We love to know what’s on the minds of the musicians in our local rock & roll scene, so what better way than to follow a couple hundred MN bands & musicians via a Twitter list? Here’s some of the best, funniest, most interesting, and/or most random things we’ve spotted on our list in the past week along with our own random thoughts in response. And if you want to join in on this 140 characters or less madness, you can follow our list too!

Now that’s fame! Not a bad picture either.

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posted March 21st, 2010 at 5:00 pm Tweets of the Week

File this under “slightly disturbing but hilarious”.

P.S. – I think every band needs to record handclaps like that.

Links

ReadyGoes – Geocities / YourSpace / Facepage / Zwitter

posted March 19th, 2010 at 4:13 pm Video ReadyGoes

South Carolina alt-rockers NEEDTOBREATHE are currently on a pan-American tour, scheduled to play a date this Saturday evening, March 20, at First Avenue Nightclub in Minneapolis. We had the opportunity to chat with Bo Rinehart while en route to the Midwest, and he revealed some of his thoughts on the recording process, heavy touring, and his fondness for chics who love football.

Skelly : On your most recent record The Outsiders, you chose to work with three different producers to complete the album.  Why did you choose to do this, and were there ever times when you wondered if the record might turn out sounding like three EP’s crammed into one LP?

Bo Rinehart: I think that we definitely considered that and thought about it a lot.  Some of the producers would lean over and they would hear the other stuff that the other producers were working on and they’d say “are you sure you want to do this”?  We really wanted to pull and steal knowledge from as many people as possible.  We love the studio and we love the process.  We actually have our own studio in Charleston, SC.  It’s a converted house, and we have everything we would ever need there.  But we’ve always wanted to let a producer share their knowledge, because they’ve been doing this a lot longer than we have and they’ve always got something to offer.

This record was co-produced on all the songs, so the one constant was that we were co-producing with each of those three.  But I think from start to finish the record sounds like it may come from several different places.  We did some on the east coast and some on the west coast, and I think we want people to hear that when they listen to it.  We were very fortunate to use three producers that we chose, some of our heroes in that business.  In the end I think we love the process and the project, and we may do it the same way or we may do it differently the next time.  We haven’t figured it out yet.

[audio=http://borangutan.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/01-The-Outsiders.mp3]

“The Outsiders” by: NEEDTOBREATHE

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posted March 18th, 2010 at 1:51 pm Interviews NEEDTOBREATHE, The Outsiders

Goodbye, good hero.

[audio=http://borangutan.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/02-The-Ballad-Of-El-Goodo.mp3]

“The Ballad of El Goodo” by: Big Star (written by Alex Chilton)

(CNN) — Rock guitarist and singer Alex Chilton, known for his work with bands the Box Tops and Big Star, died Wednesday.

He was 59.

Chilton was having heart problems and died in an emergency room in New Orleans, Louisiana, said longtime friend and business associate John Fry.

“Obviously, we are all stunned and deeply saddened at this news,” Fry said.

Chilton started in music as a teen in the 1960s, as vocalist for the psychedelic soul group the Box Tops, Fry said. They were known for the No. 1 hit “‘The Letter” and songs such as “Neon Rainbow” and “Cry Like a Baby.”

After that group disbanded in 1970, Chilton formed the Memphis rock group Big Star.

Though that band had a short life, breaking up in 1974, its music catapulted the group and Chilton to cult status.

“While Big Star struggled with success commercially, their early ’70s, power-pop sound is often cited as directly influencing bands like Cheap Trick, R.E.M. and the Replacements,” Billboard magazine said in its biography of Chilton’s group.

The evidence of that: a song the Replacements released in 1987, called “Alex Chilton.”

Part of the chorus of that song is “Children by the million sing for Alex Chilton when he comes ’round. They sing, I’m in love.”

In the 1990s, Big Star got back together.

Chilton and the band were scheduled to perform at the South by Southwest music festival in Texas this weekend.

posted March 18th, 2010 at 8:19 am Music News Alex Chilton

Our friends over at Northern Outpost just posted a second video of live footage they shot at self-evident‘s show back in January at Sauce.  The song performed is “Cloudless.”

See Northern Outpost’s first self-evident installment HERE.

posted March 17th, 2010 at 8:55 pm Video Northern Outpost, self-evident

We love Free Energy.  You should too.

Links

Free Energy – Myspace

posted March 16th, 2010 at 4:15 pm Video Free Energy