Towleroad Guide to the Tube #910: NY for Marriage Equality Edition

WWII Veteran Edward Hinz, NY Giants Owner Steve Tisch, Cyndi Lauper, and Uma Thurman join the New Yorkers for Marriage Equality campaign as advocates enters the final stretch to achieve equality this week in the Empire State.

For recent Guides to the Tube, click HERE.

MUSIC NEWS: Wild Beasts, Elliott Smith, Arthur Russell, Arcade Fire, Cyndi Lauper, Derrick Carter, Magnetic Man, Jessica 6

NORMAN BRANNON

Norman Brannon is a pop critic, musician, and author based in New York City. He presents a weekly music update here on Towleroad and writes regularly at Nervous Acid.  

Follow Norman on Twitter at @nervousacid.

EXTENDED PLAY

Wild Beasts — Smother (Domino)

Introducing your new record by citing later–era Talk Talk as an influence — like Wild Beasts did earlier this year— is a somewhat tenuous set-up: Albums like Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock were nonpareil for their time; it can be safe to assert that Talk Talk was the only band from the 1980s to follow up three well-received synthpop records with two albums of free-jazz inspired orchestral ambient music — and artistically succeed. The parallels in this case, then, are more psychic than anything: Smother is an album that revels in creating environments and moods, and — like Talk Talk — singers Hayden Thorpe and Tom Fleming find meaning in the space between the notes, their androgynous falsettos becoming as much a part of the tapestry as the band's deliberately sparse and uneasy arrangements. But while Wild Beasts are certainly easy on the ears, Smother is not quite easy listening — and in that sense, the band has adopted the most crucial ethos that ultimately validates the preemptive comparison: Beauty teems from this elegant tension, and you are unlikely to hear anything else like it this year.

START WITH: "Bed Of Nails" / "Loop The Loop" / "Albatross"

THE DISPATCH

The first documentary film about the life of the late Elliott Smith screened in Los Angeles over the weekend, and its coup is the participation of Smith's last girlfriend, Jennifer Chiba, who is speaking about him for the first time since 2003, when the singer-songwriter died of a self-inflicted knife wound. Despite the cries of conspiracists who believe Chiba actually killed Smith — and the objections to her participation by Elliott's family — director Gil Reyes insists her contribution is crucial to the film: "Here you can actually look in her eyes and determine for yourself if she's telling the truth or not."

 Following a month where we lost Poly Styrene and TV on the Radio's Gerard Smith to cancer, it has been announced that Decemberists keyboard player Jenny Conlee has been diagnosed with breast cancer. "There are still a few unknowns out there concerning my cancer," she writes in a message posted to the band's site, "but I am thinking positive and hope to be back on the road soon."

 Adele: "If Rihanna wanted me, I'd do it with her. She's hot."

 Before he was Vin Diesel, he was Mark Sinclair — an aspiring rapper and breakdancer in New York City. In itself, that's not too bizarre! But this week, the story got stranger: In 1986, Captain Beefheart collaborator Gary Lucas discovered the young Sinclair rapping on a West Village street and teamed him up with legendary disco and experimental rock musician Arthur Russell for an aborted recording session bankrolled by Rough Trade Records. Now, thanks to Lucas, there is MP3 evidence.

 Killers drummer Ronnie Vannucci has signed to Epitaph Records for his forthcoming debut solo album under the Big Talk pseudonym. Lead single "Getaways," gets a digital release today.

 After 25 years of performing and producing, legendary Chicago house DJ Derrick Carter finally gets his due in the gay press. The Advocate ran a feature interview with Carter this week, where the artist explained his under-the-radar status: "[These days], a lot of gay audiences want to hear pop remixes. That's fine if they want to hear that, but that's not what I do."

 Nomi Ruiz made her mark as a featured vocalist with Hercules & Love Affair; today, she is prepping her debut album with Jessica 6 for the esteemed Peacefrog label. Our first taste of See The Light is "Prisoner of Love" — a nu-disco, proto-house duet between Ruiz and Antony Hegarty. The track is currently available as a free download HERE.

 Arcade Fire reprised their cover of Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" at this weekend's New Orleans Jazz Fest, but this time, Lauper came out to own it. She also stuck around to add vocals and lapsteel for a gorgeous version of Arcade Fire's "Sprawl II."

