An unofficial homemade video for “Timebomb” is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWtZ1TqMq4g
It’s brilliant fun, and definitely one of the best Beck videos out there. Take that, Michel Gondry and your fancy camera angles.
It was made by Hambeck, a Japanese fan for which we link to his her Beck blog over there —->
Great job man sistah!
Great, so right after updating for the first time in forever, it’s already out of date
“Timebomb” will be released on iTunes on Monday!
And Beck put up a cover of Lee Hazlewood’s “Forget Marie” on beck.com. They recorded it last year, and he put it up in tribute to Lee, who died very recently.
Enjoy the songs!
Got an email from AJR, letting me know about Tributosaurus, who on Wednesday in Chicago will be playing two shows of Beck songs. Hopefully it will be as good as their Supertramp evening! If anyone goes, let us know how it is!
Check the link for more info…
UPDATE:Â Â Here’s an update from AJR, sounds like it was fun… any bootlegs?
surprisingly high-energy show. really weird/refreshing to hear almost note-for-note recreations of the album versions—something you don’t hear from beck himself anymore. i mean, when was the last time you heard him do the “THAT IS COLD, SOMEBODY PUT A FLAMETHROWER ON THAT” interlude from “beercan”? plus, the band’s instrumentation was fucking impeccable—huge horn section, huge string section, full-on sitar during “nobody’s fault”, even live backwards-sounding vocals and guitar parts during songs like “loser”. i would highly recommend the band, if they’re playing someone you love. their banter was great, too—they replaced “glendale” with “glenview” (only chicagoans would really get that) and at the end of “the new pollution”, the guitarist said “X-R-T” in the way that local middle-of-the-road radio station WXRT does their callsign. it was funny at the time.
anyway, here’s the setlist:
1) loser
2) devil’s haircut
3) sunday sun
4) que onda guero
5) beercan
6) girl
7) nobody’s fault but my own
8) think i’m in love
9) “pink panther theme” interlude
10) the new pollution
11) crystal clear (beer) [!!!]
12) sexx laws
13) jack-ass
14) missing
15) paper tiger
16) lost cause
17) debra
18) tropicalia
19) where it’s at
the tradition for the band is that their encore is a song from the artist that they’ll be covering next month, so they ended the night with “the weight” by the band.
ajr
Hi, so I thought one fun thing to do for Paper Tiger would be to include photos of different places that might be related to Beck. Since I live in Los Angeles, I could go take them on a spare day sometime. I’m thinking of things like, the address listed on the “MTV Makes Me Want To Smoke Crack” single, or Al’s Bar, or Zankou Chicken. Got any other ideas? (Don’t say his house.)Â
Got a newsletter from Beck’s old keyboardist, Roger Joseph Manning Jr. (Manthing / Malibu / Shotgun), via his website. He mentioned some very cool recordings he did with Beck, co-starring Roger’s Jellyfish bandmate, Jason Falkner (who is on Sea Change and Info) and a few others. Here’s what he wrote:
The most recent and biggest surprise of late was getting a call from Beck recently to help do some “direct to disc” recording. Those invited to help out were, Justin, Jason Falkner and special guests Jamie Lidell and Mocky. Direct to disc recording involves all of the musicians performing simultaneously (no overdubbing) live in a studio environment. The audio signal is then sent to an antiquated machine that literally cuts the signal onto vinyl instantly there on the spot. The objective being and incredibly enhanced recording signal and sound quality not to mention the “live” element of the performance being captured. In other words, no second takes for the musicians. Get it right and get it right now! Needless to say this was a new and exhilarating challenge that we all welcomed. It really forced some interesting spontaneity to emerge from this great ensemble of musicians. No word yet as to how Beck plans on using the material garnered from these dates.
In another recent interview while in Australia, it was reported that Beck “shelved his idea of an album of two-minute pop songs to highlight society’s ever-dwindling attention span for a project of “more inconvenience”.” Beck explained, “It’s almost a reaction against everything having to be so pocket-sized, quick and easy and downloadable. It makes me want to make something that doesn’t fit in through the front door, that you have to break a wall to get into the house.”
But then, Beck also told the Japan Times he wanted to do a Elliott-Smith-style-acoustic album too.
Here’s what I’ve seen as a report (may be incompletely and out of order):
Devil’s Haircut
The New Pollution
Black Tambourine
Novacane
Nausea
Girl
Cellphone’s Dead / Hell Yes Medley
Think I’m In Love
Que Onda Guero
The Information
Loser
Motorcade
Broken Drum (in the dark for Earth Hour)
Lost Cause
The Golden Age (with a short cover of the Pixies ‘Wave of Mutilation’ in the middle)
Clap Hands (with dinner party)
Where It’s At
E-Pro
thanks to adrowe for the report. the Pixies cover is new for Beck, and was probably because The Pixies were also headlining the festival with Beck.
So somebody posted over on Stewoo that today is Guero‘s second birthday. It is no big secret that Guero is not my favoritest of Beck’s albums. I think it suffers from Beck trying too hard to sound like Beck, which is crazy because he does not have a set “sound.” He’s always changing, and that’s how we like it. Also, in spite of the number of cool blues songs on the album, there is, in my opinion, a lack of emotion and the level of work that are normally associated with Beck’s music.
But while I think these things are true, I do enjoy a number of the songs individually, and even more so, live. (“Broken Drum,” “Scarecrow,” and “Emergency Exit” are my favorites.) Because of that, I am not sure how Guero will figure in historical terms of Beck’s oeuvre. It is a popular album, for sure. “E-Pro” was a surprisingly big hit, and in the end, Guero probably served its purpose of bringing Beck back into the spotlight a bit (esp. after the style of Sea Change). Some of Guero‘s songs will probably be played live for a long time.
But what is it as an album? Did the album have the impact of Odelay? The charm of Mellow Gold? The brazenness of Vultures? The craft of The Information? Not at all. What does it have? I’m not sure, to be honest, even two years later…
I filled out some shows on Hijacked Flavors with embedded Youtube videos. Here is a good example of one of the shows. Man, that’s a crazy performance! Look at Beck go! Anyway, there’s lots of these clips on Hijacked now, so look around, or look at the Updates page. Or just go to Youtube and type in “Beck live” like I did.
Beck played last night at The Echo in Echo Park, CA. It was a short show, just a spontaneously announced warm-up show before heading off to Australia and Japan for a short leg of the tour. The band was having fun, as they tried some slower tunes (“Lonesome Tears” and “Movie Theme”) among the fun stuff (“Cellphone’s Dead,” “Lord Only Knows,” “Nausea”).Â
Otherwise, don’t forget, there’s the giant CD boxset of Beck’s singles being released in early April (see below). Apparently, Odelay Deluxe is still on for then too (I’ll believe that when it’s in my hands).Â
Reportedly Beck’s been recording informally, and recently told a Japanese paper he wanted to put out another acoustic record (but as usual with Beck, don’t count on statements like that).
If you’re in Australia or Japan and going to one of the shows, e-mail us setlists or pics or info, or if you can keep us up-to-date on any interviews or radio appearences or anything like that, we’d love to hear from you: computergirls at whiskeyclone.net
