Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Caren Explains Phoenix (the Band)

Three Cool Things about Phoenix:

1) The band is from France but sings in English (thanks, Phoenix!)
2) Lead singer Thomas Mars has a daughter with one of my favorite directors, Sophia Coppola
3) Guitarist Laurent Brancowitz used to be in a band with the duo now known as Daft Punk

Since 2006 It's Never Been Like That has had a permanent home in the third slot of my six-disc CD player. Three singles off that album -- "Consolation Prizes," "Rally" and "Lost and Found" -- are found on my iPod's Most Played Songs playlist.

You can imagine the agony I've gone through while patiently waiting for a new Phoenix album. My suffering ends on May 25th, when Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix will hit shelves (though some tracks have already leaked to the web).



Today the band announced one East Coast gig -- June 19th at Terminal 5 in NYC -- but no US tour. I've never seen them live, and will find a way to be in NYC for that show. I must.

Here are the band's SNL performances from last weekend. As Stereogum pointed out, Coldplay, U2, Paul McCartney and Phoenix are the few artists that have been asked to play three songs on SNL.

"Liztomania" from upcoming album


"1901" from upcoming album


"Too Young" from Lost in Translation soundtrack

Thursday, April 02, 2009

Caren Explains the Hampster Dance

Today I had a catchy little tune pop into my head, one I hadn't heard in years. It was accompanied by visions of dancing -- dancing that goes like this...

What other websites from the Web's earlier days will we later remember with nostalgia?