Moby, Part 2
Hey everyone. It’s me again, Nathalia. I’m here to fill you in on the stuff we covered today on our radio show.
Today we started off the show with “Fire It Up” by Thousand Foot Krutch Explore.
We start with a band distantly related to Three Days Grace. They’re originally from Peterborough, Ontario, and are called “Thousand Foot Krutch”. And they are getting a big push in America with this song.
It’s the first single from their fifth album, “Welcome To The Masquerade”. They’re Canadian, but their real fanbase is Stateside. 11 million plays on MySpace, 140,000 friends. Pretty impressive. This song will also be included in “NHL 10”.
By the way, singer Trevor McNevan is okay. He needed an emergency appendectomy over the summer. But he’s fine.
Let’s do the news.
ExploreMusic TOP 5 MUSIC NEWS Countdown
5) Jack Johnson Contest Reminder
A reminder of the Jack Johnson contest. We have an autographed guitar from Jack to give away. This is all about the release of his new live CD and DVD “Jack Johnson En Concert”. They’re coming Tuesday.
To enter, just follow @exploremusic on Twitter and give us your favourite Jack Johnson song and we’ll make a draw. We’ll have our winner next week.
4) Music Torture Continues At Gitmo
The U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is still open and a lot of people are really, really angry about this. First, President Obama said closing it was a priority for his administration. Second, they’re still allegedly using something that’s being called “music torture” on the inmates.
To get them to talk—or to keep them subdued—prisoners have been exposed to loud music for hours and hours and hours. It’s part of a sleep deprivation technique and just a way to get detainees to crack.
What kind of music? Well, death metal has been popular. “F*** Your God” by Deicide has been most effective—and so has “I Love You” from Barney The Dinosaur. That, by the way, is not a joke.
This past week, a coalition of musicians—including Pearl Jam and R.E.M., have backed a formal demand that music torture be stopped at Gitmo.
3) Free Music Makes You Famous Again
Do you know who Mojo Nixon is? He’s a fun singer-songwriter who wrote songs like “Elvis Is Everywhere” back in the 80s. Not exactly a household name, for sure.
On October 6, he launched a campaign through Amazon’s music store to give away some songs. No charge. Free. As of Thursday night, more than 1 million tracks have been taken. That makes him one of the most successful download artists of all time.
It’s a great story—and it shows the power of Amazon. ‘course, this is Amazon.com so we Canadians are shut out of something yet again.
2) Them Crooked Vultures Complete Album
We will definitely have music from Them Crooked Vultures on Monday. This is the project featuring Dave Grohl of the Foos on drums, Josh from Queens of The Stone Age on guitar and John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin on bass.
The single is called “New Fang”. And the album will be self-titled. It’s finally done—it took a little longer than they expected it would. But it will be in stores on November 17.
1) Chris Cornell ExploreMusic Exclusive!
Stop the music for this. This is important.
Earlier this year, Chris Cornell, he of Soundgarden and Audioslave, released a solo album called “Scream”. It was produced by Timbaland. Very bold experiment. Not exactly what people were expecting.
The voice is there, but the rest of it does not sound like the Chris Cornell everyone knows. The record did not work.
But what if you could de-Timbaland these tracks? Jordan Zadorozny, a Canadian indie dude, was called to L.A. By Michael Friedman, a guy working in the TV and film industry who had become Chris Cornell’s friend. The thinking was that there was some really good stuff underneath the Timbaland production.
“Jordan, dude, what can you do with these songs? Can you remix them so they contain 99% less Timbaland?”. He said “sure”. And here are the results.
For the first time anywhere in the world—no one has heard this except Chris, Jordan, Michael and the engineer—a track from the “Scream” album that might have been (and could be yet). This is Chris Cornell and the Jordan Zadorozny remix of “Never Far Away”.
By the way, Alan got permission to play it from Chris Cornell himself. It’s a great story. Let’s see where it goes.
5 SONGS YOU GOTTA HEAR TODAY:
We spend the entire week going through lots and lots of music. And five times a week, we come up with a daily list of five songs worth checking out.
“Walk On Water (Auspicious Beginnings)” by The Rest
The Rest is from Hamilton. They have a record called “Everyone All At Once”. They wrote it in an isolated cottage somewhere and the result is something has been compared very favourably to The Arcade Fire. Someone also said British Sea Power. Good comparison. Mercury Rev. That works, too.
They have indie deals in Canada and the UK already. And you should give a listen to a song called “Walk On Water (Auspicious Beginnings)” and see what you think.
“Winter Night” by Sweet Thing
Song number two on the list is from Sweet Thing. They’re also Canadian. Toronto. Five people. The comparisons here are Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party. Lots of handclaps and things that make you want to dance. All we have right now is a self-titled EP from 2006, but there’s a new record coming soon, so you should get acquainted. Go with a song called “Winter Night” to start.
“Tell Your Friends (It All Worked Out)” by White Belt, Yellow Tag
Next up is White Belt, Yellow Tag. That has something to do with judo, apparently. Three Yorkshire Men. They’ve got something going on in a New Order-meets-Hot-Chip sort of way. They’re on a bunch of “better watch this band” lists right now, so we’d better pay attention. The album is “You’re Not Invincible” and the song is “Tell Your Friends (It All Worked Out)”.
“Lady Bones” by Magnetta Lane
Back to Toronto, it’s Magnetta Lane. They’ve been grinding it out since 2003. New album called “Gambling With God”. “Lady Bones” is a good song.
“Swamp Thing” by The Chameleons
Finally, an old track from The Chameleons. This is one of those songs Alan always gets emails about. “who does that song that’s ‘Swamp Something’”. It’s “Swamp Thing”. 1986. Criminally underrated record called “Strange Times”. Should’ve been bigger than they were, but they had all kinds of issues beyond their control. Record company hassles, their manager died. Awful bad luck.
ExploreMusic TRIVIA:
Moby is next. It’s part two of a talk we had a few weeks ago. And let’s set it up with a Moby question. He used to own a non-musical business in manhattan. What was it?
It was a tea shop called “Teany”. 98 imported teas from around the world. Ran it with his girlfriend. But he pulled out a while ago. Then there was a fire, but they’ve reopened.
ExploreMusic Feature Item: Moby
Moby and Alan sat down to talk about his new album, “Wait For Me”. The second single from “Wait For Me” is called “Mistake”.
ExploreMusic Playlist: The songs featured on the radio show today were:
“Fire It Up” by Thousand Foot Krutch
"Never Far Away (Jordan Zadorozny Remix)" by Chris Cornell
“Walk On Water (Auspicious Beginnings)” by The Rest
“Mistake” by Moby
That's it for today. I'm outta here. See you tomorrow.
Nathalia
Questions? Comments? Email me @ nathalia@exploremusic.com