Ra Ra Riot Tonight and Later This Month

Ra Ra Riot will be in New Haven tonight at Cafe Nine (250 State St.). They were on tour - or at least played a few shows - with Tokyo Police Club a month or so ago. I missed them then, but now that they are in Connecticut I will be sure to check them out this time - you should too.

They released a self-titled EP last July. There's two songs off that on their MySpace, as well as some various demos. If you can't make it tonight or if you are reading this after the event, don't fret. They will be back soon enough. February 27th, in fact. They will be playing at Wesleyan with Sam Rosen, Bottle Up & Go, and Extra Life.

Folly Calls It Quits

I hate being the bearer of bad news, but here it is. New Jersey Ska/Metalheads Folly have announced that they will be turning in their instruments in order to move on with their lives. The guys in Folly were some of the most genuine and overall nice guy I had the chance to meet as a music journalist. They always played for the crowd and nothing more, Whether it was having fans literally 5 inches from the mic or hanging out after a show at their merch table, Folly was always the most personable band to see live and they never disappointed.

This is from their MySpace:
"After a little more that a decade, we’ve decided to formally resign from the music industry. Whereas obviously we would like to have an impossibly absurd reason or scenario causing the end of this run, say “Anthony moving to Lebanon to competitively knit table cloths” or “Arben pursuing his lust for bartering lion pelts and hyena hides…” We simply just want to move on with our lives for a variety of personal reasons. It’s supposedly a very cliché reason for a band to break up, to go these ‘separate ways.’ Yet, it is as definitive and undesigning as the message in said Journey song: Someday love will find us, break these chains that bind us! Sadly, this band is no longer our raison d'être. We have other avenues to venture… other pages to turn.

Luckily, we’re all on the same page with this, and it has become a completely mutual decision to break these chains. It’s also mutually intricate for us to imagine our lives without Folly. It’s safe to say that this band has created a difficult dichotomy from which pulls us apart; there’s the alter-ego us and the self-actualized us. Both exist interdependently and cohabitate when needed, and yet they search for their own identity apart from one another. The inevitability of conclusion is tangible now, but it hadn’t been for so long. We’ve been playing together since high school, developing socially and spiritually throughout our adolescence into young adult-hood with the band as a consistent uniting factor. We created self through each other’s actions, emotions, and knowledge. In essence, Folly is as much a part of us as we are a part of it."

In a bright part of a bad news post, they have announced that they will play a few final shows before officially ending the band and Connecticut should be one of the stops due to their love of playing here. I know I can't fucking wait.

"Yes We Can" Song by will.i.am, Inspired by Obama

This is actually relevant on a number of levels for us Connecticuters. The following video is a mix of a Barrack Obama speech following the New Hampshire primary and various artists singing the words to that speech.

It's interesting to us because the primaries are coming up here in Connecticut and Obama is actually speaking in Hartford today at the XL Center (formally the Civic Center). I will be there. I feel odd posting this (despite it being music related) and then going to an Obama rally, but this guy is certainly inspiring people, especially young people, to become active in the upcoming election. There are many people much less active than me in the realm of politics taking interest in the primaries and upcoming election - and that is certainly a good thing.

As I said, the video takes his speech and intertwines it with artist's signing Obama's words. To name a few participants: Scarlett Johansson, John Legend, Herbie Hancock, Kate Walsh, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Nick Cannon, Common and obviously will.i.am. I like how this was done, but I wish they created version without Obama overlapping the singing to make it a bit more musical. Johansson looks as gorgeous as ever, and yes that needed to be italicized.



A slightly better quality video with more explanations from will.i.am can be found here. There's also a list of everyone involved with the video too.

Live Blog: Super Bowl Commercials/Halftime Show

So I'm multitasking like I promised.

7:09 - Did you see that FedEx commercial with the carrier pigeons? That is definitely the best one so far. I'll get the video for it once it shows up on YouTube in case you happened to miss it. GoDaddy.com also had like a trillion hits thanks to promises of Danica Patrick exposing herself. Don't waste your time, guys. (Mark)

7:14 - Wow, am I pumped for Iron Man. They showed a trailer during Cloverfield, but the one they justed showed a bit more action. Oh and Tom Petty - get off my television. (Mark)

7:20 - A new movie trailer just played for Leatherheads, a old-time Football movie involving George Clooney and Christina Applegate (Married With Children, Anchorman). The movie doesn't look that funny, but there is a solid scene with a big dude punching people when given the instruction to hit anyone coming at him. (Ed)

7:29 - Fuck Carlos Mencia. (Ed)

7:35 - Is there some sort of rewards game where the more Pepsi you drink, the further you are away from Justin Timberlake? Why is this guy in everything? (Melissa)

8:00 - I hear "Free Falling" in the background. Are they cheating me out of some Petty? Get out of here. (Mark)

