Flight of the Conchords Season 2 Premiere

Fan of Flight of the Conchords will rejoice to find the season 2 premiere HERE, before its HBO air date!

Or, just watch it below:

New Arcade Fire song for download!

Pssst.

Go here to get a previously-unreleased Arcade Fire track from the Neon Bible archives.

It's called "Burning Bridges".

(Why's it out now? It's part of marketing for the previously-mentioned Miroir Noir musidoc)


Cheers.

-S

A little more Sufjan for the holiday.

Good King Wenceslas [MP3], from Volume 2 of the Sounds Familyre's A Familyre Christmas

Enjoy!

Remixes for the rest of us!

A very happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, Winter Solstice, Boxing Day and Festivus to all of our readers and listeners. A little present for you:

Click Here for the Thin White Duke remix of "Viva La Vida". It will be up on Coldplay.com until January 5th, so go get it now!

Cheers!

-Raggedy Annie, Scarecrow and the rest of the Campus Buzz team

Matisyahu reviewed!

December 23, 2008

Hanukkah Receives Kosher Pop Welcome

By JON PARELES

Matisyahu deployed what may be the only large, mirrored, rotating dreidel in show business — a Jewish answer to a disco ball — at Webster Hall on Sunday night, the first night of Hanukkah. It was also the first of eight New York City shows for Matisyahu in his third annual Festival of Lights series, bringing different opening acts and guests each night. A large menorah was set up for a mid-concert lighting ceremony, with the blessings declaimed in Hebrew by an audience volunteer.

Matisyahu, who was born Matthew Miller, sings explicitly devotional songs about God, Moshiach (the Messiah) and Orthodox Jewish identity. By setting them to reggae, rock and hip-hop beats, and after working his way up the jam-band circuit, he also reaches listeners with their minds on more secular pursuits, like dancing and drugs. Simcha Levenberg, the M.C. who introduced him, drew big laughs with jokes about marijuana and LSD, although Matisyahu’s song “King Without a Crown” insisted, “If you’re trying to stay high, then you’re bound to be low.”

Matisyahu has built a career on analogies between Rastafarian roots reggae and Hasidic songs. Both are concerned with faith and survival struggles and have lyrics phrased in Biblical allusions; both draw on modal scales and melismatic vocal lines that can sound Middle Eastern. Near the end of the concert Matisyahu sang long, cantorial phrases while rocking back and forth, as if davening, or praying. Yet if his lyrics weren’t so clear about their references to Jewish history and the majesty of God, most of the time Matisyahu would simply be one more reggae-loving rocker.

In “Jerusalem,” which drew heartfelt singalongs, he worries about assimilation, singing, “Cut off the roots of your family tree/Don’t you know that’s not the way to be.” But the roots of his music are Afro-Caribbean and African-American. He uses Jamaican reggae and dancehall toasting, sometimes delivered with a Jamaican accent; he also uses hip-hop cadences and showed off his vocal beatboxing.

His band also segues into rock, for chiming marches that borrow their idealistic sound from U2. Matisyahu is less concerned with a musical heritage than with a religious one.

Album by album Matisyahu has expanded his music. Along with basic roots reggae he now uses faster, tongue-twisting dancehall toasting and the electronic beats and brooding chords of hip-hop. And he’s looking farther: Matisyahu joined Crystal Method, the thumping, rock-tinged electronica duo that opened the show, to sing and rap on a song from their next album, due in March.

Matisyahu rarely improves on his sources. His voice is thin and sometimes nasal, closer to Jack Johnson than to Bob Marley or Sting; his rhymes can be as awkward as they are earnest. But his band — which was augmented, for a few songs, by an Israeli oud player — carries simple vamps through multiple transformations, from meditations to shredding guitar solos. It’s music for believers, with a groove for everyone else.

Matisyahu is at Webster Hall, 125 East 11th Street, East Village, Tuesday and Thursday , and at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, 66 North Sixth Street, at Wythe Avenue, Saturday through Dec. 30. Tickets: (212) 307-7171 or ticketmaster.com.

CB Playlist - 12.21.08

Phantom Planet - Winter Wonderland
Kings of Leon - Use Somebody
Keane - Perfect Symmetry
Chris Cornell - Ave Maria
Kaiser Chiefs - Like It Too Much
Franz Ferdinand - Ulysses
The Killers - Neon Tiger
The Apples in Stereo - Shine (In Your Mind)
Snow Patrol - The Lightning Strike
Radiohead - Karma Police
Minus the Bear - Burying Luck
Sufjan Stevens- Amazing Grace & Put Lights on the Tree
Bloc Party - One Month Off
Jack Johnson - Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
The Kooks - Shine On
Conor Oberst - Souled Out!
Copeland - Eat, Sleep, Repeat
The Pixies - Where is My Mind? (LIVE!!)
The Frames - Falling Slowly
Rogue Wave - Eyes
Guster - Careful
The New Amsterdams - Calendar Days
Jimmy Eat World - 12/23/95
Klaxons - Golden Skans
We Are Scientists 0 Nobody moves Nobody gets hurt
The Strokes - Juicebox
The Decemberists - Valerie Plame
The Postal Service - Brand New Colony & Against All Odds

Hope you enjoyed the show! Thanks for all the requests! Happy Holidays!!!

Kayne's Epic Fail.

Apparently will.i.am is NOT producing U2's new album. At least according to the band themselves. In fact, they blew up the Friday news cycle yesterday with announcement of their 13th studio album, hitting the streets MARCH 3RD worldwide. It will be called No Line On The Horizon. MORE INFO HERE.



Good news? Well, will.i.am would have been interesting, but go Eno. He's rarely led them astray. Also, the title is easy on the mouth, unlike How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (or its equally unwieldy acronym, HTDAAB)!

Sufjan Christmas Music Continues!

It's become a tradition: every year Sufjan Stevens releases a new collection of Christmas songs. This year is no exception!



Volume 8 is called Astral Inter Planet Space Captain Christmas Infinity Voyage, and contains both classic songs like "Angels We Have Heard On High" and original material, like "The Child With The Star On His Head".

We've been spinning some of the older Sufjan stuff, and next year we will likely add Volume 8 to the mix (with only one show left before Christmas and no album in hand, we'll have to forgo it the year! :-/).

Look for Volume 8 this Christmas, which is being released by Athsmatic Kitty. Check their website for goofy Sufjan fun!

Years of Refusal tour and album details

Morrissey Album, Tour Details.

