Kings of Leon - MSG

“We’d all like to be something bigger at home.” Caleb Followill told Spin magazine back in October, "I don’t want my family to have to gather around a computer to watch our biggest show.” He was referencing their headlining performance at the UK’s Glastonbury music festival where they played to a crowd of 100,000 rabid fans. Up until pretty recently they had been enjoying huge success abroad while keeping a relatively low profile here in the U.S.

Three Grammy noms and a sold out Madison Square Garden later, it’s pretty evident that things had changed. At last night’s show, before crooning ‘Fans’, Caleb addressed the crowd for what was one of the only times they spoke during the show. Amid the screams and with Caleb’s mumbled, heavy southern drawl it was hard to decipher exactly what he said, but I’m pretty sure it was something along the line of “We’ve finally made it and it’s all because of you guys. This one’s for y’all”

Fans


Use Somebody


Sex on Fire:


On call (I took this one--- annnd it’s kinda shaky—sorry!)


Taper Jean Girl




Setlist:
Crawl
My Party
Mollys Chambers
Closer
Revelry
Fans
Milk
Four Kicks
Wasted Time
Sex on Fire
Slow Light So Long
The bucket
Notion
Black Thumbnail
On Call
Use Somebody
Cold Desert
Trani

encore:
Knocked Up
Manhattan
Charmer

"Bye Good" a Hoax? I KNEW IT

I EFFING KNEW IT! For those not up on celebrity trainwrecks, the latest was Joaquin Pheonix (or so he wanted you to believe). I don't want to turn my blog into a Gossip Rag, but this is kind of on topic as JP 'quit' acting to focus on his promising RAP career (A video of that MESS is below). Note-- All of this was to be documented by BFF Casey Affleck

Needless to say, I didn't buy it. From the beginning I was like 'he has to be joking! he and Casey are totally EFFING with everyone!' It looks like this might be the case after all.

According to Entertainment Weekly/ People.com (reliable sources as far as gossip is concerned), their sources tell the magazine's Hollywood Insider blog that Phoenix's bizarre career change is a joke at the expense of the entertainment media and actors who take themselves too seriously.

"He said, 'It's a put-on. I'm going to pretend to have a meltdown and change careers, and Casey is going to film it,'" says one source who recently worked with Phoenix.

EW reports: "It's an art project for him," says a source. "He's going full out. He probably has told his reps that he's quit acting. Joaquin is very smart."

Here is JP performing in Vegas. The words "HOT MESS" jump to mind:

Things that Make Me Sad:

Van Morrison tickets being $200

Seriously-- who has $200 to spend on a concert ticket? maybe he missed the memo that these are turbulent economic times.

Astral Weeks:


On a side note-- Van's people are ON their game. Not one single video exists on youtube that isn't 'official'. at least none that i can easily find this early in the a.m. Why so sly, Van? I was just looking for a little culdesac for my blog.

le sigh.

Kings of Leon B-sides

in a couple of days time I will be rocking out to Kings of Leon at MSG. They are one of my favorite bands of life so you can imagine my surprise when I came across a SLURRY of B Sides when I was looking for a cool video to post. I like to think of my self as pretty on top of stuff when KOL's involved so I must admit that I'm pretty disappointed in myself for severely dropping the ball in this instance.

the only positive? i totally feel like i have a new album of theirs because i just found all of these songs that I've never heard before. word!

frontier city:


beneath the surface:


and because caleb followill is gorgeous and one of my 3 possible future husbands (even if he doesn't know it yet):

they're trying to make me (more) poor

A BILLION people released new albums yesterday—which is both awesome and non-awesome at the same time. I want them all but I must budget myself. Boo. Luckily, I could use the very last of my gift cards from Christmas to buy the new Andrew Bird album and the new Bon Iver EP, so now I just need to wait until pay day to get the new Animal Collective and AC Newman albums. sigh...

Bon Iver – Blood Bank EP
Amazing. It’s beautiful and haunting. Have listened to it 3 times through already. Here’s the title track (ignore the random pics that the dude that uploaded it to youtube added:


Andrew Bird – Noble Beast:
At first listen, I’m really digging ‘Oh no’ but ‘Tenuousness’ is also really good as is 'not a robot, but a ghost'

OH NO

farewell, 'dubya!

the glorious day has finally arrived when this is no longer the person representing our country:

shuffle rediscovery: eastern conference champions

had the ipod on shuffle while driving back from PA today and this song by the Eastern Conference Champions came on. Hadn't listened to them in quite a while and was totally reminded of how much i like them.

"the box"


and I've uploaded another song of theirs "some sorta light" HERE.

good stuff

OH yeah! they are from philly too-- word!

