“It was either a massive 30-city tour or start helping out around the house”
- Conan O’Brien

By now, most people know all about the drama surrounding Conan O’Brien finally getting the Tonight Show spot and then, more or less, slowly being pushed from the position that he had dreamed about obtaining for so long.  Details and opinions can me mixed but, when it’s all said and done, it doesn’t matter.  The Tonight Show has lost their credibility and Conan has gained even more of it throughout this entire fiasco.  Jay Leno still comes across as your parents friend who tells bad jokes like, “Working hard or hardly working?“, as he took his role back entertaining the elderly with insomnia.

Recently there have been many rumors about what would be 8 foot Irishman’s next move.  The rumor with the biggest hype behind it was that the former talkshow host/comedy writer my be going on a multi-city live tour.  Due to legally binding stipulations in his exit contract with NBC, which would prevent him from appearing in a talk show spot with any other station for months, this would be a great way for O’Brien to sustain his momentum and remain in the public eye in the meantime.  Well, this is now officially much more than a rumor, as tickets for the tour went live this morning.

Being marketed as, “A night of music, comedy, hugging, and the occasional awkward silence“, the 30 city tour kicks off on April 12th in Eugene, OR and ends on June 14th at the FOX theatre in Atlanta, GA.  Perhaps even more surprising than the tour itself, however,  is the information that it will include a stop at the Bonaroo Music Festival in Manchester, TN.  The press release states that the live comedy/music review “will include longtime sidekick Andy Richter and the former Tonight Show band” however, word is that Max Weinberg will not be part of it.

Get your tickets fast, because these spots are bound to disappear quickly.

Here are the tour dates: (more…)

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Untied States (“un-tied” states) is the musical creation of two childhood friends from Atlanta, GA.  Colin Arnstein and Skip Engelbrecht dropped their first release, Bird of the Blood Feather, as a duo in 2003.   That EP was followed up by the two full-lengths, Ineffable, by Design (2004) and Retail Detail (2006).  Although all three of them were self-recorded/self-released efforts, the latter two found the duo collaborating with a plethora of rotating additional musicians.  The group spun through various incarnations for their live performances until connecting with Darren Tablan in 2001.  With Tablan operating as an engineer/keyboardist/sound-sample manipulator, US released the 7″, Bye Bye Bi-Polar (b/w These Dead Birds) and was subsequently signed to Distille records.  With the addition of drummer Satchell Mallon, Untied States has now released their first large studio recording, Instant Everything, Constant Nothing.

I hadn’t heard the group’s previous releases and I nearly didn’t hear this new one, either.  I had already received an email about the band from Distile, but I paid it little mind.  We receive so many emails these days that I can’t focus on them all and most have little to no connection to anything that we would even be slightly interested in dealing with.  I think that I had even given a quick listen to an album link for IECN but, for whatever reason, I wasn’t immediately impressed and instantly went back to what I was doing.  Maybe I’m just like a toddler and need pictures to get my attention because, after receiving the following video of the guys performing live for the WRAS | indieATL music series, they had captured my full attention. (more…)

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First Ever Live Show – TONIGHT 2/19!

Broken Bells has confirmed the details of its first ever live date. The band will perform TONIGHT (February 19) at the Fold In Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles located at 2220 Beverly Boulevard just west of Alvarado (Across the street from Brooklyn Bagel).

Doors are at 8 pm. Free parking available on Roselake Ave. directly behind The Praise Christian Church. A LIMITED number of tickets are available now via http://www.inticketing.com/evlist.php?events=search&v=6117

2 ticket limit.

For anyone who is unaware of the project, Broken Bells is the new collaborative effort between DJ/super-producer, Brian “Dangermouse“ Burton and James Mercer of The Shins.  If you live in the Los Angeles area and act fast, tonight could be your opportunity to see if it it lives up to all of the hype. (more…)

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Chilly Gonzales “Piano Talk”

Feb. 11, 2010

Joe’s Pub, NYC

Once upon a time in a far away land known as Quebec, a young musician would be told the “worst four words of [his] life”:

“You Are A Genius.”

Chilly Gonzales descends upon the piano and sings the words in every possible octave and key in an effort to drive their impact further home.  The artist formerly known as Jason Beck was dubbed a child prodigy early on, clearly a major influence on his current onstage persona: think precocious wunderkind-meets jazzy hipster lounge act.  I like to imagine this particular combo is the direct result of what happens when you condemn a gifted child to a nightly gig as cocktail party entertainment. (more…)

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LSD…  it’s a helluva drug.  Back in the day, I did my share (and, perhaps, the shares of a few others).  Some believe that it has the potential to help turn you into such a super genius, that you appear freakishly insane to anyone else that’s not “on your level“.  Then again, it’s always possible that the reverse is happening and they really are going so ape-shit crazy, that it only leads them to believe that that they have a growing mental superiority.  One thing’s for sure; these chemical roller-coasters have the ability to twist up and whack out a synapse, like eating a parasitic egg-salad-sandwich from the vending machine of an interstellar truck stop bathroom.  The reality is that, even with all of the epiphanies and life lessons that one may obtain during these odysseys, there is really no scientific control for the experimenter/guinea pig and, short of a clone or view into a parallel dimension, no one can ever really know if they would have arrived at those same conclusions without the “aid” of the hallucinogen.  The good part is, since there is no way to make that determination, it doesn’t really matter and there are more detrimental things in the world than examining the differences between arrogance and confidence, exploitation and opportunity, respect and glorification, inspiration and contrivance, hustling and…well, hustling.  Despite the blatant self-aggrandizement implied in his stage name, Sean “Har Mar Superstar” Tillmann seems to have an incredibly firm grasp on these concepts and plenty of others.  Of all the electric realizations that I had, however, there is one specific principle that truly epitomizes Tillmann’s career for me: “Regardless of how clearly, simply, honestly, or directly you express a pure truth, it doesn’t mean that anyone else will, necessarily, hear, believe, or even understand what you are trying to relate to them.” (more…)

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Fred Cole is like some sort of musical version of High Lander or a vampire.  Since 1964, at a mere 16 years of age, Cole has been an enduring force in the music industry.  By organically adjusting, adapting, and adding to his signature sound, he has been able to move inconspicuously amongst mortals throughout the many passing decades.  Few others can lay claim to having performed shows with the likes of the Doors and Janis Joplin in the Sixties, as well as with Punk legends like Ramones in the Seventies, and bands like Black Lips of today.  Fred Cole has been there and transitioned admirably through all of it.

Fred met and married his wife Toody before he was out of his teens and they have been together ever since.  Through the births of their children, playing in various bands together, running a music/general store, and even living in the unforgiving elements of the Yukon, the Coles are like the Zan and Jana of sonic onslaughts.  From the garage rock/psychedelia of The Lollipop Shoppe, to the punk of The Rats, to the country-influenced The Range Rats, and the mashed up rough punk of Dead Moon, Fred has remained a vital voice in the music industry and Toody’s has increasingly grown stronger and stronger.  After almost 20 years and being the subject of a documentary, Dead Moon disbanded in 2006, when the couple parted ways with drummer, Andrew Loomis.  Now, with the addition of drummer, Kelly Halliburton (Severed Head of State, Defiance), the Cole’s are about to head out on tour with their most recent musical project, Pierced Arrows.

I caught Pierced Arrows during their last appearance in Seattle and they were an impressive live act; incorporating new tracks with classics from projects of the past.  Their sophomore album, Descending Shadows will be released by VICE Records on February 2nd.  The following video of the trio performing their new song, “Let It Rain” in the yard of their Oregon home. (more…)

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