12/14/08 Playlist

Pachua Sunrise (acoustic) - Minus the Bear
One Month Off - Bloc Party
I Am A Lightning Rod - Margot & The Nuclear So-and-Sos
Cross Bones Style - Cat Power
Confidence Man - Matt Pryor
Fa Fa - Guster
I Saw Three Ships - Sufjan Stevens
That Was The Worst Christmas Ever! - Sufjan Stevens
The Kids Don't Stand a Chance - Vampire Weekend
Losing Touch - The Killers
Laws Have Changed - The New Pornographers
I'm Sticking With You - The Decemberists
Get up and Go - The Polyphonic Spree
Never Miss A Beat - Kaiser Chiefs
Mexican Standoff - Elbow
All We Have Is Now - The Flaming Lips
I'm Outta Time - Oasis
I'm Amazed - My Morning Jacket
Two Halves - My Morning Jacket
Under the Blacklight - Rilo Kiley
Joke About Jamaica - The Hold Steady
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - Bright Eyes
Syntax Lies - The Faint
Whatever It Takes - Tom Morello, the Nightwatchman
Hoppipolla - We Are Scientists
Rainy Day - Coldplay
The Planets Between Us- Snow Patrol
Crack the Shutters - Snow Patrol
Weak Become Heroes - The Streets

Cryptic new PB&J song/video

This new video from Peter, Bjorn & John is purportedly a song from a new, upcoming album. It's bizarre, it's crude in its construction, and it's incredibly catchy (and could be NSFW if you blast it too loud).

Enjoy!

Blindsided

I guess I missed this, so if anyone else has, enjoy this CLICKABLE "NEON BIBLE" ARCADE FIRE VIDEO.

It's really, really cool.


-------


Also, in related news... the guy who directed that is also director of a mysterious Arcade Fire film hitting the streets Monday. The site Miroir Noir provided some clues, but more details became concrete over the past few days. According to Pitchfork:

"The film will be available for digital download through the Miroir Noir site on Monday, December 15. A DVD will be released next year; if you pre-order the DVD, you'll receive an instant download.

According to a press release, the 70-minute film "follows Arcade Fire through the making and touring of Neon Bible, documenting the band at their Montreal studio, the making of promotional films and videos, along with live footage and a few short films made on the road."

There will be both standard and deluxe editions of the DVD.

Doom doom doomed...

Apparently the Postal Service will avoid the sophomore slump:

The prognosis on a second album is grim...

The Decemberists' "Hazards of Love" Track Listing

01 Prelude
02 Hazards of Love 1 (The Prettiest Whistles Won't Wrestle the Thistles Undone)
03 A Bower Scene
04 Won't Want for Love (Margaret in the Taiga)
05 Hazards of Love 2 (Wager All)
06 The Queen's Approach
07 Isn't It a Lovely Night?
08 The Wanting Comes in Waves / Repaid
09 An Interlude
10 The Rake's Song
11 The Abduction of Margaret
12 The Queen's Rebuke / The Crossing
13 Annan Water
14 Margaret in Captivity
15 Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge!)
16 The Wanting Comes in Waves (Reprise)
17 The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned)

MORE INFO HERE!

The Max Weinberg-Roots Connection

Guess what?



The Roots have been confirmed as the house band for the new Jimmy Fallon-led Late Night show.

In related news, Leno may not be going away. Reports (1) (2) are saying that Jay may be given a 10 pm timeslot on the network. Back when CBS was re-upping Letterman, they offered him an 8 pm show, but he turned it down. It looks like Jay might follow through on this one.

Franz Nicolay explosion!

Franz Nicolay's back in the news!

#1: One of his new songs from his Major General solo effort has hit the net! Download it below:

World/Inferno Vs the End of Evening - MP3
(Right Click // Save As)

The Major General LP is due out on January 13th on Fistolo.


#2: Franz has also outlined a January tour to promote the LP. Pretty great, considering it's smashed in between the December and February dates of the Hold Steady tour! Check his solo tour dates and the remaining Hold Steady dates below.

Franz:

01-06 Charlottesville, VA - Boylan Heights Restaurant
01-07 Baltimore, MD - Ottobar
01-08 Washington, DC - Black Cat (Backstage)
01-09 Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church
01-11 New York, NY - Le Poisson Rouge
01-12 Buffalo, NY - Mohawk Place
01-13 Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop
01-14 Lansing, MI - Mac's Bar
01-16 Minneapolis, MN - Triple Rock Social Club
01-17 Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
01-18 Dekalb, IL - The House Café

The Hold Steady:

12-07 Sheffield, England - Leadmill
12-08 Oxford, England - Academy
12-09 Nottingham, England - Rock City
12-10 Manchester, England - Academy
12-12 Bristol, England - Anson Rooms
12-14 Portsmouth, England - Wedgewood Rooms
12-15 Wolverhampton, England - Wulfrun Hall
12-17 London, England - Roundhouse

(Insert Franz)

01-31 Brisbane, Australia - Laneway Festival
02-01 Melbourne, Australia - Laneway Festival
02-02 Melbourne, Australia - The Corner Hotel
02-04 Sydney, Australia - Metro Theatre
02-06 Perth, Australia - Laneway Festival
02-07 Adelaide, Australia - Laneway Festival
02-08 Sydney, Australia - Laneway Festival

Playlist for 12/7/08

Here's the 12/7/08 Playlist:

Walk Idiot Walk - The Hives
Keep the Car Running - Arcade Fire
Supernatural Superserious - REM
Life in Technicolor II - Coldplay
Movies of Antarctica - Stars of Track & Field
Happy Christmas (War Is Over) - The Polyphonic Spree
Neon Tiger - The Killers
Valley Winter Song - Fountains of Wayne
Lucky - Radiohead
Use Somebody - Kings of Leon
Set Your Glass Down - Snow Patrol
Mansard Roof - Vampire Weekend
A-Punk - Vampire Weekend
5 Years Time - Noah & The Whale
Blue Christmas - Bright Eyes
Come Downstairs and Say Hello - Guster
The Lights Are On In Spider Town - Tom Morello, The Nightwatchmen
Map of the Problematique - Muse
Valerie Plame - The Decemberists
Ulysses - Franz Ferdinand
Carpetbaggers - Jenny Lewis f/ Elvis Costello
Chicago - Ingram Hill
Juicebox - The Strokes
Against All Odds - Postal Service
Brand New Colony - Postal Service
Made in the Dark - Hot Chip
Hold Music - Architecture in Helsinki
The Beat Goes On - Ima Robot

Morrissey's "Years of Refusal" hits... with a message?

Morrissey appears to have a theme with his album covers of late. Quarry had a gun, Ringleader had a violin. Not so sure what he's getting at with the baby this time around, but it's potent when taken in series.


Thoughts (in the form of comments) are always appreciated.

Tom Morello / Jenny Lewis / Conan O'Brien

Like I talked about last night, here's the Tom Morello performance on Conan...



...and Jenny Lewis on Conan:



Enjoy!

11/30 Playlist

Here's the 11/30 Playlist:

Spanish Metal - Kaiser Chiefs
Like It Too Much - Kaiser Chiefs
Nausea - Beck
Bodysnatchers - Radiohead
Ulysses - Franz Ferdinand
Mercury - Bloc Party
No Better Place - Fountains of Wayne
Crack the Shutters - Snow Patrol
Turn Out the Light - The New Amsterdams
I'm Sticking With You - The Decemberists
Hoppipola - We Are Scientists
Fight Outta You - Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals
Viva La Vida - Coldplay
Nightswimming - REM
Hollow Man - REM
I'm Amazed - My Morning Jacket
Acid Tongue - Jenny Lewis
Such Great Heights - Iron & Wine
Manhattan - Kings of Leon
Closer - Jimmy Eat World
As Tall As Cliffs - Margot and the Nuclear So-and-sos
The End of the World - The Cure
The Lovers are Losing - Keane
Fix It - Ryan Adams
Could Well Be In - The Streets
Love It All - The Kooks
On To Something - The Apples in Stereo
Radio Song - The Felice Brothers

Thanks for listening this week! We love requests too. If you want to hear something on the show and it's not 8-10 pm on Sunday nights, email us at CampusbuzzWSOU@gmail.com!

