Freddie Mercury’s 65th Birthday: Celebrate with Google Doodle and a Concert

in Animation, Google, Music | September 5th, 2011

Fred­die Mer­cury, the voice behind so many Queen clas­sics (Bohemi­an Rhap­sody, Crazy Lit­tle Thing Called Love, We Are the Cham­pi­ons), would have turned 65 today, an age that means offi­cial retire­ment for most, but not for rock ‘n roll leg­ends. To cel­e­brate the mile­stone, Google has adorned its home­page with a col­lage of Fred­die doo­dles, and released a relat­ed trib­ute video that brings the doo­dles to life. (Note: the doo­dles will grace US Google pages tomor­row — after Labor Day.)

If Queen was before your time, or if you nev­er quite under­stood the band’s appeal, then let us bring you back to their hey­day. First, Queen steal­ing the show at Live Aid in 1985. Bri­an May (now an astro­physi­cist and Chan­cel­lor of Liv­er­pool John Moores Uni­ver­si­ty) plays gui­tar along­side Fred­die. Find the remain­ing parts of the per­for­mance here, here, here, and here.

And next Queen’s leg­endary 1986 con­cert at Wem­b­ley Sta­di­um, which runs 90+ min­utes. This video was released by Queen’s YouTube Chan­nel, and it will only be avail­able online today…

If you’re now a con­vert­ed Queen fan, just sit tight. A biopic with Sacha Baron Cohen (aka Ali G) play­ing Fred­die Mer­cury will be released next sum­mer.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Sweet Jane: Then and Now

in Music | August 29th, 2011

The Vel­vet Under­ground first released “Sweet Jane” in 1970, and a cool ver­sion it was. But, soon enough, Lou Reed launched his solo career, put out a live ver­sion of “Sweet Jane” on Rock n Roll Ani­mal (1974), and made the song his own. That same year, Reed per­formed anoth­er funk-laden ver­sion in Paris, with Prakash John play­ing bass and Steve Hunter on gui­tar. And that’s what the vin­tage video gods are serv­ing up today.

All these years lat­er, Sweet Jane still fires the rock ‘n roll imag­i­na­tion. In 2009, Reed per­formed the anthem with Metal­li­ca at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Ben­e­fit Con­cert at Madi­son Square Gar­den, and it laid the foun­da­tion for a project now com­ing to fruition — a col­lab­o­ra­tive album called Lulu that will drop on Octo­ber 31st in the US, and Novem­ber 1 abroad. Reed orig­i­nal­ly wrote the songs for a play called Lulu, then he brought Metal­li­ca into the some­times emo­tion­al project and things just rolled along. In a recent inter­view with New York Mag­a­zine, Reed said, “the ver­sion of the Lulu music I did with Metal­li­ca is awe-inspir­ing. It’s maybe the best thing done by any­one, ever. It could cre­ate anoth­er plan­e­tary sys­tem. I’m not jok­ing, and I’m not being ego­tis­ti­cal.” The bar is now offi­cial­ly set high…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Warhol’s Screen Tests: Lou Reed, Den­nis Hop­per, Nico, and More

The Vel­vet Rev­o­lu­tion Revis­it­ed: Hav­el at Colum­bia

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

The Decemberists’ New Video Inspired by Scenes from Infinite Jest

in Books, Literature, Music | August 26th, 2011

Michael Schur, the co-cre­ator of NBC’s Parks and Recre­ation, has had a long-run­ning fas­ci­na­tion with David Fos­ter Wal­lace’s sprawl­ing mag­num opus, Infi­nite Jest.  So when his favorite band, The Decem­berists, asked him to shoot a video for their new track “Calami­ty Song,” he knew the cre­ative direc­tion he want­ed to take. And so here it is — the new­ly-pre­miered video that makes “Escha­ton” its cre­ative focus. Fans of DWF’s nov­el will remem­ber that Escha­ton — “basi­cal­ly, a glob­al ther­monu­clear cri­sis recre­at­ed on a ten­nis court” — appears on/around page 325. The New York Times has more, and you can also find anoth­er ver­sion of the video if you’re hav­ing prob­lems view­ing it here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The David Fos­ter Wal­lace Audio Project

The Best Mag­a­zine Arti­cles Ever, Curat­ed by Kevin Kel­ly

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Martin Scorsese Documentary on George Harrison Coming This Fall

in Film, Music | August 26th, 2011

Mar­tin Scors­ese (Rag­ing Bull, Taxi Dri­ver, Good­fel­las) has always had a pen­chant for the rock­u­men­tary. In 1978, he direct­ed The Last Waltz fea­tur­ing the farewell con­cert of The Band — a film lat­er called “the great­est rock con­cert movie ever made.” Then, after a hia­tus, Scors­ese returned to music again, shoot­ing No Direc­tion Home: Bob Dylan (2005) and Shine a Light, a trib­ute to the Rolling Stones, in 2008.

