photos by Chris La Putt

Indie darlings Matt & Kim kicked off the show -- which celebrates the year's best music as determined by MTVu's college-centric audience -- with an energetic performance of their breakout single "Lessons Learned." Later, the duo returned to accept their Best Video Woodie award.

"We've had one heck of a year," said Matt Johnson, before counterpart Kim Schifino leapt into the crowd.

Additional performers included veteran alt-rockers Death Cab for Cutie, who rocked the audience with its "New Moon" soundtrack single "Meet Me on the Equinox," as well as Passion Pit, the Dead Weather and Clipse, who were joined onstage by fellow rappers Cam'ron and Rick Ross.

Presenter highlights came from Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz and pop prankserts 3OH!3. Wentz rolled onto the stage holding a red Solo cup, while 3OH!3 gave a nod to Lady Gaga by dressing in her various VMA outfits. Asher Roth, will.i.am, and surprise guest Cyndi Lauper also presented awards. [Billboard]

Cyndi presented an award with Gossip Girl's Leighton Meester who also recently made an appearance at the Weezer (and Matt & Kim) show on Halloween that was sponsored by RXP aka the Matt Pinfield station. Matt was also at the Woodies as was Diplo who was DJing and David Cross, Zooey Deschanel, Janelle Monae, Dave 1 from Chromeo, and Mary Louise Parker. Matt and Kim didn't get naked like they do in their winning video (their second MTV win for that video), but their backup singers did strip down to their underwear.

The Dead Weather also played a show one day before the Woodies in Brooklyn. The Woodies air December 4th at 10pm. More pictures from the event (11/18 at Roseland Ballroom in NYC), below...

Continue reading "2009 mtvU Woodie Awards @ Roseland - pics (Passion Pit, Dead Weather, Matt & Kim, Clipse, Death Cab, more) "

"If this is the world we helped create," guitarist James Suptic said, after looking into the crowd at a reunion gig, "then I apologise."

The Get Up Kids were either second- or third-wave emo, depending on who you ask. What is certain is that they formed in 1995, released four albums, broke up in 2005 and reunited last year. And yet their earnest, heart-on-sleeve punk pop inspired much of the more theatrical late-noughties emo boom.

"There should be a How to Be a Pop-Punk Kid Starter Kit with bands like the Get Up Kids, so kids would know whose shoulders bands like us are standing on," Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz told Alternative Press in 2005. "Fall Out Boy would not be a band if it were not for the Get Up Kids."

"Honestly, I don't often think about the state of emo," Suptic told Drowned in Sound. "We played the Bamboozle fests this year and we felt really out of place. I could name maybe three bands we played with. It was just a sea of neon shirts to us ... the punk scene we came out of and the punk scene now are completely different. It's like glam rock now."

While acts like Fall Out Boy pay tribute to Get Up Kids, the feeling isn't mutual. "If a band gets huge and they say we inspired them - great," Suptic said. "The problem is most of them aren't very good. What does that say about us? I don't know. Maybe we sucked." [Guardian]

Tour dates HERE.

Mr. Lavandeira (Perez) has been negotiating a deal that would provide him with his own imprint at Warner Brothers Records, a division of the music giant Warner Music Group, he said. This was confirmed by several other people associated with the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity because no deal has been made. The talks are preliminary, and an agreement is not certain, but Mr. Lavandeira could receive $100,000 a year as an advance against 50 percent of any profits generated by artists he discovers and releases through Warner Brothers, these people said. [NY Times]

Perez will also be representing at SXSW this year.

I present to you two lame videos by confused "artists" - both using lame stereotypes. The first song is supposed to be about "emo bitches", and the second one was.... performed by some....

Continue reading "Emo Bitches vs. Williamsburg"

Tickets go on sale Wednesday for a December 18th Lupe Fiasco "record release" show at the Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza. The new record is called "The Cool", and the first single "Superstar" is streaming at Lupe's page.

I saw Lupe Fiasco perform last week - ONE WHOLE SONG (and with a member of Fall Out Boy) at the mtvU awards at Roseland - the same show Spank Rock was drunk at. That's Lupe in the photo above. It was taken by Leia Jospe for BrooklynVegan. So were all the other pictures in this post. More photos of Lupe, Rilo Kiley (played 2 or 3 songs), Annie Lennox (accepted an award), Peter Bjorn and John (nominated, men about town), Spank Rock (played 2 songs), Tokyo Police Club (played 2 or 3 songs, then explored the basement of Roseland with us) & other characters present at the event....

Continue reading "LUPE FIASCO playing NYC + pics from the 2007 WOODIES (Tokyo Police Club, Spank Rock, Rilo Kiley)"