David Bowie (Will Ferrell) visits Bing Crosby (John C. Reilly) during the holidays to sing a duet of two Christmas classics, Peace on Earth & The Little Drummer Boy.
Billabong Announces Exclusive Collaboration With Iggy Pop
Billabong today released the Iggy Pop x Billabong LAB collection, an exclusive apparel and accessory collaboration with one of the world’s most legendary and iconic musicians.
Once a streetwalking cheetah with a heart full of Napalm, these days Iggy’s more notorious for lounging all day at the beach or pool in boardshorts. “I usually wake up and stay nude for three or four hours,” Iggy says. “And when I feel like getting formal, I’ll put on boardshorts. Life is better in boardshorts.”
The collaboration with Billabong, whose Spring ‘18 collection is inspired by the punk soundtrack of the late ’80s and ’90s is fitting as Iggy’s presence is laced throughout every surf and skate session of that era. Scott Hargraves, VP of Global Marketing at Billabong, elaborates on the relationship, “We are honored to be working so closely with Iggy on this curated men’s and women’s collection. He’s a true cultural icon, and we hope to pay homage to this living legend through our collaboration.”
The Iggy Pop x Billabong LAB collection was largely inspired by Iggy’s gig posters that appeared in the music venue halls of the ‘80s and ‘90s. These prints are an authentic tribute and a graphic history of Iggy’s legendary lust for life and thread the entire collection of boardshorts, graphic tees and pullovers. The wetsuit top titled, “Wild Thing Glide Skin,” cross-pollinates Billabong’s surf DNA with Iggy’s proto-punk attitude. This memorable tiger print leather jacket from the seminal album, Raw Power, has been redesigned and is now waterproof and ocean ready.
The Iggy Pop x Billabong LAB collection is a personal, fun and truly original collaboration that authentically reflects Iggy’s attitude towards life and art. It comes through Billabong LAB, a division of the company that supports artists, musicians, designers, photographers and surf icons and is available globally at select specialty retailers and online at www.billabong.com.
IGGY POP SUNDAYS BIGGY POP LO TIDES BOARDSHORTS
IGGY POP FIFTY50 POSTER X BOARDSHORTS
IGGY POP SUNDAYS POSTER LO TIDES BOARDSHORTS
How The Cast Of Star Wars Trained For “The Last Jedi” Movie
The cast of Star Wars: The Last Jedi prepare for their very physical roles in the Skywalker saga’s latest chapter.
Early Footage Of Elton John Working Out The Harmony For “Tiny Dancer” In 1970
Tiny Dancer’s song’s lyrics were written by Bernie Taupin to capture the spirit of California in 1970 encapsulated by the many beautiful women he met there. The song was dedicated to Maxine Feibelman—Taupin’s first wife. Here’s some behind-the-scenes footage of Elton John working out the harmony for Bernie’s words.
There’s A Feature Doc Coming In 2018 About Fred Rogers From Focus Features
There’s going to be a feature documentary about Mister Rogers coming out on June 8, 2018. Won’t You Be My Neighbor? will showcase “the lessons, ethics and legacy of iconic children’s television host, Fred Rogers.” The film will be directed by Morgan Neville, who won an Academy Award for 20 Feet From Stardom.
Fred Rogers led a singular life. He was a puppeteer. A minister. A musician. An educator. A father, a husband, and a neighbor. Fred Rogers spent 50 years on children’s television beseeching us to love and to allow ourselves to be loved. With television as his pulpit, he helped transform the very concept of childhood. He used puppets and play to explore the most complicated issues of the day—race, disability, equality and tragedy. He spoke directly to children and they responded by forging a lifelong bond with him—by the millions. And yet today his impact is unclear. WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR? explores the question of whether or not we have lived up to Fred’s ideal. Are we all good neighbors?
“Won’t You Be My Neighbor? is produced by Neville, Caryn Capotosto and Nicholas Ma and is a production of Tremolo Productions in association with Impact Partners and Independent Lens/PBS.
“Morgan once again avoids making a traditional biodoc and instead takes us behind the curtain to see how Fred Rogers navigated the cultural and social issues of the second half of the twentieth century with his own brand of forward-thinking, compassionate wisdom far beyond his time,” said Focus chairman Peter Kujawski. “Mister Rogers makes us all want to be better people, and we couldn’t be more proud to be a part of telling his story today.”
Neville said, “The Fred Rogers I discovered making this film is at once comfortably familiar and completely surprising. I believe Mister Rogers is the kind of voice we need to hear right now. I am thrilled to work with Focus Features on taking this film out into the world, along with my collaborators at Impact Partners and Independent Lens.
