Godlike and genius, if you ask NME. Grohl will pick up the honour in NME's award ceremony later this spring but seems to have somewhat mixed feelings about it since he considers himself rather an idiot most of the time:
Although I agree Grohl's an excellent musician I have a sneaking suspicion that NME was going to give the award to Lemmy Kilmister but some teen-aged trainee of theirs e-mailed Grohl's management by mistake. After all, both seem to share the same taste when it comes to facial hair which could be a bit misleading. See what I mean?
Photo by Wes Orshonski
I'm happy for Dave anyway and since he seems to be a cheeky monkey I'm sure he'll use every opportunity he gets to make fun of it.
Luckily Grohl's got loads of more interesting things coming to his way in 2011 than the NME Award. For instance, he will appear in the new Muppets movie which I find way more wicked than the NME Award. Naturally, Grohl will be filling in for Animal, who's forced to undergo anger management counseling.
But most importantly, there will be a new Foo Fighters record. Not much has been reported of it yet but as they say, good things come to those who wait.
As the title suggests, this is going to be a very incohesive blog post. I'm afraid my mind is still in Christmas mode. Sorry about that.
Anyways, gonna start with A Perfect Circle. After several years of being inactive APC finally broke down the silence this autumn by playing the entirety of each of their three albums at concerts, one album per night. There have also been rumours of the band writing new material but with these guys you can never be sure of anything. I definitely wouldn't mind if Maynard James Keenan took some time off from his wine-making activities and Billy Howerdel concentrated on APC as well, instead of his other band Ashes Divide, because even after a long break APC still sounds amazing. Take a look here:
Speaking of wine-making, since it seems to be the main reason as to why there hasn't been a new APC or Tool record for a while. Here's a brief interview where Keenan talks about his vineyard and why he got interested in wine in the first place. It's kinda interesting although I wish the interviewer would let Keenan do most of the talking.
Finally, about the documentary Keenan mentions during the interview. It's called Blood Into Wine, it's directed by Ryan Page and Christopher Pomerenk, and yes, it's all about Keenan and his wine-making efforts in Arizona. Here's the trailer:
Funny thing about Page & Pomerenk is that they seem to have a very special relationship with Sundance Film Festival. Apparently Sundance keeps rejecting their documentaries (including Blood Into Wine) and it has come down to a point where Page & Pomerenk have decided to cast puppets for their next production because they think "the puppets will take the inevitable Sundance rejection better than real life actors" [read the whole press release here].
Now that's the way to deal with rejection and turning it into good publicity! Reminds me of an old saying about making lemonade if life gives you lemons. Which is about the same thing as getting wine out of desert soil or turning painful life experiences into beautiful music, if you come to think of it.
Once again it's that time of the year when every music mag and blog out there seems to be listing their favourite albums, singles, videos and what-nots of the year. I fell for it recently myself too, a couple of posts ago when I called Alain Johannes' "Spark" one of the best albums in 2010. But it is kinda silly to compare records to one another only because they were released in the same year, isn't it? Besides those lists always ignore the fact people discover old music all the time, too, and it's just as important as finding new artists.
So, instead of making a traditional top 10, I decided to make a different list. It consists of artists who've been around but which I discovered or fell in love with in 2010. To spice it up I decided to add another criteria: they all had to have strange video material available online. So here's my top 5 of the wackiest videos by artists/bands I've discovered in 2010.
Alex Harvey
I kept bumping into his name constantly this year (his songs have been covered by Nick Cave, Gemma Ray and Recoil, for instance), finally decided to check out his albums and haven't stopped smirking since. Here the crazy Scotsman doing his thing on stage back in the 70's. In this footage Alex uses beer as hair gel, stuffs stockings into his cheeks and enjoyes the goofed-up faces of the Norwegian audience.
Captain Beefheart
Another case of finally checking out someone I'd constantly heard being referenced to. After listening to Beefheart fairly intensely for about 9 months now I'm convinced he was a mad genius and it truly was heart-breaking and slightly eerie as well to hear about Don Van Vliet's passing - only a few weeks after I'd written a blog text about him and his legacy. Here's one of Captain Beefheart's last musical efforts, a video that was apparently banned from MTV for "being too weird".
Charlotte Gainsbourg
It's hardly surprising that the daughter of Serge Gainsbourg is kinda eccentric, yet very chic. I can't remember why I started listening to her albums but once I did, I got stuck. Charlotte rocks, here with Beck and a group of people engaged in the weirdest activities.
Creature With The Atom Brain
Top quality psychedelia band, hailing from Belgium. This video always makes me slightly nauseous but I love the track. It's trippy and hypnotic.
Archie Bronson Outfit
I have no idea how to decribe this band because their sound is such an eclectic mix of various styles and influences. Not sure what this video is about either. To be a disco dancer or a deep sea diver, that is the question, apparently.
It started a couple of years ago with Amy Winehouse and continues today with the likes of Eliza Doolittle or Duffy. In addition to these ladies, there seem to be hundreds of others like them out there - playing music inspired by the sounds of the 50's and 60's. Quite often it's obvious though that the retro vibe doesn't necessarily come from the hearts of the performers but rather from the minds of producers or record labels on a quest of finding the next retro queen.
Luckily there are also artists like Imelda May who'd be living and breathing those old tunes, sounds and looks whether it was fashionable or not.
Besides being credible, Imelda happens to be an exceptionally talented and skillful singer, capable of bringing true emotion and soul to world-weary blues songs as well as to groovy rockabilly songs. Lately, her talent's been spotted by Jeff Beck as well, who've recruited Imelda to sing on his album "Emotions & Commotions". This has forced me to consider buying my first ever Jeff Beck record! Yikes!
If you're even remotely interested in Trent Reznor's work you need to watch this recent in-depth interview on Tavis Smiley Show. Reznor was there to promote "Social Network" (you know, the movie about Facebook, directed by David Fincher) cause he's composed the original film score for it. What's far more interesting though is what he says about creativity in general, feeling insecure and afraid, the process of fitting into someone else's vision vs. working as the head of a project and how he perceives various film awards as opposed to music awards. Definitely one of the most interesting interviews I've seen or read for a long time!
This may sound like a cliche but sometimes I find myself in a place where I can only listen to blues. It's not a genre I'd know much about yet but there's something about it I think is more comforting than drinking hot chocolate under a warm blanket.
Lately I've been indulging myself with a dose of Louisiana blues - love the way it's so laid-back, slow and dark. Especially two Lightnin's, namely Lightnin' Slim and Lightnin' Hopkins, have a sound that's simply captivating. You'll know things aren't that bad when you hear Slim sing: "If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all..."
