We have a new project for Jan-March and we’d like to invite you in. We at FFtB were quite enamored with the recent release of the Achtung Baby Cover album, so we thought we’d pay homage to another great, and highly formative, album. We’re going to try and cover The Flaming Lips 1999 release, The Soft Bulletin. We have a few track already claimed as you’ll see, but if you or someone you know is interested in making a cover, it’s first come, first serve.

1. Race for the Prize (Adam L)

2. A Spoonful Weighs a Ton (Lars)

3. The Spark That Bled (Nate)

4. The Spiderbite Song (Tomato?)

5. Buggin’ (Nate)

6. What is the Light? (Joel W.)

7. The Observer

8. Waiting for a Superman (Joel w.)

9. Suddenly Everything Has Changed (Reade G.)

10. The Gash (Lars)

11. Feeling Yourself Disintegrate

12. Sleeping on the Roof (Eskimo palace)

Who is in? Email Lars (larsericstromberg(at)gmail.com) to claim a song. Deadline is March 25.

Featuring

• 01 Dearest Jesus – Blue Bird Shoe Shoppe
• 02 Happy XMas / War is Over – Conrad Spencer
• 03 Elf Factory – Surrounded by Werewolves
• 04 You Were Born in Bethlehem – Food for the Saints
• 05 He Has Come – Josh Dekker
• 06 Our Trip to Macy’s – Jeremiah Dickson
• 07 Weatherproof – Surrounded by Werewolves
• 08 Joy To The World – Blue Bird Body Shoppe
• 09 This Year – Alice Sandahl

Here is how you get the album:

1. Go to the new FFTB Band Camp’s website:HTTP://FOODFORTHEBELOVED.BANDCAMP.COM/

From there you can download it or just listen to it or even buy it. If you do spend any money, it will be donated to Compassion International

Big big thanks to everyone that contributed this year, I know that many of you wanted to contribute but couldn’t. I take some of the blame for that on being slow to get this organized. That being said, I think that the album really came together great this year and Bonnie did a stellar job on the album art. Please share this with anyone that might enjoy.

Happy Christmas

The FFTB Family

PS…Some FFTB’ers can be found on this Pre-Christmas podcast Pure Imagination http://www.vangloria.net/pureimagination/Pre-Christmas.m4a

Submit a song

I’ll digitally package it and put it out there for the world to enjoy

 Last year we received lots and lots of great feedback from the album and many “I wish I would have recorded a song” comments from people. Here is your chance. The song can be original or a cover. It can be instrumental or not. Let’s do this thing! This year, the deadline will be December 15th Good luck!

Also, smoking in the studio is a big deal.

Good NEws! They may be sorry they gave me privileges to add posts here, but I’ve just spoken to Tomato and to Lars and they both promised me that they would finally post their long awaited Peter Gabriel inspired songs FROM MAY by this very Friday! I’m pretty happy about it because these songs are long overdue. Can’t wait gents! I also can’t wait for a new project

-conrad

For example; if you listen to Danzig really loud at Sturgis, you’ll get an appreciative head nod and maybe a fist bump.  If you listen to Danzig really loud while choosing picture frames at Target, you may get asked to leave, or at least take it to the back aisle where they keep those two lonely car batteries no one ever buys.

So…..without further adieu…….

Tips For the Beloved #1

Maybe this is old news, but it’s a revelation to me.  NPR offers a Live Concert Series podcast that is free of charge (duh) and pretty awesome.  Concerts range from Bon Iver, The Civil Wars, The Decembrists, Iron and Wine, They Might Be Giants, Wolf Parade, and more.  Oh, much, much, more.  Some of these concerts are single events, but many of them are from larger festivals such as the Newport Folk Festival, or Sasquatch.

I’m going to see Bon Iver in September which I’m pretty pumped about, so hearing them play a recent concert only made it better.  (Plus, at the 12:45 mark of the concert, some guy yells out, “Hadouken!”. Or maybe it was a Shoryuken, you be the judge. Either way, I hope that guy is at the show I go to.)

Anyways, check out the podcast series here, download some jams and thank my later.

My wife and I were smart and parked at the State Fair ground, then  took a shuttle to TCF stadium for 1/2 price parking.  Arrived at the stadium at 6:45ish and went directly into the t-shirt lines, which btw were ridiculous.  It’s like people haven’t bought a t-shirt before.  Huge lines and the people at the front wanted to touch all the different shirts and try them on.  I mean, do people really not know what size t-shirt they wear.  Side note…not many great t-shirts, just a cool gray one and a cool vintage Achtung Baby t-shirt. 

The crowd was very unique….at least for my concert experiences.  I’m used to crowds full of super emo dudes with studded earings, dyed black hair and a style that says “I took 4 hours to look this good, but I don’t care” or the super hippy look.  This crowd was generationally diverse.  I saw lots of kids, lots of old people and lots of people in between.  When you walk into the stadium, you are in awe of this giant stage they put together for this tour (the claw).  It looks like one of those claws from the claw game where you drop it to almost win a stuffed creature, usally found at Chuckie Cheese or gas stations in Wisconsin.  It was huge, green and looked like it had giant yellow junior mints holding it all together.