 Robyn is keeping busy this week: In addition to releasing the first remix from her upcoming single package for "Call Your Girlfriend" — a hyper dubstep interpretation by former drum-n-bass producer Feed Me — the singer also appears on the latest single by M.I.A. protege Rye Rye for Diplo's Mad Decent label. "Never Will Be Mine" features an extended rerecorded chorus from Robyn's 2005 single "Be Mine."

COMING OUT:

In an interview with the New York Times over the weekend The Lonely Island described themselves as "Real Beats, Fake MCs," but that's only half-true — an album like Turtlenecks & Chains simply would not work if these guys couldn't actually rap.  The "real beats" help, too: "Shy Ronnie 2: Ronnie & Clyde," for example, could have been a legitimate radio single if Rihanna wasn't singing about "boner alerts." Unfortunately, the album lands on a flat note with "No Homo" — a well-intentioned skewering of the ridiculous hip-hop disclaimer that devolves into I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry territory. It's not that such a song couldn't be funny; it's more that it just isn't.

The production trio of Magnetic Man — Benga, Skream, and Artwork — are probably best known at this point for introducing Katy B to the world, but their self-titled full-length artist album tells a more varied story: Dubstep may take its centerstage, but notes of drum-n-bass, UK garage, and even commercial pop add a more complex sense of dimension to the record. There's also a payoff at the end: Hearing John Legend's vibrato over a near–industrial dubstep track is more than vaguely pleasurable.

If there's anything disconcerting about Move Like This — the first new studio album from the Cars since 1987 — it's just how short these songs makes the last 24 years feel. Hearing "Keep On Knocking" for the first time is like taking "My Best Friend's Girl" out of cryogenics; "Free" does something similar for "Just What I Needed." Whether or not this reads as a good thing or a regressive misstep probably depends on how hard you've clutched onto your copy of Candy-O all these years.

Also out today: Gang Gang Dance — Eye Contact (4AD), Okkervil River — I Am Very Far (Jagjaguwar), Joan Of Arc — Life Like (Polyvinyl), Gus Gus — Arabian Horse (Kompakt), The Sea & Cake — The Moonlight Butterfly (Thrill Jockey)

SOUND & VISION: 

Gold Panda — "Marriage" (Star Slinger Remix)

I originally planned to include Star Slinger in last week's unsigned artists rundown, but I'm glad I held off: Check out the UK producer's euphoric take on Gold Panda's "Marriage" — from last year's excellent Lucky Shiner — and then download more of his hip-hop inspired laptop techno, some of it free, from the official Star Slinger Bandcamp page.

Lykke Li — "Sadness is a Blessing"

The third official single from Lykke Li's Wounded Rhymes finally gets the suitably upsetting video that a song with lyrics like "Sadness is my boyfriend / Oh, sadness I'm your girl" totally deserves! In addition to playing the foil for Li's unbearable sadness in this clip, Stellan Skarsgård is also currently starring in Thor. Which makes very little sense as I write it.

Cold Cave — "Villains of the Moon"

Earlier this year, New York's Cold Cave released Cherish the Light Years, their second album for Matador, to critical acclaim. Lead single "Villains of the Moon" — which gets a video this week — moves further away from the experimental leanings of the band's debut and shifts into a tense, gothic pop that would make a "Cuts You Up"–era Peter Murphy super proud.

Austra — "Lose It" 

Immediate comparisons have been made to Florence + the Machine, and I'm not gonna lie: Austra's Katie Stelmanis shares some of Florence's eccentric art-pop tendencies. But stick it out with "Lose It" and you'll find something increasingly unique about the way Stelmanis' opera-trained vocal affectations elegantly float over this track's icy new wave exterior. It's a bona fide grower.

MUSIC NEWS: Big Freedia, Linda Perry, Patrick Wolf, Maritime, Matt & Kim, Win Win, The Submarines, Diamond Rings, Arcade Fire

NORMAN BRANNON

Norman Brannon is a pop critic, musician, and author based in New York City. He presents a weekly music update here on Towleroad and writes regularly at Nervous Acid.  

