Author Archive

Stuff

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Evening! Sorry it’s been 2 months since an update. As I say regularly, this isn’t necessarily a news blog, but I do like to keep you up-to-date. Beck’s been up to a few things lately that I thought I’d mention.

Record Club: The second Record Club (Songs Of Leonard Cohen) ended last week. Devendra and MGMT and Beck had a good time going through the songs, even drastically changing some of them. Record Club #3 begins today as well! It’s Skip Spence’s Oar. Beck’s covered some of Oar in the past, releasing “Halo Of Gold” on a tribute to Skip album, and doing “Little Hands” live once. This Record Club involves Wilco, Feist, Jeff Tweedy’s son Spencer, James Gadson, Jamie Lidell, and Brian LeBarton. The first song is up on beck.com now, check for it every Thursday! (Also, still no word about what the fourth Record Club will be!)

Charlotte: Also the album Beck cowrote and produced with Charlotte Gainsbourg has started to hit the webs. It will be released in January, I think. The stuff I’ve heard sounds cool, it’s creative and promises to be interesting.

Devendra: Beck and Devendra Banhart recorded the title song for a movie called “Life During Wartime.” (It’s not the Talking Heads classic.) I’m not sure when the movie is coming out or what.

Jamie: In describing the new Record Club, Beck mentions that “Jamie Liddell was in the studio with me working on his new record.” This was last June. Are they collaborating? Beck producing? This is news, and should promise to be great. (Jamie opened some of the Information tours.)

Norah: Pitchfork reported that Beck did a remix of a song for Norah Jones. She also said she wanted Beck to produce her new album, but chickened out in asking. :(

Beck: I don’t know what, but recently on beck.com Beck mentioned that he’d been in the studio for the last month. (That’s why there was a break in Planned Obsolescence DJ mixes, and probably some of the other sections.) New album?

Quick Note re: MGMT

Saturday, September 12th, 2009

I noted earlier who was involved with the current Record Club recordings.  I took what Beck listed on beck.com to start that post… well I just noticed that beck.com’s comments changed.  Initially, it had said that Matt from MGMT was there… but now it says “This time around the group includes Devendra Banhart, Ben, Andrew and Will from MGMT.”

There is both a Matt and a Will involved with MGMT, but it looks like it was Will Berman there and not Matt Asti, for those keeping track.  (And it might just be me.)

Record Club #2

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

… started today over on beck.com with the classic Songs Of Leonard Cohen, Leonard Cohen’s first album. It is full of amazing poetic songs and haunting folk melodies—that can easily be reinterpreted every which way. This sounds like it will be an experimental and creative Record Club.

Go and enjoy!

The band according to beck.com is Beck, Devendra Banhart, Ben Goldwasser & Andrew VanWyngarden & Matthew Asti (from the band MGMT), Andrew Stockdale from Wolfmother, Binki Shapiro from Little Joy, and two members of Beck’s band (and the last Record Club), Brian Lebarton and Bram Inscore.

Connections! Beck and Devendra are apparently friends, as Devendra opened a show for Beck, and they did a joint interview together in some guitar magazine once. Beck I believe said that one of Devendra’s songs is one of his son’s favorites, and at the show they did together, they sang a couple of songs together. Also reportedly, Beck has produced a song with Devendra for some upcoming release (details sketchy, but Beck mentioned it in an interview).

MGMT opened much of Beck’s Modern Guilt tours, and they shared the stage a few times (including this crazy show, which by the way, someone must have a recording of to share with us?).

Binki Shapiro is also a friend, an LA musician, she appeared in some of the Information videos and sang backup on a Sia song (which Beck also sang backup on).

Beck said “Andrew [Stockdale] from Wolfmother showed up at some point. That’s how it’s been working out. We’ll get together a group of people, and other people start showing up.”

Leonard Cohen was one of Beck’s stated influences on Sea Change. (Anyone got the quote?)

