The Flaming Lips & Erykah Badu/Amanda Palmer – The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

 

 #The Flaming Lips #Erykah Badu #Amanda Palmer #psychedelic rock #alternative/indie rock #neo-psychedelia #experimental rock #noise rock #music video

The Flaming Lips and Amanda Palmer invite you to experience Heady Fwends track “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” again — for the, uh, first time. Erykah Badu, you might recall, sang on the original version of the song, an out-of-this-world highlight from the Lips’ recent collaborative album. She then appeared nude, along with her sister Nayrok, in an NSFW video — a video which Badu immediately slammed and Lips leader Wayne Coyne later removed (though not without suggesting the dustup was part of Badu’s plan all along).
Dresden Dolls singer Palmer ably fills in on vocals for the song’s latest, still-NSFW video. Once again in slow-motion, once again running about five minutes, and once again centering around a nude woman in a bathtub, the new clip blessedly ditches the shots of female body parts covered in questionable foreign substances and is, on the whole, a more toned-down affair. Palmer, who previously made a video in support of pubic hair freedom, certainly seems less likely to turn around and repudiate this one. That’s particularly true considering that Coyne is directing the forthcoming visuals for Palmer’s “Do It With a Rock Star,” which, tweets suggest, will be both literal and, one more time, NSFW. If there was anyone who thought the Flaming Lips might start acting a little less zany now that a multiple Tony Award winner is about to debut the long-awaited Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots musical, well — was there anyone who really thought that?  From: https://www.spin.com/2012/08/naked-amanda-palmer-replaces-nude-erykah-badu-in-flaming-lips-video/

Last week, The Flaming Lips released a video for their collaboration with Erykah Badu, “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face”. Directed by George Salisbury, the rather explicit clip featured Badu’s sister, Nayrok, naked and covered in various strange substances. As it turns out, however, Erykah did not approve of the video’s release and has since penned an open letter to the Lips’ Wayne Coyne. In it, she claims, among other things, that Coyne misled her from the start, promising a “concept of beautiful tasteful imagery” that would “take my shots (in clear water/ fully covered parts - seemed harmless enough) and Nayrok’s part (which I was not present for but saw the photos and a sample scene of cornstarch dripping) and edit them together along with cosmic, green screen images (which no one saw) then would show me the edit.” Instead, Erykah says Coyne “disrespected me by releasing pics and rough vid on the internet without my approval. That is equivalent to putting out a security camera’s images of me changing in the fitting room. I never would have approved that tasteless, meaningless, shock motivated video.”  From: https://consequence.net/2012/06/erykah-badu-doesnt-like-the-flaming-lips-video-for-the-first-time-i-ever-saw-your-face/

