Interview w. Arcade Fire's Win Butler @ The Onion's AV Club

Great stuff...and, of course, the lowdown on The Black Donnelly's:

AVC: Is it true that you refused to license a song for NBC's The Black Donnellys even though Crash director Paul Haggis asked you personally?

WB: That was actually a tough decision, because that's a pretty good show, compared to most of the crap on TV. We watched the pilot, and for primetime TV, it's actually quite good. The whole conclusion was completely built around "Rebellion," and I was like, "Oh no, you guys are fucked! What are you gonna do now?" Every cut was lyrically tied. The whole premise of the show gets revealed in the last four minutes to "Rebellion." We all kind of liked the show, but at the same time, it's still our song, and the song doesn't have anything to do with that. It'd be kind of depressing to have one of my favorite songs of ours be associated with this thing it's completely unrelated to. It's more about the context. This show was like a really good TV version of Goodfellas. If it was actually Goodfellas and that hadn't come out yet, I might've said yes. If it was the fucking Godfather, the best film I've ever seen, of course they could use our song.

More from The Black Donnelly's

After my post on The Black Donnelly's on Tuesday, we got a comment from Joe - who runs the solid blog Headless Ponch - regarding an alternate choice of song during the show's pivotal scene. The intention, we've learned, was Arcade Fire's "Rebellion (Lies)". Stereogum private eyes confirmed Joe's comments with two posts of their own (the idea of which, I'm guessing they aped from someone else as they're apt to do without credit). Regardless, their blog clout has enabled them to uncover an interesting backstory regarding Haggis' willingness to take "No" for an answer from Acrade Fire. The version that aired, of course, was Snow Patrol's "Open Your Eyes" and even though I am finding this band more and more irritating, the song kind of works. But after seeing the Pilot version with "Rebellion (Lies)" Haggis' vision becomes that much clearer.

On the T.V.

So what's the verdict on The Black Donnelly's? I gave it a chance last night and thought the debut episode was pretty good. This spring is the final season of The Sopranos so maybe it's time for network tv to give this genre another shot. Shit, it is Paul Haggis after all; the dude is a proven commodity. Starting the show off with almost 30 commercial free minutes was refreshing but playing Snow Patrol's "Open Your Eyes" during the show's pivotal moment seemed a bit lazy (although it is my favorite song on that album). I wouldn't be surprised if the time slot changed either because I hardly think this is a show that NBC wants to compete with Monday Night Football.

Last night, I finally saw the Major League Baseball 2K7 commercial that, as Pitchfork reported last Friday, is set to Nirvana's "Breed". I remember being slightly indifferent about this when I read the article but after seeing the commercial, it didn't sit well. Like or dislike Nirvana, I think most would agree that the way, and the manner in which, this has transpired is wrong for so many reasons. I will say, however, that 2K Sports did manage to put together a very solid soundtrack that, in addition to Nirvana, includes Editors, Tapes 'n Tapes, The Thermals, The Walkmen, Death From Above 1979, Wolfmother, and others.

The soundtrack is streaming here.

Last thing, Pearl Jam's insanely great cover of "Love Reign O'er Me" is up on their MySpace page if you want to hear a better version than the MP3 we previously posted.