The following three videos come to us from our friends at Toolshed Media. One each from Marnie Stern, She & Him, and Pas/Cal. Ready? Set? Watch!
Black Friday is “the Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States, where it is the beginning of the traditional Christmas shopping season. Black Friday is not an official holiday, but many employees take the day off, which increases the number of potential shoppers. Retailers often decorate for the Christmas season weeks beforehand. Many retailers open very early (typically 5 am or even earlier) and offer doorbuster deals and loss leaders to draw people to their stores.”
Naturally, we’ve got a mix for you to listen to as you shop shop SHOP. From home. On the interbahns… Read more
“Echoes” by Pink Floyd which clocks in at 23:32.
Happy Thanksgiving! A brief word from me, then I suggest you check out the video posted above and/or get off the internets and back into the real world of people, and the giving of thanks, and much too much to eat: I’m thankful, not only for my favorite film of all time (2001: A Space Odyssey, which has become a tradition for me to watch around this time of year) and one of my favorite bands (Pink Floyd), but for the way the two go together so well. Beleedat.
Turkey time.
Buy Meddle HERE.
*front image from HERE; above video from HERE.
EAR FARM’s 8+ is a weekly feature that showcases songs longer than 8 minutes. Click HERE to see the songs recently featured in EF’s 8+.
A special Thanksgiving holiday treat: A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving in full YouTube glory with dated commercials from the ’80s! Oh, and the music -yes, of course there’s the fabulous music- is by none other than Vince Guaraldi. Enjoy.
Haven’t you heard? Vinyl is totally hot right now…I mean, trend pieces from GQ to Marie Claire have suggested as much. How’s your collection faring?
Well, you may recall us having talked up a rather large record sale in Tribeca back around the holidays. AND, you may also recall us having talked it up yet again during the dog days of summer. Well, guess what? The good folks at ARC are yet again rolling out all their vinyl duplicates and selling them for absurdly reasonable prices, and this year they promise that 92.6% of the sale items are new stock! Read more
Yes, music is our bread and butter. No, we don’t know how to cure all societal ills. Sure, we’ll take a stab at suggesting ways to make your impending Thanksgiving travels as painless as possible. Why? Because we care about you. How? C’mon, think about it…musicians and boneheaded behavior go hand and hand; it’s an area we know surprisingly well. So let the worrisome precedents set by your musical heroes be your guide. For your own well-being, a list of travel DO’s and DONT’s for this Thanksgiving weekend. Read more
Eminem’s new album will apparently feature a sequel to “Stan”….where’s Dido?
MOKB kicks off his 2008 Holiday Interview Series with Pinback/Goblin Cock’s Rob Crow
Blur takes one more step towards reuniting, with Damon Albarn confirming they’re getting together to rehearse next year
Filter announces its Top 10 Albums of 2008
Download the new 33 1/3 audiobook for Nirvana’s In Utero
Jenny Lewis lands a tune on the new Disney film Bolt
Yikes, Blender might be turned over to creditors….
Amy Winehouse? Back in the hospital….
WIRED goes inside the unique psyche of Axl Rose
OPP updates will resume in full next week. Until then, EAR FARM wishes you a safe and happy Thanksgiving!
The “Best of 2008″ season got off to a heated start last week when Paste bravely posted their Top 50 Albums of 2008 and revealed….wait for it….She & Him at the top of the list….hmmm, well, to each his own, right?
We think so, and while you’ll have to wait a big longer for the EF Best of ‘08 Lists to start piling up, we figured we’d give some video love to those perched atop Paste’s list. Here are selections from their Top 5: Read more
Listen: “My Eyes Have Seen You” by The Doors from Strange Days
View: Image search results for My Eyes Have Seen You - above image is from the 2nd page of results (and was originally from HERE).
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EAR FARM’s Hit-or-miss is a weekly feature (every Tuesday) wherein the EF music library is put on shuffle, the song that plays is then searched (using the song title) on Google images and a resulting photo (plus an MP3 of the song) is posted. You can see all of EAR FARM’s Hit-or-miss posts thus far right HERE.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer previews the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex opening today in NYC
Web Sheriff demands Grizzly Bear apologize for leaking Animal Collective’s new song
Boy George accused of chaining up a male escort…but did he really want to hurt him?
