Happy 25th Birthday, VMAs

Will you watch? Sunday night is football night in America, says Al. But also it marks the Silver Anniversary of MTV’s Video Music Awards, and despite last year’s masterful display of waning cultural relevance, there may be reasons still to tune in that don’t relate strictly to masochism and/or self-hatred. Like, there’s Kanye’s show-closing performance of the new single “Love Lockdown.” (You are entitled to think he’s forgiven MTV for hating black people, although I suggest you think he understands the promotional opportunity this affords his new single, which just happens to be going on sale the next day.)
There will also be a Britney Spears opening segment! I was wrong yesterday, though: She will not be performing, just doing something “fun and unexpected.” This diminishes the show’s imminent train wreckability. I’m not sure if that makes it more or less watchable. Other stuff that’ll make it more (or, […]

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Tegan Quin Plays Augusten Burroughs-Inspired Song for First Time in NYC

Performing for just the third time ever without her sister, Sara, Tegan Quin shared the stage last night at New York’s Housing Works Bookstore Café with author Augusten Burroughs (Running With Scissors). During the sold-out charity event, Quin played “His Love,” a song she wrote for the audiobook version of Burroughs’ latest novel, A Wolf at the Table, for the first time in front of a live audience.
Quin and Burroughs bantered back and forth about the genesis of the song, the lyrics of which developed out of the letter she was writing to him. “What was amazing to me that it was to me,” Burroughs said onstage about his reaction to receiving Tegan’s song via email and playing it for the first time. “It was so profoundly empathetic. I lost it. It was beautiful. It was so incredibly generous of you.” Then she performed a solo acoustic rendition of […]

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TK Webb and the Visions

What? With their 2005 debut, countrified-rock outfit Magnolia Electric Co. asked a mind-boggling question: "What comes after the blues?" Three years later, Brooklyn-based troubadour TK Webb has found the answer, and it’s pretty heavy, man. With his newly formed backing band, the Visions — featuring ex-members of Blood on the Wall and Love as Laughter — Webb returns this week with the riff-tastic Ancestor. A drastic departure from the stark, howling blues perversions of Webb’s 2006 solo outing, Phantom Parade, Ancestor owes more to Robert Plant than it does to Robert Johnson, with astral sonic projections, mystical lyrics, and ’70s-hard-rock-indebted guitar play that will have you hopping misty mountain tops from the moment the needle drops.

More on SPIN.com:
>> Exclusive: TK Webb & the Visions Announce First U.S. Tour

Who? Born Thomas Kelly Webb in 1977 in Missouri, Webb released his debut, KCK (short for Kansas City, KS), in 2005 on Brooklyn’s […]

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Gnarls, Kanye, White Stripes, Death Cab Win Early VMAs

Big wins from artists you enjoy! Big, technical award wins. The 2008 VMAs air this Sunday night, with a more depressing list of performers (reportedly Britney, definitely the Jonas Brothers) and nominees (see: this) than ever. But good on MTV for handing out the pre-show honors to bands popular with The Internet: They get a little free advertising while not muddying the televised stream of Tokio Hotels and Miley Cyrusses (Best New Artists guys, vote now!) their core demo expects. (Actually I don’t know who their core demo are, or whom they expect). So enough about that, let’s get to the free advertising! Here are your tech awards winners:

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Hype Monitor: Theresa Andersson, White Lies and Friendly Fires

Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet.

The Band: Theresa Andersson
The Buzz: Swedish vocalist blends chockablock rhythms, fairy tale instrumentation and dreamlike melodies for music that recalls a spacier, sultrier Feist.
Listen If: You always wished Kate Bush was just a little more accessible.
Key Track: “Birds Fly Away,” an atmospheric lark powered by whirring glockenspiel and twinkling guitars.

The Band: White Lies
The Buzz: Three British mopers blow the dust off their Echo & The Bunnymen records to dish out dour tracks worthy of a Donnie Darko sequel.
Listen If: “The Killing Moon” is your karaoke jam.
Key Track: First single “Death,” where a low, moping melody presents the band in all their moody, gloomy glory.

