Dawes Tonight At Spaceland

Dawes is the new incarnation of the Record Collection band Simon Dawes. They're playing tonight at Spaceland in Silverlake. Fans of The Band and Leonard Cohen will enjoy. That's a promise. Doors are at 8:30 PM and the show is $8. Robert Francis is also performing.

There's an awful lot of hoopla circulating the Internet about guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani suing Coldplay over the verse melody in their smash hit and album title track, "Viva La Vida." The song, which has been enjoyed by millions of people the world over, is too close for comfort to Joe Satriani's "If I Could Fly," a song enjoyed by close to a hundred people, probably somewhere in Europe.

There's a YouTube video below that documents the similarity of the songs. Yeah yeah, same chords, same key, same melody -- but what are the chances of Chris Martin actually listening to Joe Satriani? What are the chances of anyone listening to Joe Satriani? Unless you're trying to learn to play "Surfing with the Alien" (you need a wah, by the way) Satch's music is pretty esoteric. It was probably just good old parallel thinking.

Until you factor Eno into the situation. Brian Eno, who produced Viva La Vida, is a longtime collaborator with famed guitarist Robert Fripp. Robert Fripp is a collaborator and touring buddy of Joe Satriani's. The two used to tour with Steve Vai on a guitar extravaganza called G3. They were actually on tour with each other in 2004, when "If I Could Fly" was released. I wonder if Eno went to see his pal Robert Fripp play? I wonder if Fripp gave him a copy of Satriani's latest record?

They totally ripped it off! They can always tell everybody Eno hypnotized them when they came up with the melody, as Eno is wont to do. We'll have to see if that will hold up in court, though.

- Stephen Blackwell

In all probability, Brooklyn duo High Places should have never happened. Rob Barber (thirty four) and Mary Pearson (twenty four) met briefly while Pearson was visiting New York from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and instantly hit it off. Months later, Pearson found herself uprooting her Midwest life to start High Places with Barber. Working with found sounds, computers, loops, and Mary's hypnotic vocals, High Places has accrued a steady following over the last two years through quirky arrangements and a D.I.Y. spirit that consistently keeps their outlook fresh. We let them finish each other's sentences over coffee in Brooklyn.

When did you two meet?
Mary Pearson: Winter of 2005.

Rob Barber: She lived in Michigan, and moved here in May of 2006.

So, it was a happy accident?
MP: It was totally an accident. I had a little bit of a life plan, and then I decided to do something really impulsive. My family was like, What?! And it seemed such like a flakey thing to do -- to say, "I'm not going to grad school, I'm moving to New York, and I'm starting a band.

RB: I was afraid your family was going to think I was this cult leader. There's this weird dude in New York who derailed your entire plan.

To be fair, I can see how they could think that.
MP: I felt that way, too.

RB: We had only hung out twice in real life, but we would talk on the phone.

MP: We were good friends, but we had no idea. And the fact that we were immediately roommates -- it all could have gone really badly.

RB: I think we were both in this zone where we wanted to do something new. We both had all these ideas and the energy to do it, and wanted our lives to be more adventurous than they were. Being here [in New York], a lot of people are really trapped and locked into their lifestyles and careers -- things are expensive, and they can't really take risks. And we met each other and we talked to one another about what we were doing, and we were really excited. We were like, You're me! With a lot of bands, they record in studios, and then they're touring. With us, we're perpetually writing songs.

MP: Because it's just the two of us and we're spending so much time together, I think it's more of a natural occurrence.

RB: We're always making new songs and always touring. We write and record at the same time.

MP: I think we were intimidated by the full-length format. We're such seven-inch nerds. There is something really nice about how compact a seven-inch is. If you have this really weird idea, you can make a seven-inch and it's not a big deal. If you make a full-length with some crazy idea, you really have to stand by that.

RB: Also, our songs are still pretty short. We have one that breaks four minutes. To us that feels like Yes, or Rush, or something like that. Early on, our songs didn't even crack two minutes. I grew up on hardcore, and I have a short attention span.

Your music is pretty unconventional. How are you guys composing songs? How do you get from A to B?
MP: It's a lot of collecting sounds.

RB: We make the sounds up.

MP: We like to take basic, everyday things. Some sound from a video that Rob has made with his camera, or something. And we'll take that, and we'll take some other little piece of a rhythm, and we start putting that together and loop it. We'll listen to that for a while, and then decide what would go with it, and pick another part. And sometimes we'll put two rhythms together that are in totally different time signatures. It's surprising, what will happen. It's layering and layering and layering.

