Author Archives: robert duffy

Ben Folds EP Series To Begin; Pissed At Everyone

Ben Folds, we love you, plesae be happy.

“I’m going to do things that are really more about the music for me and less about the hype,” says Folds. “Because I’m on a major label, there is no escaping the way that we have to do business when I release an album — everybody wants the ‘Album of the Year’ Rolling Stone bullshit where you get two-stars in the review and your face is all over the front. The way to bypass that for me is just to not go through the normal channels. And if I put out an EP, nobody can take it seriously.”

“This way, I don’t have to kowtow to the big-ass record chains and then in order to get a certain number of records shipped, I don’t have to kiss radio people’s asses,” says Folds. “And in turn, I don’t have to do TV in order to get the radio slots and do certain kinds of press that I don’t want to do. It’s all kind of nice and the record business right now is going, ‘Okay, any way you want to do it is totally fine because we’re just barely getting by.’ So, they are not arguing about that. [Epic] is pretty well aware that I’m not going to be competing with Shakira. It’s a really nice musical way for me to do it. I just go into the studio, there is no ‘How does this fit in with anything?’ I just do five songs. It’s music. People who know my music and know who I am can find it, and that’s great.” (full story)

New Ben Folds material is good for the world.

Support The Last Hotel at Garageband.com

[OH Columbus! Repost]

The Last Hotel is one of our favorite bands in Columbus OH, and we’d love it if you could help them out over on Garageband.com. Here’s the details that they sent the band:

“As a result of some very enthusiastic reviews from garageband.com members, The Last Hotel’s track, “Forgetting,” will be Track of the Day at garageband.com. For 24 hours on Thursday, the 3rd of July, 2003 (PST) “Forgetting” will be featured on Garageband.com‘s Pop/Rock front page.”

The address for this page is: http://www.garageband.com/go/WFRQ7B7VX4 and its near the bottom of the page…

Sign on to Garageband.com today, review our song, give us some lovin’ and help us get to the top of their charts so we can be added to their CD compilation for free and get our music out there!

Seriously, help them out. Their song is really good, the band is really good, and it’s what George Washington wants you to do.

Live Review of The New Pornographers in Calgary

Check out blutroniq’s review of The New Pornographers’ Calgary show in the donewaiting.com message board. Sounds like the show sucked. Boo.

David Cross Discusses The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players

I love David Cross.

When I first saw them, I felt something that reminded me of the feeling you have when you?re, like, 11 or 12, and a not-unattractive girl tells another girl to tell you that she might think you?re cute. Blood rushes to your heart, and invisible ghosts keep turning your mouth up. And if an eight-year-old playing drums and chastising her Dad in front of an audience doesn?t make you smile, then something has gone terribly wrong in your life and you need to do one of those ?Foxfire By Twilight? retreat-in-the-woods type things with a bunch of aging, leathery hippies to find out what went wrong and help you get back on track. (full story) [via kottke.org]

CDs Packaged On Soda Cups

Rachel Farris’ record label is doing something unique:

Her independent record label is embedding mini-CDs in the lids of soft drink cups at movie theaters nationwide and a few theme parks … In all, 4.8 million of the CDs promoting Farris will be distributed in a monthlong campaign that began Friday, dolling up — or cluttering, depending on your perspective — drink containers at the Regal Entertainment Group’s 530 theaters in 36 states and at two Universal Studios theme parks. (full story)

With Radio and MTV being for shit, it’s good to see musicians figuring out alternative ways to get their music out to the world.

[via boingboing]

donewaiting/atomic ned: Who is Alta May?

Alta May is a band that donewaiting.com columnist Chip Midnight is flipping out over.

Garage Days

If Alex Proyas would make more movies, he’d probably be one of my favorite directors. He’s the bloke responsible for “The Crow” and “Dark City,” two lovely lovelies.

Anyway, he has a new film and it’s set in the world of music called “Garage Days”:

Garage Days is a coming-of-age comedy about a young Sydney band trying to get a foothold in the competitive world of rock n’ roll. After the band’s first gig is a colossal failure, the lead singer takes it upon himself to go out and pursue the most successful Rock Manager in the country. Meanwhile the other members of the band continue to deal with the kind of every day life issues that can ultimately tear a band apart. It may be the dawn of a new millennium but it’s STILL a long way to the top if you want to rock n’ roll.

I saw the preview before “28 Days Later” and it looks really good. It’s out 7/18 in NYC and LA and who knows for the rest of the world.

