January 9, 2013
Neko Case is an American singer-songwriter and musician, best known for her solo career and her contributions as a member of the Canadian indie rock group The New Pornographers. Case recorded and toured for several years as Neko Case & Her Boyfriends before performing solely under her name. I particularly enjoy her Fox Confessor Brings the Flood album. Also, she is hilarious on Twitter.
Note: This 8-bit black dress is what she wore for the epic cover of her 2009 album Middle Cyclone, in which she stood barefoot, with a sword, on the hood of her burgundy 1967 Mercury Cougar. In 2011, Case auctioned the car to support 826 National, a nonprofit organization helping children become better writers.
January 8, 2013
Jenny Lewis is an American singer-songwriter, musician and actress. She was the primary vocalist of the indie rock band Rilo Kiley and has released two solo albums. Lewis currently performs as part of the duo Jenny & Johnny with boyfriend Johnathan Rice. As a child actor in the 1980s and 1990s, she appeared in a number of TV shows, movies and commercials. Lewis was born on this day in 1976 in Las Vegas, Nevada. We’ll all be portions for foxes.
January 4, 2013
Brian Hugh Warner, better known by his stage name Marilyn Manson, is an American rock musician and former music journalist known for his controversial stage persona and image as the lead singer of the eponymous band Marilyn Manson. His stage name was formed from juxtaposing the names of two American cultural icons – actress Marilyn Monroe and murderer Charles Manson. Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor produced Marilyn Manson’s debut album in 1994. Manson, now with his own brand of absinthe, was born on January 5, 1969.
July 17, 2012
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed “Lady Day,” she pioneered a new vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists. Holiday is perhaps most celebrated for singing “Strange Fruit,” a protest song that became one of her standards and was made famous with her 1939 recording. She died on this day in 1959.
July 16, 2012
Björk Guðmundsdóttir is an Icelandic singer-songwriter with an eclectic musical style and seven acclaimed studio albums. Three of her 1990s singles from Post charted in the UK Top 10. Björk wore her celebrated “swan dress” to the 2001 Oscars for her Selmasongs duet with Thom Yorke of Radiohead, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song.
May 17, 2012
Trent Reznor is an American singer-songwriter, composer and record producer. Reznor has led the industrial rock project Nine Inch Nails as vocalist and multi-instrumentalist since 1988. In 2010, he and his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, formed the post-industrial band How to Destroy Angels alongside fellow composer Atticus Ross, with whom Reznor has scored two films. Reznor was on born on this day in 1965.
May 14, 2012
David Byrne is a musician and artist, best known as a founding member and principal songwriter of the American new wave band Talking Heads, which was active between 1975 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released solo recordings and worked with various media including film and photography. He was born on this day in 1952.
Note: The inspiration for this 8-bit character is Stop Making Sense, a 1984 concert movie featuring Talking Heads live on stage. The movie is notable for Byrne’s “big suit,” an absurdly oversized business suit he dons late in the concert for the song “Girlfriend is Better.”
May 11, 2012
Eddie Vedder is an American musician and singer-songwriter best known for being the lead singer and one of three guitarists of the alternative rock band Pearl Jam. He is widely considered an icon of alternative rock and Seattle grunge. Vedder was originally invited to Seattle in 1990 by former Mother Love Bone members to audition for the Temple of the Dog tribute project and their new band Mookie Blaylock (renamed Pearl Jam in 1991).
March 26, 2012
Ludwig van Beethoven is a German composer and virtuoso pianist. He is one of the most famous and influential of all composers, and is an important figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras. His hearing began to deteriorate in his late twenties, yet he continued to compose, conduct and perform, even after becoming completely deaf. He died on this day in 1827.
December 30, 2011
An American rhythm and blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter. He was known as “The Originator” because of his key role in the transition from the blues to rock & roll. His driving rhythms and hard-edged guitar sound were highly influential. His trademark rectangular guitar is one example of his technical innovations. He was born on this day in 1928.
December 5, 2011
A prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. Mozart composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers. He died on this day in 1791.
September 14, 2011
An American rapper popularly known as Biggie Smalls and Big Poppa. He was a focal point of the East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry and became a central figure in the East Coast hip hop scene. In March 1997, at age 24, Wallace was killed by an unknown assailant in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles. Sometimes your words just hypnotize me.
Sixto Rodríguez – No. 602
Sixto Rodríguez (also known as Rodríguez or Jesús Rodríguez) is an American folk musician based in Detroit, Michigan. His music career initially proved short-lived with two little-sold albums in the early 1970s and some brief touring in Australia. Unbeknownst to Rodríguez, however, his work became extremely successful and influential in South Africa, where some of his songs served as anti-apartheid anthems. In the 1990s, determined South African fans managed to find and contact him. Their story is told in the 2012 Academy Award winning documentary film Searching for Sugar Man, which helped revive Rodríguez’s career and gave him a measure of fame in his own country, at 70 years old.
Both Cold Fact (1970) and Coming from Reality (1971) are fantastic studio albums with beautiful, poetic lyrics. I can’t believe they weren’t hits among the folks who bought records by Bob Dylan, Neil Young and the Beatles in the 1970s. Both Rodríguez albums were re-released in 2012. I think Rodríguez’s “Cause” is one of the greatest songs of all time. And Searching for Sugar Man is a heartwarming movie that tells the incredible true story of Rodríguez, a remarkably humble man and the greatest 1970s rock icon who never was.