Sky Ferreira will perform on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on February 28, 2014.
Arcade Fire violinist Sarah Neufeld has a new EP and you can stream it right now.
U2 will perform “Ordinary Love” for the first time live at the Oscars on March 2, 2014.
Former X singer Exene Cervenka is holding a four-day garage sale that started today, getting rid of decades worth of cool stuff so she can relocate from L.A. to Austin, Texas. “I have eight guitars – nobody needs eight guitars!” she said. —Rolling Stone
Maggie Estep, an important figure in the early-’90s slam poetry movement died Wednesday, two days after suffering a heart attack. She was 50. —New York Times
Bob Dylan will perform two shows in Ireland this summer. He’ll be in Cork at Live at the Marquee on June 16, 2014, and then play in Dublin at the O2 on June 17, 2014. — The Independent
Beck will appear on “Saturday Night Live” as musical guest on March 1st, the Saturday following the release of his new album, Morning Phase. — Rolling Stone
Savages will release an EP later this year that will include the track “Fuckers.” Singer Jehnny Beth told Australia’s Tripple J radio: “We’re going to release a song that we play live called ‘Fuckers’. We recorded it live from a show did in London last fall at The Forum. It’s going to be available on vinyl as well. We’re also be covering a Suicide track called ‘Dream Baby Dream’.”
Kitten’s new “Money” video features Chloe Chaidez in bed with Ariel Pink. I reminds me of Andy Warhol’s film, “Beauty No. 2” staring Edie Sedgwick.
“Beauty No. 2”:
Prince performing “Chaos and Disorder” in Shepherd’s Bush Empire on February 9, 2014:
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Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead this morning (Sunday, February 2, 2014) of an apparent drug overdose at an apartment in Greenwich Village, the New York Times reports.
He was in a lot of films.
I love this scene in “Almost Famous” where he’s Lester Bangs talking to the kid.
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The celebrated and influential folksinger and activist Peter Seeger died on Monday at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan.
He was 94 years old.
Seeger scored hit records in the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers; their recording of Lead Belly’s “Goodnight, Irene” topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950, according to Wikipedia.
Mr. Seeger’s career carried him from singing at labor rallies to the Top 10 to college auditoriums to folk festivals, and from a conviction for contempt of Congress (after defying the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s) to performing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at an inaugural concert for Barack Obama.
For Mr. Seeger, folk music and a sense of community were inseparable, and where he saw a community, he saw the possibility of political action.
In his hearty tenor, Mr. Seeger, a beanpole of a man who most often played 12-string guitar or five-string banjo, sang topical songs and children’s songs, humorous tunes and earnest anthems, always encouraging listeners to join in. His agenda paralleled the concerns of the American left: He sang for the labor movement in the 1940s and 1950s, for civil rights marches and anti-Vietnam War rallies in the 1960s, and for environmental and antiwar causes in the 1970s and beyond. “We Shall Overcome,” which Mr. Seeger adapted from old spirituals, became a civil rights anthem.
Rolling Stone called Seeger “a seminal figure in American music who kept folk music alive and influenced generations of musicians from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen…”
Pete Seeger and The Weavers sing “Goodnight Irene”:
“Beans in My Ears”:
Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan, “Playboys and Playgirls”:
Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen, “This Land Is Your Land,” Obama inauguration:
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Amiri Baraka, a major figure in the “Black Arts” movement of the ’60s and ’70s, is dead.
He was 79 years old.
Baraka once said, “We want poems that kill.”
Wikipedia: “Rather than use poetry as an escapist mechanism, Baraka saw poetry as a weapon of action. His poetry demanded violence against those he felt were responsible for an unjust society.”
“Somebody Blew Up America”:
The New York Times wrote:
Amiri Baraka, a poet and playwright of pulsating rage, whose long illumination of the black experience in America was called incandescent in some quarters and incendiary in others, died on Thursday [January 9. 2014] in Newark. He was 79.
His death, at Beth Israel Medical Center, was confirmed by his son Ras Baraka, a member of the Newark Municipal Council. He did not specify a cause but said that Mr. Baraka had been hospitalized since Dec. 21.
Mr. Baraka was famous as one of the major forces in the Black Arts movement of the 1960s and ’70s, which sought to duplicate in fiction, poetry, drama and other mediums the aims of the black power movement in the political arena.
