Monthly Archives: December 2013

Jay-Z Goes Vegan, Starts 22-Day Plant-Based Diet

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Jay-Z is going on a 22-day vegan diet, according to the rapper’s LIfe + Times blog.

Jay-Z writes:

Psychologists have said it takes 21 days to make or break a habit. On the 22nd day, you’ve found the way.

On December 3rd, one day before my 44th birthday I will embark on a 22 Days challenge to go completely vegan, or as I prefer to call it, plant-based!! This all began a few months back when a good friend and vegan challenged me to embrace a “plant-based breakfast” every day. It was surprisingly easier on me than I thought…

Why now? There’s something spiritual to me about it being my 44th birthday and the serendipity behind the number of days in this challenge; 22 (2+2=4) coupled with the fact that the challenge ends on Christmas day…It just feels right!

So you can call it a spiritual and physical cleanse. I will post my progress… Any professional vegans out there that have any great food spots please help out! Please ha. I don’t know what happens after Christmas. A semi-vegan, a full plant-based diet? Or just a spiritual and physical challenge? We’ll see…

Best of luck and health!

P.S. B is also joining me.

— A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post —

Best of 2013 Dept.: Gorilla Vs. Bear Pick Year’s Best Albums

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What I like about this list is it’s not filled with the usual suspects.

Album of the year.

Here’s the top 15 albums on their list.

01 AUTRE NE VEUT | Anxiety
02 DANNY BROWN | Old
03 JULIANNA BARWICK | Nepenthe
04 BURIAL | Truant / Rough Sleeper (2012)
05 ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER | R Plus Seven
06 EJECTA | Dominae
07 BLUE HAWAII | Untogether
08 DIANA | Perpetual Surrender
09 JAI PAUL | leaked demos
10 FKA TWIGS | EP2
11 GROUPER | The Man Who Died In His Boat
12 PURE BATHING CULTURE | Moon Tides
13 ARCA | &&&&&
14 WHITE DENIM | Corsicana Lemonade
15 VARIOUS | After Dark 2

For the rest of the list plus sound samples, go here.

— A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post —

Listen: Previously Unheard 19-Minute Version of Velvet Underground’s “Sister Ray”

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On December 10 the Velvert Underground’s White Light/ White Heat will be released as a multi-disc set with lots of previously unreleased material. Here’s a 19-minute live version of “Sister Ray” recorded at the Gymnasium in New York City on April 30, 1967.

— A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post —

“Inside Llewyn Davis”: Who Wrote That Song?

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In “Inside Llewyn Davis” there’s a scene where Llewyn Davis records a novelty song, “Please Mr. Kennedy (Don’t Send Me Into Outer Space).”

Today The Hollywood Reporter published a fascinating piece about that song, asking the question: who really wrote it?

Here’s some of the story:

[T Bone] Burnett’s rep explains that the music maestro and the Coens adapted their song, “Please Mr. Kennedy,” from another novelty song of the same name that came out on the 1962 album Here They Are by The Goldcoast Singers. That tune depicts a comical draft-board scenario where some shaggy rock & rollers beg President John F. Kennedy not to induct them into the army. Since these lyrics were modified for the film, the new songwriting credit shows original writers Ed Rush and Ed Cromarty now accompanied by T Bone Burnett, The Coens, and Timberlake.

That’s interesting, because before that song there was a 45 single release of “Please Mr. Kennedy (I Don’t Want To Go)” by Mickey Woods in December 1961 on the Tamla-Motown label, and you can easily hear the similarity between that war-phobic plea and the Coen creation. Credits for that particular tune actually list Berry Gordy, Loucye Wakefield and Ronald Wakefield as the song’s composers — no trace of Messrs. Rush or Cromarty here.

Read the entire story here.

Please Mr. Kennedy from The Goldcoast Singers on Myspace.

— A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post —

Best of 2013 Dept.: Stereogum Picks the Year’s 50 Best Albums

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Stereogum has announced it’s 50 best albums of 2013.

Check out the list below, starting at the bottom and then rising album by album to #1.