Why?: A Sky for Shoeing Horses Under (Video)

Why?: A Sky for Shoeing Horses Under (Video)

Posted using ShareThis

11/23/08 Playlist

Here's the 11/23 playlist:

Dashboard - Modest Mouse
Hiroshima - Ben Folds
Closer - Kings of Leon
Whatever it Takes - Tom Morello, The Nightwatchman
Spanish Metal - Kaiser Chiefs
The Recluse - Cursive
Scarecrow - Beck
Every Day Is Like Sunday - Morrissey
O New England - The Decemberists (Part of the Always the Bridesmaid Single Series)
Days of Elaine (extended) - The Decemberists (Also part of the AtB Single Series)
Napalm Love - Air
Mercury - Bloc Party
Existentialism on Prom Night - Straylight Run
I Will Possess Your Heart - Death Cab For Cutie
The W.A.N.D - The Flaming Lips
It's the Sun - The Polyphonic Spree
Race to the City - The Cinematics
Jocasta - Noah and the Whale
Spiralling - Keane
Wake Up - The Arcade Fire
We Are Not A Football Team (acoustic) - Minus the Bear
Map of the Problematique - Muse
Evil Urges - My Morning Jacket
Rocketman - My Morning Jacket
Pretty Bird - Jenny Lewis
Fit But You Know It - The Streets
Munich - Editors
The District Sleeps Alone Tonight - The Postal Service

Colin Meloy speaks!

The new Decemberists album is "totally a rock opera".

Colin Meloy speaks!


-S

This Weeks Playlist! 16 Nov 2008

The Shins - Sea Legs
Kings of Leon - Use Somebody
Minus the Bear (acoustic!) - Pachua Sunrise
Yo La Tengo - Autumn Sweater
We Are Scientists (Off of Chris & Keith's Infinite Playlist) - After Hours
The Annuals - Confessor
Kaiser Chiefs - Never Miss A Beat
Bloc Party - Flux
Noah & the Whale - 5 Years Time
Keane - Perfect Symmetry
LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
The Decemberists - Raincoat Song
Bright Eyes/Conor Oberst - Waste of Paint/Souled Out!
The Kooks - Sway
Snow Patrol - Take Back This City
Oasis - The Shock of the Lightning
Matt Pryor - Confidence Man
Rilo Kiley - Silver Lining
Rogue Wave - Eyes
Deathcab for Cutie - I Will Possess Your Heart
The Dandy Warhols - And Then I Dreamt of Yes
Margot & The Nuclear So And So's - As Tall As Cliffs
Nada Surf - I Like What You Say
Polyphonic Spree - Hold Me Now
Weezer - The Good Life
Beck - Gamma Ray/ Chemtrails

Hope you enjoyed the show!!

Christmas on Mars game!

Play the Flaming Lips' CHRISTMAS ON MARS GAME HERE

Have fun figuring it out. Exploding heads are involved, as far as I can tell!


-S

OFF TOPIC: Johann Johannsson

I'm here to talk about a new classical piece from Icelandic composter Jóhann Jóhannsson, entitled "The Rocket Builder", off his new album Fordlândia.

What? Classical? Huh?

I happened to come across Jóhannsson's 2006 work, IBM 1401: A User's Manual, a giant strings-and-computer-blip-and-reel-to-reel opus that's positively haunting. It defies one's expectations of what classical music can really sound like, even to frequent listeners. I recommend that five-movement work to all readers and listeners.

Back to Fordlândia...

Pitchfork gave the album a decent review, and left this MP3 behind for anyone who is interested. I have yet to hear the whole work, so I won't go into some sort of review, but I will say based on this track, the sound is somewhat different from IBM 1401. If you like what you hear on that track, definitely dive into his body of work though. It's not what you expect. Check his Myspace here for more information.

Anyways, here's the MP3 -- THE ROCKET BUILDER


Enjoy.


-S

11/9/08 Playlist

Here's this week's playlist:

Under Pressure - The Flaming Lips
Nothing's Impossible - Depeche Mode
As the Doctor Talks - The Faint
Lucky - Radiohead
Rock & Roll Star - Oasis
I'm Outta Time - Oasis
Touch Me, I'm Going To Scream pt. 2 - My Morning Jacket
Ready For The Floor - Hot Chip
In the Colors - Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals
Stand - R.E.M.
GfC - Albert Hammond, Jr.
Do What You Do - Noah & The Whale
Heavy Metal - Clap Your Hands & Say Yeah
Silver Lining - Rilo Kiley
Hold Me Now - The Polyphonic Spree
Valerie Plame - The Decemberists
Starlight - Muse
Planet of Sound - The Pixies
You Haven't Told Me Anything - Keane
Soul Singer in a Session Band - Bright Eyes
Waste of Paint - Bright Eyes
Everything is Borrowed - The Streets
Miniature Birds - Grand Archives
The Captain - Ingram Hill
You Don't Know Me - Ben Folds f/ Regina Spektor
Death And All His Friends
Munich - Editors
We Dance Alone - Beck
Believe Achieve - CSS

11/2/08 playlist

Here's the 11/2/08 playlist:

Take Back The City - Snow Patrol
Young Folks - Peter, Bjorn & John
You Have Killed Me - Morrissey
I'm Outta Time - Oasis
A-Punk - Vampire Weekend
Shankill Butchers - The Decemberists
Valerie Plame - The Decemberists
The Lovers Are Losing - Keane
Driftwood: A Fairy Tale - Cursive
Could Well Be In - The Streets
Do the Panic - Phantom Planet
Streets of Fire - The New Pornographers
Two - Ryan Adams
Hiroshima - Ben Folds
Skeleton Song - Kate Nash
Rebellion (Lies) - Arcade Fire
The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn) - Weezer
Map of the Problematique - Muse
Off the Record - My Morning Jacket
Aluminum Park - My Morning Jacket
The W.A.N.D. - Flaming Lips
Creeps Me Out - Ima Robot
The Lights Are On In Spider Town - Tom Morello, The Nightwatchman
Take It Easy (Love Nothing) - Bright Eyes
Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love - Coldplay
Clark Gable - The Postal Service
Battle Royale - Does It Offend You, Yeah?


Tune in next week for more of The Campus Buzz!

It's been a while - AUDI

Hey readers/listeners,

It's been a while since our last update. Thanks for tuning in Sunday night for our interview with Franz Nicolay. He's now on the road with the Hold Steady, and they had their first show last night down in Louisville, KY. Best of luck to them on their tour! We had a great time having Franz up last Sunday night, and we hope that he will be able to make it back up sometime in the future!

