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MTV News' Musical March Madness: MGMT Vs. Animal Collective, Owl City Vs. Grizzly Bear

Posted 3/24/10 3:00 pm EST by in Music


It's Musical March Madness! The sprawling bracket — both a parody and a tribute to the NCAA basketball tournament, masterminded by MTV News' James Montgomery — takes the 65 biggest names in rock, splits them up into four regions, assigns them seeds and puts them up against one another in a single-elimination series of match-ups in a winner-take-all contest. We're leaving it to you to decide an actual champ in this field of 65. Over the next few weeks, we will present a series of polls that will allow you to vote for the match-ups presented in MTV News' Band Bracketology. You vote for the winners, we'll keep advancing the seeds and, in the end, we'll have some sort of champion. What will the winner receive? Little more than our esteem (as well as that of the fans) and some Internet bragging rights.

The first round is entirely in the books, and like the actual NCAA basketball tournament (which resumes on Thursday, March 25), there were a number of dramatic upsets. Check out James Montgomery's rundown of the first round and get ready for a fast and furious round two. Today, we take care of the second round match-ups in the East.

(2) Animal Collective vs. (7) MGMT
It was all chalk in this part of the bracket, with MGMT narrowly defeating Arcade Fire and Animal Collective taking out Faith No More after falling behind early. This is a great match-up, because it pits the most-talked-about psychedelic indie group of last year (Animal Collective) against the 2010 version of that (MGMT). Which side will stand tall?

(3) Owl City vs (6) Grizzly Bear
Owl City had a brutal time putting away the Gaslight Anthem, while Grizzly Bear made a convincing argument for their seeding by knocking out veterans U2. Can Owl City keep carrying their unlikely momentum, or will Grizzly Bear make their home in the Sweet 16?

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MTV News' Musical March Madness: U2 Vs. Grizzly Bear, Owl City Vs. The Gaslight Anthem

Posted 3/18/10 1:20 pm EST by in Music


It's Musical March Madness! The sprawling bracket — both a parody and a tribute to the NCAA basketball tournament, masterminded by MTV News' James Montgomery — takes the 65 biggest names in rock, splits them up into four regions, assigns them seeds and puts them up against one another in a single-elimination series of match-ups in a winner-take-all contest. We're leaving it to you to decide an actual champ in this field of 65. Over the next few weeks, we will present a series of polls that will allow you to vote for the match-ups presented in MTV News' Band Bracketology. You vote for the winners, we'll keep advancing the seeds and, in the end, we'll have some sort of champion. What will the winner receive? Little more than our esteem (as well as that of the fans) and some Internet bragging rights.

We go back to the East for two more intense match-ups.

(3) Owl City vs. (14) The Gaslight Anthem
Owl City put up an incredible late surge last year, posting up big numbers and covering a lot of bases without revealing too much. (In this case, the one-man-band is not unlike Gonzaga.) Mastermind Adam Young goes up against the Gaslight Anthem, an upstart group from New Jersey who carry the torch of rugged blue-collar punkers like the Replacements. Can they upset Owl City?

(6) Grizzly Bear vs. (11) U2
No, that U2 ranking is not a typo. Though their 2009 album No Line on the Horizon did relatively well and their tour was traditionally massive, they still feel a bit like a veteran team who just slipped in to the tournament at the last minute. At this point, they're probably the sixth best team in the Big East. As for Grizzly Bear, they put out a much-beloved album in 2009 and gained a reputation as one of the better live acts on the indie circuit. Still, U2 may be able to rest on the fact that they recorded "Where the Streets Have No Name" and nobody else did.

Who do you want to win the MTV News Musical March Madness tournament? Let us know your thoughts and predictions in the comments!

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Jay-Z And Beyonce Heart Grizzly Bear

Posted 8/31/09 12:25 pm EST by in Music


What did you do on Sunday?

Well, if you were Jay-Z or Beyoncé (or Beyoncé's sister Solange), then you braved the be-jorted masses in Brooklyn to check out Grizzly Bear's set down at the Williamsburg Waterfront.

Yes, that's right: In perhaps the summer's biggest fish-out-of-water moment (aside from Kanye at Nine Inch Nails last week) Jigga and B waded into the epicenter of Hipster Nation on Sunday, sending texters and Twitters into a veritable frenzy as they grooved to the hazy, lazy sounds of Grizzly Bear at the final JellyNYC Pool Party of 2009.

Perhaps fittingly, they wore their Bedford Avenue best (Jay in dark shades and a gingham shirt, Bey channeling her inner Debbie Gibson), and by all accounts — i.e. roughly 100,000 Tweets and a few shaky YouTube clips — they were really into the show, drinking booze out of plastic cups (just like us!) and bobbing their heads to the beat (and during GB's sun-dappled "Ready, Able," Jay even threw his hands in the air as if he didn't care). Apparently, Solange is really into the Grizz, and brought Jay and Bey out to the show, which is pretty awesome and gives us hope for a Grizzly Bear/Jigga collabo on The Blueprint IV (which should see the light of day sometime in 2015).

Of course, not everyone shared our enthusiasm. Even though the show was free -- you know, as in "anyone can attend" -- their appearance set blogs ablaze with (predictably hand-wringing) posts, most of which seemed to posit that Grizzly Bear were now officially "over" because Jay and Beyoncé decided to check out the show (you know, despite the fact GB's Veckatimest debuted at #8 on the Billboard albums chart earlier this year).

This sort of ruined our post-weekend high, though we did get a laugh out of one Brooklyn Vegan commenter, who summed up all the hullabaloo thusly: "Do people write about me like this when I show up at Big Daddy Kane or Del La Soul or Dead Prez?"

Good point, dude.

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Grizzly Bear Come Out Of Hibernation (With Good Reason)

Posted 8/2/08 1:44 am EST by in John Norris, Lollapalooza


Grizzly Bear make an exception for one band only.

One of the more anticipated left-field bands at this year’s Lolla is the experimental Brooklyn quartet Grizzly Bear, who after a hugely acclaimed 2006 album, Yellow House, have fans hungry for a follow-up. And it’s in the works -- the guys recently completed four songs in a studio in upstate New York, one of which, “Two Weeks,” they unveiled recently on the "Late Show With David Letterman." Normally, Grizzly Bear would not interrupt those sessions to go on the road for any reason. Well, except one. It turns out one of the biggest bands on the planet, Radiohead, tapped GB to open the next couple of weeks of U.S. shows for them. And as Chris Taylor told me backstage at Lollapalooza today (where both bands were playing), that’s an offer you don’t turn down.


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John Norris Goes In Search Of Vegan Burritos (Or Anything) At Lollapalooza

Posted 8/1/08 6:24 pm EST by in John Norris, Lollapalooza


Lollapalooza's front gateThis place needs its own zip code. Really. It’s been a few years since I was at Lollapalooza, but this place qualifies as a small town within one of America’s biggest cities. Took a full half hour to walk the length of Grant Park this afternoon. Began the day with two sets from very different places, geographically and musically – conscience and hip-hop from Somali musician K’naan, followed by my brothers from the ATL, The Black Lips, delivering plenty of flower punk, and some gobs of spit.

(Watch our video interviews from Chicago, including chats with the Cool Kids and the Black Lips, and check back for more all weekend!)

Speaking of expectorate, you can’t spit at this place without hitting a beer stand. Bud Light everywhere you turn, plus there’s a beer garden this year with a ton of microbrews. Food is another matter. No, really. I hiked half a mile until I came across any food vendors. Very odd. Not sure if they are trying to keep the garbage in one place, but not a good move.

On my walk, I passed Perry’s – Perry Farrell’s dance tent in a grove. Very cool atmosphere – though this early in the day, and without the benefit of, you know, the state of mind that makes dance tents fly, it was a bit subdued. DJ Wally Joy on the ones and twos, and hanging from the trees there were day glo fabrics and spheres, from the man who gave you Porno for Pyros and ENIT. Once a trippy dude, always a trippy dude.

Did someone say trippy? Next on my journey, I encountered “Eat Your Own Spaceship,” a circus tent seemingly operated by none other than those creatures from another galaxy called Oklahoma, the Flaming Lips, who are screening their long-discussed film “Christmas on Mars” here at Lolla. The tent is surrounded by pics of the Lips, and written in Russian, a call to make weed weegal.

Finally, I found a vegan burrito (they are gonna starve these people) and now it’s off to an afternoon and evening chatting with Grizzly Bear, Duffy, CSS, the Raconteurs and more. No Radiohead interview, alas. Thom: If you are reading this, I will be on site till about 11 if you change your mind.

(Watch our video interviews from Chicago, including chats with the Cool Kids and the Black Lips, and check back for more all weekend!)

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Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox Going On A Grizzly Fantasy Fling to Morocco

Posted 2/28/08 12:34 pm EST by in For The Record


Bradford

Don't know if we'll ever see a Deerhunter vid on MTV but there's a few of us here in the Newsroom who love this band to no end. At the 2006 Corndog O Rama in Atlanta (a fantastic music festival, if you ever get the chance to go), Bradford inexplicably yelled at my then-girlfriend after she introduced them on stage. He apologized immediately afterwards, and really I couldn't be that mad because they were fantastic.

But that's neither here nor there. This dispatch from John Norris on his weekend before Bradford's Atlas Sound shows in NYC:

This weekend I got the chance to sit down for an extended chat with the inimitable Bradford Cox of Deerhunter/Atlas Sound/Ghetto Cross, and the subject of a million blog entries and dozens of side projects – and I’m working on a story from that interview right now. But one of the most exciting collabos he told us about is an upcoming album he’ll be doing in Morocco at the end of March, with Ed Droste from Grizzly Bear and Final Fantasy’s Owen Pallett. They’ll spend two weeks in an Ed-rented villa working on a ‘pop record’. That’s quite a threesome – Cox, Droste and Pallett. Kind of an indie Hope, Crosby and Lamour in “Road to Morocco”? (IMDB it) Will there be houseboys, I had to ask? “Um, no” said Bradford, “I’m told there is a house girl.” The better to focus on work.

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