My Occupy Wall Street Interview on the Alyona Show

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Janos Marton

Shameless plug, but here is a fun interview I did earlier today with the telegenic young host of the Alyona Show.   It was my first studio interview. I couldn’t see the interviewer- only heard her through an earpiece.  I couldn’t see myself- or else I would have shaved down those eyebrows a little before the interview started.  There was also no sweet New York skyline behind me in real life.   But, for speaking in a vacuum, I think it went alright.

Posted in Political ramblings | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Round of 128, Day 4: Takin’ It Back To The 1800s

Posted on October 5, 2011 by g-mo

Probably the first and last time there will be any reason for anything from this movie to appear on this website. And even this is a stretch.

Votes due by Friday, October 7th at 11:00 PM EST: How could I possibly shift gears harder from Moe’s rap covers Day 3 than this? I may have just flipped the Living The Dream bus. So it goes. The Team is trying our best to bring you compelling match-ups, and included in this one is a battle between two covers whose original songs date back to the Civil War era. What up, universal temporality of music! Also a pair of slow acoustic covers of major 90s singles, a clash of the Cash, and a croon-off between two of my favorite female blues/jazz/gospel vocalists from the last fifteen years. Plus we have direct and indirect representation from the only two Hank Williams’s that Living The Dream still supports (come on, Junior. Really?) Grooveshark link esta aqui, excepto la cancion de Norah Jones. Continue reading →

Posted in Music, Music Tournament | Tagged , , | 21 Comments

Covers Tournament: Play-in Round 2 Results

Posted on October 5, 2011 by aiko

The people like Eddie Vedder

Well, I for one am going to declare my experiment of extending the voting deadline a success, because we had 4 votes come in between 5:00-8:00 PST, including my own (there is just no way I can listen to 30 minutes of a music before 5:00 on a weekday, so if I don’t catch the first day I’m pretty much out).  I’m not going to ask anyone on the East Coast to extend voting deadlines, but when I’m in charge it’s a liberty I’m likely to take, unless anyone has any compelling reasons not to.

Anyway!  Results!  A lot of these match-ups were quite close, which I think means the genre-matching was pretty good?  Either that or people were fairly indifferent.  Averages were pretty low in general, with only one song breaking a 6 average.

Continue reading →

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Round of 128: Day 3

Posted on October 4, 2011 by maureenmcollins

Do you think Jay Z likes bluegrass? I bet he does.

Alright, here I go. First post for LTD, and I am starting off strong by posting late! Sorry everyone. I hope the song choices cheer you right back up. We’ve got ourselves a hip hop battle, kids.  I’ll give you more time on getting your votes in, since I am late getting this out to you guys.  Votes are due in the comments section below by Thursday, October 6 by 10pm EST.  Now, on to the music!

UPDATED: Here is the actual link for Grooveshark. Sorry! That’s just me struggling.

Continue reading →

Posted in Music, Music Tournament, Uncategorized | Tagged , | 29 Comments

Covers Tournament: Round of 128, day 2- where oldies live

Posted on October 4, 2011 by jacobpress

Somehow in the last ten years, the term “oldies” has come to include songs that came out when many of us were in elementary school. Guns and Roses, R.E.M., Michael Jackson- all of them get airplay on the oldies station. But it used to be that oldies referred to the songs from a time when people drove around in boat-sized cars with tail fins and chrome and went to drive-ins, where they were served by waitresses wearing poodle skirts and roller skates. In that spirit, today’s round presents several homages to the fifties and sixties, some by modern day artists and some by singers who were covering these songs when they were still relatively fresh.

Today's songs are all 100% Fonz-approved

Votes are due by Wednesday October 5 at 11:00pm EST. Grooveshark link is here.

Our first matchup features two classic songs about places of refuge: Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 26 Comments

Covers Tournament: Day 2 Results

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Janos Marton

As Aiko pointed out, I jumped the gun by announcing the start of the Round of 128, when in fact we still had some play-ins left.   The post went up after I had spent the day at the #OccupyWallStreet protest.   If you didn’t hear, 700 protesters were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge.  Pretty wild.  Anyway, let’s get to the music.

Not a lot of high scores today.  All four winners averaged below a “7”, and there were only Continue reading →

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Covers Tournament: Play-In Day 1 Results

Posted on October 3, 2011 by g-mo

Spell-off Winners

Alright, Day 1 is in the books, 25 voters participated, and we have our first four victors that have clawed their way into the Round of 128! However, it should be noted that scores are looking prettty low. I guess that’s to be expected with a round this early, but not one of our winners broke a 6 average. However, a win is a win, so without further ado….

CCR’s “I Put A Spell On You” over Nina Simone’s, 155.9-135.9. Somewhere in Silver Spring, Amy is mad that she didn’t vote, but even a hammer couldn’t save the jazz queen on this one. CCR also claims high score with a not so dazzling 5.87 average. Continue reading →

Posted in Music Tournament | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Fall Covers Tournament: Play-in Round Day 3

Posted on October 3, 2011 by aiko

Get ready to rock some democracy: we're almost to the Round of 128

Janos jumped the gun on announcing the start of the Round of 128: we still have to narrow down 10 more songs to 5 in order to have our initial set. The Grooveshark link is here, except the Adele song and the Leslie King song. Since I’m getting this up kind of late and there are an extra 2 songs, I’m extending the voting time: submit votes in the comments by 8:00pm Pacific Time (that’s 11:00pm Eastern) on Tuesday, October 4.

Guillermo gave me the go-ahead to pair these up however I saw fit, which was surprisingly difficult.  I tried for match-ups that made sense genre or artist-wise, while also trying not to choose too many songs that represent a given nominator’s solo pick.  With that being said, I favored genre-matching, since everyone had a fair shot at getting 3 songs into the tournament.

Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 28 Comments

Covers Tournament: The Round of 128 Begins!

Posted on October 1, 2011 by Janos Marton

Feast your ears on some delightful match-ups.  Listen to all four match-ups here, and vote by commenting below before 8pm (EST), Monday.

First, few can do as much with a cover as Johnny Cash.  The Man in Black could make a phonebook sound interesting.  But this time the roles are reversed, as Jack White and the Secret Sisters do their take on “Big River.”  They’ll take on the Black Crowes, who do that old timey blues rocker, “Hard to Handle.” Continue reading →

Posted in Music, Music Tournament | Tagged , | 30 Comments

Fall Covers Tournament: Play-In Round, Day 1

Posted on September 30, 2011 by g-mo

Votes are due on Sunday, October 2nd at 8 pm: Well, this has been quite the endeavor of categorizing songs and figuring out which should play logically in these first few rounds. I feel good about this first group of play-in songs. We’ve got some intriguing and compelling matches out of the way to kick us off. To start us off, we’ll call this the Day for Deleting Duplicity. Each of our matches have something in common. Remember- listen to both songs in their entirety, and then give each a score between 0 and 10 in the comments section below. Ready? This is going to be fun. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 32 Comments