Who do our presidential hopefuls rock out to?

Aug. 31, 2008

Potential Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain took the time to each reveal their ten favorite songs to Blender Magazine recently, and it’s a fairly telling look at the two men and their differences. Among Obama’s songs of choice were upbeat tracks by The Fugees (“Ready or Not”), will.i.am (“Yes We Can”) and U2 (“City of Blinding Lights”), plus classics by Aretha Franklin (“Think”), and The Rolling Stones (“Gimme Shelter”); Obama also used another U2 song, “Beautiful Day,” when recently announcing Senator Biden as his pick for VP running mate. Meanwhile, McCain’s top tunes included Roy Orbison (“Blue Bayou”), Neil Diamond (“Sweet Caroline”), two numbers by late ‘70s Swedish dance-popsters ABBA, and the portentously titled “If We Make it Through December” by country-twang singer Merle Haggard...
The Cleveland-based Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is set to open an annex museum in New York - downtown Manhattan, to be exact. The NYC museum will be the first of several planned annex museums that are meant to bring the rock and roll souvenirs and artifacts to a wider audience, with additional branches tentatively planned for Las Vegas and the Middle East. The NYC branch will play host to Bruce Springsteen’s 1957 Chevy and will also focus on exhibits that have musical significance to New York, such as the “New York Rocks” exhibit, which will feature an interactive map of NY musical locations such as CBGB and Studio 54, as well as sections focusing on such NY artists as Billy Joel and The Talking Heads’ David Byrne...
Soulful Brit singer Jamie Lidell, fresh off a smash hit set at this year’s Lollapalooza festival in Chicago and still promoting his sixth full-length album, Jim, will continue to keep his new backing band employed and busy with a series of North American tour dates, which will include stops in Los Angeles (9/29), Seattle (10/3), Minneapolis (10/7), Chicago (10/8), Toronto (10/9), and Montreal (10/10). Following the U.S. tour, Lidell will trek over to Europe as support act for Elton John’s tour...

While modern rockers U2 are keeping busy completing work on their new album (expected to hit stores this upcoming October), other U2 activites are afoot; U2 frontman Bono has written an essay about the band’s debut album that can currently be read in Rolling Stone magazine, and a new DVD documentary is set to be released by MVD Entertainment on September 30. The DVD will present an overview of U2’s work throughout the past decade, and has been dubbed U2- Rebirth of Cool: U2 in the Third Millennium...

MODERN ROCK LINK OF THE WEEK:
So you’re watching TV, and yet another commercial break arrives. But this one is actually somewhat worth listening to - what IS that cool song? Advertisers from Old Navy to JCPenney, the AARP to ESPN, and tons of movies and TV shows use popular music to promote whatever it is they’re promoting, so of course those tunes have to be catchy - so catchy that you might even want to buy or download them. But how do you figure out a song and artist from 15 seconds worth of a track? Easy - just go online and visit www.adtunes.com, where you’ll find listings and archives for plenty of commercials and the songs that make them better...

MINI BUZZ:
Death Cab for Cutie, still peddling their latest set, Narrow Stairs, will kick off a tour trek on October 3 in Boston, and, prior to that, will perform in their hometown of Seattle on September 1 as part of that city’s Bumbershoot Festival; they’ll also perform an acoustic set at the Democratic National Convention...
Brit rapper Tricky is set to tour, too, and will make stops in Philly (9/5), Chicago (9/8), and in Toronto on September 9, which also happens to be the date for the release of his new album, Knowle West Boy...
Stereophonics will offer up a new album of their own in November called A Decade in the Sun: The Best of Stereophonics, and will follow up the album’s release with a UK tour...
Folk-rockers Great Big Sea have added more dates to their upcoming tour, which will keep the band on the road through December; tour dates will include Ann Arbor, MI (9/10), Chicago (9/13), Indianapolis (9/14), Pittsburgh, PA (9/18), Los Angeles (10/3), and Denver, CO (10/9)...
The Richmond Folk Festival in Richmond, VA is set for October 10-12 this year, with seven stages and over 30 bands including world music artists Nadeem Dlaikan, San Jose Taiko, and Harmonia...
And we say a sad goodbye to Dave Matthews Band saxophone player LeRoi Moore, who was one of the band’s founding members; Moore passed away recently from injuries sustained in an ATV accident...
ON CD: Stereolab’s Chemical Chords... Zach Hill’s Astrological Straits... The Game’s LAX... Blues Traveler’s North Hollywood Shootout... BB King’s One Kind Favor... and Cordero’s De Donde Eres... ON DVD: Pete Seeger: The Power of Song... Armin Van Buuren’s Armin Only: Imagine... Falco - Everything... and Pink Floyd’s The Early Pink Floyd ... and that’s the buzz for this week’s Modern Rock.
Questions, comments, rants, raves, suggestions on this column or your fave musicians? Send ‘em to Kristi at modernrocker@gmail.com