Nonesuch Releases Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet’s Landfall
Nonesuch Records releases Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet’s Landfall on February 16, 2018. The piece, which was inspired by Anderson’s experience of Hurricane Sandy, is the first collaboration between the iconic storyteller/musician and the groundbreaking string quartet, who perform together on the recording. Landfall juxtaposes lush electronics and strings with Anderson’s powerful descriptions of loss, from water-logged pianos to disappearing animal species to Dutch karaoke bars.
Kronos Quartet and Laurie Anderson have performed Landfall at commissioning presenters Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Adelaide Festival, Barbican Centre, Montclair State University, Perth International Arts Festival, Stanford Live, and the University of Texas at Austin, among other venues. The New York Times said the piece’s presentation at Brooklyn Academy of Music “set the auditorium awash in elegiac string sounds and postmillennial gloom. Performed by the composer and the tirelessly innovative Kronos Quartet, the work, written in New York during that epic storm, often resembled the flotsam bobbing on the receding floodwaters, with poignant snippets and small treasures.”
“These are stories with tempos,” Anderson says. “I’ve always been fascinated by the complex relationship of words and music whether in song lyrics, supertitles or voice over. In Landfall, instruments initiate language through our new text software, erst. The blend of electronic and acoustic strings is the dominant sound of Landfall. Much of the music in this work is generated from the harmonies and delays of unique software designed for the solo viola and reinterpreted for the quartet. In addition, there were elements of the optigan, a keyboard that uses information stored on optical discs.”
Kronos Quartet founder, artistic director, and violinist David Harrington says, “Laurie Anderson is the master magician musician who has always inhabited those secret places where technology has personality, where ‘real time’ is questioned and where all the elements of performance meet and combine into music. Her process is to gather and continue to gather potentially useful aspects as she sculpts a shape. Her sense of play and fun and her continuous experimenting make her the ideal chemist (or is it alchemist?) in the laboratory of music.
In addition to Landfall, Anderson also releases a new book in February, All the Things I Lost in the Flood: Essays on Pictures, Language and Code, published by Skira Rizzoli. Two years ago Anderson began looking through her archive of nearly forty years of work, which includes scores of documentation, notebooks, and sketchbooks. In the process, she rediscovered some of her work and looked at many projects with a fresh eye, leading her to write a collection of essays looking at the way language entered her visual work.
Laurie Anderson is one of America’s most renowned—and daring—creative pioneers. Her work, which encompasses music, visual art, poetry, film, and photography, has challenged and delighted audiences around the world for more than thirty years. Anderson is best known for her multimedia presentations and musical recordings. Her tours have taken her around the world, where she has presented her work in small arts spaces and grand concert halls, and everywhere in between. She has numerous major works to her credit, along with countless collaborations with an array of artists, from Jonathan Demme and Brian Eno to Bill T. Jones and Peter Gabriel.
Anderson’s first single, “O Superman,” launched her recording career in 1981, rising to number two on the British pop charts and subsequently appearing on her landmark release Big Science. She went on to record six more albums with Warner Brothers. In 2001, Anderson released her first album with Nonesuch Records, the critically lauded Life on a String. Her subsequent releases on the label include Live in New York (2002), a reissue of Big Science (2007), and Homeland (2010). Nonesuch most recently released the soundtrack to Anderson’s acclaimed film, Heart of a Dog (2015), Uncut called, “‘Warm, witty and thought-provoking … her subject is the very stuff of life: grief, love, joy, memory, loss … like listening to a series of short radio plays or a podcast of Anderson’s anthropological musings … Anderson’s most satisfying and human work.” Additionally, Anderson’s virtual-reality film La Camera Insabbiata, with Hsin-Chien Huang, won the 2017 Venice Film Festival Award for Best VR Experience.
For more than 40 years, San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet—David Harrington (violin), John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola), and Sunny Yang (cello)—has combined a spirit of fearless exploration with a commitment to continually reimagine the string quartet experience. In the process, Kronos has become one of the world’s most celebrated and influential ensembles, performing thousands of concerts, releasing more than 60 recordings, collaborating with an eclectic mix of composers and performers, and commissioning over 900 works and arrangements for string quartet. They have won over 40 awards, including a Grammy Award and the prestigious Polar Music and Avery Fisher Prizes. The nonprofit Kronos Performing Arts Association manages all aspects of Kronos’ work, including the commissioning of new works, concert tours and home season performances, education programs, and a self-produced Kronos Festival. In 2015, Kronos launched Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, an education and legacy project that is commissioning—and distributing for free—the first learning library of contemporary repertoire for string quartet. Nonesuch, the quartet’s longtime label, celebrated the ensemble’s fortieth anniversary year with two releases: the Kronos Explorer Series five-CD box set and a new album, A Thousand Thoughts; more recently, Nonesuch released the One Earth, One People, One Love: Kronos Plays Terry Riley, five-CD, four album box set that included the new release Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector: Music of Terry Riley; and Folk Songs, which features Sam Amidon, Olivia Chaney, Rhiannon Giddens, and Natalie Merchant singing traditional folk songs with arrangements by Jacob Garchik, Nico Muhly, Donnacha Dennehy, and Gabe Witcher. Folk Songs was the fiftieth record Kronos has released on the label since 1985.
