Midweek Music News Roundup 11.11.09: If You're Not Down With Who I Am, Look At Them Now, They're All in My Hands

Posted by Lucas Wesley on 11.11.2009

Pixies offer up a new release, The Magnetic Fields offer up a new album, Yoko, Sean and Julian Lennon offer up an old release, Sufjan Stevens offers up a retraction, Tom Waits tweets, AC/DC fans fight back, Sublime legally break up, Aerosmith technically break up, and a whole bunch of musicians act less than pleasant. Read all about it.

Hey, so that album review I wrote is finally up. Read it here: I write great reviews. Silly me, writing for the British release date instead of the American one. I hope you enjoyed the review. Also, last week I said that the promotion of Steve Conte's solo album was, quote, "bad." Then a PR person from his company e-mailed me. That's dedication. And it makes me feel like important people read what I write. So I apologize to that PR person. Perhaps I'm the one that's bad. I also got more a-Ha related hate mail. This time it was an e-mail! That's always fun. Anyway, let's see who will attack me this week.



- Pixies have a new member: "Weird" Al Yankovic! During a December 8 benefit show at L.A's Echoplex put together by Black Francis himself, Mr. Yakovich is set to sing "I Bleed." The show is for the benefit of Winston's Village, a charity that supports the family of Winston Bertrand, a young boy born with lymphatic and venous malformations. I do not know which either of those things are, but they sound awful and I hope tons of money is raised. In addition to "Weird" Al, Flea will be filling in on bass for the Pixies portion of the show. Also featured will be a Black solo set, Grand Duchy, and outside of Frank, Love and Rockets, She Wants Revenge, Michael Penn and the 88s. The next night, there will be a comedy benefit, featuring Tim and Eric, Bob Odenkirk, Brian Posehn and Pixies drummer (turned magician) David Lovering. Also rumored but very unconfirmed: Black Francis stand up. Stay tuned.

- In other Pixies news, the group have released a free, legal live EP. It can be found here. My experience says the download could well go in your junk folder, so be sure to check there, too. It's a pretty nice set of songs, even though gaawwwwddd will never truly sound like seven any more, no matter how hard Frank tries to scream it.

- Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon and Julian Lennon will be releasing yet another "Give Peace A Change" charity single. This time it is in honor of the 40th anniversary of the original. The single is available at iTunes and all proceeds go to the United Nation's Peacebuilding Fund. I joke a little at the beginning about the fact that they did the whole remake "Give Peace A Chance" for charity has been done before, but who am I to fault any charitable effort?

- Sufjan Stevens has finally caught up with the rest of the world and realized that his "50 states project," releasing an album in honor of each of the 50 states (having started with Greetings From Michigan and Come On Feel The Illinoise), was an impossible idea. Says Stevens, he was too serious about it, and "I started to feel like I was becoming a cliché of myself." Maybe he's his own harshest critic, but he is right that it was a ridiculous idea.

- Radiohead have completely evolved beyond the music medium. They are now a horse. Well, technically. A horse named Radiohead competed in last weekend's Breeders Cup. No words on whether or not the horse performed for free, or if Sparklehorse feels way ahead of the whole music horse game.


Tweet tweet.

- Tom Waits has created a twitter. I have never followed a musician's twitter before, but...I have high hopes. Check it out here. It's surrural.

- A group of concerned AC/DC fans have written an open letter to the band asking for them to switch up their set list now and again. Apparently, the latest Black Ice tour has more or less featured the same songs in the same order over and over. I have two problems with this open letter. First of all, it's further proof that the world will never be satisfied, since other artists, especially essential nostalgia acts like AC/DC, where fans just come for the hits, always get slammed for changing the set list too much. Secondly, it's AC/DC. They only have like four songs. Who cares what order they play them in.

- Sublime legally can't exist anymore. A judge ordered that the surviving members can no longer use the name during their concerts, despite still playing the same songs and sounding the same. According to the judge, the band ended with the death of Brad Nowell. I wonder what Freddie Mercury's ghost's lawyers are up to these days...

