It's Bike to Work week! So naturally, I rode my bike to work this morning. I also rode yesterday. I didn't ride Monday because on Monday nights we shoot video for Project M, which means I could be in the office until 11pm or later. I...
For a limited time, you can stream John Mayer's new album Born and Raised free in the itunes store.
From some of the lyrics on John Mayer's new album, Born and Raised, you would think the one-time bad boy is trying to get you to like...
Here in Wisconsin, there are a few things we hold dear. The Packers, cheese, and beer. While none of these need defending, you may be excited to hear at least one of them can offer some great health benefits. Beer! If could be saving your...
Can you believe that May is more than halfway over? Time sure flies, as do birds, which leads us to this week's photo.
Please give me your best caption for this photo! The winner gets PRIZES!!!! Everyone likes prizes, and this week, Talking...
A different kind of challenge this week, as we don't have to write a song. You'd think that would make it easier, but it really opened up a whole world of possibilities. The judges have commented that they want bands to be bringing something...
Although he's from Sweden, Kristian Matsson, who also goes by The Tallest Man On Earth, has a serious American folk side to him. Drawing comparisons to Bob Dylan in both songwriting style and sound, Matsson draws inspiration from American artists...
Summer months can be a hard time for those who love to cook. Standing over a stove as hot as the air outside can take it's toll. Taking some simple steps can alleviate this problem and also reduce the amount of energy needed to cook or cool your...
For this week we were challenged with the task of rewriting a famous song in our own style, while still having it be recognizable as the original. "On Wisconsin" is such a historic song, that when we were first trying to accomplish our task, it...
The Black Keys teamed up with Funny Or Die to announce the release of their new record El Camino December 6th. They enlisted the help of comedian Bob Odenkirk from HBO’s Mr. Show and AMC’s Breaking Bad to shoot a parody video of a 70’s car salesman advertising a van for sale.
The band has even launched a website wannabuyavan in the viral marketing campaign. At the site you can call Pat and hear a recorded message describing the “van” and pre-order the new record.
Previously, The Black Keys have stated the new record is heavily influence by The Cramps and The Clash. El Camino is the follow up to 2010’s Brothers.
If Triple M’s favorite rock and roll farmer plays his new CD for the cows out in the barn in New Glarus, they’re chewin’ their cud a bit faster..and dancing in their stalls.
If you’re a follower of local music, you’ve probably heard that Jimmy Voegeli brought in some heavy hitters to help out on “Gimme the Jimmys.” Yeah, he’s got Bun E. Carlos from Cheap Trick on one track, and Dan Baird of the Georgia Satellites playing the guitar solos on several songs, but while that looks great on press releases, the proof is in the listening.
So often a local band will sound great live, but when they try to make a record of original material it leaves you asking “Why did I buy this?”
Luckily, that’s not the case with Gimme the Jimmys. It starts off really strong with ” HaDaYa”..a great jumping boogie woogie number that you just want to turn up loud. And even though all the songs aren’t traditional blues..they all fit and have a great flow. A couple of my favorites: “Hell or Heaven,” and “JiMo Boogie,” with the liner notes listing the musicians as Jimmy plus drummer Mauro Magellan, and a bottle of Jack. Gotta give credit where credit is due. I also can’t get enough of Dan Baird’s slide guitar on “She Don’t Love Me.”
Jimmy’s a great keyboard player, fine tuning his chops as a member of the Westside Andy Mel Ford Band over the years. But he’s not a show-off on this record..it’s got great guitar solos..and the horn section (The Amateur Horn All Stars) is fantastic.
If you missed their Madison CD release party at the Harmony Bar, you still have a few chances to see the Jimmys live this month and pick up a copy of the CD. They’ve also got upcoming gigs at the Club Tavern, Knuckledown Saloon and the Brink Lounge
You can check out the Jimmys schedule and sample and buy their CD here.
Grammy-award winning musician Jason Mraz, film director Andy Morahan and photographer Don McCullin have teamed up to call on entrants from 16 countries, including the United States, to submit their idea of “the incredible”.
The competition is part of intel’s launch of the new N Series notebook. The contest is searching for the most amazing stories from around the world. You can submit your story in words, audio, video, or photos at the official website here.
There are several rounds with different prizes. Each country will have a winner, picked by a panel of judges, who will receive a new ASUS N Series laptop.
The grand prize winner will have their incredible story transformed into a short film guided by the three project creators and professional crew. He or she will then attend the screening of their film with Jason Mraz at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
Mraz’s new single The World As I See It serves as the theme to the In Search Of Incredible campaign.
Garbage has announced they will release their 5th record in the spring of 2012. According to the band, “We are making a record filled with the music we love to hear. The new songs have been inspired more by what we haven’t been hearing rather than by what we have.”
The band is currently putting the finishing touches on the new record. This will mark the first time they’ve recorded outside of Madison’s Smart Studios which closed it’s doors in 2010.
Garbage formed in Madison in 1995 releasing the debut that dominated radio in Australia, the UK, and here in the U.S. It’s been 7 years since we’ve heard anything new from the band.
Shirley Manson, Steve Marker, Duke Erikson and Butch Vig have been recording out in Los Angeles with engineer Billy Bush. The as-yet-untitled set will be mixed by Vig and Bush.
Today marks the 20th anniversary of Nevermind with Nirvana dropping a reissue of the record that changed the landscape of pop music in 1991. Initially, Nevermind got off to a slow start(just 45,000 copies in the whole of America).
