Music

I listened to Beethoven Symphonies No. 6 – 9 courtesy of the BBC this afternoon. No. 6 and of course 9 are the most interesting. Why is No. 8 so short? Now I’m back on the Exercise (ie, anything fun and poppy that I don’t need to pay attention to) playlist. Neutral Milk Hotel rocks.

So last night I went with Aaron over to Amoeba in The Haight to catch the free show by The New Pornos. I’ve actually never been that far down Haight, but it seems rather cool and I’d like to spend a Saturday strolling it. Fortunately for me the 7 and 71 buses go straight from Montgomery BART (2nd/Market) to literally across the street from Amoeba. We arrived a little early and perused their music. That’s the first time in awhile…

Bold means I’ve already bought tickets. Sept. 7 Bimbo’s 365 (SF) Ted Leo and the Pharmacists Sept. 11/12 The Fillmore (SF) The Decemberists Sept. 27/28 Bimbo’s 365 (SF) The New Pornographers Oct. 15 Bob Hope Theater (Stockton) Cake Oct. 25 Yoshi’s (Oakland) Arturo Sandoval Oct. 29/30 Mountain View Amphitheater (Mountain View) Bridge School Benefit Nov. 11 Warfield (SF) Death Cab for Cutie Nov. 11 Zellerbach Hall (Berkeley) Youssou N’Dour

Sweet! East Bay Express: But from a powerpop standpoint, it’s the New Pornographers’ world to create or destroy as they see fit, and Twin Cinema succeeds primarily because it doesn’t come on too strong at first. Pop tends to overwhelm people with its saccharine exuberance — as fabulous as Fountains of Wayne are, you can’t really blame people who flee the room in terror when “Stacy’s Mom” cranks up — and the first couple Pornographers albums are similarly daunting. Whether…

Nappy Roots is playing at the Red Devil Lounge on June 25. And even better, following Digital Underground on July 2, they’ve got Sir Mix-A-Lot on July 21. Amazing. I’m really tempted to get tickets to one of the latter two. I just bought tix for Mountain Goats (23rd) and for the Ted Leo show in September. Also for sure want to get tix to Daara J and Youssou N’Dour. And speaking of music, check out the Berkeley World Music…

June 4 – Sleater-Kinney – Warfield (SF) June 11 – Violent Femmes – Civic Center Plaza (SF) June 11 – Village People – Civic Center Plaza (SF) June 23/24 – The Mountain Goats – Bottom of the Hill (SF) June 25 – Nappy Roots – Red Devil Lounge (SF) July 2 – Digital Underground – Red Devil Lounge (SF) July 3 – Big Bad Voodoo Daddy – Stanfurd (Palo Alto) July 12 – Jason Mraz – Paramount Theatre (Oakland) July…

I thought I’d spread this through my circle of friends. I saw this somewhere else, but was reminded of it from MeFi. 1. The person (or persons) who passed the baton to them. 2. Total volume of music files on their computer. 3. The title and artist of the last CD they bought. 4. Song playing at the moment of writing. 5. Five songs they have been listening to of late (or all-time favorites, or particularly personally meaningful songs) 6.…

My main man, David Boyk is a new American Bollywood authority, at least in the Austin American-Statesman. Rock on, chief.

Ok kids, so six weeks from tomorrow I’m heading back west. And just like my Holiday NYC CD, I’d like to put together another one for my journalism buddies, this one with California flavor. So, I’m soliciting California-themed tunes. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far, in this (tentative) order: Bad Religion – Los Angeles is Burning Tony Bennett – I Left My Heart in San Francisco Mamas and the Papas – California Dreamin’ The Decemberists – Los Angeles,…

My good friend David Boyk has started a new music/MP3 blog : Universal Pop This is a much better version of a column that I used to write on my rarely-read website circa 2000 called “International Musician of the Week.” Rock on, dude.