Drummers: Heart of the Band...Or Butt of the Joke?

"Borrowed" from WYNC.

The drum kit has its fair share of esteemed idols: Neil Peart of Rush, Dave Grohl of Nirvana, ?uestlove of the Roots and many more. Yet drummers have always had a reputation for being unreliable and misanthropic. On today’s Soundcheck Smackdown, we debate whether the skin-bashers of the world deserve all that bashing. Guests include Janet Weiss, former drummer of Sleater-Kinney and currently of Quasi and Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks; and Will Layman, an NPR contributor and jazz critic for PopMatters.com.
More about Janet Weiss
Blog: John Schaefer on drummers

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This is new: Bikini Kill Blog

New Bikini Kill Blog: http://bikinikillarchive.wordpress.com/

Please add your Bikini Kill story to this blog! It can be totally off the top of your head and doesn’t need to be fancy. Maybe it’s your reaction to a song we wrote, something weird that happened at one of our shows, a personal anecdote or just WHATEVER. Feel free to send images too!
Send yr story to bkillarchive@gmail.com and we will post it or just leave a comment somewhere on the site. Thanks!

I am also trying to collect videos of our shows so if you have one you wanna send me please do!
Kathleen Hanna
51 MacDougal Street #227
NYC NY 10012

Milli Vanilli Biopic Coming

"Borrowed" from CHARTattack"

by Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

We're all for the idea of a Milli Vanilli movie being made, but we think if it's done the actors need to lip-synch the entire thing, just, you know, to be authentic.

After all, former Milli Vanilli frontman Fabrice Morvan recently gave an interview in which he seemed to be saying lip-synching is more accepted in society now, so we really feel there's really no reason the upcoming as-yet-untitled Milli Vanilli biopic shouldn't be entirely over-dubbed.

Morvan is acting as a consultant on the picture, so he can give the best recommendations about how to do it.

"It's not about being authentic anymore, it's about entertaining," Morvan told USA Today.

Of course, lip-synching is widely used in music videos, and artists like Britney Spears have been called out for not actually singing at concerts. That said, lip-synching on record isn't... um... really accepted. At all.

In case you're unfamiliar, Milli Vanilli, who also included Rob Pilatus, were notorious in the '80s and early '90s after it was discovered they weren't actually singing on their albums and had used studio stand-ins instead.

Their Girl You Know It's True album went six times platinum and won a Grammy Award, but that trophy was revoked after the lip-synching scandal broke. Their manager, Frank Farian, had hired them to front the band, but they refused to record another album unless he let them actually sing. He said no, and told everyone the truth.

Pilatus died of a drug overdose in 1998.

Lovecats, Lions and Kings

Here is your three song mix for 01/02/10

01 Hot Rats - "Love Cats" fr. Turn Ons (Fat Possum)
02 Chavez- "Lions" fr. Ride the Fader (Matador)
03 Scout Niblett - "Kings" fr. The Calcination of Scout Niblett (Drag City)


ThreeTracker01 by )))Surgery(((

Turn Ons is available now
Ride the Fader is a personal favourite and available by request
The Calcination of Scout Niblett will be in very soon.

Morning Noon Night: Julie Doiron with Gentleman Reg

She & Him New Album Details, Tour Dates

"Borrowed" from Chartattack

Folk-pop duo She & Him, a.k.a actress/singer Zooey Deschanel and indie golden boy M. Ward, have released the track listing for their highly-anticipated follow-up to 2008's Volume One.

Their appropriately titled Volume Two sophomore album will be released March 23 through Merge. It contains 11 original tracks along with covers of NRBQ's "Ridin' In My Car" and Skeeter Davis' "Gonna Get Along Without You." The record was written by Deschanel and produced by Ward.

The duo are scheduled to play a handful of American dates, including a set at the Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival in April.

Ward released a new solo album called Hold Time last February and also spent 2009 touring with folk supergroup Monsters Of Folk, rounded out by My Morning Jacket singer/guitarist Jim James, Conor Oberst and producer Mike Mogis.

Deschanel married Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard and starred in the flick (500) Days Of Summer alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Third Rock From The Sun, 10 Things I Hate About You).
You can see She & Him here:

March 15 Los Angeles, CA @ Largo
March 25 Los Angeles, CA @ El Rey Theatre
March 27 Savannah, GA @ Trustees Theatre
March 29-30 New York, NY @ The Bowery Ballroom
April 15 Pomona, CA @ The Glass House
April 16 Indio, CA @ Empire Polo Field (Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival)

Here's the track listing for Volume Two:

"Thieves"
"In The Sun"
"Don't Look Back"
"Ridin' In My Car"
"Lingering Still"
"Me And You"
"Gonna Get Along With You Now"
"Home"?
"I'm Gonna Make It Better"
"Sing"
"Over It Over Again"
"Brand New Shoes"
"If You Can't Sleep"

Peter Gabriel Covers Arcade Fire and More.

"Borrowed" from Stereogum.

The concept behind Peter Gabriel's forthcoming indie rock covers project is an intriguing one: it's a song swap, Peter singing over orchestral reinterpretations of songs from a staggering list of artists -- Bon Iver, Lou Reed, the Mag Fields, Radiohead, Bowie, Talking Heads, etc. -- with the intention of creating "a dialogue with the writers," paving the way for a companion piece in which a string of artists would return the favor. The first installment is Scratch My Back, which Peter put together with Bob Ezrin and John Metcalfe. Our first full listen is this take on Arcade Fire's "My Body Is A Cage," and unsurprisingly, its gothic bombast is a fine foil for Metcalfe's symphonic arrangement. It's the only song from the collection to feature a choir. Gabriel spoke in depth about the cover in this podcast, calling Arcade Fire a "self-contained" universe, and explaining both his take on the song and intention in reworking it. Here it is in Peter's words, along with the song itself in Peter's voice, which is something you should listen to fairly immediately:

It took me awhile to really get what [Arcade Fire] were doing, and I think sometimes that's a sign of quality ... I love this [song] title. I have no idea what Win was writing about here. Whatever they were talking about, for me, I got this picture of The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, and it also made me think about relationship moments when you feel totally unable to go into your body properly, and you feel trapped inside and you can't communicate the way you need to....

It was a big opportunity for John to throw a lot of paint on the canvas, and I was encouraging him to extend some of the big instrumental sections and add some of these crazy triplets, just really push it to the extreme. It's the only use of the choir on the record, but I think it's quite a moody color coming in at the end. But it's a great piece of writing, and I am now a firm Arcade Fire fan, and this was a great way to get to know their work.

Listen:

The podcast where Peter discusses the project in depth is located here (.xml). Also, you can watch a video trailer for the record featuring select moments from the podcast , an interview with John Metcalfe, and footage from the sessions by clicking this link.
Tracklist aka yes, please:
01 "Heroes" (David Bowie)
02 "The Boy in the Bubble" (Paul Simon)
03 "Mirrorball" (Elbow)
04 "Flume" (Bon Iver)
05 "Listening Wind" (Talking Heads)
06 "The Power of the Heart" (Lou Reed)
07 "My Body Is a Cage" (Arcade Fire)
08 "The Book of Love" (The Magnetic Fields)
09 "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" (Randy Newman)
10 "Après moi" (Regina Spektor)
11 "Philadelphia" (Neil Young)
12 "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" (Radiohead)

Backstreet will have the album in on (or around) February 16th (pre-ordering w/ us is a good idea)