Fun promo video for Parks & Recreation:

Posted by Andrew Raff on February 5, 2010 11:12 AM
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Lost may not be the most popular show on television, but it may the most popular show with the highest percentage of extremely engaged fans. In other words, the product of the size of Lost's fan base and their intensity has to be the largest for any television show. Dollhouse or Breaking Bad may have a higher percentage of extremely engaged fans, but a smaller audience. American Idol or CSI might have a larger audience, but their fans are less likely to know who the showrunners and producers are.

Is there any other show (aside from perhaps NBC's promotion of The Marriage Ref from Executive Producer Jerry Seinfeld) where the showrunners would be giving interviews on late night television instead of anyone from the cast?

Or that EW refers to by their first names only? Doc Jensen, EW PopWatch, Confused by the 'Lost' premiere? Never fear! Damon and Carlton explain a few things about the start of Season 6 (SPOILERS AHEAD)

Lost may be the most thoroughly analyzed show on TV. Here is an incomplete collection of some of the reviews and analysis of the season 6 premier, LA X, parts 1 and 2: Alan Sepinwall Doc Jensen (EW), jOpinionated, Televisionary Mike Hale (NY Times), Noel Murray (AV Club), Drew McWeeny (HitFix), Mary McNamara (LA Times), Todd VanDerWerff (LA Times), Myles McNutt (Cultural Learnings), Isaac Spaceman (A List of Things Thrown 5 Minutes Ago), Maureen Ryan (Chicago Tribune), James Poniewozik (Time), Linda Holmes (NPR).

Posted by Andrew Raff on February 3, 2010 6:06 PM
Tags: Lost
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Now that President Obama gave the State of the Union address, the host chair of the Tonight Show is settled, Chuck premiered and Steve Jobs announced Apple's new iPad, the Internets can finally fully devote attention to preparing for the most important media event EVER: the final season of Lost.

The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan interviews showrunners Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof in an epic three part interview.

As only he can, ALOTT5MA's Isaac Spaceman recaps to this point: Welcome to the Hanso Island Resort and Spa

I've been re-watching season one, and I'm amazed at how different the show has become since then. Initially, this was a show about the characters who crashed on Craphole Island. As important as the various situations they encountered was how their reaction to those situations is affected by (or how the crash has forced them to reconsider) their actions in their lives before the crash. Since then, it's gone on to be a time-bending show that's grown in scope and added new characters with a connection to the island, who were not on Oceanic Flight 815 (and generally more compelling than many of the original characters.)

What most of the shows that have since attempted to be the next Lost seem to have forgotten is that Lost's mythology is something that was introduced gradually over the course of the first two seasons. The first season was all about the characters from the crash; each episode focused on one character. If the show didn't evolve from the first season, it would have become stagnant (like the early part of season 3.) If it started as the mythology-heavy show of later seasons, it may not have been around long enough to explore the mythology.

But over 5 seasons, the show has asked so many questions, that the final season will probably answer some questions that shouldn't be answered and leave others open.

Myles McNutt, Cultural Learnings, The Scourge of Fandom: Why Lost Owes Us Nothing, "I tend to view fans who are basically threatening Lindelof and Cuse that they have to answer particular questions as the scourge of fandom. Lost is a show that very much invites fans to make their own theories, and I like that Lindelof and Cuse respect the audience enough to inspire their obsession. That’s why I find it disrespectful for fans to then take their theories and push them back on Lindelof and Cuse, as if the reason Lost’s mysteries exist is for us to solve them and then force the show to adhere to our ideas."

James Poniewozik, Time: Tuned In Blog, My Favorite Episodes, and Yours

While Lindelof and Cuse expect to bring a satisfying conclusion that will end this show, Disney may want to do more with the franchise than just sell Dharma jumpsuits. What happens then? AfterLost? Lost: The Next Generation? Michael Schneider, Variety, Is 'Lost' here to stay?

Finally, Lost recapped by an extended Italian family:

Posted by Andrew Raff on February 1, 2010 4:15 PM
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Igot invited to see a taping of The Late Show with David Letterman at the Ed Sullivan Theater last night. And aside from Dave being more engaged and energized by another situation involving the Tonight Show and Jay Leno over at NBC, this was incredibly worthwhile to attend, because The Heavy were the musical guest and rocked the house. As soon as the show wrapped, I was looking for their tour schedule to see if they were playing a full set later. Unfortunately, the Late Show wrapped up their US tour.

How often does Dave ask the musical guest to keep playing the song for another go round with the CBS Orchestra then vamping on the riff after the band finishes?

