Current Music Blog

My disdain for the major labels is well documented. The mass-produced, cookie cutter, bullshit “music” that major labels spoonfeed the masses sucks, and so do their new media business practices. Now that these two factors have lined up, it’s only a matter of time before the majors go the way of the dinosaur and Chrysler. This makes me very happy. Come, share my joy and passing anger, with my top three videos that can not be embedded.

1. Blur, “Country House“

I’m pretty sure Damon would be delighted for music bloggers to be able to embed this video and feature the song 14 fucking years after its release. And hell, that might even help the label move some units to a new, younger audience.

2. Ryan Adams, “Answering Bell”

Any song with a banjo in it is meant to be shared.

3. Weezer, “El Scorcho“

So now what the fuck am I supposed to post on half-Japanese girls’ facebook pages?

Here’s where it started.

Our awesome music licensing coordinator, Jen Pray (yes, she of the John Hughes greatest hits of a generation dressing down of our then-intern) let loose with a little rant on Twitter:

@prennyjay: Dear Trailer Houses, Promo Depts, Music Supers, Directors, & Producers: STOP USING BEP “I GOTTA FEELING.”

(Watch one example above from the Oprah Winfrey Show. Ironically, this is an embeddable clip, but none the BEP’s actual video of this song is not.)

I retweeted at @current_music, asking for what else you’d plead to never again be licensed to anything because if you once loved it you’ve now lost all respect. Your responses were too good to truncate in mere 140-character bites, so here they are in their entirety:

@terabyte240 @current_music YES – I realize MJ was probably up to his ears in debt, but knock it off with the Beatles‘ “Come Together”. Gonna scream.

@hennepinhaiku @current_music: No MGMT/no Juno Soundtrack pieces/Kid Cudi’s tired.

@meganwest @current_music half of Kasabian’s first album.

@pseudopseudo @current_music Iggy Pop – “Lust For Life”. Not really on *everything*, but on enough stuff that I die a little inside when I hear it.

@NTChaddius @current_music Some have been trying to bring back the “Requiem for a Tower” mix with a slightly different beat… we’re not fooled

@WhiteGoodman @current_music New Radicals “You Get What you Give.” Anything by Smash Mouth.

@Ellovater @current_music the fray’s “you found me” Makes me want to write “you lost me”

@sarahindie @current_music The Turtles’ “Happy Together.” I used to love that song. Now it brings up memories of dancing bagels and cream cheese, etc.

@kid_amy @current_music ugh, I just heard Digable Planets “Rebirth of Slick” for a Tide commercial yesterday! and also New Order’s “Ceremony” I like those songs, just found it appalling they were being used in commercials

@lexicaljewel @current_music Blur – Song 2. Good god.

@stephenbarros verve- bittersweet symphony ..ugh!

I was on cnn.com/live again this morning talking about new releases and trying not to mispronounce any British slang. (Mispronouncing American words is a given). The segment was around the same length as usual, but my coffee was much larger, and I felt like there was a lot I didn’t get to say, so here are the extended liner notes:

“Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood Live from Madison Square Garden,” Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood

This is one of the quintessential Rock ‘n’ Roll recordings of this millennium. I would almost call it the epitome of Rock ‘n’ Roll in its truest form: two extremely talented, absurdly skilled, and well-seasoned pale, white dudes playing old black music. The combo of Clapton’s blues guitar and Winwood’s R&B background is rock in its purest, most simple and deconstructed form. (Plus or minus some Anglo and Scotch-Irish influences).

Clapton and Winwood were old friends all the way back to when they were teenagers in London. The two were always in a bunch of separate bands including Cream and Traffic. When those two acts dissolved, Winwood and Clapton got together to form Blind Faith. That didn’t last long and they went their separate ways shortly afterwards.

Winwood reformed Traffic, and Clapton joined an ass load of different bands and sang a song called “Cocaine.” A lot. Like every night. Then in the mornings and at lunch too. God, he loved that song… so much!!! “Let’s sing it again!!! Right NOW!!! Cut that track up or you’re fired bitch!!!” he’d shout. Then Clapton started singing songs about fucking George Harrison’s wife. (He was kind of a dick.) Flash forward 30 some-odd years and the two reunited on stage for a charity show in 2007, as Clapton was no longer being a dick, and the groundwork was laid for this tour and live album.

Now, everyone knows that Clapton is one of the greats (he’s not God but he is one of the greats); however, Winwood’s the real gem on this record, and he clearly elevates Clapton’s playing, as Clapton does his. Before these shows, Winwood basically called bullshit on Clapton for having other guitarists playing identical Strats right behind him at every show and said it’s just going to be you, me, drums, bass, and some additional keyboards. Not sure how Winwood got to bring backup, but either way, this combo rocks hard and is full of soul. There’s no hiding behind a chorus of studio lifers and background vocalists.

The last time Winwood and Clapton played in Madison Square Garden together, it was 1969, a riot broke out ON STAGE, drummer Ginger Baker got knocked out by a cop’s billy club, and Winwood’s piano was smashed. Five weeks later Blind Faith broke up after only one album and a six-week tour. That’s rock-n-fuckin-roll.

