Cyndi Lauper’s 1983 song “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” has inspired a lot of covers. After The Show has compiled several different versions of the song:
Miley Cyrus:
The Killers:
Ben Gibbard:
Greg Laswell:
The Ordinary Boys:
Robots in Disguise:
Emily Deschanel on Fox’s Bones:
Food Network’s show Ace of Cakes, a reality show about Duff Goldman’s Charm City Cakes, is well-known for its creative cakes and cake decorators.
But this creativity isn’t just limited to cakes — many decorators are also musicians.
1. Here’s executive sous chef Geof Manthorne performing an original acoustic song:
2. Cake decorator Katherine Hill’s band Lexie Mountain Boys has songs on their MySpace, but they’re more comic performance artists than a band.
3. Cake decorator Elena Fox plays bass guitar in her band SQUAAKS. Here’s their MySpace, and a music video for their song “Everything Twice”:
Photo Credit Jessica Snow
4. Duff plays the bass in his band, …soihadto… Check out their MySpace here.
When it comes to many YouTube live concert videos, the sound quality is often pretty bad. The bass drowns out the rest of the instruments, and the sound is often too loud for the video camera to pick up without distortion.
Sometimes, though, you can use this distortion to your, the viewer’s, advantage: if the distortion actually emphasizes one instrument, like the guitar, over the others, you can better hear background guitar parts that you’ve never heard before, even on the album.
Here’s a great example of this: the bass drowns out the vocals in the live concert video of “I See Red” by Uh Huh Her below. But, you can consequently hear the guitar part above all other instruments.
Shazam, a free iPhone application, helps you identify songs anywhere you go. Just hold up your phone to the music, wait 10 seconds, and Shazam tells you the artist, song, year, and gives you links to download it. You can learn more about Shazam here.
Three of ATS’s best Shazam discoveries of recent are:
1. “Back of the Van” by Ladyhawke. Location: NYC Jamba Juice
2. “Why Can’t I” by Liz Phair. Location: LA Movie Theatre
3. “Hey There Ophelia” by MC Lars. Location: Princeton, NJ
Due to the popularity of After The Show’s Best of…Band Fan Sites, here are the nominations for the 10 Best Tour/Concert Posters in recent years:
1. Rooney and The Bridges
2. Ben Kweller and Death Cab for Cutie
3. Avril Lavigne
4. Uh Huh Her
5. Rilo Kiley
6. Regina Spektor
7. Tegan and Sara
8. Ben Lee
9. Taylor Swift
10. Johnathan Rice and Maria Taylor
If you want, vote for your top 3 posters by leaving a comment.
Skinny Jean is a little known band from Australia, but they’ve got a great song called “Anhedonia.” FYI, anhedonia means “the inability to take pleasure in activities one would normally find enjoyable.”
Here’s a live video of the song (not very good quality):
To hear the album version of “Anhedonia” and for more information on Skinny Jean, head to their MySpace.
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