According to the Late Show website, it was "unprecedented." They also have the full and complete encore performance

But sometimes when a band is just setting up, you get a feeling that you're going to like them. If they've set up a four piece Gretsch drum set, Rickenbacker bass, Telecaster guitar through a Fender amp, baritone sax, tenor sax and trumpet, you get a sense of the sound they're going to have. Combine with a British flag and before the band is even on stage, that's a pretty solid indicator of the kind of sound they're going to have. Borrow the Dap Kings horn section and execute well and there you go: a recipe for awesome.

The Heavy [theheavy.co.uk]

WXPN: The Heavy, Recorded Live In Concert (Jan. 15, 2010)

NPR: The Heavy: Dirty Basement Soul "Like the early White Stripes, The Heavy sometimes threatens to cross the line between reviving and archiving. Also like the early White Stripes, it's good enough to get away with a lot, and smart enough to take full advantage."

The House That Dirt Built: Vinyl CD MP3

Posted by Andrew Raff on January 19, 2010 10:46 AM
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"I'll be honest, I was a bit nervous before playing this show," said Julian Casablancas from the stage Thursday at Terminal 5 before thanking the packed house again for the warm reception. Artists gain and lose popularity fast in music, so it may not have been too crazy for him to think people might not care about him or his old band The Strokes that much anymore. But an excited Terminal 5 audience dispelled any doubt. Perhaps music tastes can change, but New Yorker's always welcome back one of their own.

Doors opened at 8 PM and by 9 PM opener Tanlines was keeping the growing crowd well entertained, mostly with their intense on-stage gyrations. Tweaking computers and keyboards they presented an aggressive dance sound. In contrast, Telepathe, who followed, emitted an intense racket that sounded like a wash of sound rather than finely crafted music. The duo's similar sounding voices and monotonous songs barely excited the crowd, and a few of their offerrings ended with just a spattering of applause. The group looked a little dejected as they left the stage, but after 35 minutes of without much musical or visual excitement (they barely tried to engage the crowd), it was hard to feel guilty about the audience's poor reaction.

The reaction was much different when the lights went down for the headliner. With his backing band hitting the stage first, Julian Casablancas strolled out in a slim black leather outfit to the jubilation of everyone in Terminal 5. Although it's only been a few years since The Strokes played New York, the excitement of the moment was palpable, as was the moment when he began singing in his distinctive croon.

The band started off with "Ludlow Street," one of the album's slower tracks, and though it lacked some of the old world instrumentation of the recorded version, it came across well, as did the next song, the more up-tempo "River of Brakelights." Casablancas took the chance to talk to the crowd a bit, spouting out a stream of expletive-laden thanks-yous to everyone for the warm reception. The casual banter would continue throughout the night, and flew off into such side roads as Casablanca's admiration of Alicia Key's contribution to Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind" (he would later sing a snippet of it as a ten-second final song of the night, backed only by drums).

Launching into single "11th Dimension," the band was fully warmed up and the crowd was soon bopping up and down. Every once in a while throughout the night (in "River of Brakelights" and Left and Right in the Dark," for example), the band hit a chugging groove and Casablancas voice hit that sweet spot towards the higher, more desperate part of his range. The effect recalled what was so great about the Strokes, and the crowd reacted as you would have expected (see the video below). But the other sounds Casablancas has explored proved popular as well. The crowd sang along with "Out of the Blue" and "Left and Right in the Dark." Casablancas and company played a new, untitled song which felt energetic and a lot more raw than the album material.

Reports from L.A. told of an elaborate stage show, but there were no visuals or fancy costumes at this gig, just the band and Casablancas with minimal lighting effects. Still, the crowd ate it up, especially in the encore when Casablancas and his keyboard player came out to play a stripped-down "I'll Do Anything Once," a Strokes b-side (which he announced as a cover). A bigger surprise was the inclusion of the Kings of Leon song "Velvet Snow," though admittedly it was one of the weaker songs of the night. Still, the singer seems happy to playing live in NY again, whether this solo tour is a diversion before a Strokes reunion or a long term gig.

Posted by Krikor Daglian on January 15, 2010 2:39 PM
Tags: Julian Casablancas The Strokes Terminal 5
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In the New York Times today, Bill Carter finds NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol clearly on Team Jay, saying,
"What this is really all about is an astounding failure by Conan." Executive Leaps to Leno’s Defense.

But how much of Conan's woes at the Tonight Show are caused by the creative failure of the Jay Leno Show at 10 PM?