There are a lot of standout tracks on this recording. Traffic’s “Glad” with Clapton shredding in place of the tenor sax solo is as badass as it sounds. So is Winwood joining Clapton for dual guitars on “Dear Mr. Fantasy.” The two of them even manage to do justice to Hendrix’s “Little Wing” and kill a 17-minute “Voodoo Chile.”

My favorite track is probably “Them Changes” by Buddy Miles. Without even knowing he was ill, ClapWood recorded this just days before Miles died. Apparently, a friend at one of the shows held up a phone for Buddy to hear their cover, and he loved it. More or less the same thing happened right after Clapton and Duane Allman laid down “Little Wing” as Derek and the Dominoes, just days before Hendrix died. Thanks Eric. It’s a wonder JJ Cale is still alive today… well, for lots of reasons.

You probably know all the great stuff Clapton has done with Cream, Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominoes, Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, and as a solo artist, but if you’re not familiar with all the bands that Steve Winwood played in that shaped the landscape of modern music, here are a few choice clips.

“A Beginners Guide to Blur,” Blur

If you’re not very familiar with Blur’s catalogue, it’s only partially your fault. British music that sounds British has never been big on American radio or MTV or whatever other commercial crap takes up most of our bandwidth these days.

Blur are essentially the godfathers of Britpop. Granted, it’s impossible to ever give one band credit for an entire subgenre, but if you had to pick one group, it would be Blur. After their first album, Blur toured the US, to mixed results, and by the time they got back to England, the Seattle grunge scene was exploding like the back of Kurt Cobain’s head all over the UK. Damon Albarn was sick of hearing foreign music dominate the British airways, so he set out to create something distinctly British, and more or less, that’s when Britpop entered the scene in the ’90s.

Blur and Oasis had a pretty big feud. Granted pretty much everyone had a feud with Oasis, hell — they even feuded with themselves. But Blur and Oasis were always competing for the #1 slot in the UK, often with Blur winning. However, Oasis was doing more of a Lo-Fi, American alternative sounding thing, and that caught on much bigger over here. But remnants of the rivalry still exist. If you ever see a drunk British guy in his mid 30s, which is fairly common, run up to him and shout “BLUR OR OASIS!?!” and then vehemently disagree with everything he says after that. It’s a blast.

Get caught up on Blur here.

“It Was This or Football” (first half), Kid British

How can you not like that song? Maybe if you’re the soulless, joy-crushing, hearing-impaired bastard child of Nazis and slave owners, you might not like it, but pretty much everyone else should love that song.

Kid British pull off a pretty slick combination of most every genre of music using some sweet harmonies, live instruments and well-placed samples. Don’t be angry just because they’re better at it than Americans.

To old school rockers who shit on sampling all together: sampling is nothing new. It’s been around forever, and the greatest sampler of all time is probably Jimmy Page. Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about, and if you actually don’t know, look it up. Sampling’s not just unique to music either. No one called Jasper Johns a hack for lifting from Betsy Ross.

Kid British are getting bigger across the pond, but for some reason no ones is really pushing them over here, which is retarded because these guys are a goldmine. If I had the cash, I’d invest in an American PR campaign, and then retire from the royalties of their next album. Whoever decided not to get behind them here is a fucking moron. Do yourself a favor and get in on what they’re doing now, so you won’t have to buy “A Beginners Guide to Kid British” in 18 years.

You can buy the first half of their album here, watch some videos here, follow them on twitter here, and do a little bit of everything here.

It’s the Friday before Memorial day weekend, so there’s no way in hell you’re doing any work today. But don’t worry, we’ve got some great artists covering for you.

“War Pigs” The Flaming Lips w/ Cat Power

Everything about this video is awesome. First you’ve got the Flaming Lips, and then you add Cat Power and a killer Sabbath song, then on top of that, Wayne busts out the fake blood? Thank you. Thank you very much.

But I guess it may be a little harsh to go straight from “Waitin’ for a Superman” to “War Pigs” with blood on your face for the guys in the front row on mushrooms.

Here’s Sabbath doing the original back in ’70. And here’s more with the Flaming Lips on Current.com.

“Dead Flowers” Shelby Lynne

There are only a handful of people in the world that can do justice to a Keith Richards-written song. (Obviously, Mick’s one of them). There’s just an irreplaceable grittiness to Keith’s songs that only years of heroin and cigarettes layered on top of natural genius can produce, but somehow Shelby manages to pull it off without the H.

The only thing better than a good clip of Shelby is a good clip of Shelby playing with Lucinda. If all Southern women were like these two, I never would have moved to California.

“End of the Century” Ben Gibbard and Colin Meloy

God bless Ben Gibbard. God bless Colin Meloy. God bless Blur. And God bless the person with a decent camera with a mediocre microphone that recorded this.

Here’s Blur doing it live. (And here are some great photos of Colin and the Decemberists taken by our own Alex Simmons.)

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