Cory Graves
North Texas Cleans Up At The Grammys, RGRS Honors The Boss and Edie Brickell Become a Joke.
This past Sunday, The Recording Academy held its 56th annual Grammy Awards, which, aside from making social media nearly unbearable, provided some good Monday morning water cooler fodder.
Hands up if someone in your office wondered aloud when the Power Rangers started writing disco songs!
No one? OK, then.
Anyway, as we previously pointed out, North Texas artists were well-represented at this year's awards. And, for their part, those artists took home a good portion of trophies at Sunday's ceremony.
Undeniably, the big winner of the night was Mineola-based country newcomer Kacey Musgraves, who beat out herself in the “Best Country Song” category. More importantly, her Same Trailer, Different Park album upset Taylor Swift's heavily favorited Red to win the “Best Country Album” award. Oh, and she also performed at the ceremony.
Meanwhile, Denton jazz outfit Snarky Puppy won in the “Best R&B Performance” award, and Edie Brickell and Steve Martin won the “Best Americana/Roots Song” award for their song “Love Has Come For You.” Also? For his efforts in producing and performing on Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite's Get Up! LP, part -ime Fort Worth resident Jordan “Son of Stan” Richardson earned a share of the “Best Blues Album” award.
Brickell, in particular, has been having quite the year already: Recent Grammy win aside, her biggest hit, 1988's “What I Am,” has been a running gag this season on HBO's Girls. No word on how Brickell feels about the bit now that it's happening, but, upon hearing about its possibility, she was “excited” at the prospects.
Likewise, Arlington a capella group Pentatonix will make an appearance of their own on the small screen in the coming weeks, as the quintet is set to appear on the February 7 episode of Sesame Street. Like the string of videos that have earned the group viral fame and a fair bit of national attention over the course of the past few months, their appearance, which will see the group singing a about counting to five, is already making the rounds online. Check it out:
Also new online this week is this promotional video from Apple that celebrates 30 years of selling Macintosh computers. Here's the trick, though: It features a pair of tracks from Air Review that run under clips of notables such as Moby gushing about how their lives wouldn't be otherwise possible had Mac not come along.
Moving on, the still new-ish Fort Worth venue Shipping & Receiving passed along word that they'll be launching a new monthly music series called “South Main Saturdays” in March will aim to some put big-name national acts in their intimate 350-capacity space. Though from our limited knowledge of the way economics works it would seem as if the somewhat limited ticket supply should, theoretically, lead to higher-than-normal ticket prices, we've been told that tickets to Sarah Jaffe's March 1 concert and Ben Kweller's April 5 appearance are going for just $10 and $15, respectively. Tickets to both shows are currently available here.
Another date you might want to add to your calendar is Rubber Gloves's upcoming “For the Love of Bruce” concert, which is set to take place February 28. Per an event page for the event, the bar's owners — who have been eschewing their no covers policy of late as part of their monthly “Fuck You ASCAP” nights — plan to show their gratitude to the great Mr. Springsteen for standing up for another small bar being targeted by the performing rights organization, much in the same way that Gloves has been recently. Their chosen method of saying thanks? Hosting a night of all Bruce Sprinsteen covers. Furthermore, RGRS brass says they plan to send The Boss a check in the amount of the total collected at the door, along with a note expressing their thanks for sticking up for the little guy.
In new release news, Pitchfork broke the story earlier this week that Swans' upcoming full-length will not only once again feature the production work of local studio ace John Congleton, but some multi-tracked vocals from fellow Congleton-devotee (and soccer star) St. Vincent “throughout the record,” too.
Other new releases to keep an eye out for include Def Rain's new, limited edition cassette release that'll be put out via Pour Le Corps Records on February 25, and Booty Fade's next single, “It Goes Down,” which features a sample of Tum Tum's “Caprice Musik” and is set to drop on February 4.
Lastly: Violitionist Sessions mastermind Michael Briggs told White Noise this morning that his site experienced something of a setback this past October when the camera that he uses to film live music sessions from artists such as Amanda Palmer, Kylesa and Zechs Marquise (among others) was stolen while on a recent trip to Budapest. In the months since, the site has still been able to post new videos from the backlog of sessions that had been recorded, but not previously posted. Unless Briggs is able to acquire a new camera, though, his site may be forced to go on some sort of hiatus. In the meantime, a crowdfunding campaign (featuring an original video from Violtionist supporter David Liebe Hart) to help raise the funds for new equipment can be found here. Check out the video for the cause below.
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