Melodynelson.com Starts Monthly Brooklyn Concert

One of our favorite music destinations, Melody Nelson, is hosting a monthly concert in Brooklyn. More info here. The first event is July 8.

This excites us a lot. Everyone in the donewaiting.com offices applaud Audrey and Jenyk for promoting their local scenes on the web while getting their hands dirty at the same time.

I want more of this.

The Tuesday Three As Chosen By Eric Wrong

Each week donewaiting.com asks a guest writer, musician or magician to choose three albums they would recommend for the Tuesday Three: One album released within the next seven days, one released in 2003, and one released from the past or the future, no restriction.

Eric Wrong is the lead singer of Eric Wrong and the Do-Right. You can see him obliterate Columbus OH on July 25 @ Skully’s.

Elvis Presley – Close-Up
So, this 4-disc Elvis boxed set comes out today. While I?m a big fan of the king (skinny, fat, dead or alive) I can?t say that I?m going to be rushing out to drop a hefty $70 for this one. I could do without the remastered songs; the originals will do just fine for me. The two discs of lukewarm songs from his (mostly) lousy movies don?t appeal to me either. What does interest me is the unreleased live performance that makes up disc 4. It looks like it?s a typical 70?s jumpsuited Elvis concert from the opening 2001 Space Odyssey to the 50?s medley to Polk Salad Annie and it probably is, but I have a special place in my heart for the live 70?s recordings. There always seems to be some awkward pause between every other song and Elvis tells incoherent bad jokes (sample mumbled punchline “feels like Bob Dylan slept in my mouth man”) and on top of that the live performances are smoking due to Elvis? top-notch band and the amazing power of his kingly vocal cords. So, I won?t be buying it BUT when the Columbus Public Library gets their copy of it I will borrow it and most likely copy it, but for
the most part this is probably another redundant Elvis collection.

The Fleshtones – Do You Swing?
The latest album from super-rock veterans The Fleshtones proves (once again) that they?re still the best all around party-rock band in the land. What I love about the Fleshtones is that their songs are FUN. Like “Double Shot Of My Baby?s Love” is fun. Like “Wooly Bully” is fun. They?ve managed to avoid sounding like an empty retro-throwback act by virtue of their unbridled enthusiasm for what they do and remarkable songwriting talent. For example, checkout these lyrics from “Hard Lovin? Man”, my favorite song on Do You Swing; “Everything hard appeals to my thinking, my music my woman my drinking, I?ve been north south east and west, hard loving?s what I do best, I can?t control this feeling, hard lovin? is what I?m needing.” I witnessed the awesome spectacle that is the legendary Fleshtones live show for the first time June 12th @ Little Brothers here in Columbus. They are a live act that is not to be missed. And just in caseanyone was thrown off by the album title; this album contains 0% swing music, it?s 100% super-rock.

The Cynics – Living Is The Best Revenge
After a 7 year lapse of recorded output Pittsburgh?s garage-rock-kingpins The Cynics have returned with what may be their best album yet. There never seems to be any shortage of cookie-cutter garage rock revivalist bands who do the genre no justice, but The Cynics are the real thing. They don?t rely on covers as a crutch, their original material is good enough they don?t have to. Every song on this record is a flawless hit. Killerrip-roaring fuzzed out punk blasts like “Turn Me Loose” and “The Tone” work perfectly side by side with the jangly pop of “Marianne”, “Ballad Of J.C. Holmes”, and the brilliant closer “Shine”. In addition to all the superb originals there?s a 13th Floor Elevators cover ? “She Lives (In A Time Of Her Own)”, a fiery fuzzed out Electric Prunes cover – “Never Had It Better”, and a song called “Making Deals” by an obscure band named The Satans. The Cynics will be bringing their special brand of revenge to Columbus July 25th @ Skully?s.

The Return of Spin.com

Back in the late 90s, one of my favorite sites to visit was Spin.com. Besides the usual music news, they had this daily link of the day that introduced me to a lot of cool things, including the Peanut Butter and Jelly Company in New York City.

After awhile, their site basically died and just became a front door for getting people to subscribe to the publication. It then got sucked up by Launch.com, and while it did have some stories, it still wasn’t worth anyone’s webtime.

It looks like that has changed. The new redesign has a lot of content, and the front area has a lot of elements similar to most blog sites. Hopefully they’ll keep it up, because I like what I’ve seen so far. Make with the clicky.