It's one of those days over here where it's so nasty hot out that a slow trickle keeps you intimately aware of the backs of your knees and the underneaths of your eyelids, even when you're sitting still. Hot as a crotch, you might call it.
It's also a perfect day for Brother Ali's new brow-beater, "Uncle Sam, Goddamn." The Minneapolis rhyme-sayer lays his pissed off politics over a harmonica-laden R&B loop, where the R and the B stand for RAUNCH and BALLS. No, you know, like... basketballs. Yeah. WATCH IT, sucka.
"S--- the government's an addict / With a billion dollar a week kill brown people habit / And even if you ain't on the front line / When the master yell crunch time you right back at it!"
What did you think? Good, right?
Arrrrrctic Monkeys!!! Yeah, yeah. You know how we feel about scurvy Brits in haircuts... It's embarrassing but there's no helping it. That's why we're twisting our knickers over the latest episode of mtvU's Backstage Pass. The band takes to the couch to give up the lowdown on homesickness, Christmas Day tracklist deliberation and the shameful contents of their wallets.
This may be the last look you get at the boys before they hit the road headlining a tour with Supergrass, The Coral and Amy Winehouse, so eat up quick. And if it leaves you wanting more, keep an eye out for mtvU's punko pow-wow with Klaxons next week.
Watch Arctic Monkeys on Backstage Pass
Watch "The View From The Afternoon," on .com Live...
We've been biting our cheeks all week to keep from telling you that Sting and the boys have signed on to do an episode of MTV Unplugged on July 13! Are you drooling? Can you even think of a more delicious icing for their sold-out reunion tour mega-cake? Barring a living room concert, we've got nothing.
Now please join us in a silent prayer that Sting (who 'Unplugged' solo in '91) will haul out his giant stringed gourd like the luter in a riot that he so clearly is. For more info, we recommend Google. For more sweet, sweet Police brutality, just lookee below...
Slightly belated as Canadian computers and Washington outlets aren't always compatible, but better late than never! The adorable Tokyo Police Club sent us their photo blog from Sasquatch this weekend. Get inside their heads. Literally.
It begins!
It continues after the jump.
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We haven't been obsessed with a Norweigen band in awhile, but we are obsessed with anything that gives even the tiniest nod to Wes Anderson movies (in this particular case The Royal Tenenbaums). Everyone get down and enjoy a video you will soon be seeing on Subterranean: Datarock "Fa Fa Fa".
Your dutiful Subterranean blogger was tooling around Second Life last night (yes, we're addicted to it) researching places to hear indie rock that we'll soon be advising you to visit when a SL DJ played a We Are Scientists track and got us all nostalgic for 2005.
As a result, today you get a live WAS performance with a link to watch more.
We've heard rumors that WAS are trying to extract themselves from their record deal with Virgin/Capitol Music Group as the two aren't so compatible after all.
We've been playing the new Elliott Smith album around the Subterranean office and very much enjoying finally having a recorded versin of his cover of Big Star's "Thirteen". We recommend you run right out and buy it, if you haven't already, as it's not only a fantastic double CD of Elliot's work from 1994-97 (including alternate versions of songs and unreleased material) but a portion of the proceeds from the album go to Outside In, a Portland-based organization that provides services to the homeless and low-income adults.
Sometimes when it comes down to a particular artist, you either love them or hate 'em. It seems fair to say that Conor Oberst is one of these artists. Well, we were lucky enough to squeeze into the sold out Bright Eyes show at Town Hall in NYC and celebrate on Memorial Day evening.
Outfitted in all white with over a dozen band mates backing him up on stage at times, Conor Oberst and group looked like they a countrified, indie rock version of Diddy's infamous White Party.
More + pictures after the jump.
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Does anyone else remember those sites you used to be able to go to and enter the email address of someone you had a crush on? The site would send them a message that someone had a crush and then make them guess by entering email addresses and on and on...it was torture.
The Scissor Sisters have sort of the opposite service available to you, in honor of their new single "Kiss You Off." Click the banner below and you can send someone a message from Ana Matronic that they're being kissed off. Then they have to guess by who. Subterranean will be sending them to people we work with all day today.
If you're more interested in the snippet of their new video than in the kiss off, there are behind the scenes clips available on their website.
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You didn't think we'd let you go all the holiday weekend without a dose of Subterranean did you? We asked Grizzly Bear to send us their coverage of the Sasquatch Festival in Washington state this weekend. Below are some photo illustrations and words from singer Ed Droste about what went down on Saturday. At any moment we're expecting more of the same from Tokyo Police Club for Sunday.
Sasquatch is the perfect festival. Best setting. Perfect size. Amazing line up. I'm killing myself we don't get to stay here an extra day. I've never gotten such a chance to see so many wonderful bands in one day. Coachella had them all but the sheer size of it made it impossible to navigate successfully.
It's a Grizzly Bear...get it?
More after the jump.
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