MSN Music Blog - Reverb

Happy Presidents Day (Observed)

The Presidents of the United States of America... as the founding fathers intended

By percy thrillington Feb 15, 2010 12:35PM
Seattle's own. 

And Speaking of Raging Narcissists...

Guns'N'Roses play a show for Fashion Week

By percy thrillington Feb 12, 2010 1:35PM
Gather round, young'n's; it's time for a wee history lesson. See, waaaay back in the 1980s, when "rock band" meant something more than just a video game, there was one such rock band that seemed to be bigger than all the others combined. They were called Guns'N'Roses, and they made two or three albums that lots of people inexplicably loved. Even more inexplicable: Guns'N'Roses still technically exists! And every so often, they appear live somewhere. Most recently, they turned up at the John Varvatos store (built on the smoldering ruin of CBGB) for a L'Uomo Vogue afterparty that had some affiliation with Fashion Week. The lesson, as demonstrated by this murky audience vid of the "well well well my Michelle" song, is that no matter how big and powerful a band once was, they can and will be reduced to the sound of a bunch of high school students in a garage lit by one red bulb in the fullness of time.



The setlist, courtesy of Stereogum:
01 "You're Crazy"
02 "Mr. Brownstone"
03 "I Used to Love Her"
04 "Welcome To The Jungle"
05 "Street Of Dreams (The Blues)"
06 "Sorry"
07 "It's So Easy"
08 Band intros --> "Patience"
09 "Rocket Queen"
10 jam --> "Catcher In The Rye"
11 "My Michelle"
12 "Knockin' On Heaven's Door"
13 "Whole Lotta Rosie" (AC/DC cover)
14 "Paradise City"
---- ENCORES
15 "Sweet Child O' Mine"
16 "This I Love"
17 "Night Train"
 

John Mayer's Narcissistic Apology for Being Narcissisitic

Mayer acts contrite onstage

By percy thrillington Feb 11, 2010 1:22PM
After John Mayer's Playboy interview proliferated around the web yesterday, the world agreed he was a complete bastard. The consensus was so dramatic that even Mayer noticed, and gave this possibly sincere, but undoubtedly self-involved "apology"/acknowledgement onstage last night:


 

And You Said John Mayer Couldn't Get Worse

Mayer's Appalling Playboy Interview

By percy thrillington Feb 10, 2010 1:00PM
In an age where pornography is harder NOT to find than it once was to find (notice I don't say "to come by"), one may rightfully ask: what is the point of Playboy Magazine? The photos are airbrushed beyond human recognition, the models are genericized to the point of being almost invisible, and the entire aesthetic seems caught between three generations, none of which is being served. Well, the answer used to be a punchline. Nowadays you really do read Playboy for the articles. In the case of this month's interview with blues pop web celebrity John Mayer, you read them to find out just what a d-bag one bafflingly famous person can be. 


PLAYBOY: You wanted to become a rock star, and now that you are one, it’s ruined your confidence? That’s odd.
MAYER: Lately I’ve realized it’s okay to enjoy being a rock star. Like, it might actually be fun to wear sunglasses in the airport and sit in the first-class lounge as a fucking rock star who’s about to go on a world tour. I had related it to something so painful, so frustrating, so confusing, that it would give me a tension headache. Being a famous musician seemed to have brought misunderstanding and strife and a fist in the back of the head when I read something about myself. I wrote this line yesterday: “Someday soon these will just be things we used to do.” I’m sort of making a list of all the things I know I’m going to laugh at myself for taking so seriously.

Not so bad, but WAIT!

