While a lot of the scuttlebutt from this weekend's
Saturday Night Live will probably be about Hillary Clinton's bright-eyed cameo and Andy Samberg's
spot-on Diablo Cody impersonation (complete with Nate Dogg reference!), I thought the most notable part of the episode was the fact that, for the first time in forever, the band actually sounded good. Wilco's two songs were, for the most part, free of the mixing problems and cruddy amplification that have plagued so many other bands playing the Grand Central Station-decorated stage. (But surely I'm not the only one who a) thought Jeff Tweedy looked a
lot like the also-cameoing Vincent D'Onofrio and b) got annoyed when the
Law & Order "chunk-chunk" was used during D'Onofrio's too-brief appearance, since the spinoff he appears on
doesn't use that sound anymore. What, did Jeremy Sisto cancel at the last minute? Hmph.) "Hate It Here" is above; "Walken" is after the jump.
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Idolator
Looking for another summer festival to hit, but not wanting to go much farther than say...Jackson Hole, Wyoming? Well get psyched for the weekend of August 16th, when the Black Crowes, Medeski Martin and Wood, Kaki King, Wilco AND Son Volt entertain folks at the inaugural two-day Jackson Hole Music Festival. Wilco and Son Volt, people. Wilco and Son Volt. I smell the unthinkable. [
CBS has decided to pick up the Mark Burnett game show Jingles, during which contestants will be required to write songs showcasing the various sponsors of the program in a positive light, then have those tunes judged by an "expert panel" and Americans. Winning songs will get used in the featured products' commercials, a fact that should make any indie musician hoping to pay his rent by selling his track to a soap company quiver in his boots. The designed-for-evading-TiVoers show will likely appear on the network's schedule come summertime, and casting is apparently going on right now! Here's a suggestion for CBS: How about cueing up a "marginal indie celebrity" version of the show to bring down your network's average viewing age—perhaps Feist vs. Wilco vs. Stephin Merritt? A preview of that potential throwdown is after the jump.
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