Tucked away in this story from Joe Adalian at The Wrap is the one fact that I've been looking for, that Conan's Tonight Show is actually outperforming Leno's Tonight Show, when you account for the massive fall-off of lead-in: Ebersol: Conan 'Chicken-Hearted, Gutless' | The Wrap: "O'Brien's down from the Leno era in the adults 18-49, losing Leno's 15 percent advantage over Letterman. But local news numbers have dropped between 20 and 30 percent since Leno shifted to 10, which means O'Brien is actually not dropping as much as his lead-in."

Even though Leno hosted the Tonight Show on a low-rated network last year, NBC's slightly more creatively interesting 2008-09 schedule provided a much stronger lead-in to the late local news and The Tonight Show than the 5 night per week black hole of suck that is the Jay Leno Show.

But why do we care so much about The Tonight Show?

Firstly, it is the most established late night show and during the Carson era, it was the only late night talk show that mattered. Viewers have a relationship as much with the tradition and establishment of a show. Millions of Americans find something comforting about routine and being able to watch The Tonight Show while settling in to sleep. And given Leno's popularity, we can only assume that for many people funny isn't a necessary component of a comedy show.

Secondly, even though NBC is by far the least popular network of the four, it may still be the one with which television viewers have the most personal connection. NBC has a much more specific nexus with its location at 30 Rockefeller Center. Because The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, Channel 4 News, Saturday Night Live, Late Night and (fictionally) 30 Rock are all based there, there's a feeling that NBC is an actual location with physical place and staff that all works together rather than a bunch of shows that happen to occupy the same frequency allocation on a transmitter. Secondly, more of its shows are long-running brands that have maintained the same core identity for so long that they have become institutions. Meet The Press is the longest running television show in worldwide broadcasting history, having been on the air continually since 1947. The Today Show has been on since 1952. The Tonight Show has aired continually since 1954. Saturday Night Live has aired since 1975 and Late Night since 1982. Only in two areas (evening news on CBS) and newsmagazine (60 Minutes)) do any of its competitors have longer running institutions than NBC.

Conan put his talk show up for sale on Craigslist.

What happened the last time NBC threatened to replace a Tonight Show host with another host from its network? In 1992, Bill Carter reported for the New York Times, Jay Leno Criticizes NBC On 'Tonight' Cliffhanger. We all know how that turned out.

It seems that Jimmy Kimmel is not a Leno fan. He did his Tuesday night show as Leno and then went direct as a guest on Leno's show:

Myles McNutt, Cultural Learnings, Betrayal at NBC, Colon, What REALLY happened with my Late Night Show, Question Mark, by Conan O’Brien

Anne Helen Petersen, celebrity gossip, academic style, Team Conan: Nice Guys Finish First. Okay, well, kinda.

Lawrence Ebert, IP Biz, "The Tonight Show" controversy: do trademarks have a temporal dimension?. I'd say that since it has always aired after the late local news, The Tonight Show has come to mean NBC's leadoff flagship and least-late of its late night shows.

James Poniewozik, Time Tuned In, Jay Leno: Seabiscuit or War Admiral

Posted by Andrew Raff on January 15, 2010 12:38 PM
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With the internet, network newsmen have the opportunity to publish more journalism than fits in the 30 minutes at 6:30. And they're using that opportunity to blog about music.

NBC News anchor and managing editor Brian Williams blogs about music at BriTunes.

Over at ABC News' Dan Harris writes Amplified.

Posted by Andrew Raff on November 2, 2009 4:39 PM
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So this little venue in NYC, Madison Square Garden, hosted a small concert last night in celebration of the 15th anniversary of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The bill featured Bruce Sprinsteen & The E-Street Band, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Simon & Garfunkel, Crosby, Stills, Nash and friends. Perhaps you may have heard of some of these artists?

So yeah. That was some bill. And the show lasted until 1:30 AM, as all of the performers brought out special guests, which included Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Dion DiMucci, Little Anthony and The Imperials, Smokey Robinson, BB King, Sting, John Legend, Jeff Beck, Sam Moore, Darlene Love, John Fogerty, Tom Morello and Billy Joel.

Some of the collaborations seemed superfluous, such as Sting playing bass on "Higher Ground" with Stevie, with an awkward segue into a tepid cover of "Roxanne." Others didn't have any flow-- the two acts who played with Simon and Garfunkel (Dion and Little Anthony)-- were obvious influences on Simon and Garfunkel, but didn't really bring any new shadings to the set, which probably would have been more musically memorable if Art Garfunkel and his awesome hair sang with Simon on one of Simon's solo hits. Or just if they dug deeper into their catalog. But Crosby and Nash offered backup vocals to Simon's cover of "Here Comes the Sun." And "Bridge Over Troubled Water" was just tremendous as Garfunkel's voice was more than up to the task of filling the Garden. (Of note, according to the image projected behind the stage, the East River is apparently troubled water.)