- Goddamn it. Seth MacFarlane did something funny. Now I have to give him credit and stuff. Hall & Oates will become reoccurring characters on The Cleveland Show, portraying the angel and devil characters on Cleveland's shoulders, offering him advice. Start the betting on how many appearances it'll take before a Great Gazoo reference. I say two. Hopefully this will cue the world in to Oates' voice acting capabilities and that show about his crime-fighting mustache will finally become a reality.

- Country legend George Jones is complaining about country supervixens Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood lately, saying that they aren't really country. He argues that they're stealing the term and should find their own title. I typed that on Saturday and have been working on a He Stopped Loving Her Today joke since then and I just can't word it right. Seconds before I made this live, I came up with the fact that George Jones is a little early on that whole not loving them anymore thing. Three days. For that.


Taylor, I don't love you anymore.

- Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are remaining silent on whether or not they want to be involved in the remake of Yellow Submarine. More power to them. Now all we need to every animator and voice actor in the world to do the same. This movie must not be remade! I stand firm.

- Steven Tyler apparently quit Aerosmith. I say it's about time. And while not a fan of the band, I'm not saying that in the same way I'll say that when Bon Jovi finally give up. This is an issue of a man's health. Let's face it, when you delay a tour like eight times a month because you keep getting injured, maybe you just shouldn't tour. Granted, Tyler seems to be moving on to some solo material, which will probably involve another taxing, injury-laden tour, but it's a step in the right direction. Tyler's Toxic Twin, Joe Perry gets in a good dig, saying "We'll probably find somebody else and then we'll be able to move Aerosmith up a notch." Ouch.

- The world famous Jackson family is still in the news, and this time it has nothing to do with Michael! Unless you count the whole exploitation factor. Regardless, Jermaine, Jackie, Tito and Marlon will be the focus of The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty, starting December 13 on A&E. The whole show will feel like death, let's be honest.

- It seems like just two years ago The Magnetic Fields were announcing a new album. Well, then again, it was just two years ago. But after a five-year gap, two is nice. Once again, Merritt and the gang are getting ready for a new album. Called Realism, the album is due out January 26. Following the pattern of i and Distortion, the album will contain significantly less than 69 tracks. To be specific, there will be 13. Presumably this will be the final chapter of the no synth trilogy. Personally, I can't wait.

- Members of the Wu-Tang Clan's entourage, namely DJ Mathematics and Streetlife, were recently arrested for possession of marijuana. In other news, today is Wednesday. What's actually surprising about the story is that they also had copious amounts of ecstasy. That's not a Wu-Tang drug!

Star Power

Some musicians are just dicks, eh? Morrissey has always been, shall we say, a tad pretentious, but he's taken it too far. During a show at the Echo Arena, a fan through a cup or bottle or something and his Moz in the head. Reacting as a rational human being who realized that the acts of one person don't properly convey the feelings of thousands, Morrissey simply said "goodnight" and walked off stage, never to return. By golly, in Iggy Pop's day, that fan would've won the audience participation portion of the show. But this brings me to what will likely be a relatively short edition of Star Power, on musicians who overreact to minor concert quibbles and leave their fans in the dust.


See ya!

First, probably the most famous example, Mr. W. Axl Rose. For most people, I probably don't have to really explain this incident. Much the same as the Morrissey one, some fans were acting a little bit unruly. Unlike the Morrissey issue, instead of throwing stuff at him (which is at least a legitimate concern to be dealt with, even if Moz overreacted), Axl's big problem was that a fan had a camera. He responded fairly, stealing the camera, saying the security sucked and running off. Videos exist everywhere. Slash handles it well, looking confused but still cool, because he's Slash. But this is the one move that really makes me hate Axl. True, I had previously hated his music and his voice, but this made me just plain not like him. It's one thing when the crowd is throwing things at you, but for taking pictures? That means they like you! If every concert where someone was taking pictures got canceled, there wouldn't be concerts. I saw a show where someone threw a beach ball at Bob Dylan and he gave a smile. Someone took a picture of Axl and he started crying and left.