Follow Norman on Twitter at @nervousacid.

EXTENDED PLAY:

Big Freedia Scion A/V Presents: Big Freedia EP (Scion A/V)

New Orleans bounce star Big Freedia opens her first national release with a moment of gratitude. "I wanna thank all my fans and all my haters for making me famous," she says, and for a moment, it's easy to forget that Freedia is not technically famous. She is, of course, widely renown: For well over 10 years now, Big Freedia has become one of the more recognizable faces in "Sissy Bounce" — an unapologetically gender-queer strand of hip-hop best known for its rapid-fire lyrical flow and instructional song titles like "Walk Wit A Dip" or "Make Ya Booty Go" — and on Scion A/V Presents: Big Freedia, she resists the pull to transcend genre, preferring instead to stake her innovative claim. In that sense, "Almost Famous" is a self-defining bounce moment for Freedia — her relentless staccato vocal as aggressive as its beats — while the humorously titled "It's A Shame (Crazy Big Dunkey)" is essentially "Azz Everywhere" for 2011, paying homage to the "crazy big dunkey, oversized dunkey, itty bitty dunkey" that she commands you to shake. Not that music this carnal should preclude a sharp self-awareness: It probably isn't lost on Freedia that the very act of someone with a baritone not unlike that of Public Enemy's Chuck D calling herself "the Queen Diva" redefines existing notions of radical hip-hop without any need for S1Ws.

START WITH: "Excuse" / "It's A Shame (Crazy Big Dunkey)"

THE DISPATCH:

 Former 4 Non Blondes frontwoman-turned-superstar songwriter Linda Perry has formed a new band called Deep Dark Robot. The recently released 8 Songs About a Girl is, according to the singer, a collection of deeply personal tracks surrounding a relationship gone bad: "Basically, I fell in love with a woman and really quick it turned into an emotional tsunami," Perry explains. "She ended up being an incredible muse."

 Arcade Fire played a surprise show in Haiti last week, but it was not exactly a typical setlist: In addition to eight of their own songs, the band covered Blondie's "The Tide is High" and Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," among others. Esquire has the video.

 The always ebullient Matt & Kim quite brilliantly added a decent share of hip-hop to their already genre-bending style on last year's Sidewalks, and the risk is paying off: Outkast's Big Boi recently signed off on the collaborative "CameraBuggin" — an edit of their singles "Cameras" and "Shutterbug" — to be featured on the soundtrack for Morgan Spurlock's forthcoming documentary, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.

 Following up on the release of his triumphant new single and video for "The City," Patrick Wolf has announced details for his upcoming fifth album, titled Lupercalia. The album will be released on May 30.

 Ladytron's Best of: 00-10 just came out last week, but a new album is already in the can: Gravity the Seducer will be released in the U.S. on September 12. According to the band's chief songwriter Daniel Hunt, the album is "more of a jump than the last album was, more ethereal and melodic, a touch more abstract in places than we've gone before."

 The Red Hot Organization have announced the line-up for Red Hot + Rio 2, the foundation's latest charity compilation to raise money for HIV/AIDS education and relief programs around the world. Due out on June 28, this year's installment includes contributions from Beck, John Legend, Bebel Gilberto, Dirty Projectors, Of Montreal, Seu Jorge, and Beirut — whose version of Caetano Veloso's "O Leãozinho" has already leaked. Next level alert: Zach Condon tackles the cover in Portuguese.

COMING OUT:

After the dismantling of the Promise Ring — a band whose next-big-thing status was perpetual and seemingly never-ending, but barely redeemed — there was a sense that singer/songwriter Davey von Bohlen was having a hard time trying to figure out how to do something new without completely divorcing himself from the band he helped establish, the band that helped establish him. Four records in with Maritime and he's finally figured it out: Human Hearts is somewhat of a spiritual successor to the final Promise Ring album, but where that album was dedicated to the heartland music that inspired them, this one makes for a more interesting, integrated affair. You'd think that Americana, '90s indie rock, and latent New Romanticism wouldn't make much sense on the same album — much less the same song — but, apparently, it's not only possible; it's shamelessly pleasurable.

