SONG OF THE DAY
“40 Day Dream” by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros (Up From Below, Community Records/ Vagrant Records/ Rough Trade Records, 2009). Written by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros.
WHERE I HEARD IT
This awesome track was talked over during a scene from Season 1 of NBC’s Mercy (episode: “That Crazy Bitch Was Right”). Luckily for me there exists the amazing website heardontv.com, which led me to the song sure enough. I’ve had 100% good fortune whenever I ask a question to those message boards, so I highly recommend it!
P.S. This band had SO MANY amazing photos online for press, hence I made a little collage instead of picking just one. Yeah, I guess you could say I’m into that now. Oh, and check out the band’s website, it is so beautiful. Everything a band’s website should be.
Why you should like this band? Because on the message board’s of KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic, a fan describes Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeroes as “Polyphonic Spree meets Queen and has an affair with Hedwig and the Angry Inch”. If you’re my friend, then that phrase just made you pee. Hedwig is one of the esteemed women singer’s in this blog’s header for chrissakes, and as for Queen, well, jesus, they were my first rock love.
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
– Up from Below is the first full length album from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. It was preceded by Here Comes EP.
– Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros is an ensemble band led by Alex Ebert, vocalist of the power pop group Ima Robot.
– Their first full-length recording, Up from Below, was released July 7, 2009, digitally and July 14, 2009, physically on Community Records. Their first show as a full band was played July 18, 2007, at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, California.
– Their song “Home” was voted #15 on the Australian Triple J Hottest 100 of 2009 countdown, the largest music poll in the world, and has also been featured in a trailer for Cyrus.
– Their song “Janglin” was featured in a television ad for the 2011 Ford Fiesta.
– After breaking up with his girlfriend, moving out of his house, and leaving a 12-step program for addiction (he left, as he has said, to live in a more honest reaction to the truth of the moment, not be bound to certain behaviors by fear-based dogma), Ebert began work on a book about a messianic figure named Edward Sharpe.
– According to Ebert, Sharpe “was sent down to Earth to kinda heal and save mankind…but he kept getting distracted by girls and falling in love.”
– Ebert later met singer Jade Castrinos in Los Angeles.
– In the summer of 2009, as Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Ebert and Castrinos toured the country with a group of fellow musicians in a big white bus.
– Their first show in 2008 was Marfa Texas at the Marfa Film Festival.
– On June 5, 2009, the band released “Desert Song”, a music video which is part 1 of a 12-part feature-length musical. Part 2, “Kisses Over Babylon” was released November 24, 2009 through Spinner.com.
Members
- Alex Ebert – vocals, guitar, percussion, piano
- Jade Castrinos – vocals, guitar
- Nico Aglietti – guitar, synthesizer, keyboards, vocals
- Stewart Cole – trumpet, percussion, keyboards, tenor ukulele, vocals
- Tay Strathairn – piano, vocals
- Aaron Older – bass, vocals, banjo, percussion
- Josh Collazo – drums, percussion, vocals
- Orpheo McCord – percussion, vocals
- Nora Kirkpatrick – accordion, vocals
- Christian Letts – guitar, vocals
Additional personnel
- Chris Richard – vocals, percussion
- Anna Bulbrook – violin, vocals
- Aaron Embry – keyboards, piano, vocals
- Tyler James – piano, vocals
- Ryan Richter – guitar, lap steel, vocals
- Michael Farfel – announcer
- Scott Ralston – Tour Manager, Sound Wizard
- Bryan Ling – Manager
VIDEO OF THE DAY
Are they not having an amazing time performing this?! My god, this looks like a blast! I would definitely see them in concert, I mean, just watch: