My two favourite piano-based pop singers, Ben Folds and Regina Spektor, will be performing together on tonight’s Late Night with Conan O’Brien.  The song, “You Don’t Know Me”, is the first single from Ben’s album Way To Normal, which came out on Tuesday.  When I saw Ben back in June, he played a fair number of songs from the new record and I’m really excited for it (yeah, I haven’t heard it yet, even though it’s up in its entirety on his MySpace page, once I get Internets at home I’ll be a much better informed blogger).  Somebody make sure to upload that one to YouTube so I can watch it later (I don’t have TV at home, either).

You Don’t Know Me by Ben Folds & Regina Spektor (MP3)

So, I’m a sorry entertainer and waited a few days to post about my Ben Folds show. Also, I completely failed to mention that I saw Shiny Toy Guns again a few weeks back, but that’s neither here nor there. The important thing is I’ve now seen Ben Folds, who, I’m delighted to say, “just finished up the new album. We just have to put our friend Regina Spektor on there and it’s set.” Is this exciting? Yes this is.

So, Ben Folds is good at what he do. He does it on his own terms, too, which I like. If he’s tired of playing a song, he won’t do it anymore. Didn’t play “Brick.” Didn’t play “Rock this Bitch.” Didn’t play “Philosophy.” And you know what? I’m okay with that. The audience was still involved. We still sang the horn section on “Army.” We were still the choir on “Not the Same.” There were still songs made up on the spot (about how Ben never gets to play in Salt Lake, which is true). There were maracas and synthesizers and a mysterious tambourine man. There was a beautiful vibe and there was singing along. So Ben was great, but you should have known that already. So what do you need to know?

Well, as usual, it’s about the opening acts. To be brief, you don’t need to know about the opening acts. Except for Australian popster Ben Lee. After sitting through three (thankfully short) opening acts already, I was a little bummed when yet another took the stage. However, when I heard him say, “Hi, my name is Ben Lee,” I perked right up. See, Ben Lee is one third of The Bens (the other two being Folds and Kweller), so I was excited to here what pop mastery made him worthy of the group. Well, Ben Lee is an excellent performer, which I think is something that was lacking in the other openers. Sure, his songs were catchier, but that’s not all that matters. Ben made us all a part of his show by having us sing along bits, and he made the best of technical guitar difficulties by (first) jumping to a song with the music on an iPod while they fixed things, then (when that still didn’t work) unplugging his guitar and lowering his microphone to so it would pick up the guitar. So open-mic of him, but it made the set seem much more intimate. There were improvised bits on a few songs, notably on a song I’ve included for you here, “Catch My Disease.” I also really enjoyed the song American Television, so I’ve got that for you, too. Ben Lee sang songs that I could sing the chorus of after one or two times through, but more importantly, I wanted to sing along.

So that was my Ben Folds show. The complete setlist is up on my personal blog. Enjoy some, eh?

 Ben Folds Five - Underground [4:11m]: Play in Popup | Download
 Ben Lee - Catch My Disease [4:15m]: Play in Popup | Download
 Ben Lee - American Television [3:41m]: Play in Popup | Download

This is John Butler’s version of a classic cliche traditional Irish song, Danny boy. I like the song, but some don’t. He recorded it at Enmore Theater in Australia. I like the guitar solo towards the end. If you’re a faithful John Butler listener, you can totally tell that he’s playing it; he has a signature lick that he puts everywhere.

You can also pick up the mp3 at the forum.

Enjoy, and Happy Wednesday.

John Butler Trio | Myspazz

 Danny Boy - John Butler [3:51m]: Play in Popup | Download

If you hang around the site long enough, you’ll see that the band we have the most posts about is the John Butler Trio, which is probably my favorite band. I’m not big on picking favorites, but its the only band I really follow and check out whenever possible. Some may wonder why; if you check out their music and message maybe you’ll get it. Doesn’t matter. But this is another reason: Ocean.

I’ve seen John play it live 3 times. At Bonnaroo, at the HOB in New Orleans, and in Alabama. Bonnaroo’s Ocean was a little disappointing, because he didn’t do his slap-tap version, which I like best. In Alabama it was the first time I’d seen them live, and had only heard Ocean on CD and seen a video of him playing it at Webster Hall in 2005 in Oz. So that time was amazing, because I was seeing it, and because he did his slap-tap version.

Thats why I’m posting this video. It’s 14 minutes long, and if you can bypass the crowd cheering, you can see why JBT has so many devoted fans and why this is such a favorite. Its entirely instrumental, very impressive, but more than that, it’s just beautiful. I think I know why its called Ocean, if there is a reason for it. I hope you like.

Link to this video.

And heres the video from Webster Hall, much shorter, only 5 minutes.

Check out this video of John Butler playing with Keith urban on guitar and Michael Barker and Shannon Birchall doing rhythm for JBT’s performance of Funky Tonight on the Australian Arias. Pretty sweet, I say. Not Butler’s best performance of the song, but the dueling guitars at the end is pretty kickin’.

Hello you lovely ladies and gentleman. It's been a while. We have some catching up to do. 

First of all, I apologize sincerely for not bringing you awesome music in the past couple of weeks. Summer caught up with me, wrapping me up in romantic bedtime stories and lovely magical time with my significant other, thus distracting me from my responsibilities. And also, in all honesty, I haven't heard anything that really smacked me in the face, and made me feel I had to share it. One of my low points; it happens several times a year.  

Forgetting all that stuff, let's get to the reason why I'm posting. One of my favorite albums is the reason. It be called "Marking Time", and features a lot of guess who? the John Butler Trio.

I actually discovered this album a couple of years ago, and take it for a spin quite frequently since I got it. A classic. Love it. Never gets old. It has this funky mix of JBT's music and Indian pizzazz, and the other artists featured on the album, such as Khalil gudaz, Martin Armiger Band, and Oumou Sangare rock the hose too.

I actually never even heard of the ABC miniseries that this soundtrack is supposed to be for, I just somehow found out that JBT was featured on it, so I wanted to check it out, and was not disappointed at all. Keep in mind that if you're someone that doesn't dig Indian sitars and other such trippy mellow stuff, you may not like. I, however, love that stuff. Can't get enough. Thus, I share. Be glad I'm so nice.

We have 3 tracks here to check out. If you like what you hear, drop me a line and I'll let you listen to another one. Enjoy, folks. 

P.S. I figured out why we never saw it. It was in Australia. Duh.

P.P.S. This album has JBT's version of "Across the Universe" on it. Sweet deal! 

Marking Time Wiki // Buy this Soundtrack, please 

Hear It: 

You Friend Tracy - John Butler Trio MP3

[audio:http://lovethemusicreviews.com/audio/07%20Your%20Friend%20Tracy%20-%20John%20Butler%20Trio.mp3]

Girlsong - Mir Wais and Jade Macrae MP3

[audio:http://lovethemusicreviews.com/audio/16%20Girlsong%20-%20Mir%20Wais%20and%20Jade%20Macrae.mp3]

N'Guata - Oumou Sangare MP3

[audio:http://lovethemusicreviews.com/audio/10%20N_Guata%20-%20Oumou%20Sangare.mp3]