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Album Board / Official 'So There' reviews thread

« on: September 10, 2015, 04:23:40 AM »

C+ from Consequence of Sound.

http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/09/album-review-ben-folds-and-ymusic-so-there/

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News / Ben Folds on Late Show (9/8)

« on: September 08, 2015, 08:53:11 PM »

Anyone just see Ben among the special guests at the end of Colbert?

Colbert's studio band, Jon Batiste & Stay Human, had a bunch of guests with them to perform Sly & the Family Stone's "Everyday People."  Ben was there, along with Mavis Staples, Derek Trucks, Buddy Guy, Susan Tedeschi, Brittany Howard (Alabama Shakes), Paul Janeway (St. Paul & the Broken Bones), some others I'm probably forgetting. 

No solos from Ben and they only had one brief close up (the pre-album release beard is looking a little rough), but still pretty cool he was included.

Once CBS posts the segment I'll include a link.

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Album Board / Unrecorded song from 2005?

« on: May 01, 2015, 04:17:38 PM »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx5m_zzols4

What ever happened to this one?  The first little bit ended up in Bitch Went Nuts, but whatever happened to the second song, "New York Times"? (starts around 1:15) Had a nice little melody.  Ben even had horn parts thought out.  Lost to the ether I guess...

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Album Board / WtN follow-up album due in 2016

« on: February 01, 2015, 06:31:38 AM »

Frank Maynard reporting on his site that Ben and his touring band are recording  a new album in Ireland, slated for a 2016 release.  Says the new songs are all inspired by  "Rock This Bitch" improvs . . . again. 

http://www.magicalarmchair.com/2015/01/reunion-album-slated-for-2016/

So assuming they'll tour in 2016 off the new album, guessing that means it'll be awhile before we get another BFF reunion.  Still, it'll be great to get two new albums from Ben in two years.

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Tour Board / Kalamazoo - 4/26/14

« on: January 27, 2014, 01:59:22 PM »

Just got my tickets.  Definitely excited for this show.  Seen several good concerts in K-Zoo, but never at Chenery.  It's a old high school auditorium, but looks gorgeous!

http://www.cheneryaud.com/

As a side note, I've been looking for years for an excuse to go back to Food Dance and Bell's, now I have a legitimate reason to make the drive!

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General Board / The Suburbs 2012 Top Ten

« on: December 10, 2012, 02:58:10 PM »

Ben's playlist got me thinking, what are your favo(u)rite 10 albums of 2012?

Here are mine: (in no particular order)

Trey Anastasio - Traveler
Punch Brothers - Who's Feeling Young Now?
M. Ward - A Wasteland Companion
Cody ChesnuTT - Landing on a Hundred
Ben Folds Five - TSOTLOTM
Amanda Palmer - Theatre is Evil
Siversun Pickups - Neck of the Woods
Tedeschi Trucks Band - Everybody's Talkin'
Kyle Kinane - Whiskey Icarus
Tig Notaro - Live

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Album Board / TSOTLOTM Reviews

« on: September 13, 2012, 06:50:07 AM »

Put any reviews you can find here.  For copyright reasons, don't copy and paste full reviews, rather link and summarize.

Unfortunately, the first ones I've seen are pretty negative.

http://drownedinsound.com/releases/17226/reviews/4145485?ticker

http://expressmilwaukee.com/article-19762-ben-folds-five.html

http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/ben-folds-five-reunite-for-the-sound-of-the-life-of-the-mind/Content?oid=3145213

To summarize all three: Robert and Darren are essential to Ben actually sounding good; Ben's solo material outside of "Suburbs" has been bland, sappy, and disappointing; the uptempo numbers on the album are as good as anything they ever did before, but the album gets bogged down with the ballads that are too reminiscent of Ben's solo career.

I'll be interested to see what some of the bigger publications say (Rolling Stone, Spin, Pitchfork, NME, etc.), though none have ever been too glowing about anything Ben's done in the past...

