Mark Ronson Contest

Move over Timbaland, Mark Ronson is the hottest producer in the music business right now. On his new release, Version, Ronson displays his versatility, masterfully crafting tracks for Kenna, Phantom Planet, Lily Allen, and others. I’ve been listening to the CD a lot recently, especially the more dance-oriented singles. “Stop Me” is definitely the highlight of the album, borrowing excruciatingly catchy vocals from Daniel Merriweather, who collabs with Ronson on other tracks. Ronson takes a more live-band approach to Lily Allen’s “Oh My God”, as you can see in the video below.

I know what your thinking: blah blah this is great and all Zack but this post is called Mark Ronson CONTEST. Well here it is. In the spirit of Mark Ronson, I want you to leave a comment with your favorite collaboration. This could be Run DMC and Aerosmith, Jay-Z and Nas, macaroni and cheese or any other delectable duos. Leave your email in the comment. First place winner gets a copy of Ronson’s Version, and second and third place get the “Stop Me” single.

Check the song and video below, and start commenting.

MP3: Mark Ronson - “Stop Me (ft. Daniel Merriweather)” [link removed at request: find it here]

Youtube: Mark Ronson - “Oh My God (ft. Lily Allen)” [video]

Love,
Zack

Flight of the Conchords CONTEST!

UPDATE: I made the contest easier. See below, and PLEASE COMMENT!

Flight of the Conchords is not only the musical duo of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement from New Zealand, but also the newest in a long line of quality shows produced by HBO in the past few years. With the Sopranos finally ending and the search for Vincent Chase’s dad being awkward and boring, Flight of the Conchords will provide some welcome humor and style to the 10:30 slot directly after Entourage. Dubbed as “New Zealand’s fourth most popular folk-parody duo”, Bret and Jemaine have been playing together since 1998 and have been hugely successful in Europe and at home, but in the show the two move from home to make a living in the East Village, and hilarity ensues.

Rosemary from Cornerstone Promotion was nice enough to hook my brother and I up with free passes to the premiere of the show in D.C., so we met up at Rock’n'Roll Hotel to enjoy an open bar (see: awesome), small snacks, and the premiere episode. While I couldn’t hear much (thick New Zealand accents + too much side noise + too many rail drinks), the bits that I did hear sounded quite funny, and, after watching the video of the first episode at my house, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and am very excited to see more.

Many of you have probably seen the promos for the show, so maybe some of you are as excited as I am. If you are, you’ll like this contest: I want you to tell me your FAVORITE WORD in the entire English language. It can be goofy or profound or anything, but it must be an actual word. The best word gets a Flight of the Conchords t-shirt (which is awesome), A DVD of their first episode, and a mini-robot doll. Second place gets a poster and the DVD. Make sure you leave your name and email address when you submit your word in the comments. Not many people participated in the last contest, which made me sad, so I expect the loyal ATG readers to be creative, and to submit. Here is a clip from the first episode to whet your appetite for the premiere, which comes this sunday after a new Entourage.

Check out the whole first episode here.

Love,
Zack

Borat Contest Winners + New Features + New Music

It’s time to announce the winners of the Borat contest (finally)!

The third place winner is Peter. Peter chose Gilbert Arenas. Gil aka Agent Zero aka Captain Quirk aka Gil the Magnificent is by far my favorite Wizard, and is one of the five best players in the league. I’m even naming the dog we get in our apartment next year Gilbert, regardless of gender.

The second place winner is resident cutie-pie Charlie. Charlie chose my favorite offensive player on the Redskins, Santana Moss. I know a few others chose Santana as well, so Charlie upped the ante a little bit. He also created a movie plot featuring Budnik from Salute Your Shorts, which would’ve deserved second place even without the Santana choice.

AND THE GRAND PRIZE WINNER IS: James Christopher “Wawawewa” Rowe. Chris had a bit of inside information (being that he’s my second cousin/butt buddy) but his choices were too good to go unrewarded. He chose one of my favorite players ever to don the Burgundy and Gold, Fred Smoot. I am in love with this man, and how can you not be with famous quotes such as “66% of the Earth is covered by water. The rest is covered by Smoot.” Also, Chris chose Chris Cooley, my second favorite offensive weapon on the Skins and another beautiful man. Well done Christopher.

The three of you can expect e-mails from me today regarding your prizes. Now that the contest is out of the way, lets get to the rest of the post:

So, if you can’t tell already (or if you are new to ATG) this is a completely new layout from the old All Things Go (see here). With the new layout comes some new features. For example, the new pages at the top (Home, About Us, Contact Us) are available, and a Mixtapes page will be added so that all the Mixtapes will be readily accessible. Also, each post will be placed into categories by author (Zack or Adrian) so that, if you enjoy one writer’s music style over another you can read their posts alone. Also, at the end of every post, we will include links to where you can purchase the albums by the artists featured in the post, which we realize we should’ve done a while ago. There are a few other minor changes (including new and more reliable hosting) that you guys can figure out by exploring the site. We will also be updating all the outdated links in the coming days.

ALSO NOTE: www.allthingsgoblog.com is no longer redirecting here (we need it for hosting) so you can reach us at www.allthingsgo.wordpress.com or www.all-things-go.com. Now, on to some music!

