openers River James, Lady Danville & Steel Train.  Jack's Mannequin play piano-based indie pop kind of stuff.  I was going to include videos but I seem to be having a problem with YouTube tonight.  They won't let me embed this one anyway so here is a link to Jack's Mannequin's "The Resolution".

O.A.R. (Of A Revoluntion) will be at Innsbrook on Wednesday night.  Tix are $17 in advance, $20 at the gate for general admission, $35 for Gold Circle and $75 for Skybox.  Gate open at 6 PM and the show starts with Kelley James, then SOJA.  O.A.R. comes on around 8.  O.A.R. has always struck me as kind of a poor man's Dave Matthews Band, the kind of band I might listen to if I was drunk in college and I was trying to hook up with the sorority girl who was really into them, but she was paying more attention the band than me. 

That's pretty much it this week.  I'm going to call it a night because I'm going to try to figure out if YouTube isn't working for me or if  something else is wrong.

Have a great weekend!

Tony Jordan

Friday, July 1, 2011