Spinner
@us

What's that Song From the Windows Phone 'What If' Commercial?

What if the best-looking band in the world also had brains? That's a paraphrase of the opening for the latest triple-branded commercial for the Samsung Focus phone that's sold by AT&T and features Microsoft's new mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7. Exchange "phone" for "band" and you have the announcer's words verbatim. The ...

Continue reading

@us

What's That Song From the Honda Accord Commercial?

'The Only Living Boy in New York,' Simon and Garfunkel A dusted red 2011 Honda Accord pulls into a lonely view of a desert flat. The wheels cut hard into the terrain, blowing trails of smoked sand as the sedan sharply accelerates. The narrator opens with the line: "For over 30 years we've been aggressively followed. Looks like we finally ...

Continue reading

@us

Reading and Leeds 2011: The Strokes, Pulp, DFA1979 and More Headlining

Redferns / Getty / FilmMagic England's blowout summer-ending festivals, Reading and Leeds, will feature the Strokes, Muse and My Chemical Romance, the National festival constants Jane's Addiction and the reunited Pulp and Death From Above 1979 as headliners, organizers announced on Monday (via Consequence of Sound). The list of primary ...

Continue reading

@us

Jack Hardy, Folk Songwriter and Tireless Promoter, Dead at 63.

Laura Pietra via JackHardy.com Jack Hardy, the New York folk singer whose musical cooperative and regular songwriting circles launched the careers of several prominent musicians, died March 11. Hardy passed away from complications from lung cancer, the New York Times reported. He was 63. Hardy was born in South Bend, Ind., in 1947 to ...

Continue reading

@us

Jay Reatard Documentary to Debut Next Month in Memphis

Rob Walbers A feature documentary on Jay Reatard will debut next month in Memphis. As Commercial Appeal reports, the documentary, 'Better Than Something: Jay Reatard' was filmed in April 2009, just months before the musical iconoclast died unexpectedly of a drug overdose at age 29. The narrative largely focuses on the early part of Reatard's ...

Continue reading

@us

Johnny Preston, 'Running Bear' Singer, Dead at 71

Getty Images Johnny Preston, the singer best known for his peculiar yet internationally popular single 'Running Bear,' died March 4 in Beaumont, Texas. Preston, who was 71, passed away from persistent problems related to a heart bypass surgery he had last year, according to television station KFDM. Preston was born Johnny Preston Courville ...

Continue reading

@us

Violens Literally Dream Up New Songs -- Top 100 Acts at SXSW 2011

Tom Hines The list of bands Violens get compared to reads like a trip through a record store's rock-pop bin, from the Byrds to the Violent Femmes. The New York-by-way-of-Florida-and-elsewhere band take it as high praise -- its members thrive on welding wide and sometimes disparate influences into curious, compelling, high-energy songs. Death ...

Continue reading