Among his best-known works are the poetry collections “The Dead Lecturer” and “Transbluesency: The Selected Poetry of Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones, 1961-1995”; the play “Dutchman”; and “Blues People: Negro Music in White America,” a highly regarded historical survey.
“Black Art,” Amiri Baraka reads his poem with Sonny Murray on drums, Albert Ayler on tenor saxophone, Don Cherry on trumpet, Henry Grimes on bass, Louis Worrell on bass, for the album Sonny’s Time Now:
For the rest of the New York Times obit, head here.
Baraka was a friend of Allen Ginsberg.
Wikipedia: “In 1954, he joined the US Air Force as a gunner, reaching the rank of sergeant. After an anonymous letter to his commanding officer accusing him of being a communist led to the discovery of Soviet writings, Baraka was put on gardening duty and given a dishonorable discharge for violation of his oath of duty.[citation needed]
“The same year, he moved to Greenwich Village working initially in a warehouse for music records. His interest in jazz began during this period. At the same time he came into contact with avant-garde Beat Generation, Black Mountain poets and New York School poets. In 1958 he married Hettie Cohen and founded Totem Press, which published such Beat icons as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Their literary magazine Yugen lasted for eight issues (1958–62). Baraka also worked as editor and critic for Kulchur (1960–65). With Diane DiPrima he edited the first twenty-five issues (1961–63) of their little magazine Floating Bear.”
A July 6, 1994 lecture by Amiri Baraka on the politics of poetics. The lecture ends with a question and answer period covering topics such as jism and jazz, grants in music, whores, hypocrisy, Bob Dylan, and Noam Chomsky.
“Dope”:
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Yesterday, following Phil Everly’s death, Harold Lepidus (at examiner.com) did a great post about songs by Bob Dylan that the Everly Brothers covered, and songs by the Everlys that Dylan covered.
Unfortunately, he only included audio of one of those songs.
So today I tracked down all of the audio and you can check it out below.
There’s a very cool, very loose version of “All I Can Do Is Dream” that Dylan sang while jamming with George Harrison in 1970, and a version of “Let It Be Me” off a B-side of the European “Heart Of Mine” single released in 1981).
Enjoy.
“The Everly Brothers, “Lay Lady Lay” off EB 84 (1984):
The Everly Brothers, “Abandoned Love” off Born Yesterday (1985):
Bob Dylan jamming with George Harrison (May 1, 1970), “All I Have To Do Is Dream”:
Bob Dylan, “Let It Be Me,” B side of “Heart Of Mine” European single (1981):
Bob Dylan and The Band, “All You Have To Do Is Dream” (a Basement Tapes reording possibly inspired by the Everly’s “All I Have To Do Is Dream”:
Plus in case you missed by Phil Everly obit yesterday, here are the Everly songs Bob Dylan included on Self Portrait:
Bob Dylan, “Let It Be Me”:
Bob Dylan, “Take A Message To Mary”:
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Phil Everly, one of the great harmony singers in rock ‘n’ roll, and half of the legendary duo the Everly Brothers, died today in Burbank, CA. He was 74
His wife Patti Everly said the cause of death was complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to the L.A. Times.
Phil Everly was a longtime smoker.
The peak of the duo’s popularity was in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when they charted nearly three dozen hits on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart,including “Cathy’s Clown,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” “Bye Bye Love,” “When Will I Be Loved” and “All I Have to Do Is Dream.” The duo was among the first 10 performers inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.
The Beatles once called themselves “the English Everly Brothers.” Bob Dylan, who covered two of their hits, “Let It Be Me” and “Take A Message To Mary” on Self Portrait, said of the duo, “We owe these guys everything. They started it all.”
In an obit at Rolling Stone’s website, David Browne wrote:
Harmony singing had been key in country and bluegrass, but starting with their first hit, 1957’s “Bye Bye Love,” the Everly Brothers brought the sound of deeply intertwined voices — and more than a hint of Appalachia — to rock & roll… The brothers’ close-knit harmonies were also a major influence on rock & roll, impacting on the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, the Mamas & the Papas, and many others.
