The Sound of Music - Song and Dance in Belgium Train Station - VIDEO

Easter is the time of year when "The Sound of Music" is always aired on TV, so thought folks would enjoy this video of a song from "The Sound of Music" sung and acted out in a train station in Antwerp, Belgium! The performance is quite good, but the real priceless part of this is the reactions on the faces of the passersby in the train station. (What I'm wondering is, how did they get the music broadcast over what sounds like the station's public address system?)

Feel free to sing or dance along... "Doe, a deer, a female deer..."



If the video above doesn't work for some reason, you can view the "Sound of Music" train station video here.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs on Saturday Night Live

New York's Yeah Yeah Yeahs appeared on the pre-Easter edition of Saturday Night Live, and Karen O. and the band were in good form. Naturally they were promoting their brand-new album It's Blitz!, which just came out March 31st. (Video of "Zero" from SNL below.)



I've liked the Yeah Yeah Yeahs for a few years but haven't yet caught them live. But they'll appearing at this year's All Points West Festival, a good local gig for them, and I'm hoping to see them there.
They'll be performing at the festival in Jersey City's Liberty State Park July 31st, in between European gigs. Check their Web site for Yeah Yeah Yeahs tour dates.

Music News: New iTunes Pricing, Beatles Remasters

Digital music and reissues are a couple of the leading music-related news stories this week...

iTunes pricing: This week iTunes finally introduced its new pricing structure. While much of the attention has been on the new $1.29 price for popular tracks, there's been much less mention of the fact that many tracks will remain at 99 cents, and some songs will sell for 69 cents. As iPod Observer notes, all iTunes songs are now DRM-free and encoded at 256kbps (which the store calls iTunes Plus).

On a related note, I've read that Amazon has increased the price of some of its MP3 downloads to $1.29, but a quick scan through some of their offerings showed tracks at the usual 99 cents. Anyone come across Amazon.com tracks costing more?

Remastered Beatles albums coming: The music industry is expected to get a big boost in the Fall when all of the studio recordings by the Beatles are to come out in remastered versions. Sept. 9th is the expected date for the reissues, which many music fans say is long overdue. As for digital versions of Beatles music... well, no news on that, unfortunately.

Yahoo Unveils New Yahoo Music with Artist Pages

Yahoo has been involved in online music for years, but now they've revamped their Yahoo Music division to better compete in the digital music space. Released today, the new Yahoo Music features both paid and free music services and partners with other online music providers. Yahoo is the second leading online music destination, after AOL Music.

It offers different modules (which you can drag and move around) such as free audio streaming services from Last.fm and Pandora, videos from Youtube, and the ability to buy music downloads from iTunes and Amazon.com. Yahoo Music also offers a new feature called Artist Pages that gives access to information and products from various musicians (500,000 in all, Yahoo says), including concert dates and tickets, photos, lyrics, and blogs.

I'll post more about Yahoo Music after I get the chance to kick the tires and take it for a spin.

All Points West Festival Returns for 2009 - Lineup Below

The All Points West Festival in Liberty State Park is back for a second year, and the lineup was announced today. The 2009 edition of All Points West will be held July 31st, August 1st, and August 2nd. Although there was lots of grumbling about last year's APW regarding site access, beer availability, and what many saw as a less-than-stellar lineup, I had a great time, though the transportation could have been better (the promised shuttle bus to the park didn't exist, which meant a one-mile-plus walk to the festival).

In any case, the three-day festival called "Coachella East" (it has the same organizers) is back, and here's a partial listing of who'll be there (you can find the full 2009 All Points West lineup here):

FRIDAY, JULY 31st
Beastie Boys / Yeah Yeah Yeahs / Vampire Weekend
Also: the National, Fleet Foxes, MSTRKRFT, Ra Ra Riot, Shearwater, Heartless Bastards, and more

SATURDAY, AUGUST 1st
Tool / My Bloody Valentine / Gogol Bordello
Also: Arctic Monkeys, Neko Case, the Ting Tings, St. Vincent, Tokyo Police Club, and more

SUNDAY, AUGUST 2nd
Coldplay / Echo & The Bunnymen / MGMT
Also: the Black Keys, Elbow, Silversun Pickups, Mogwai, We Are Scientists, and more

Each day will also feature a College Humor Live tent with folks such as Michael Showalter, Todd Barry, and Janeane Garofalo.

Advance purchase tickets for All Points West 2009 are available only from Ticketmaster. An article on Stereogum says that tickets go on sale Friday morning, April 3rd. Tickets are $89 for each day, or $199 for all three days (for a limited time only). And APW is this year offering a recession special "layaway option" (no details yet).

New iTunes Prices (Higher, That Is) Coming April 7th

The iTunes price increase for songs it deems the "hottest" selections will go into effect on April 7th, it's been confirmed. Record labels have long wanted variable pricing (and higher prices) for digital downloads. Steve Jobs has never seemed to be in a hurry to raise the cost of a song, since Apple is using the iTunes store as a loss leader for selling iPods.

But now you'll pay 30% more if you want the latest hits or certain classic or in-demand backlist titles (not sure exactly how they've going to determine which older tracks should have the higher price).

If you don't like the new higher prices, CMT.com (Web site of Country Music Television) suggests checking out Spun.com, which will buy your old CDs that you no longer want, and sell you new ones. CMT gives some examples, saying that you can get many country CDs for less than eight dollars, and get three dollars or more for the ones you sell... meaning you can get a full-length CD for about the cost of five songs on iTunes.

Sounds like a good deal to me.