I'll take a surprise new Broken Bells track any day!
I hope I get the Palladia channel via Verizon Fios so I can tune in tomorrow night for the 9pm premiere of Broken Bells' concert film Live at the Orpheum. If you've never seen James Mercer & Danger Mouse live before, now is your chance! Set those DVRs!
Last Thursday, The National released a previously unheard track entitled Sunshine On My Back. It features vocals from Sharon Van Etten & was recorded during the band's sessions for their 2013 albumTrouble Will Find Me. The song is available to anyone who rents or buys the 2013 Tom Berninger-directed documentary about The National, Mistaken For Strangers.
Sometimes you need to do something a little different...like go to the LA Film Fest at The GRAMMY Museum in Downtown LA on a Tuesday night to attend the world premiere screening of a never-before-seen short film from 1961 directed by Alan Lomax called Ballads Blues & Bluegrass followed by a Q&A session & live performances by Father John Misty (previously of Fleet Foxes), Sara Watkins, Curt Smith of Tears for Fears & Asdru Sierra of Ozomatli. I highly recommend checking out Ballads Blues & Bluegrass if you ever get the chance (definitely at least watch the trailer below) as it was pretty incredible. What a unique & special evening :-)
My favorite part of the Q&A session was listening to Alan Lomax's daughter talk about her father & all the famous, old musicians who partied, played music & sometimes even lived in their apartment throughout the 60s.
The funniest moment of the night was when host & KCRW DJ Chris Douridas asked Father John Misty to explain how he ended up moving to Seattle, joining Fleet Foxes then branching off to do his own thing &, instead of providing any bit of detail, Father John Misty simply said, "I quit!" then picked up his guitar ready to play his 1st song. He made it very clear he was not interested in sharing anything more than his music :-P
Ballads Blues & Bluegrass (1961) by Alan Lomax
"In the early 1960s, when Greenwich Village was bursting with a folk music revival, the Friends of Old Time Music made it their mission to introduce urban audience to some of the legends of pre-war American traditional music. After a 1961 series of concerts featuring Roscoe Holcomb, Clarence Ashley and Doc Watson, Alan Lomax invited the artists and a who's who of the folk revival back to his West 3rd Avenue apartment for an impromptu song swap. Filming was arranged on the fly and a raw, many-layered evocation of the art and attitude of the period emerges from the footage, with some of the biggest names of the era, old timers and revivalists alike: Memphis Slim, Willie Dixon, Jean Ritchie, Ernie Marrs, Peter LaFarge, Ramblin Jack Elliott, Guy Carawan, the Greenbriar Boys, and the New Lost City Ramblers.
Ballads, Blues, & Bluegrass is a remarkable portrait of a brief but fabled era that was widely documented in recordings but all too under-represented in moving image." - Media Generation -http://www.youtube.com/user/mediageneration
Exactly ONE MONTH from today I'll be seeing Shut Up And Play The Hits at the Regent Theatre in Westwood. Never in my life have I been SO unbelievably excited to see a documentary. I can't wait to relive some of my favorite LCD Soundsystem memories & learn A LOT more about the one & only Mr. James Murphy. There's a reason I saw this band live SEVEN times before James officially ended an era. If this film is playing anywhere near you, PLEASE go see it!! http://oscilloscope.net/lcdtheaters/
Justice are 2 pretty funny French dudes & this is an epic 1-hour documentary following them for 20 days of their North American tour in Spring of 2008. I really hope the rumors are true that Justice will be 1 of the Coachella 2012 headliners (Radiohead is also rumored to be 100% confirmed) but I won't believe it 'til I see it. The lineup is often released ON my birthday which is January 19th so hopefully the same thing happens again this year! It definitely makes my b-day that much happier! I'm ready for my EIGHTH Coachella in a row!!!
We are your friends. You'll never be alone again so come on...
OK, first & foremost, EVERYONE needs to see the film The Art of Flight. Shot with the same types of cameras used to shoot the National Geographic series Planet Earth, this breathtakingly epic snowboarding documentary will seriously blow your mind...guaranteed. And the soundtrack is pure perfection which is just the icing on the cake.
You could set just about anything to My Morning Jacket music & I'd automatically like whatever it was at least 10x more. Despite that fact, the MMJ soundtrack in One Big Holiday (the 30-minute documentary included in the deluxe edition box set for MMJ's 6th studio album release Circuital that I previewed here a few weeks ago) is only one of the MANY reasons I absolutely loved the film! My friend Michael Feld directed One Big Holiday &, in my opinion, he did a BAD ASS job.
A few of my favorite moments, quotes & details include (& I'm just gonna do this bullet-point style because I'm no film critic):
-The opening montage is beautifully shot & perfectly cut. It hooks you from the very start. And, once you see it, you'll know why I want a baseball bat that says, "One Big Holiday - Louisville Slugger".
-The conductor of the Louisville Youth Orchestra, Jason Seber, clearly is THE most excited person to be working with MMJ on their Louisville show at The KFC Yum! Center. His excitement is cute & contagious.
-When the crew interviews Jim James outside on a grassy hill, you can see their reflection in his mirrored sunglasses in every shot. It looks cool & definitely wasn't an oversight.
-When talking about the local Louisville record store that really helped MMJ get exposure in their hometown, Jim says, "Ear X-tacy is the heartbeat of our community. For us, it would've been impossible to get off the ground without Ear X-tacy."
-The owner of Ear X-tacy, John Timmons, says, "I really think that a band like My Morning Jacket kind of epitomizes what's great about owning a record store...is to have a band like that start off locally & then grow nationally & now internationally."
-Wax Fang, the Louisville band that opened for MMJ at the Yum! Center, is a new fave. They're strange yet intriguing. They perform in Tron costumes & the saxophonist sports a silver jumpsuit & white motorcycle helmet WHILE playing. He kinda steals the show ;-)
-In reference to Wax Fang, Patrick Hallahan says Wax Fang "doesn't sound like 1 thing ever. They're all over the place." Speaking of Hallahan...his hair & beard ROCK.
-The live concert footage is cut seamlessly back & forth with rehearsal footage & occasional commentary & it's awesome :-)
I could go on & on but I have to get to another concert right now so just take my word for it when I say that, if you're a MMJ fan or even just a fan of good music documentaries, you need to get your hands on a copy of the Circuital deluxe edition box set so you can see this film!
P.S. If you're intrigued but can't quite swing the price of a box set, send me an Email & I can probably get permission from Michael to send you a private link. Yeah, I'm hooked up like that ;-)
