Martin Gordon's Blog

The video for DMB's new single, Dreamgirl, debuted this past Wednesday on VH1. After some difficulty getting the stream from VH1's site to work on my work PC (and not even trying it on my Mac), I was able to find an MPG version of it.

After the string of terrible videos from Busted Stuff, which were pretty much just live videos of the songs (except for Where Are You Going?, which appeared on the Mr. Deeds soundtrack and had an okay video), and a decent American Baby video, this one is one of the band's best.

The fact that the video stars Dave's long-time friend, Julia Roberts, as the "dream girl" will hopefully bring some much needed mainstream exposure to the band, Stand Up and the song itself.Apparently she did the video for free on the condition that she'd be given time off to take care of her new twins. Dave plays a prominent role in the video (though you don't know it) and the rest of the band have seconds-long cameos.

I'm hosting the video here.

Technorati Tags: music, dave matthews band, dmb, music video, stand up, julia roberts, dreamgirl

Here they are.

Now stop harassing me and stop sending Dave to harass me.

What a weekend it was. Friday night I saw Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, and though I wasn't expecting much, it exceeded all my expectations. The jokes were good enough that the mostly-adult theatre was laughing most of the time, but I can still see them appealing to kids. The visuals were outstanding, both the sets and the CG props and Oompa Loompas. Johnny Depp did a great job as Michael Jackson Willy Wonka. I'm glad they added some back story to explain why he became such an eccentric recluse who invites kids to live with him in his fantasy land (see the connection now?).

Saturday and Sunday were the DMB shows in South Florida and they were nothing short of amazing. The first night was packed with energy and there were no slow songs really except Where Are You Going and the opening trio of One Sweet World/Crash/Dreamgirl. I got to hear two songs, You Might Die Trying and American Baby, from the new album that I hadn't heard at SPAC, as well as Granny, which I've never heard, and the return of You Never Know from it's two year hiatus. This performance of Smooth Rider was the best I've heard to date, and Louisiana Bayou has a cool new 3-chord progression in the jam that's very groovy that Noam pointed out to me after the show that I hadn't picked up on but noticed it the second night.

Night two was more laid back. They didn't play any of the three slow songs from Stand Up the first night, so I knew the had to play them the second night. Everyday is a good opener because it gets the crowd interacting with the band, but to go into Steady As We Go right after wasn't so great. After hearing Stand Up and Stolen Away last night, I have heard every Stand Up song the band has played so far. Stand Up really gets people jumping around, dancing and singing. At the very end the audience and the band were trading "Stand Up"'s back and forth. I hope that's audible on the tapes. Stolen Away is a sweet song that Dave played sitting down. Solid, but nothing spectacular out of it. It is my favorite slow song on the album, however, and it was great to finally hear it.

Other highlights of the night include hearing my first Pantala Naga Pampa > Rapunzel and #34. Before it was played for the first time in 12 years on the 9th, not even in my wildest dreams would I have expected to hear #34. Once it came back, however, I knew we were going to get it on one of the two nights. Though the songs were really upbeat on the first night, none of them were really taxing on Dave's voice. After Bartender and Hello Again on the second night, I knew it was due. It's hard to compare its performance to other versions since it's only been played 4 times since 1993, but both Leroi and Boyd were spot on the entire song.

I do have to say that it was fucking hot both nights. I think night two felt a lot worse than night one because it rained right before the show and the humidity shot up to about 175%. I was soaking wet after the show. We had great seats and the people around us were really friendly. Definitely the best time I've had all summer.

Since Michael Faridi has set up a program to IM every 5 minutes (okay, more like every few hours) asking me if I've put up the pics from the trip to the DMB concert in Saratoga, I'm debating whether I should put them up because it's about time I did so or if I should hold off a bit longer just to piss him off :)

Maybe a little bit of both; I'll try to have them up sometime before the weekend is over.

I start running and as I'm being patted down at the gate, I hear the three notes Leroi closes Best Of What's Around with. I'm a little pissed off but take solice in the fact that at least we made it and at least I have two more shows in West Palm Beach to see the band.

I've heard the next two songs (When The World Ends and Rhyme & Reason) at every show I've been to so I take the opportunity to go to the bathroom and Mike goes to buy himself and I tour shirts. I'm still a little bummed out, but I soon forget my troubles and enjoy the rest of the show.

I won't do a song-by-song analysis, but I'll mention some highlights. First off, the boys get more energetic year after year. I was glad to finally hear a full-band Lie In Our Graves and the rarity Say Goodbye. The Stand Up songs were a real treat as well, though I would have liked to hear Stolen Away, Stand Up and You Might Die Trying. It's understandable that they didn't play them since they were also played the first night at SPAC. I should get a chance to hear them on at least one of the two nights in West Palm Beach.