PLAYBOY: If you didn’t know you, would you think you’re a douche bag?
MAYER: It depends on what I picked up. My two biggest hits are “Your Body Is a Wonderland” and “Daughters.” If you think those songs are pandering, then you’ll think I’m a douche bag. It’s like I come on very strong. I am a very…I’m just very. V-E-R-Y. And if you can’t handle very, then I’m a douche bag. But I think the world needs a little very. That’s why black people love me.
PLAYBOY: Because you’re very?
MAYER: Someone asked me the other day, “What does it feel like now to have a hood pass?” And by the way, it’s sort of a contradiction in terms, because if you really had a hood pass, you could call it a nigger pass. Why are you pulling a punch and calling it a hood pass if you really have a hood pass? But I said, “I can’t really have a hood pass. I’ve never walked into a restaurant, asked for a table and been told, ‘We’re full.’"
PLAYBOY: It is true; a lot of rappers love you. You recorded with Common and Kanye West, played live with Jay-Z.
MAYER: What is being black? It’s making the most of your life, not taking a single moment for granted. Taking something that’s seen as a struggle and making it work for you, or you’ll die inside. Not to say that my struggle is like the collective struggle of black America. But maybe my struggle is similar to one black dude’s.
PLAYBOY: Do black women throw themselves at you?
MAYER: I don’t think I open myself to it. My dick is sort of like a white supremacist. I’ve got a Benetton heart and a fuckin’ David Duke cock. I’m going to start dating separately from my dick.
PLAYBOY: Let’s put some names out there. Let’s get specific.
MAYER: I always thought Holly Robinson Peete was gorgeous. Every white dude loved Hilary from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. And Kerry Washington. She’s superhot, and she’s also white-girl crazy. Kerry Washington would break your heart like a white girl. Just all of a sudden she’d be like, “Yeah, I sucked his dick. Whatever.” And you’d be like, “What? We weren’t talking about that.” That’s what “Heartbreak Warfare” is all about, when a girl uses jealousy as a tactic.
Uh...

PLAYBOY: You’ve also been called a man-whore.
MAYER: I feel like women are getting their comeuppance against men now. I hear about man-whores more than I hear about whores. When women are whorish, they’re owning their sexuality. When men are whorish, they’re disgusting beasts. I think they’re paying us back for a double standard that’s lasted for a hundred years.
PLAYBOY: What does the word womanizer mean to you?
MAYER: Well, wouldn’t a womanizer have dated more than two girls in two years?
PLAYBOY: You and Aniston got back together and broke up again in 2009. How many women did you sleep with in the eight months after the breakup?
MAYER: I’m going to say four or five. No more.
PLAYBOY: That’s a reasonable number.
MAYER: But even if I said 12, that’s a reasonable number. So is 15. Here’s the thing: I get less ass now than I did when I was in a local band. Because now I don’t like jumping through hoops. It’s been so long since I’ve taken a random girl home. I don’t want to have to submit myself for approval. I don’t want to audition. I’d rather come home and edge my shit out for 90 minutes. At this point, before I can have sex I need to know somebody. Unless she’s a 14 out of 10.
A reasonable number indeed. There is more below this jump.

PLAYBOY: In 2006 you began dating Jessica Simpson, and the paparazzi started stalking you, turning you into a tabloid fixture. Certainly you knew that was going to happen.
MAYER: It wasn’t as direct as me saying “I now make the choice to bring the paparazzi into my life.” I really said, “I now make the choice to sleep with Jessica Simpson.” That was stronger than my desire to stay out of the paparazzi’s eye. That girl, for me, is a drug. And drugs aren’t good for you if you do lots of them. Yeah, that girl is like crack cocaine to me.
PLAYBOY: You were addicted to Jessica Simpson?
MAYER: Sexually it was crazy. That’s all I’ll say. It was like napalm, sexual napalm.
PLAYBOY: But before you dated her you thought of yourself as the kind of guy who would never date Jessica Simpson.
MAYER: That’s correct. There are people in the world who have the power to change our values. Have you ever been with a girl who made you want to quit the rest of your life? Did youever say, “I want to quit my life and just fuckin’ snort you? If you charged me $10,000 to fuck you, I would start selling all my shit just to keep fucking you.”
Aaaaaand....

