Weekend WTF: Bee Gees Drink Some Powerthirst

That's right, back for a limited engagement this weekend only, it's the return of the Weekend WTF!! This one comes by request from my good friend Ray. Ray went to go see The Aquabats at the Trocadero last week, and opening for the band was a group calling themselves Tragedy. Tragedy bill themselves as "An All Metal Tribute to the Bee Gees". If you're eyebrows are somewhere on the ceiling right now, it's OK. Mine were too. Then Ray showed me some video (note: the video below is not Ray's, as his were posted only to facebook. Hoping he'll youtube them sometime soon, as they were far better quality than this one)



As ridiculous metal covers go, this one's actually pretty damned good. Ray and I were both duly impressed with this one. Below you'll find the band's MySpace and official page. Sadly Tragedy is done touring the US for now, but expect them back sometime in '09, and if you have some cash to spare and don't want to deal with bands who take themselves too seriously, go give Tragedy their due.

Tragedy Official Website
Tragedy on MySpace
Tragedy - Stayin' Alive

==TJ==

Amusement at 1AM

Today's XKCD comic (didn't know that XKCD updated so quickly...good to know)
For the record, the title of this one is "Steal This Comic", so go ahead and ask how my conscience is feeling right now.

Expect a piece on some of the ideas behind this comic later this week, as well as something that might become a new segment for awhile.

==TJ==

PS If you don't read XKCD you hate America.

Weekend WTF: Bon Jovi Is Trying So Hard to Be Relevant

This edition of Weekend WTF is brought to you by Germany. More specifically Munich, the city in which Bon Jovi played a show last weekend. Normally this event would have gone unnoticed by VLM except for the following:

1) Right now Welsh singer-songwriter Duffy is scoring a hit on the chart in the form of her first single "Mercy"
2) I got a digital copy of her debut album Rockferry, and was very pleasantly surprised by it (a more in-depth review and a comparison to fellow soul revivalist Amy Winehouse is pending)
3) After tooting his own horn for 2 minutes (and in so doing sounding remarkably like John Mellencamp), Bon Jovi broke into a cover of "Mercy", which someone caught on camera.



Speaking of bands covering songs live...I was about to put up a video of Prince covering "Creep" at Coachella since I actually did find a video of it not 12 hours ago, but lo, it was gone. Bummer. You might expect more on that coming this week.

Let me know what you think of some of the changes going on.

==TJ==

Weekend WTF Is Back for A Limited Engagement

Posts will be a bit more frequent now that I'm out of school, starting with this one-off return of the Weekend WTF.

About a year ago an artist billed only as Sad Kermit dropped a video of Kermit the Frog performing Johnny Cash's version of (Band who's name I can't say due to a previous restriction)'s "Hurt". Earlier this week some more tracks popped up to the surface, including this take on Radiohead's "Creep". The voice is so uncanny it makes the whole damn thing funny, and its all topped off by a guest appearance by Animal for the bridge.

Sad Kermit - Creep (Radiohead Cover)
Sad Kermit's Official Website

==TJ==

Weekend WTF Goes Down Under

If you've never watched an episode of Flight of the Conchords on HBO, don't feel too bad...I've only seen maybe two, and that's two more than a lot of other people. But in celebration of the first American release by "Formerly New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo", I give you the newest Weekend WTF.

Flight of the Conchords - The Hiphopapotamus vs. the Rhimenocerous [iTunes]
(My version is a full minute longer than the iTunes release for reasons unknown, but enjoy nonetheless)

==TJ==

Weekend WTF: VLM Enjoys a Cold One Now and Then...

Here at Arcadia we're seeing the first evidence of springtime, and thus the end of the year. Trees are in bloom, classes are being held outside, and students are spending more and more time on Beaver Beach (that's what we call the soccer field when it's warm out and people are tanning on it). It's just after the cold of winter leaves, and just before the stress of finals kicks into overdrive. Which in the world of college students, means one more great ritual comes into the limelight...


...Partying.


That's not to say parties don't happen anyway the rest of the year, people are just a bit more shameless about it now. Perhaps it's meant to be some last hurrah with college buddies before the summer. Regardless, in the interest of honoring the great college parties (of which there have been 5 or 6 that I know in the last 48 hours), a novelty song from a few years ago, with video to boot



Coors Light - Wingman
(for some reason SaveFile won't let me upload, so this is via YSI)

Back again in the near future.