Record Club #1 Finished / A Note On Lyrics

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

Beck made it through his first Record Club, and allow me to be the first to say that it was a lot of fun and quite successful. Apparently, there will be a bonus surprise early next week about it (I think I know what it is, but I’ll let you be surprised). Also, Record Club #2 will begin right on schedule, every Thursday starting next week. This will not be the Wilco/Beck cover of Skip Spence, but the album done with Devendra Banhart, MGMT, the dude from Wolfmother and Binki Shapiro from the band Little Joy. More on that later!

Also Beck’s newest newsletter notes the new discography section and comments:

We’ve put up a new music section this week we are calling ‘Collected Works.’ This is where you will find all Beck related music. It is also the only source on the Internet that contains the correct lyrics to his songs. Lyrics on all other ‘Lyrics’ sites contain errors and even completely incorrect transcriptions. We’ll be adding content from each album week to week starting with 1994’s Mellow Gold.

:( Sorry Beck. In defense, AlmostAGhost is about as correct as is possible, and I worked on those transcriptions for years with fans who email me and on message boards, and even with beck.com in the past. I’m not saying there’s no errors but in most cases, they’re as best as possible (and even more correct than Beck’s own liner notes!).

Charlotte Gainsbourg MRI

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

The album that Beck produced and cowrote with Charlotte Gainsbourg is called MRI and will be out on November 30. The first single is out in September, called “Master Hand” (or maybe “Master Hands”). Another single, “Heaven Can Wait” is a duet with Beck, and a video was shot for it last week in LA. Other tracks on the album include “In The End” and (maybe) “Paradisco.”

Quick Note Re: Paper Beck!

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

Just wanted to point out that today Beck posted a PDF on beck.com that are paper dolls that look like him and his keyboardist, Tron. In case you were wondering, these dolls were made by Ham, a Japanese fan who does some awesome Beck graphics and projects… her blog is here (though it’s mostly in Japanese).

Congrats Ham!

Upcoming Musics

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

A summary, in no particular order:

1. Record Club continues. After the VU & Nico album, it is unclear what is next. There are two Record Clubs recorded–one with MGMT and Devendra and the guy from Wolfmother (not clear what album, one report said Talking Heads) and Skip Spence’s Oar album with Wilco. (The VU & Nico tracks come out weekly, so far on Thursdays. Though “All Tomorrow’s Parties” got out a few days early.)

2. Modern Guilt Acoustic – over on beck.com/videotheque there is an acoustic run-through of the whole album. This was recorded with the live band after the last tour (Brian, Bram, Jessica & Joey). (Tracks are uploaded one a week, so far on weekends — Sat or Sun.)

3. Charlotte Gainsbourg album – supposedly out at the end of this year, Beck wrote and produced much of her record. Tracks may include “Paradisco.”

4. Scott Pilgrim soundtrack – Beck recorded a few songs for the soundtrack to this movie, as apparently the band Sex Bob-omb. Tracks may include “Indefatigable.”

5. Sonic Youth’s EVOL – similar to record club, but for SY. They needed something for some project they’re doing; Beck recorded all of EVOL with his band for it. No idea when it’s going to be released

6. some song with Devendra Banhart for some soundtrack. (Beck mentioned this vaguely in a recent Pitchfork interview).

7. also in the Pitchfork interview Beck mentioned that he has another album knocking around that was started before Modern Guilt.

8. the second K Records release… more info on this was promised a few months back, but nothing new about it yet.

These are the main things that I believe are upcoming and the most recent. There’s a few other things that I think are a bit older and maybe lost to time (his straight-to-vinyl records with Jamie Lidell, etc.), but who knows. Lots of things happening, it’s a fun time to be a Beck fan.

Beck.com EPIC WIN

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

So I haven’t been posting every time there’s been a change, because I don’t view Paper Tiger as a daily sort of news update type of blog. However, if you’re not checking out beck.com every day or two, you’re probably missing out. :) Basically, a cool new webmaster and a lot of ideas and loads of music to share = GOOD TIMES.

