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I recently got tickets to see David Byrne at the Paramount here in Austin. The show is billed as “David Byrne performs the songs of David Byrne & Brian Eno”. Many years ago, they put out an album that became an underground classic called “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts”. It’s been nearly 30 years since the release of that album.

Recently, they have collaborated again to make an album where the two strictly stayed in defined realms of the songwriting partnership: Eno would write the music, and Byrne would write the lyrics and vocal melodies. The result is their new album “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.” The best thing is you can listen to the whole album, right now, in the little Flash widget down below. Then you can go to their website and purchase the album in pure digitial format (in either MP3 or lossless FLAC) with the option to receive a physical disc later. How can you lose?

Tags: davidbyrne

What’s a return to posting without my incessant rambling about Genesis?

Since I last mentioned, the DVD for last year’s reunion tour has come out. It’s a three disc set with the concert on the first two discs and well-done documentary on the third. Needless to say, it rocks so hard that it makes me soil myself. Sadly, you can only find it in Wal-Mart and, even more sadly, they barely keep any in stock. Your best bet is to order it online from Wal-Mart or the Genesis official store. Below is a trailer for the documentary, which is an excellent behind the scenes look at the tour and how the band operates:

The Genesis hit “That’s All” was also recently covered by a country artist named Doc Walker. It was also covered live no too long ago by Allison Kraus with Union Station and Vince Gill.

Tags: genesis

I saw this on Austin’s music video channel today. I have his new album, “Moment of Forever”, and it’s pretty good. He played at the Austin Rodeo tonight and then he’s playing two nights at The Backyard later this month. Austin loves Willie and Willie loves Austin, so it’s all good.

This video is for Willie’s cover of Dave Matthews’ “Gravedigger”. The video is well done, and Willie totally carries the gravitas required for both the song and the video.

Tags: willie nelson

Just wanted to put a quick post nothing the mini assault of new Genesis releases in North America tomorrow. I’ve already talked at length about the 1983-1998 boxset which covers the most popular Genesis albums, and each of the albums will be available individually remixed and remastered in a standard CD and DVD set with surround mix and extras.

A new live album will also be out chronicling the best performances of the recent reunion tour in Europe. Simply titled “Live Over Europe,” it is the full setlist on two CDs. The setlist is an amazingly well balanced combination of classic and epic fan favorites with well-known hits and is a pretty good sampling of the band’s career, and I would highly recommend it if you ever wanted to know what Genesis is really all about. A concert DVD of their performance in Rome will also be out in February, tentatively titled “When In Rome.”

I got my second Genesis boxset early this morning. It was delivered late in the evening yesterday, but I was not home and the front office was closed by the time I came home. So I had to go to bed knowing it was locked in the next building over. This is the edition with the Super Audio CDs and NTSC encoded DVDs, which I had to import from England. The American release without the SACDs will be November 20.

The set includes all of Genesis’s most popular albums and rarities from those albums, as well as rare footage and music videos corresponding to each album. The DVDs include all of the albums remixed and remastered in 5.1 surround in both Dolby Digital and DTS formats.

The albums are the self-titled “Genesis” (1983), the ubiquitous “Invisible Touch” (1986), the almost as ubiquitous “We Can’t Dance” (1991), and the post-Collins highly underrated “Calling All Stations” (1997). A bonus disc comes exclusively with the boxset which contains the B-sides from all of those albums. Each of the albums will also be available individually.

Two down, one to go.