RB: I was visiting my parents in Florida and I was sitting on this dock. [Taps the table]. I was like, That's a nice sounding wood, and I took the camera and recorded it.

MP: Were real nerdy about it. We were in Belgium and there were these church bells, so Rob made a video on his camera, so we'd have that sound later. There are so many things that make sound in the world that it's kind of weird how limited bands are -- from what they draw from. I remember thinking that in music school, when we were learning theory. There are only so many things you can do when learning composition. Western orchestral music uses very specific rules of harmony and counterpoint. Even tuning is so limiting. I mean, you can get some beautiful sounds out of that, but it's freeing to think that anything is fair game.

I think that philosophy might have had a role in making you all stand out in New York.
RB: Everything for us was very community-minded when we started. But I think the issue is finding your space instead of trying to occupy space that someone else has. If you find the area that has some overlap with your community, but you're still mining your own personal space, I think that helps -- aside from whether the music itself is good or not.

-Michael Ayers
-Photo by Kareem Black

Radiohead's latest album, In Rainbows, is up for seven Grammys this year. It's kind of a shocker. We thought everyone listened to it every day for two weeks and then never put it back on again, just like John Mayer.

The Grammy nominations include Best Rock Song ("House of Cards"), Best Alternative Music Album, Best Boxed or Limited Edition Package, Album of the Year, Best Rock Performance by Duo or Group with Vocals, Producer of the Year (Nigel Godrich), and best Best Short Form Music Video ("House of Cards").

In addition, guitarist Jonny Greenwood is up for Best Score for Motion Picture for his work on PTA's There Will Be Blood.

The question is not "How many will Radiohead win?" but rather "If they win, how will they receive them?" They're certainly not going to fly to Los Angeles on on February 8th to pick up a bunch of gilded statuettes. And what's the carbon footprint on the production of those things anyway? Just thinking about it almost gives me an anxiety attack -- god only know what effect it has on Thom Yorke.

They'll probably win a few, but we don't what to see any lazy pre-event video-taped footage of acceptance speeches. Maybe CNN can hook them up with the hologram machine? Wait -- it uses energy efficient flourescent light bulbs, right?

-Stephen Blackwell

The Castlevania series has been thriving for over twenty years. They're great side-scrolling action games, and they capitalize on our culture's infatuation with vampires, which has recently experienced a surge with HBO's hyper-sexual vampire series, True Blood, and the teen book series, Twilight, of the which the recently released film debuted at number one its opening weekend, grossing over $41.2 million.

In the past, Konami has released a few titles that capitalize on the Castlevania name, but do not make for great games. Ecclesia is not one of them. The monotony of assaulting skeletons and zombies and flying heads doesn't get old, as your character increases her powers while launching an assault on the undead. Of course, you'll be hunting the ultimate vampire, Dracula, which never get old. Or at least it hasn't over the past three decades on however many consoles.

For the Nintendo DS
Released by Konami
Purchase at Gamestop

Swedish music prodigy Gustav Ejstes and his band mates in Dungen have come back from the land of ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the -- okay, theyre Swedish! You know this. What you might not know is that English is increasingly irrelevant, "Mina Damer Och Fasaner" means "My Ladies & Pheasants," and numbers are irrelevant. Dungen singer Gustav Ejstes explains:

In a recent TV spot, you told the interviewer that you named the new album 4 because it was the fifth album. At the risk of walking into the same trap, I will take the bait and ask, why did you name the new album 4?
It's the fourth album if we don't count the first LP, which was a limited edition of just five hundred copies. It really is the fourth album.

Is it fair to say that jazz is the more dominant influence on 4 than on previous efforts?
It's hard for me to see it that way or be objective, but I know there is a difference, and it's more piano based, so maybe that's why it's so jazzy? It has a lot of rocking parts as well.

You love Hendrix and you love hip-hop. How did jazz come into the mix of things?The hip-hop that I have been listening to has a lot of jazz in it, like the early nineties stuff with the native-tongues movement. Jimi Hendrix had a lot of jazz as well, especially the rhythm section. He had a groove that was always influenced by jazz drumming.

It's mind blowing to look back and realize that A Tribe Called Quest was introducing people to jazz all over the world.
Yes. At first I got into Hendrix and that stuff from my mom. But I wanted to find stuff for myself, and when I was a teenager I found hip-hop. But I definitely fell in love with the sound and that opened up an interest in finding more records. Of course, we have all the classic stuff like Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, but I haven't got so many of those records. The only records I ever owned of them were from my parent's collection. I grew up with Swedish artists.

