Pixies to Play What You Tweet on Jimmy Fallon Show

From thetripwire.com:

The Pixies are currently in the throes of the North American leg of their Doolittle tour, a wormhole of a trek we’ve been quick to spill much digi-ink over in these parts recently. Via an e-mail from the band’s publicist, we’ve just learned that the band will sandwich in an appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon next week when they come to New York for four sold-out nights at Hammerstein Ballroom.

I like this. (Too much facebook!) The picture for the article is not quite up to date, though.

Nick Cave Up for Bad Sex Writing Award

From Jacket Copy:

British magazine the Literary Review has announced the shortlist of finalists for its Bad Sex Award. The contenders list could be plucked from any highbrow literary award competition: John Banville has won a Booker, Amos Oz has been awarded the French Legion of Honor and Philip Roth has one Pulitzer and two National Book Awards. But maybe they'd prefer not to add the Bad Sex Award to their achievements.

"Nobody wants to win that award," Margaret Atwood -- who is not in the running -- told Jacket Copy in October.

Not all the finalists feel that way. Nick Cave's "The Death of Bunny Munro" follows the sexual misadventures of traveling salesman Bunny. "Frankly, we would have been offended if he wasn't shortlisted," his British publisher Canongate told the Guardian. Maybe that's because Cave deliberately rendered a crude, sexually obsessed character. "I think it’s a hard look at a particular aspect of masculinity," Cave told Jacket Copy in September. "It’s fronting up to that and railing against the kind of misogynistic and predatory element of the male psyche."

The longer list:

John Banville for "The Infinities

Nick Cave for "The Death of Bunny Munro"

Jonathan Littell for "The Kindly Ones"

Richard Milward for "Ten Storey Love Song"

Sanjida O'Connell for "The Naked Name of Love"

Amos Oz for "Rhyming Life and Death"

Anthony Quinn for "The Rescue Man"

Philip Roth for "The Humbling"

Paul Theroux for "A Dead Hand"

Simon Van Booy for "Love Begins in Winter"

Serge Gainsbourg - animation des graffitis sur 5 ans du mur rue de Verneuil

Serge Gainsbourg - animation des graffitis sur 5 ans du mur rue de Verneuil from Arnaud Jourdain on Vimeo.

You'll like this.

Velvet Underground Reunite at Live from the NYPL

Here's the story:

Former Velvet Underground members Lou Reed, Maureen Tucker and Doug Yule will make an extremely rare joint public appearance on December 8 at the New York Public Library.

The three will discuss the Velvet Underground's music and legacy with rock journalist David Fricke as part of the "LIVE from the NYPL" series.

The reunion of the legendary New York band comes on the heels of the publication of "The Velvet Underground: New York Art," a compendium of previously unseen photographs, poster and cover designs by Andy Warhol, Lou Reed's handwritten music and lyrics, underground press clippings and other reviews, flyers, handbills and posters.

Feel free to get that for me this Christmas.

Meet Mississippi Gary

Was thinking about this the other day. I just love YouTube sometimes.

Andy Warhol's Children's Illustrations for Sale

Kind of interesting (the Guardian):

They are a long way from the iconic pop art for which he is best known but a set of illustrations for a children's book series by Andy Warhol are set to go up for auction in New York next month.

Warhol's pictures illustrate the story of the little red hen, a folk tale about the value of team work, and show a perky little red hen happily sowing her grains of wheat, as a lazy cat, mouse and dog – who is reading the paper – look on. They were drawn by Warhol early in his career, between 1957 and 1959, for the Doubleday Book Club's popular series Best in Children's Books.

The Warhol illustrations will be auctioned on 9 December as part of Bloomsbury Auctions's sale of 365 original illustrations and books....

I love his early stuff, maybe better than I like the art that made him famous. Wait, I'm being Overt!

About Nicolas Cage

The NY Times has a nice article about Nicolas Cage. Basically the writer is groping for an explanation for his career. Of course we know you can explain everything with one word: Advancement. Here's a snip:

THERE are any number of characteristic Nicolas Cage scenes in Werner Herzog’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” interludes you watch with a now-familiar mixture of genuine appreciation and more than a touch of bewilderment. In one Mr. Cage, as the drug-addled cop of the film’s title, enters a room to join a stakeout. The cops are watching a house. And, crammed in the foreground of the shot, two iguanas are watching Mr. Herzog’s low-lying camera, their bodies stretched across the image. “What,” demands the looming Mr. Cage, waving an arm toward the creatures, are these “iguanas doing on my coffee table?” He looks affronted. There aren’t any iguanas, another cop replies, too busy to wonder at the question. Mr. Cage gives the iguanas a small, appreciative smile, eyeballing the animals who continue to eyeball the camera as the image begins to jump and shake. It’s the look of a man who sees something no one else does: he’s in on his own joke. But it’s also the smile of self-recognition.

