. . it would be David Hasselhoff, only appreciated by those who have endured Communist rule in Eastern Germany…

. . it would be John Cage performing 4’33”, with some theatrics but very little substance…

. . it would be Michael Jackson, too dead to joke about.

A recent photo surfaced on the web which allegedly shows Miley Cyrus, the 16 year old music sensation behind Hannah Montana, performing fellatio on an unidentified man. If true this would prove that what goes in her mouth is actually worse than what comes out.

• David: She & Him need to come out Volume 2 already.


• Alex: No joke.


• David: They covered a Smiths song for Zooey's new movie, 500 Days of Summer. I don't know if you are into The Smiths or not. I never got the big deal, but a lot of people are in LOVE with them.


• Alex: Yeah, I've never really listened to them.


• David: They were always very "ENGLAND YEAH!" and I dunno, I just always thought fuck England.

1. POW (Prisoner Of War)

2. AWOL (Away Without Leave)

3. FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Repair)

4. RILF (Refugee I’d Like To Fuck)

Aerosmith’s $200+ ticket packages for their 2009 tour with ZZ Top

Online concert ticket giant Ticketmaster merging with online concert ticket giant LiveNation

RIAA bringing down media pirating torrent site ThePirateBay

People coming out of nowhere to try and get credit, and royalty, for Coldplay’s music

Creed getting back together

The quality of content published on this site

Recently, musicians Joe Satriani, The Creaky Boards and Cat Stevens have accused British rock band Coldplay of plagirising elements of their songs.  We’ve compiled a list of other artists who have also expressed their feelings that Coldplay has lifted from their material as well.

1. The phrase ‘Rule The World’ used in ‘Viva la Vida’s lyrics was directly lifted from Tears for Fears’ ‘Everybody Wants to Rule The World.’

2. The idea of their song and image being used in an Apple iPod ad was clearly lifted from Feist’s song and image being in an Apple iPod ad.

3.  The usage of the phonetic sound “Ohhhhhh” as background vocals is strikingly similar to Prince’s orgasmic “Ohw!”s in ‘Kiss.’

4.  Pianos and stringed instruments make up the core melody of ‘Viva La Vida;’ however, Danny Harris’ 3rd grade Orchestra recital employed this concept/arrangement 6 years ago, with Mrs. Rowley leading on piano with Danny and his peers supporting on violins and violas.

5.  The band’s name “Coldplay” is a highly derivative of American ice cream parlor chain Coldstone Creamery.

6.  The idea of a cocky, self-absorbed, attention-starved lead singer is nothing new, Bono of U2 has been doing it for years before Coldplay came about.

• DAVID: Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, a project which came about as Conor tried so desperately to separate himself from his Bright Eyes roots, is back with their second album. It is a 14 track record that came close to sounding like one long song but is saved when the rest of the band decides to pull a little weight of their own. While I enjoyed the songs recorded by Conor, especially the biblically charged "To All The Lights In The Windows", it was refreshing to hear the different sounds of his band mates. The way it was refreshing to hear Paul after John overstayed his welcome. I particularly enjoyed Nik Freitas, the band's guitarist, and his song Big Black Nothing.


• ALEX: The music is really solid. Definitely a well established sound. I'm not sure I'm that into the sound, it's a little too generic alt-country for me. But it's clear they are very good at what they do. Some of the vocal melodies are really nice, I just wish the music was more playful and experimental in some ways; I guess I just wish they jumped out of their well-formed box here and there for a little nice creative touch. That said, I enjoyed Macey Taylor's vocals on "Worldwide." Also, "Spoiled" was a really strong track for me; just really stripped down but enjoyable.


• DAVID: A little more creativity wouldn't hurt. I am assuming, and I could be wrong, that Conor Oberst is focusing more on lyrics and less on the sound which, when you sound like Conor Oberst, is a pretty good idea. He impressed me more often than not, but I was let down when he tried to preach politics in the oversimplified track, Roosevelt Room. I got tired of the guitar and wouldn't mind some piano or more of Nate Walcott's trumpet which never fails to turn a mediocre song into something memorable. After the first lesson I was underwhelmed, but I gave it another chance and now I find myself listening to it throughout the day. After all, these are solid songs and an album with 14 solid tracks is nothing to complain about.


• ALEX: Yeah, I dunno, I had a hard time not skipping through tracks. It's not that they are bad, it's just that there is nothing too interesting that is keeping me hooked to it for the whole song. Maybe it's just because I favor music over lyrics, but the album just isn't too special for me. Definitely not bad, it's still a good album, just doesn't really stand out for me too much.

No one is sure who first sang the song that is now known as House Of The Rising Sun but it goes back, as far as anyone can tell, to 1933 and probably years before that; sung by miners or whores or those who just were trying to earn a few bucks while working on a medicine show. At least that was the case of Clarence “Tom” Ashley who was the first one to record the song, alongside Doc Watson. Ashley claims his grandfather had taught him the song and it was one he performed often throughout Southern Appalachia in between black face comedy shows.

Four years went by and nothing much came of the song and it would have probably been forgotten, or left to the saloons and brothels, if it weren’t the chance meeting of Alan Lomax and Georgia Turner. Lomax, an American Folklorist, was working for  the Library of Congress and his sole purpose was to find and document songs from the South. He had overhead the barely sixteen year old Georgia Turner singing a song she called “Risin’ Sun Blues” and they recorded it together.

This eventually lead to the song being covered by plenty of other folk artists— most notably Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan.

Perhaps the most recognizable version was recorded by Eric Burdon and The Animals in 1964. Eric Burdon later claimed to have heard the song in a night club performed by British Folk Star, Johnny Handle and decided, while touring with Chuck Berry, to play the song which they had arranged to have a more rock n roll vibe and to fit the deep baritone voice of their lead singer.

This version was groundbreaking in two ways: first, the song’s length was a little over four minutes, something unheard of at the time of the two-minute-long-hits that controlled the radio waves, and secondly, the lyrics were shifted from being about a prostitute to being about a gambler, some say to make it more radio friendly, and suddenly the song found a much larger audience.

It was such a hit that whenever Bob Dylan tried to play his rendition during a live set he was often asked if he learned the song from The Animals and for years it was considered, without much argument, that Eric Burdon wrote the song.

There were many other covers from Joan Baez to Waylon Jennings to Frijed Pink to Muse.

The lyrics are always different, it is sometimes told through a prospective of a whore,  a gambler or even a junkie and it is either directed at the narrator’s mother, father, brother or sister but the feeling of regret and the need for redemption is always there. And maybe that is the reason why this particular song will never grow old, no matter how many covers are out there.

1.  The Beatles

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Alex : alexbenson@asu.edu
stuffalexmakes.com

David : dklose@yahoo.com
davidklose.tumblr.com