Ear on TV: Week of 04.12.10: The Specials

For having released only two albums, ska pioneers The Specials have had an influence on modern music that is both deep and wide. 30 years later, the rude boys are back together and touring North America, including a performance at the Coachella Music Festival later this week -- joining freshly reunited acts Pavement and Faith No More shepherding us down memory lane.

Jerry Dammers, besides being keyboardist and chief songwriter for the ska pioneers, also founded the indie label 2 Tone Records, home to not only The Specials, but also Madness and The English Beat (or, as their known back home, the Beat). When the band plays on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, it will also mark the 30th anniversary of the act's memorable appearance on Saturday Night Live back in April of 1980. Besides the skinny tie fashion, worth watching for Neville Staple's machine gun entrance.


Elsewhere, singer/songwriter/guitar goddess Kaki King has come a long way since her days busking in the New York subway. She releases her fifth album, Junior, this week, and will be promoting it with an appearance on Fallon the night after The Specials. Besides performing with her band, it's rumored that King will also be sitting in with The Roots, playing several songs with the greatest band in late night (an added treat, to say the least).

Other notable appearances this week include Led Zep/Foo Fighters/Queens of the Stone Age supergroup Them Crooked Vultures appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live two nights in a row (Monday and Tuesday); Spoon hitting the same stage two nights later (Thursday), and The Flaming Lips end the week on Fallon with a cover from Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.

Playlist: Picks for the week
Monday, April 12
ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live: Them Crooked Vultures
CBS: Late Show With David Letterman: Spoon (REPEAT)
FUEL: The Daily Habit: Kandi Coded
IFC: Dinner With the Band: YACHT (REPEAT)
NBC: The Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Sade
NBC: Last Call With Carson Daly: Grizzly Bear (REPEAT)
Tuesday, April 13
ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live: Them Crooked Vultures
FUEL: The Daily Habit: Kandi Coded
NBC: Late Night With Jimmy Fallon: The Specials
NBC: Last Call With Carson Daly: La Roux
SYNDICATION: The Ellen Degeneres Show: Cyndi Lauper
Wednesday, April 14
NBC: Late Night With Jimmy Fallon: Kaki King, The Roots, Green Day (discussing their musical American Idiot)
NBC: Last Call With Carson Daly: Gossip
SYNDICATION: The Bonnie Hunt Show: Backstreet Boys
Thursday, April 15
ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live: Spoon
CBS: Late Show With David Letterman: Joan Jett & the Blackhearts (REPEAT)
CBS: Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson: Sade
FUEL: The Daily Habit: Violent Soho
NBC: Late Night With Jimmy Fallon: The Unseen
NBC: Last Call With Carson Daly: She & Him
Friday, April 16
ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live: Sarah McLachlan & Emmylou Harris
CBS: Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson: Willie Nelson
NBC: Late Night With Jimmy Fallon: The Flaming Lips
NBC: The Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Collective Soul
NBC: Last Call With Carson Daly: The Xx
SUNDANCE: Live From Abbey Road: Gossip, The Mars Volta
Saturday, April 17
NBC: Saturday Night Live: Ke$ha
VH1: Behind the Music Remastered: Motley Crue
VH1: Behind the Music Remastered: Metallica
Sunday, April 18
HBO: Treme: Kermit Ruffins, Elvis Costello, Allen Toussaint, Rebirth Brass Band

Now Downloading: New Releases 11.17.09

We're headlong into gift-giving season, so feel free to make your year-end list, as it's no mans land as far as quality releases. That being said, there are a couple albums that provide more than stocking fodder. The Led Zep/Queens of the Stone Age/Foo Fighters supergroup Them Crooked Vultures doesn't disappoint, and Macca's got a live album that aims to please. Elsewhere, it's mostly meh in new releases -- tis the season for reissues.

Playlist: New Releases 11.17.09

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Them Crooked Vultures - Them Crooked Vultures
Stream / Purchase [mp3]

The debut from this heavy metal supergroup is a near perfect sum of it's parts. Featuring a dream team rhythm section of Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones TCV builds the songs on fat bass & drum grooves, and while some of Josh Hommes' guitar work is pulled out of a LedZep trick bag, thankfully nobody is going to confuse him with Robert Plant. That's what keeps this effort from sounding like a tired tribute and instead something inspired by the real thing. Essentially, it's in the same vein as Homme's Queens of the Stone Age classic Songs for the Deaf (which featured Grohl on the drums), but with a bit more Zep worship - especially the atmospherics of In Through the Out Door, which contains some of John Paul Jones' best work. At its core, Them Crooked Vultures is really just cheap thrills, but sometimes that's all you need.

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Paul McCartney - Good Evening New York City
Stream / Purchase [mp3]

In someone else's hands, the set list for Paul McCartney's concert in New York (CitiField) might seem like pandering. Ok, there is a bit of pandering, but there's a time and a place for it, and we're all kind of Beatles hungry again, right? Macca only performs a couple songs from this decade (23 of the 33 are from Beatles era), sprinkling them in the first disc w/ songs from both Wings and Beatles, leaving the second disc entirely to Beatles faves. His enthusiasm for the material is such that they all feel like new songs again. For a bit, anyway.

Free AOL album stream

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More on the radar (and in the mp3 player) this week:
Tape Deck Mountain - Ghost / "Ghost Colony" [mp3]
Real Estate - Real Estate / "Beach Comber" [mp3]
SCORE! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Remixes! / Xiu Xiu - "Volcana (I Hope You Hear the Train Crashes remix)" [mp3]
tUnE-yArDs - BiRd-BrAiNs / Free AOL album stream
Lovvers - Think EP
Dan Zanes & Friends - 76 Trombones
Alexandre Desplat - The Twilight Saga: New Moon (The Score)

REISSUES
David Bowie - Space Oddity: 40th Anniversary Edition
The Fall - Hex Enduction Hour: Deluxe Edition
The Blood Brothers - Burn, Piano Island, Burn [Bonus Track Version]
The Blood Brothers - Crimes [Bonus Track Version]
The Blood Brothers - Young Machetes [Bonus Track Version]
The Blood Brothers - March On Electric
Children
RJD2 - Since We Last Spoke: Deluxe Edition / Free AOL album stream
RJD2 - The Horror: Deluxe Edition / Free AOL album stream
John Entwistle - Rigor Mortis Sets In

tags: music, album review, them crooked vultures, macca, indie rock, new releases, rhapsody