One Song. One Take. One Cab

www.blackcabsessions.com

I always end up spending hours on this website when i stumble on it. The premise is pretty simple-- get a band, get a cab, band sings whilst cab drives around aimlessly through the street of London for a bit and it's documented for our enjoyment

Sometimes bands are specifically chosen and other times a band will call up and be like 'we're in town and want to do a session, we've got free time in an hour.' and they make it happen (as was the case when Cold War Kids were in town). There have been something like 70 black cab sessions featuring acts of all sizes, from the uber indie to the mainstream (i.e. Death Cab for Cutie or Ryan Adams).

Some of my favorites are below, but i thought it'd be fitting to start with Johnny Flynn since he was the very first session:


and this guy was just awesome: Seasick Steve:

Reppin' Philly: Dr. Dog

"We are interested in three-part harmoies, the out-of-doors, hoagies, vegetables and diminished chords."

Squee! hoagies! the only way they could have shown their Philly-ness EVEN MORE would have been to mention how awesome Tastykakes are.

But I digress...

Dr. Dog released their latest album Fate in July and kicked off 2009 by touring Australia with The Black Keys. Speaking of which, I'm pretty jealous of the fact that Australia got to see two of my favorite bands play together. For a second I was hopeful that Dr. Dog would be opening for the Black Keys when I see them in Feb., but alas they are not.

Below are two songs of their newest album:

Hang On:


Performing "My Friend" in Australia:


Check out their myspace HERE

dead man's bones

sick:



and ryan gosling is pretty.

dead man's bones on myspace

Folk'n Around with Bobby Long

To kick off the week, here’s a post devoted to Londoner, Bobby Long. His music is folksy and bluesy (which I seem to be skewing towards with an increased frequency these days) and full of awesome.

He’s working on releasing his first ep which should be out… sometime. And there are rumors of a tour in the u.s. sometime in the summer which would quite exciting.

Performing in London in Jan. 08:


Dead & Done Blues:


Links to some of his other songs:
Sad Woman Blues
So Tear Me Up

a list

10 Best Overlooked Albums of 2008
(according to spin-- full article with downloads here)

1. The Week that Was - The Week That Was
2. Land of Talk - Some Are Lakes
3. Kassin +2 - Futurismo
4. Ida Maria - Fortress Around My Heart
5. Human Highway - Moody Motorcycles
6. The Helio Sequence - Keep Your Eyes Ahead
7. The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound
8. Flowers Forever - Flowers Forever
9. El Perro del Mar - From the Valley to the Stars
10. Catfish Haven - Devastator

The Gaslight Anthem: The '59 Sound


Ida Maria: Queen of the World

'bohn eevair'

There are times that I hear a song and from the first note I can tell that I’ll love it. Then there are times where I hear an song and I’m like ‘ehhhhhhh’ only to rediscover it a month or two later and become completely obsessed. This is what happened with Bon Iver. So here I am listening to “Skinny Love” on repeat and wondering how I ever made it through the last couple of months without this song in my life.

Ok- maybe that’s a smidge dramatic, but regardless the album “For Emma, Forever Ago” has fast become a staple in my itunes library.

Below is a video of Bon Iver's performance on Later with Jools Holland. It’s a good vid because (a) it points out the correct pronunciation of his name (i was completely saying it wrong until today) and (b) you can see the amount of passion that this guy puts into his music/performance. It’s kinda beautiful…. sigh…



Here are album cuts of Skinny Love and Blindsided and Flume

Also, be sure to check out his new album "Blood Bank" available Jan 20.

REVIEWS/LINKS:
Rolling Stone
Spin
Pitchfork
Bon Iver's myspace

rad music blog > quarterlife crisis

In one month, I will turn the big 2-5. Up until about 2 weeks ago I’d say I was pretty psyched about it. Then the realization set in—-

i’m going to be 25, a quarter century, almost 30. Long story short, I found myself deep in the throes of a full-fledged quarter life crisis, wigging out about how my life is one giant question mark to my bff here in CT and my sister in Pittsburgh, who both ever so patiently reminded me to take a deep breath and take things one day at a time.

Waking up this morning with a renewed sense of Hope, I sought a way to channel all this Crazy I’ve got floating around in my head into something a smidge more positive.

Enter: Rad.Music.Blog.

To put it simply: discovering new music makes me happy & sharing new music that i find with friends makes me even happier. And this way, instead of having to email 10 different people when I’m obsessed with a new band that I think they should be obsessed with too, now all i have to do is post it up here. Really it’s just more efficient and I’m ALL about the efficiency.

Once I post anything, feel free to comment or suggest other stuff you think is cool. Or Heck— you can just check in on me every now and then to make sure i’m not curled up in the fetal position in that hole that i keep saying i’d rather live in than the real world.

Really it’s a win/win sitch for everyone involved— I will hopefully be less anxiety-ridden and you get good music and quite possibly peace of mind because, let’s face it, the more people comment the less likely I am to lose interest in this and, therefore, the less likely I am to make erratic phone calls to friends and family at all hours of the night. See? It would really behoove you all to love this (or at least pretend that you do).

:)

and if this blog doesn't work, I've always got my plan b (apparently they are making candles for everything these days: