And the award for 'Best Use of "Hump" In a Pop Song' goes to...
...Coldplay (aka "The Nappies") in an upset over Tenacious D!
This is just friggin brilliant. Via SF Gate's Daily Dish:
Proud father Chris Martin and his Coldplay bandmates have recorded a song and accompanying video to celebrate the arrival of his baby daughter Apple -- under the name the Nappies.
The humorous promo -- in tribute to the birth of his child with Gwyneth Paltrow on Friday -- features the band in heavy metal style wigs and is introduced by legendary Beatles producer George Martin.
During the video, a bare-chested papa Martin raps, "There's [bleep] going down that you can't disguise/ When your boobs dem got ten times the size/ The cups gone up from an A to D/ It's bad for you but it's fun for me."
In a more serious moment, the British singer uses the comical sketch to assure his wife and baby: "I'll be there through the thin and the thick/ I'm gonna clean up all the poo and the sick."
To see the video, in all its majesty, go to Coldplay's main site (www.coldplay.com, of course) and a relevant small pop-up should appear. You must click immediately, as they're only going to post the video for a limited time. Finally, you'll see Chris Martin singing in a manner that reflects his actual lifestyle, hehe. Bren1:42 AM
Monday, May 17, 2004
More on the Dashboard covers...
So it's not on their official site, but as a voracious email-list subscriber, Dashboard will be rereleasing A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar tomorrow at its original price, only this time they'll throw in their REM covers, Michael Stipe covering "Hands Down" (I think, I may have the song wrong) and interviews between DC and Stipe.
Now all of us who already bought the album can smack hand against forehead. Camille7:42 PM
Saturday, May 08, 2004
Harder now that it's over
Ryan Adams has temporarily closed down his website... in respect for the end of "Friends".
The prolific star has seen his two Love Is Hell EPs combined into one complete album this week. It features his version of the Oasis classic Wonderwall.
The band's Noel Gallagher has claimed that it is the best version of the song he has ever heard.
I have no problem with that. Also, "This House is Not For Sale" was Ryan Adams' best version of a Ryan Adams song since the Ryan Adams of 2001. Bren8:37 PM
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
Same guitar, but with more 0's and 1's
After all these years it appears that the good people at Gibson (and I don't mean Mel) are still innovating:
As Gibson Guitar Corp. launches a new digital model, company CEO Henry Juszkiewicz can close his eyes and almost hear the music.
"The defining moment will be when a certain lick in a popular song is out there, and it can't be done with anything else but a digital guitar," Juszkiewicz says. "It only takes one example to really inspire people."
That, Juszkiewicz hopes, will usher in the age of the digital guitar -- much the same way as the Beatles and Rolling Stones inspired a generation of young people to pick up a standard electric guitar in the 1960s.
"It opens a whole new palette of possibilities," Juszkiewicz says. "It's a little bit like hearing stereo as opposed to mono."
(...)
The advantages of the digital guitar come down to sound and control. For 70 years, the electric guitar pickup has translated string vibrations into an electrical signal fed to an amplifier. The player can control the tone and volume, but output is limited to a mono or stereo signal. The signal itself is noisy by today's standards, and stray frequencies often cause an annoying hum.
(...)
The digital guitar uses computer chips to clean up the signal -- Juszkiewicz describes the new sound as traditional but "on steroids."
It also allows the player to control the sound of each string. For example, the guitarist can have a heavy metal crunch on the low strings, medium distortion on the middle strings and a clean sound on the high strings.
"You'll be able to record all these different sounds and textures. It's unbelievable, I think," said Dave Cleveland, a Nashville session guitarist who planned to buy one of the new instruments. "It's going to revolutionize the whole recording part of guitar playing."
Cleveland said technology already exists to do some of the same things as the digital guitar, but it's bulky, inconvenient and limited.
"With this, you're getting the sound of the pickups and can run analog into a regular guitar amp, plus you can monitor everything through the guitar. It's like having a mini recording studio," he said.
But on the other hand, for those purists out there,
But some question whether guitar players, by and large a picky lot who are attached to their vintage amplifiers and instruments, will want the bells and whistles.
"I agree that there are certain things it can do," said George Gruhn, owner of Gruhn Guitars in Nashville. "But what it comes down to is people want an electric guitar for soul. I don't see it taking over the world.
"The best sound comes from a traditional magnetic pickup played through an old-style tube amp," Gruhn added. "All of the newfangled stuff doesn't give the tonality that guitar players are looking for."
I'm not generally an advocate for sonic purism or traditionalism. Have you tried listening to your record player in the car? Besides, once Jack White gets a hold of one of these guitars, he'll plug it into an amplifier that pre-dates the Suez Crisis, and everybody will hail him for how "rootsy" he is.
Anyway, this is an interesting innovation, and I'll be excited to pick up one of these digital guitars when it finds its way into my price range, right around the second term of the Jenna Bush administration.
And speaking of Mr. White, a guitar with such user-friendly mechanisms for assigning different sounds to different strings is going to be a big boost for anyone looking to start a 2-piece rock band. We could soon see a generation of Yeah Yeah Yeahs', or at least one of Local H's. Bren6:21 PM
Upcoming Album Releases:
Ani DiFranco - January 20
The Coral - January 27
Moby - February 3
Jonny Greenwood - February 24
The Hives - February 2004
Melissa auf der Maur - February 2004
Garbage - Early 2004
The Vines - Early 2004
The Who - Spring 2004
Wilco - Spring 2004
Beck - Summer 2004
Ben Folds - 2004
Chemical Brothers - 2004
Eels - 2004
Interpol - 2004
PJ Harvey - 2004
Queens Of The Stone Age - 2004
R.E.M. - 2004
U2 - 2004
Coldplay - Late 2004
Paul McCartney - Late 2004
Oasis - Late 2004
