Watch: of Montreal produce trailer for upcoming record
Norman Music Festival 2.0 headliners of Montreal will release their tenth studio record False Priest exactly two months from today, but in the meantime we have this super-cool trailer to prepare us for 45ish minutes of freaky funk brilliance.
“Coquet Coquette” is already up for listening at Stereogum, and here we get a blast of “Godly Intersex,” “Like a Tourist,” and a handful of other tracks.
Judging by the trailer, False Priest might just make a late run at a slew of indie album of the year awards come December.
–Carney
R.E.M. enter mixing stage on new record
R.E.M. are mostly finished recording their new record, which they hope to release this upcoming spring, according to the band’s website.
Courtesy of R.E.M.'s website
We mentioned earlier this week that the band is reissuing the classic Fables of the Reconstruction in celebration of its 25th anniversary, along with never-before-heard studio demos.
You can travel over to the BBC for video of Peter Buck of R.E.M. and Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol talking about the upcoming record and specifically their collaboration effort, Tired Pony.
–Carney
WoodyFest invites folk artists to play free festival in Okemah
Arlo Guthrie (above) is headlining the opening night of WoodyFest on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Joe Giblin)
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman
Okemah knows how to throw a birthday party.
Arlo Guthrie is opening the 13th annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival on Wednesday, which commemorates his father’s 98th birthday and begins a free folk festival that invites dozens of musicians and thousands of patrons to join Okemah’s 3,000-plus fulltime residents for four days and five nights of musical Americana.
A few artists wouldn’t miss WoodyFest for the world.
The Oklahoma country act Red Dirt Rangers plays every year. Even a helicopter crash couldn’t keep the band from performing.
In 2004, two weeks prior to WoodyFest, bandmates John Cooper, Brad Piccolo and Ben Han sat in the backseat of a downed helicopter after it got tangled in power lines over the Cimarron River. Cooper said he couldn’t make it to WoodyFest because of broken ribs, punctured lungs and several other injuries, but drummer Piccolo managed to sing one song onstage at the festival.
Read the rest of the story here.
New film starts production in Oklahoma
This story ran on the front page of The Oklahoman today.
Filming for the motion picture “Bringing Up Bobby” began this week in Oklahoma.
Milla Jovovich, Marcia Cross and Bill Pullman star in the film written and directed by Famke Janssen.
Newcomer Spencer List, 12, plays Bobby.
“Bringing Up Bobby” follows a European con-artist named Olive (Jovovich) and her son, Bobby (List), who find themselves in Oklahoma after an escape effort. Cross plays the role of Bobby’s foster mother.
On Tuesday afternoon, Jovovich wrote about her participation on Twitter, “Hey guys! Been crazy! Came home 4 a day 2 get ready 2 go 2 oklahoma tonite 2 start my new film ‘bringing up bobby’! will keep u updated!”
First-time executive producers are Edmond native David Johndrow, 42, and his wife, Maryann Johndrow, of Johndrow Vineyards in Napa Valley. The couple join several executive producers. David Johndrow said the entire movie will be filmed throughout Oklahoma City and metro areas such as Edmond, Guthrie and Luther.
David Johndrow said the budget for the independent film hasn’t been finalized. He estimated the movie will create roughly 60 jobs for Oklahomans.
“The one thing about bringing a film to Oklahoma is that Oklahomans are so gracious to the arts,” David Johndrow said. “It’s a fun, interesting proposition.”
List’s publicist Kelly-Marie Smith said in an e-mail that Monday is List’s first day on “Bringing Up Bobby.”
The film is the first directing role for Janssen. She is best known for her performances as the psychic mutant Jean Grey in the “X-Men” trilogy.
David Johndrow said filming in Oklahoma is to conclude in late August.
Video: The Whigs covering Sparklehorse’s “Painbirds”
The Whigs visited the Diamond Ballroom last weekend in support of the Hold Steady.
I managed to grab lead singer Parker Gispert after the show and he decided to play “Painbirds” by the late Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse.
If you enjoy the song then don’t hesitate visiting NPR to listen to “Dark Night of the Soul,” a collaboration between Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse.
The Flaming Lips, The Strokes, Danger Mouse and even David Lynch make cameos.
Weird is good.
P.S.
Here are some shots from The Whigs’ set.
-Poppe
Ariel Pink to open for Flaming Lips
Weirder than Björk-Dirty Projectors?
Courtesy of Pitchfork
Pitchfork reports that the two will tour together for 10 dates in September, mostly in the Northwest and Canada.
BUT, the Ariel Pink tour stops in Oklahoma for a visit to Norman’s Opolis on September 15. Tickets are available online for $10, $12 if you’re not yet 21.
A personal favorite from Ariel Pink’s most recent release, below.
--Carney
Listen: R.E.M. rarity
R.E.M. release a 25th anniversary edition of Fables of the Reconstruction tomorrow, and with it comes a previously unreleased promo track, “Throw Those Trolls Away,” available for streaming on their website.
Michael Stipe performing at the now-defunct Bowery in Oklahoma City. Photo courtesy of Linda Early.
The “don’t be a loser” chorus is pretty funny, as is the mid-track request to “turn up the guitar a little bit.” Fables of the Reconstruction 25th Anniversary is out tomorrow and can be purchased at Amazon.
–Carney
Review: The Hold Steady at the Diamond Ballroom
Note: This story ran online at Newsok.com early Saturday.
Sometimes, bands are specifically meant to be heard live.
For patrons of The Hold Steady’s Friday night show at the Diamond Ballroom, this became apparent midway through “Sequestered in Memphis,” the 12th song in a 90-minute set, when lead singer Craig Finn’s lyrical subject matter seemed more real than anything.
Photo by Nathan Poppe/The Oklahoman
“In bar light, she looked alright/In daylight, she looked desperate/That’s alright I was desperate too,” he sang as a gaggle of nearing-their-30s women danced, pointed and laughed to stage right.
Wherever it goes, the Brooklyn bar band seems to fit right in because, well, it plays for people who love bars.
Photo by Nathan Poppe/The Oklahoman
Finn grinned a mischievous grin and pointed back at the ladies, a gesture he repeated approximately 537 times Friday night.
He’s a paradox, the singer. Typically a hard-rocking front man dresses in black, oozes cool, and swaggers about the stage like he purchased it by peeling off Ben Franklins and slapping them down one by one.
Not Finn. His usual register is something like a nerd requesting the bully to release him from a headlock. The anti-frontman dresses like everyone else in the venue — flannel button-down (without sleeves), white Adidas sneakers, miniature black frame glasses, a cheap watch.
Photo by Nathan Poppe/The Oklahoman
He’s got no visible tattoo to speak of, plays air drums and dances like a 12-year-old kid blasting AC/DC on the radio in front of his bathroom mirror.
But all it took was a few seconds of singing, frenetic foot-shuffling and hand-shaking to endear himself to the crowd, which was pumping fists and spilling beer a few seconds into the opener “Constructive Summer.” It continued to do so until the first encore break, 19 songs later.
Don’t forget the rest of the band.
Lead guitarist Tad Kubler handled most of the wailing, which was extensive. Heck, one or two of those songs are just excuses to listen to excellent classic rock guitar. Regular members Galen Polivka (bass) and Bobby Drake (drums) were joined by a touring keyboardist and additional guitar player, who increased the sonic blast to the maximum.
More characters and shady situations cropped up throughout the night from the hilarious denials of “Your Little Hoodrat Friend” to the selfless love for beautiful Jessie in “Hurricane J”. “There was that whole weird thing with the horses,” Finn sang from “The Weekenders”, probably the creepiest and most hilarious lyric in the band’s entire catalogue, amplified by his arched eyebrows.
Photo by Nathan Poppe/The Oklahoman
More generalized songs like “Massive Nights” with its grand “Woah-oah-oah-oah-oah” chorus line serve as excellent nostalgia triggers, reminding everybody of the best party they ever went to.
Kubler procured a classic Jimmy Page double-neck Gibson 1275 for the first set’s last song, “A Slight Discomfort”, prompting Finn to initiate full-on geek-out mode. He danced onstage without the slightest bit of coordination, gleefully prompted by rock and roll. The encore came and went, ending with the singalong ballad “Southtown Girls”.
The band exited the stage shortly before 11, leaving elated fans in its wake, chatting and walking off together to some party at some bar somewhere, about which Craig Finn’s probably already written a song.
–Carney
Watch: Daft Punk-scored Tron: Legacy trailer
French robots Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo -better known as Daft Punk- went into the studio after 2005′s Human After All, not to record a new album but rather to score the sequel to Disney’s 1982 sci-fi action flick.
The soundtrack will be available for purchase November 23, via Walt Disney Records, according to Consequence of Sound. CoS also says that the release date for the film is expected December 17.
Watch the trailer below.
--Carney
Wilco to leave record label
Wilco guitarist Nels Cline revealed that the band didn’t renew their contract with NYC-based Nonesuch Records in a recent interview with Expressnightout.
Jeff was basically not wanting to be on a record label for a while — he didn’t renew his contract with Nonesuch — so we’re striking out on our own, our own label. There might be a 7-inch or something, a little souvenir when we do this Mass MoCA [Solid Sound Festival in North Adams, Ma.] I’m not sure, really.
Cline also said to expect a lengthy process for the next Wilco album. Watch below as he struggles through a bit of sound trouble during the performance of “Walken” at the band’s 2008 show at Cain’s Ballroom.
--Carney