START WITH: "Paraphernalia" / "Peopling Of London"

The Submarines' biggest pop cultural moment came in 2006, when the cast of Nip/Tuck lip-synched a version of their "Brighter Discontent" during the show's season finale that year, but even that's not their most fascinating trivia: One-half of the duo, singer Blake Hazard, is also F. Scott Fitzgerald's great granddaughter. Regardless, on their third full-length, Love Notes/Letter Bombs, the Los Angeles couple — who fell in love, broke up, and then got married when they realized all their songs were about each other — adopt a slightly harder edge to their otherwise gentle pop, focusing more on the tension than the bliss. There's also a welcome initiation for the band into electronic music: With all respect to Kanye, the arresting techno-pop of "Tigers" is probably what being heartbroken with an 808 drum machine really sounds like.

START WITH: "Fire" / "Tigers"

Also out today: Justin Vivian Bond — Dendrophile (Whimsy Music), Daft Punk — Tron: Legacy Reconfigured (Disney), Matthew Dear — Slowdance EP (Ghostly International), The Kills — Blood Pressures (Domino), Various Artists — Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, Original Broadway Cast Recording (Rhino)

SOUND & VISION:

Win Win — "Interleave" (feat. Alexis Taylor)

The brainchild of Spank Rock's XXXChange, Win Win — his collaborative effort with Chris Devlin and video artist Ghostdad — released the clip for their self-titled debut album's lead single "Interleave" this week. Hot Chip's Alexis Taylor handles vocal duties and gets pixelated for this vintage digital homage.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart — "Heart In Your Heartbreak"

One of the less aggressive songs from the Pains' excellent sophomore release, Belong, gets a playfully bellicose video about theft, bondage, and rock 'n' roll. But mostly, it's just awesome to see keyboard player Peggy Wang in that bizarre kindergarten school teacher outfit.

The Dø — "Too Insistent"

They're French and Finnish, but they sing in English: You can't accuse The Dø of not being a worldly bunch. "Too Insistent" is the new single from Both Ways Open Jaws — which is as elegantly understated and sophisticated a pop record as you're likely to hear all year. Fans of Lykke Li, take note.

Diamond Rings — "It's Not My Party"

Toronto songwriter John O'Regan released Special Affections — his debut album as Diamond Rings — to great critical acclaim last year, and since then, there's been a slow but steady groundswell of devotion for his androgynously glam alter-ego. This week, one of the album's standout tracks gets a desolate, but empathetic visual treatment. "You would cry too if it happened to you," goes the lyric, and the graphic images make the case: There is no schadenfreude here.

 

Cyndi Lauper Creates Some Fun At The Airport

Cyndi Lauper enterained delayed passengers at the airport in Buenos Aires by performing over the PA system and singing one of her all-time classics. I wish all airport delays could be this memorable. Watch, AFTER THE JUMP.

Cyndi Lauper Mentors Gay Teen Eli Medina on MTV's 'Made'

Tune in to MTV's Made today at 4 pm EST (repeating Wednesday at 3) for an episode about Eli Medina, a gay teen from Norman, Oklahoma who is living on his own after his mother rejected him for telling her he is gay.

If you've never seen Made, it's an Emmy-winning aspirational reality show about high school kids who want to transform themselves into something better. It's Eli's dream to be a "diva superstar". Unfortunately, he's too shy to sing in front of others. With the help of Cyndi Lauper and Made coach singer Jeremiah Abiah, Eli finds the strength to conquer his fears.

Lauper also asked Eli to participate in a video for her "We Give a Damn" organization which highlights LGBT issues in a series of web videos.

Check out two previous Made episodes about gay teens here and here.

Check out a couple preview clips, AFTER THE JUMP...

Towleroad Guide to the Tube #783

THEY GIVE A DAMN: Susan Sarandon, Alan Cumming, Pete Wentz, Rebecca Romijn, Eden Riegel and Cyndi Lauper speak out for homeless LGBT youth.

WILLOW PALIN: Joy Behar discusses Palin's anti-gay slurs with Judy Gold, Dick Cavett and Ereka Vetrini.

HIGHER: The video for the new duet from Taio Cruz and Kylie Minogue.

RANDY RAINBOW: His chat with George W. Bush and Kanye West.

For recent Guides to the Tube, click HERE.