Mostly music news + reviews, but we also cover film, tv, and anything else that catches our fancy
Fooling April, a band based in Philadelphia, are planning on doing a tribute to the Beatles by performing Abbey Road. The event will take place none other than on APril 1st – April Fool’s Day. This performance is no joke though. The band plans to do this up right. The event will be held at World Cafe Live (3025 WALNUT ST. PHILA, PA). A portion of the proceeds will go towards Musicians on Call. So come out and hear some great tunes while supporting a good cause.
The Academy of Science Fiction and Horror Films’ 35th Annual Saturn Awards have shined some light on a few of my favorites in the genre. The happiest little surprise for me was giving “Moonlight” Best Series on DVD. This show only lasted a year, but what we got of it was pretty darn good, if you ask me. I own the DVD set in question and can agree with the award choice. It is a great collection to spend a weekend with. Congrats to Moonlight on this win.
Tonight’s Olympic action brought us the Men’s Super G and the compulsory portion of ice dancing. In the Men’s Super G, Team USA brought home two medals. Bode Miller won a silver medal and Andrew Weibrecht won the bronze. The gold went to Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway.
The top three at the end of the first part of ice dancing were Domnina and Shabalin of Russia, Virtue and Moir of Canada, and Davis and White of America. Another American pair, Belbin and Agosto, came close at fourth place. There is still the original dance and free skate to go before the medals are awarded.
The final medal count was as follows: 6 gold, 6 silver, and 8 bronze, for a total of 20 medals for Team USA. Great Britain got its first gold medal today for the women’s skeleton competition. It is their only medal in these Olympics thus far.
More to come tomorrow.
Alex Band (from The Calling) has been doing his solo thing for a bit now. Here is a look at his new video:
Comment here or visit his website (or both).
The highlight for tonight in Olympic news includes three more medals for Team USA. The first two went to Hannah Teter and Kelly Clark, who got Silver and Bronze respectively for Women’s Halfpipe. The gold went to Torah Bright of Australia. Also tonight was the men’s free skate, where Evan Lysacek, the reining world champion, took gold. The world champ traditionally does win gold at the Olympics, and this was no exception. Silver went to Yevgeny Plushenko of Russia and bronze went to Daisuke Takahashi of Japan. The only thing I was unhappy about with the free skate results was that Johnny Weir was placed 6th, even though I thought he had an outstanding program and deserved at least a bronze medal. I believe, and NBC commentators agreed, that he was underscored. At the end of the day the total medal count was 17: 5 gold, 5 silver, and 7 bronze. The next highest after the U.S. is Germany with 11. More to come tomorrow.
There has been a lot of backlash in regards to Amanda Palmer’s new project: Evelyn Evelyn. Personally I think people take offense by her way too easily, but Amanda seems to like the discussion that has spawned from it (which is something I have always really respected her for). She has written a response to all the commentary on the whole “Evelyn” thing, but I especially like this part here:
here’s what i consider hiding: producing inoffensive, corporate-penned, vanilla-bean love-story family-friendly made-for-mainstream-radio music that won’t offend a single person. and won’t make anybody laugh, won’t make anybody think, won’t make anybody wonder, won’t make anybody talk, and won’t change anybody’s life.
THAT, my friends, is hiding behind art.
Today was a good day for the USA Olympic Team in Vancouver. Lindsay Vonn won gold for Alpine Skiing while Julia Mancuso took silver. In speed skating, Shani Davis took gold for the men’s 1,000M while Chad Hedrick took bronze. The short track relay semifinals were also today, with Korea, USA, France, China, and Canada making it to the finals. And finally, snowboarding men’s halfpipe was today, with Shaun White taking gold (his second, having also won gold in Torino) and Scotty Lago taking bronze. Overall, a good day for Team USA. The final medal count at the end of the day was 14: 5 gold, 3 silver, 6 bronze, putting us back in first place for total medals. Germany is a close second with 10 total. More to come tomorrow.
Remember Steven Tyler saying he is Aerosmith? Well apparently the band agrees. It has been announced that not only will Tyler not be leaving the band, but he will be joining them for two headlining gigs at the Sweden Rock Festival and UK Download Festival. This is good news for fans who were scared they may be seeing an end to a Tyler-fronted band. It’s good to see that the issue was resolved quickly and with seemingly not too much mess. It would have been a shame to see the band end with a dispute between its members. Hopefully Tyler will continue with the band past these two events.
Tonight’s Olympic action brought us the men’s short program for figure skating. Overall the performances were much better than the pairs from the previous night, in my opinion. There were a few falls by some of the skaters, but mostly it was consistently good skating all the way. My top moments came from two of the Americans. The first was Johnny Weir, who didn’t score very well but showed a lot of spunk and won over my heart as he danced and strutted across the ice. The second was Jeremy Abbott skating to “A Day In The Life” by the Beatles. He also didn’t score that well but put on a good show all the same. The top three skaters at the end of the short program were Plushenko of Russia, Lysacek of America, and Takahashi of Japan. We will have to wait to see who gets the gold. The final medal count for Team USA at the end of the day was 8: 2 gold, 2 silver, and 4 bronze, putting us in second place for the total medal count. Germany has the most medals now with 9: 3 gold, 4 silver, and 2 bronze. More to come tomorrow.
The full line-up isn’t official yet, but we are starting to get news of some artists who will be at this year’s Lollapalooza. Headliners include Green Day and the newly reformed Soundgarden. This will be the band’s first performance since their split 12 years ago.