---

Moving on, Georgeroskos.com shared this with Raggedy Annie and I earlier this week. A lot of buzz has surrounded the music made for the "Notes on Progress", "Separation" and several other Audi commercials. Turns out that this music was specifically composed for the commercials and is no longer than it. However, lots of people have been diligent in their remixing of it, creating longer versions of the tunes.





To download the song, sit through the Audi ad HERE and a link should show up.

Listen tonight!

As a reminder:

Tonight, The Campus Buzz will be hosting Franz Nicolay of The Hold Steady (and many other groups!) at 8 pm.

We will be following Pirate Primetime's interview with Seton Hall mens basketball coach Bobby Gonzales, so tune in early if you so choose, and keep your dials at 89.5 for the rest of the night!

CHINESE DEMOCRACY?

Bee Tee Dubs...

Chinese Democracy is here. No, not the country. Guns & Roses!

Not exactly Buzz material, but I think it was worth announcing. It hit this morning!

The rise and fall of DC Indie Power

I never knew you, Julie Ocean, until it was too late.




The DC indie powergroup Julie Ocean reportedly disbanded this week, shortly after the release of their debut LP, Long Gone and Nearly There.

For more info, music and videos of Julie Ocean, click here.


Arctic Monkeys and Weekends of Vampires beware... you may be next.

10/19/08 Playlist

Here's the 10-19-08 Playlist:

Hiroshima - Ben Folds
Frown Song - Ben Folds
Troublemaker - Weezer
The Lights Are On In Spider Town - Tom Morello, The Nightwatchman
What Is Your Secret? - Nada Surf
Touch Me I'm Going To Scream pt. 2 - My Morning Jacket
The 13th - The Cure
Closer - Kings of Leon
Fit But You Know It - The Streets
Valerie Plame - The Decemberists
Twin Cinema - The New Pornographers
Pumpkin Soup - Kate Nash
I Think I'm In Love - Beck
Paranoid Android - Radiohead
No Better Place - Fountains of Wayne
Lovers Are Losing - Keane
Confessor - Annuals
Empty Tank - Blackpool Lights
Free Not Free - Clinic
Cinderella's Big Score - Sonic Youth
Tunnels - Arcade Fire
Watch Us Explode (Justify) - The Polyphonic Spree
The Songs I Didn't Write - Creaky Boards
Viva La Vida - Coldplay

------

Just a few things:


1) If you didn't listen tonight, we have news: NEXT WEEK, Franz Nicolay of The Hold Steady will be in studio for an interview and some live music! Keep your dials locked in after WSOU Sports' interview with Bobby Gonzales!

2) Thanks for the input from a few people who called in about the Creaky Boards/Coldplay controversy! The jury's still out!

3) Congrats to all those who won the Minus The Bear/Annuals/Sylvia tickets! Have a good time at Starland next Sunday!

FULL SHOW TONIGHT!

The show will NOT be pre-empted tonight by the soccer game! The schedule was wrong. Listen in 8-10 pm tonight, and tell a friend!

www.nj.com/wsou
89.5 on the FM dial

Keane's Perfect Symmetry REVIEWED

Keane desperately wants synth to be back in style. If Perfect Symmetry has any defining characteristic, it is the whirs and screeches and chords that can make anyone want to jump into a Duran Duran or Phil Collins video. But the question that arises when listening through the album is whether or not retro pop-rock is a progression or if it’s just old news.

At first listen, this album seems like a deviation from Keane’s first two major releases. This album mostly lacks the smooth charm of Hopes and Fears and throws out the dissonant tension of Under the Iron Sea. However, a few songs scream “classic Keane” on this album. After the first chorus of “The Lovers are Losing” you’ll be remembering the first few times you listened through “Can’t Stop Now” or “Leaving So Soon”. This is not meant to imply that Keane keeps writing the same songs. Like I said earlier, Perfect Symmetry is definitely different from the first two albums. However Tom Chaplin and company got into this new retro groove is outside my knowledge. Were they sitting around listening to Invisible Touch and got some ideas, or did they try something out and it just happened to gel… who knows? In the end, after a few listens, the initial thought stands: this material is a deviation from “classic” Keane. Despite a few oddities, like the vaguely creepy synth track on “Better Than This”, the sound is good.

As for the content of the album, there are several apparent singles, but no filler material is apparent. The album is fairly consistent all the way through. A few high points are worth noting though. The chorus of “The Lovers Are Losing” carries the song’s weight; it’s long, wordy and worthy of a grand sing-along. “You Haven’t Told Me Anything” is begging for a DJ to remix it, with its syncopated beats. And “Playing Along” seems to have some guitarish charms, something that’s rare for Keane.

So, is retro pop-rock an artistic progression, or is it just recycled motifs? The jury’s still out, but Keane HAS managed to take retro styling and apply it to the Keane sound to create something new entirely. Three albums into Keane’s major label career, I can only name a few groups who have truly reinvented their sound for each of their first three albums – U2 and Coldplay. So, maybe the comparisons go beyond just Keane’s sound, down to their actual composing qualities. Keane has put out another great album that should dispel uneasiness that might have arisen from Iron Sea’s sophomore slump. It’s catchy, it’s quality, and is destined to be a notable entry in the Keane catalog.

Tonight... but not tonight as in this evening.

TONIGHT.

That's the title of the new Franz Ferdinand album. For more info, clicky clicky! Tour info included!

-----

On another note, the mailroom of WSOU failed to get us Keane's Perfect Symmetry in time for last Sunday, but it was waiting for us Monday morning, the day of its release in the UK. We'll be spinning a doubleshot this Sunday, and I'll post a review hopefully on Friday.

-----

Lastly, about this week's show. Just a heads up: WSOU Sports will be broadcasting a sporting event of some sort starting at 6:30 or 7 pm Sunday night, so the show might be pre-empted for a while. Never fear, the game shouldn't kill our whole show. Keep your dials locked in... as soon as the game's over we'll be back on air.

Playlist for 10/12/08

As always, Orange is featured new music!

10/12/08 - The Campus Buzz

Orange Crush - REM
Living Well Is The Best Revenge - REM
Do It Again - Nada Surf
Sansoucci - Rufus Wainwright
Dude Ranch Nurse - Sonic Youth
I'm Out of Time - Oasis
Morning Glory - Oasis
Use Somebody - Kings of Leon
Bullets - Augustana
And Then I Dreamt of Yes - Dandy Warhols
Free Coffee - Ben Folds
Cemeteries of London - Coldplay
Give a Little Love - Rilo Kiley
Everything is Borrowed - The Streets
Running Away - The Polyphonic Spree
Ready for the Floor - Hot Chip
Read My Mind - The Killers
Nobody Moves, Nobody Gets Hurt - We Are Scientists
In The Colors - Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals
Why Don't You Let Me Stay Here? - She & Him
My Body is A Cage - Arcade Fire
Put it Behind You - Keane
The Perfect Crime #2 - The Decemberists
This Year - The Thrills
Nothing's Wrong - Architecture in Helsinki
Chemtrails -Beck
Missing - Beck
Move - CSS


Check back to the show next week for a possible call-up segment on the Creaky Boards/Coldplay controversy, more from our Artist of the Month (OASIS) and more!

