Seequing music?

As I was complimenting him on yet another drumming gig well-done (with Sherman Baker at Old Ironsides in Sactown last night), my buddy Matt McCord told me about a logo he'd just designed for a new website called seeqpod.com.

You know how irritating it is to listen to music on amazon.com or iTunes, where you get 30 seconds of decent fidelity or a whole song of lousy? Seeqpod.com is the answer.

There are surely other sites like this out there, but I'm not web-saavy enough to know of them. Or perhaps this is new. In any case, I've got seeqpod now! Yahoo!

You go to the site, enter a song title OR band name and up comes a bunch of song titles with a little logo next to them. You click the logo and the song moves to a playlist and starts playing. The whole song. In decent (not great, of course) sound. Yeah!

Then you click on another song, and add that to your playlist. Then search some more songs. Some songs sound better than others. I listened to some songs by The Magnetic Fields and then flipped to Of Montreal, which had better sound (and better songs).

When you click on options, you get them: links to the band's blog, MySpace page, Wikipedia entry, ringtones, tour dates, lyrics, news and of course, buy. It's all good!

Go play with it, it's cool, and let me know what you find out about it.

Me, I'm heading out to plaster midtown Sacramento with fliers for my first live talk show: "A Musical Dialogue with Gregg Coffin" at the Geery Theatre, 22nd and L in midtown Sacramento. 8 p.m Thursday, Jan. 24. Tickets are $10 and are available at The Beat or on tickets.com. Or comment here, I'll get 'em to you. It's a tiny theatre, 49 seats. It's going to be fantastic!

Coffin is a very talented, very smart guy who knows how to talk about his art. I have listened to him talk about music, the inspirations and mechanics and difficulties, a number of times. It's been so great, I wanted to share him with you. Coffin has written three nationally-produced musicals, Convenience, Five Course Love and rightnextto me, which is currently playing at the B Street Theatre in Sacramento through Feb. 24.

rightnextto me is an ambitious exploration of love and life and death with a complex structure and powerful emotions portrayed. They're much bigger subjects than his last show, Five Course Love, a one act that was loaded with laughs and played the Minetta Lane Theatre, Off-Broadway in NYC. rightnextto me takes more chances, and we'll be talking about them, where they worked, where they didn't.

What's great about this event is that Gregg is still honing the show - you get to watch an artist IN the process. And we won't just be talking. To illustrate points, Gregg will play the grand piano, performing songs and sections and what-might-have-been songs...

It's going to be simple, informal and fascinating. Be there!

The Kinks are Koming!

It wouldn't be a new year without rumors of a reunion - and with Coachella still in the planning stages, perhaps THIS is the year for The Smiths? - but one big one has just been announced: One of the original British Invasion monsters is rising from the long dead: The Kinks.

Yeah, with Pete Quaife on bass, even - the original Kinks - Ray, Dave, Mick Avory and Pete. Their first time together since 1969, when they recorded the brilliant concept album Arthur, home of "Victoria." Of course, they went on without Pete, and made a couple more great records - "Lola Vs. Powerman and the Money-Go-Round" and "Muswell Hillbillies" - but by that point, their glory days were almost over.

But back in the day. Whew!



The notorious battling Davies brothers, Ray and Dave, may have mellowed a bit - a stroke (Dave's) may do that to you - but that remains to be seen. After all, the Eagles and Pink Floyd reunited, and they seemed at some points more likely to be drinking each others' blood than ever playing together again.

Anyway, this is from the only magazine Encore, and there aren't many details to be had regarding dates or anything else, except that there may be a retrospective CD box - cleverly entitled Retrospective - in the offing. No word on new recordings.

For those under 35 or so, listen here: The Kinks were nearly as important as the Beatles, and arguably right there with the Stones and the Who. Their singles had a combination of visceral power - Van Halen didn't cover "You Really Got Me" for laughs - and a deep lyrical sophistication, courtesy of Ray Davies. Their albums with the original line-up, from 1964-69, included some of the best rock albums ever made, including "Face to Face," "Something Else," "We Are the Village Green Preservation Society" and "Arthur." And the singles were even better.

So, in honor of their history, and in anticipation of their reunion, here are some fine little Klassic Kinks Klips from YouTube...

"All Day and All of the Night" live in 1965 on the U.S. TV show "Shindig!":



And "Tired of Waiting" again from TV...



And "See My Friends."