I had to buckle down last night and try to write two papers and study for a math midterm. While I did almost no work, this was not due to a lack of quality studying music. I’ve been using these next few songs to help me through the studying process, so I’ll share them here with you in case any of you have some cramming to do before Thanksgiving break.

The Blow - Fists Up
This is the second time I’ve featured The Blow in one of these posts, but I can’t not give out this song. More fast-paced than “True Affection”, “Fists Up” balances upbeat-ness with a smooth melody to create a good studying song.

The Album Leaf - Always for You
I was going to do a writeup on the new Album Leaf release, Into the Blue Again, but I never really got around to it (I told you I was lazy). This album is one of my favorite releases of 2006, and it’s a perfect study-buddy. “Always For You” is a flawless single and the highlight of an underappreciated album from an underappreciated band.

Ray Lamontagne - Three More Days
Another great, underappreciated album that I was going to write about but never got around to it. Till the Sun Turns Black is an awesome folk album enjoyed by indie kids, girly girls and folk lovers alike. With an incredible, rough, soul-filled voice, Ray channels his passion into “Three More Days”, in my opinion his finest work to date. Many of you may know Ray only from his cover of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”, but this song truly demonstrates his amazing vocal skills.

The Inner Banks - Glittering Sky
I recently received an e-mail about these guys, and I must say that I enjoy their style. With airy, ethereal vocals and floaty piano melodies in the background, “Glittering Sky” is my kind of study song.

I hope that you’re studying goes better than mine, and if you aren’t studying, I hope you still can enjoy these tracks. Congratulations to the contest winners, and welcome to the new All Things Go.

The Blow: Buy Paper Television // official site
The Album Leaf: Buy Into the Blue Again // official site
Ray Lamontagne: Buy Till The Sun Turns Black // official site
The Inner Banks: official site // myspace

-Zack

Borat Contest + Updates Galore

Hey everyone. I know, it’s been over a week since we made a post (with the exception of Adrian’s Brand New post today). I’d like to blame it all on the fact that Ezarchive is fairly incompetent but I must shoulder most of the blame. Basically I’ve been unmotivated and exhausted this past week, and that, teamed with the fact that everything here has been crazy this weekend (see: beer pong with my dad at 10am before the football game) has led to the lack of posts. I promise a more motivated Zack in the coming weeks.

We have to switch away from Ezarchive now since they have totally ruined everything for us. This means we have to re-host all of the files previously linked to on All Things Go, which is a long and tedious process, so bear with us. We have made the switch, temporarily, over to FileDen, though their 10GB bandwidth limit is incredibly small and probably will force us to move again, maybe to DreamHost or maybe to some real webhosting (www.AllThingsGo.com anyone?), but for now, its FileDen. If anyone has any suggestions or a super-server sitting around shout us a holler so we can get this thing going.
Also, we’ve been working on some new webdesigns, but since our budget is small (we’re broke college kids after all), we haven’t been able to come up with anything exciting. Our most professional new look (with a test post) can be seen over here. If anyone thinks they can make an awesome design for our site, please please please contact me at allthingsgoblog@gmail.com or at SmootIsMyIdol on AIM and I can discuss with you what we’re looking for. Who knows, maybe a big surprise prize will go to the best design, if we get enough submissions!
Anyways, the real reason for this post is to introduce the first of many All Things Go contests! I went to see the Borat movie last night, and I must say, it’s the single most offensive and racist movie I’ve ever seen (besides most all Spike Lee joints), which in no way means I did not enjoy it. In fact, I was worried the other people in the theater were getting annoyed at how often I burst into laughter. I, along with pretty much all of America, have been a huge fan of Sacha Baron Cohen for years, and was slightly skeptical of a full-length movie about a character in a skit (see: all SNL-themed movies), but I was very pleasantly surprised. Highlights of the movie include the “Running of the Jew”, Linnel the prostitute, and Borat referring to presidential candidate Alan Keyes as a “real genuine chocolate face”.

Our awesome friend Rosemary over at Cornerstone Promotion has hooked us up with some free stuff, and it’s contest time bitches! In honor of the fact that Borat was originally a skit in Da Ali G show, the contest is as follows: In 2-4 sentences (please no more than that), pick a character from any TV show or skit from a TV show and give me a plot summary of a movie based on that character. For example, I believe that Wilson from Home Improvement should have his own movie where he has his own talk show along the lines of Oprah, Dr. Phil, etc… and at the end of the movie you end up seeing his face. Ok, that wasn’t funny, but you guys get the picture.
The Grand Prize Winner (AKA the person who makes me laugh the most) will receive a copy of the Borat soundtrack, Borat: Stereophonic Musical Listenings That Have Been Origin In Moving Film, along with a promotional Borat poster. I have a copy of the soundtrack, and this prize is well worth it. Also, if we get enough submissions, two runner-ups will receive the poster and a Borat sticker (also super-cool!)

Just leave your summary in the comments along with your email address. I’ll announce the winners sometime this week, assuming you people actually leave submissions unlike every other time I ask you to comment and you don’t (it kills me inside). This should a fun contest, be creative and please actually participate!

For those of you unfamiliar with Borat’s style, check out this clip of Sacha (aka Borat) on The Daily Show last week:

By the way, I had my horns surgically removed too. I look forward to readng the submissions. Welcome back readers, All Things Go is active again.

-Zack