PLAYBOY: At this point, what’s your ideal relationship?
MAYER: Here’s what I really want to do at 32: fuck a girl and then, as she’s sleeping in bed, make breakfast for her. So she’s like, “What? You gave me five vaginal orgasms last night, and you’re making me a spinach omelet? You are the shit!” So she says, “I love this guy.” I say, “I love this girl loving me.” And then we have a problem. Because that entails instant relationship. I’m already playing house. And when I lose interest she’s going to say, “Why would you do that if you didn’t want to stick with me?”
PLAYBOY: Why do you do it?
MAYER: Because I want to show her I’m not like every other guy. Because I hate other men. When I’m fucking you, I’m trying to fuck every man who’s ever fucked you, but in his ass, so you’ll say “No one’s ever done that to me in bed.”
PLAYBOY: Do you do something different in bed than other guys?
MAYER: It’s all about geometry. I’m sort of a scientist; it’s about being obtuse with an angle. It’s sort of this weird up-and-over thing. You gotta think “up and over.”
Finally, lest one forget:
MAYER: People are lining up around the block right now to watch me play music tonight. If some kid called me a douche bag on his terrible blog, I don’t really care. I’m letting myself out of my own prison. I’m not going to be a prisoner to a warden I can’t see. From now on I’m just going to pretend that people really dig the shit out of me. I’ve been so afraid of rocking the boat that I’m not sailing anywhere. I’ve been trying to prove to people I’m not a douche bag by not dating, by keeping my name out of Us Weekly. That’s fucked up, man. I’m not dating. I’m not even fucking. So now I’m going to experiment with “fuck you.” In 2010 my goal is to get more mentions in Us Weekly than ever.
Nice work, dude.
 

If you want Sly to stay, start with getting him to show up

Sly Stone's new album, a Clash mini-reunion and more vinyl

By Mark C. Brown Feb 10, 2010 11:51AM

The year 2010 is starting to look like the year of Sly and the Family Stone - that is, if Sly decides to pull it off. They've already announced the Coachella date, though fans are already questioning whether he'll show up.  It has also been announced that he'll release a new album, his first since 1983.


Sly Stone. Seriously.

What happens is anyone's guess. In 2007 at the North Sea Jazz Festival his band had to pound on backstage doors (with live cameras rolling) to find him and drag him out onstage. Tokyo 2008 at least had him showing up, but the propped-up performances were sad to watch.


Of course, Sly has a long history of not doing well when all eyes are on him, including this vintage interview with Dick Cavett.



Elvis Costello says all the reissues of his music wasn't his idea and he's not happy about it. "There's a bewildering amount of records with my name on them out there. They keep releasing all these live albums that all have the same songs on them. I don't know how anybody can tell the difference."


Elvis Costello


The vinyl resurgence continues.


wow. vinyl.

 

The recording of the new Gorillaz album has brought us a mini-Clash reunion. That's not a bad thing.


 

 


Finally, this is worth revisiting: The best week in the history of the Billboard album charts.


billboard

 


 

What Does MTV Stand For?

MTV drops "Music Television"

By percy thrillington Feb 9, 2010 12:18PM
It isn't, or it shouldn't be, "news" when a media corporation changes its logo, but let us pause to consider the announcement yesterday that MTV is dropping the words "Music Television" from its iconic logo. The shift away from music-based programming is old news, to be sure. The days of VJs and videos have long since given way to The Hills and its ilk, with the occasional awards show thrown in to keep up appearances. But the network's identity has always been so associated with music that the idea of it not being called Music Television, even erroneously, has never really been a consideration—at least not in public. Now, MTV is more or less just KFC: a brand identity with no discernible relationship to its original recipe, as it were. Removing "Music Television" from the logo is a signal that MTV is what naysayers have said all along: 100% corporate.