==TJ==

Weekend WTF: Shea Stadium (and VLM) To Get RickRolled??

Dear Major League Baseball Stadiums,

Look, I get it. Allowing fans to vote on what songs play during certain parts of a game is a way to let fans be more involved with their baseball team and feel like its more interactive...all that nice "we're in control" stuff. But for God's sake, can we please come up with some GOOD tracks for us to vote on? Both the Nationals and my beloved Mets are holding polls of this nature, and in both cases, the song options are just plain awful. The Mets pretty much resemble your local oldies station, for better and (mostly) for worse:

Neil Diamond - Sweet Caroline (Way to steal from Fenway, boys)
Van Morrison - Brown Eyed Girl (Been there, done that)
Billy Joel - Movin' Out (Have we forgotten that Joel is a lifelong Yankees fan?)
Wilson Pickett - Land of 1000 Dances (I'll take cliches for 500, Alex)

Among others. So leave it to a couple of web dorks who double as Mets fans to suggest a better option. At this time there is a write-in campaign for everyone's favorite YouTube prank: Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up". Now I'm pretty new to the RickRoll phenomenon (the best ones I've seen involve a Star Wars Rune Goldberg and a promise of a Cloverfield trailer dating back to September), so it's still kinda funny to me, though I see why others would hate it. But given how out of touch the folks at Shea seem to be about music, I'm happily casting my vote for "Never Gonna Give You Up". Updates on this story if/when I find them.

Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up [iTunes]


PS: Guns N Roses finally gives pre-order info about Chinese Democracy to iTunes:
Pre-order Chinese Democracy here


(Oh, C'mon, like you DIDN'T see that coming...)

==TJ==

Weekend WTF Part 2: Oh God...The Pain...

Found this on Idolator, and my soul won't stop crying. Remember when that Flo Rida remix made me want to burn a field of daisies? Upon hearing the Sean Kingston song below, I don't think burning flowers is enough.

Sean Kingston - Ghetto Girl (samples Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl")



Twice now Kingston has taken a great song from past decades and cursed it with his "presence". ("Beautiful Girls" sampled "Stand By Me"...badly) What's next? "Bohemian Rhapsody"?

Oh God..no...forget I said anything...

==TJ==

Weekend WTF: Wow, A Site that actually posts GOOD Mashups?

This edition of Weekend WTF is just as much a legitimate entry as it is a WTF post. Astute readers will find a new Link on the Left for a site called flipboitamidles. Flipboitamidles creates and posts videos for the mashups he creates. The video's aren't usually much to write home about, but the songs themselves are incredible. Most mashups seem to involve the same groups of songs and artists over and over again. On flipboitamidles, everyone is fair game, the best mashups I've found to date are "What I've Apologized" (Linkin Park/OneRepublic) and the (Hey Oh) remix to "Give It To Me" (Timbaland/RHCP). I've posted an MP3 of "What I've Apologized" below, but please support a fellow music blogger and check his site out.

Linkin Park/OneRepublic - What I've Apologized (Mashedup by Flipboitamidles)

Another legit entry coming later this weekend.

==TJ==

Weekend WTF: Oh-ee-oh-ee-oh...

This weekend's WTF is a tribute to the great Kevin Smith. If you've seen Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, then you already know what I'm posting. If you haven't and/or are sensitive to profanity, you might want to skip this one.



Jay and Silent Bob - Jay's Rap

==TJ==

Weekend WTF: Home Edition

Today will be my last full day home, as I return to Arcadia tomorrow to start that whole real-life thing again. In commemoration of a week of relaxation in my hometown, I present the following single from the Over the Hedge Soundtrack

Ben Folds & William Shatner - Rockin' The Suburbs (Over the Hedge Version) [buy the CD on Amazon...sorry folks]

Normally if an artist changes lyrics to be less abrasive I throw things. But since Over the Hedge was a brilliant example of a family movie that doesn't insult the intelligence of people over the age of 17, and William Shatner is far less annoying than expected, I'll let it pass.

These Weekend WTF's have gotten kinda lame of late...gotta try to find some better material...

==TJ==

Weekend WTF: One of the greats...and Axl Rose

The Good, The Bad, and the Unknown had this file up awhile ago, and I'm reposting it here as a WTF, because, well. it is one. Apparently at some point during Guns N Roses' prime Tom Petty thought it was a good idea to perform with them. I haven't been able to verify when/where this performance took place, but either way, its Axl Rose and Tom Petty doing "Free Fallin'". The scariest part about this is...it's actually not half bad.

Axl Rose & Tom Petty - Free Falling (live)

Tom Petty on iTunes

Back late tonight/tomorrow with the first Under the Radar entry.

==TJ==

Wednesday WTF: The Return of Green Day (Sort Of)

This story is actually a few weeks old, but I've been sitting on it to see if it fizzled or if something big came out of it. In December of 2007 a band calling themselves The Foxboro Hot Tubs launched a MySpace page and website where they were giving away digital copies of their debut Stop Drop and Roll EP. It didn't take very long for music enthusiasts to point out that the anonymous lead singer's voice sounds remarkably like Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, most notably on lead single "Mother Mary". Speculation has run rampant about whether or not this is actually Green Day, but there's plenty of evidence. In 2001, a band known as The Network released an EP, again bearing similarities to Green Day. The band never owned up to being The Network, and its unlikely they'll ever come clean about The Foxboro Hot Tubs (if they are in fact responsible for it).

Under normal circumstances the EP would have floated around the internet a bit and then ultimately fizzled out. But in checking the Alternative Rock Radio Charts for the last week or so, I encountered the following:


"Mother Mary" has apparently been slowly climbing the charts. So for everyone clamoring for a new Green Day album, hope this keeps you amused for a bit. And kudos to Green Day for a brilliant scheme to keep rabid fans at bay.

The Foxboro Hot Tubs - Mother Mary

==TJ==

It's Time for your Weekend WTF?!?!

Introducing a new weekly(ish) feature on Viva La Mainstream!, entitled Weekend WTF?!?! It's where I post and/or discuss a song that is pretty well described as What The F#(&. Some posts might actually have meaning, others will just be something ridiculous.

I know I posted this back in the spring when this first came out, but it's so cool it needs to be re-posted. Sometime in mid-2007, after Fall Out Boy released Infinity On High, but before Kanye released Graduation, a group of DJs put together a mixtape of mashups, blends and remixes between Kanye and FOB. The results were fairly mixed, but the highlight was the mashup of "Dance Dance" and "Golddigger". I love it, and I think you'd be hard pressed to not do the same.

Kanye West and Fall Out Boy - I Don't Care I Still Love Her

==TJ==

Currently Listening: Good Charlotte - I Don't Wanna Be In Love (Dance Floor Anthem) [iTunes]
(why...why do I like this song??)

Maybe the Angel Isn't Crying As Much Now

I linked my friend Alex to that "Low" remix I posted earlier today. He countered with this:

Timbaland - The Way I Are (OneRepublic remix)

It would appear that's how a band says "thank you" for stealing a song and making it a #1 single. As remixes and collaborations go, I've heard far worse. Hell, I've heard worse on Timbaland's CD. 1000 points to Alex for pointing me in this direction, and props to Mixtape Maestro for giving me the link.

==TJ==

Somewhere In This World An Angel is Crying

And, now, I'd like to present you with a healthy dose of WTF?!?! I can't make this kind of stuff up:

Flo Rida - Low (Red Jumpsuit Apparatus remix)


Pop quiz, everybody! The song above makes TJ want to:
A)Proclaim the arrival of the golden age of music
B)Weep uncontrollably for the future
C)Punch small children, set fields of flowers ablaze and destroy everything that is beautiful in this world
D)Dance like a moron



If you answered A to that question, go sit in a corner while the rest of us point and laugh. If you said D...just...no. If you answered C, you would be correct. Apparently the way to make an irritating-as-all-unholy-hell song acceptable to people like me is to take a second-rate rock band and put them behind it. Did it work? The scary thing is...I don't know. For the moment I'm hoping this is a joke and I won't turn on Q102 later today to hear this. But if you find me later today and my ears are bleeding and you see some small children crying in a scorched field, you'll know why.

==TJ==

VLM Presents Your Daily Dose of WTF??!!

Found this while I was searching for other stuff and it was too ridiculous to let pass.



Foo Fighters - With Arms Wide Open (Creed Cover)

Apparently during a sound check for a radio on-air performance or something, Dave Grohl decided to break out into "With Arms Wide Open", complete with bad Scott Stapp impersonation. In true Grohl-esque manner, he flubs the lyrics to hell and back (probably on purpose), and the result is this novelty track. Enjoy. More stuff to come later.

==TJ==