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San Francisco's psych-pop wonders Oranger are pleased to offer you "Shutdown The Sun", their latest release. Once described as "Pete Townshend and Keith Moon wrecking Brian Wilsons sandpit as Wayne Coyne wipes blood from his face," with Shutdown they move beyond retro-psych into pure pop, informed by years of record collecting, enhanced by mood-altering substances, and melded into something quite its own, thank you very much. They've been busy the past few years, touring with Elliott Smith, Guided By Voices, Pavement, R.E.M., The Apples In Stereo, and Wilco, to name a few -- each time invited at the artists request. While the band has been recording "Shutdown the Sun" for the past couple of years, they've also been balancing other projects: Matt joined The Posies, Mike and Jim played in Scott Kannberg's Preston School of Industry, and Patrick played with Tarnation's Paula Frazer. Mike Drake, lead singer and songwriter, is a Florida native who moved to California and joined up with Matt Harris, Oranger's bass player, co-songwriter, engineer monkey, in the Overwhelming Colorfast. Matt drove a U-Haul truck to Iowa, put drummer Jim Lindsay in it, and drove back to California. Patrick Main, keyboardist, joined shortly thereafter. In 1998 Oranger recorded their debut record Doorway To Norway on 8-track cassette. Despite copious amounts of woo pitched by major labels, they decided to release it on Spiral Stairs a.k.a. Scott Kannberg's (Pavement) fledgling indie label Amazing Grease Records. Early shows were frequently played under fake names such as "The Invisible Chocolate Glove" and "The Apricot Yardstick" for no other reason than to confuse fans. By 1999, the band had released 1 CD and 3 singles and were headlining shows in the Bay Area. They recorded The Quiet Vibrationland on their own using a 16-track tape machine once owned by Brian Wilson. QVL also saw the addition of Patrick Main on keyboards. 2000 saw the band hand-picked by Elliott Smith to open his European tour and QVL released in Europe on Creation Records-founder Alan McGee's new Poptones label. By this time, "Eggtooth" - off of Doorway To Norway - was being played at SF Giants games. In 2001 the closing of SF's Downtown Rehearsal evicted Oranger and 499 other bands and subsequently the band spent more time on the road, including another UK Tour as well as some US dates with Guided By Voices. Recorded and mixed by the band in 2002 at their Plymouth Sounds studio in SF, the 11 songs on Shutdown The Sun evoke a stripped-down and raw approach, compared to the baroque chamber psych of 2000s The Quiet Vibrationland. Most of the songs were written on acoustic guitar, and it shows. While the title track does end in an Acid Mothers Temple-style feedback scrawl, tunes like "Tree Bent Gun" and "Othersider" have a Crazy Horse/Muswell-era-Kinks hard-rock/country groove. Preston School of Industry and David Dondero alumnus Chris ?The Texican? Heinrich lends some spaced-out pedal steel on the country-psych "Cut Off Yer Thumbs" and "The Writer (H.F.)," while big-ass guitars and thick harmonies on "Bluest Glass Eye Sea" and "Going Under" keep the bolo tie hidden in the bottom of the sock drawer. Mike and Jims time on the road opening for Wilco (as part of PSOI) rubbed off on the delicate noise-folk textures of "Delivered By Compass" and "Static On The High Desert."
Dan Farber and Rafe Needleman interview Bret Taylor, co-founder of FriendFeed.com, a Web site that enables friends to instantly share and discuss everything they find interesting on the Internet.
Dwight Yoakam: "Intentional Heartache"
A song about hot-blooded love from "Blame the Vain", the L.A.-based country star's 2005 album and his first without longtime producer/guitarist Pete Anderson.
"The Devil and Daniel Johnston" trailer
Daniel Johnston is a manic-depressive genius singer/songwriter/artist, revealed in this portrait of madness, creativity and love. "The Devil and Daniel Johnston" is a stunning portrait of a musical and artistic genius who nearly slipped away. Director Jeff Feuerzeig exquisitely depicts a perfect example of brilliance and madness going hand in hand with subject Daniel Johnston. As an artist suffering from manic depression with delusions of grandeur, Daniel Johnston's wild fluctuations, numerous downward spirals, and periodic respites are exposed in this deeply moving documentary.
Load music onto a mobile phone
Learn how to transfer music from a computer to your mobile phone or download songs over the air.
