Pages tagged “tv on the radio”

Recently, Pitchfork announced that Capitol/EMI and King Cole Partners & Productions are set to release a new disc of reworkings of Nat King Cole tunes by some of music's heavy hitters. And with that the tradition of tribute albums for recently deceased greats (sup, Elvis, Cash, Biggie and Waylon) continues.

Today is World AIDS Day. Appropriately enough, it's also the day that the line-up was revealed for Dark Was the Night, a compilation release which will benefit AIDS/HIV awareness group, The Red Hot Organization.

Travis Morrison used to post his "favorite songs of all time (right now)" on the official website of his band, The Dismemberment Plan (RIP), and I always kinda loved the idea. After all, what are lists of favorites if not, so very often, ever-changing animals? Keeping that in mind, and keeping also in mind that it's well documented that I've been fairly obsessed with TV on the Radio ever since the band began releasing music in 2003, I thought this an appropriate contribution to our (semi-)newly minted List of the Day blog.

Release Date: Oct. 3 (New York City and Los Angeles)

Director: Jonathan Demme

Writers: Jenny Lumet

Cinematographer: Declan Quinn

Starring: Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin, Debra Winger, Tunde Adebimpe

Studio/Run Time: Sony Pictures Classics, 113 mins.

Jonathan Demme's unexpected foray into low-budget filmmaking may have made the case for pure and simple films better than the practitioners of Dogme 95 ever did. Written by Jenny Lumet (daughter of Sidney), the ebullient and turbulent Rachel Getting Married is mostly about Kym (Anne Hathaway). She’s a complicated individual, funny and bitter, a recovering drug addict, and also something of a drama queen and crisis magnet who constantly reminds her friends and relatives of her damage. Most of them wouldn't say that to her face, but when she returns home for her sister’s wedding, things are said, and Demme captures them like a nervous documentarian huddling with a hand-held camera.

In Hamburg, the yardstick for conquering the Reeperbahn is concluding your Saturday night with a trip down to the Fish Market after it opens at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning. So when I began walking through the stalls of vendors selling rows of eels, fruit baskets and St. Pauli soccer T-shirts, it was with a feeling of accomplishment. Credit my body's complete confusion about time zones, comraderie among foreign journalists or the knowledge that if I went back to my hotel room, I never would have made it back up for our final tour in the German city.

Brooklyn's TV on the Radio seems to have taken advice from another New York-based group and stopped giving a frak about commas—Oxford, epistolary or otherwise. But now that Dear Science (formerly Dear Science,) has hit record stores and both an almost-regular-but-still-bonus and a fully-bonus edition of the album are available on the iTunes store, it's time for the band to move on to other pastures.

For the second year in a row, a 70-year-old, man-made island in the middle of the San Francisco Bay was home to some of the finest live bands in the country. Over two days this past weekend, the Treasure Island Music Festival welcomed the likes of the Raconteurs, The Kills, Hot Chip, Vampire Weekend, Spiritualized, Dr. Dog and the Dodos.

Part 3: The Media

“You’re The Best” - Joe Esposito

CNN claims it’s got “The Best Political Team on Television,” while Fox News claims it’s got “The Best Political Team Ever.” With slogans this superlative, how come the coverage sucks so bad?

Brooklyn art-rock troupe experiments to mixed results

How strange that, in these times fraught with war, economic recession, poor housing markets and all kinds of bad news, TV on the Radio sounds more party-ready than ever. With a few notable exceptions (“New Health Rock,” “Wolf Like Me” and original breakout “Staring at the Sun”) scattered across its catalog, the innovative Brooklyn quintet has most often opted for the meditative over the motivational, the somber over the sensational. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. TVotR is also frequently gorgeous, triumphant and astounding; you just usually don’t want to dance to its music. While the band has wowed with slow(er) jams (see 2003’s “Young Liars,” 2004’s “Ambulance,” 2006’s “Province”) in the past, it’s the up-tempo bangers and funky grooves on Dear Science that truly resonate. Change is in the air, as we’ve been told ad infinitum over the course of this longer-than-usual election season, and TVotR is no exception.

After its first day spotlighted depth, Day Two at Monolith was a chance for the big dogs of the line-up to roam free. Sure, there was some sterling Ben Foldsian pop from Washington D.C.’s Jukebox The Ghost to start the afternoon, a bit of smoky folk rock from former Paste Band of the Week The Rosewood Thieves, and a spirited fireball of a set from Tokyo Police Club. But the day belonged to a succession of four artists who dominated the Monolith main stage in four different ways...