One of the more continually fascinating musicians out there (and by out there, we also mean “out there”) is Wayne Coyne, frontman for The Flaming Lips. Recently, Co.Create spoke to him about his latest creative endeavor, involving a whole mess of artists in a massive caravan through Mississippi, part of an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for Most Live Concerts In 24 Hours (Multiple Cities). The title is currently held by Jay-Z. It’s part of the O Music Awards. More on all of that here shortly. In the meantime, we got to the bottom of a more recent Flaming Lips flare-up - the Twitter war that erupted between Coyne and Erykah Badu after the video for her cover with the Lips of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” appeared online (Video in link is NSFW). If you followed her Twitter feed, you know Badu claimed to be blindsided by the butt nekkid nature of the piece, in which Badu (or, maybe her sister as her body double) can be seen writhing bare-skinned in gold glitter, fake blood, and something that looks like … let’s say - heavy whipping cream. Reached for this story, a Badu rep said only that she had provided all she wanted to say on her Twitter feed @fatbellybella and added, “Wayne knows exactly what happened and why this became a problem. The video was unfinished and unapproved.” On that Twitter feed, Badu told Coyne to “KISS MY glittery ASS” and worse.
Coyne has apologized publicly to Badu for any confusion and partially explained his version. But the whole thing got worse before it got better, with both sides accusing the other of seeking publicity with the now-notorious video. With a little more time to mull it all over, Coyne offered Co.Create even more perspective on what it’s like to find himself a player in such a modern drama involving personal brands, guerrilla PR, and technology that fanned the whole flame war.
“I think part of it, this Twitter war, a lot of it I thought was just entertaining, but part of it, I think, plays into Erykah has a side to her audience that isn’t aware at all of who the Flaming Lips are and what we’re about, and I can say almost certainly that just about everybody in the Flaming Lips audience knows who Erykah Badu is. It gets to be a little bit of Erykah playing into this very conservative portion of her audience and sort of defending herself against what they thought about the video, which I thought was kind of funny and kind of absurd after a while. But I didn’t want to and I would never tell people what really happened. There’s a little bit of a sacred obligation to working with people. I knew going into working with Erykah Badu that she’s a freak - that’s why I wanted to work with her. You know. Usually it’s a freak in a good way, but it can be a bad way, and I accept that. I would say she’s inherently interesting, she’s unpredictable. A lot of it to me is funny. But I know to a lot of her audience, that she is important; what she thinks about something like this, it’s important to them that she say something about it. So I kind of let that go, and I would just chime in on the things I thought were entertaining and funny and not really try to stop the things that were mean and vicious and racist or whatever. That’s just the nature of Twitter, and I think that’s what’s cool about Twitter. There’s no referee and there’s no restrictions. As far as the video, I can’t imagine anybody who knows how videos are made, if we really do believe that Erykah Badu is her own woman and she is a presence and she’s in control and she’s powerful and she’s important, that she could really allow her, or her sister, and her manager, and her lawyer to be in a room for two days straight with us and not know what kind of a video we were making. It’s absurd. I could show you exactly the footage of us all laughing and laughing and laughing and going, “This is crazy, this is funny.” Of course, I mean, how am I going to get her and her sister to do a video like that if they didn’t want to do it? I’m just a dude making a video; I think it would be great. So if we really think about what’s happening, it would seem like ‘Really? You didn’t know we were making this video?’ So, I mean part of it to me is I just play along with whatever Erykah says is the story. I play along and say I’m sorry if that’s the way it’s perceived. I mean, I’m not going to tell everybody exactly the blow-by-blow truth of it. But I mean, it’s a Flaming Lips video: I made it, we paid for it, we arranged it, we did all the editing, everything about it. Erykah and her sister literally showed up to do the thing and said ‘Good luck, see ya later, sounds like fun.’ That’s the way that we approached everything that we’ve done. And I thought, yeah, Erykah might make it into something. She gave me a little bit of a warning like ‘Get ready this thing’s gonna blow up.’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ And then ‘All right, here we go.’ So I’m a little bit at the mercy of her machine like everybody else is. I’m playing shows in Europe and she’s doing all this stuff. I try to just laugh at the things I think are funny and try to ignore the things that I think are mean and stuff like that. But that’s my take on it.”  From: https://www.fastcompany.com/1680966/anatomy-of-a-twitter-war-flaming-lips-wayne-coyne-speaks-on-feud-with-erykah-badu

 

 

Maria Muldaur - Don't You Make Me High (Don't You Feel My Leg)

 #Maria Muldaur #folk #blues #country #jazz #folk rock #Americana #pop rock #1960s #1970s

Blue Lu Barker was a New Orleans singer married to the guitarist Danny Barker. They wrote this very sensual song, with Blue Lu singing, "Don't you feel my leg 'cause if you feel my leg you're gonna feel my thigh, and if you feel my thigh, you're gonna go up high." This was pushing the limits in 1938. The song was produced by J. Mayo Williams, who was one of the biggest blues music producers of the '30s and '40s. For Barker, this was her first single after signing with the Vocalion label, and it became a national hit, leading to appearances with Cab Calloway and Jelly Roll Morton. The Barkers appeared at the New Orleans Jazz Festival in 1989, and in 1998, this appearance was released as the album Live at New Orleans Jazz Festival. Danny died in 1994 and Blue Lu in 1998.
Maria Muldaur brought new life to this song when she recorded it for her 1974 self-titled album, with the title altered to "Don't You Make Me High (Don't You Feel My Leg)." That same year, Muldaur had her big hit "Midnight At The Oasis," and when she rose to stardom, she stopped performing "Feel My Leg," as she didn't want to be known for her sexuality. In her interview with Rolling Stone that year, she explained: "It's a funky song, fun to do, but I had to stop doing it. That's my concession to avoid being typecast as a sexy singer, period. I dropped it after I saw a Marilyn Monroe TV special early this year. I saw her entertaining the troops in Korea, up there singing 'I Can't Give You Anything but Love' to acres and acres of horny GIs. Shelley Winters was on the show and she said something about how far Marilyn might have gone if she hadn't let herself get stuck with an image as a sex symbol who couldn't do anything else. That shook me. You can't rely on physical image alone. That's sure as shit gonna fade. The shape of your tits and butt ain't always going to be so good. I want to be a singer long after I'm not so hot to look at."  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/blue-lu-barker/dont-you-feel-my-leg


