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MTV has banned the new Gnarls Barkley video, not because of bad words or violence or excessive funkitude, but because it could give you a seizure.

So let’s get this straight: having a seizure from watching Gnarls = unacceptable, losing all faith in humanity due to accidentally catching 20 seconds of the Real World vs. Road Rules Challenge = totally fine?

Anyways, you’ve been warned…

Blues guitar virtuoso Jeff Healey succumbed to cancer on Sunday at 41 - the same disease that took his vision, that he’s been fighting all his life. His own website doesn’t even have a notice of his passing yet.

He was both gifted and unique for his self-taught, stand-up lap style of playing. I saw him only once live, in ‘90 (I think) at a Clapton show at Alpine. He wasn’t even on the bill, but his band happened to be opening for The Pretenders in Chicago, and EC had him flown up just to play an encore. I remember that they dueled on Sunshine of Your Love.

Anyone see the Trib feature on Cubs broadcaster Len Kasper Thursday?

The guy has decent taste in music.

Evanston’s own Eddie V is getting set to tour solo for the first time this spring, and Neil Finn’s son Liam is gonna help him out.

This is interesting to me because I’ve always dug Crowded House, and for the fact that Eddie has long been a vocal fan of Neil Finn’s music. He has collaborated w/ Neil before too, including on his 7 World’s Collide recording from ‘02. One of Eddie’s contributions to that record, ‘Take a Walk’, is about the best track on the record, IMHO.

Apparently Liam also released a critically acclaimed record in ‘07 that seemed to escape most of our ears, “I’ll Be Lightning”.

Lots happened over the weekend, but keeping in line with RTP’s historic eye toward environmental awareness, I’ve condensed three bits of news into one post, saving at least a few eTrees.

ONE

Saturday night Quirken, Rev Dave and I all saw St. Vincent at Schuba’s. Rev was at the early show and Quirken and I were both at the late show, and I have to say that I was a bit disappointed. Now don’t get me wrong…I absolutely love that album, even after what I’m sure has been several hundred listens. For that reason alone, I was expected to be blown away, and I just wasn’t. The arrangements of some of the songs just didn’t do the album justice (Paris is burning comes to mind immediately), and Annie’s stage banter was verging on annoying. Her whole switching from microphone to microphone for (slightly) different vocals effects was way overused and seemed a bit gimmicky, and there was a general sense of apathy among the band. Maybe they were just tired from the first show — I’m interested in hearing Rev Dave’s take. Overall, it was a decent show, but didn’t come anywhere close to fulfilling my expectations. Highlights were the closer — Marry Me — and Annie’s solo, mid-set cover of the Beatles’ Dig a Pony.

TWO

Though I didn’t attend myself, my brother hit up the Angels & Airwaves show at Riviera last night and said that it kind of blowed. For those of you familiar with these guys, you know that the record is a bit over-produced, especially as compared to the Blink-182 catalog, and competing band +44’s studio efforts. Well according to my main boy and brother Anthony, it really showed in the performance, especially with Tom’s vocals, which he said sounded terrible. Not incredibly surprising to hear. At all. I do still like that record, though.

THREE

Perhaps the most exciting part of this post: big congrats to Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova on their Oscar win for best song. The movie Once is a huge favorite among RTPers, and definitely deserved a nod. Their acceptance speeches are included below — and I say speeches because they actually brought Marketa back out after the commercial break because the music started up and cut her off after Glen said his shpeel. This was very cool of whoever made that decision, and very surprising since she wasn’t the only person to get cut off by the music. It also gave John Stewart a few openings for some very good jokes. That Stewart is one funny dude.

Sorry for the lapse of Guitar Fridays. Work has been an absolute bee-itch and some RTP.com technical difficulties kept us from all of the goodness.

So now that we’re back in action. Today calls for some good, down-home GII-tar. The kind that makes you want to get up and dance on a sunny day like a Kansas City hobo. The little diddy below is definitely sunny, and partly squaddery, with a chance of gay. If you’ve ever been to Camp Kickass, or spent some quality time with the Action-Squad, you’ll know exactly what I mean.

So you’ve gotten an iPhone but all the features have you neglecting your super awesome band that would totally make it if your band-mates would only get serious about it? Now you can have the best of both worlds.

Don’t be too rough on them, they just started practicing like two weeks ago.

(via)

Amplive has been given the green light to release an ‘In Rainbows’ remix album which you can download for free, legally. For more details on the project, visit:

http://www.onesevensevensix.com/amplive/index.html

Enjoy!

The Action-Squad Genius Corps is presenting its second annual Hipster Valentines. If you laughed until you cried at last year’s batch. Your heart is probably going to stop briefly, and then start again from all of the laughing… and love.

It’s the best way to tell that hipster in your life that you give a shit, and know how to utilize irony as both a comedic and romantic device.

This post comes a little later in the year than I planned but nonetheless there are still many shiny new digital files to look forward to this year. A short list of some anticipated and noteworthy albums of 2008:

March 4th:
White Hinterland

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks

March 24th
Supergrass (updated)

March 25th:
Plants and Animals

April 1st:
REM

April 8th:
Peter Moren (of Peter, Bjorn and John)

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin

April 14th:
Portishead

April 15th:
Tapes N Tapes

Kooks

April 21st:
Islands (New song is up)

June 10th:
My Morning Jacket

(more…)