Peace!

The Hazards of Valerie Plame Always Being the Bridesmaid

The Decemberists are back!

They've announced the title for their new album as they are working on final mastering and mixing. It will be called Hazards of Love, but no release date has been announced.

Ahead of their November 5th performance at Terminal 5 and their November 11th show in Montclair, NJ (both part of a (first leg of a?) mini-tour), the Decemberists will drop the first of a series of previously-announced Always the Bridesmaid single series. The song Valerie Plame will hit this coming Tuesday, October 13th. To hear Valerie Plame, hit the youtube vid below:




For the full article, click here.

Coldplay mixes it up with... Jay-Z?

Coldplay and Jay-Z have brought their artistic collaborations full circle.

In 2006, Chris Martin was featured on Jay-Z's album "Kingdom Come", and now Jay-Z will be featured on the Lost! EP, on a remix entitled Lost+. This is the band's third single off the album, and the EP will feature a live cut as well.

Along with this, Uncut and some other sites have reported on Coldplay's other fall/winter release, entitled Prospekt's March. The details are sparse and sometimes conflicting, but based on what was posted on Coldplay.com a while back, it looks like this EP is legit, and the track listing is locked in.

The EP will include B-sides and sessions that accumulated over the recording sessions for Viva La Vida (which if you were paying attention during the lead-up, was codenamed Prospekt). The EP can also be obtained in some sort of deluxe re-release of Viva, which will include the Prospekt tracks.


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The Prospekt's March track listing is as follows:

Life in technicolor ii (Technicolor + Added Vocals)
Postcards from far away
Glass of water
Rainy day
Prospekt’s march/poppyfields
Lost+
Lovers in japan (Osaka sun mix)
Now my feet won’t touch the ground


So to sum it all up:
-Lost! EP (including Jay-Z)
-Prospekt's March EP
-Viva/Prospekt Re(new)release
-Empty wallets for Coldplay fans this November.


In the coming weeks on the show, we're probably going to talk the Creaky Boards/Coldplay Viva La Vida controversy. We're hoping to play the two songs in question back to back, and let you decide if plagiarism took place. Stay tuned!

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And finally... register to vote! Most final registration dates are coming up here in the next week or so!

Keane -- The Lovers are Losing

Here's the third song off Keane's new albums that hit the airwaves recently. Look for the new album in one week!!!

Christmas on Mars Interview

Here's a transcript of an interview with The Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne, who recently saw his long-awaited film, Christmas on Mars, premiered in New York. He sat down with Pitchfork's Paul Thompson. Enjoy!

During the chat, Wayne explains why the Christmas On Mars that will screen all over the place this fall and hit DVD November 11 from Warner Bros. will kick the ass of any of its previous incarnations. He also discusses the understandably unorthodox way one shoots a movie over an seven-year span largely in the backyard, and just how a nice gentleman like himself came into possession of a "Crack Shack".


Pitchfork: So, tell me about this movie you guys are finally putting out. I guess the big question is, what took you so long?

WC: [Laughing] Probably a combination of things. But I think the worst thing that delayed it was really not anything that was bad. I call it "being interrupted by success." You know, we had done The Soft Bulletin, which came out in 1999, and we knew we that were gonna make another record before too long. But in between this, we were still in this mode of kind of just-- not re-creating what we could be, but kind of doing different things. For the longest time in the Flaming Lips we were like, "Make a record, go on tour. Come back, make another record," and you know, I think, frankly, we were kind of like, "There's more to life than just recording records and going on tour." And we thought that if we wanted to do different stuff, we would. So, I think I thought, "Well, why don't we make a movie."

We had already done a lot of music videos with [director] Brad Beesley. By then we'd almost done 20 videos with him or something, and we'd always talked about how the Flaming Lips should have a movie, like the Ramones have a movie, or the Beatles. Not in a pretentious way, just like, "Yeah! We should have a movie!" We thought, "Well, why not? We'll just sort of make one and see what happens."

And I think it would not be too much of a leap of anybody's imagination that knows us at all to think, "Oh, well they'll have a Christmas movie in outer space. Sure." I think anybody could think, "Of course, they could do that." I'm not saying there wouldn't be other themes that we could explore, but for me to say that we're making a movie called Christmas on Mars, people are like, "Of course! Of course you'll make that!"

We started to make it at the very beginning of 2001. I can tell you this for certain, we had played a New Year's show at the Metro up in Chicago. I was driving home from that show, from Chicago to Oklahoma City, maybe not the next day, but the day after the next day, and I remember me and Michelle [Martin-Coyne, Wayne's wife] talking about, "Well, I guess we'll make this movie." She was like, "All right, I guess you're gonna make that." And I remember on that drive home from Chicago, we put in motion that we were gonna do it.

So anyways, we started to make it in 2001, and we were also starting to record Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, and so we didn't know Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots was even gonna be that, so, as we moved along we thought, "Well, we'll just see how this works out." To our surprise, the Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots record sort of became this bigger thing than we ever thought it would be. Still even is now. I run into people all the time who know that record, and know "Do You Realize??" and know stuff like that, who really don't even know that much about us. And really, that just kept building and building, almost to the point where we-- I don't remember which year, but maybe 2003?-- I'm not sure we shot anything for Christmas on Mars. Not intentionally, I just think we never really got back to being able to fit anything else in the schedule.

So, 2001, 2002: a lot of shooting. 2004, 2005: a lot of shooting. And then 2006 going into 2007 would've been, even making At War with the Mystics and starting to panic about, "Oh my god, are we ever going to finish Christmas on Mars?" And then, even, say, this time last year, as Halloween and Thanksgiving approached, we thought, "Dude, let's not do anything else until we can either decide whether Christmas on Mars can work, and will it work. And if it will work, let's finish it. If it won't work, let's decide." So we spent a couple of months around Christmas and New Year's last year deciding what its fate could be, and then quickly deciding, "Hey! I think it's gonna be good." And then we transferred it to HD, and then threw it all into the super computers and started to panic, and put it into the state that it's in now. So that's my story so far. [laughs]

Pitchfork: I remember years and years ago, being in my dorm room or something like that and seeing some production stills, maybe photos of the sets and of you in a space suit and all these things--

WC: Yeah, yeah. I think there's a trailer still out there that says, "Coming Christmas 2003."

Pitchfork: Yes, I remember that one. Was it frustrating for you guys, all the delays you went through? Or was it good to have that time to work it out that way?

WC: Yeah, when I think of it now, the movie that we could've finished in 2001 would've sucked. The movie that we could've finished in 2002 would've just been a disaster, even into 2003, it would've been very cobbled together, amateuristic stuff. But as we went along, we really did stumble upon some accidental themes, and with the things you could do with computers, and all that sort of stuff just sort of really accelerated into where the stuff that we could do right here at my house became-- you could almost do anything.