Humble Pie - I'm Ready

 #Humble Pie #Steve Marriott #Peter Frampton #hard rock #blues rock #classic rock #British blues rock #ex-Small Faces #1960s #1970s

Humble Pie were an English rock band formed by Steve Marriott in Essex during 1969. They are known as one of the late 1960s' first supergroups and found success on both sides of the Atlantic with such songs as "Black Coffee", "30 Days in the Hole", "I Don't Need No Doctor" and "Natural Born Bugie". The original band line-up featured lead vocalist and guitarist Steve Marriott from Small Faces, vocalist and guitarist Peter Frampton from The Herd, former Spooky Tooth bassist Greg Ridley and a 17-year-old drummer, Jerry Shirley, from The Apostolic Intervention.

1969–1970: Humble Pie Formation and Chart Success
In January 1969 Steve Marriott, having just left Small Faces, got together with Greg Ridley, Peter Frampton and Jerry Shirley. Marriott had brought together Shirley and Ridley as a possible band for Frampton, then ended up joining the band himself. They chose the name Humble Pie and were signed to Andrew Loog Oldham's record label Immediate Records. Their debut album, As Safe as Yesterday Is, was released in August, 1969, along with the single, "Natural Born Bugie", which reached No. 4 hit in the UK Singles Chart; the album peaked at No. 16 in the UK album charts. As Safe as Yesterday Is was one of the first albums to be described by the term "heavy metal" in a 1970 review in Rolling Stone magazine. Their second album, Town and Country released in the UK during 1969 while the band was away on it’s first tour of the US. This album featured a more acoustic sound and songs written by all four members. Humble Pie concerts at this time featured an acoustic set, with a radical re-working of Graham Gouldman's "For Your Love" as its centrepiece followed by an electric set. Recent tape archives show that the band recorded around 30 songs in its first nine months of existence, many of which remained unreleased for decades, including an interpretation of Henry Glover's "Drown in My Own Tears".

1970–1971: Humble Pie Early Success
During 1970, Humble Pie switched to A&M Records and Dee Anthony became their manager. Anthony was focused on the US market and discarded the acoustic set, instigating a more raucous sound with Marriott as the front man. The group's first album for A&M, Humble Pie, was released later that year and alternated between progressive rock and hard rock. A single, "Big Black Dog", was released to coincide with the album and failed to chart, however the band was becoming known for popular live rock shows in the US.
It was during this period that Peter Frampton acquired his famed "Phenix" guitar, the black 1954 Les Paul Custom which became his signature instrument and his favourite guitar for the next decade. Humble Pie was playing a run of shows at the Fillmore West in San Francisco in early December 1970, and during the first show Frampton was plagued by sound problems with his then-current guitar, a semi-acoustic Gibson 335, which was prone to unwanted feedback at higher volumes. After the show he was approached by fan and musician Mark Mariana, who loaned him a modified 1954 Gibson Les Paul, and by the end of the second show Frampton had become so enamoured of the guitar that he offered to buy it on the spot, but Mariana refused payment. Frampton played it almost exclusively for the next ten years. It was featured on the cover of Frampton Comes Alive and was thought to have been destroyed in 1980 when a plane carrying Frampton's stage equipment crashed in Venezuela during a South American tour, killing the crew, but with the guitar in fact surviving the accident with some minor damage. It was eventually returned to Frampton in 2011.
On 9 July 1971, Humble Pie opened for Grand Funk Railroad at their historical Shea Stadium concert, an event that broke the Beatles record for fastest selling stadium concert, to that date. Also in 1971 Humble Pie released their most successful record to date, Rock On, as well as a live album recorded at the Fillmore East in New York entitled Performance Rockin' the Fillmore. The live album reached No. 21 on the US Billboard 200 and was certified gold by the RIAA. "I Don't Need No Doctor" was a FM radio hit in the US peaking at No. 73 on the Billboard Hot 100, propelling the album up the charts. But Frampton left the band by the time the album was released and went on to enjoy success as a solo artist.