OK, those are the early, British Invasion days. Then there were a string of less-successful singles that were even better, but YouTube has very few clips from back in the day that weren't promo, lip-synched travesties. This blog aims to include only actual, live performances. But I couldn't resist including one of the band's greatest songs, veracity be damned. Here's "Waterloo Sunset."

Sweeney Todd lives!

My friends who love the musical theatre of Stephen Sondheim as much as I do - and they are few, since I live in a rock 'n' roll world - have long wondered why I didn't like "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" the way they did. The show has long been considered one of Sondheim's best, and that's saying something for a man who has won a ridiculous number of Tony awards, as well as a Pulitzer Prize for his unimaginably brilliant "Sunday in the Park with George." Sondheim has created Broadway musicals for those of us who find most Broadway musicals a bit less...well, let's just say, less compelling than rock and its many offspring.

Sondheim, to me, is like the Beatles, just a step above everyone else around him. When I discovered him, belatedly, about 15 years ago, I felt exactly as I had when I first saw the Beatles 44 year ago - my world was shaken. I couldn't believe that someone had THAT much musical power and subtlety, that fine and complex a lyrical mind, and that much clear-eyed understanding of human beings, all rolled into one man. I was brought to tears repeatedly by his shows, especially "Company," "A Little Night Music," "Into the Woods," "Merrily We Roll Along," and "Sunday in the Park with George." And he cracked me up. And I couldn't stop singing the songs.

But others didn't touch me - "Passion," for one, "Pacific Overtures" for another - and even though I saw the 1989 revival on Broadway, "Sweeney Todd" just left me cold. I bought the video of the original 1979, listened to the album. And nothing.

That changed Sunday afternoon, when I caught a matinee of Tim Burton's "Sweeney Todd" at the Arden Fair 6 (a lousy little theatre, the less said about, the better). Even in the less-than-perfect setting - two old ladies behind me talked repeatedly through the film - THIS was Sweeney Todd as we were meant to see him. And I was floored.

It's over-the-top Grand Guignol, of course - if you have an aversion to stylization in film, you will find it "unbelievable" - but if you have a passion for great art, and especially if you've a Goth streak - you will find it, well, UNBELIEVABLE.

Here's the trailer, which really downplays the singing - the movie's almost all sung - but gives you the story and the look:



And here's something I found for the real Sondheim geeks in the crowd: I don't know what it's from, but it's the cast of "Sweeney Todd" doing a song from "Company," with new lyrics from the cast, not Sondheim. Both shows have been recently reimagined by director John Doyle, who did both shows with the cast not only singing the parts, but playing the instruments as well. I saw Doyle's "Company" last fall in New York - twice - and it was just amazing. So this is a bit of fun with that.

As I said, for Sondheim geeks only.

Reactable - the next generation of musical instruments

A friend sent me this months ago, after Bjork's tour, which featured a "DJ" using the new Reactable, which combines DJ technology and synthesizers in a visually-based medium. I can't even explain it, but it's incredible. Watch this video and see the future of synthetic sound production.



Here's a pretty bad video of Bjork performing "Declare Independence" backed by the Reactable, just to get an idea of how it comes across live:


And here's the second Reactable Demo video:

Fiona and the Creek

OK, so this is why YouTube rules: You stumble around looking for a decent clip of the brilliant, late Nickel Creek, and you stumble upon a video of the Creek backing Fiona Apple on her wonderful "Extraordinary Machine." Wow. Check out Chris Thile doing the "bell" on the original Fiona recording with a harmonic on his mandolin.



Nickel Creek may be the most unpredictable cover band in recent history. No? Check THIS out...



Thile even looks a little like Justin Timberlake...

OK, enough old stuff for now. Now...Radiohead!

Look, I love Radiohead. I have friends who don't, but even the artists THEY like - as diverse as newgrass trio Nickel Creek and jazz pianist Brad Mehldau - have COVERED Radiohead.

So, I was looking for a Nickel Creek clip, because I want to share them, too, and what did I find? Nickel Creek doing "The Morning Bell" by Radiohead. (They did "(just)" when they played the Crest on their farewell tour last year.) But the audio sucked and it wasn't a complete performance, so I went to the next clip, and it was...Radiohead! This time, "Pyramid Song," which is brilliant, and the sound is great, so I had to post it. So sue me! (Not you, Yorke!)