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Tour Board / BF5 @ Bonnaroo

« on: June 10, 2012, 03:41:18 PM »

Here's the setlist, very similar to mountain jam:

1.) Jackson Cannery (Ben flubbed the first line)
2.) Dr. Psyer
3.) Fair (Ben flubbed the first line again, then sang "and he f*cked up his old lyrics and kept singing on")
4.) Selfless, Cold & Composed (sang "like a blank teller" instead of bank teller)
5.) Uncle Walter
6.) improv around crowd chanting "Robert Sledge" then "Darren Jessee"
7.) Where's Summer B
8.) Battle of Who Could Care Less
9.) Brick (awkward seeing crowd shots of couples slow dancing to this...)
10.) Emaline
11.) Philosophy
12.) Army
13.) Kate (stopped mid-song before the "ooh la la's" for Ben to take a video of the crowd on his iphone)
14.) Alice Childress
15.) SFTD
16.) Narcolepsy (sang, "I know it don't seem like Kwame don't care")
17.) Underground

Encore:
18.) OAD


It was good to see such a huge crowd singing and jumping along to the songs.  From the stream, it seemed like this crowd was way more energetic than the other night.  The band played with a ton of energy the first few songs, and I think that led Ben to mess up a bunch of lyrics.   Basically no talking from Ben tonight except for a brief plug of the new album.  Seemed like they were playing as fast as they could to fit as many songs as they could into the time restraints.   Again, it looked like they were having just a ton of fun playing together.

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Album Board / Rolling Stone review of Lonely Avenue - 2 stars

« on: September 28, 2010, 07:08:01 AM »

Don't get too excited, this review is about as worthwhile as the one from Spin...

Bob Dylan wrote most of Desire with a playwright, but collaborations between musicians and literary figures are usually pretty painful. This one isn't without promise: Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity  is a music-geek classic, and Ben Folds is great at turning wordy lyrics into crafty pop. But formal knowledge works against them as they go from unfunny Randy Newman ("Levi Johnston's Blues") to too-cute Barry Manilow ("Belinda") to overdone Elvis Costello ("Password," about breaking into a girlfriend's e-mail). Folds doesn't do a bad job shaping Hornby's clunky song prose, but even Dylan couldn't do much with "Hope is a liar, a cheat and a tease/Hope comes near you/Kick its backside."

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Album Board / Spin review of Lonely Avenue - 7 of 10

« on: September 15, 2010, 12:04:41 PM »

http://www.spinmag.com/reviews/ben-folds-nick-hornby-lonely-avenue-nonesuch

Sarah Palin's daughter's baby daddy must be friggin' stoked, bro: On "Levi Johnston Blues," Lonely Avenue's two knights of music nerd-dom use their disarming pop smarts to wryly sympathize with the hapless Playgirl  cover boy. The empathy and humor run throughout: With Folds as his tuneful voice, Hornby describes a prim suburbanite's tolerance of his porn-watching metalhead neighbor ("Your Dogs"); laments a singer forced to reprise his only hit about an ex ("Belinda"); and feels for a wheelchair-bound, Brill Building–era songwriter ("Doc Pomus"). It's okay, man. It's okay.

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News / Ben's new project: making old ladies read curse words

« on: September 15, 2010, 04:16:22 AM »

http://www.spinner.com/2010/09/09/ben-folds-needs-bob-saget-to-help-find-a-foul-mouthed-old-lady/

"I wanted to see what lots of different YouTube comments from across the globe would sound like coming out of [the mouth of] someone of a different generation. Someone who's of the Victorian age," Folds tells Spinner. "I have all the comments compiled and ready to go, but they are so foul and negative that we can't find an actress in Hollywood to do it."

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Album Board / Sammy Dropped the Big Brown

« on: August 24, 2010, 04:36:52 PM »

Wikipedia lists this as the bonus track on the Japanese version of Lonely Avenue

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonely_Avenue_%28album%29

Found nothing on google about this.  Is this legit or are we being messed with again?

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Album Board / "From Above" Single up on Amazon - available for download 8/10

« on: August 06, 2010, 08:17:08 AM »

http://www.amazon.com/From-Above/dp/B003XPFCZW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1281111178&sr=8-1

  Can't wait. I love this song.  Been following Ben since 97 and I have a feeling this may be his best album since The Suburbs, maybe even his best work since the Five.