That's not to say that there still wasn't a lot of skill and good luck involved in it becoming what it was. We definitely turned a corner around 2004, 2005 where it was like, well damn, now suddenly things that weren't possible even a year ago are now very possible, as far as just being able to shoot CGI and things that were intended to go into the computer and be manipulated. I was waiting for that, in a way. I mean honestly, I kept shooting things, thinking, "Fuck! Why can't we do this or that?" And, you know, always sort of working at just the edge of the technology that we could afford, anyways. The technology was out there, [but] we're not George Lucas, so you know, we had to wait until it came into a way that we could experiment with it ourselves.

So, not really frustrating, because in a sense, I don't think anybody really cares. It's sort of like, "You're making this movie, who really cares?" I know if I would've gone into it, even in 2001, saying, "You know, this is going to take us five years to make," I think I would've, even myself been like, "Ah, it's just fuckin' too long. Who wants to fuck with that?" Even in thinking that it was going to take seven years, if I had told anybody that it was gonna take seven years, they would've said, "Well dude, I'm out of here. I don't wanna wait around that long."

But I think it's kind of like getting fat people to walk 20 miles. If you just do it 100 yards at a time, and nobody knows how far they are going, they can do it! [laughs] And I would include myself in those fat people! You know, you do this little by little and you don't realize your potential, or you don't realize how really rich, and how far you can go. I have to say that a lot of it was just dumb luck that I stumbled upon some things musically. And I stumbled upon some actors, I stumbled upon some themes and some locations that just made it a lot better.

I didn't have a lot of horrible bad luck that made it seem like everyhing that I had shot previously now was sort of obsolete. Everything that I shot I ended up using. And some of the things that I shot in the very beginning are things that don't happen until the very end of the movie, so it's a strange combination of our most primitive junk right next to our most advanced junk. Even in the making of the movie, it's sort of like, "Wow!" In a sense, I like that. I like that you can never really tell where we're at in our evolution. Are we still just this, you know, this fish trying to climb out of the water? Or are we just this giant, advanced species now, that can do anything it wants? It kind of jumps back and forth.

Pitchfork: Is the finished product similar to how you had envisioned it on that drive from Chicago to Oklahoma City?

WC: It is, but I think that would give me way too much credit. I mean, if I was to think of what I could hold in my imagination at any one time and say, "This is what I want to happen," it would be maybe five or six moments throughout the entire movie that I could say, "Damn! That's exactly what I wanted!" But interspersed in between all these moments of clarity and vision, there is just nothing. You can't really imagine every moment of a movie in the same way that you wouldn't expect a novelist to envision every sentence of his 800-page novel.

You just think, well, you know what you're gonna do, and you just-- when it comes down to the very specifics of it, you kind of have to rely on your mode of panic, and how well your imagination and creativity and all that works when you're in that moment. And you know, frankly, I never worried about that. I never worried that as we moved into the very specifics of it, what would it be? I always knew, since I'm the one making the movie, if I didn't like it, I'd just simply build another set and do it again. I was the one doing it all, so I never really worried about if I didn't like it. I just thought, "Well, if I didn't like it, I'll just do it again! Who cares?"

There were a couple of times where I shot things, or started off in one mode and thought, "Well, I really didn't want to do that." I would just change my mind. And frankly, I don't think anybody really cared. The guys who were shooting it with me, and even the guys in the band, they would sort of trust me. No one really demanded that they know too much about what we were doing. They'd be like, "Well, I'm sure it'll work." They'd come in, and we'd shoot for a couple of days and then, you know, I'd put it together on my own time and be like, "Oh okay, that'll work." I didn't have some producer that had given me $10 million, demanding results. I could just kind of do whatever I thought was right, and move in that way. And like I said, I got very lucky that some of the things that I wanted to work did work. Not because I knew what I was doing, just through dumb luck, it just looked beautiful and sounded great and captured some magical mood. And you just have to hope that you get lucky when you do big things like making a movie, or something.

Pitchfork: Is there something in particular that happened through that process that you might not have been expecting that you really liked?

WC: Elements of the Flaming Lips fan base know that Steven [Drozd, Lips drummer] was a heroin addict. A pretty severe heroin addict, right as 2001 turned into 2002. That's right when we were shooting some very intense scenes, and I know for certain that some of the nights-- I mean, we would shoot into the night, almost every time that we shot, because it takes a long time to set up lights and all this sort of junk-- and there would be times where we would be shooting some of his dialogue scenes where he is really-- I don't know what is the proper word for it-- at the height or at the lowest ebb of his heroin addiction. You know, as bad as a heroin addict could be. And really, me expecting almost the next day, for someone to call me and say, you know, "We found Steven dead in his car last night." I mean, that severe.

I think in a sense that there is something-- and I know it sounds ridiculous to speak of that having an impression on the film, or in the mood or whatever-- I see in it now as having influenced the way that he would stand, or the way that I would have him say the lines, or the way that everybody around us would be reacting. Not in a bad way, I mean, because Steven was always charming and always funny and always great to be around, even at the height of his worst moments of heroin addiction. Don't get me wrong-- there were very strange moments that I wouldn't have been able to say, as a dumb film director with costumes and junk like that saying, "Can you be weird?" I don't know if I could've really got that. But the situations would just sometimes be simply weird. And the film would roll and we'd record what people said, and it would turn into this otherworldly moment.

Now that's going bizarrely in one dramatic direction, but there would be other times-- I remember even one of the first scenes I was shooting where I was working at this abandoned cement factory, and I was using the flooded-out stairs that went down to the basement of this cement factory that had been flooded for probably 20 years. All just full of shit and sludge and grease and all kinds of stuff. There was this water that was kind of permanently in there, and I'd snuck in there and started to build this set using this water that was in this basement entrance.

The day before I went to shoot in this water-- I had set up lights and all kinds of generators and all this stuff to make this scene happen-- the fucking owner came in and pumped all this water out of this basement that I was gonna use. He didn't realize that I'd spent a good ten days in there fixing all this up, either. He came in and was like, "I thought you'd already shot that damn thing!" And I was like, "Well, no, I'm just getting ready to." He's like "Well, I'm gonna pump that out today." So in a panic, as soon as he got done pumping it out, I put lights and smoke and stuff into the empty hole, where there was gonna be water. And I think the scene, looking at it now, turned out probably better than it would've ever been if I had shot it in this stupid water. Because it just would have been a disaster with lighting and all that sort of stuff.

So you know, I just took any situation that I had and thought, "Well, all right, let's fuckin' make that work." And I think you have to. I think that everybody who ever goes about making any kind of film in this kind of way, where you can control so little of it, if you're lucky, all those catastrophes that happen, you're able to use them, and just say, "Fuck it! Now the movie can be about that."

But I mean, thematically, it never really veered that far from what I had thought the story could possibly be saying. In that way, like I said, I just got lucky.

Pitchfork: Building on that, I know you crafted a lot of these sets. You built them in your yard and things like that. What has happened to those, over time?