Some of the collaborations made up for the extraneous or boring ones. Half of Stevie's guests were teh awesome. Jeff Beck came on stage to wail on the guitar for "Superstition." And it was tremendous. John Legend sang a competent version of Marvin Gaye's "Mercy Mercy Me" with Stevie. (That's a case where a competent version is a tremendous complement. Not an easy song to pull off, and while it didn't reach any higher ground, the song worked.) Legend also sat in on piano with Stevie to cover Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel" for an emotional performance.

Aside from an opening trip to "Woodstock," the Crosby, Stills and Nash set felt lightweight and superfluous to the rest of the night. All three were in fine form vocally, but I could have used another hour of Stevie and Jeff Beck jamming.

Springsteen's choices of guests revealed much about his influences. Sam Moore showed how much of an influence he had on Springsteen as a performer and frontman. It also demonstrated that (with some extra horns) the E Street Band make for a solid soul revue show band. John Fogerty and Tom Morello showed a bit of the continuity of politically oriented rock music. By far, the highlights of Springsteen's set were the songs that Morello sat in for. I'm not a huge fan of Rage Against the Machine, so I had no expectations for Morello's playing (unlike, say, Jeff Beck.) His blistering solo on "The Ghost of Tom Joad" brought the song to a new level and helped elevate a cover of "London Calling" from acceptable to great.

Less musically interesting and successful was the summit meeting between NJ's Springsteen and Lon Gisland's Billy Joel. Unlike the other guests, Joel's appearance wasn't announced on the event's website beforehand, so it was a surprise for me until Bruce started talking about the similarities between NJ and LI and the stagehands brought a second piano on stage. The contrast between Springsteen and Joel is interesting. Both came up in the 70's in the New York suburbs writing and performing music mainly about disaffected teens in the suburbs. While Springsteen's is somewhat more influenced by the soul and folk traditions, Joel's is more directly descended from Tin Pan Alley. Although Sprinsteen himself is a guitar player, his best album, "Born to Run" is as much of a piano-driven album as anything by Joel. But even as someone who is unashamed to own Billy Joel albums, the juxtaposition of the two on the same stage showed me how much more

The interesting contrast between the two is where they took their music after their initial success. Springsteen became an outspoken advocate for the working class through song as stagflation gave way to Reaganomics. He delved deeper into the folk tradition with Nebraska and The Seeger Sessions. He released one of the most relevant and timely albums of this decade with "The Rising" and has continued to write new music. In contrast, Joel evolved from singing about disaffected teens to singing about disaffected middle age adults. His music remained personal, while Springsteen's evolved to add activism and politics to the personal. Joel may have said everything he has Perhaps that's why Joel last released an album of new rock music in 1993, Springsteen has released 6 new albums (3 with the E Street Band and 3 folk albums).

And Springsteen still leads the biggest and baddest rock and roll carnival to roll through town. As a 60 year old, the Boss has more energy than most 25 year old indie rockers.

Via The Star Ledger, Setlists for the show.

Rolling Stone: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Turns 25 With All-Star Sets From Springsteen, Wonder and More, Epic Moments at the Rock Hall 25th Anniversary Concert, Morello, Raitt, Crosby Pay Tribute to Fellow Legends Backstage at First Rock Hall Concert

Posted by Andrew Raff on October 30, 2009 12:44 PM
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This is now an annual tradition! For the second year in a row, we're going to look through the big list of bands coming into town this week for the CMJ Music Marathon and see if we can divine any trends in band naming.

Numbers

Two is by far the most popular number referenced in band naming. 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 12, 28, 69, 70 and 1,000,000 are also represented among this crop of names:

• Jupiter One
• Once
• 2am Club
• Mystery of Two
• Twin Atlantic
• Twin Berlin
• Two Fresh
• Two Tears
• Mother Of Three
• Mighty Five
• School of Seven Bells
• The Middle Eight
• 12th Planet
• 28 North
• 69 Eyes
• Expo 70
• A Million Years

Other Quantities

Some quantities aren't expressible in discrete numbers

• So Many Dynamos
• So Many Wizards
• Super Extra Bonus Party

Speed

Surprisingly, fast and slow are equally represented

• The Fast Romantics
• Slow Country
• Tempo No Tempo

Directions

Go west, young man! All four of the compass directions are represented, but west is the most prevalent.