My friend gave me a tarot card reading over the phone one night as I was watching TV with a guitar in my lap. "I've drawn a mountain," she said. "I'm a mountain," I said. So begins a song that became the title track of my new record. Most of these songs have been milling about in my mind for a while now. Some I started writing back when I put down the electric guitar and ding-digga-dinged my way through summer on the back porch. All of them live in the same wide frame and seem to belong together. "I am Aglow," "The Ring," and "I'm a Mountain," are tunes inspired by country music and bluegrass bands, singing for the joy of it, and telling new versions of old stories in song. "The Phoenix" builds on the themes of courage and regeneration and the inspirational "How Deep in the Valley" came from somewhere deep in the hymnbook of my memory. Down low in the picture frame (under a log) is "Salamandre," a children's song written by my friends Kate Fenner and Chris Brown. I am thrilled this modern classic can be part of this collection as it expresses my own love for the magical and precious amphibian and the time-honored relationship between nature and imagination. "Luther's Got the Blues" is my old pal Luther Wright's enduring, scruffy sidewalk lament, and Dolly Parton's "Will He Be Waiting For Me" lives in the world of lost love and yearning that I, too, know something about. I wrote "Goin' Out for an AIDS Vigil," and I am so happy to have my dad singing it with me. He also lends his warm and wise timbre to "Oleander." And finally, casting its glow over the entire record is the new folk song "Escarpment Blues," which tells the story of a current land-use conflict in Southern Ontario on the Niagara Escarpment, a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. I grew up on the escarpment on the farm where my family still lives, within a long green corridor prized for its fresh water resources, its endangered species habitats, its prime agricultural soils, and its wetlands and forests. These lands are under serious threat from the aggregate (sand, gravel, and shale) industry. The problem is large multinational companies want to open new quarries on top of the escarpment and extract the rock below these ecosystems, thereby removing and destroying them. So, after writing the song, I got the idea for the "I Love the Escarpment" Tour and set out in June 2005 with some of my best musical mates to hike the escarpment and make music along the way. Julie Fader (vocals, keys), Jason Euringer (vocals, stand-up bass), Spencer Evans (clarinet, accordion), Joey Wright (mandolin, guitar), and I hit the Bruce Trail (the continuous hiking trail that goes from one end of the escarpment to the other) and spent two weeks rock climbing, caving, hiking, and performing in theaters and community halls along Southern Ontario's spine. All proceeds of the tour went to help finance the research and advocacy work of Protecting Escarpment Rural Land (PERL), a volunteer organization I helped form last winter when the new quarry proposal came to light in my old stomping grounds of North Burlington. After a wonderful tour we put away our hiking boots and went into Reaction Studio in Toronto to capture these songs, all wrapped in up our camaraderie. This record was made for everyone, everywhere. Like the smiles we had on our faces when we made it, we hope it spreads far and wide.
"Neil Young: Heart of Gold" trailer
"Neil Young: Heart of Gold" is an intimate musical portrait of legendary singer/songwriter Neil Young, filmed on the occasion of the world premiere of Young's Prairie Wind concert at Nashville's hallowed Ryman auditorium last summer. Young's music provides an emotionally rich view into this unique artist's relationship to family, friends, mortality and the passage of time.
This footage, and many other of the band's classic hits are available on the DVD "The Who: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970". This great footage from 1970 finds Daltrey, Entwistle, Townshend, and Moon in peak form and truly lives up to the band's legendary reputation for mind-blowing live shows.
Beginner guitar lessons: how to play "Corrina, Corrina"
Beginner guitar song lessons from iPlayMusic.com. Step-by-step lessons that teach you to play songs on the guitar. iPlayMusic provides "Karaoke-Style" guitar lessons that feature background music, scrolling lyrics and chords. There is no easier way to learn how to play a song on your guitar. We offer video downloads and DVDs. We offer literally hundreds of high-quality videos for beginner and intermediate musicians. Go to www.iplaymusic for more infomation.
"Friends: Babies, Birthdays and Weddings" DVD clip: "Male Nanny"
Celebrate life's big moments with your Friends and these three themed compilations from Warner Home Video...Friends: The One With All the Babies, Friends: The One With All the Birthdays, and Friends: The One With All the Weddings. Each DVD includes a selection of six of the most memorable baby, birthday and wedding episodes from the unforgettable series; the three themed releases feature classic Friends moments such as Ross' slip of the tongue at the alter, Chandler's hysterical search to discover which of Joey's sisters he kissed, and of course the highly anticipated birth of Emma. Each episode was hand picked by the show's producer and is full of fan favorite moments. The Emmy Award-winning show stars Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe), Courtney Cox-Arquette (Monica), Jennifer Aniston (Rachel), David Schwimmer (Ross), Matthew Perry (Chandler) and Matt LeBlanc (Joey). The show debuted in 1994 and aired its series finale on May 6, 2004.