It doesn't stop at music, either. Comedian Dave Chappelle, formerly known as the most successful thing ever on Comedy Central (before he was ostracized and written out of the record books, replaced by Jon "Stalwart" Stewart), once left a performance before it really began, because one fan too many announced the fact that they were "Rick James, bitch." I realize it must suck for him to have realized at that very moment he was one of the poster children for artistic decline in comedy, but seriously. You don't walk out on thousands of paying customers unless you are in constant, serious physical danger. Not to compare music to politics, but Teddy Roosevelt was badass enough to get shot then go on with his speech. These days if a rapper even hears that someone in the audience has a gun, shows over, folks. Not that that's necessarily unreasonable, but come on. Rappers are supposed to be cool.


Pictured: Teddy Roosevelt laughing after being told the number of times 50 Cent has been shot.

I'm going to stop myself there before this turns in to why Teddy Roosevelt is cooler than the coolest musician of all time, whoever that might be. That's too easy a column. Anyway, other people have stopped concerts and restarted them. We'll remember an audience rushing the stage to attack Noel Gallagher at a recent Oasis concert, which rightfully stopped the show. But good chaps they are, Oasis got themselves together and finished the show. That's what you do. Michael Jackson stopped a concert once, and he powered through as well. Granted, an angry audience member didn't rush him; he just saw a bug on stage that freaked him out. But that was Michael. We can't expect that of everyone.

Let's look at cooler ways to respond. Both stories can be documented on youtube. First, I mention Henry Rollins. There is no question about it, Henry Rollins can beat you up. There are some people out there that could beat him up, I'm sure, but you? You're reading an article about dick musicians on a pop culture web site. Henry Rollins could annihilate you. One fan was once acting a tad unruly, jumping near the stage and hitting Henry, so Hank jumped into the crowd and beat him up. Then he jumped back on stage and kept singing. You may say that's worse than the alternative, since a person gets injured. But I'm telling you as a staunch supporter of nonviolence that if someone is being a jerk at a concert, ruining the experience for everyone else, who cares. Beat them up. More power to you if you're the star of the interrupted show.


Pictured: Keith Richards holding a deadly weapon.

But all the same I can understand that there exists a perspective where that could be a dick move. The crowd member was being uncool, but why jump off stage and bother them? They haven't necessarily done anything terribly disruptive; let them be. This next example offers no such middle ground. The beaten deserved it in all cases. During a Rolling Stones concert, like so many others, a fan rushed the stage and tried to attack Mick Jagger. Not missing a beat, Keef took off his guitar, hit the attacker with it, put it back on, and kept on playing, basically uninterrupted. The power of the immortal. Neither Henry Rollins nor the Stones stopped the show despite attacks, and nor did Oasis earlier on.

Again I point out I'm a strong supporter of nonviolence. In the situation, I would ask security to take the people away, and all things considered, I'm not sure I approve any of the counterattacks except for Keith's self defense. But when it comes down to it, I feel like you just don't cancel a show that thousands of people paid for because the actions of one. It isn't fair. And that's the end of that.

Farewell Song

We are on 1978, which is pretty cool. It's like I'm actually sticking with this whole column thing. Punk was on its way by now and plenty of good artists were releasing good albums. Usually I go down the list, but I feel like that's not necessary anymore. I'm slowly realizing it actually could be a tad tedious for you all. I'll just give the run down for our winner here. An artist that was constantly making changes was, well, making changes. Moving more and more towards the general rock song with the new introduction of backup singers and heavy horns, this epic track was by far the greatest on an average album. But boy was it great. I speak to you of Changing of the Guard by Bob Dylan.



The album of the year ranks as one of my favorites of all times. I say that every week, don't I? Oh well. Coincidental is the fact that I first bought this album because the artist was playing with Bob Dylan the first time I saw him and I wanted an introduction. This was what they called his best, so I gave it ago. It is his best. The album is This Year's Model by Elvis Costello & The Attractions.

That does it for this week. I hope I get another angry a-Ha related e-mail despite having not actually mentioned them in weeks. I hope you all are well, and I hope to see you again next week for the Midweek Music Roundup!