Sia & friend

"The Voice" is about to sound even sweeter now that Reba McEntire, Monica and other music favorites are joining the NBC singing competition.

In the coming weeks, coaches Blake Shelton, Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green and Adam Levine will be teamed up with mentors from the music industry who have inspired them, according to the network.

McEntire will join Shelton, Monica will join Cee Lo Green, singer Sia will join Aguilera, and Maroon 5 music director Adam Blackstone will join Levine.

The quartet will serve as advisers to their colleagues as well as the talent, offering words of wisdom and helping to choose songs that best suit each singer's vocal style. -[CNN]

Cee-Lo is already huge (no pun intended), and it looks like Christina Aguilera collaborator Sia is on her way towards major stardom as well.

And in addition to Sia's upcoming spot on TV, she'll appear live across North America on tour in July and August with special guest Oh Land opening the shows. The tour includes two NYC nights at Webster Hall, July 26 & July 27. Tickets for the 7/26 show go on AmEx presale on Wednesday, and general sale at noon on Friday (5/6). Tickets for the 7/27 show will probably go on sale when that one sells out? Tickets for the 7/27 show also go on presale/sale Wednesday/Friday.

Oh Land recently performed at Terminal 5 with the return of OMD, at The Charles Bank Gallery and at Best Buy Union Square. Video of Oh Land from T5 and Best Buy, and all tour dates, below...

Continue reading "Sia joining Christina Aguilera & Cee Lo on 'The Voice', touring w/ Oh Land (dates)"

by Ryan Barkan

Super Bowl XLV (45): Dallas Cowboys vs...oh wait....The Green Bay Packers vs the Pittsburgh Steelers in Dallas' brand new, state of the art, big ass stadium. The Packers won, bringing the Lombardi Trophy back to small town America and less sales back to Wiz Khalifa. I wonder if Jerry Jones was faking all of those smiles? Enough of the sports talk. This feature is the return of the long lost "Week In Music Licensing" post.

The real winner tonight - Detroit. A town that has been down on its luck, due for something inspiring to happen. Well here you go. Laura R. Charron tweeted that "#Detroit area agrees that #Chrysler200 had THE BEST commercial." Decide for yourself:

Continue reading "music & commercials of Super Bowl XLV (Eminem, Jon Spencer, Ozzy, Bieber, Bowie, RAC, Kenny G & more)"

The pop star-heavy schedule for this year's free Toyota-sponsored Today Show concerts that bring screaming fans and tourists to Rockfeller Plaza on Friday mornings at 7am, has been announced. The shows kick off with Sting on May 14th (that one should be fairly subdued), and continue with people that include Maroon 5, Maxwell, Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, Justin Bieber (this one will be completely nuts), ....Full lineup, more info and and other Sting shows below...

Continue reading "2010 Today Show Rockefeller Plaza concert lineup, Sting, etc"

Sia just peed all over our van. We are on herbal x. And we bought a whistle -jd samson

Men...

I just saw the Marie Claire with CHRISTINA AGUILERA on the cover and I realized we are waaaay overdue for an update. Yes, the rumors are true...Le Tigre wrote and produced a couple of songs with Christina! Not wanting to break the spell of this magic opportunity as we wait in suspense to hear if our tracks make it on the album, we've been quiet on the topic. But now that the buzz is getting crazy I just can't contain myself. Needless to say, for a feminist band obsessed with pop music, it was pretty much a dream come true.[Johanna Fateman of Le Tigre]

This is the second "working with Christina Aguilera" news we've posted this week. The first was Sia, who also happens to be JD Samson of Le Tigre's girlfriend.

"Le Tigre" might be actively working with Christina Aguilera, but they still don't have any shows coming up. MEN, a project headed by Le Tigre's JD Samson, does. That group, which used to pair JD and Joanna, now has a "core group" of "Hirsute members Michael O'Neill (Princess, Ladybug Transistor) and Ginger Brooks Takahashi (LTTR, The Ballet) with Johanna and artist Emily Roysdon contributing as writers, consultants, and producers."

MEN play a party called "That's My Jam" at the Bell House on February 20th, with MKNG FRNDZ, DJ Kingdom and DJ Tikka Masala (no advance tickets). They're also playing a March 10th show at Mercury Lounge with Light Asylum. Tickets go on sale Wednesday, February 3rd (today) at noon.

All dates and the full post about their work with Christina Aguilera are below...

Continue reading "Le Tigre work with Christina Aguilera, MEN schedule shows"

Though Sia's new album, We Are Born, won't be out until "later this year" (Spring), the infectious new Greg Kurstin-produced song "You've Changed" is already a dancefloor hit. The video came out in December. You can watch it below.

In April Sia will head out on a North American tour that stops at Coachella before making its way back east for a final tour stop in NYC. The NY show is May 6th at the giant Terminal 5. Tickets go on AmEx presale Wednesday at 11am. General sale starts Friday at noon.

For a taste of Sia much sooner than that, you can catch her assisting Chilly Gonzales at Joe's Pub this Thursday (2/4). Look for her also to have some part in the reborn Lilith Fair, as well as on David Byrne and Fatboy Slim's new album.

In other Sia news, she'll be helping Christina Aguilera write Christina's forthcoming album. All Sia dates below...

Continue reading "Sia - new album, video & 2010 tour dates (Terminal 5)"

the tenth in a series where we asked comedians to tell us what was good this year....

I first experienced Jon Glaser a really long time ago when he was hosting some show at UCB that had David Cross on the bill. At that point in my life, I'm pretty sure Cross was really the only reason I was there. Glaser came out as Dave Gordon, a man who has tiny hands. It was (and still is) one of the funniest things I had ever seen and I became an immediate fan and follower of Glaser. To me, he is by far the funniest, most unique character actor around, and I rarely see him play the same character twice. Favorites include Johnny Ding-Dong, Silent Fury, one of the Fuggedabuddies (w/ Jon Benjamin), bassist for A Matter of Trust, member of Gloucester-based band The Perfect Storm, and many, many others. A former member of The Second City and writer for Conan O'Brien, he can be heard as voice of DJ Jesus in the Adult Swim cartoon Lucy: The Daughter of the Devil. He also played Dr. Rawstein in Horse Apples on Wonder Showzen. He was in a pilot called Gay Robot that Nick Swardson wrote. Oh, and he's also 50% of Midnight Pajama Jam w/ Jon Benjamin. The list of credits could go on for miles. Here's Jon's take on what was good in 2007 - Klaus

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I have a 21 month old son. As a dad just tryin' to be cool by playing 'non-kid, cool' songs for his child, here are the "Top 10 Songs I Played For My Son In 2007 That I Am Glad He Seemed To Like", aka a pretentious list of my own musical taste that I forced on him. These are all old songs (except one), but were new to my son in 2007.

"Mr. Tough", Yo La Tengo - An early and continuous favorite. He was dancing to it in his bungee swing before he could walk, let alone dance, on his own.

"Blitzkrieg Bop", The Ramones - I didn't want to include this one because the image of kids dancing to The Ramones feels like a lame Huggies commercial (as opposed to a well done Huggies commercial, of which I think there are several). But I kept it in because the way he danced to it one of the first times he heard it was insane. He snapped his neck to the side so hard a couple times I thought he was going to break it.

"You're No Rock N' Roll Fun", Sleater-Kinney - He enjoyed watching himself in the mirror as he danced to this, and at one point yelled "Go!"

continued below.....

Continue reading "Best of 2007 by Jon Glaser"