8:02 - So far, nothing too exciting. For 90,000 dollars a second, you would think these commercials would be all out. STEP IT UP! (Ed)

8:06 - "Is he going to die?" - Mark referring to Tom Petty. Mark also feels that Tom should join Clyde Frazier and Keith Hernandez in the Just For Men commercials. (Ed)

8:09 - He's horrible and it looks like he hasn't aged too well. So far, we've got "American Girl," "I Won't Back Down" and "Free Fallin'." It's sad that he's still willing to wear tight black denim, or something that resembles tight black denim. (Melissa)

8:14 - Jeez, we're having a bit of trouble here. I guess we all want to say something about Tommy boy and are overlapping each other and deleting each other's comments. Actually that's just Melissa. Hey Melissa, back off. Petty rocks your world. "Free Fallin'" was just fine. (Mark)

8:21 - Bring back the game or let Prince play every halftime show till he dies. (Ed)

8:28 - Prince is immortal. So that bodes well for America. (Mark)

8:35 - Duncan just asked me what the so bad it's good commercial of the night was so far. I wasn't sure what to say until that Bridgestone commercial came on with Richard Simmons. I don't even know how they are related, but Simmons almost got hit by a car so they were close to making some extra sales. (Mark)

8:40 - They just announced that they'll be posting all of the commercials on MySpace 2008 Superbowl Ads. (Melissa)

8:54 - Bud Light is terrible and so are their new series of commercials. This will probably be my last post of the night due to the fact that my MacBook's battery is almost dead. Night folks. (Ed)

9:26 - We should get those E-Trade commercials on here; a baby is way more convincing than regular people. (Melissa)

9:27 - The rules are being broken by the minute. First, Ed was hating on the baby commercials and then Melissa praises them. He was also hating on the Bud Light commercials and then Will Farrell saves them while also promoting Semi-Pro. Another movie I'm personally looking forward to since it has two of my favorite things. Ridiculous comedy involving drunks playing basketball. Wait, maybe that's more than two. (Mark)

9:44 - I hope that I'm not the only one thinking this, but with all of the crazy energy drinks Ed always has, did anyone else picture him in that Amp commercial? That one should also be on this post. (Melissa)

10:15 - We're done here. Ed is, of course, pissed about the outcome of the game. I would be too if somehow the Jets were able to go 18-0. We will try to get some links to the commercials we talked about in these updates in case you missed them during the game or want to revisit the good ones. (Mark)

New Tilly and the Wall Dates

Tilly and the Wall has just announced a small 12-date late winter tour, which begins Feb. 28 on the West Coast. Rumor has it they'll be introducing a few songs off of their new album that is set to be released in June.

Although it's a bit far away, they'll be playing in New York City on Friday, March 21 at the Knitting Factory along with Jason Anderson and fellow Omaha, Nebraska natives Capgun Coup.


This is kind of random, but Tilly and the Wall's performance at the Coachella Festival will be streaming live worldwide on April 27 from 4:45 - 5:35 p.m. at the AT&T Blue Room.

Dates:
2.28 - Pomona, CA - Glass House
2.29 - Los Angeles, CA - The Echo
3.02 - San Francisco, CA - Rickshaw Stop
3.04 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir
3.05 - Seattle, WA - Crocodile Cafe
3.16 - Atlanta, GA - Drunken Unicorn
3.17 - Carrboro, NC - Local 506
3.18 - Washington, DC - Rock N Roll Hotel
3.19 - Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church
3.21 - New York, NY - Knitting Factory, $15 tickets
3.24 - Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop
3.25 - Chicago, IL - Subterranean

We at morelikeasixfootturkey especially like the Doug Fir Lounge in Portland.

Tilly and the Wall's MySpace.

Edit: Silly Melissa actually forgot their one date in our area: Boston/Cambridge on March 22nd at the Middle East Club. It's on our little calendar sidebar. -Mark

Super Bowl Play-by-Play

So we're thinking about being total nerds and blogging during the Super Bowl, but we may be too busy stuffing our faces and drinking beer to get it done during the (boring) sports part (jk).

However, I've come up with a better alternative...halftime and potentially commercial blogging. There's already footage of that Pepsi commercial with Justin Timberlake floating around the Internet. Sadly, it's already been taken down on YouTube, but you'll see it tomorrow. It is okay. So I wouldn't feel terrible "spoiling" it for you (when did Super Bowl commercials become Harry Potter books?) just because it wasn't really funny.

Anyways, if you're bored and near a computer during the Super Bowl, feel free to check out our musings and add your own. We'd love hear your thoughts on the ever-popular Super Bowl commercials. After Sunday things will kick off again and we'll be sure to shout in excitement over Ra Ra Riot in New Haven on Wednesday too.

Edit: This post was bare, so I'm adding this classic video of Joe Namath drunk and hitting on a reporter. Only problem I have with this is that Namath was actually drunk enough to think Chad Pennington is good.