I’m trying to figure out how Jay-Z managed to perform last night in Berlin with U2 for the MTV Europe Music Awards, and then got himself to Manhattan by this morning to ride in the Yankee parade and do “Empire State of Mind” at City Hall. Dude is everywhere.

Anyway, the above performance was part of a free mini-concert U2 put on for about 10,000 people in Brandenburg Park to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down. Someone call The Fiery Furnaces, cause this is bogus.

They go we go, I want you to know what I did I did.

Some background on why The Fiery Furnaces are idiots:

The New York City indie band, whilst trying to create a buzz that never wuzz for their summer 2009 release, I’m Going Away (OK, perhaps there was a mini-buzz), have taken to familiar tactics amongst music world douchebags by nonsensically (or possibly sarcastically or ironically?) trashing Radiohead in interviews. Fiery Fungi’s lead singer, Matt Whoever was quoted yesterday calling “Harry Patch (In Memory Of)” (Radiohead’s recent one-off fundraising tribute to the last surviving British soldier of World War I) a “bogus” attempt at “brazenly and arbitrarily associating yourself with things that you know people consider cool.” Huh? Someone sounds confused.

Another comment in the interview has Friedberger (AKA Matt Whoever) asking if the new Radiohead song is “48 notes to the octave.” This would imply that he mistakenly (or intentionally mistakenly) thought that Radiohead wrote a song about American composer Harry PaRtch, and not World War I veteran Harry Patch. Cause yeah, nothing is more brazenly and arbitrarily hip than World War I veterans. Seemingly not knowing what he was going on about, Friedberger continued, “That’s a put-on. That’s a branding technique and Radiohead have their brand that they’re popular and intelligent.” Not even going to touch that one.

After the music world quickly branded Friedberger as unpopular and stupid, the band released a 200+ word drivel fest trying to cover their tracks. The aimless prattle of a statement is heavy on the satire and tries to pass off the insulting Radiohead comments as completely facetious. The opening line is both a bold attempt at verifying yesterday’s “JK” cred and a thinly veiled admission of fandom and/or jealousy; “Like most creative musicians, Matt Friedberger is not a fan of Radiohead and their various chartbusters.” I’ll give you a little LOL for that one.

“Matt naturally thought it would be interesting to pretend that they wrote a song about the celebrated American composer with a similar sounding name, hence his joking in the interview about Radiohead composing a song with something like 48 notes to an octave.” Naturally.

Matt, what are you talking about and what are you talking about? You wouldn’t have to release statements to clarify unfunny jokes about other bands if you didn’t make them in the first place. Even if you were kidding, is it really appropriate to use a tribute to a veteran as the platform for your ever so perceptive wit? Unless, of course, you take into account the plethora of free press your band has received for a couple of insults, this seems like an all around unnecessary risk. You’ll be lucky not to lose half of your indie rock Brooklyn based fan club with Radiohead bashing (whether it’s sarcastic or not), and everyone else is just going to think you’re an insensitive prick.

I think you’re trying too hard, Fungus. I think you’re an idiot.

JK!

<3Poproks

Wanna grow up to be a debaser.

Pixies kicked off their Doolittle 20th Anniversary Tour last night at the Hollywood Palladium in LA with a screening of Un chien andalou, a silent short film from the 20’s co-directed by Salvador Dalí, and the inspiration for the 1989 album’s lead-off track, “Debaser.” The 24 song set that followed included all of Doolittle in its entirety (even “Crackity Jones” and the never before preformed “Silver”). The band started off the set with 4 Doolittle b-sides, and closed with Surfer Rosa’s “Gigantic” and “Where is My Mind” (encore #2).

Here are some Youtubing highlights

“Wave of Mutilation” (UK Surf Version)

“Hey”

“Silver”

“There Goes My Gun”

“Debaser”

It’s been a slow week on My Poproks as I ease into a new apartment and deal with Verizon/Southern California Edison. I’ve also been busy working on my Best 50 (or possibly 64) Songs of the 2000’s. Get excited, kids. If I ever decide on an order, I just may post it up.