• 28 North
• Far East Movement
• Mark Knight and Dirty South Live
• Smith Westerns
• Western Civ
• The Western States Motel

Geography

Planets and Satellites

• 12th Planet
• Hooray For Earth
• Man on Earth
• Jupiter One
• Moonbabies
• Moondoggies
• Under The Sherry Moon
• We Landed On The Moon!
• We Are The World

Continents

• Antarctic

Oceans

• Pacific Theater
• Twin Atlantic

Countries

• The Brazil Show
• Casino versus Japan
• Electro Morocco & Dreams in Static
• Japandroids
• Japanther
• Look Mexico
• The Maldives
• Portugal. The Man
• French Miami
• Spanish Prisoners
• These United States
• Volcanoless In Canada

States

• Arizona
• The Gulf Of Michigan

Cities

• Appomattox
• Brighton MA
• Capital City
• David Dallas
• French Miami
• Invade Rome
• My Jerusalem
• NYCSmoke
• River Phoenix
• Twin Berlin

Neighborhoods

• Bel Air
• Diamond District
• Harlem
• Robbers on High Street
• The Bowery Riots

Geographical Features

• Beach Fossils
• Best Coast
• Black Bay
• The Frontier Brothers
• The Frontier Ruckus
• The Gulf Of Michigan
• River Phoenix
• Spiral Beach
• Valley of the Shadow of Death
• Vertical Horizon

Buildings

• The Emergency Room
• Home and Garden
• The Library
• Uninhabitable Mansions

Time

• 2am Club
• A Million Years
• All The Day Holiday
• Black & White Years
• Love In October
• The Minutes
• Overnight
• The Past Times

Seasons

• Eternal Summers
• Winterpills

Deoartment of Redundancy Department

Bands so nice they named them twice:

• Bang Bang Eche
• Beep Beep
• Blip Blip Bleep
• Champagne Champagne
• Die! Die! Die!
• Dum Dum Girls
• Fra Fra Sound
• Future Future
• Kill Kill Kill
• Motel Motel
• Runner Runner
• Santino Santino
• The Seedy Seeds
• Shout Out Out Out Out
• Still Life Still
• Takka Takka
• Tall Tall Trees
• Tempo No Tempo
• Tiger! Shit! Tiger! Tiger!
• Veil Veil Vanish
• Voices Voices
• You Scream I Scream
• You, You're Awesome

Transportation

Air

• Aeroplane
• Aeroplane Pageant
• Denney and the Jets
• Flying Machines
• Hospital Bombers
• In-Flight Safety
• Jets Overhead
• Paper Airplane
• Still Flyin

Land

• Army Navy
• Bridges and Powerlines
• Brit and the Cavalry
• Broadfield Marchers
• Delorean
• The Motorcycle Industry
• BLACK TAXI
• Unicycle Loves You

Sea

• Army Navy
• Floating Action
• Sugar Plum Ferry

Space

• Spaceships are Cool
• We Landed On The Moon!

High vs. Low

• The High Dials
• The High Strung
• Higher Giant
• Highlife
• The Hi-Risers
• Robbers on High Street
• Skyzoo
• Jets Overhead
• Low Frequency In Stereo

Stereo/Mono

Stereo is exactly twice as popular as mono!

• Stereo Skyline
• Low Frequency In Stereo
• Monogold

Color

Black is again the most popular color represented, followed by gold.

• Black & White Years
• Black Anvil
• Black Cherry
• Black Diamond Bay
• Black Holes
• The Black Hollies
• Black Swan Green
• BLACK TAXI
• Black Tie Party
• the black watch
• Black Whales
• Cruel Black Dove
• Dan Black
• Red Wire Black Wire
• Small Black
• Soft Black
• Gold Streets
• The Golden Filter
• Golden Silvers
• Golden Triangle
• Goldhawk
• Solid Gold
• Sugar & Gold
• Monogold
• Hi Red Center
• Red Collar
• Red/X
• Red Wire Black Wire
• Bobby Brown
• Bosque Brown
• White Tie Affair
• Black & White Years
• Blondes
• Blood Orange
• Blue Scholars
• The Bronzed Chorus
• Greycoats
• Pink Noise
• The YellowDogs

Light vs. Dark

Light is slightly more popular than dark and shadow.

• Headlights
• Lightning Love
• The Lights Out
• Lights Resolve
• Dark Meat
• Dark Room Notes
• Valley of the Shadow of Death

Animals

Bears, birds, whales and dinosaurs, oh my!

