Full album cover of The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"

The Flaming Lips have officially finalized their cover of The Beatles' legendary Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.


This cover album is called With A Little Help From My Fwends and will feature more than just the Flaming Lips.  MGMT, Tegan and Sara, Moby, Miley Cyrus, My Morning Jacket and many more have collaborated to make this a reality.

With all this talent on the track listing, will it compare to the original?  We can only know on the release date October 28th.

For the source of the information and photo, as well as the actual track listing and a video of a live performance, visit the Pitchfork article here.

Let us know what you think!  Follow http://www.bvtrflymusic.blogspot.com and http://www.bvtrflymusic.tumblr.com for more music news, and please like and share!

New Flying Lotus feat. Kendrick Lamar "Never Catch Me"

Flying Lotus is at it again.

This time he has the word wizard Kendrick Lamar with him on his newest release "Never Catch Me" from his upcoming album You're Dead!
The track opens with a signature FlyLo groove and Kendrick laying down the hook.  It builds to Kendrick absolutely slaughtering the verse with his flow and his quick witted wordplay, and Thundercat tearing the song a new one with bass all over the place.
Synths take us to a whole new groove in the same time, but a transition only Flying Lotus could pull off.  There is an air of virtuosic musical madness, yet it vibes so hard you can't help but move to the groove.  It's true, we could never ever catch them as they're on a whole other level.  But that's not to say I won't try.  The must have album of the year comes out October 6 in the States, and I wouldn't be caught dead without it.
Tour dates and more release info can be seen here.
Let us know what you think!  Follow http://www.bvtrflymusic.blogspot.com and http://www.bvtrflymusic.tumblr.com for more music news, and please like and share!

Round 1: Atoms for Peace vs. Spotify

Both the Atoms for Peace producer Nigel Godrich and musician Thom Yorke have taken down their band’s music from the streaming superpower Spotify.  Fans, bands, and listeners alike are now tuning in on the debate via Twitter.

“Someone’s gotta say something.  It’s bad for new music,” tweeted Godrich, criticizing one of the newest and most popular ways to listen to music.  He and Yorke both agree that Spotify benefits only the artists and labels with vast backlogs of music and the stockholders of the streaming service.  “Meanwhile small labels and new artists can’t even keep their lights on. It’s just not right,” Godrich tweets. 

“Make no mistake new artists you discover on ‪Spotify will not get paid,” Yorke agrees on Twitter.  “Meanwhile shareholders will shortly being rolling in it. Simples.”

Music Week reports Spotify responded by saying that their ultimate goal is to grow a service people want to pay for, and “provide the financial support to the music industry necessary to invest in new talent and music… We’ve already paid US$500M to rightsholders so far and by the end of 2013 this number will reach US$1bn. Much of this money is being invested in nurturing new talent and producing great new music.”

Godrich was not appeased.  Pitchfork reports his response: “The way that Spotify works is that the money is divided up by percentage of total streams,” he explains.  So big labels with backlogs on backlogs of albums get the most streams and consequently the most revenue, but “the smaller producers and labels get pittance for their comparatively few streams.”

To protest and to stand up for upcoming music, Godrich and Yorke have pulled Atoms for Peace’s Amok and The Eraser down from Spotify’s service.  Other bands have followed in suit such as Four Tet who tweets, “I had everything on my label taken off. Don’t want to be part of this crap.”

Is this a small meaningless rebellion, or will more bands now start to follow the trend?  Is it fair that larger, more established labels get a bigger cut of the pie, or should the priority be for the newer emerging labels?  The debate over streaming music is vaguely reminiscent of the debate over music file sharing, and has enough potential to be just as controversial.

Let us know what you think! Follow http://www.bvtrflymusic.blogspot.com and http://www.bvtrflymusic.tumblr.com for more music news, and please like and share!

Those Damn Bandits: RX Bandits at The Fonda Theatre

The RX Bandits came to the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles Saturday July 6 for the second night of their 10^th anniversary of the album The Resignation.  Equal Vision’s Northern Faces came along with them to open.

They came, they saw, and those damn bandits conquered that night.

Walking into the Fonda Theatre by Hollywood Blvd., one could feel how classy the venue was.  Maybe it was the moment they took away my gum for safety purposes, maybe it was the man in the bathroom handing me not one, but two paper towels.  Maybe it was the fact that they had a full bar on every story, or maybe it was the elegance of the stage, general admission, and very comfortable seated admission.  Either way, the stage was set, both literally and figuratively, for a high-energy, jaw dropping night.

When Northern Faces took the stage, the crowd was amped up and ready to hear some music.  They were in for a treat, and although Northern Faces’ songs were not as well known as RXB’s, their edgier-than-Mumford and Sons yet folkier-than-Black Keys sound easily turned a whole new audience into fans that night.  They are a band to look out for; their newest single “Under My Skin” definitely got under the crowd’s skin the way everyone danced and sang along.  They closed with the song “Finding Hope”, where the hook “finding hope is all we know” became the anthem of their set.

Everyone was hyped up off the energy of Northern Faces awaited the return of the legendary RX Bandits by the bar or by the outdoor second story smoking level.  Once the snare drum was being sound checked, the bar and smoking area were both desolate.  The general admission was rowdy and the seated area was too packed to seat everyone.

At that moment the long awaited Rx Bandits started playing.  They seamlessly played all the tracks from The Resignation with literally every single person in the room screaming along at the top of their lungs.  They didn’t stop to let themselves or the audience rest; they really only stopped to say how great it was to be back.  The feeling was inarguably mutual.