Then Smells Like Teen Spirit took off bumping sales up to 300,000 copies a week and dethroning Michael Jackson from No.1 in the US. Geffen thought Come As You Are would be the only hope for a mainstream breakthrough.
Disc two of both the deluxe version and super deluxe version includes the demos the band recorded here in Madison. For the first time we hear demos of the record that pretty much buried the big hair metal bands of the 80’s. Polly is the only track on Nevermind that was actually recorded at Smart Studios.
The Smart Studio demos give us an inside look at the songs in their raw form before Butch Vig and Andy Wallace polished them up for the masses. The demos also yield a better understanding of why Kurt seemed so insecure at the time of the intial release. He had asked numerous insiders and friends back in 1991 if it sounded too much like Poison.
Of course we know Nevermind sounded nothing like Poison.
Novoselic has spent almost a year putting the reissue together. ‘The Boombox Rehearsals’, capture the first time songs like Smells Like Teen Spirit were played in the studio used as reference points for Cobain, Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl. “They were in the bottom of a box,” Novoselic admits. “They almost got thrown out. I found them in the mid-’90s. They’re interesting, in the context of this release. I mean, it’s a cassette recording of a boom box. But when you’re looking at this record and the work that went into it, it adds up.”
While he often ponders writing a book to document his memories of Cobain, for now Novoselic is happy with the peek behind the curtains the Nevermind reissue offers.
“People tell me to this day ‘Nirvana and Nevermind changed my life or my attitudes on music’ and how it really spoke to them. I really appreciate that. For me personally I remember Kurt Cobain and I think ‘Hey dude, good on you’. It’s a good way to remember him and the vision he had.”
R.E.M. fans were devastated at the news that, after 31 years, the band decided to ” call it a day”.
Their final album will come out November 15, a 40 song retrospective that collects, for the first time ever, songs from R.E.M.’s entire back catalog, including the early years on IRS. A brand new song ” We All Go Back to Where We Belong” will sent available October 18.
The album ” R.E. M. Part Lies, Part Heart. Part Truth, Part Garbage” is available for pre-order on Amazon. com.
Here’s the line-up!
Disc 1:
Gardening At Night
Radio Free Europe
Talk About The Passion
Sitting Still
So. Central Rain
(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville
Driver 8
Life And How To Live It
Begin The Begin
Fall On Me
Finest Worksong
It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
The One I Love
Stand
Pop Song 89
Get Up
Orange Crush
Losing My Religion
Country Feedback
Shiny Happy People
Disc 2:
The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite
Everybody Hurts
Man On The Moon
Nightswimming
What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?
New Test Leper
Electrolite
At My Most Beautiful
The Great Beyond
Imitation Of Life
Bad Day
Leaving New York
Living Well Is The Best Revenge
Supernatural Superserious
ÜBerlin
Oh My Heart
Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter
A Month of Saturdays
We All Go Back To Where We Belong
Hallelujah
Ride the Drive will take place this Sunday, September 25.
Ride the Drive is FREE, open to the public, family-friendly, and a whole new way to experience our great city. For this event, particular streets are closed to cars and open to bikers, walkers, roller-bladers and those out to share in the experience & fun atmosphere.
Along the route there will be activities, information booths, food vendors, and plenty of other ways to enjoy the city…including music stages! The stage is going to be switched around a bit this time to reduce rider congestion up on the square. It will be facing the capitol a little ways down MLK Jr. Blvd. And here’s the lineup:
*10-10:45am: Joe Bainbridge
*11-11:45am: Corey Hart
*12-12:45pm: Anna Wang & The Oh Boys
*1-1:45pm: Keefe Klug & The Surgical Precision
In order to support Ride the Drive, these artists have been kind enough to offer a free download! Right click on the song names below and save the file to download!
R.I.P. Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, who passed away Friday (Sept. 16) at his home in Chicago after suffering a stroke. He was 75.
Even if you never saw Smith play, you may have heard of him if you’re a follower of the local blues scene in Madison. He was father to Cash Box Kings’ drummer Kenny “Beedy Eyes” Smith.
Best known as the drummer for Muddy Waters, Smith started out on harmonica and played harp for Bo Diddley and other groups back in the 1950’s.
Willie “Big Eyes” Smith received a Grammy in 2010 for his work with Pinetop Perkins for Best Traditional Blues CD for an album called “Joined at the Hip.” (Perkins died this March at age 97.)
Pearl Jam is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year..just like Triple M! Next week they’re releasing a retrospective CD containing 29 rare and unreleased songs.
The album is actually the soundtrack to a documentary DVD that will come out October 25th.The movie is directed by award-winning director and music journalist Cameron Crowe, and is being called a definitive portrait of thel band carved from over 1,200 hours of rarely and never-before-seen footage, plus 24 hours of recently shot concert and interview footage. PEARL JAM TWENTY chronicles the years leading up to the band’s formation, the chaos that ensued soon-after their rise to mega-stardom, and what happened in the years after that.
And for the Pearl Jam completionist, there’s also a PJ20 book that came out on Tuesday.
Wilco’s new album “The Whole Love” will be available for purchase and download in a couple of weeks, but Wilco fans can get a freebie this week on iTunes, with a download of the song “Born Alone.”
Rolling Stone calls the song “jaunty hum-along pleasure.”
The new album will be in stores September 27th and is available for pre-order on the band’s website.
Wilco plays a sold-out show at Overture Hall in Madison October 5th.
Jonathan & Kitty
