Dead Oceans Break Bishop Allen's Strings

Bishop Allen will be releasing their first LP since Charm School this summer on July 24th. The album is titled "The Broken String" and will be available through Dead Oceans records.

All the following mp3's come from the bands site and I believe are the EP versions. I don't know if they have been reworked, but it is possible that these will be the same versions that see release in July. This is the tracklist:

The Monitor
Rain
Click, Click, Click, Click
The Chinatown Bus
Flight 180
Like Castanets
Butterfly Nets
Shrinking Violet
Corazon
Middle Management (clementine demo)
Choose Again
The News From Your Bed

Beastie Boys Off The Grid

Remember the Beastie Boys when they used to do instrumentals? Well they're back and as good as ever. Check out their new video for 2007, Off The Grid:

Human Giant And Jack Bauer In: Human Giant 24

Okay, I lied, there is no Jack Bauer involved in the Human Gian 24 but MTV gave the three funny fellers 24 hours to do anything they want to. Well they can show and play anything from the MTV vaults and do anything MTV deems kosher on air. I spent the first six hours of the marathon on set in the audience. They have great friends over such as Nick Kroll, Rob Riggle, Will Arnet, Michael Cera, Matt Besser, Eugene Mirman, The National, Tapes N Tapes, and a ton of other great folks. If I had MTV I'd be watching it here at home but I have a party to host.

Help these guys out and support them by visiting their site, they need 1,000,000 hits to survive another season. When I left they were barely around 100,000 so they have a lot to do. Visit The Human Giant MTV site or watch MTV to text them or email them at humangiant@mtv.com to show your support.

Good luck guys, I hope you know that Jack Bauer would have no trouble staying up for twenty four hours, as a matter of fact I know he's already done it 6 times and signed on to do it 2 more. So stop being a pussy Paul, Rob, and Aziz and make us fucking laugh until noon tomorrow or you will die.

Chad VanGaalen Sings And Animates

Chad VanGaalen is another one of the great Canadian musicians that continues to make me smile. Chad has two albums out in the US, Skelliconnection and Infiniheart. Both albums are fantastic and he even animates his own videos. Throw up a simple youtube search for Chad VanGaalen and you'll find videos he's animated for other people as well as a bunch of his own live stuff.

Muscle Cola seems like something that is coming in the future from Chad. Check out his MySpace for some samples of his music.

A Beat Radio Blog By Brian

Wow a lot of B's almost as tough to say as Bob Boblaw's Law Blog. If you have ever stumbled upon or read my blog then you know I've praised Brian Sendrowitz's, Beat Radio on more than one occasion. He's started blogging himself as a punk rock dad and he even offers up some background on the writing process and some demos. You can find his scattered thoughts at a cinema of sunshine.

Brian's newest demo:
What I Love The Most (Demo)
Check out the blog for a time lapse analysis of his song Mexico.

Ben Gibbard, The National and The Arcade Fire This Week

I must admit one of my favorite things about now living in New York City is the easy access to live music. Since I've been here(7 Months) I've seen Sufjan Stevens, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Midlake, The Shins, The Album Leaf, Cold War Kids, Bishop Allen, The Arcade Fire(3 times), The National, and Ben Gibbard. That's not all the shows but those are the big ones I can name off the top of my head. This past week was Ben Gibbard at Town Hall, and The Arcade Fire/National at Radio City Music Hall.

Ben Gibbard's show was full of The Postal Service, Death Cab For Cutie, and some interesting covers. I wasn't too interested in the two openers because to be honest with you I've lost interest in plain guys with guitars. You have to win me over with something first before I'm just going to watch you stand there alone with a guitar. Gibbard is an exception because he has penned so many great tunes and I was actually interested in how he would perform them with just a guitar or piano. If anyone is interested you can bittorrent this show from dimedozen. You do need to be a registered member but that only takes a few seconds. Highlights from the show include "We Will Become Silhouettes", "You Remind Me Of Home", "All Apologize", and the cover of his own covered song "Such Great Heights". His songs sound just as beautiful simplified to his voice and a few chords as it does on any full LP he's released. Oh and remember this show was a "rare" solo performance according to the ticket I had.

The more extravagant show of the week was definitely the David Bowie Highline event at Radio City Music Hall. My friend and I showed up around 7:30 and were psyched to see we had 3rd row seats far stage right. I snagged the tickets only a week before the show on a lucky ticketmaster search. We were right next to the speakers so when The National came out it was pretty damn loud. The bass was overpowering but the lead singer, Matt, sang as intense as ever even with a bum ankle. The set list was a good mix of Alligator and Boxer songs with "About Today" as the closer. The always energetic "Abel", and "Mr. November" were my favorites but it was also nice to hear a bunch of the new tracks including my new favorite "Mistaken for Strangers". "About Today" had a great jam to end the set and the crowd was definitely warmed up and ready for The Arcade Fire.

The Arcade Fire came out a little after 9 and opened with "Keep The Car Running". This set list was definitely better than any of the Judson shows I went to back in February but lacked the intimacy. I was very happy to hear "Tunnels", "In The Backseat", and "Laika" for the first time for me live. Laika was amazing with the pounding and extreme energy all over and off the stage. As Berko put it the closer of "Wake Up" could have gone on forever. The crowd did sing the chant from Rebellion while the band left the stage until they came back out for "Intervention" but it wasn't nearly as great as "Wake Up". This was the first time I heard it "plugged in" because the only two other times I heard it acoustic in the crowd of Judson. I must say when they hit the first chord of it they ignited the crowded and left the stage with everyone begging for a second encore. The old songs were fantastic but I must say the most moving song of the night for me was "Antichrist Television Blues". There is a power to that song that gets me every time I hear it. All three times I've heard it live it has sent chills down my spine giving me the closest thing to a religious experience I'll have at a concert for a while. Go see these guys live if you are in one of their remaining touring city's. Sneak in if you have to.

The National Are Mistaken For Strangers

I am going to see the National and Arcade Fire Wednesday, so as a warm up here is a link to the new National video. It's for the first single off of Boxer, "Mistaken For Strangers". It's simple, it's low budget, it's a great song.

http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?artist=1239322&vid=147394

I'm Illusionated On The Human Giant

If you get a chance to see the newest episode (You can buy it on iTunes titled "Ice Cream Party!") of The Human Giant you will see myself as well as my current UCB teacher Chris Gethard. Believe it or not I have more lines than him, but he probably got paid to do it. Look for me as the David Copperfield hater in the Illusionators sketch. It was shot on a freezing day in March near the West Side Highway, I barely remember talking because I couldn't feel my body. I'll post the video once they get it up on their site.

***Update***
MTV.com has it up right here. I don't think you can embed their clips but I'm in the second part.

Here is the old Illusionators sketch that I've posted before:

MTV Human Giant: Illusionators Skit
Uploaded by wiredset

As soon as I find the new one I'll put it up here.