Lou Reed and the Killers

Sorry I was away yesterday, but I was at a Team Building Exercise in Tennessee. No T-shirt to wear during business time, though. Anyway, Lou Reed is embracing the new, as the Advanced always do. Pitchfork has the story:

A couple years back, I recall seeing a very out-of-place-looking Lou Reed at some MTV event or another talking to Gideon Yago, decrying the network's recent resistance to rock music. Yago asked Reed just who he'd like to see replacing endless repeats of "Engaged & Underage" or whatever, and, with nary a blink, Reed replied "Okkervil River."

In that moment-- and with his embraces of Antony and Conor-- Lou showed himself to be both a man who takes his heartwrenching theatrics with at least a spot of nuance and, ad infinitum, the original hipster. So what in the heck is Lou Reed doing on a track with the nuance-free, not-exactly-hip Killers?

Singing, it turns out. According to NME.com, Reed recently hit the studio with Flood and Alan Moulder to duet with Brandon Flowers on "Tranquilize", a track from the moustachioed band's forthcoming B-sides, rarities, and now totally incongruous collabos compilation.

Pardon our incredulity. It's not that the Killers aren't awesome in their way, but "their way" is sort of the same thing Lou Reed's spent much of his career standing outside of. Also, don't bands generally wait until they have more than a couple albums before they drop a rarities comp? And wouldn't you think Lou Reed would maybe choose a band a little more road-tested (or with a bit more gravitas) than the Killers for a rare guest appearance? Perhaps Lou, like the rest of us, wishes he wrote "Mr. Brightside", too.

Pitchfork doesn't understand Advancement at all! But Henry does, and thank goodness for it.

Super Nic Cage Karate Monkey

JW asks, "When are you going to address this nick cage quote (about ghost rider)":

Q: What was something you really wanted in this character, considering how involved you were in the production?

Nicolas Cage: “It’s a deeply personal character and I was trying to find a new way of presenting how he would keep dark spirits at bay. I didn’t want him being a heavy drinker or a chain smoker. I wanted him eating jellybeans so he wouldn’t invite the devils in. I wanted him listening to Karen Carpenter to help him relax so he wouldn’t allow the devil with satanic Goth rock or something. Or, he’s watching chimpanzees do karate instead of The Exorcist. And, all three of those things I was doing in my own life. I was eating jellybeans out of a martini glass and listening to Karen Carpenter and on the Internet watching chimps do karate. And I thought, ‘Well this is funny, let’s put it in the movie.’ But it’s also true.”

I'd like to address this, but I'm not sure how to, other than to say Val Kilmer better watch his back.

Dr. Brian May

Well, it looks like the solo on "Killer Queen" has been pushed back to number two in the Brian May Top Ten Achievement List:

Guitarist and songwriter Brian May has completed his doctorate in astrophysics — three decades after he put academia on hold to form the rock group Queen. The rocker was awarded his qualification Thursday by London's Imperial College and said submitting his thesis, "Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud," to supervisors was as nerve-racking as any stadium gig.

"I'm feeling rather joyful. I cannot tell you how much of a weight off the mind it is," May said late Thursday.

May was an astrophysics student at Imperial College when he joined Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor to form Queen in 1970, but dropped his doctorate as the glam rock band became successful. Queen became one of Britain's biggest music groups in the 1970s, with hits including "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "We Will Rock You."

...He told reporters Thursday that handing over his completed thesis — a 48,000 word study which seeks to prove planets and dust clouds in our solar system orbit in the same direction — and facing examiners for a review of his work was a tough challenge.

"It was a bit nerve-racking walking into the room, but once we got going it was fascinating," May said. "There's always that feeling they could ask that big question that could sink you, but luckily they didn't."

I'm pretty sure that "Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud" was also the name of a King Crimson album.

(Link)

Metal Machine Music Released, Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello, Neil Young, and More

A few little things today:

• Zeitkratzer's version of Metal Machine Music will be released September 4.
  
• Bob Dylan is touring with Elvis Costello. Which gives me an idea: the Advanced Music Festival. Nothing but Advanced artists all day long. You can imagine the lineup.
  
• Neil Young has a new album coming out called "Chrome Dreams II," which is a sequel, I guess, to an album that got permanently shelved.
  
• Stephen Malkmus has some kind of problem with Kasabian, and it has to do with Viagra.
• Poor Michael Anthony. It's one thing to be replaced for a tour, but to be photoshopped out of the album artwork? For shame!

Scott Walker Shall Go to the Advanced Ball

A friend of mine sent me a link to this story about Radiohead's collaboration with children, which could certainly wind up interesting (especially if they are doing a cover of "Another Brick in the Wall, Part Two"), but the story below it is what really grabbed my attention:

Wait, another Scott Walker album? So soon?

Yep, so soon. It's not exactly The Drift II, but on September 24 in the UK, 4AD will release Scott Walker's And Who Shall Go to the Ball? And What Shall Go to the Ball? in a very limited, never-to-be-pressed again edition. Despite a mouthful of a title, ...the Ball? is a 25-minute-long, four-movement instrumental suite. It emerged out of Walker's score for a dance piece by choreographer Rafael Bonachela's dance company CandoCo. CandoCo, comprised of both able-bodied and physically disabled dancers, debuted the piece at Manchester, England's Contact Theatre in April.

Walker said of the music and its relationship to the unique troupe: "Apart from a slow movement given over to solitude, the music is full of edgy and staccato shapes or cuts, reflecting how we cut up the world around us as a consequence of the shape of our bodies. How much of a body does an intelligence need to be potentially socialised in an age of ever-developing AI [artificial intelligence]? This is but one of many questions that informed the approach to the project."

Worrying about AI is Advanced, and please not the picture.

Wax Lou Reed

Okay, I'm going to try to get the blog rolling again. I know I missed the Trapped in the Closet release and the Van Halen announcement and a great Bob Dylan link (that I might still get to). Unfortunately, not a lot went on this weekend that I can find. So I'll just give you this picture of a wax Lou Reed from Flickr. You might prefer this picture of Lou and Alicia Keys taking in a Knicks game.

It's good to be back.

Memories of Miles Davis

A friend of mine I hadn't seen for a while was visiting town the other night, and he said that he had been reading my blog from time to time. He told me this: Many years ago, he went to see Miles Davis. In the band were four keyboardists. Davis played, only occasionally, a red horn. On the set list were Cyndi Lauper and Michael Jackson covers. "Is this Advanced?" he asked me.

This is as Advanced as it gets.