Other than introducing you to jazz, how has hip-hop influenced the Dungen albums?
I have been listening to a lot of early nineties hip-hop but there is a lot of great new hip-hop, especially Mad Lib. I think Mad Lib isn't afraid of anything. It is sample-based music but he inspires me -- he seems to be so unafraid, an artist with no boundaries. I do not think I will make any hip-hop, but I am inspired by it because it is so free and open.

So it sets a tone?
Yes. There are moments in hip-hop that are really beautiful, too. Mad Lib uses samples like a composer.

In recent years, musicians in indie rock and beyond have been releasing their albums to critical acclaim in other languages. English does not seem to be as necessary for success as it used to be. Why do you write and record everything in Swedish?
I don't know. Traditionally it has been, in Sweden, that there are times where Swedish artists have been denied because they do not sing in English, because it is the language of rock & roll. It is the same in hip-hop. Here in Sweden, we have a great scene in Swedish. A good song is a good song and melodies are universal. I think the time of everything being in English is over. We are a Western country and of course have had a lot of influence from the United States and the UK. We have this scene in Sweden, which has a lot of artists and is huge here, but no one outside of Sweden knows about it.

Let's discuss the track "Mina Damer Och Fasaner." What does the title mean?
My ladies and pheasants!

Excuse me?
My ladies and pheasants. You know the bird?

Pheasants?
Like, My ladies and gentleman, but some gentleman are like pheasants. [Laughter.]

How so?
[Laughter.] This must sound so strange! Some guys are like pheasants because they have that kind of hair.

I see. Moving on, what's next for Dungen?
We're touring, and we are going to do some European shows. There is a lot of Dungen music, but I'm also working on an album with an artist named Anna Jarvinen. It's going to be finished this fall. It is me producing and it is kind of like the Dungen records, but it is her songs and will be interesting for those who like Dungen music.

Do you really accomplish everything you do by diving in headfirst?
The thing is, I need something to fall in love with, and then I have to learn how to speak the language. I have to understand how to do it. I have to understand how they make those sounds. That is something I have that I picked up from my violin teacher. He has this thing he always talked about, You have to make it interesting for yourself to live with yourself, or you die. You have to see all the things you can. I am curious and I want to learn. I see music as a challenge. I have to do it.

-Shane Gill

After selling some two million or so copies on Xbox last year, and receiving several industry accolades, 2K Games has brought BioShock to the PlayStation 3. BioShock is one of the most celebrated first-person shooters in video game history, despite its unsettling story and creepy environment.

BioShock takes place in an underwater world called Rapture. The world is godless. Scientific research towards enhancing human pleasure has trumped all other progress. The denizens injected themselves with "plasmids," or narcotic substances that give superpowers such as shooting lighting from your hands. In the end, they all went crazy, the utopian vision rapidly devolved into dystopian reality, and all sense of utilitarianism was lost in a sea of individual greed, overdose, and violence.

BioShock is a disturbing game. The most evil and powerful enemies are adolescent girls called "little sisters." You first observe one stabbing a corpse in the head with a sharp object. But despite its overbearing and sometimes shocking violence, as a video game, BioShock is practically flawless. As with all great games, it transports you into its own world, which is as engrossing as it is discomfiting.

- Stephen Blackwell

Weezer, in conjunction with the iPhone applications developer Tapulous, announced the release of "Christmas with Weezer" today, an iPhone application that allows the user to play along with Weezer on six tracks the band covered exclusively for the app. "I agreed to do these special recordings for the game because I am fan of each of the songs," Weezer front man Rivers Cuomo said of "We Wish you a Merry Christmas," "Silent Night," "O Holy Night," "First Noel," "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," and, last but certainly not least, "O Come, All Ye Faithful."

Players will use the iPhone's multitouch and accelerometer to tap and shake along with Weezer. The announcement is profoundly nerdy, but does mark the first time a major recording artist has agreed to provide exclusive musical content to an iPhone application -- something we're sure to see more of in the future.

What recording these classic Christmas carols says of Rivers' attachment to eastern mysticism is anyone's guess. They certainly can't be happy about this at the ashram! And will it hold a candle to John Denver's brilliant pairing with the Muppets in 1979's A Christmas Together? Time will tell.

"Christmas with Weezer" will be released in a few days on the iPhone app store for $4.99.

This video comes courtesy of the the Funny Or Die site. Maybe we're a little late in posting it, maybe you've seen it ...but in case you haven't, or really really really want to watch it again - see below.