Winner – PETA – Whether you supported or didn’t support, Morrissey’s showing of the PETA’s horrifying “Meet Your Meat” film, played while he and his band played “Meat IS Murder” is irrelevant, if you saw it you could’t escape the images and sounds searing through you brains at the same time. A terrible brutal beauty of blood and murder that continues the moral debate of mankind. Do we eat animals?
Suzanne Real is a real jump forward for the Staten Island native and the Stones new releases is really really that good and for that we congratuale them! But Ellie is the exception not the rule on her new album.
Halycon – Ellie Goulding – If this is a surefire pop move, why doesn’t it feel like one. Rather, it feels like an advance and a beaut but also like an exception as the rest of the album doesn’t match it – Grade: B+
Morrissey was great while his set wasn’t great. Morrissey got to that place where his art was transmigrated into pure feelings even on a song not amongst his best.
The band is awesome, they sound just like… well, just like the Stones, Charlie watts, man. He is one in a quatrillion billion
Assange is facing extradition to Sweden, and, let’s face it, who wants to go to Sweden in the best of time? Still, probably more fun than hanging with Lady Gaga
think I went easy on Adele, swept up in the moment dontchaknow. It really is a lousy song, there is, indeed, no song there. For all her efforts, Adele is not comparable to the incomparable Shirley Bassey
There are a whole bunch of rock bands who are so bad it is ridiculous. They are worse than the worse boy band who have ever existed. Three Day Grace is one of them.
I Know It’s Over – Jeff Buckley – The great vocalist died tragically young but not before recording this astounding Smiths cover, where he starts like a folk singer, mumbling in his ennui before ripping through at the end, equal part, channelling and deepening Morrissey’s original – Grade: A
The point isn’t that Mary Magpie isn’t right, and isn’t morally superior, to me, but it isn’t a fight I care about enough to battle. Eating meat is sinful but, really, what isn’t? The only question left will be answered for me tonight: is it art?
I Knew You Were Trouble When You Walked In – Dubstep is to the blues what house is to r&b, a new building block to signify seriousness. WHich it does on this love labours lost. Probably the best rhythm section she has ever presented on a song – Grade: B+
If you can’t wait, Madison Square Park (one of MSGs four homes) will have an exhibit of some of the greatest concerts on Thursday at 11am. Here is Larry Getlin of the posts list, followed by some I went to
I remember reading in the Village Voice where Joe Steinhardt, driving home with them after a gig one night, said he would kill himself if they didn’t let Don Giovanni records release their stuff. Hyperbole? I think not
oining the old friends on some songs will be Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Cliff Richard and Kenny G. Three ouitta four ain’t bad and also, according to MSNBC, “I Think You Might Like It,” is said to be a sequel to “You’re The One That I Want:
Double Trouble – Hogwarts Choir – This song is terrific, it is like a Magii’s hymn taking off from Macbeth’s witches into a high sung, high strung presentiment of disasters yet to come – Grade: B+
Moscow court frees 1 member of dissident punk band Pussy Riot, upholds prison sentences for other 2
Marla is taking herself back on the road but closer to home, for a four night tour of New England, in support of the Deluxe version of last years Speak. The album is a thing of beauty, where the structure of rock and roll and the scripture of art meet in the world.
What I love about this is not merely the use of the word mere, but how it isn’t really rock criticism as we know it. When you can review well, you don’t have to really prove it. Anyway, here you go… one of the greatest pieces of rock criticism you will ever read:
the top tix is $65!!! Great price for a band who excels at toots and whistles and have already threatened that this will be a sci-fi adventure. I have never seen em live and can’t wait to finally catch em.
n 2011 I had a Presley calender and in 2012 a Marilyn Monroe calender, for 2013 I’ve been prevaricating between Jimi Hendrix and Lennon and finally went with Lennon just because the damn thing is so bright and positive and creamy looking… It’s his doodles and I really like it.
If you can get past that, it is an idiot plot, where nearly any ten seconds of thought could solve it, but ten seconds of thought is not what we get. Instead we get an action movie sci-fi that Phil K. Dick wouldn’t piss on.
In A Big City – Titus Andronicus – This is as good as “Cheers”, which makes it plenty damn good if you ask me. That lick, it is all over the song, gets you from the first moment, it is like a jig pogoing to its own beat – Grade: A
The material was often on the weak side, and the rock songs were often on this side of plagiarized (was that “Fortunate Son”?) but Halliday’s absolute conviction on every song was unquestionable.
This is boyband r&b as written since NSYNC and Backstreet Boys roamed the earth. All close harmonies, finger snapping, falsetto, pop songs. Catchy? To a limited degree. Similar to the K-POp anti-irony movement? Not really. But if your taste goes towards the world of pop music even slightly, it is a huge concert
I thought her entire schtick was, I’m Bridgette’s Diary come to life? Who is this glammed up everymodel? How much touching up can one pix take? Actually, it looks very little like Adele and she should feel like crap for becoming the very thing all those Lifetime Movie, 50 Shades Of Emotional Casio Toning fangirls of her HATE!
Lick My Decals Off, Baby – Captain Beefheart – . It doesn’t really make any sense. Why would you want to lick his decals? Which decals? The album label? Is he suggesting you have physical relations with the actual album. How sexy and positive. Yeah, come fuck the actual piece of viunyl while you’re at it. Try doing that on spotify.