The Band: Friendly Fires
The Buzz: Six members! Six members make big, percussive post-disco tracks.
Listen If: You wish A Certain Ratio were as good as people were telling you they were.
Key Track: “Jump […]

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Andrew Bird Incites a Babe Riot!

Andrew Bird is a modern-day renaissance man. Beyond his multi-instrumental prowess and penchant for quirky, orchestrated chamber pop, Bird has come to define the sort of bookish, detached cool that can’t be bought, styled, or practiced in front of the mirror. And with his mind-boggling skill, Bird looped, strummed, plucked, and whistled with his crack band through a set heavy in new tunes to an adoring crowd last night under the stars in Chicago’s Millennium Park.

More on SPIN.com:
>> World Party, Andrew Bird Get Bonnaroo Moving

After the band’s exuberant versions of "Plasticities" and "Fiery Crash," audience members rocketed to their feet as soon as Bird ripped into the intro to "Fake Palindromes." Patrons on the lawn poured down into the pavilion, pushing forward in one collective conga line of writhing excitement. In a matter of seconds, the scene went from tame restraint to a crush of dancing bodies, with young girls […]

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The Chemical Brothers

What? As survivors of the heady rise and uneasy comedown of the ’90s electronica craze, Manchester, England’s the Chemical Brothers have been bringing the block rockin’ beats at a consistent rate, from 1997’s landmark rave touchstone Dig Your Own Hole to last year’s spacey We Are the Night. This week, the Brothers look back with the career-spanning Brotherhood, a double-disc compilation featuring the duo’s classic singles, as well as tracks from the hard-to-find Electronic Battle Weapon single series (including new single "Midnight Madness") and a brand spanking (literally) new cut featuring Baltimore MC Spank Rock, "Keep My Composure".

More on SPIN.com:
>> The Chemical Brothers Galvanize the Roundhouse
>> Chemical Brothers, We Are the Night (Astralwerks)
>> New Chemical Brothers Collection Out Sept. 2

Who? Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands began first working together as the Dust Brothers in 1992, but were forced to change their name to the Chemical Brothers in 1995 following […]

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The National Team Up With Obama To Bring “Signs Of Hope & Change”

The National’s “Fake Empire” can be read as either political or romantic (or a Late Night stunner). It’s mostly the former in an almost three-minute Obama spot titled “Signs Of Hope & Change” that aired in Denver before Barack’s big DNC speech. You won’t get to hear Matt’s words because it’s an instrumental version; instead, everyday Americans to tell us their thoughts on the upcoming election and the part they’re taking in the grassroots campaign around Obama’s candidacy. The visuals are edited to the pace of the song, so it moves beyond background music.

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Underoath Pound the Summer Out of NYC!

Summer stragglers returned from Monday’s sun-scorched celebrations for Underoath’s Lost in the Sound of Separation CD release party at the Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza.
Opening act The Red Chord blast-beated their way through “Hospice Residence” and “Dreaming in Dog Years” to a floor-punching crowd of angry Christian metal heads. “We want to make you look hard in your Devil Wears Prada or Saosin shirts,” Chords’ Guy Kozowyk joked, as he poked fun at the legion of Underoath followers who waited in anticipation for their screamo saviors to take center stage.
The majority of Underoath’s hour-long emotive metal set drew from 2006’s Define the Great Line, only briefly touching on the newer songs from Lost in the Sound of Separation, which vocalist Spencer Chamberlain described to SPIN.com as “heavier, darker and more experimental.” But spin-kicking students still managed to swirl their arms into a frenzied hurricane of windmills and aggressive […]

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Hot Night, White Suits [Said the Gramophone]

Guitar Slim - “The Things That I Used to Do”
Guitar plays guitar modestly for a man named Guitar. Aimless in life, he solos aimlessly; with hollow heart, his song’s centre is empty. Between Guitar’s guitar and the piano piano that underlies it – not to mention those lethargic horns – there’s a lacuna a mile wide and rather deep, too – a sonic space that swallows hope but not beauty. Guitar may now realize that his girl was never his, but his tenorless guitar solo has the tenor of hapless, heartbroken genius.
Buy]

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