Interpol started playing at about 7pm and they did exactly what a openning act is supposed to do and warm up the audience for the main event.  I’m not a huge Interpol guy; I have one of their albums.  Something about them seemed may me think “This must be what it was like to see Duran Duran in the 80′s”.  They sounded good, were sort of energetic and entertaining to watch.  Nothing extra special to watch and that’s what I expect out of the opening act.  If it was an Interpol concert, I’d expect them to be going much more crazy. 

After that, more people filled in, the weather started to brew a little, the sky turned dark, all prep for U2 to begin.  U2 walks to the stage to Bowie’s “Major Tom” and I got chills.  The stadium was pumped; they hit the stage and opened up with Even Better Than the Real Thing.  This was the moment where I realized that U2 concerts are super awesome.  The lights were awesome, the sound was amazing, the performance was incredible.  Bono has every rock star thing mastered.  If he was in Madden game he’s probably be 99′s across the board.  I’m starting to realize that my words aren’t going to do this concert justice at all.

Moving on… The wind seemed to pick up on all the heavier songs like Until the End of the World and Get on Your Boots.  At one point the wind was destroying me, there were fireworks launching from Minneapolis and U2 was making my skin melt off from all the rocking.  I’m not one to sing with the band at a concert and I sung.   Then the rain came….and I didn’t care.  I actually thought it was more awesome.  I was soaked and watching U2 rock out in the rain.  Lightning is flashing in the distance, Bono is making all sorts of rain references between songs like singing Purple Rain, Rain Drops keep falling on my Head and We’re singing in the Rain.  Bono embraced the rain, so did I, and I’m thinking 90% of the people there felt the same way.  They played a good mix of hits and rarities. 

Bono referenced the fact that at one point, Minneapolis was set to be the final show of the 360 tour, and declared that tonight is the start of the ‘end of tour party’. Somali pop star K’naan, whom Bono spoke with before the show about the famine in Somalia, joined the band on stage to sing Stand By Me for the people suffering in Somalia. Bono dedicates Stuck In A Moment to Amy Winehouse, who died earlier in the day.

This review is getting too long and that should tell you that I really enjoyed this concert.  If you’ve never seen U2 live before, you should do all that you can to make it happen, no matter if you are 70 years or 7.  If they go on tour again, you must take advantage and go.

-FFTB

A Vision Comes – Conrad Spencer 

First off, this is the 2nd time I’ve seen Fleet Foxes in concert.  I saw them a year or two ago at the Cedar Cultural center.  That experience tainted this one because:
A. The Cedar is much more intimate
2. It was the 1st time I saw them
III. I could see everyone super well, and soak in the uncanny harmonies.

Don’t get me wrong, the State theater is cool, but everyone always prefers seeing the bands they love in smaller places. 

The audience at the show last night was super weird.  The Fleet Foxes allow for some down time between songs to tune etc.  During some of these down times some audience member yelled some stupid idiot stuff.  Like “Turn down the treble” and “The mix sucks”.  I think I have a pretty good ear, I’ve been a sound engineer and musician for a long time and the mix sounded great to me.  (Ir)regardless, what the f&* do these guys think the Fleet Foxes are going to do, say “Hey Gary, I think this guys yelling stuff is on to some good feedback, can you throw him at the sound board.”  Anyway, that made stuff pretty awkward and made some other audience member want to remedy the situation by yelling stuff like “I want to have your babies” and “we love you”.  Fleet Foxes are a pretty chill band, folky indie music, so everyone was sitting down enjoying the music.  Everyone except for 4 dudes about 20 rows up from me.  I think that these guys missed the turn for the DMB concert.  I seemed like they wanted a mosh pit.  They kept yelling, “Get up, Stand up!”.  I could understand that for a rock concert, but not Fleet Foxes.  Come on guys, embarrassing!  The last weird thing was the applause after the 3, 4, and 5th songs.  The audience went nuts after these songs.  They were screaming and standing, applauding like they were watching Babe Ruth hit a grand slams to win the world series.  The rest of the concert consisted of normal applause.

The good stuff..
-They played almost every song that they have in their collection. 
-They have the best harmonies you’ll ever hear live
-Robin Pecknold
-Visually you can tell that every member has an important role in contributing to the song.
-Mykonos was played and sounded awesome

love
FFTB

Meanwhile David Bazan is one of my favorite songwriters of all time. The show was at the Turf club in Saint Paul so it was pretty intimate. He had a 3 piece band and mostly played his newer stuff. It would have been ok with me to hear more stuff from Control, regardless I’m just glad that I got to quickly meet him.

What’s up next? This coming Sunday is The Black Keys. After that, I will be seeing U2, Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver. Yes, I have spent too much money on concert tickets and need to dive into a tub of cold water. Make sure YOU get out and listen to some live music this summer
-Tomato