2014 MTV Woodie Award Nominees Announced
The MTV Woodies, the cable channel's reaction to indie music, announced the nominees for this year's award show, chosen by voters online yesterday. The nominees included a who's who of artists and acts that dominated the up and coming charts in 2013. In the hunt for the coveted "Woodie of the Year" are familiar names in Kanye West, Drake and Pharrell, as well as some more eclectic choices in Disclosure, Imagine Dragons, Lorde and Zedd. Chance The Rapper and director Austin Vesely are nominated for the "Best Video Woodie" for the "Everybody's Something" video. They will be up against some stiff competition from Disclosure ("Grab Her"), Passion Pit ("Carried Away"), Iggy Azalea ("Bounce") and Arcade Fire ("Afterlife"). Chance pops up again for his collaboration on "Life Round Here" with James Blake and Jhene Aiko and Mack Wilds round out a fairly solid list for "Breaking Woodie". Honestly, it's odd to find names like Beyonce and Jay Z on this list of nominees, which seem more tailored to Macklemore than the Grammys did a few weeks ago. Bob Dylan is nominated for a "Did It My Way Woodie". What's more 'My Way' than releasing an album (The Heist, Acid Rap) independently only to see it beat out the big guys? The line between independent and mainstream is being increasingly scrubbed away, and the 2014 edition of the Woodie Awards may be the best implication of that.
The MTV Woodies take place March 13 in Austin, TX, and will air March 16 on MTVU. Check out the full list of nominees below.
2014 mtvU Woodie Awards Nominees
Woodie of the Year:
Imagine Dragons
Lorde
Pharrell
Drake
Zedd
Disclosure
Breaking Woodie:
Bastille
Martin Garrix
The 1975
Jhene Aiko
Sam Smith
Mack Wilds
Best Video Woodie:
Disclosure, "Grab Her"
Passion Pit, "Carried Away"
Chance the Rapper, "Everybody's Something"
Iggy Azalea, "Bounce"
Arcade Fire, "Afterlife"
Did It My Way Woodie:
Beyoncé — Released her new, self-titled album without any prior promotion.
Kanye West — Created an interactive music video experience for Yeezus
Arcade Fire — Creatively utilized social media, street art and pop-up performances to launch the Reflektor album.
Childish Gambino — Hosted impromptu album listening sessions in public parks for Because the Internet.
Bob Dylan — Created a 16 channel interactive music video for "Like a Rolling Stone."
Performing Woodie:
Tyler the Creator
Ed Sheeran
Jay Z
Arcade Fire
The National
The XX
Best Collaboration Woodie:
A$AP Rocky and Skrillex — "Wild For the Night"
Avicii and Aloe Blacc — "Wake Me Up"
Just Blaze and Baauer featuring Jay Z — "Higher"
Kendrick Lamar and Imagine Dragons — "Radioactive (remix)"
Daft Punk and Pharrell — "Get Lucky"
James Blake and Chance the Rapper — "Life Round Here"
College Radio Woodie (Best College Radio Station):
Ball State University (WCRD)
Boston University (WTBU)
East Stroudsburg University (WESS)
Eastern Illinois University (WEIU)
Indiana University (WIUX)
Texas State University - San Marcos (KTSW)
University of California - Berkeley (KALX)
University of Illinois - Champaign Urbana (WPGU)
University of South Carolina (WUSC)
William Paterson University (WPSC)
[RH Feature] Marrow: The Second Time Around
Photo byNolis
Six months ago the dream was all but dead.
Kids These Days officially broke up on May 8, 2013. Two days later I was behind the wheel of my Chevy Trailblazer heading north to Wisconsin. The seven piece funk/soul/rock/hip-hop group that had captivated a generation of a city was no more, and they had retreated north to make sense of it all.
As I drove through the newly warm spring air with drummer Greg Landfair, his girlfriend and a friend, we listened to the eclectic sounds of Traphouse Rock and Hard Times. The group had spanned nearly four years together, essentially amounting to what would later be referred to as their “college days”. With college over, we pulled up to a hastily-erected sign on the side of a seldom-used street in what seemed like the middle of nowhere of Wisconsin to return to where it all began.
As we pulled up to the main house of the Postock farm, the ominous sounds of Macie Stewart’s voice could already be heard emanating from the large, old barn located just on the other side of the red brick structure.
For a group of young adults that achieved so much, the end of the band was almost jarringly abrupt. After a series of tense discussions and numerous arguments, Kids These Days rode out their tour through New York and called it quits. Horn players Nico Segal and J.P. Floyd left from there to join Frank Ocean on tour, Vic Mensa immediately embarked on a solo hip-hop career and the rest headed back to Chicago to figure everything out.
[Video] Marrow: "Two"
Photography by Nolis
For Liam Cunningham, Macie Stewart, and Lane Beckstrom, the past few months have felt like a strangely familiar walk around the block. Since leaving their previous project, Kids These Days, and picking up drummer Matt Carroll though, the three close knit friends have been slowly building steam after re-establishing themselves with a new band; Marrow. The four Chicago natives have spent the time since KTD broke up in June writing incessantly, playing gigs both big and small, and practicing in Cunningham's living room, cluttered with instruments, chords and pages of half-finished songs.
Never one to do things traditionally, Marrow wanted to make a statement with their debut video for the group. Turning to seasoned director and close friend, Austin Vesely, they shot a video that encapsulates the personality of the individuals and the group as a whole while seemingly subliminally explaining the underlying thoughts and feelings that come along with going through the kind of tumultuous year much of the band has endured in 2013. "I worked a lot with Liam to figure out what direction we wanted to go with it," said Vesely. "I had this idea for a train, and an abandoned farm, so we sort of put those pieces together and made it about a journey. We were talking a lot about Kubrick at the time--we even went to see The Shining in theaters-- so that was a big influence on the project. We wanted things to start typical and achieve a surreal, dreamlike feeling by the end."
The visual also appropriately straddles a pair of songs from Marrow, (“She Chose You” & "Mother of Maladies,”) set to the journey of Liam finding his way on a train before arriving in the countryside. It's an artistically interesting piece of work that is a testament to the kind of stuff Vesely is capable of making, and Beckstrom's job as a bell boy may have Hollywood calling soon. Anyway, take some time out of your day to sit and watch this fitting masterpiece for Marrow to re-enter the music video game. Also, be sure to catch Marrow next week in Chicago on 12/19 at Schuba's for their album release show for their debut project, Two.
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[RH First Glance] Eryn Allen Kane: "Hollow"
If you've been really paying attention to RubyHornet and the Midwest music scene, you may have heard of Eryn Allen Kane. If not, you'll most definitely remember her once you have. The 23 year old singer/songwriter has spent the past year quietly working on her debut project in the annals of Chicago's Fox & The Mule studios. With the project nearly ready and slated for a Spring release, Kane and co. decided to release this video for "Hollow", a vocal avant-garde piece, inspired by expressionist paintings and shot by the talented Austin Vesely. According to Kane, the piece came together naturally; "Robbie Mueller and I were just messing around but I eventually came up with a solid melody using original lyrics, as well as lyrics from two of my favorite jazz songs," said Kane. "I went home, played it back and recorded the melody into my computer. I don't know how to play the guitar so I just sang the guitar riffs. Then I vocally arranged the rest of the back vocals to make it sound like a full song. One night we decided to record it at the studio and it ended up sounding pretty cool so we figured we'd put it out as some what of a teaser for the rest of my project and not a single." Teaser indeed, the track and accompanying video certainly create suspense heading into Kane's full project, which according to her will share a minimalist approach with "Hollow" but with more variety and instrumentation.
This is not Vesely and Kane's first time working together either, having previously collaborated on the Vesely-directed short film "Sex Tape Day" that garnered over 15,000 views in a week and made it to the front page of Funny Or Die. The idea for "Hollow" came from a video in which actors are painted to resemble expressionist artworks. "We picked up some paint, headed back to his house, listened to led zeppelin and shot a video," explained Kane. "We both knew exactly what we wanted which made this pretty easy. We make a good team. He's the man." Check out the video below for yourself and keep it locked to Ruby Hornet for the latest from Eryn Allen Kane.
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[Short Film] "Sex Tape Day"
You may not know Eryn Koehn yet; but you will soon. The 23 year old Detroit born songstress has been building a steady following among those in the know in Chicago since arriving to attend Columbia College for acting where she earned her B.A. of Arts. Known around Windy City film and music circles for her sultry voice and appearances in a variety of short films, Kane has taken things up a notch lately, shooting a video earlier this year with Davy Greenberg for her cover of BJ the Chicago Kid's song "Her Pain" and garnering a feature on ProbCause's album The Recipe Vol. 2 where she handled the hook on "Motivation".
It was while doing a scene for an Onion web series that she caught the eye of vaunted Chicago videographer Austin Vesely, who was immediately struck. "Working with Eryn is great because she's never been afraid to commit to a joke, even if it's kind of absurd," said Vesely. The video, shot in 8 hours at Vesely's small apartment on Chicago's Northside, was a crash course in cinematography for Koehn, as Austin carefully handled the sound, direction, framing and jokes alongside everything else, switching off with Koehn here and there to shoot the video in full. The scenes were planned for the most part, mostly written by Vesely months earlier but the majority of the interactions were true improvisation, playing to Koehn's strengths. For those familiar with Koehn and Vesely, it should be no surprise that they were able to produce something of this caliber. Check out the 10 minute piece below and keep it locked to Ruby Hornet for the latest from the pair in the coming months.
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[Video] Chance The Rapper Freestyle on Toca Tuesdays
Chance The Rapper was in New York all of last week promoting Acid Rap, his upcoming tour opening for Mac Miller and also getting ready to perform his first ever headlining show at NY. Chano hit up various music stations, including Shade 45, in which he stopped by Toca Tuesdays studio to meet DJ Tony Touch and spit a four minute freestyle which you can see below.
http://youtu.be/OE-vYTYoyxM