The Black Keys @ ACL 2010 (more by Tim Griffin)

Auerbach and Carney squared off against Koenig by naming the commercials that had licensed their music -- Hewlett Packard, Zales, Victoria's Secret and Tommy Hilfilger, to name a few -- before Colbert called the contest a draw and declared that both bands had "equally whored out [their] music."

But that claim -- even if it was said in jest -- is somewhat misleading, Carney says.

"A lot of people see a Nissan ad and they see a finished product in a record store or on iTunes and that's the face of the band," Carney says. "What they don't see is that we made [Brothers] in a cinderblock building in the middle of nowhere in Alabama, with five microphones and a guitar amp and a drum set. I don't know what that means, exactly, but I do know we didn't spend a lot of money making this record, and it's an honest way of approaching making music. And once the music is out there, when you're selling a record and selling music and people are going to do whatever they want with it, it's kind of hard to resist certain opportunities, especially in the record market now." [NPR]

The Black Keys are currently up for four Grammy Awards... and for two MTVu Woodie Awards (more than any other artist).

The Woodies, for what it's worth, are going to take place at SXSW this year instead of in NYC as usual. Other nominees include Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, Local Natives, Sleigh Bells, Two Door Cinema Club, Wavves, Das Racist, Die Antwoord, and Yelawolf. You can vote for the winners at MTV's site.

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) "

photos by Kyle Dean Reinford

Passion Pit and the Clipse -- featuring Cam'ron and Rick Ross -- have just been confirmed to perform at the sixth-annual Woodies, joining already-announced acts Death Cab for Cutie, the Dead Weather and Matt & Kim. Breakout Woodie nominees Passion Pit will be performing their breakout single "The Reeling," while the Clipse will take on a pair of tracks, teaming with Cam on "Popular Demand (Popeye's)" and Ross for "I'm Good." Genre-blurring DJ/producer Diplo, who lately has been spending time as one half of Major Lazer, has also been announced as the house DJ for the night.

But all the onstage action won't just be of the performance variety. On Monday (November 16), the Woodies also announced a slate of big-name presenters, including Pete Wentz, Zooey Deschanel, 3OH!3, Mary-Louise Parker, David Cross, Janelle Monáe, and Woodie of the Year nominee Asher Roth.

The 2009 mtvU Woodie Awards will take place this Wednesday [tonight] at the Roseland Ballroom in New York. The show will then premiere Friday, December 4, at 10 p.m. ET on mtvU, MTV, MTV2 and Palladia.

Tickets to the Woodie Awards were mainly given out to college students. Last night (11/17), The Dead Weather played a pre-Woody show with Violent Soho at Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Less than a day earlier the news broke that Dead Weather drummer Jack White would be working with Wanda Jackson on her new album. More pictures and a video from the Brooklyn show, below...

Continue reading "The Dead Weather played Music Hall of Williamsburg (pics), playing Woodies tonight w/ Passion Pit, Diplo & Clipse "

The Dead Weather @ Home Sweet Home in July (more by Ryan Muir)

The Dead Weather will be performing at Music Hall of Williamsburg on Tuesday, November 17th. The show, happening one day before the group plays the mtvU Woodie Awards at Roseland Ballrom, is currently the only gig on their schedule. Tickets for the show will go on presale for subscribers of The Vault, the online club run by Third Man Records, starting Tuesday, November 10th at noon. General sale starts Friday, November 13th at noon. There will be a two ticket limit, will call only.

At the mtvU Woodie Awards, at Roseland Ballroom on November 18th, the band will perform their Woodie-nominated video song, "Treat Me Like Your Mother." That's posted below. Also on the bill are Death Cab For Cutie (doing their Twilight song "Meet Me on the Equinox") and Matt and Kim. The event will be broadcast on December 4th.

The Dead Weather video and this year's Woodie Nominees are posted below...

Continue reading "The Dead Weather playing MHOW before they play the mtvU Woodies (with Death Cab & Matt & Kim)"

photos by Tim Griffin

big pimp Bjorn w/ Santogold & Lykke Li @ The 2008 Woodies

Santogold, Lykke Li and Kanye West are all on the new N.A.S.A. track that everyone is talking about. That reminded me of the rest of the Woodies pictures I have sitting here. The new song (streaming as a video), and more pics, below...

Continue reading "N.A.S.A., Santogold, Lykke Li, more Woodies pics "

photos by Tim Griffin

Vampire Weekend shows
Dec 3 @ Terminal 5 w/ The Teenagers
Dec 4 @ Terminal 5 w/ Telepathe
Dec 6 @ Terminal 5 w/ Fiasco & Air Bombay
Dec 8 @ Wellmont Theater w/ Ra Ra Riot

At the Woodies last week, Vampire Weekend played at the same time as Chromeo. Together they performed VW's "The Kids Don't Stand a Chance" which is also the next single VW are releasing on XL on December 9th. You can watch the Woodies now at MTVU's site. More Chromeo Weekend pictures below....

Continue reading "Vampire Weekend openers, Woodies pics w/ Chromeo "

photos by Tim Griffin

The MTVU Woodies Awards took place exactly a week ago at Roseland Ballroom in NYC, but they "air" for the first time tonight, Wednesday November 19th @ MTVu's website. Among the short performances you'll be able to see was a team up of Q-Tip and Lykke Li (and Bjorn of Peter Bjorn and John on bass).

As you know, Lykke Li's next NYC show will take place at Webster Hall on February 2nd (tickets). That date is now part of a larger tour.

Q-Tip is going on tour with the Cool Kids. Their NYC show is December 2nd at Nokia Theatre (tickets).

All Lykke Li tour dates, and more pictures from the Woodies below...

Continue reading "Lykke Li - updated tour dates, pics w/ Q-Tip @ the Woodies (which airs tonight) "

Lykke Li @ Music Hall of Williamsburg (more by Gabi Porter)

mtvU, MTV's 24-hour college network, today announced that college favorites Santogold, Vampire Weekend, Lykke Li and All Time Low will take the stage for a night of unforgettable live performances at the 2008 "mtvU Woodie Awards" - the definitive college music awards. All four are nominated for Woodie Awards this year, as voting continues on mtvU.com/woodies. Additionally, four college radio stations progressed today to the final round of voting as they battle to be named Best Campus Radio Station and five college bands were named as finalists for the "Best Music on Campus Woodie Award," each vying for a chance to be declared best college band in America.

The only awards to honor the music voted best by the college audience, the 2008 "mtvU Woodie Awards" will take place on November 12, 2008 at Roseland Ballroom in New York City and premiere on-air November 19, 2008 at 8pm ET on mtvU, mtvU.com and in high definition on Palladia. MTV, MTV2 and MTV News will also broadcast highlights from the musical performance-packed show.

You can vote for who should win a Woodie HERE. I'm not sure at the moment how you get tickets, but they do manage to pack Roseland full of college students each year, so let me know if you find the way. The rest of the press release is below...

Continue reading "Santogold, Vampire Weekend, Lykke Li playing 2008 Woodies "

* American Music Awards
* VNV Nation is at Music Hall
* Ani Difranco is playing Town Hall
* The Bird and the Bee are @ the Gramercy Theatre
* Buck 65 was moved from Bowery Ballroom to Mercury Lounge

The American Music Awards are on tonight, The White Stripes (friends of Beck) are up for Favorite "Alternative Rock Music" Artist. Their competition? Linkin Park and My Chemical Romance (only three artists are nominated in each category). Nickelback, Maroon 5 & Linkin Park are competing for "Favorite Band, Duo or Group". I guess there's no reason to watch that one. Performers include Duran Duran (who were recently affected by the Broadway strike) and Rihanna (who appears on a new disc of Def Jam rarities). Slash (who has a new book out) and Gene Simmons (who doesn't care about Radiohead) are both presenting awards.

Speaking of awards, below you'll find a bunch of videos from the mtvU ones (including one of Spank Rock live-blogging). What else?

Continue reading "What's Going on Sunday? (American Music Awards)"

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)"

Rilo Kiley's Street Team (CRED)

Rilo Kiley have been confirmed to play the MTVu Woody Awards at Roseland Ballroom in NYC tomorrow night (Nov 8, 2007)...

Calling all Rilo Kiley fans in the NYC area!!
Rilo Kiley will be performing at the 2007 MTVU Woodie Awards this Thursday, 11/8/07 at the Roseland Ballroom in NYC. We need true, dedicated COLLEGE fans to be part of this show. For FREE tickets send an e-mail ASAP to woodieawards@mtvstaff.com and please include the following info:
-Name
-Age
-Phone number
-Where do you go to college?
-What is your favorite Rilo Kiley song?
-Are you available from 6pm to 10pm this Thursday evening?
-Have you seen them in concert before?

I wonder if it's better to have seen them before, or to not have seen them before. Lupe Fiasco is also rumored to be playing (along with Tokyo Police Club, Spank Rock and The Academy Is). Annie Lennox is being honored and will be there. Amy Winehouse will not (though I can't speak for the many impersonators).

And as promised, I also have 10 pairs of tickets to give away. To win, E-mail BVCONTESTS@HOTMAIL.COM (subject: Woody). Ten winners will be picked at random and contacted ASAP.

weird, but true....

Amy Winehouse with The Olson Twins in London, Oct 9, 2007

Amy Winehouse never made it to NYC last time she was supposed to (a lot of times actually). Let's see if she makes it next time - to the 2007 MTVU Woodie Awards taking place at Roseland Ballroom on November 18th. Spank Rock is playing too. More info, and nominees, below....

Continue reading "Amy Winehouse, Spank Rock playing the MTVU Woodies"