1972–1975: Clem Clempson, The Blackberries and Further Success
Frampton was replaced by Clem Clempson and Humble Pie moved towards a harder sound emphasising Marriott's blues and soul roots. Their first record with Clempson, Smokin', was released in 1972, along with two singles "Hot 'n' Nasty" and "30 Days in the Hole" (the latter of which became one of their best-known efforts). It was the band's most commercially successful record, and reached No. 6 on the US charts, helped by a busy touring schedule. After the success of Smokin' the band's record label A&M released Humble Pie's first two Immediate albums in one double album, as Lost and Found.
Looking for a more authentic R&B sound, Marriott hired three female backing vocalists, The Blackberries. The trio consisted of Venetta Fields, Clydie King and Sherlie Matthews who was later replaced by Billie Barnum. They had performed with Ike and Tina Turner as The Ikettes and with Ray Charles as The Raelettes. This new line-up included Sidney George on saxophone for the recording of Eat It, a double album released in 1973 made up of Marriott originals (some acoustic), R&B numbers, and a Humble Pie concert recorded in Glasgow. The album peaked at No. 13 in the US charts. Thunderbox was released in 1974, and Street Rats a year later. In 1975, Humble Pie conducted their Goodbye Pie Tour before disbanding.

From: https://www.ronnielane.com/steve-marriott-and-humble-pie.html

Gaate - Sjaa Attende

 #Gaate #folk rock #folk metal #progressive rock #electronica #progressive metal #Norwegian

Hailing from Trondheim, Norway, Gåte ("riddle" in Norwegian) blended traditional folk melodies from their native country with powerful, fuzzed-up hard rock and electronica. The band was formed in 1999 by two siblings with a strong musical training, singer Gunnhild Sundli and her brother Sveinung. Gunnhild's distinctive vocals, together with Sveinung's playing of the traditional Hardanger fiddle, successfully bridged the gap between Norwegian folk music and harder-edged rock sounds. Many of their songs were based on lyrics by contemporary poet Astrid Krog Halse and folk musician Knut Buen, while others were modern interpretations of traditional melodies. After their first, independent EP in 2000, Gåte were signed by Warner Music Norway, and in early 2002 released the commercially as well as critically successful "Gåte EP". By that time the two Sundli siblings had recruited the band's other members: Magnus Robot Bormark (guitars, synths), Martin Viktor Langlie (drums, percussion) and Gjermund Landro (bass, vocals). Their debut album, "Jygri", also released in 2002, reached platinum status in Norway, as well as winning Spellemanprisen, the local equivalent of a Grammy Award. Its follow-up, "Iselilja", came out in the autumn of 2004. After the release of "Iselilja", Langlie quit the band, and was replaced by Kenneth Kapstad. There were plans of launching the band in Europe, and they even played a few concerts in Germany in the summer of 2005, but by autumn the same year Gunnhild Sundli felt exhausted and needed a break, and the band went on an indefinite hiatus. In 2006 a live album, simply titled "Liva", and featuring some of the band's most representative songs, was released on CD and DVD. On October 24, 2009, the band made a comeback at the cultural festival UKA in Trondheim. What was supposed to be a one-off, led to a small summer tour (5 concerts) in 2010, culminating with a performance on the roof of the Oslo Opera House on August 20, which marked the end of the band. That end would prove to be only preliminary though, as the Sundli siblings suprisingly resurrected the band, with new members, and released a short EP, "Attersyn", in 2017, with more new music and touring to come in 2018.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=4263