Bears

• Angry Vs. The Bear
• Bear Hands
• Bear In Heaven
• Care Bears on Fire
• Mama Bear

Birds

• Common Loon
• Cruel Black Dove
• Black Swan Green
• An Albatross
• Fearsome Sparrow
• Hawk and Dove
• Heavy Birds
• Rainbird
• Slang Chickens
• Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt

Whales

• Black Whales
• Freelance Whales
• Vulture Whale

Cats

• The Jaguar Club
• Japanther
• Kittens Ablaze
• Tiger! Shit! Tiger! Tiger!
• Spring Tigers
• Tigercity

Wolves

• Julia Wolfe
• We Are Wolves
• Whistling Wolves

Other Dogs

• Coyote Eyes
• Pitbull
• Moondoggies
• The YellowDogs

Dinosaurs

• Claymation Velociraptor
• Dinosaur Feathers

Insects

• Beehive
• Annie And the Beekeepers
• Deer Tick

Chimeras

• Dinowalrus
• Dragon Turtle

All Others

• The Antlers
• Batrider
• Cobra Skulls
• Crystal Antlers
• Fox Jaws
• Goat Whore
• Kate Bradley & Goodbye Horses
• Mussels
• Pig Destroyer
• Skibunny
• The Telepathic Butterflies
• We Are Country Mice
• Wild Yaks

Food & Drink

• Bamboo Shoots
• The Beautiful Taste
• Black Cherry
• Blood
• Coconuts
• Cookie Martini
• Dark Meat
• Drink Up Buttercup
• Hank & Cupcakes
• Heavy Cream
• Hungry Hands
• Hungry Hungry Ghost
• Lemonade
• Mussels
• Pomegranates
• Sugar & Gold
• Sugar Plum Ferry

Weight

• Fat Tony
• Fatkid Dodgeball
• Heavy Birds
• Heavy Cream
• Heavy Trash

New vs. Old

New and modern are much more popular than old, vintage, classic or historic.

• Awesome New Republic
• Future Future
• Miracles of Modern Science
• Modern Science
• Modern Skirts
• The New Collisions
• The New Loud
• New Villager
• The Past Times
• Old Canes
• Linc with Old Soul

Government and International Relations

Republic is by far the most favored form of government and the Senate is the preferred representative body by this year's crop of bands. Surprisingly, no fans of direct democracy in the bunch.

• Awesome New Republic
• Great Republic of Rough and Ready
• Senator
• The Senate
• French Horn Rebellion
• International Espionage!
• Invade Rome
• The Surrender
• Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt

Blood

A surprising number of bands are either vampires or decided to use blood in their band names for some other reason.

• Blood Orange
• Blood Warrior
• Bloodgroup
• The Bloodsugars
• Surfer Blood
• Type O Negative

Gender

Male

• Best Man
• The Boy Bathing
• The Brothers Frank
• Brother Joscephus & the Love Revival Revolution Orchestra
• Dead Men Dreaming
• Frat Dad
• The Frontier Brothers
• Gentleman Auction House
• Holy Sons
• The Lives of Famous Men
• Madison Ave Boys
• Male Bonding
• Man Like Me
• Man on Earth
• Natureboy
• octoberman
• Papa
• The Protomen
• The Queen Killing Kings

Female

• Bodega Girls
• Kleenex Girl Wonder
• Little Girls
• Mama Bear
• Metermaids
• Mother Of Three
• Priestess
• Screaming Females
• Sister Hazel
• Sister Sparrow and The Dirty Birds

Young vs. Old

• Chris Young The Rapper
• Choir of Young Believers
• Grandchildren
• Bodega Girls
• Holy Sons
• Kleenex Girl Wonder
• Little Girls
• Moonbabies
• My Teenage Stride
• Natural Child
• Teenage Bottlerocket
• The Teenage Prayers
• Young Boys
• Young Prisms
• Youth Group
• Baby Monster
• Kid Color
• Kid Theodore
• Kidz In Space
• Kidz In The Hall
• Jim McTurnan and The Kids that Killed The Band
• Mother Of Three
• Dead Men Dreaming
• Frat Dad
• The Neanderthals
• Old Canes

Instruments

Does French Horn Rebellion have a french horn player in the band?

• The Bongos
• Cymbals Eat Guitars
• Erin and Her Cello
• French Horn Rebellion

Sports

• Boogie Boarder
• Fatkid Dodgeball
• Hockey
• Let's Wrestle
• Surf City
• Surfer Blood
• Swimclub
• The Swimmers
• Tennis Pro
• Unicycle Loves You

Teams vs. Bands

Surprisingly, this roster features slightly more bands that are teams than there are bands that are bands.

