Hi,
I just noticed there were a bunch of comments awaiting moderation by us that hadn’t gotten through. I’ve put them all through now and I’ll try to keep an eye on it in the future. Sorry if you’re comment was affected, and hopefully this won’t discourage all y’all from posting more and letting us know your thoughts.
It may be a little bit late for this, but who doesn’t enjoy a good year-end review? 2006 was a good year for Beck fans, so I’ve put together this list of all the new Beck stuff that was released or discovered last year. For all the non-commercially-released stuff, make sure to head over to the BeckTabs hub, your Mecca for Beck earcandy media. (I can’t believe I wrote earcandy. I apologize.)
Keep in mind, this list is leaving out a whole mess of great concerts, club gigs and TV appearances, not to mention videos, puppet shows, t-shirts and lots of other great stuff. You can find a lot of that on the hub, too.
December
November
October
September
August
July
March
January
So what am I leaving off? Any major Beck events you think deserve attention? Let us know in the comments!
(On a personal note, I saw Beck perform three times in 2006, tying with 2002. Yeah, me!)
A new “show” of live music is being made available on iTunes as a podcast (or a vpodcast, I guess). The music is all produced by Nigel Godrich, and stars many of his friends. The first episode consists of Thom Yorke and The White Stripes. Beck filmed his contribution when he was in London earlier this year, and I believe it is the second episode (along with Jamie Liddell). The first episode launches soon. More info:
http://fromthebasement.tv/
Beck is coming out of hiding this week to play a few gigs, here and there. Well, mostly just here. They’re all in southern California, and not all are open to the public. On Wednesday Dec. 6, Beck is playing a private show for Yahoo, which will be on Yahoo! Music next month so everyone can watch it. Yours truly will be there, writing a blog post about it for Yahoo. :) After that, there could be a fun secret club show but nothing’s set yet so if you’re around LA, keep your ears open. Then Beck is playing KROQ’s annual Acoustic Christmas festival. Then he is reportedly going to playing on Jimmy Kimmel’s TV show, so set your Tivos.
I’m going to try to do better updating this blog than I have, and I think Newt agrees to do the same. I’ve just been really busy and Beck hasn’t been doing much since his tour ended. But that shouldn’t stop us!
Roger Joseph Manning Jr., who has played on Beck’s albums and in his touring band, remixed Beck tracks, and generally kicks ass outside of the Beck world, has been posting a series of videos giving a tour of his various equipment. He’s just posted the latest one, In the Stu-Stu-Studio Part 3. Go check them out at YouTube.
So it’s Information Week around the world.. if Beck’s new album isn’t out where you are already, it should be really soon. Nothing as fun as when a new album gets released. There’s 15 tracks on it, and depending on where you are, any number of the three bonus tracks (“Inside Out,” “Oh Menina,” and “This Girl That I Know”). Each CD comes with a DVD full of homemade videos for each song. The CD also comes with one of four sticker sets, with which you can make your own cover. Enjoy! If you want to mail a picture of your covers to this site, I guess they’ll be displayed. It seems like “Cell Phone’s Dead” and “Nausea” are going to be singles, but to what extent, I’m not sure (“real” videos were made for both) (fingers crossed for b-sides).
The band is doing a short US tour this month, with the idea of a fuller tour a bit later on. Go see them, they’re an energetic, fun, and tight band. I saw them last week and had a blast.
Looking to the future.. there obviously isn’t much talk about that yet. Beck was asked in a recent podcast/interview about that, and it sounds like he’ll be working Information for a bit.
Sorry for the lack of updates. Not that there hasn’t been anything going on.. there sure has! And we’ve been working on different things for the site too.
The way Beck has been leaking out The Information has been really interesting. He’s been putting up one or two songs at a time as a stream on Beck.com, rotating new stuff in and out. Also, since the album will come with a disc of lo-fi homemade videos for every song, these videos have been showing up one by one on Beck.com, YouTube, etc.
At the moment this is what’s come out:
1. Elevator Music [Beck put the video on beck.com]
2. Think I’m In Love [Beck put the video on Youtube]
3. Cell Phone’s Dead [Beck put the song on beck.com]
4. Strange Apparition [Beck put the video on beck.com]
5. Soldier Jane [we only have live versions of this]
6. Nausea [buy the single at iTunes]
7. New Round [we only have a short snippet from a video sampler]
8. Dark Star [Beck put the video on his myspace page]
9. We Dance Alone [this was put on beck.com]
10. No Complaints [only a short snippet, though there is a live version around]
11. 1000 BPM [Beck put the video on beck.com; and plays the studio track during his concerts]
12. Motorcade [both the track and the video were put on Beck.com]
13. The Information [only have live versions]
14. Movie Theme [only have the video snippet, but there are a couple of live versions]
15. Horrible Fanfare / Landslide / Exoskeleton [Beck has played Landslide live, but that’s all we know of this]
The album is still out on October 3… not long now!
Looks like there will be some promotional tour dates later this fall (only a few have been announced so far in California).
Also, sorry if any Paper Tiger comments got lost… we get lots of Spam comments and I may have missed approving some in mass deleting the Spam. Sorry if that happened.
Tracklist:
1. Elevator Music
2. Think I’m In Love
3. Cell Phone’s Dead
4. Nausea
5. Soldier Jane
6. Strange Apparition
7. Dark Star
8. Movie Theme
9. We Dance Alone
10. No Complaints
11. 1000 BPM
12. Motorcade
13. The Information
14. New Round
15. Horrible Fanfare / Landslide / Exoskeleton
Beck’s new album is to be called The Information. It is set to released on October 2.
We don’t have a full track list for the album yet, but this is what we know:
1. “Cell Phone’s Dead” – first single, video by Michel Gondry
2. “Think I’m In Love” – a lo-fi video directed by Beck and Nigel Godrich popped up on youtube and beck.com shortly
3. “Nausea” – Beck gave the song to some skateboarding documentary to use in their trailer, a real video is coming too
4. “The Information” – since this is the name of the album, I guess that increases the chance it will be on the album (though it’s certainly possible it won’t be)
5. “Movie Theme” – Beck said on stage in June this was “from the new album,” for what that’s worth
6. “Soldier Jane” – same as #5
Those are closest things we have to certain guesses so far, I think. All the other songs he’s played live which he could choose from to end up on the album are “1000 BPM,” “Elevator Music,” “Time Bomb,” and “Landslide.” He could also reach back to his 2005 songs like “One, Two,” “Remain In The Dark,” or “We Dance Alone.” Beck also mentioned “The Girl From RIP-anema” as being from the album, but he said it so long ago and we haven’t heard of it again.
UPDATE: I wrote some of that too soon. MTV has an article which indicates that videos are about for “1000 BPM,” “Movie Theme,” “That Girl,” and “No Complaints” and one with an unknown title. So I guess add those to the list above?
UPDATE 2: Ghost meant “This Girl”, not “That Girl”. Also Beck.com and Beck’s MySpace both now have the video for “We Dance Alone”, so I guess that’s on there too. Still haven’t found the ones mentioned in the MTV article, though…
The Manthing, Roger Joseph Manning Jr., has just released the US version of his solo debut album, The Land Of Pure Imagination. It is online at iTunes, Rhapsody and Napster, with a CD version to follow September 12.
Roger will also be performing at the International Pop Overthrow Festival at Spaceland in LA on August 8. Go check him out if you’re in the area.