WC: Some of them would just be rooms in my house. We have a big house, and the back part of it was always kind of up for grabs. We never lived in the very back part, but [the Lips] rehearsed, and we would have band gear back there and stuff. So I would just sort of take one of those rooms, empty everything out of it, and use it for a set, and then we'd shoot that scene. Then once I thought, "Well, that went good," I'd just tear that scene down and build another one. Sometimes they would be made and then simply destroyed to make room for the next set.

As time went on, I acquired this bigger building in the back of my house. The old man that lived behind me died, and he had a big work shack, big work garage/building back there, and I was able to build sets in it, but the same thing would happen. I would build some elaborate sets, and as soon as that went well, "All right, tear those down and just start on the next one." There would be a little bit of pain, like, "Damn, we spent a long time doing that," but that really is the nature of movie sets, you just fuckin' make em', shoot it, and tear it down.

There would be some that lived for a couple of years in my back yard, there was a shack in this other section of my back yard, there was this house-- you have to remember, we would buy these properties around us as time went on. In 2001, when we started, I didn't have these properties. But as 2003, 2004 came along, these properties kind of became available, so I bought them and sort of expanded what my back yard could become. One of the houses was this abandoned house that people would buy crack in, so we called it the "Crack Shack". [laughs] It was just a little shack, it had a bathroom and stuff in it but none of it worked, so we just sort of tore all of that out and then built a scene in it that actually Fred Armisen from "Saturday Night Live" is in.

Now, I didn't know it was a crack shack until my oldest brother Tommy-- some of my brothers are in the movie, but my oldest brother isn't in the movie-- came and said, "Wow, this is the Crack Shack!" I asked him, "What do you mean, the 'Crack Shack'?" And he's like, "Well, I used to buy crack in the house up front, and we'd come back to this little shack and we'd smoke crack."

We were doing a lot of renovation on our house, and now there's virtually nothing left except for this big fiberglass gas tank container on one corner of my lot. And then there's, like, tubes and shit like that in my garage, but I don't know if you would readily see a lot of evidence of it now. So some of it, it's about damn time I got rid of it.

But there is a rock climbing facility that I visited the other day when a magazine came into town, and I hadn't been down there since 2006 or the very end of 2005, and some of those sets-- we built those in some very strange corners of this giant rock climbing facility-- and those are still there. You'd be amazed how well glue and duct tape hold up. So for a couple of years now they've been sitting there. So some of those will probably be there for a couple more years.

Pitchfork: What are you doing with all of the space you used to shoot the film? You said you bought up all of these properties...

WC: Well, little by little. We're turning one into a guest house, so when some of the Flaming Lips crew that doesn't live in Oklahoma City come they can just stay here and have access to all of our stuff. It's a nice, big, crazy house that some old people lived in that we were able to buy. Another one of my sort of computer guys lives in it, and the other one is just a kind of big storage/work space for all of the Flaming Lips projects that are going on here, so it's kind of a little bit of a-- I hate to say it-- an art compound. We have a giant, strange house here that's kind of always in different states of already-renovation. It's just an ongoing disaster, I have to say. A lot going on here all the time.

Pitchfork: The special edition of the Christmas on Mars DVD comes with a CD of the soundtrack for the film. How did that soundtrack come together? Was the music made after the shooting? Or was it always involved with the process of making the film?

WC: Well, the music that we ended up using, most of it was really created in the last stages of the filming and the editing. Even, say, a year ago. Now, we thought we had music all along. We would make music sometimes, and actually shoot the scene almost like a music video, to the music that we made. There are bits of that that we did end up using. But a lot of it kept... not getting refined, but we would find a simpler version of the moods that we thought we wanted.

In the beginning, I think we didn't know how many scenes we thought we really wanted. So we made a lot more scenes available for me to use in the editing than I really ended up using. I really only ended up using one main scene that has variations on it throughout the whole film. In the beginning, me and Steven, we sort of-- not in a contrived way-- but we thought, "Oh, let's give these characters some different types of themes, and let's see how they play out as I edit it." But as I got closer into the editing, I really wanted more of just one theme that had different atmospheres about it. And that's what we really ended up doing.

For people who know movie composers, I would say it ended up, for me, feeling like a cross between Bernard Herrmann, who has done Albert Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese, you know, real dense, not fully orchestrated, but strange, dense orchestration. And then stuff that is as elaborate as, say, Igor Stravinsky. Abstract and very ornate and complex and Eastern European-sounding stuff. A lot of people that would come into the studio while we were making it thought that we had somehow sort of got a Russian orchestra, or a Russian composer to make this music. Because some of it feels like it came from Siberia or something, which I thought was perfect. Little by little, as we went, I wanted it to feel like some kind of drug-damaged foreign film that you found in your collection, that was actually made 60 years ago. So as we went, I think me and Steven kept pushing it to the denser, just more exotic strangeness. So that's what we kind of ended up doing. But most of that really happened at the very end of the film.

Pitchfork: So, should the soundtrack be taken as more a score than as a proper new Flaming Lips album?

WC: It's exactly a score. I think people that know Flaming Lips music would hear it and think, "oh, I hear the Flaming Lips in there." I say that because I don't want people to think, "Oh, it's songs about Wayne singing about Christmas and Mars," because it's not like that. It's a dense, emotional score that goes with this sort of strange movie.

[A Warner Bros. rep gets on the phone to let us know that we have one more question left.]

Pitchfork: I wanted to make sure to ask about "Do You Realize??" being nominated for the title of Official Oklahoma Rock Song.

WC: [Laughs] Exactly, yeah!

Pitchfork: [Laughs] Very interested in your thoughts on that.

WC: Well, I do think there is a segment of people in Oklahoma that really do love the Flaming Lips and love this other idea of what someone from Oklahoma could be like. And I think-- and though I haven't tried to be, I haven't pursued it-- I've sort of become the spokesperson for this "other person" who could come from Oklahoma.

I think when people think of music from coming from Oklahoma, they think of Toby Keith or even Garth Brooks or even Woody Guthrie, you know? People think, "Why do we have to just be about the Bible and about football? Why can't we be about something like the Flaming Lips?" And I salute them! I say, "Well, that's great if you want that."

I don't know if it'll really happen, but I'm glad that people feel strongly enough about that type of identity also being associated with Oklahoma that they nominated it. I secretly say to people, "I hope it doesn't win," not because I think it would be bad, but there is a sense that people who really love the song "Do You Realize??"-- not for me, but I know for a lot of people, they're like, "You know, that's my song. And I didn't discover it on a commercial, and I didn't discover it because it was a big popular song. I discovered it because I believe in this idea of what the song is about."

I have a couple letters... I swear, I get letters all of the time; there is a letter sitting on my table right in front of me about people who have used it at this guy's funeral, a young guy who just died in August. A young guy that was at one of our shows that we did over the summer, and they use this song in these very powerful moments in their lives, and I don't think that it being used in a commercial or being used for this state song would diminish that, but in a sense I don't really push for it. I think, "Well, if it becomes that, I'm not gonna stop it." But I'm not saying, "It needs to be that." So that would be my take on it. I know there is a campaign of people who want it to be that, but I'm not really one of them.

Pitchfork: Good to know.