When I first saw Radiohead live, in 2001, I was completely blown away. I'd heard and absorbed the records, of course - The Bends is still in my all-time British Top 20, right up there with Revolver and Dark Side and Led Zeppelin IV - but I had no idea what I was in for. I also had no idea how well these guys would take their very studio-centric music and make it breathe - fire - live. I still remember hearing them do this live for the first time, taking the song, "Everything In It's Right Place" to the stage. This video is from 2006, and it's wonderfully clear and up close - the antitheisis of overly busy concert videos. (Note that drummer Phil Selway is shaking a lemon, an homage to the repeated lyric, "Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon," Yorke's sly dig at those who consider him too dark.)

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OK, just one more: "Knives Out" from Amnesiac. Aren't these gorgeous, and gorgeous-sounding, videos?



Shit, I can't stop. I love Radiohead. Along with U2, they are THE complete rock band of our time, so just go with it, eh? Here's a video from 1994, when they had just one album out. This is the band I fell in love with. Simpler, more rock, and perhaps more accessible to those who don't like the electronics. This is "Dark Star" from The Bends.



And now I'm going to finish, with a lower-quality video, but of perhaps the band's most compelling moment as a rock unit: "Airbag" and "Paranoid Android" from OK Computer. Here they are live in 1997 on Jools Holland's show. Thom hadn't yet gotten over his Bono thing, but damn!

Buffalo Springfield on the Smothers Brothers, 1967

Here's another fun one: the Buffalo Springfield live on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour doing their first and biggest hit, "For What It's Worth." Their bassist had been deported, so their road manager pretended to be playing bass, one of the many dramas associated with this short-lived but influential band. They even finish with their dignity intact, though the Smothers Brothers couldn't stop being "funny" long enough for them to play a short song.

Things were changing fast, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young would get a lot more respect.

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And later in 1967, they again appeared on television to play their next single, "Rock 'n' Roll Woman," written about the Jefferson Airplane's Grace Slick.

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Pink Floyd 1967

For some reason, I am repeatedly drawn to early Pink Floyd videos on YouTube...I'm not quite sure why, though I am, of course, a fan. But there are so MANY old videos of the band on YouTube - I am surprised that the band hasn't gathered them up and released them, for they provide an amazing capsule of the time in which they first appeared, London in 1967.

Though they took several years to really break the States, The Pink Floyd was an immediate sensation in London, where they were like the Grateful Dead but with a charismatic front man in Syd Barrett, as well as hit singles right out of the box. No less than Paul McCartney even annointed them the next big thing in British rock that same year.

What is also funny is the way in which they were received by the establishment. Some heralded them as the avant garde of electronic music, which in some ways they were, but others, like the twit who interviews them here, clearly disdained them. "Why has it all got to be so terribly loud?" and asks it with such cartoon-ish condescension that the band comes off as far more intelligent and gentlemanly.

Here they are playing "Astronomy Domine" the opening song from their now-40-year-old debut album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, with Syd still in control of his talents.




And here's a real curio - film purporting to be of Syd's first acid trip. He has very short hair, and is clearly irritated at being film (he seems to mouth "oh, fuck off" at one point. It's 10 minutes long, don't feel obliged to watch the whole thing, though there's some other home footage of Syd at a latter date. But it's just a fascinating little bit of pop history.

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And here's footage from the famous UFO Club, which was acid central for London's summer of love, 1967. Pink Floyd was, essentially, the house band. People are trippin'!


And this is "Apples and Oranges," the failed follow-up to "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play," and Syd's last main contribution to the band, played on TV. Syd can't be bothered to lip-sync.



Finally, this is the band's promo video of "Apples and Oranges," with David Gilmour now substituting for Syd, who had been fired by the band he once fronted. The song still sucked, though...

Jimmy Page and the first signs of Zeppelin

OK, now I can't stop myself. But these things are so fun to hunt down and I want to share, because there probably aren't that many people who are going to wade through all the junk - or even think to look for it. And there IS a lot of junk. But this is Jimmy Page with his inherited band, The Yardbirds, live on French TV in 1968, doing a very early version of Jake Holmes' "Dazed and Confused" that sounds more like the unformed Zeppelin than it did the established Yardbirds. Check out his playing on the break! Damn! But poor Jim McCarty on drums - Bonham would soon relegate his kind to the rubbish bin of history.

Note, too, his Hendrix-influenced frilly shirt...



Here's Page leading the band through another song from the Jeff Beck era, "Shapes of Things." Again, Page's sounds are just so big for this group.