Paul Simon on the Everly Brothers:
The roots of the Everly Brothers are very, very deep in the soil of American culture. First of all, you should know that the Everly Brothers were child stars. They had a radio show with their family, and their father, Ike, was an influential country guitar player, so he attracted other significant musicians to the Everlys’ world — among them Merle Travis and Chet Atkins, who was instrumental in getting the Everlys on the Grand Ole Opry. Perhaps even more powerfully than Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers melded country with the emerging sound of Fifties rock & roll. They were exposed to extraordinary country-roots music, and so they brought with them the legacy of the great brother groups like the Delmore Brothers and the Blue Sky Boys into the Fifties, where they mingled with the other early rock pioneers and made history in the process.
Chris Isaak said of the Everly Brothers last month: “They’re the best singers of all time, you know?”
John Fogerty and Bruce Springsteen covered the Everly’s “When Will I Be Loved” in 2009 for Fogerty’s album, The Blue Ridge Rangers (Ride Again).
In November 2013 Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones released Foreverly, in which they covered the duo’s entire 1958 album Songs Our Daddy Taught Us.
The Everly harmonies “are so immaculate,” Armstrong told USA Today during an interview last year. “And that record [the duo’s second album, Songs Our Daddy Taught Us] was pretty daring at the time. A lot of other rock guys were trying to go pop. Chuck Berry had a string of big hits, and the same with Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis. And here the Everlys were playing these torch songs and murder ballads. For them to do something so dark and angelic was appealing to me.”
The until now mysterious artist known as Burial has posted what appears to be a photo of himself at the website of Hyperdub, the label that has released all his music, along with a message:
Hi this is will, I just want to say thank you to anyone out there who liked my burial tunes & supported me over the years. its really appreciated. Massive thank you anyone who got my records & all producers, DJs, radio stations, labels, shops, writers & journalists.. anyone who played my tunes, gave them a listen, or helped me out with it, made me want to keep going with it. Also shout out anyone who sent me tunes, messages, anyone I met along the way & a big shout out to anyone who supports or does independent & underground music.
I want to do some new tunes this year to send to my boss Steve and the label because they’ve been going 10 years now and have stuck by me. Hopefully by the end of most years I have done some tunes that are decent enough to release. but Dark Souls 2 is on the horizon soon so I’m not sure if I will have many new tunes for a while because I need to play that game a lot. But I’m going to try to get some new tunes together before it comes out.
Also I want to go and find some old tunes I did that still sound alright and never came out.. It would be nice to finally put some of them out on vinyl one day.
Also I want to tell my Mum my Dad my brothers and my sister that I love them to bits. Big shout out to the UK & everywhere else. Cheers & respect to everyone and anyone…be safe & take care
Will
Burial’s recent music:
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Yusef Lateef (born William Emanuel Huddleston), a Grammy-winning jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, educator, died today at his home in Shutesbury, Mass. He was 93.
Lateef’s main instruments were the tenor saxophone and flute, but he also played oboe and bassoon, and used a number of world music instruments, notably the bamboo flute, shanai, shofar, Xun, arghul, sarewa, and koto. He is known for his innovative blending of jazz with “Eastern” music, according to Wikipedia.
After suffering with pancreatic cancer for more than a year, country great Ray Price died today at 4:30 PM CST, according to his associate, Bill Mack.
Mack posted on his Facebook page that Price’s wife Janie Price had called him this afternoon:
“JANIE JUST CALLED ME:
RAY PRICE LEFT FOR HEAVEN AT 4:43 PM CENTRAL TIME. HE WENT IN PERFECT PEACE. DETAILS LATER. JANIE AND THE FAMILY SO GRATEFUL FOR YOUR PRAYERS. RAY’S BODY WILL BE RECEIVED AT RESTLAND FUNERAL HOME IN DALLAS.”
Below is the obit I ran yesterday after Price’s son mistakenly posted on his Facebook page that his father was dead.
Country singer Ray Price, who scored #1 country hits including “Crazy Arms,” “My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You,” and “The Same Old Me,” died today at age 87 at his home in Mt. Pleasant, Texas. Price had been suffering complications from pancreatic cancer since late last year.
In addition to charting in the country top 10 (beginning with “Talk To Your Heart” in 1952), for over 30 years, Price is known for his baritone voice and for pioneering the honky-tonk sound still heard in some country music.
For an in-depth look at Ray Price’s career, check out this article in The Tennessean.
Ray Price performs his first #1 hit, “Crazy Arms,” in 1956 at the Ryman Auditorium.
“My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You,” 1957:
“Heartaches By the Numbers,” 1959:
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The until now mysterious artist known as Burial has posted what appears to be a photo of himself at the website of
