Some Music Tunes to Groove On

First up, the remarkable Jesse L. Martin, backed beautifully by Rick Cosnett and Carlos Valdes, his castmates from The Flash (apparently everybody on that show can sing,) sing a gospel version of the cult show Firefly‘s theme song, “The Ballad of Serenity,” as a thank you to Joss Whedon for making a big donation to Martin’s up-coming folk musical short film, The Letter Carrier:

Next, the trippy nature video for Kate Pierson‘s single “Bring Your Arms” on her solo album Guitars and Microphones:

With similar bursts of color, the hit single “Rule the World” from Walk Off the Earth‘s new album, Sing It All Away:

And lastly, in my tradition of often liking groups that use numbers for their names, new rap/hip-hop group twenty one pilots‘ hit single “Fairly Local“:

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A Little Music To Start (Dumping Days)

Michael Pollack first came to wide attention when Billy Joel did a concert and talk at Vanderbilt University, where Pollack is a student, and Pollack convinced Joel to let him come up and play the piano during it, impressing Joel when he did so. Since then, Pollack has done some high profile gigs and has released an EP. This is a single from the EP called “Chances Are”, and it’s pretty good. (Audio file only.)

Walk Off the Earth, in addition to their really good original work, continues to do cover versions of songs that I like better than the originals. They did a great a capella one of Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble” and they now have tackled her new pop single, “Shake It Off” with a low key, beachy rendition that utilizes actual rattles.

So successful has OK Go been in making terrific music videos for their quirky synth tunes, that they’ve gotten corporate sponsorship to make even bigger ones. For the newest single off their new album Hungry Ghosts, “I Won’t Let You Down,” the boys go all out with crane shots and one of the wildest synchronized performances around. I also like the song, though maybe not quite as much as the first single off the album, “The Writing’s On the Wall,” in the video for which, OK Go upped their Rube Goldberg machine concept. But visually, the video below is pretty impressive.

 

 

Some Pretties

Yeah, not managing that blogging thing again. There is a difference between intent and cogent thought. 🙂

So here are some pretties for the moment:

Walk On the Earth show how to do a Taylor Swift song:

A new digital artwork by my pal Cynthia Radthorne, entitled “Two Left Standing”:

And the trailer for the t.v. series I’m most looking forward to: Avengers: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which is doubly squee for bringing in J. August Richards.

Musical Interludes — Walk Off The Earth

Ontario, Canadian band Walk Off The Earth signed with Columbia Records last year and is now coming out with their new album R.E.V.O. in a few weeks. WOTE play nearly every instrument and can turn almost anything into an instrument, and they have a lot of fun with their videos. Here’s the first single off the album, “Red Hands,” which I like a lot and which is getting a lot of airplay in the North; the official video and then a bonus video version where they spoof their cover video of Goyte‘s “Somebody I Used To Know,” in which all five of them used one guitar to play the song, by playing “Red Hands” all together on a giant guitar they found in a pawn shop. And just because it’s a fun one, I’m throwing in the video of their cover of “Little Houses” by Malvina Reynolds.

Music Day

It’s music day through the open window today.  First, a little Aloe Blacc, with excellent dancing, for the song “Loving You Is Killing Me”:

Then an original song by the Canadian group Walk Off the Earth, who apparently play every instrument known to man, called “Money Tree”:

And finally, medically induced hallucinations from “Cough Syrup” by Young the Giant:

My day was good. How was yours?

 

 

 

Creative Pathos

Some videos for a frantic weekend:

The band Walk Off The Earth performs a cover of “Somebody That I Used To Know” by Gotye. (If it gets stuck, click off the ads at the bottom.):

 

The short film “No Robots” by Kimberly Knoll and Yunghan Chang:

Irish artist Frank Buckley makes commentary art in an abandoned office building by building a home out of shredded Euros: