Good guys by definition this is all turntable and all really really awesome with a word to the good fold: let the weed take over your soul they advise. And the raps. They end with an Animals sample, and turns us into hippies.
It’s raining but not too much and the waft of marijuana is already in the air as Austin,Texas Black
Sure, it is a rerun from June 1st but now Bernie Sanders, the wild man of the Democrats who makes so much sense it is scary and it is so honest Hillary Clinton must be have conniptions, is now officially running for President so let’s se how he is on the fluff and stuff of mainstream America? Cmon, talk shows could sell Hitler as warm and cuddly but remember, he is a fascist not a socialist.
Christopher Owens is like a girl you fell out of love with. Why? No reason, no reason not to love her anymore, she looks the same and smells the same, still as sweet and cute and other people are still envious but you just don’t love her any more.
Two years ago today -more or less, I took my VIP ticket and stuck it in my ear at Governors Ball as torrential rain poured down for the entire day, eventually cancelling the activities. Man, was I upset and swore I’d never go back again and might have kept to it except, the weather improved for the next two days and then I was thisclose for West’s great performance on the Sunday and so whomp -there I was
Drake – 6pm In New York – Oh, you’ve gotta love it, another self portrait as Drake opens his diary and rhymes his way through at the end of his masterful mix tape. An open so strong it remains one of the best of the year -yes, THE MIX TAPE – A
I remember when I hated Governors Ball the way I hated all music festivals, good if you’re a boy scout who didn’t mind camping out all night and good if you enjoyed seeing concerts from a stage further away than the last row at Metlife. BUT VIP tickets get you close and Governors Ball is an urban gig, reachable via subway. So here we go… today: Rudimental, Florence + The Machine and Drake are the highlights.
loved the first single “Dimed Out” and this could actually be better, the organ solo is riveting and thrilling at the punch line a real beauty, “let me show you my fatal flaw, it’s the best thing you ever saw” Patrick Stickles sings on the sort of messed up come on that greats seem to drop effortlessly, “waiting on some drug deal all day…” he claims.
Far be it for me to just cut and paste some Press Release… ah screw it, who am I kidding? I’ve never met a press release I couldn’t cut and paste if the mood took me! I was never a big Sheik fan till “Spring Awakening” and “Spring Awakening” was the epitome of a modern Broadway musical
As for “The Most Unforgettable Night of Forever” -” while the October 17th finale features the theme “The Most Unforgettable Night of Whatever – Featuring Spectacular Musical Guests, Glorious Tunes and Riffage, and Whatever the Party Calls for! Parking Validated for First Dozen Diehard Fans.”
I’ve heard the five songs already released, Britney Spear’s Suzanne Vega cover, and a mega mix (see below) with snippets of the entire 12 song album. So half plus. Enough for a half informed opinion and here it is: I like it. If Daft Punk are Moroder inspired EDM monsters, Moroder has become a Daft Punk inspired update of himself
(This is less than two weeks into rock nyc and I was still trying to simplify my writing to the very bare bones, and not finding it easy. Reading this review is a reminder as to how great Lily was, and how meh she became. I happened to be listening to Martha Wainwright earlier today and the same thing happened to her… they couldn’t sustain it
Family Bible – Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard – One of Willie’s earliest songs, written in 1957 and sold to the highest bidder, it sure sounds like a standard now. This is a pleasant take on it, especially the way he sings “i can hear my mother softly singing….” – B
The True Groove All Stars begin their residency at The Classon Social Club in Brooklyn, the Max’s Kansas City Annual reunion day one at Bowery Electric, shoegaze ancestors Ride at T5, Chromeo at Apollo, Refused at MHOW, Wire At Bowery Ballroom.
Wiz is back on top, Tay is right behind and if you include “Uptown Funk” that is nearly every # 1 we’ve had this year. The songs here, I like some, I like some less, but they are all of a piece and it all starts with the drums. The drum sound here is uniform across every single song, including “Shut Up And Dance with me”. Looking at this, I am amaed by the duiversity… in 1967. This is all very similar.
Off the soundtrack to the movie “Southpaw”, this is a braggarts pleasure, nobody spits it and rhymes it for five minutes as well as Em, and this isn’t him in Ree duet pop mode, this is hot firing on all cylinders. “I am phenomenal with every ounce of my blood” he roars, as Eminem works for all its worth the boxing-rapper metaphor. Consider it “Eight Miles” by other means. DJ Khalil produced it – B+
I know I am in the minority but I prefer A$AP Rocky’s new one to Kendrick’s new one, not lyrically and not rapping, but sound and song it is a masterful piece of work. Try “Acid”, “Excuse Me” and “Jukebox Joints” and then go in deep. Otherwise, I know a “C+” doesn’t seem impressive, but in the world of CCM it is the equivalent of an “A”
If one more person comes up to me today and says “get a life Lababedi”, I’m gonna play the new Dawes album on their ass till they beg for forgiveness. I wanted a life and I got a life and heavy knows I was miserable, so instead of spending my life getting it, I shall spend my life doing completely ridiculous wastes of time like this: imagining what the days of the week would be if they were rock stars
Ideal World – Girlpool – Maybe I overestimate these guys a touch because they sound so unlike everybody else in this pop moment, here they play two notes over and over again, with just the slightest of coloration. It is refreshingly quiet – A-
Sepp Blatter stepped down as President of the Football Association FIFA amid allegations of huge corruption, kickbacks, bribery, you know, like Albany only for sports. Incidentally, if FIFA had given the US the next world cup instead of Qatar, I wouldn’t if the US would’ve pursued the corruption charges quite as vigorously?
it has been to rain a lot at Glastonbury and unlike our own Governors Ball, people camp out (yuck, right). Here are the performers and get ready to have you mind boggled. It is like Governors ball on steroids plus the Who!!!! And Suede and Kanye and FKA Twigs, Gregory Porter… It really is unreal, it dwarfs Coachella
“a bill in the State Legislature to name a part of state Route 107 in the Long Island town Oyster Bay after Billy Joel passed in the Senate last week. The bill, which was sponsored by state Senator Jack Martins and Assemblyman Michael Montesano, proposes that the “stretch of South Broadway from East John Street to West Old Country Road” will be called ‘Billy Joel Boulevard’.”
Irony. Utility. Pretext – Algiers – A deep track off their very dramatic new album is, well, very dramatic, a soulful wail like Jim Morrison with a cold and thrashing swirls of dark snyths and whips, all leading to a Gospel denouement. Wild stuff from the deep South – B+
How Big, How Beautiful, How Blue – Florence + The Machine -Florence opens with her best song and continues through the travails of alcoholic and heartbreak, beautiful sung ballads, powerful anthemic fast ones, and always that voice, possibly the best in the business in a post-Amy Winehouse world – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A-
While Richard Branson saw the space age as a cheap holiday for billionaires, Elon Musk, the inventor of Pay Pal, saw it as a way to cut itself right into the industrial complex with its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft lifted off from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Excited: How about the Air Force allowing Space X to bid on Air Force launch business. The price of a launce has been $160M, Elon says he can do it for $100M. Wow.
L$D – A$AP Rocky – As in love, sex and drugs, this is a hallucination of a mood song, though well tinged by weed as well, so everything drags behind the beat and the sex is wet and exciting but slow and druggy.
The Grateful dead started it but as it gets harder and harder to make money off studio recordings, everybody from the Allman Brothers (RIP) to Phish to Bruce Springsteen have started hawking their concerts to the faithful.
Senator Rand Paul filibustered a delay on the revised Patriots act vote, thereby delaying it till Tuesday or Wednesday. I may not agree with much that either the Tea Party or the Kentuckian does, but institutionalized spying should be illegal without a warrant. Paul is running for President.
Azealia Banks – May 11th – Irving Plaza – This is it folks, in the battle of the women rappers (not to mention men rappers) we have a winner. Banks does everything she said she would, dances, raps, boogies down, takes us on. Pump-parrrrump-pa-rrum-pump
Live: A heavy concert week, with Joan Jett and the Who, Ed Sheeran, and Christines, Sayak and the awesome The Gotobeds leading a jam packed week of gigs. No major disappointments and the Gotobeds was exactly what you hoped they were.
Who Needs The Peace Corps? – The Mothers – Off melody, jazz inflected sneer at the state of the country especially the hippies who at the time seemed liked the height of hypocrisy, worth the same disparagement as just about everybody else, but today seems like a glorious up in flames failure. Zappa seems between bewilderment and an austere despising…. in 1968 – B
this is the blandest of bland charts, there is nothing, not even the Tay remix, that isn’t product and not great product either. Maybe, MAYBE Lunchbox Lewis is the real thing, MAYBE Omi, but everything else here is way too manufactured even for a manufactured cult.
A$AP Rocky has been on heavy rotation all week and I see no reason to stop now, Will Young on the other hand is a painfully wimpy MOR singer who I have whole other levels of meh for. This is the fourth # 1, who won the very first season of the franchise that would be know as American Idol, the UK’s Pop Idol.
the 30 minute set was a brimming with smarts, fast loud with prog rock influences and a smirk on their face joy, and way too friendly not to make friends and way too funny not to be adored and way way way too exciting not be loved.
Tom’s Diner – Giorgio Moroder with Britney Spears – The Suzanne Vega track with a hook to die for is given a full blown disco work over, including a Moroder spoken interlude and a Britney heavily vocoded vocal. Terrific but the song was always a goodie – A-
There are at least four songs here that sound major to me, Jason Isbell and Titus Andronicus at the top of the list and A$AP Rocky and ZZ Ward not far behind, so if this doesn’t feel like big time pop moment month, it isn’t because of the best, it is because of everything else. Two of my favorite songs this year, by Daytripper and Charlie Funk, aint even out yet. For Daytripper, God knows when she’ll get around to it
Sajak’s penultimate song last night was a cover of The Stranglers epic self portrait “(Get A) Grip (On Yourself)”, one of the tastiest licks you’ll hear. Meanwhile, Dawes fans are upset I gave their new album a “B”…. they don’t seem to understand how I can like the playing and the lyric but think the songs didn’t make it.
California Nights – Best Coast – My favorite of their three albums is a collection of LA inky blue mood music which merges with Bethany’s weed inspired drowsiness and builds into symphonic OKness.
Talk about changing your mind!! Or maybe that’s the wrong way of putting it. What I wrote about Conor and Dylan was true then but six years later can’t withstand a reread but it is getting one any way. Both albums were disappointments by the way, big disappointments. But that was then…
OK, we all know where this is going so why fight it, right? Three days of love, peace and music in the Bronx, it is GOVERNORS BALL WEEK!!! fave: Kate Tempest, Noel Gallagher, Drake, Florence And The Machine, Bjork, Flying Lotus, Weird Al… and more. The only real disaster is Saturday evening, everything else, even Lana Del rey at the end of Sunday, should be fun on Randall’s Island.
Something About You – Hayden James – Aussie producer is the purest of house, tinkering with tempo, slowing it down to a crawl on the bridge before readying a steady pounding mid-tempo sound. It goes deeper and deeper before free falling out -as far from dropping the bass as you can get – B
A busy week we got going on here, I’ve heard Dawes and I’ve heard Willie and Merle, and maybe five song off Jamie xx. The Florence And The Machine will definitely be good, definitely… but great? I really like Jamie xx but I think I am mot anticipating Girlpool: a first album from a terrific new band
The dream is over, the Rangers lost in seven and all we can do now is wipe away our tears and thank the Lord we didn’t pony up $650 for a ticket to the game at MSG. Henrik Lundqvist is the Patrick Ewing of New York Hockey… time to go home. Just wait till next year.
With Governors Ball happening over the bridge in the Bronx, you’d think the Talk hows would be overloaded with top rock, pop and rap band so scanning this lot and it is a little sorry, right? Ed Sheeran ends his nyc run run on Fallon, My Morning Jacket in LA before they head for NYC, James Corden has half of Oasis but that’s LA a well. Anyway, I’m going with Seth Myers and clean bandit. Why? Because this is the summer of featured singer Jess Glynne -that’s why.
The album is a break up special, and it is good and if it had a few more songs it might venture into great land, but the first single “Right On Time” is all that’s wrong here: it is well played but mushy, a tasteful drag and that’s Dawes problem: they are a tasteful drag. And three songs does not an album make
The two top songs are both among the best of the year, I can see “Acid” ending up in the top ten, and “Love 3X” in the top 20 for 2015. “Handcuffs” was better than I gave it credit for and at least Muse have one sure shot song on their newbie.
The stage was a beauty, the lighting dramatic and the screens like a Greek chorus of Ed’s one moment, and then individual (during “Thinking Out Loud” the music video played on one screen right behind him). The result was a world of Ed’s or only two Ed’s, but always a flux of concepts echoing the songs, which can’t really withstand too much
Game Seven of Rangers Vs Lightning Hockey at MSG and the cheapest seat is $750. You would be a fool to bet against the Rangers, they’ve won their past four game sevens. Another step closer to the Stanley Cup if they win.
Superstition – Stevie Wonder – Stevie on things you don’t understand but all these years later, what the hell? “… ain’t the way”? Is that what you wanna tell me. Still, it sounds awful good – A
Through the past three years, Tomas and his True Groove family have been releasing songs at a ridiculous clip, song after album after song and about to enter its third residency next week in less than year. Before things got completely out of hand, I though I’d work my way through the catalog and tell you what’s out there