BeauSoleil - Kolinda

 #BeauSoleil #Michael Doucet #Zydeco #Cajun music #traditional #world music #folk

The formation of BeauSoleil, one of the best known and most highly respected Cajun bands in the world, is due to fiddler Michael Doucet's desire to keep the unique southern Louisiana culture and music from extinction. But while BeauSoleil originated to help preserve his Cajun musical heritage, over the years it has also been known for its innovation. They are continually adding spice from other musical genres including jazz and Caribbean. In this way, BeauSoleil keeps the music vital and contemporary.
Doucet was born and raised in Cajun country surrounded by the old French songs that comprise the basis of the music. But from the time of his birth to his adulthood in the 1960s, Cajun culture began to disappear. Young Doucet, thinking Cajun music antiquated and passé, began his musical career playing rock with New Orleans influence. He began getting into folk-rock towards the end of the '60s and even tried singing a few of his numbers in French. It was a song from the British folk group Fairport Convention and their song, "Cajun Woman," that re-sparked his interest in his native music. He went to France and England in 1973 just before he was to enter grad school in the U.S. He ended up staying many years studying with Scottish fiddle great Barry Dransfield, who eventually introduced him to his idol Richard Thompson. Later, Doucet credited Thompson for influencing his own compositions. The young fiddler's stay in France also had a profound influence. There he saw that the roots of Cajun were still very much alive. The old songs were still sung, and he heard their centuries-old influence in newer folk songs. It made him realize how modern Cajun music was in comparison. In the mid-'70s, Doucet joined Coteau, an improvisational folk-music based French group that was known as the Cajun equivalent to the Grateful Dead. After a time with them, he returned to the U.S., determined to immerse himself in Cajun musical history. A grant from the National Endowment for the Arts supported him as he located the nearly forgotten early composers and performers of Cajun music.
Armed with many traditional Cajun songs, Doucet formed BeauSoleil with some of the finest Cajun musicians, Dennis McGee, Dewey and Will Balfa, Varise Connor, Canray Fontenot, and Bessyl Duhon. Their band name literally means "good sun" and is a reference to a fertile region in Nova Scotia. In the 17th century, French speaking Acadians lived in the Canadian province until conflicts with the French and British forced them to migrate down to Louisiana where they became called Cajuns. BeauSoleil cut its first record in 1976 and released it only in France. They made their American debut the following year with The Spirit of Cajun Music. It was an eclectic work illustrating the many musical styles from which Cajun music is derived. Since 1985, the band has been nominated for (and won) numerous Grammys. They have played on movie soundtracks such as The Big Easy, Passion Fish, and Belizaire the Cajun. They have played at jazz and folk festivals around the world and have also appeared on numerous television shows ranging from CNN's Showbiz Today to Austin City Limits to Late Night with Conan O'Brien.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/beausoleil-mn0000161612#biography

Betty Davis - They Say I'm Different

 #Betty Davis #funk #R&B #soul #funk rock #singer-songwriter #1970s

There is one testimonial about Betty Davis that is universal: She was an artist ahead of her time. From her brief moment in the limelight to her decades of living as a recluse until her death in 2022, Betty Davis was a beautiful enigma. A drop-dead gorgeous model (and one of the first Black models to be featured in Glamour and Seventeen), Betty ran in crowds with Jimi Hendrix and was briefly married to Miles Davis (not to mention she played a large part in his stylistic radicalization). Her demure demeanor in life starkly contrasted with her onstage persona which oozed raw feminist liberation, a truly original punk-funk provocateur in her silver go-go boots and signature afro. One can hardly imagine the genre-busting, culture-crossing, musical magic of Janelle Monáe, OutKast, Prince, Erykah Badu, Rick James, The Roots, or Madonna without the influence of R&B pioneer Betty Davis. Rappers from Ice Cube to Talib Kweli to Ludacris have rhymed over her intensely strong but sensual music. Yet somehow, Ms. Davis’s unique story, still widely unknown, is unlike any other in popular music.
Betty wrote the song “Uptown” for the Chambers Brothers before marrying Miles Davis in the late 60s, influencing him with psychedelic rock and introducing him to Jimi Hendrix — personally inspiring the classic album Bitches Brew. But her songwriting ability was way ahead of its time, as well. Betty not only wrote every song she ever recorded and produced every album after her first but also penned the tunes that got The Commodores signed to Motown. The Detroit label soon came calling, pitching a Motown songwriting deal which Betty turned down. Motown wanted to own everything, but that didn't fly with Betty and her DIY ethos. Marc Bolan of T. Rex urged the creative dynamo to start writing for herself. She would eventually say no to Eric Clapton as her album producer, seeing him as too banal.
In 1973, Davis would finally kick off her cosmic career with an amazingly progressive hard funk, sweet soul, self-titled debut. Betty Davis showcased her fiercely unique talent with such gems as “If I’m In Luck I Might Get Picked Up” and “Game Is My Middle Name.” The album was recorded with Sly & The Family Stone’s rhythm section, sharply produced by Sly Stone drummer Greg Errico, and featured backing vocals from Sylvester and The Pointer Sisters. Her 1974 sophomore album They Say I’m Different features a worthy-of-framing futuristic cover challenging David Bowie’s science fiction funk with real rocking soul-fire, kicked off with the savagely sexual “Shoo-B-Doop and Cop Him”. Her follow-up is full of classic cuts like “Don’t Call Her No Tramp” and the hilarious, hard, deep funk of “He Was A Big Freak.” Betty Davis was riding high in the 70s. A new record label, a series of high-profile relationships, and intensely sexualized live performances made her a rising star. It seemed like everything was aligned to take the music world by storm. So Betty and band got back into the studio where she would act as writer, producer, and performer, creating her definitive release–Nasty Gal. Her entire catalog has now been lovingly remastered from the original tapes by Light in the Attic to sound as ferocious and revolutionary as they did when they first sprung on an unsuspecting world in the early 70s.  From: https://lightintheattic.net/collections/betty-davis