• Team Facelift
• Team Genius
• Team Robespierre
• Team William
• Math the Band
• Menahan Street Band
• Mia Riddle & Her Band

Body Parts

• The Idle Hands
• Hungry Hands
• Hammer No More The Fingers
• The Naked Hearts
• No Eye Contact
• Shaky Hands
• The Unsacred Hearts

Temperature

Hot is more popular than cold.
• Cold Cave
• Cold Flamez
• Hot Lava
• Hot Panda
• HotChaCha
• Spit Hot Fire

Life and Death

• Dead Heart Bloom
• Dead Leaf Echo
• Dead Men Dreaming
• Dead Sexy Inc.
• Dead Stars
• Deadbeat Darling
• Die! Die! Die!
• Diehard
• Kill Kill Kill
• Kill Krinkle Club
• Ringo Deathstarr
• Valley of the Shadow of Death
• We Should Be Dead
• Highlife
• Still Life Still
• Mammoth Life
• Jonny Lives!
• The Lives of Famous Men

Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll

• Drug Rug
• drugdealer
• Drunken Barn Dance
• Dirty Sexy Soca
• Dead Sexy Inc.

Love

• Enemy Lovers
• The Fast Romantics
• Unicycle Loves You
• Love Heist
• Love In October
• The Love Language
• LoveLikeFire
• The Lovely Feathers
• Lovemakers

Volume

Not surprisingly, loud is more popular.

• The New Loud
• Quiet Loudly

Shapes

• The Elusive Parallelograms
• Goes Cube
• Golden Triangle
• The Octagon

Rank/Title

• Filthy Dukes
• General Fiasco
• I Was A King
• Jess King
• King Chango
• The King Left
• Sgt Dunbar and the Hobo Banned

The Four Elements

• Man on Earth
• Air Waves
• The Fire & Reason
• Fire Ex
• Care Bears on Fire
• Kittens Ablaze
• Last Tide
• LoveLikeFire
• Quest For Fire
• Spit Hot Fire
• Sure Fire
• Rain Machine
• Rainbird
• The Sea

Size

Big and small are tied at 5 apiece.

• Giant Cloud
• Gigantic Hand
• Nomadic Massive
• Big Sean
• The Big Takeover
• Little Fish
• Little Girls
• Little Teeth
• Small Black
• Beautiful Small Machines

Complete sentences

• We Are Country Mice
• We Are Enfant Terrible
• We Are The World
• We Are Wolves
• We Have Band
• We Landed On The Moon!
• We Should Be Dead
• Jonny Lives!
• We're Pregnant
• The Whore Moans

Exclamation points!

• Die! Die! Die!
• Gunfight!
• International Espionage!
• Jonny Lives!
• We Landed On The Moon!
• pow wow!
• Tiger! Shit! Tiger! Tiger!
• Zo! & The Els

Other Snazzy Names

These are some names that I couldn't build a cateogry around, but are entertaining nonetheless:

• Meeting of Important People
• Phil & The Osophers
• Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers

Names in bold are bands we can definitely recommend seeing. Band names in italics are bands we would consider seeing just because their names are awesomely clever or ridiculous.

See also Ear Farm's CMJ preview, which provides recommendations and information about silly little details like time and location.

Posted by Andrew Raff on October 20, 2009 1:35 PM
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1. The better the venue is for the performer, the worse it is for the audience.

2. Hearing songs for the first time is a very different experience than hearing them a second, third, sixteenth or 64th time.

Last night, I caught Them Crooked Vultures' debut NYC performance at Roseland Ballroom. Prior to the show, I had not heard more than a 30 second clip of any of their music. But a few factors convinced me to buy tickets for the show. The rhythm section comes from two of the greatest rock bands of all time (Led Zeppelin and Nirvana) and the guitarist/lead singer from a band that I appreciate and enjoy (Queens of the Stone Age). Aside from hearing a single, I went to The Raconteurs first appearance in New York with no more information than knowing the prior work of Jack White and Brendan Benson, and caught a great show. But I was only appropriately whelmed by Them Crooked Vultures. I suspect that the venue and familiarity kept this show from reaching the next level.