Stereogum’s Top 50 for 2013

50. Phosphorescent – Muchacho (Dead Oceans)
49. Justin Timberlake – The 20/20 Experience Pt. 1 (RCA)
48. Carcass – Surgical Steel (Nuclear Blast)
47. A$AP Rocky – Long.Live.A$AP (ASAP Worldwide/Polo Grounds/RCA)
46. Yo La Tengo – Fade (Matador)
45. Youth Lagoon – Wondrous Bughouse (Fat Possum)
44. A$AP Ferg – Trap Lord (ASAP Worldwide/Polo Grounds/RCA)
43. Cassie – RockaByeBaby (Bad Boy)
42. Autre Ne Veut – Anxiety (Mexican Summer)
41. Janelle Monáe – The Electric Lady (Wondaland/Bad Boy)
40. Pharmakon – Abandon (Sacred Bones)
39. Pure Bathing Culture – Moon Tides (Memphis/Partisan)
38. The Knife – Shaking The Habitual (Rabid)
37. Forest Swords – Engravings (Tri Angle)
36. Julia Holter – Loud City Song (Domino)
35. Gorguts – Colored Sands (Season of Mist)
34. Yuck – Glow & Behold (Fat Possum)
33. The Field – Cupid’s Head (Kompakt)
32. Iceage – You’re Nothing (Matador)
31. Speedy Ortiz – Major Arcana (Carpark)
30. Oneohtrix Point Never – R Plus 7 (Warp)
29. Phoenix – Bankrupt! (Glassnote/Atlantic)
28. Drake – Nothing Was The Same (Cash Money)
27. The National – Trouble Will Find Me (4AD)
26. Migos – YRN (Self-released)
25. Nine Inch Nails – Hesitation Marks (Polydor)
24. Bill Callahan – Dream River (Drag City)
23. Deerhunter – Monomania (4AD)
22. Superchunk – I Hate Music (Merge)
21. Chvrches – The Bones Of What You Believe (Virgin/Goodbye)
20. Blood Orange – Cupid Deluxe (Domino)
19. Tegan And Sara – Heartthrob (Warner Bros.)
18. Chance The Rapper – Acid Rap (Self-released)
17. Windhand – Soma (Relapse)
16. Waxahatchee – Cerulean Salt (Don Giovanni)
15. Kvelertak – Meir (Sony Music Scandinavia/Roadrunner)
14. Savages – Silence Yourself (Matador/Pop Noire)
13. Kurt Vile – Wakin On A Pretty Daze (Matador)
12. Run The Jewels – Run The Jewels (Fool’s Gold)
11. Volcano Choir – Repave (Jagjaguwar)
10. Arcade Fire – Reflektor (Merge)
09. Daft Punk – Random Access Memories (Columbia)
08. HAIM – Days Are Gone (Polydor)
07. Danny Brown – Old (Fool’s Gold)
06. Sky Ferreira – Night Time, My Time (Capitol)
05. My Bloody Valentine – m b v (Self-released)
04. Disclosure – Settle (Cherrytree)
03. Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires Of The City (XL)
02. Deafheaven – Sunbather (Deathwish)
01. Kanye West – Yeezus (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam)

To see all the covers plus notes about each album and a link to hear the music at Spotify, head to Stereogum.

— A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post —

Book Excerpt: Bob Dylan Writes ‘Blonde On Blonde’ at the Chelsea Hotel — Plus Audio

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Today The Daily Beast printed an excerpt about Bob Dylan from Sherill Tippins “Inside the Dream Palace: The Life and Times of New York’s Legendary Chelsea Hotel.”

It begins like this:

In the fall of 1965, all Bob Dylan wanted to do was check into the Chelsea Hotel with his girlfriend Sara Lownds and write his album, but he ended up trysting with Andy Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick—and then making the biggest decision in his life.

Bob Neuwirth, Bob Dylan’s closest friend and “supreme hip courtier” during this period, later recalled that it was on a snowy night sometime in the late fall of 1965 when he and Dylan first crossed paths with Edie Sedgwick. Dylan had finally returned east after a harrowing tour with his new band, the Hawks, and had more or less abandoned the house he had bought in Woodstock, not believing he could write something new in a place where he’d written before. “It’s just a hang up, a voodoo kind of thing,” he said. “I can’t stand the smell of birth. It just lingers.” Instead, he had returned with his girlfriend Sara Lownds to the Chelsea Hotel—the perfect environment for writing the city songs he had in mind.

For more, head to The Daily Beast.

Plus more on the making of Blonde on Blonde at the Oxford American.

“Visions of Johanna,” London, May 27, 1966:

“Visions of Johanna,” Dublin, May 5, 1966:

Bob Dylan’s Screen Test at Andy Warhol’s Factory,1965

— A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post —

Watch: Devendra Banhart’s “Mondo Taurobolium”

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Devendra Banhart: Mondo Taurobolium on Nowness.com

Here’s some info about the video from the Nowness site.

Avant-folk singer-songwriter Devendra Banhart builds upon his stellar collection of video collaborations with a subversive and moody new piece from rising animator and director Galen Pehrson. Conceived in the tradition of Mondo—the 1960s sub-genre associated with exploitation, death and taboo—Mondo Taurobolium uses the eponymous track “Taurobolium” from Banhart’s latest album Mala as a backdrop. The experimental narrative takes dark and existential turns into the murky underbelly of Hollywood fame and finds the duck-like character Mondo at its center, reeling in a state of disillusionment following a wave of torrential success. Mondo’s counterpart is Gale, voiced by cult favorite Rose McGowan as the beaked female lead who accompanies him through back alleys and night crawls of Los Angeles. “I think it’s easier to trust an animal without scrutinizing its actions,” says Pehrson, who has collaborated with Banhart on the cover of his album Cripple Crow and the video to “I Feel Just Like a Child,” and has recently shot a series of enviable commissions from MOCA, Death Grips, James Franco and Talib Kweli. “I think it’s something we learn while watching cartoons when we’re young. There’s often a moral undertone to them—here, it’s same idea just with more mature and complex topics.”

— A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post —

Watch: Robert Plant & Friends Jam on “Whole Lotta Love”

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Photo via robertplant.com.

In the fourth episode of “Zirka,” Robert Plant’s documentary of his trip to 2003 Mali, the Led Zep singer jams with other musicians on “Whole Lotta Love.”

Check it out:

— A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post —