Read the whole thing.

Bono Editorial in the New York Times

Bono has a pretty sweet gig all the way around. Here's part of the story of "One":

We scan inside the cool cathedral of Hansa, a recording studio made famous by David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Nick Cave. In earlier times, it was a ballroom popular with the Nazis. The members of the Irish band hold a prayer meeting to exorcise the demons. (Seriously.) But it is their own personal demons that are present this day.

About to leave their 20s, the bandmates are bumping into one another’s adult-sized egos. Men, they discover, when they become lords of their own domain, can lose the supple nature that a band requires. For these Irish musicians, the love it takes to sublimate one’s ego for the meta-ego of the band is more and more being reserved for families.

BRIAN ENO, a producer, is only half-joking when he tells the band that “possessions are a way of turning money into problems.” The band has had a taste of success and, even worse, a taste of taste, poison to the pursuit of rock ’n’ roll.

The dreamspace in which songs emerge has been filled by nice houses needing not-nice art. ADAM CLAYTON dreams of Jean-Michel Basquiat; Bono of Louis le Brocquy; EDGE of designing furniture; LARRY MULLEN of not being in Berlin.

Edge, the Zen Presbyterian, no longer a study in restraint, is heartbroken, in the middle of splitting up with his wife; he now sees the same fate for his band. He is trying to write an eight-bar lift section for a song called “The Fly.” He writes two, but when he and The Singer put them together a different song emerges ... and fresh words and a new melody come out of The Singer’s mouth .... the words fall out.

BONO (sort of singing) We’re one, but we’re not the same ... we get to carry each other...

LARRY (charming but hard-nosed, sitting behind his drum kit) Sounds sentimental.

BONO It doesn’t have to be. I can give the verses enough bile to balance the hook. It’s no big kiss, it’s a shrug of resigned optimism. Really, it’s the polar opposite of the kind of hippie nonsense you would expect with a title like “One.”

LARRY So why do you call it “One,” then? You think that’ll help get it to No. 1?

ADAM (one eyebrow permanently raised, thinking they should get on with it as it’s the first good thing the band has done all month) Isn’t “One” a Bob Marley song?

EDGE (deadpan) That’s “One Love.” Completely different.

ADAM I don’t care — as long as I believe you when you sing it.

DANIEL LANOIS (also a producer) I don’t care, as long as there are lyrics. What’s it about?

BONO I don’t know yet .... Er, having to live together rather than wanting to. It could mean a lot of things to a lot of people.

BRIAN ENO For God’s sake, don’t make it a love song, or I’ll retch.

BONO It’s a song about love, not a love song.

This is a good example of Bono's Overtness. He's afraid of writing a love song, has to balance the hook with bile, and it is the opposite of something (hippie nonsense). Bono needs to just Advanced already.

The Who at the Super Bowl

I figured this would happen soon:

The Who will perform at Superbowl XLIV, marking the British band's first performance in North America since 2008.
...
The NFL has yet to officially confirm the report, saying, "When we have something to announce, we'll announce it."

During a recent stop on his "Use It or Lose It" solo tour, frontman Roger Daltrey told Billboard.com that he and bandmate/composer Pete Townshend were working on new material for the Who's followup to 2006's "Endless Wire."

"Hopefully if this tour has done it's job, I'll be in really good form as a vocalist," said Daltrey. "And who knows, we might make our best work."

Townshend has acknowledged working on two projects -- a new musical called "Floss" and the Who's next album, which he has said will include some pieces from the "Floss" project.

All of these things are fantastic, but the Who's status in the Advanced world is still unresolved.

Jay-Z and U2 in Berlin

From Stereogum:

In conjunction with yesterday's 16th annual European Music Awards, MTV set up a special, free U2 concert at the Brandenburg Gate to celebrate the 20th anniversary of tearing down the Berlin Wall.
...

[T]hose that were lucky enough to be on the right side of the wall were treated to a six-song set of U2's classics, kicking off with Bono yelling "Berlin, Du bist wunderbar!" (Berlin, you are wonderful!)(better than calling yourself a jelly donut) and highlighting with Jay-Z joining the band on "Sunday Bloody Sunday."

They certainly dressed correctly for the occasion.

Echo and the Bunnymen Cancel Tour Due to Taxes

Cancel your plans, Atlanta, Echo and the Bunnymen aren't coming:

[The group has] cancelled their US tour 10 days before it was due to begin over a tax dispute. Due to an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rule, foreign bands have to pay a fee if they tour in the US more than once in 30 days. The band played a one-off gig in New York last month.

A statement on the group's website said the cancellation was due to the IRS's "unreasonable demands" and they would return to tour the US in April 2010.

Please don't tell Glenn Beck. (He loves "Lips Like Sugar.")