WC: [Laughs] I'm not against it! But I'm not leading that charge. So let it stand like that, however you want to interpret that, that would be my take on it. For better or worse.

Here's the trailer for the film as well!

10/5/08 Playlist

As last time, ORANGE denotes featured new music!

I Disappear - The Faint
The Geeks Were Right - The Faint
See the Sun - The Kooks
Central Standard Time - The Getup Kids
Skeleton Song - Kate Nash
Supernatural Superserious - REM
Memories of Antarctica - Stars of Track & Field
The Strongest Person I Know - The Streets
You Have Killed Me - Morrissey
Nothing Better - The Postal Service
The Shock and the Lightning - Oasis
Orphans - Beck
Rental Car - Beck
Cologne - Ben Folds
Battle Royale - Does It Offend You, Yeah?
Weird Fishes / Arpeggi - Radiohead
Missing Link - The Hives
Existentialism on Prom Night - Straylight Run
The Island - The Decemberists
Get Up and Go - The Polyphonic Spree
Shape of My Heart - Noah & The Whale
One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21 - The Flaming Lips
Nothing In My Way - Keane
GFC - Albert Hammond, Jr.
True Blue - Bright Eyes
No Cars Go - The Arcade Fire


Request lines were dead this week! You know the number. 973-761-9768. Call!!!

Another opportunity to remix Radiohead!

Hello Internet!

Today's hot dish is the news surrounding Radiohead's new remix competiton. Recently, they allowed fans to remix "Nude", which the only entrance fee was buying the stems to build with off of iTunes. This time around, the song that's up for the remix treatment is "Reckoner", and Radiohead's trying to make it easier and cheaper to enter.

Check out more on the new contest at Radiohead's info page:

http://radioheadremix.com/information/

NEW KEANE! pt. 2

Check it. This sounds a lot more like "Hopes and Fears" than "Spiraling" does.


Two more weeks, folks. Less if it leaks!

Weezer plays Madison Square Garden 9/23/08, in 320 Words

Tokyo Police Club opened the show around 7:30; I made it to my seat just in time for the band to hit their first notes. The venue was practically empty for these fine young Canadians, but as the show continued the seats begin to fill and before you know it – OMG it’s Tom DeLonge and the rest of Angels and Airwaves. Previously, I wouldn’t be able to tell you that I was very familiar with A&A, other than I knew it was a collaborative effort from notable pop punk bands from the 90s grouped together with a more melodic mall-fan feel. During their set I found myself nostalgic for middle school, I saw Blink 182 back in 2000 with Fenix TX and Bad Religion, at which point I was in the beginning of my “punk” phase. Not gonna lie, I was expecting a similar performance. To my surprise, the cheesy intros and catchy tunes were quite infectious. I found myself tapping along and I even recognized a couple songs. Before I knew it, Weezer was on stage – all members in white jumpsuits, which were later, swapped for red. A couple of my favorite highlights of the performance included the ever-present trampoline for Rivers’ enjoyment and their cover of Oasis’ “Morning Glory” (the cover came much later in the show, but I was really impressed by it). Weezer played their hits old and new, including a special rendition of “Undone – Sweater Song” where Tom Delonge and Atom Willard of Angels and Airwaves joined them on stage. The first encore had thirty of Weezer’s biggest NY fans join them for “Island in the Sun” and “Beverly Hills.” But my favorite moment by far was when Weezer played “Buddy Holly” – go ahead, call me cliché but it really was the best possible way to end the evening. Overall, I’d have to say that this Weezer show was the bee’s knees.

9/28/08 PLAYLIST

Here's the playlist for the 9/28 Campus Buzz. Orange denotes featured new music:

Morning Glory - Oasis
Shock & The Lightning - Oasis
Line in the Sand - Zox
5 Years Time - Noah & The Whale
Left Behind - CSS
Unmade Bed - Sonic Youth
Nude - Radiohead
Always Love - Nada Surf
Acid Tongue - Jenny Lewis
Michael & Heather at the Baggage Claim - Fountains of Wayne
Greatest Man That Ever Lived - Weezer
Everything is Borrowed - The Streets
Your Song (Elton John Cover) - The Streets
GfC - Albert Hammond, Jr.
Soldier Jane - Beck
The W.A.N.D - The Flaming Lips
Do You Realize?? - The Flaming Lips
Lost! - Coldplay
Take Back the City - Snow Patrol
Souled Out! - Conor Oberst
I Will Possess Your Heart - Death Cab For Cutie
Mistakes We Knew We Were Making - Straylight Run
Touch Me I'm Going To Scream pt. 2 - My Morning Jacket
Is It Any Wonder? - Keane
Hollow Man - REM
No Cars Go - Arcade Fire


Thanks for the calls this week everyone. We love requests, it helps us out to know what you ladies and gents want to hear!

REMEMBER: MORE MINUS THE BEAR TICKETS NEXT WEEK! The show is Sunday, October 28th, 7 pm doors, 8 pm show.

Tune in next Sunday at 8!

Weezer photos!

TEASER!

Here's some photos of Weezer at the Garden Wednesday night, courtesy of Pitchfork.

Raggedy Annie was in attendance, and will post a review soon!

New Keane! New Keane! New Keane!

New Keane!

The album hits in the UK on October 13, and will be titled "Perfect Symmetry". Here's the first single off the album, "Spiraling". Frankly, it makes me want to head back to 1985.





Look soon for another song off the album, entitled "The Lovers are Losing". We'll post it soon, so check back unless you want to hunt it down on your own.

**Funny tidbit for you: Back in August, a Portugese radio station actually played a third song off the album by accident, entitled "Love is the End", so that's circulating the net right now. The song that reportedly was supposed to be played was "Lovers are Losing", but a simple operator mistake (put quotes around that last word if you're a conspiracy theorist) gave us that third track.


-Scarecrow

Ben Gibbard covers Rilo Kiley's "Silver Lining"

The synergy between Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie and Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis is very apparent: she help make some of Postal Service's most memorable songs into sonically balanced pieces that bleed a sort of beautiful bleakness. While the next Postal Service project appears to still be far from a reality, they've been trading tunes on the road.

Here's a video I stumbled across not too long ago of Ben covering RK's "Silver Lining". Enjoy!

Artist of the Month: The Streets

The Campus Buzz Artist of the Month is The Streets.

Mike Skinner, otherwise known as The Streets recently released his newest album, Everything is Borrowed, with much speculation from him and fans that this may be his final album under the moniker.

The album is out in standard formats and also on a limited edition green Streets flash drive, shaped in the lighter design that has graced Streets promo material for years now. If you scrounge the net you can probably find some retailing for about ₤27 or more on auction pages.

Much of the material gives off a retrospective vibe, underscoring the possibility that this will be the end of The Streets as we know it. Scarecrow says he thinks it's a worthy addition to Skinner's overall body of work through his several albums and EPs.

To get a feel for the new material, check out this free download for the final track off the album, "The Escapist". Also included is the video for the song, which is scenic, to say the least.

{The Streets - "The Escapist"}




-Team Buzz