It's lucky that we thought to inject sensors and fiber-optics into the soles of TV on the Radio's shoes so that we could follow and report their every move. Otherwise, we would have had a harder time knowing about new tour dates from the New York-based art rock troupe. Sure, we might be violating their civil rights, but now you know that the band will be traveling through the following cities to support their new album, Dear Science,, coming out September 23:

How exactly would you watch TV on the radio? Years from now, when they're wading through postapocalyptic ruins, future scientists will marvel at the forerunners that could beam visual images through an audio signal—a technology so revered that they named an awesome experimental rock act after it out of sheer reverence. Maybe, just maybe, the band with that scientifically improbable moniker will answer that question with its next LP, Dear Science, (comma included). TV on the Radio will be releasing this bad boy courtesy of Interscope Records in the U.S. on Sept. 23, and 4AD will handle distribution on Sept. 22 around the rest of the world.

I mean honestly, Coachella is just so L.A. NorCal has it’s own music event now, as the Treasure Island Music Festival returns after its successful debut last year. This year’s two-day festival will be held on Saturday, Sept. 20 and Sunday, Sept. 21 and will feature headliners Justice and The Raconteurs along with other awesome acts such as Hot Chip, The Kills, TV On the Radio, Tegan & Sara, Vampire Weekend, Okkervil River, CSS, The Dodos and many more. Organized by the creators of the Noise Pop Festival and Another Planet Entertainment, the line-up reprises the style of 2007’s festival with a day of electronic and dance oriented groups and a day of indie-rock bands.

Residents of our nation's capital are in for a treat this June. The homegrown boys of the Thievery Corporation will host their annual mini-fest at the Merriweather Pavilion just outside of the District's limits, and this year's line-up is killer.

Amoeba Music, known for its live in-store performances, will begin releasing limited edition, numbered EPs of the shows. The first one will feature four live tracks from TV on the Radio’s concert at the Hollywood store last September.

The songs Amoeba will including on the EP are "Blues From Down Here," "Wolf Like Me," Province" and "Wash the Day," all off the band’s latest release, Return to Cookie Mountain.

The live TVOTR EP will be sold at all three Amoeba stores in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Berkeley and online starting March 27th for 30 days.

Related Links:
Amoeba Music website
TV on the Radio official website

January 31st, 2007, saw the premiere of TV On The Radio’s latest videographic offering as “Province” debuted in MTV’s PrimeTime Premier slot.

Although sadly lacking David Bowie, who provided vocals on the track, the video is still definitely worth checking out—although you’re probably better off checking it out at iFilm, instead of waiting around for MTV to spin it again. (See image above for a bit of a preview.)

“Province” is the latest single off of TV On The Radio’s Return to Cookie Mountain, which topped a number of music critics’ best of 2006 polls, and nabbed the #4 spot on Paste’s own list.

Related Links:
”Province” video on iFilm.com
TV On The Radio’s official website

The Shortlist Music Prize, much like the more-established British Mercury Music Prize, was created in 2001 for the purpose of honoring the most adventurous, creative albums of the year across all genres. In other words, it has everything to do with eclecticism and nothing to do with sales figures. And instead of putting together another stagy award show in a town that already has a severe trophy-glut problem, this sharp organization disguises its annual presentation as an exhilarating four-act concert.

TV On the Radio took this year’s top prize with Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes, celebrating its victory with a concert-closing half hour of blistering rock. With a set list that incorporated soulful vocals and a hint of traditional African music, the band proved its just-received crown was no fluke.

Leading up to the event, a “long list” was created by a group of judges dubbed the Listmakers—comprised of fellow musicians, journalists and celebrity music aficionados. When the show began, there were just ten competing albums left on the list. Of these finalists, two more acts joined TV On the Radio onstage, as did list maker Josh Homme with his new primitive rock band, Eagles Of Death Metal.

Nellie McKay began the festivities by stepping up to the mic, armed only with an electric piano and dressed in a pink party gown. While McKay spouts her lyrics over soothing piano melodies—incorporating Gershwin and boogie-woogie keyboards—her rapid-fire vocals deliver vitriolic lines about edgy subjects like the war in Iraq and gay marriage. It’s a new sound, really: Piano Bar Rap.

The much-hyped Dizzee Rascal also took the stage before the night was over. It was little like trying to catch up with the dialogue in a Mike Leigh film before the credits roll, only faster.

It speaks volumes about Shortlist’s credibility that tonight’s winner is signed to indie label Touch & Go—especially since big boys like Interscope and Columbia also sported artists who were finalists.