And if you've not seen it before, here's the infamous footage of the Yardbirds during the brief period in which Page and Beck played twin lead guitars, though it's obviously mimed, not live. It was filmed for inclusion in Antonioni's wonderful suspense film, "Blow Up," and was, in fact, the low-point of the film, with the bizarre club scene, no one even responding to the band. Was that intentional, a comment on the zombie nature of Swinging London?

Iggy and the Stooges in 1970

OK, I didn't fit this one in with the other Iggy stuff in the next post. This is from Cincinnati in 1970, when the singer/songwriter thing was dominant and Iggy and the Stooges were, well, freaks - even to the freaks! There's a very famous still from this concert, of Iggy up on the shoulders of members of the audience (Iggy invented stage diving), taunting them, the apeboy gone wild.

What's great about this video isn't the fidelity or clarity - though given the subject, that's great - but the weird set-up, with an old guy in a both (with a young guy for "cred") calling the show like it's a ballgame. And then, when Ig dives into the audience, he says, essentially, "Time for a commercial!"

Catch the sax playing with the band during the end of the second song. Damn.

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Iggy rows Dinah's boat...

OK, so it's a wet cold day, and I don't want to work. So I'm cruising YouTube like nearly everyone else. And I've found some cool stuff. What I like best is the older, rare stuff you've never seen - or saw, and totally forgot about. I got stuck on Pink Floyd for awhile, and now I'm on Iggy. Especially Iggy at his peak, 1977, when I was absolutely absorbed in the guy, and his partner in crime, David Bowie. Here's a video of Iggy in '77, doing the song that probably still pays his rent, and then some. Back then, it was just a great, relatively undiscovered song.



Iggy Pop was IT for some of us back in the mid-'70s...and this interview shows why. The guy was always surprising, and always as charming as he was savage. Here's an interview with him on French TV in 1977, the year he and Bowie recorded and released The Idiot and Lust for Life. The only albums that were more important to me that year were the pair recorded by Bowie and Eno, Low and 'Heroes,' and the album that Iggy made possible by his inspiration,
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols!



God love Iggy - this is for Mikey - Here he is on Dinah Shore's show in 1977, with his band in the back ground - the keyboardist cracking up at Iggy's directness with a shocked Shore is David Bowie. This was Iggy's ostensible peak, and he's all the way charming. Unfortunately, the clip ends with the introduction of "Sister Midnight," but if I find that, I'll post it, too. In the meantime, great Iggy!

John Fogerty on Letterman

I haven't been a real fan of a John Fogerty album since about 1971 - and that includes the current "Revival," which several people I know put in their top 10s - but his appearance on Letterman had the fire that his too-perfect recordings (and less-than-perfect songs) of recent vintage often lack. Give credit to the great Kenny Aronoff on drums...



And don't forget to check out the prior blog postings I've done tonight. They're just of some stuff I want to share from the last year, from Radiohead to "Once" to The Shins, and Arcade Fire playing with everyone! Scroll down, click and enjoy.

Arcade Fire again - on their own

I've already posted the fantastic video of the Arcade Fire with Springsteen and the E Streeters several posts ago. But I think I owe those unfamiliar with the song a look at this video of the Fire doing the song on their own, on British TV's Jonathan Ross Show.

And hell, I'll post a couple of other videos, though they're not as good, just for fans - there's one of them doing the great "Wake Up" from their first album, with David Bowie singing it, though the sync of sound and vision is bad; I've linked instead to the same show with the same combo doing Bowie's "Five Years".



Here's another video of the band, this time with U2, doing a rather shambling version of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart." Neither of these two videos are very good, but both prove a point: The Arcade Fire is the current fave of rock's greatest acts. I think they could be around for some time.



Hell, even the Foo Fighters do a good cover of "Keep the Car Running," though without the composers themselves...

Amy "Rehab" Winehouse straight

Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" is possibly the biggest "single" of the last year. We all know it, everyone loves it. Here's a very nifty little video of her doing the most stripped-down possible version. And she's not a mess, which is such a nice change...

Plant and Krauss to tour

There are a couple of reasons why Led Zeppelin isn't going to tour this new year, the main one being that singer Robert Plant doesn't want to (Jimmy Page is reportedly eager to go out, I'm told by a source near the guitarist). One obvious reason he doesn't want to tour is the album he made with Alison Krauss, Raising Sand, released in October. With production and band by T Bone Burnett, this is one of the top albums of 2007, a rich blues 'n' bluegrass creation that begs to be taken on the road. The tour will be a very hot concert ticket come spring 2008. They have already announced a tour of Europe in May, and have said they'll tour the U.S. in the summer.