Then I heard she had “mono”, you know, the kissing disease, I didn’t think anything of it but now comes news that Screaming Females are cancelling the rest of their Autumn Tour. Mononucleosis causes fatigue and can last for months on end. The last thing a rock star needs
The one song I’ve heard off Halycon has been great and she has been in my good books ever since a credible opening slot on the Katy Perry, where she finally drove away, waving to Jessie J in her rear mirror. Live In Brooklyn? I have a baaaad feeling about that one.
The Turns – David Bronson – It’s not that this sounds like Cat Stevens circa “The Foreigner: Suite”, but rather that the music is absorbed into its DNA (and Bronson has a similar voice), it comes from a simlar place though with the addition of years and years of indie folk rock under its belt – Grade: A
There aren’t enough words in the dictionary to describe the infinite sadness of watching a pudgy, huffing and puffing, somewhat hoarse, 57 year old man in full Pirate Captain regalia, including hat, topped off by eyeglasses, singing “That music’s lost its taste lets try another flavor…”
“We’ve all gone on to have happy, successful lives, we’ve had our bumps along the way, and of course there’s friction at times, because all of us are strong, independent women with opinions.”
Winner – Jack White – at Radio city Music was a lesson on the limits, and lack of limits, placed upon a rock superstar. With two slim downed, all lean, custom built flying machines of a set, White made his case as forcefully as he could
Jury is still out on Barclay Center, figure if a show ends at 11p, you still aren’t home till 1230ish. And there is something very uneasy about the place, from the hustler’s paradise courtyard to the no terrorists allowed here metal detectors to the where the hell is everything first day in a new office confusion. It is going to take some getting used to. On the other hand, Barbra Streisand is singing there on Thursday
Muse deserves the # 1 spot, Mumford the # 2 is deserved as well, the xx are still on the charts? Or is that back? Good… And Green Day… actually, a pretty good chart.
I bet if I was a tween girl, I’d love One Direction as well. As a grown up, they are just off by a touch. The difference between One Direction and, say, Justin Bieber is that Bieber is a musician and One Direction aren’t . Their song is still better than the lousy Rihanna track.
I’m Telling You Now – Freddie And The Dreamers – Brit Invasion, cheeky chappie Freddie Garrity wouldn’t quite make it as a sex symbol, but as a sweet softie, well, why not? Catchy novelty number that stands as a reminder of an innocence long since gone – Grade: B+
No surprise that White got some love from me, the surprise is English X Factor runner up, Cher Lloyd, is. Note two members of the world of lo.f. DIY are there. Your loss if you don’t dig em
Glad Rag Doll – Diana Krall – When I Look In Your Eyes was released in 1999 and while it hasn’t been all bad since then, certainly her position as Queen Of Jazz seems based on shaky ground. The material, what I know of it, is ace early jazz. The production, by one T. Bone Burnett, is as tasteful draggy as you’d expect. And the entire thing is as diaphanous as you’d expect. Is that a good thing? – Grade: B-
Heaps Of Sheep – Robert Wyatt – The prog rock former Soft Machine leader, solo superstar, who for some bizarre reason we have yet to write about on rock nyc, here we are happy to tip the hat to this straight up masterpiece of dreams and strangeness and by theend, as he “wanders ship shape on the shore”, re are reminded he is a paraplegic and admire the strangeness and beauty of the dreamscape – Grade: A+
Both Year Of Refusal (Morrissey’s last) and Born To Sing: No Plan B (Morrison’s newly released) would fit in at any time in the last 20 years, no question asked.
Jerry himself, in a snazzy gray suit and a short cropped haircut, looks great. He never stops moving, back and forward, occasionally acting out schtick, using his vocal inflections, the high pitched exasperation, the “Neumann” snarl, as shorthand, and he has an easy, not very egotistical charm, though an “Everybody’s life sucks… but mine sucks less than yours”.
I Will See You In Far Off Places – Morrissey – This is his masterpiece. Working around a Middle Eastern riff that sounds as though it’s calling you to prayers, Morrissey says good bye to a young man and imagines a date somewhere down the road when they will be together again, “if the USA doesn’t bomb you”. Morrissey’s deep affection for the man flows through the song like a river of love. Perhaps his greatest achievement. “I will see you somewhere safe…” Stephen hopes, in an open hearted love song – Grade: A+
Here’s a question for Morrissey, if the only choices are the semblance of intimacy or the essence of loneliness, why choose the essence of loneliness.?
It was with great sadness that we heard of the death of Total Slacker’s 24 year old drummer Terence Connor in a bike accident on Monday ar 515am
Let’s state the obvious: all that stuff with Conor Kennedy (JFK’s Grandson) was done in such a way as to be publicized. The pictures of Conor and Taylor reading to Rose Kennedy were posed and planned
I am so happy when my taste and the zeigteist cross on the pop charts, I loved two of the top three!!! No Doubt? Well, that first single killed and the title track is pretty good. But maybe Gwen should stay solo after the tour.
PSY promised to perform the song in public with his shirt off, probably his fans found out and stopped buying it… Two up there for TS, apparently her refusal to allow the songs on streaming sites is effecting her chart position. We leave in a world where sales is not the only arbitrator by a long shot.
Cry For Judas – The Mountain Goats – John Darnielle is a talented fellow, though maybe needs a little quality control. But not on this folk song with lovely horns and the best opening line: “Somethings you do just to see how bad they make you you feel” – Grade: B+
Guitar Shop TV an online TV channel focused on a global audience of over 100 million guitarists and countless guitar music fans. The Guitar is a true equalizer
People probably have an inflated idea of what we makeBands appear so much bigger than they really are now, because no one’s buying records
