October 7

If you come to this blog to see what celebrities were born today, I imagine you're going to be disappointed. But there are plenty of people celebrating Simon Cowell's birthday today. I'm trying to explore the breath of our existence, using the days of a calendar as a jumping point, and see what cool discoveries (and re-discoveries) I can make.

Like Doni Schroader, who does play piano, but is best known for his time behind the skins with ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of the Dead. But his time with the indie stalwarts was an interruption of his collaborations with Beth Cameron. From playing in Nashville, TN's Fair Verona, Doni and Beth started Forget Cassettes in 2001. While Doni joined the Trail of Dead in '04, Beth continued recording as Forget Cassettes. By '08, Doni and Beth were recording music together again, as Eliza the Arrow.

I see why they went with the name change. The Forget Cassettes songs are their versions of that stripped-down White Stripes sound. Meanwhile, Eliza the Arrow shows what happens when they have a whole room of toys to make music with. Can't wait for that first album...

Happy Birthday to Marco Beltrami, who sounds like he should have been born closer to Halloween. Marco's composed film scores for many seminal horror films, among other genres. (His Oscar nomination's for 3:10 to Yuma.) Her's a great retrospective:

He's working on Scream 4, as we blog...

What, you want somebody you've heard of? Okay, how about Thom Yorke? As in, the voice of Radiohead? And another, yet-to-be-named band?
The blogosphere's been freaking out about Thom's 3-night showcase at L.A.'s Echoplex earlier this week. Thom played several tracks of solo material - tracks from his 2006 solo album The Eraser, plus a few songs he just released last month. The freakout seems to be two-fold: Thom Yorke recruited Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers for the band, and the band seems to be good enough for Radiohead to take a break for a few years.
Here's Thom and friends, at an October 2nd show, performing "Analyse." I only found two clips, one with a dodgy camera angle and another with dodgy video. Here's the good listen:


Not big enough names for you? How about a X-Man? Okay, so it's the 80's Australian band The Uncanny X-Men (I've heard it pronounced 'Cross-Men'...)
Today is lead singer Brian Mannix's birthday. Brian Mannix is a pretty cool name, as superheroes go, though, right? His powers seem to be vocals and big hair. And an inability to age: his latest band, Absolute 80's, replays the decade's greatest hits in Melbourne's pub circuit these days.
Here's a video of their highest charting single, "50 Years." This clip's from a Saturday morning show, so if the emu's annoying you, skip to the 1:02 mark.

Yeah, this is the X-Men Hugh Jackman grew up with. Explains a bit, doesn't it?