Feist

This year, MTV's Video Music Awards are chosen by the viewers, but only the viewers who are voters. In fact, the videos are more chosen by the voters than the viewers. Voting opens at 8pm EST today (Friday, July 18th) and closes Wednesday, July 23rd at 11am EST.



This seems like one of those things to do now, quickly, before all the sand drops to the bottom glass, before you get swept into the fervour of another pile.



Feist has two videos eligible for Best Female Video (1234 and I Feel It All), but there are many other categories and artists to back up. Here's the link. It may be possible that the voting interface doesn't arrive until the voting opens.

Feist is performing for free in a park as part of the Good Morning America concert series. I had previously believed this event to be in Central Park. This is not the case. The show is at Bryant Park. Nonetheless, I can't help but preserve the Central Park-centricism by maintaining the original information below (since I find the park's history fascinating), even though the free Feist show is at BRYANT PARK, not Central Park. Bryant Park is great too. For real. Go check it out. A park is a park is a park.



An excerpt from wikipedia about Central Park:



...New York City's need for a great public park was voiced by the poet and editor of the then-Evening Post (now the New York Post), William Cullen Bryant, and by the first American landscape architect, Andrew Jackson Downing, who began to publicize the city's need for a public park in 1844. A stylish place for open-air driving, like the Bois de Boulogne in Paris or London's Hyde Park, was felt to be needed by many influential New Yorkers, and in 1853 the New York legislature designated a 700 acre (2.8 km²) area from 59th to 106th Streets for the creation of the park, to a cost of more than US$5 million for the land alone.



Good Morning America Summer Concert Series

presents Feist at Bryant Park on Friday July 25, 2008.



Hit the link for all of the details.

If you're familiar with the childrens' television circuit, this may be old news. If not, if Sesame Street has been 123456-7 1/2 weeks or longer, this link might trigger a memory (a good one). Someone will look back at this video and remember their first time online.



For the old, the aged, the wisened, the romantic--for those more electric avenue than seed street--you may notice a certain je-ne-sais-quoi entre Telly et Feist. You didn't hear it here, but I think they shared a juice box after the shoot.

Feist is joining French artist Sophie Calle in Montréal.



At the heart of this exhibition is a break-up e-mail that the artist received from a lover, which ends with the line “Take Care of Yourself”. Sophie Calle decided to do just that. “I received an email telling me it was over...I asked 107 women (including two made from wood and one with feathers), chosen for their profession or skills, to interpret this letter...”



Originally produced for the French Pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale, PRENEZ SOIN DE VOUS consists of texts, photos, films and voices of 107 women of all ages who interpret the break-up letter through their various professions. This poetic and often touching project speaks to us all about our relation to the loved one.



Feist will be performing at the gallery this evening and is one of the 107 featured in the piece. For more information, go to http://www.dhc-art.org/

Feist's longtime photographic collaborator Mary Rozzi has an Internet address all her own. The site was created by the Reminder booklet designer Simone Rubi. It's up now here, waiting for you. In case that doesn't work, it's MaryRozzi.com.

To make this web of Internets and peoples more entwined, Simone-the-designer is also Simone-the-artist (thread installations) and Simone-the-singer (lead lady of The Rubies). If you'd like, visit Simone's site here, a destination where you will discover The Rubies' album Explode From The Center (it was released this month and, like Feist, bears the camera mark of Rozzi). SimoneRubi.com

I'm feeling nostalgic for Wednesday, April 8th 2008. I think this video might help, it might conjure up some memories of that almost-forgotten day (a problem this man wouldn't have). This picture below/beside/above/around might help too. Karla Welch took it backstage at the show moving below.

Feist recently appeared (as promised below) on the CBC programme The Hour. I found this YouTube video and am, at present—with you here with me—embarking upon the world of embedded video. Hopefully it doesn't steal the sheets.

Before the interview portion of the video (ideally embedded below), there is a Coles Notes fast-edit guide to Leslie's life. It's pretty good, I like it. After the interview, which you would-could-should enjoy, there is a suggestion that there is MORE to the video after the break. I'm not sure how true this is. It appears true, but I have no more footage. Frankly, I think you'll like this-much that-much (move hands wide apart), even without the bonus track. So, if you have 626 seconds, do take a look.

Newswire—Attorneys representing two co-plaintiffs, Seven and Eight, filed suit against singer Leslie Feist (stage name Feist) yesterday in Circuit Court.



The suit comes nearly one year after the release of Feist’s full length album, The Reminder, which graced many music critics’ “Best of 2007” lists. Although also a member of Canadian rock band Broken Social Scene, Feist is best known for her highest selling song, “1 2 3 4,” which was featured in an Apple iTunes commercial in the summer of 2007. It is this song that sparked the lawsuit from Seven and Eight, as well as an injunction to stop the song from being played in public places and on the radio.



A representative for Eight told journalists outside the courtroom, “Thanks to this song, anyone who has a radio or television set knows about One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Nine and Ten. What about my client? This is a blatant case of discrimination in order to profit off of some contrived line-verse form.”



The suit cites the Numbers with Disabilities Act, which provides discrimination protection for numbers that are not as divisible or attractive as others.



Neither Seven nor Eight have been shy when it comes to the courts. In 1995, Seven filed a defamation lawsuit against New Line Cinema for its feature film, Se7en, starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, claiming that the name as well as the use of the numeral “7” implicated the plaintiff with “gruesome and immoral acts.” The suit was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. Seven has attempted similar suits against the Prince song “7” and the television series 7th Heaven. Both were dismissed when the courts ruled “Plaintiff [Seven] failed to produce evidence showing the existence of essential elements of each claim.”



To read the rest of this article, visit Paste Magazine. Seven really does seem to have a bit of an attitude. Like, super aggressive. Remember this one? "Why's six afraid of seven?" (Answer: because seven ate nine.)

The Music Video Production Association has just released its nominations for the 2008 awards ceremony. Patrick Daughters, director of several Feist videos, is in the lead with five nominations. Two of his recent Feist videos (I Feel it All and 1234) are mentioned under several categories (you can review the full list here). One of Patrick's prospective awards is for Director of the Year, a nomination specific to the two just-mentioned Feist videos, and also for the Liars' Plaster Casts of Everything.



Other Daughters/Feist collaborations include My Moon My Man and the second version of Mushaboom. I just checked the YouTube video for 1234 and it has now been viewed more than 9 million times.

Feist co-conspirator-collaborator-producer Gonzales is playing tonight at the Jane Mallet Theatre in Toronto. This is a rare performance by the criminal mastermind O.G. (Original Gonzales)—a man known as much for his slight of hand—as (soon) his album Soft Power. This record, at long last, makes Feist and Gonzales label-mates on Arts and Crafts.



Gonzo co-produced Feist's last two-albums and sprinkles his dust around a great gang of other musical minds. You will find this out when you read this article.



This video for his first single, Working Together, is amazing. When you're done, search and rescue his last album Solo Piano from the past, that time before you carried it always, hither and nigh.



And then, and then, if you're in Toronto tonight (and somehow if you're not), come see Gonzales, at the Jane Mallett Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre for the Performing Arts {27 Front Street East}. Doors are at 7:00; Tickets available at the door.



Here is an excerpt from the article linked to above, to tease you:



"Audiences in France have grown accustomed to Gonzales’s prankish humour: in concert, he is apt to cover Phil Collins and Philip Bailey’s Easy Lover or perform in white gloves with his hands projected on a screen above the stage. But even there, fans aren’t sure how to take his provocations."