Last.fm Presents » Unwrapped

Unwrapped: Cage The Elephant 3/02/2010

jerryrubino — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 16:41:07 +0000

Here’s the final Unwrapped session from the unseen archives. Matt & Brad Schultz along with Lincoln Parrish of Cage The Elephant stopped by our studio to play two songs from the debut album and a track that is still unreleased. The Bowling Green, KY based band who all went to the same high school together, were in New York City to play shows at The Bowery Ballroom and Music Hall Of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. It’s quite a great thing to see how far these guys have come since releasing their first single in March of 2008. Live, these guys pretty much have the energy level at a height few these days have been able to reach. Click-thru and watch this intense acoustic session.

“Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked”

“Back Against The Wall”

“Testify” (unreleased song, exclusive to this session)

The interview

Filed under: Music, Videos Tagged: Brad Schultz, Cage The Elephant, Daniel Tichenor, Jared Champion, Last.fm Presents, Lincoln Parrish, Matt Schultz

Unwrapped: Ash 2/04/2010

jerryrubino — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 17:14:50 +0000

Another dip back into the unseen vaults of sessions that were never seen until now. For this session, we ventured out of our studio and headed about thirty blocks south in New York City to Atomic Heart Studio. This is the place where Tim Wheeler, Mark Hamilton and Rick McMurray of Ash make all the musical magic happen. At the time of this session, the guys were in the midst of recording and releases their latest project, The A-Z series. Between the dates of October 12, 2009 and September 27, 2010, they would release a total of 26 new songs every two weeks as downloads. (They would also be released on 7″ singles and CD as well).

Tim, Mark & Rick were generous enough to play several songs for us, both from this collection and some of their past catalog. I also sat down with them after the session to talk about this year long project. Here are the videos for five songs, including a cover of The Undertones’ “Teenage Kicks”.

“Arcadia”

“Neon”

“Space Shot”

“Teenage Kicks” (cover of The Undertones)

“Girl From Mars”

Filed under: Music, Videos Tagged: Ash, Atomic Heart Studio, Last.fm Presents, Mark Hamilton, Rick McMurray, The Undertones, Tim Wheeler

Unwrapped: Nada Surf 1/05/2010

jerryrubino — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:45:37 +0000

Almost two years ago, guitarist/singer/songwriter Matthew Caws and drummer Ira Elliot of Nada Surf stopped by our studio to bring us up to date on their forthcoming album at the time, If I Had A Hi-Fi. The album, which featured all covers, would not be out for another 5 months. They stopped by the studio twice, once to play live and once to chat with me about this project. Click thru for the interview, followed by the performance, which featured two songs from the forthcoming album and three Nada Surf tunes.

THE INTERVIEW

Who did you bring on-board to produce If I Had A Hi-Fi?

Who did the album artwork?

Who else plays on the album with you three?

Why did you choose to self-release it and not have it on Barsuk?

Are there songs that didn’t make the album?

Of the songs that made the album, were all three of you familiar with each song?

What song was the main choice of your bass player Daniel Lorca?

Has anyone The Moody Blues camp heard your version of “Question”?

THE MUSIC

Electrocution (originally done by Bill Fox)

Love Goes On (originally done by The Go-Betweens)

Blizzard Of ’77

Do It Again

Weightless

Filed under: Music Tagged: Daniel Lorca, Ira Elliot, Louie Lino, Matthew Caws, Nada Surf

Unwrapped: Brendan Benson 12/04/2009

jerryrubino — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:29:32 +0000

The multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter Brendan Benson in 2009 got to go back to what he started out as, a solo artist. Solo artist was a weird thing to call him considering he wasn’t in a band until after his first album. But even that band, The Mood Elevators, was just an alter-ego project. The Raconteurs, that of course is a different story. About an year and a half after the release of the second Raconteurs album, Brendan hit us with My Old, Familiar Friend. The album was recorded in 2007, in-between the two Raconteurs full-lengths. In the past Brendan did all the production work himself, but brought in Gil Norton and Dave Sardy to help with the album’s recording task. Currently, Brendan is putting finishing touches on his new album in Nashville, TN. He is gunning to have out next year.

“A Whole Lot Better”

“Cold Hands (Warm Heart)”

“Eyes On The Horizon”

Interview

Filed under: Music, Videos Tagged: Brendan Benson, Jack White, Last.fm Presents, The Raconteurs

Unwrapped: Puddle Of Mudd 12/02/2009

jerryrubino — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:58:58 +0000

Puddle Of Mudd were just under a week away from releasing their new album at the time Volume 4: Songs In The Key Of Love & Hate. Lead singer Wes Scantlin and “then” guitarist Paul Phillips. (As of November 13th, Paul Phillips will not be touring with the band). Acoustically, they did two songs from the forthcoming album and gave us two of their biggest hits of the past. You may not notice it, but Wes was nursing a messed up ankle/foot. He and Paul were doing a syndicated radio show and Wes was sitting on his foot in a chair and it fell alseep. When he got up he lost his balance and came down hard on it. Click-thru for all the fun.

“Blurry”

“Spaceship”

“Psycho”

“Drift & Die”

The interview

Filed under: Music, Videos Tagged: Last.fm Presents, Paul Phillips, Puddle Of Mudd, Wes Scantlin

Unwrapped: Echo & The Bunnymen (Ian McCulloch) 11/30/2009

jerryrubino — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 13:46:34 +0000

I always look forward to interviews and sessions with Ian McCulloch. He’s always going to give a cool acoustic performance. With his interviews, sure you may not know what to expect from him, but what you do get is certainly insightful. Ian is joined by Pete Byrne in this classic session, featuring three songs from the Echo & The Bunnymen album The Fountain and an absolute classic!

“Think I Need It Too”

“Shroud Of Turin”

“The Fountain”

“The Killing Moon”

Interview With Ian McCulloch

Filed under: Music Tagged: Echo & The Bunnymen, Ian McCulloch, Last.fm Presents, Pete Byrne

Unwrapped: Saosin 11/24/2009

jerryrubino — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 11:45:03 +0000

Saosin released their album In Search Of Solid Ground two months prior to the visit to our studio. Since that visit, many changes took place in the Saosin camp. In the next year they parted ways with Virgin Records, their lead singer of five years (seen here) Cove Reber was out. Their website hasn’t been updated in quite some time, and they are still looking for a lead singer. There were rumors thrown about (although never confirmed by the band) that Tilian Pearson from Tides Of Man would be replacing Cove. Although some demos have surfaced and some talk of doing an album has been mentioned, nothing official has been stated. Watch that acoustic session now.

“Changing”

“Voices”

“Follow And Feel”

“Seven Years”

Interview With Saosin

Filed under: Music, Videos Tagged: Alex Rodriguez, Beau Burchell, Chris Sorenson, Cove Reber, Justin Shekoski, Last.fm Presents, Saosin

Unwrapped: Langhorne Slim 11/18/2009

jerryrubino — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:50:15 +0000

Our Unwrapped series continues as we bring you sessions that have never been seen before, done at our studios in New York City. Today click-thru and enjoy Langhorne Slim. Langhorne stopped by with his band while on tour to promote the then current album Be Set Free.

“Back To The Wild”

“Be Set Free”

“I Love You, But Goodbye”

Langhorne Slim chats with us

Filed under: Music, Videos Tagged: Langhorne Slim, Last.fm Presents

Unwrapped: Noah & The Whale 9/19/2009

jerryrubino — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 17:00:08 +0000

Last year in December we introduced the Unwrapped series. Unwrapped features sessions that never saw the light of day on this site. You see, we started doing performances and interviews in our studio in September of 2009. It wasn’t until the spring of 2010 that we unveiled what you are looking at now. Previously, the audio of the interviews and song performances were only available on the Last.fm Discover radio station. Last year 26 sessions were “unwrapped” and this year the final 9 will be shown for the first time.

We kick it off with a session that was recorded on the 19th of September back in 2009. It was the fourth Discover session recorded. We were happy to have Charlie Fink and Tom Hobden from Noah And The Whale stop by to perform songs from their sophomore album, The First Days Of Spring which had been released a month earlier in the U.K. and would have it’s U.S. release a month later, in October. (We would welcome the full-band back in March of this year, to promote the latest album Last Night On Earth.

“Blue Skies”

“The First Days Of Spring”

“Slow Glass”

Interview

Filed under: Music, Videos Tagged: Charlie Fink, Last.fm Presents, Noah & The Whale, Noah and the Whale, Tom Hobden

Unwrapped: Editors 2/22/2010

jerryrubino — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 22:30:50 +0000

Today we finish up our month-long “unwrapped” series, where we brought you Last.fm Discover sessions that were never presented here on the site. We’ve got a few more that we will pop-up here in the near future.

Today’s session is from the band who put out my favorite album in 2005. The debut from Editors The Back Room, was killer from beginning to end. I’ve pretty much make it a point to see them everytime they hit NYC. Obviously, it was treat to have them come to our studio to do a special acoustic session. On this tour for the album In This Light And On This Evening, the band played Terminal 5 in NYC, along with another Last.fm Discover artist The Dig. For our session, which was recorded on February 22, 2010, Tom and Chris gave us a stunning acoustic set and were then joined by Russell and Ed for the interview. Editors were co-Artist Of The Week on May 31st.

Last.fm Discover Interview with Editors.

“Papillon” live at Last.fm Discover.

“You Don’t Know Love” live at Last.fm Discover.

“Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool” live at Last.fm Discover.

“Munich” live at Last.fm Discover.

Editors Photos From The Studio

Filed under: Music, Videos Tagged: Acoustic, Chris Urbanowicz, Editors, Edward Lay, Last.fm Presents, Last.fm Presents Unwrapped, Russell Leetch, Tom Smith