Is it a surprise to anyone actually watching MTV that the network on Monday quietly dropped "Music Television" from its logo? Probably not. It's a wonder that anyone even noticed the difference.
But a difference there is. For the first time in the network's 29-year history, MTV has decided to give the channel's iconic logo a face-lift.
"The people who watch it today, they don't refer to MTV as music television. They don't have the same emotional connection that, say, the people who are writing about [the logo change] do," MTV's head of marketing Tina Exarhos said. Indeed, The Wrap called it "a minor change with major symbolism," while The Hollywood Reporter wrote having "music television" in the old logo was "a constant reminder that MTV was branding itself one way, programming itself another."
Outside of its annual "VMAs" music video award show, and with the cancellation of "TRL," MTV has long abandoned music as a programming mainstay. For years, all eyes have been on genre-busting reality shows like "The Osbournes," "Newlyweds," "Jackass," "My Super Sweet 16" and "The Hills." The network is currently riding high with the docudrama "Teen Mom" and "Real World"-esque "Jersey Shore."
Exarhos said the network's marketing team had tossed around losing "Music Television" from the logo before, but "we had never taken the idea upstairs to [MTV president Van Toffler and MTV Networks chair-CEO Judy McGrath]. We thought, 'No one is ever going to let us do this.' It's the one thing we've never touched," she said. But with the channel's most recent on-air redesign -- something the network switches up every couple of years -- "now felt like the right time."
"It felt like, 'Why have we been so scared when the channel itself has evolved so much over the years?' " 
Does the newly cropped logo mean no music at all? "Absolutely not," Exarhos said, pointing to the success of the "VMAs" and the recent Haiti telethon organized by George Clooney and the network. Some editions of the logo, in fact, feature Beyonce at the "VMAs" and Jay-Z on the telethon, while others promote new shows like "My Life as Liz" and upcoming ones including "The Hard Times of RJ Berger".
Beyond cropping out the words "Music Television," Exarhos said her team redrew and minimally tweaked the placement of the "TV" within the "M" (Spot the difference between the logos, pictured above.)
-- Denise Martin


 

Super Who

The Who makes the most of 12 minutes on the TV event of the year

By Mark C. Brown Feb 7, 2010 7:18PM

At first Roger Daltrey didn’t want to play the Super Bowl at all. And Pete Townshend considered pulling out after they’d signed on.


But The Who took the stage in Miami after all, with Townshend dressed as a subway busker and Daltrey an English dandy, both singing live and loud. Not the best Who concert ever, but they certainly didn’t sink to the level of Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons of KISS hawking cherry Dr. Pepper in a Super Bowl commercial.


The Who

But The Who acquitted themselves in a fun performance


 
More

Bullet Dodged

Steven Tyler's Led Zeppelin Audition

By percy thrillington Feb 5, 2010 12:42PM

It's bad enough to know that Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones were entertaining the notion of a Led Zeppelin tour without Robert Plant, but to think they even considered Aerosmith singer manque Steven Tyler as a replacement! I mean, what is wrong with people? Don't they know Aerosmith is having problems of their own?


According to The Guardian, the audition didn't go well:
According to guitarist Joe Perry, Tyler was called in for the aborted Led Zep reunion attempted by Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham in 2008. Though Robert Plant refused to be involved, the remaining band-members spent several months under the illusion that they could replace him. Their talks with singer Myles Kennedy are well documented, but Perry claims Tyler also staggered into the Zeppelin practice room. "It's something I've never talked about before," Perry told The Pulse of Radio. "It's a kind of window into how hard it's been to keep the [Aerosmith] partnership together."
"Steven disappeared and I called around. Somebody said he was in London trying out for Led Zeppelin." The rehearsals, Perry said, were "shambolic" – and Tyler didn't even seem familiar with the Led Zeppelin catalogue. The ill-fated New Led Zep decided to pass. "Page felt really awkward about the audition, but ultimately it was a group decision."
With Tyler in rehab for an addiction to painkillers, Aerosmith may also pass on their long-time singer. Tyler has threatened to sue, but Perry maintains that Aersomith are considering replacements. "You've gotta think outside the box," he said. The band's new singer could even be a woman. "[There were female singers in] a lot of the bands I was in before [Aerosmith] ... It was really good – a lot of great songs. So that's definitely a possibility."