A country for starlets: I love the Coen brothers, but their shruggish acceptance speeches unfortunately defined what felt like one of the most perfunctory Oscars in years — with one notable exception: Marion Cotillard, who played Edith Piaf to brilliant, mind-blowing, shape-shifting perfection in “La Vie en Rose.” You might think I’m grossly overselling it, but the frothy adjectives apply. See it now, if you haven’t already.
Homeward bound: We’re heathens around these parts but we were sad to hear about Larry Norman’s death Sunday.
When Dead Moon broke up in 2006 after 19 years, 13 official albums and 11 singles, they left a gaping hole in the international garage rock arena. Although the band put itself on the Pacific Northwest’s ’90s rock ‘n’ roll map with an early Sub Pop single and a brief appearance in the grunge documentary “Hype!,” they never achieved the recognition their tireless recording, touring and steady vision deserved. After a year-long hiatus, Fred and Toody Cole — the hardest working husband and wife team in punk — are back on the scene with a new drummer, Kelly Halliburton, and an impressive new band.
Boy, what a week for vague and allusive journalism! A statement from stoner-scuzz rockers the Black Crowes suggests that Maxim’s two-and-a-half star rating for the band’s new album, “Warpaint,” in its March issue was based not on the band’s “slavish debt to the Stones, the Allmans and the Faces,” but on contributor David Peisner’s vivid imagination.
The band is crying shenanigans that because it hadn’t sent out advances of the album, the writer had no way of hearing it, and that Peisner instead hypothesized about what it might sound like. Which, given his wafflingly negative review (featuring non-starter jabs like “Now that they’re legitimately grizzled, they sound pretty much like they always have”), wasn’t all that great. That inventive approach to music criticism is, of course, completely not OK in even the most ethically elastic circles of New Journalism.
After last year’s debut album sounded like it was recorded in some pub’s snug on a failing 20-year-old cassette recorder, Scottish trio Frightened Rabbit made the leap into “good production” for its second release, “The Midnight Organ Fight” (fatcat records, April 15). This is the band’s “big move,” but don’t look for brokered compromises in the songs that combine a hardened Glaswegian outlook tempered by a soft core that “dissolves in Scottish rain.”
What was the hottest show in Hollywood Thursday night? Not this at the Avalon, and certainly not this at the Knitting Factory. The toughest ticket to snag on a cold, rainy evening in the ‘hood, surprisingly, was at the Vanguard, where a band called Mumiy Troll played to a packed house of chain-smoking Russians. And tickets were not cheap either (starting at $45).
Over 700 Chloé-clad twentysomethings (you’ve never seen so much leopard-print in your life) are apparently crazy for the Vladivostok foursome, who sounded like a nuclear meltdown of the Bravery, Tom Petty and the Afghan Whigs last night (the band calls their style of music “rockapops”). Mumiy Troll played for more than an hour to the hyper crowd, who stayed well after the band was done around midnight to dance to techno (with no trace of irony… Russians just like to party, mind you).
I’m dating a girl who spent two party-hardy semesters in Brazil. What should I play for her birthday dinner? While you’re at it, can you throw in a foolproof recipe?
– James L., Chicago
***
Hey lover! You’ve got some obvious choices when it comes to Brazilian music – if the Gilbertos are hangingaround, she’ll think you’re competent, and if you have a little CSS for the cocktail hour (or morning after) she’ll think you’re hip. But go for the brainier Brazilians to set the foundation for more than a one-night stand.
Caetano Veloso’s languid tenor has graced dozens of recordings, and even the sharply political ones still have the power to seduce. Does a more gorgeous description of erotic surrender exist than his version of Mexican songwriter Tomas Mendez’s “Cuccurucucu Paloma”? (You might have seen Caetano perform it in Almodovar’s insanely romantic film “Talk To Her.”) Veloso’s a world class songwriter in his own right; try one of his mellower outings, like “Cinema Transcendental” or “Cores, Nomes” (which includes this beauty) to set the mood.
Oscar week got off to an early start Wednesday night with a music-themed party honoring (we think) our beloved planet Earth. The 5th annual Global Green Pre-Oscar Party featured performances by Michelle Branch, Damien Rice, Oscar-nominated duo Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova from “Once” and Michael Franti.
Branch’s performance proved the highlight of the evening, with a set heavy on new material, including “Long Goodbye,” her song with Dwight Yoakam from her forthcoming full-length. Branch, wearing a white silk dress, also offered up a nice rendition of Tom Petty’s “You Wreck Me” for the crowd, which seemed heavy on agents (or just guys who could afford the tickets) and their much younger dates. And Adrian Grenier was there too, lest you think only agents care about the environment.
There’s a longhistory of bands with striking female singers rising to stardom while the oft-neglected guitarist/bassist/drummer dudes grumble behind the scenes, leading to what the lawyer folks call irreconcilable differences. And if this cryptic post on Paramore’s blog is any indication of things to come, they might be next. Says singer Hayley Williams:
“There are a lot of internal issues that have been going on in this band for quite a while now. A lot of it started right around the time we were gearing up for the RIOT Tour in the US. We were able to fight through all of it for this long but unfortunately we weren’t able to keep it together long enough to make it through ’til the end of this tour. We really feel that taking this time is going to give us a chance to get away and work out our personal issues at home and on our own terms.”
Of all the Fueled by Ramen bands, Paramore has some of the sharpest tunes and a refreshingly un-navel-gazing charisma. Nothing sounds certain yet, so let’s hope they can get this particular misery business sorted out before Atlantic Records execs slink any closer to the window ledge at the prospect of one of their last rising rock bands ditching for a life behind a diner counter.
Human Giant, MTV’s sketch comedy troupe, are Aziz Ansari, Paul Scheer and Rob Huebel. A couple years ago, when these guys were just messing around in Brooklyn, they released some viral videos that got sent to seemingly everyone who’s ever illegally downloaded blog-band-of-the-moment. One video showed Ansari bumming out Manhattanites with embarrassingly bad songs blasting from a boombox; another video took a Pitchfork-perfect shot at the pretentious, hierarchical thinking of many indie rockers.
Their smart but laidback work has caught on: Human Giant’s second season on MTV debuts March 11, and the trio sold out their three-night stand in L.A. at the Upright Citizens Brigade. They’ve performed, collectively or solo, at music fests around the country, including Bonnaroo, SXSW and Coachella. I talked to them while they were in Telluride, Colo., for the city’s comedy festival.
– Margaret Wappler
Yes, Rihanna’s enlistment of synthy post-punks Klaxons as her backing band for her performance of “Umbrella” on last night’s Brit Awards is blood in the water for music bloggers. But the pairing makes a bit more sense than, say, Fergie and John Legend, as Klaxons’ biggest single was essentially cyborg girl-group pop, and Rihanna’s been inching ever closer to Kylie-land house cuts. There’s a long history of dance music traversing from England to the Caribbean and vice versa, so this set isn’t the disaster it might have been if this were, like, Kings of Leon or another one of those bands that only Brits seem to understand. That said, if anybody in the live audience needed Lasik surgery in the near future, they can probably go ahead and cancel that appointment now.
–August Brown
A country for starlets: I love the Coen brothers, but their shruggish acceptance speeches unfortunately defined what felt like one of the most perfunctory Oscars in years — with one notable exception: Marion Cotillard, who played Edith Piaf to brilliant, mind-blowing, shape-shifting perfection in “La Vie en Rose.” You might think I’m grossly overselling it, but the frothy adjectives apply. See it now, if you haven’t already.
What was the hottest show in Hollywood Thursday night? Not 