I'd have to say my favorite of the night was Louisiana Bayou. The recordings I've heard pale in comparison to actually hearing it live, especially with Dave on the electric guitar. The jam was splendid and I was exhausted when it was finally over. The show closed with Two Step, with Dave messing up and switching the first and second verse as he's done a lot this tour. Old Dirt Hill and What You Are were played in the the encore. I had predicted ODH and Watchtower, but I picked up on What You Are a couple of notes into the intro.

The walk back to the car at the end of the show was a lot quicker than the walk there and we saw Butch in his bus driving out of the venue. I read on Ants that someone died leaving the show, and I wonder if it was as a result of the same accident we saw a few hundred feet from the exit.

The drive to New York wasn't as exciting as the drive there because it was dark and I couldn't see any mountains. The highlight of the drive, which is pretty sad, was Dave getting yelled at by the gas station cashier for talking on his cell phone. I thought the whole "cell phone creating a static spark" myth was debunked (a quick check on Snopes confirms my suspicion). In New York City, we head for Chicken & Rice and wait in a relatively short line. I order two (one for the road) and we eat at the tables of the 53th Street Deli. Chris joins us and we catch up a bit about work and other things. I gotta say, something definitely changed since I've been gone from school since I could barely finish half of a platter and ended up taking the remaining one and a half platters back with me to Philly.

We take Chris and Dave home and make the early morning/late night drive back to Philadelphia, which greets us with a cool 55 degrees and some sunshine. I quickly fall asleep and spend the rest of Sunday just hanging out and moving things from the frat house to our new house. Not nearly as adventurous a day as Saturday, but a great winding down day. Carl drives me to airport on Monday and the flight back is not nearly as bad as the trip there.

All that said, I enjoyed the weekend immensely. It was a great way to break the monotony of routine, do something I hadn't done in a while and see my buddies. This weekend aslo helped me confirm the stark contrast I've seen between college life and real life and as a result I'm definitely gonna be taking advantage of my time at school more so that I already have.

Tomorrow I will be leaving for Philadelphia in the afternoon/evening. The plan for the weekend is to drive up to Saratoga Springs to see DMB at SPAC with Mike and Dave. Live 8 is going to be in Philly on Saturday starting at noon, but unfortunately we won't be able to attend since it's a 5.5 hour drive to SPAC (and we have to pass by NYC to pick Dave up). I caught a clip of the crews setting up the stage on the news this morning, and just as I suspected, the stage will be on the steps of the art museum and the crowd will be on the Ben Franklin Parkway. I've read that they are expecting 1 million people to attend. Given a choice between the two, I'd rather see DMB at SPAC for 3 hours in a more intimate setting (20k people is intimate? hehe) than for an hour at Live 8 with a million people there. It would have been great to go for the experience, but it wouldn't have been worth it for the sole purpose of seeing DMB.

The office closes early tomorrow so I'm going to see if I can get on an earlier flight. I'm also going to have to look into changing the return flight to something later so I don't have to leave for the airport at noon on Monday. I also have to find sometime this weekend to move some things over from the frat house to our new place, but I may just come a few days earlier in the fall and move over then.

Technorati tags: dmb, music, philly, live 8.

Despite the fact that only 1.5 of last summer's 5 new songs made it onto Stand Up, I've still kept the lyrics database up. I had some bad luck trying to implement mod_rewrite in the past, but I think I finally got it implementing clean URLs. Instead of having /lyrics.php?song=&date=, it now uses /lyrics/song/date. I think it's pretty neat and there's also the added bonus that clean URLs are indexable by search engines. Not a bad learning experience for a Tuesday night.

Technorati tags: dmb, music, lyrics

I've posted the lyrics to Stand Up as pages on this blog to test out how pages work in WordPress. It might get a little messy to have the entire tracklist, so I might condense it in the future.

For what it's worth, Stand Up is no lyrical masterpiece (the B-Side Trouble With You seems to be the strongest of all the songs), but the music is solid and the band sounds very integrated.

Overproduction is no longer a concern of mine, since some songs can be a bit bare at times and all the instruments sound natural. The AOL Webcast of the Roseland Ballroom concert last night also proved that the songs will hold their own live. I am looking forward to seeing the band and their new songs this summer at SPAC Night 1 and the two West Palm Beach shows.

Stand Up will be released a week from tomorrow and I've got a few more clips to whet your appetite.
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A new song clip is up on the Warehouse (which I subscribed to last night after putting it off for 3+ years). It's simply Intro, but it's assumed to be the intro to American Baby. I like AB just fine, but this intro blows it out of the water. We've got another case of Loving Wings and Where Are You Going? again. Hopefully this intro will get played a lot more than Loving Wings does. Apparently, this is Dave's piano song, though I think it's Out Of My Hands. This song feels like Before These Crowded Streets in terms of compositioning, and that makes me hopeful for the rest of the album.

Without further adieu, the clip.