The Soft Attack

As I have mentioned before, The Daysleepers have put out some of the best new music in the past year and are one of my new favorite bands. A combination of shoegazing sounds with The Cure thrown in for good measure, they have put together some outstanding melodic yet upbeat songs. They have just released a new EP entitled The Soft Attack, which is available on their website, at Tonevendor, CD Baby, and on iTunes at some point. You can stream both the new EP and their first EP, Hide Your Eyes, on their website as well. Here are some tracks to right-click and save:

The Soft Attack (from The Soft Attack)
Mesmerize (from Hide Your Eyes - this song is so fucking fantastic I don't even know what to say)

Sam's Town in New York City

I had the pleasure of going to Sam's Town last night, a/k/a The Killers' show at the Theater at MSG. I've never seen The Killers before, and even though I'm only a so-so fan, it was a pretty good show. I've gotta hand it to Brandon and Co., they put on quite a performance - it's kind of a carnival barker theme, and they hammed it up. I'm not a big fan of the new album, but those songs sounded ok. Like myself, the crowd really enjoyed the tunes off of Hot Fuss, which included "Smile Like You Mean It," "Mr. Brightside," "Jenny Was a Friend of Mine," "Somebody Told Me," and "All These Things That I've Done." And is it me, or does drummer Ronnie Vanucci look like My Name Is Earl with that handlebar mustache of his?

Apple's push at CMJ

In conjunction with the CMJ Music Marathon, Apple is letting registered attendees take the CMJ Music Marathon home with them. Registered attendees will get an iTunes card featuring over 100 songs from CMJ artists. Not bad at all! Of course, it's only "while supplies last."

Apple's Soho location (103 Prince Street) will also have a few in-store performances during CMJ week:

Monday, October 30th, 3pm - Tokyo Police Club
Tuesday, October 31st, 3pm - CSS
Wednesday, November 1st, 3pm - Asobi Seksu
Thursday, November 2nd, 3pm - Cold War Kids
Friday, November 3rd, 1pm - The Decemberists

And as they say, "iTunes, the entertainment center for your world."

Route 85A no longer?

Apparently, Route 85A is closing this weekend and will re-open as Big Lug at some point in the future. How disappointing! I love Route 85A, and I had a lot of fun DJ'ing my Unsavory! parties there. Anway, come celebrate the closing this Friday night with the always affable Zoe behind the bar:

BYE BYE 85A - ZOE'S LAST NIGHT OF BARTENDING AT ROUTE 85A
85 Avenue A between 5th and 6th Streets

Special hour long dj sets from the following: DJ Ty Parker, Gillian Russel, The Inevitable Breakups, Druece and Rivercat, and DJ Dana.

LCD for Nike

Nike, who has it's own store at iTunes, has asked LCD Soundsystem to compose a workout song. Nike has recently jumped in the iTunes entertainment world by offering its Nike + store, which features workout mixes and new compositions. So LCD is offering up "45:33" - a forty five minute song specifically composed for your workout. James Murphy must be loving this - his remixes are epics in length anyway (see DFA's "Dare" and DFA's "Slide In") - and now he's been given carte blanche to compose a 45 minute track.

It's "Herculean"

The first single by The Good, The Bad, and The Queen, the Britpop supergroup consisting of Damon Albarn, Simon Tong, Paul Simonon, and Tony Allen that I mentioned before, is called "Herculean" and Idolator and Sterogum have mp3s of it. It's quite good - Damon singing lackadaisically over spacey guitars. More chillout than rock, it sounds a lot like Gorillaz' "El Manana," which is a good thing. Looking forward to the full album.

Lily Allen

I'm very impressed with the marketing that Lily Allen has done. She's a MySpace queen with a gazillion friends (never mind that such status doesn't make an artist good) and she had a nice piece in the NY Times a month or so ago regarding her popularity. She's put together a great set of songs and has done well in the UK, and is now bringing her buzz to the States. Her management/label made a smart move by releasing an EP of her stuff to coincide with her brief tour of the music cities in the U.S. - so rather than forcing us to wait until next year for a domestic release, we can buy some of her stuff now. (It's being released by Capitol). And this EP contains her hit "Smile", which was the song of summer in the UK. Good work Lily. She plays the sold out Hiro Ballroom tonight before hitting San Fran, Chicago, and LA later in the week.

Google Tube

Demonstrating that it is sitting on mountains of money, Google has purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion. That's with a "b". Insane. Sure, YouTube is fun and all, but I can't believe that it would be worth $1.65 billion. Other than the developed platform, what are its assets? How much better can user-generated content get? Remember, just last week Mark Cuban said that anyone who buys YouTube is crazy.

Perhaps facilitating the deal, YouTube signed deals with CBS, Sony BM, and Universal Music yesterday, which helps alleviate some copyright concerns. Instead of seeing kids skateboarding down fire poles or Aunt Sarah's 50th birthday party, we'll now get "promotional" videos and shows from these content providers. Hopefully being forced to watch ads won't be next.

Massive

As expected, Massive Attack put on a powerful performance last night at the Roseland Ballroom. It's amazing how these artists can sound strong and smooth at the same time. With a live set up of a bassist, keyboardist, guitarist, and two drummers behind them, Massive Attack rotated vocalists depending on the song - 3D for almost everything (who did a Thom Yorke-esque epeleptic boxer/robot dance throughout the show), Daddy G for a few ("Karma Coma", "Mezzanine", "Rising Son"), Horace Andy provided his reggae-tinged vocals on a few ("Man Next Door," "Angel", "Hymn of the Big Wheel"), "Elizabeth" for the slower female vocals ("Teardrop", "Black Milk"), and another female vocalist for the soulful female vocals ("Safe From Harm", "Unfinished Sympathy"). You didn't really realize how many total people were in this collective until the finale, when all 10 players came out to take a bow.

I saw Massive Attack in 1998 when they were promoting Mezzanine, and it was the best show I've ever been to. I don't think last night's performance was as good as the '98 one, but it was the best show I've seen this year. I was a little disappointed that we only heard one track from Protection, as the set was heavily focused on Mezzanine, and I wish Daddy G had more chances to rap (although he did get behind the decks to scratch on a couple of tracks, most notably "Unfinished Sympathy"). I missed Mushroom too, and the live setup focused more on the guitar than the scratches (which got a little annoying at times - a lot of loud "wah wah" licks from the guitarist).

Highlights of the set were "Rising Son", "Karma Coma", and "Inertia Creeps". The crowd's favorite had to have been "Teardrop" (which makes sense, as this song is probably the band's most popular, seeing how it's in movies and shows all the time), and it was quite good actually, with a little acoustic guitar to play the lead notes. Here's the overall setlist:

1. False Flags
2. Risingson
3. Black Milk/Melt
4. Karma Coma
5. Man Next Door
6. Butterfly Caught
7. Hymn of the Big Wheel
8. Mezzanine (which is about "my homicidal ex-girlfriend with a crackhead mother")
9. Teardrop
10. Angel
11. Future Proof
12. Safe From Harm

Encore
13. Inertia Creeps
14. Unfinished Sympathy
15. Group Four