I already wrote about the Record Club. So far, Beck is 4 tracks into his cover of the Velvet Underground & Nico album. Reportedly, Beck has recorded the follow up album for this, with the 3rd planned. Those albums are secrets though. (One news report said it might be a Talking Heads album, but I’m not sure about that.) New Record Club tracks come out on Thursdays.

Beck has also added Planned Obsolescence, which is going to be a collection of DJ Mix sets of music. Beck made the first track, called “Autobahn Hologram,” which is a 40-minute melange of music by various artists. It said there’d be a new one weekly, but it’s been almost two weeks since that one has come out, so I think there’s less a schedule.

Also this last week, Beck put up Irrelevant Topics, which is transcriptions of interviews he has with other famous people. Part one of his talk with Tom Waits is up now, and proves that Los Angeles is cooler than where you’re from.

Finally just today, Beck added Videotheque. This is a section of videos. He’s starting off by filling out all his Modern Guilt videos. But more than just the promo videos–there is also a live-in-the-studio acoustic performance of the entire album recorded in March. Ever wonder what “Replica” would sound like acoustic? We’ll find out in a few weeks! (Also apparently a new EP will be released with some of the acoustic MoGu tracks.) This section, I imagine, will be huge. They promise TV appearences, promo videos, live stuff.

Anyway it’s a good time to be a Beck fan, we’re getting new music and old music and rare stuff and fun stuff. Thanks Beck! Stay tuned for more sections to the site too, I’m sure.

Record Club GO!

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

Beck’s Record Club is up and active!

It looks like that every week (on Thursday evenings), a new track will go up on beck.com. They are videos. So far, the first two tracks of Velvet Underground + Nico have been uploaded. There is also a url at therecordclub.com which looks like it will host the old videos from prior weeks.

You can also keep up via twitter alert at twitter.com/beck or twitter.com/recordclub

Also, there is apparently going to be an interview on Pitchfork.com with Beck sometime soon, so keep your eyes open for that.

More Record Club News [NOW UPDATED]

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

So… Pitchfork has a bit more about the Record Club!

Sounds like more songs will be coming soon, and that Beck has been meeting up with various friends solely with the plan to spontaneously create and record covers of famous albums. They also make it sound like this was just pretty much for fun, to do in spare time. They also indicate that the bands’ (and his) official websites will be used to share the songs.

No hints yet what albums were covered (beyond VU & Nico of course). (Unlike Pitchfork though, we do know that it appears the Nico parts were covered by an Icelandic singer named Thorunn.)

I could be wrong as well, but I don’t believe the Sonic Youth – EVOL cover was part of the Record Club exactly. We’ll have to see in time.

So from what we know, we’ll need your help in keeping an eye on other band’s websites (MGMT, Devendra, or anyone’s really). Let us know if anyone hears or reads anything about these recordings in other artists’ comments or communities! You can email us at: computergirls [at] whiskeyclone.net

EDIT: Go to Beck.com for more word straight from Beck! (And a cool redesign!)

Since this is hitting up all over the web at all the usual music places now (Rolling Stone, thanks for the link), here’s the added info:

Record Club tracks will be released on beck.com. They will also sometimes go up on other artists’ sites if they were involved, but it sounds like always on beck.com for sure. The VU/Nico album is coming first, it appears, and a video for “Sunday Morning” is up now. Tracks will show up weekly! (Who wants to wait a week between tracks?!) Also, right now, I have not seen any info about HOW the songs are distributed? mp3 download? Or just like “Sunday Morning”–a flash video only? Please, Beck, make it downloadable!

No added word yet about what other records were covered, but as said reportedly Devendra Banhart, Jamie Lidell and MGMT have all participated (or will?). Beck says on his site they almost did Digital Underground’s Sex Packets! After all these years, we could have finally had a “Humpty Dance” cover!

UPDATE UPDATE: Record Club is now on Twitter!

Also one news site claimed that the Record Club also did a Talking Heads album.