This video is a promotional film, but it's the best I've seen as a good intro to the duo and their album.

Rufus Wainwright - "Release the Stars" live

Who else could get away with wearing lederhosen?


Rufus has tried all of our patience, I'm sure even he would agree. But the man is so fearless, both sartorially and musically (and lyrically) that we can forgive almost anything. Even lederhosen.

This is the title track from Rufus' fifth album, Release the Stars, which came out in 2007. I wasn't absolutely in love with it, but Rufus is opening up his voice more, and the song is loaded with great craft, solid humor, and intelligence. Can't have too much of those...and I just love people who go for it. Camp is back?

In any case, tonight I have found myself gravitating to videos of my favorite work this year - Springsteen and Arcade Fire and Radiohead etc, so I'm going to go with that for the next few posts. The video above is another.

Phantom Limb live by The Shins

This is a very stripped-down live version of a song I loved on the record - The Shin's "Phantom Limb" from their 2007 album Wincing the Night Away. It's an interesting listen, especially if you know the original. This version really demonstrates how much work goes into a recording. Don't get me wrong, it's a great song - but singer/songwriter James Mercer's voice is mucho reinforced electronically in the studio. On the other hand, Mercer's voice and the band's acoustic performance have a nice intimacy, and the lyrics are easier to hear than in the much more ornate studio version.

NB: Check the previous few blog posts for exceptionally good video clips of Radiohead live in the studio for new year's, a lovely duet from the film "Once," and a bootleg of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street with Regine and Win from The Arcade Fire. Fantastic!

Arcade Fire live with Springsteen

Here's a clip of Win Butler and Regine Chassagne, husband and wife co-leaders of The Arcade Fire, playing with Springsteen and the E Street in October. But playing an Arcade Fire song! Though this is bootleg quality, it's a great rock 'n' roll moment. And in black and white. Seriously, the Arcade Fire is one band I still see making music, in some form, in 30 years. Get "Neon Bible," which is their second, 2007 album. Or download "Keep the Car Running" from iTunes or wherever you get downloads.

The performance is epic, wide-screen rock that Springsteen himself actually doesn't write much anymore. Singer Win Butler is lifted by the E Street on his own song, Springsteen leading his veteran unit into the best of new rock. Bruce takes the second verse.

The first 15 seconds alone are worth watching, if only to hear the response of the man and woman with the camera (fans of both bands), as they realize that the combined forces onstage are about to play "Keep the Car Running." Love those moments, don't we?

And check out the prior few clips - Radiohead and a clip from the musical film "Once." Both HIGHLY recommended. I'm gonna try hard to give you nothing but GREAT stuff.

And yeah, I'll add more links. But for now, these are a start. I just gotta get this stuff flowing out. It's a new year.

"Once" is out on DVD...see it!

"Once," a low-budget independent film released on DVD right before Xmas, is one of the better music movies I've seen in years. It's a fictional story, but it rings true on nearly every level, having been made by longtime friends out of what is a deep understanding of both music and friendship. It's really beautiful, and this is the scene that is the core of the film - or at least has the signature song.

The set up: He's a busker on the street, she starts talking to him, she's a pianist, they go to a music store and use the piano to play his song together. They're so natural - they're real people, making a musical connection. And the actors - Glen Hansard of The Frames and Margeta Irglova - have had a similar, but very longtime, friendship, so they're intuitive and relaxed. Highly recommended.

Click it.

Radiohead's "15 Steps" live in the studio

Or, if you're not up for 52 minutes of Radiohead - and I feel ya - here's a version of the first track on the album, "15 Steps," which to me really captures a lot of what they're about these days. Very entrancing combination of electronica, songwriting and a jazzy feel.

This was recorded and posted on the web at midnight on New Year's Eve. Very low tech, actually, filmed from a handful of positioned webcams, and then edited together. And even if his voice irritates you at first, Thom Yorke is absolutely mesmerizing - he does not hold back, he puts body and soul into it - and he is a singer of great range. And check out the bassline when it staggers in. THE most absolutely modern top-level rock act.

Click it!

Radiohead In Rainbows video

Here's a new video of Radiohead live in the studio, playing all of the songs from In Rainbows, which just came out in an actual physical form. Some amazing stuff. An acquired taste, perhaps, but worth acquiring. This was the band's new year's gift, posted at midnight on Dec. 31. Nice. It's 52 minutes long, so kick back and enjoy.