Venue & Comfort
Roseland is a pretty terrible place to see a concert. The sound is muddy and booming in the cavernous room. Any precise and dynamic bass playing just gets lost in the mud of Roseland's acoustics. Fortunately, John Paul Jones plays with a fairly distinctive sound that helps emphasize the attack at the beginning of each note. The sightlines from the floor are atrocious. There's not enough traffic flow for the capacity this room can handle to make entering and exiting easy or quick.

New York's other venues of similar capacity, including Hammerstein Ballroom, Webster Hall, Terminal 5, also present similar compromises to concertgoers, with boomy sound, crowded feeling at capacity, poor sight lines and insufficent bar staff to handle peak rush without queues. Which leads me to propose the hypothesis that there is an inverse relationship between a venue's quality of experience for performers as for audience. At a large hall like Roseland or Hammerstein, the artist has a proper dressing room, large stage, a dedicated sound engineer for the monitor mix, and space for a big lighting rig. But the audience has to deal with the hassles. At a small club with capacity of up to a couple of hundred, bands may lack a dressing room, someone to run lights, inadequate monitors and have to deal with the hassles of loading gear on and off stage through the crowd rather than directly back to a dedicated back-stage location, but the audience benefits from good sight lines and decent sound. The larger the artist is of a draw, the more the artist needs to be pampered and the audience will be willing to put up with more hassles. The smaller the artist, the more the audience needs to be made comfortable.

Here's an approximate graph of the relationship between venue size and comfort level for artists and their audiences:

At the intersection of the audience comfort and artist comfort curve is Bowery Ballroom along with other clubs of similar size. Big enough to have enough resources to put on a top-level show, but small and intimate enough to offer a good experience for the audience.

Familiarity
There's a certain level of familiarity with a piece of music that makes it more enjoyable for a listener. The brain needs to do some amount of work to process music at first that listening to a song that one's heard before is a very different experience from listening to a new song. Stravinsky's Rite of Spring was so different and difficult, that the audience rioted at the piece's debut. Seriously, they rioted.

And I can think of a couple of concerts I've seen the familiarity phenomenon in full effect. At the Raconteurs first show at Irving Plaza, The audience became significantly more engaged once the Raconteurs played the one single they had released to date, "Steady as She Goes." When U2 played a free concert in Empire-Fulton Ferry Park in 2004, the first 7 songs of the set were all songs from their new, yet-to-be-released album. It was very obvious to see who downloaded the album in advance from the internet and who hadn't. But the energy level of the crowded raised dramatically when the band broke into older singles, "Beautiful Day" and "I Will Follow." The audience was much more engaged and energized by hearing familiar material that U2 played the new single, Vertigo, again to feed off that energy to get a better performance for the film crew.

By not releasing more than snippets of music, Them Crooked Vultures gave the audience something new, but not anything especially engaging. And because it takes mental energy to process new music, the crowd was sapped of a lot of its energy. The last time I went to a concert at Roseland was to see Radiohead nine (!) years ago. And all of the drawbacks of the venue were there, but the crowd had more energy, in part because Radiohead played a couple of days after their album dropped and also had old fan favorites to mix in with their new material.

The first few songs of Them Crooked Vultures' set were all huge, riff-heavy energetic tracks that, as expected, combined the bombast of Nirvana with Zeppelin's grounding and Queens of the Stone Age sludgy grit. The last song featured an epic and heavy jam. But neither the songs themselves nor Homme's singing helped make the performance more than the sum if its parts. The biggest influence on the group's sound was Queens of the Stone Age. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing-- unlike some other groups assembled from members of other well-known groups, the parts here add up to something good and coherent. But it also lacked Nirvana's skill for songwriting and Zeppelin's heft and showmanship.

As expected, Grohl is a formidable drummer. But you also see just how Jones' style works with Grohl's to give the rhythm section a taste of Zeppelin, but not attempting to mimic or ape the Jones/Bonham sound.

NPR's Bob Boilen was very enthused with the band's show at the 9:30 Club, "It's been a while since I've been to a show that I'd call 'balls to the wall,' but Them Crooked Vultures aren't holding back. From their first song, 'Elephant,' to the song playing right now, called 'Highway 1,' nuance has left the building. Granted, I'm only four songs into the show, but good lord, this rocks." I suspect that at a club the size of the 9:30 Club as opposed to Roseland, the room didn't swallow up much of the show's appeal, which helped the audience enjoy the show that much more.

Don't get me wrong: this was a very good show. Unfortunately, with a couple of tweaks, it could have been an epic show.

See also, Rolling Stone: Them Crooked Vultures Blast Through Jams at New York Debut

Posted by Andrew Raff on October 16, 2009 1:22 PM
Tags: them crooked vultures
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