Short Cuts: The Best Songs Heard Today From The Indie World
Mike Michel’s Magic Trick reveals why he’s a Minnesota Music Academy award-winning songwriter, modern guitarist and music educator. It’s snappy, poppy and a much-needed shot in the arm for power pop.
Faling halfway through The Beatles and The Beach Boys, Staffan Sandell’s Sightings from an Air Balloon is exactly why I love music. He makes 60s pop something to take as inspiration for the now, rather than long for. Sounds like peace and freedom.
Coming from the North coast of Ireland, Fox Vicious’ Crystal Eyes sustains a Chainsmokers’ vibe who has fashioned out of seeming “formula” music, a gem.
The official music video for In My Coma’s single, Take A Ride, is out now. It’s from their new album, Next Life. The group has epic arrangements, meshed with powerful melodies, insistent guitar riffs and a dark emotional intensity that infuses every note and every lyric. Keep your eyes on them in 2018, this is the year the breakout just might happen.
Eric Sartin says his Frozen in Love song is “about being so in love with someone that it’s paralyzing.” It’s desolate, and anguished as a pop track Nick Jonas or DNCE would kill to get.
HYPE are a self-made music and art collective, which means either they’re smarter than you, or they’re not, and just don’t care what you think. 77Cousins isn’t the last we’re going to hear from them.
https://youtu.be/YnWkMaYrINs
Jeryko’s All We’ve Got video features ballroom dancers in an abandoned pool and a samurai battle. As sensual of a soul pop swoon you’re going to hear today.
Chris Fields’ HATELOVE follows his nice rise from getting 170,000 views of his “Lord Knows” freestyle on Worldstarhiphop, and almost 3 million streams for his remix of Tink’s Million. Best of all, he hasn’t just borrowed wholesale from past rappers, but stick in his own ideas. Nice one.
When you release a song and the intro is 22 seconds in, first chorus is a minute and a half later, it better be epic. Avalon’s Peak’s Bad Tattoo is EPIC, and nothing will stand in their way of success with this track.
Tom Savage’s 17 Years takes its cue from Springsteen, Petty, and every other classic rock artist you turn up that much louder when you get on the highway. Don’t let a few miles on the speedometer stop you. Simply clever, stylized and right on the money.
Old Man Saxon’s Stop Shooting is the right song for the right moment. Production and rapping even Kendrick would salute.
MaWayy’s Wrong (Joe Maz Radio Mix) was made for jumping and it’ll make you like a cricket. The original was on “Mint” Spotify Playlist, and Joe Maz made another solid remix.
From Sweden, Black Beach Baby’s This Is the Day doesn’t let a few borders stand in the way of a great song that should be on alt.rock’s radio playlists.
Hannah & Falco are a German folk duo from Würzburg, Bavaria, and on their first EP “Blind For The Moment”, the young couple of singer Hannah Weidlich and singer-songwriter Falco Eckhof presents a down-to-earth, modern blend of Folk and Americana. Music to listen to when you choose to live in the beautiful instead of lies. But there’s a bit of both you have to fight with.
Jim Nabors Covers The Monkees, And Throws In Some Beatles, Too
Jim Nabors passed away a few weeks ago at age 87. While he will always be know as Gomer Pyle, he also had his own variety show on CBS from 1969-1971. Here, from the second episode is his cover of The Monkees’ song Listen To The Band, with a bit of The Beatles Sgt. Pepper thrown in as well.
Cyndi Lauper Performing “Time After Time” On An Appalachian Dulcimer
The Appalachian dulcimer is a fretted string instrument of the zither family, typically with three or four strings, originally played in the Appalachian region of the United States. The body extends the length of the fingerboard, and its fretting is generally diatonic. Brian Jones, of The Rolling Stones, played the Electric Appalachian Dulcimer on their 1966 album Aftermath, notably on “Lady Jane”. There’s also Joni Mitchell, who first played the instrument on studio recordings in the late 1960s and most famously on her 1971 album Blue, as well as in live concerts. And Cyndi Lauper is a huge fan of the instrument, too. She is widely-regarded by Appalachian Mountain Dulcimer enthusiasts as one of the finest straight-up performers on the obscure instrument. Check out her playing dulcimer on her ninth studio album The Body Acoustic, and the tour to support the record featured her performing songs like “Time After Time” and “She Bop” solo on the mountain dulcimer.
Boomhauer Drums
Boomhauer is a fictional character in the Fox animated series King of the Hill. Drums are members of the percussion group of musical instruments. Never before could I explain both words, and not even be close to explaining this video, but there you go.