Speaking of awesome remixes (weren’t we?), Major Lazer hosted a remix contest a while back for “Pon de Floor” (one of the best songs of the year via their reggae techno space album, Guns Don’t Kill People, Lazers Do). Diplo y Switch posted up the winning track by Murdertronics (complete with Vincent Price’s “Thriller” laugh) on the Mad Decent blog today [yesterday], and it’s extremely downloadable. Kind of makes me wish I had submitted my “Pon de Floor”/”Beat It” mashup. Cause I totally have one of those. Sad emoticon, etc.

Download audio file (Pon%20de%20floor%20(Murdertronics).mp3)

“Pon de Floor” Murdertronics Remix

Vampire Weekend’s self titled debut marked the first time in recent memory that my Album of the Year was decided in January. After nearly two years of missing the band in NY (even having to give away a ticket to go to a company Christmas party), I managed my way to Long Beach last night for the kick off of their California Mini-Tour (stopping in one Starbucks towns like Pioneertown, Lomita, and Visalia) in promotion of their upcoming sophomore, Contra. The Art Theater of Long Beach had been converted into an unconventional music venue, with first come first serve seating and some limited standing area by the stage

In front of a crowd of about 200, the young New York City band wasted no time getting into new material, opening with long-time live staple, “White Sky,” which will appear on Contra. Other new tracks included “Holiday,” “California English,” “Run,” and “Cousins,” which is heavy on the surf guitar and quickly becoming my new favorite. The new single, “Horchata” (’dedicated to Lola’s across the street,’ where they apparently have really good horchata), sounded particularly tight for a new addition.

The small crowd was extremely easy to interact with, evident when keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij started talking about Bradley Nowell and asked if anyone had seen Sublime back in the day (someone actually raised their hand, but, you know, those people are always lying). Lead singer Ezra Koenig addressed almost everything shouted out at him, including incessant demands for “Horchata” and handshakes.

Musically, the band pulls off their fast-paced, intricately recorded tracks extremely well, though many of the more challenging songs were obviously slowed down for easier playing (”Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” for its lead guitar lick, especially). The keyboards were, on occasion, a lackluster substitute for the string sections on the self titled record (”M79″ comes to mind), but Batmanglij still makes it work.

The best moment of the show came during “A-Punk,” when the small handful of people who could fit in the standing area started dancing after being asked very politely by Koenig to “move a little.” It was kind of odd to see less than 30 people dancing at a show to a song that was charting on the Billboards not too long ago. The extremely intimate setting made it seem more like a house party than a concert, and a band that’s used to headlining festivals at this point had an overwhelming command of the small stage. Overall, it was a solid, energetic 14 song set that included almost exactly half of each album.

VW continues their tiny venue California run on Thursday at Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace (and I wasn’t exagerating about the one Starbucks thing, I just checked Google maps). Contra is due January 12, and also threatens to be another early Album of the Year choice. Vampire Weekend make blogging easy.

I know I’d be holding my breath for a long time waiting for another “Umbrella” to come along, but is it just me or is everything that’s come out/leaked so far from Rihanna’s Rated R just kinda eh? R for….um, damn I got nothing.

Long Beach’s Avi Buffalo and I found ourselves in the same place at the same time tonight. The newly signed Sub Pop band spent their Monday opening up for Vampire Weekend, who kicked off their Random California City Tour at an independent movie theater on East 4th Street in The LB (more on this later). We got inside the venue after they had played their upcoming Shinsy Sub Pop debut, “What’s In It For,” but I’m making up for this by streaming the track on repeat now-ish.

The “What’s In It For”/”Jessica” 7″ is due December 8, with a full length coming sometime early next year.

Download audio file (01-whats-it-in-for.mp3)

“What’s In It For” by Avi Buffalo”

False parallelisms be damned.

I have had Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog* on the mind for the past few weeks, between making two friends watch the entire Buffy series this summer and adding Dr. Horrible to my Halloween Weekend viewing list (never got around to it, what with having no electricity. I digress). Nathan Fillion (Captain Hammer), confirmed in an interview with MTV that there is a sequel on the way. No spoilers, but I’m expecting it to be extremely evil.

*This is music-related if you’re a nerd.

Oh sh*t. There’s about to be some sh*t with these little f***in b*tches.

Happy Halloween.