Spooky Tooth - Musikladen 1973

 Part 1

Part 2

#Spooky Tooth #Gary Wright #Mike Harrison #Mick Jones #hard rock #blues rock #psychedelic rock #progressive rock #classic rock #British R&B #1960s #1970s #live music video

Spooky Tooth were an incredibly proficient gaggle of musicians whose individual talents were often greater than the sum of the band — when they were good, they were brilliant, but when they were okay, well they were just okay. The original line-up included two powerful keyboard-playing lead singers Gary Wright and Mike Harrison, a brilliant guitarist in Luther Grosvenor (who became equally famous as Ariel Bender with Mott the Hoople), bassist Greg Ridley (who was a founding member of Humble Pie with The Small Faces’ Steve Marriott) and drummer Mike Kellie (a future member of The Only Ones). Later, the line-up included Mick Jones who (of course) went onto world domination with Foreigner — yeah, I know, but somebody had to do it. 
Originally tinged with psychedelia and early prog rock, Spooky Tooth’s musical focus was shaped by the songwriting talent of Gary Wright over the first two albums — It’s All About (1968) and Spooky Two (1969). But this nascent potential was literally destroyed by the strange collaboration with electronic wizard Pierre Henry for their third album Ceremony (1969), which Wright claims ended the band’s career: “Then we did a project that wasn’t our album. It was with this French electronic music composer named Pierre Henry. We just told the label, “You know this is his album, not our album. We’ll play on it just like musicians.” And then when the album was finished, they said, ‘Oh no no — it’s great. We’re gonna release this as your next album.’ We said, ‘You can’t do that. It doesn’t have anything to do with the direction of Spooky Two and it will ruin our career.’ And that’s exactly what happened.” Devastated, Wright temporarily quit, and Spooky Tooth’s next album The Last Puff (1970) - billed as Spooky Tooth featuring Mike Harrison - was a rather mixed bag of covers, though it did contain the greatest ever Beatles cover “I Am The Walrus.” 
Then Grosvenor and Kellie quit, Jones joined and Wright returned to the fold penning nearly all of the songs for their bizarrely titled fifth album You Broke My Heart So…I Busted Your Jaw (1973).  Next came Witness, which was Harrison’s last album with the band, before the arrival of the more poppy The Mirror (1974), which was generally well received.  The band split — Jones went onto greater success, while Wright released his million-selling solo album Dream Weaver. Spooky Tooth deserve attention not just because of the quality of their disparate players, but also because of the quality of their early and late music — which can partly be seen in these “lost broadcasts” where Spooky Tooth perform “The Weight” on Beat Club in 1968, followed by “Old As I Was Born,” two versions of “Cotton Growing Man,” “Waiting For The Wind” and two versions of “Moriah” for Musikladen in 1973.  From: https://dangerousminds.net/comments/spooky_tooth_the_lost_broadcasts