If you’re tack­ling Dylan and the Stones, then why not go for the tri­fec­ta and bring your cin­e­mat­ic tal­ents to bear on The Bea­t­les? And so it shall be. On Octo­ber 5th and 6th, HBO will air George Har­ri­son: Liv­ing in the Mate­r­i­al World, a two-part doc­u­men­tary ded­i­cat­ed to the Bea­t­le who long played in the shad­ow of John and Paul. Scors­ese’s lat­est film will fea­ture unseen archival mate­ri­als and inter­views with Paul, Ringo, Eric Clap­ton, Tom Pet­ty, Ter­ry Gilliam, Phil Spec­tor and oth­ers. It will also be co-released with a 400-page hard­cov­er book writ­ten by Olivia Har­ri­son, which uses pho­tographs, let­ters, diaries, and mem­o­ra­bil­ia to trace the arc of George’s life. Can hard­ly wait. H/T Wired

Note: You can find The Last Waltz and Taxi Dri­ver in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Bea­t­les: Why Music Mat­ters in Two Ani­mat­ed Min­utes

Peter Sell­ers Per­forms The Bea­t­les in Shake­speare­an Mode

The Bea­t­les as Teens (1957)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

James Taylor Gives Free Acoustic Guitar Lessons Online

in Music | August 23rd, 2011

James Tay­lor has start­ed to offer free gui­tar lessons online. He is, after all, your Handy Man.

Now let’s get this out of the way: The jury is still out on whether these video lessons will offer seri­ous guid­ance or not. The first video offers a some­what detailed primer on … car­ing for your fin­ger­nails. And it comes cou­pled with a short les­son, “Lit­tle Wheel” in e minor, that is decid­ed­ly short on ped­a­gogy. More lessons will be com­ing soon though. Sign up for JT’s email list, and they’ll ping you when new videos are post­ed online.

What to do in the mean­time? Well, you can always turn to YouTube, which fea­tures a sur­pris­ing num­ber of free video tuto­ri­als. If you sift around, you can learn how to buy an acoustic gui­tar, tune it by ear, play stum pat­terns, fin­ger pick, play var­i­ous chord pro­gres­sions and so on. For more lessons, you can start rum­mag­ing around three help­ful YouTube chan­nels: Rock­on­Good­Peo­ple; Watch & Learn Music Lessons;  and Mar­tyZ­songs. They pro­vide lots of free tuto­ri­als (while also try­ing to pro­mote paid prod­ucts on the side).

via metafil­ter

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 15 ) |

OK Go Covers The Muppet Show Theme Song (Stream New Album Online)

in Music | August 23rd, 2011

Today marks the offi­cial release of The Green Album, a new com­pi­la­tion fea­tur­ing con­tem­po­rary rock and indie artists cov­er­ing clas­sic Mup­pets songs. OK Go, Weez­er, Andrew Bird, and My Morn­ing Jack­et, they all con­tribute to the album. And, thanks to the good peo­ple at NPR, you can stream the com­plete album online for the remain­der of the week.

Mean­while, if you want to indulge in some more Mup­pet nos­tal­gia, don’t miss the Mup­pet ren­di­tion of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, or Jim Henson’s 15 Minute Primer on Pup­pet Mak­ing from 1969.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Jerry Leiber, Writer of Enduring Rock Classics, on What’s My Line? (1958)

in Music, Television | August 23rd, 2011

Jer­ry Leiber died yes­ter­day at the age of 78. Leiber was­n’t a house­hold name dur­ing most of his career. But his com­po­si­tions are known world­wide. Along with his part­ner Mike Stoller, Leiber wrote “Hound Dog,” “Jail­house Rock,” and “Treat Me Nice,” among oth­ers songs made famous by Elvis Pres­ley dur­ing the 1950s. They also com­posed “Stand by Me,” a tune sung by Ben E. King in 1960, then cov­ered count­less times. (We par­tic­u­lar­ly like this ver­sion.)

The clip above takes you back to 1958, when Leiber and Stoller appeared on the long-run­ning tele­vi­sion show What’s My Line?. If you’ve watched some of these vin­tage episodes, you’ll know that the pan­el usu­al­ly wore blind­folds lest the iden­ti­ty of the guest be imme­di­ate­ly revealed. But there was no risk of that in the case of Leiber & Stoller. And, by the way, it’s worth men­tion­ing that Vin­cent Price made a spe­cial guest appear­ance on the pan­el that night.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

The Guardian’s Guide to Opera (and Free Opera Until Sept. 12)

in Music | August 22nd, 2011

“Opera is thrilling, vibrant, ver­sa­tile – and thriv­ing. In fact, there has nev­er been a bet­ter time to fall in love with the art form” — Simon Cal­low.

This week­end, The Guardian pub­lished a handy mul­ti­me­dia guide called “How to Enjoy Opera,” and it coin­cid­ed with the stream­ing of a live per­for­mance of Ben­jamin Brit­ten’s The Turn of the Screw. If you missed it (we men­tioned it on our Twit­ter stream), you can still watch the per­for­mance online (and for free) until Sep­tem­ber 12th. In the mean­time, we would hearti­ly rec­om­mend spend­ing time with The Guardian’s accom­pa­ny­ing primers. They start you off with a list of The Top 50 Operas from 1607 to 1978, and then give you a tuto­r­i­al on how to sur­vive your first opera; a look at opera in the mod­ern age; and Simon Cal­low’s take on why “opera has nev­er been more alive.” All worth a look…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Klaus Nomi: The Bril­liant Per­for­mance of a Dying Man

Bill Bai­ley’s Remark­able Guide to the Orches­tra

All the Great Operas in 10 Min­utes

Learn Ital­ian for Free. Part of Learn 40 Lan­guages for Free

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast