Cats! DoonTube for August 22, 2010

DoonTube & Shonen Knife

For almost a year now, I've been privileged to present a two hour long video show called DoonTube each week at Michael Nesmith's VideoRanch 3D. I concoct some sort of theme and then select 20 or 30 YouTube videos to share with Ranch Regulars and visitors to the Ranch.

From now on, as long as it may last, I'll try to archive each week's setlist here in this blog. I'll also post an article with many of the past setlists. Each of the songs in these lists has a link to their respective YouTube address.

I also intend to start being more concientious about posting other music topics of interest to me! I've really let this blog languish since I started playing on Twitter, but now I hope to do a better job of staying on top of it!

That being said...

One of my absolute FAVORITE bands, SHONEN KNIFE will be touring the U.S. again this fall! Here are the dates published so far!

9/8 Wed - Seattle WA - Tractor Tavern
9/9 Thurs - Vancouver BC - Biltmore Cabaret
9/10 Fri - Portland, OR - Mississippi Studios
9/11 Sat - Oakland, CA - Uptown Night Club
9/12 Sun - San Francisco, CA - Bottom Of The Hill
9/13 Mon - San Diego, CA Casbah (yay!)
9/14 Tues - Los Angeles, CA - Spaceland
9/17 Fri - Austin, TX - Red 7
9/18 Sat - Dallas, TX - The Loft
9/19 Sun - Kansas City, MO - Record Bar
9/20 Mon - Northfield, MN - The Cave
9/21 Tues - Chicago, IL - Schubas
9/22 Wed - Kalamazoo, MI - The Strutt
9/23 Thurs - Cincinnati, OH - Midpoint Music Fest
9/24 Fri - Pittsburgh, PA - 31st St Pub
9/25 Sat - New York, NY - Asia Society Museum
9/26 Sun - Washington, D.C. - Rock and Roll Hotel
9/28 Tues - Brooklyn, NY - Knitting Factory
9/29 Wed - TBA
9/30 Thurs - Montreal, Canada - Cabaret du Mile End
10/1 Fri - Toronto, Canada - Horseshoe Tavern
10/2 Sat - Buffalo, NY - Mohawk Place

Don't Miss Them!

DoonTube Aug. 15, 2010 "It Beats The Alternative!"

Weird theme, great songs!

My Favorite DoonTube Sets

A couple of DoonTube sets really stand out in my mind. The first is the Japanime set. Up until this set, Nez had not made any suggestions on what I should do. He showed me how to set up the DoonTube stream, and even created a venue in VR3D called the Grundome, but aside from that it was my show. One day, however, I received an email from Foreman saying, "Nez said maybe you can do a Japan Anime Rock Doontube." Now THAT was a challenge. My mind wondered, "Does he mean Japanese Anime cartoons with Western Rock & Roll soundtracks? Does he mean Japanese Rock with Anime video?" Requests for clarification left me more confused than before. So I just did what I always do: Whatever I felt like. But I was in for a huge surprise.

I've enjoyed Shonen Knife for a long time. I'd even shared their videos during a previous episode (or two?) of DoonTube. But beyond that I was pretty ignorant of the music scene from Japan. What I discovered caused this set to take a week longer than I'd anticipated. I had found a MOTHERLODE of INCREDIBLE music. I watched YouTube after YouTube of fascinating, awe-inspiring Rock and pop. I fell in love with Shiina Ringo and the Tokyo Incidents. I became enthralled by the Visual Kei movement! (I developed a crush on Hizaki too, but please don't tell anyone.) I felt utterly inspired by the pop and avante garde creations of ExGirl. On and on I was lead to more and more genius. Reducing the set list to two hours was a nearly impossible challenge, and I mourned every video I cut from the list.

Here is what emerged.



The only other time Nez requested a set was for the Global Zone festival held last Spring. I'd already discussed with Foreman the idea of playing some videos of the artists who were to be performing at the festival, but it was requested I make a dedicated episode. I had a lot of fun with it and we had a wonderful Festival. One of the artists performing at the festival was Lal Meri, featuring the captivating Nancy (Rosey) Kaye on vocals. This performance galvanized an idea that had been tickling my mind, but couldn't find substance up to that point. The result was my second favorite list, the Sulty Cabaret set.



My third favorite set is just that because I really love this music. A combination of "Glam" and "Punk" (Which are kissin' cousins anyway!) Here is the "Glunk" set.

DoonTube Archive

The archive has been removed from this blog because it really slowed the load time of the page. I posted the set lists as GoogleDocs spreadsheets HERE.