It's the role Will Oldham was born to play: mariachi loverman! In "Hombre Sencillo", the new seven-minute video from directors Britt Govea and Brian Ziffer, the man known as Bonnie "Prince" Billy plays a wandering guitarist who wakes up one day with the power to turn pretty girls from black-and-white into color by giving them roses. He does well for himself.
The song in the video is a cover of Graham Nash's "Simple Man" (renamed "Hombre Sencillo"), taken from the forthcoming Nash tribute album Be Yourself: A Tribute to Graham Nash's Songs for Beginners, which is out May 25 on Grass Roots. Other artists contributing to the tribute album include Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes, Brendan Benson of the Raconteurs, Port O'Brien with the Papercuts, Vetiver, and Alela Diane.
Watch the video below or at Pitchfork.tv.
Fire up your wallets: tomorrow, April 17, is Record Store Day, the holiday that helps keep the independent vinyl emporiums of the world in business. As in years past, scores of bands and labels are helping out, sending exclusive material to indie stores, or playing or DJing in-stores sets. All of this is to convince people-- people like you-- to leave their houses and spend some hard-earned currency on physically released music, something that people seem less and less willing to do all the time.
Because there's so much going on on Record Store Day, we've compiled a list of some of the more notable releases to seek out, as well as which in-stores you might want to hit up. This isn't a definitive list; the Record Store Day website lists everything that's going on, and we're only skimming the most interesting stuff. Check here for a list of participating stores, and here for a list of exclusive releases.
There's even a surprise Beastie Boys white label 12"-- so be on the lookout!
* Lots of new material from Sub Pop, including Beach House's "Zebra" 12" single, which features four songs, including new versions of two Teen Dream tracks. Also: Casual Nostalgia Fest, a compilation of songs recorded live at SP20, the label's 20th anniversary...
Artist: Brendan Benson
Album: My Old, Familiar Friend
Release Date: August 18
Label: ATO
Last-ditch careerism is often the reason why these 'elite' gatherings are rarely the sum of their parts
A close friend of mine, called Steve, once got down to the last four people auditioning to sing in Velvet Revolver. While putting together the Guns N' Roses offshoot, Slash had heard an album by the band that Steve was singing with at the time, and flew him to LA to write with him, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum. In the X Factor-esque documentary made about their search for a singer, Steve's 30 seconds traced the breakdown of his relationship with Sorum and ended with the traditional reality TV shot of Steve walking in slow motion down a corridor with his guitar over his shoulder to the strains of whichever Aerosmith ballad might best suggest that his life, career and dreams were irreversibly over. The next shot was of drug-buggered ex-Stone Temple Pilots camp commandant Scott Weiland. Velvet Revolver, it was declared, were to be a "supergroup".
This week sees the announcement of another of this most wretched and disappointing of concepts: Chickenfoot. This ungodly collective comprises of Van Halen's Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and Joe Satriani, presumably keen to raise legal fees for his copyright assailment of Coldplay's Viva La Vida. But surely only the most blindly optimistic fan of the drumming on Under the Bridge is really expecting genius. Since the sultan of
Four free tracks from The Raconteurs' set at Bonnaroo 2008 are to be made available this Sunday (January 11), courtesy of the festival.
Four free tracks from The Raconteurs' set at Bonnaroo 2008 are to be made available this Sunday (January 11), courtesy of the festival.