The National Post pits new albums from the Killers and Kanye in a track-by-track battle for your bucks
Fucked Up go and hit up Daytrotter
Chinese Democracy hits Best Buys in NYC with a yawn
Kraftwerk’s Fritz suffers a heart attack
Missing Manic Street Preacher now presumed dead after 13-year search
Pitchfork interviews The Walkmen’s Hamilton Leithauser
And, Tiny Mix Tapes interviews Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier
Win a date with IKEA with a member of Pavement!
Look, just because it’s a longstanding “tradition” (since 1924!) doesn’t mean we’re gonna keep sitting here watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade year after year and pretend everything is fine. Everything is not fine. Truth is, there are some Pikachu-balloon-sized problems that all the makeup in the world - or at the very least, on Matt Lauer’s forehead - couldn’t conceal.
The whole event is just so boring, and yet so ensconced in our Thanksgiving Day routines that NOT watching feels borderline unpatriotic. But I mean, come on already…when the most memorable moment over the past decade involves unfortunate people getting trampled by a rogue M&M balloon you know something’s gotta give. And that’s where we come in. In the spirit of giving, we hereby submit our six-step plan to help put the wonder and excitement back into the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Read more
EAR FARM’s Three for Free: three EF approved, free and legal MP3s posted whenever the mood strikes us. Today, more songs from the EF inbox, including a band with an unfortunately placed comma (Loney, Dear), a new project from Frog Eyes’ Carey Mercer (that would be Blackout Beach, and check out the verbosity of the song title), and a different kind of “dear” (Deer Tick, representing Providence, R.I., yes!). Click on the band name to visit their site, click on the song name to listen to the song. Happy Monday… Read more
Back in July, Guitar World Magazine named the 50 Fastest Guitarists of All Time. They’ve just recently republished the article online, and we searched for YouTube clips of a few of the speedy shredders we weren’t as familiar with (other than Marty Friedman, we’re already big fans of his work with Megadeth)… anyway, mind boggling results below.
above: Michael Angelo Batio double guitar solo
above: Jason Becker playing “Serrana”
above: Mick Barr/Ocrilim @ Monkeytown
above: Paco de Lucia playing “Rio Ancho”
above: Danny Gatton - “Sleepwalk” solo
above: Paul Gilbert and Marty Friedman on Rock Fujiyama
above: John5 playing “The Washing Away of Wrong”
above: Richie Kotzen guitar solo
above: Shawn Lane guitar solo - age 16
above: Albert Lee playing “Country Boy”
Ambulance LTD’s lone full-length album came out in 2004. Since then, they’ve only released one EP (with only four new songs on it), which translates to a not terribly prolific output of only one song a year. But to their credit, almost all of these songs feel so timeless and perfectly at ease within the rock canon that they seem to have been in existence for at least a few decades. And that’s a very good thing. Read more
When EAR FARM considered our impending move and relaunch at the end of 2007, we decided to switch from a scrolling blog format to a more magazine-y layout that would allow for us to highlight a “cover star”/Band of the Week each week. In doing so we have featured 43 bands over the course of 2008, ranging from the lo-fi jangly noise pop of Throw Me The Statue to the blistering thrash of Goes Cube. We’ve had relative unknowns (such as The Laughing and Bombadil), interviews with indie-rock legends (see The Wedding Present and Silver Jews), live tracks from today’s top tribute band (The Fab Faux), an exclusive video interview (with Hey Hey My My), and an overall wide-reaching crop of some of the very best bands making music in 2008 (including Deerhunter, The Walkmen, Grizzly Bear, Man Man, Torche, and many many more).
In a little over a week we’ll be unveiling the first of our year-end special features, recapping the Top Ten Bands To Emerge in 2008 and Ten To Watch Out For in 2009. After that we’ll be on to our Top Albums and Concerts of 2008. As a precursor to list season, we’d like to take a look at each and every band that appeared as EAR FARM’s Band of the Week in 2008 (listed from most recent to oldest). Check out a brief summary, MP3, and snippet from each article below - we’ll be back after Thanksgiving to let you know who to look out for in ‘09. Read more