They left the stage after playing through all the classics like “Decrescendo” and “Never Slept So Soundly”, but they knew and we knew it wasn’t over.

After about five minutes of relentless chanting and clapping, RXB took the stage yet again to play some of their other songs.  Their energy continued to crescendo, causing the crowd to reciprocate with more playful pushing and soulful singing.  Songs from …And The Battle Begun melted the minds of many with a solid groove by bassist Joseph Troy, bewildering drum-work by Christopher Tsagakis, shredding guitar-work by Matt Embree and Steve Choi, and soaring vocals by Embree.

AND HORNS!  I forgot to mention how unbelievably great it was to hear them with their trombone and saxophone again.  Although these songs were extremely well rehearsed, they had life to them with the horn section adding a certain fullness that was previously lacking when they were no longer in RXB.  Solo sections and improvisation sections were also tastefully integrated and added a new and more organic sound to their songs such as the widespread sing-along “Only For The Night”.  They played one song from Progress, but finished the night with more from their latest album …And The Battle Begun. 

They certainly gave the crowd more than what they were looking for yet left them wanting more, as they always do.  The ending seemed almost bittersweet, as I assume The Resignation Tour might be their last, but then again the tour before this was supposed to be as well.  I’ll keep hoping that there will be more performances from the legendary Bandits, since their albums “can make me better, but only for the night.”

Keep an eye out for RX Bandits Resignation tour as it makes it’s way throughout the US.  See https://www.facebook.com/rxbanditsofficial for details.

Follow http://www.bvtrflymusic.blogspot.com and http://www.bvtrflymusic.tumblr.com for more music news, and please like and share!

Bosnian Rainbows: Album Release Tour

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez strikes again.  After hearing the respectfully raucous At The Drive-In and the soaring samples of The Mars Volta, I honestly didn’t know what to expect next.  I knew it would be good, but with such a colorful history I had no idea in which musical direction it would go.  The innovator continues to break boundaries and meld genres playing guitar in his most recent project Bosnian Rainbows.  Their self-titled album was released in late June during their West Coast tour and it has been melting minds ever since.

There is a new, matured sound with Rodriguez-Lopez’s new group.  It still has that gritty edge to it, but now grooves hard with captivating melodies, driving bass and intricate guitar-work.  It starts out with a bang; the phat drum beat in the first track Eli makes sure you’re awake and ready to digest what’s in store.  After that the next song, Worthless, is anything but, although Teri Gender Bender of Le Butcherettes might lead you to believe so with her hauntingly smooth vocals.   Her vocals continue to dig as the album moves on to Dig Right In Me, a song with a driving synth-like bass backing the rest of the band.  The guitar work by the previous Mars Volta member is not to be forgotten, shredding and tearing lyrically in between vocal phrases and leading the band with colorful chordal harmony.  A pleasantly spooky atmosphere is decorated throughout the album with overlying keyboard and synth leads, especially in I Cry For You.  In this song the bass drum and bassist lock in together, laying down an extremely syncopated in-your-face beat.  The guitar solos seem to cry tears of familiar dissonance as Rodriguez-Lopez’s unique playing style shows its colors.

Bosnian Rainbows then show their hand at a “post-pop” feel with the tune Morning Sickness.  Imagine a groovy beat with the distinct touch of the likes of Sargent House bands.  Hard to describe, but both Morning Sickness and Torn Maps have this better-than-pop groove. The downtempo Turtle Neck calms the feel of the album with a Grizzly Bear like guitar and drum interlocking.  It picks up the energy again with synchronized bass and drum hits, and drives the point home with an eclectic guitar solo.  Always On The Run and Red pick up where the last song left off, full of head-nodding energy and head-shaking beats.  Mother, Father, Set Us Free closes the album as a memorable anthem with that eerily groovy sound that seems to be the signature Bosnian Rainbows sound.

Bosnian Rainbows is an extremely unique and irreplaceable group.  They successfully combine groovy, foot-tapping music with the indisputable sound some musicians might describe as just “out”.  They are a group that cannot be duplicated or even fully described with words.  The best way to find out for yourself is to see them June 24^th, 25^th, 26^th, and 27^th in San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Ana, and San Francisco respectively.  This newest, self-titled album is now for sale, and I can guarantee it is not like any album you have heard before.

Follow http://www.bvtrfly.blogspot.com and http://www.bvtrflymusic.tumblr.com for more music news, and please like and share!

Stockton Symphony's 24th Pops & Picnic

Looking for some Satisfaction? The Stockton Symphony’s 24^th Annual Pops & Picnic is exactly that – Satisfaction: A Rolling Stones Experience. The international touring show will be rocking and rolling on Saturday, April 27, 2013 at University of the Pacific. Held at Alex G. Spanos Center, doors will open at 5:45 PM for a raffle, silent auction, and a no-host bar before the show starts at 8:00 PM.

Join the Satisfaction tribute band and the Stockton Symphony to celebrate the Rolling Stone’s 50^th anniversary tour across the nation. The cast channels their inner Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to “showcase the most authentic cast and costumes audiences have ever witnessed.” They will bring back classic hits from over 50 years of the Rolling Stone’s rich musical history. The cast will perform with the Stockton Symphony to create an unforgettable orchestral experience. Music lovers of all genres will not only be satisfied, but thrilled with this show. So for a night you won’t forget, join us, sit back, relax, and rock out with the Stockton Symphony this Saturday!

By Kevin Guico

Arts and Entertainment Journalist

The Lulu Company