Pages tagged “video”

Yesterday was a big day for James Taylor. Along with the release of his album of cover songs (appropriately titled Covers) he performed last night on The Colbert Report.

Perhaps it was his role as Don Logan in Sexy Beast that helped Ben Kingsley connect with his inner angry, unbridled side—a far cry from the actor's famous performance as Ghandi. Whatever the case, Mean Magazine's recent video of the knighted, Oscar-winning actor lip-syncing as Ian MacKaye to hardcore punk band Minor Threat's eponymous classic song has got the Internet all in a tizzy with questions.

Thomas Function, the Alabama band that considers itself part of an ongoing "rock-n-roll renaissance," begins its fall tour next week. The band's debut, Celebration, came out earlier this year (it's quite good, if we do say so ourselves), and the guys are looking forward to the November release of a 7". Below are the dates, along with TF's new "Filthy Flowers" video—be sure to check out the band's Sept. 25 performance at the Paste-sponsored showcase at ACL. (Speaking of which, if you're going to be in the Austin, Texas area on Sept. 25, you should RSVP for the party, which will also include performances from Mates of State, What Made Milwaukee Famous, Bobby Bare Jr., Dan Dyer and White Ghost Shivers. Snap!)

It's almost too much, really. As anticipation builds for The Stand Ins, Okkervil River's follow-up to last year's The Stage Names, the Austin band has begun to fan its fans' desires by opening up a YouTube channel with covers of all the album's songs. Covers, that is, before the Sept. 9 official release of the originals—crazy.

Weezer sent an invitation out to fans through its e-mail list to be in the band's next music video.  Seeing as how last time Rivers Cuomo and Co. gave out such an invite it lead fans to the Playboy Mansion, we thought it only prudent to send the info to any interested readers that will be in the Los Angeles area this tomorrow (Aug. 21) and willing to take the day off for some filming.

Hey, kids! Enjoy getting psychedelic in the desert? Possibly with a talking coyote? Boy, does Black Mountain have a video for you! The Sabbath-worshiping British Columbians recently retreated to an anonymously sandy place to film the clip for "Wucan," and it's pretty much exactly what you'd expect. Tripped out visuals and the usual Black Mountain rawk abound (see below).

Thanks to the viral spread of videos of their performances of popular indie songs, Carleton College's Singing Knights are undoubtedly the Internet's most well-known college a capella group. But a slew of other ensembles have used YouTube to foster new audiences beyond the limited notoriety of campus showcases. And while no one's yet topped the Knights' live collaboration on Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" with "the Daft Hands guy" (also a Carleton student), there's no shortage of groups offering up videos of their unexpected, creative and, more often than not, mega-ironic arrangements. Here are six of our favorites.

The Tufts Beelzebubs - "Umbrella" (Rhianna):

The Umass Dynamics - "Such Great Heights" (The Postal Service):

Pomona College Men's Blue & White - "Cry Me a River" (Justin Timberlake):



UC Berkeley DeCadence - "Bitches Ain't Shit" (Dr. Dre, via Ben Folds):



UCLA Scattertones - "Before He Cheats" (Carrie Underwood):



University of Michigan GMen - "Billie Jean" (Michael Jackson):

Read our issue 46 feature on Zach Galifianakis here.

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...Sean Penn:
"He called my cell phone and was like, 'Hey, it's Sean Penn.' And I'm like, 'Uh-huh...' He's like, 'What are you doing next week?' And I said, 'I'm going to Arby's.' Then I kinda realized it was him. I didn't audition [for Into the Wild]; I just showed up to South Dakota. It was me and him and Vince Vaughn and Emile Hirsch in a hunting lodge together for two weeks. But when I first got there, I said to Sean, 'How do you know me?' and he said he'd seen Out Cold about 17 times. His son is a snowboarder, it's not like he's studying the works of Lee Majors."

...Fiona Apple:
"I first met Fiona at a club in Los Angeles called Largo. It's a place where musicians and comedians perform together. There would always be musicians hanging out at a comedy show and vice versa. I remember going up to Fiona and saying something like, 'I have diarrhea.' Something I didn't think someone like Fiona Apple would ever care to hear with that persona she has, I guess. She giggled at it, and we always had these weird sentences in exchange. I handed her this music video I'd done for this Anita Baker song ['You Bring Me Joy'], and we were kinda friendly. Then we made her video [for 'Not About Love']."

Watch Zach in Fiona Apple's video for "Not About Love" here. Zach's version of Anita Baker's "You Bring Me Joy": 


...Kanye West:
"I met Kanye through Largo as well, and he had also seen the Anita Baker video. He came to see me do stand-up, and that night he asked me to do a music video. I said, 'If you don't tell me what to do, I'll do it.' I think some people would be intimidated that it's Kanye West, but that shit doesn't impress me, that cockiness. It never has and it never will. The more cocky people are, if you act cocky back to them, they respect it. But he was quite nice about it. I just shot [the video for 'Can't Tell Me Nothing'] at my farm. Will Oldham happened to be visiting me, so we drank some whiskey and shot it. That was basically it."

Zach and Will Oldham' video for Kanye West's "Can't Tell Me Nothing":

Ever since 2006's Night Ripper thrust Greg Gillis and his musical project Girl Talk into the national limelight, he has been one of the most polarizing figures in popular music. Many feel Gillis is cheating the system, stacking the musical tape deck if you will. Sort of like how the Yankees can afford Rodriguez and Jeter in the infield (not that Young Berg and Tony Basil are exactly Jeter and A-Rod, but you get the idea), it just doesn't quite seem right.

Maybe you've heard of a little ol' "four-day, multi-stage camping festival held on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tenn." called Bonnaroo. We went, saw and conquered the damn thing and have a neat little video to show for it.

Nigel Godrich officially has the coolest Basement of all time. Rather than housing clunky appliances and cast-off toys (who really used Lincoln Logs?), the famed record producer’s Basement is home to a recording studio that features live performance videos of musicians like Damien Rice, The White Stripes, Sonic Youth and Radiohead.

With the primary election season finally finished, we as a nation can breathe a sigh of relief and get back to truly important exercises in democracy. Namely, online contests. And what could be more democratic than a band letting its fans take the reins? Radiohead's a bit of an old hand at this, but anyone can release master files for remixes with the click of a mouse these days. To trust your fans with the creation of a music video, well, that takes guts. It's a good thing that our favorite art-rockers were up to the task, because they put the creation of their next music video in our (evidently capable) hands. The epic contest is drawing to a close, with the field narrowed to a final 13 candidates.

If you were at the Sasquatch! festival over Memorial Day weekend, you probably saw actor Rainn Wilson introduce a band. Or you bumped into him as you were wandering from the Wookie! Stage to the Yeti! Stage. Or maybe you saw him get into a tumble-on-the-ground fist fight with the dude selling 24 oz. cans of Coors Light for $12.