Fishtails – Indigo Girls – For their thirtieth anniversary, the Indigo Girls have managed to improve not an iota as they manage to make lesbianism as boring as lukewarm tapioca, even if their work for LGBT rights has been stellar and important. This is a bad song even if no worse than all the rest – D+
Trucks just keeps on firing; and at Summerstage, in what amounts to mostly a business as usual gig, his explosive playing whether quiet vibey or loud guns afire, was what we were there for. Trucks, with his long goatee and skinny studied intensity is more like one of the more minor Old Testament Prophets then a rock star, looked to have just joined the big leagues of guitar heroes last night
Blurryface – Twenty One Pilots – Fueled By Ramen pop band rap and sing their way through an album with a shifting center of gravity. It is hugely ambitious, it feels like an old fashioned big album, and if an album with songs as strong as “Ride” and “Going Local” can be considered a failure, it fails. But it fails only on its own ambitious terms – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – B+
Sugaree Live – The Grateful Dead – Off Garcia from 1972, and written by one Robert Hunter, by 1977 it was all over the Grateful Deads live show, a mid tempo country waltz with plenty of room for vamping – A
At the birth of rock nyc Helen Bach, Mike Nessing, and I did a lotta hi-jinx we don’t do now. Sometimes we would do 30 posts in a day. For awhile we wrote reviews of imaginary concerts. Here is a Lennon one from 2009, because everytime I put my finger on Walls And Bridges, it slips away
In a world of diminished expectations, Miller’s skill at saturated violence and the color scheming old bike chic and skull and daggers proto-Keith Richards scallywag power pop of pasty soldiers, and crunched up power balling transportations, is pop culture at its best.
Two Lamar verses is something but a cast of thousands is something else for a song that is a hit at Katy Perry. Backstabbing all about eve featuring Selena Gomez, Jessica Alba, Lena Dunham, Ellie Goulding, Hayley Williams,and more, that was the fream. What I got was a Superheroe takedown as Bionic Taylor goes for revenge. No inside baseball here.
What Billboard have that other people don’t is the numbers to back up their awards, so the multi-platinum 1989 is a no brainer winner for this years awards. Billboard is all about the charts and as all about the charts go, it is where it is at. Which means the only award they didn’t hand to Taylor was Top New Artist (they gave it to Sam Smith instead).
Azealia Banks didn’t just win the Twitter wars, she won the rap wars, both at the same epochal gig last Monday at Irving Plaza. A steaming hot, insanely crowded, perfect evening of hip hop. If there was ever any doubt, forget it folks. Azealia rules. Meanwhile, Shelby Lynne thought I was rude because of my mostly positive review of her gig at the Concert Hall.
Always In My Head – Coldplay – When they write the book on great divorce albums, Coldplay won’t be in the top three, behind Dylan and Gaye, but that doesn’t make this understated song, a poorly articulated but haunting track, might get a footnote – B+
They kept the momentum always, straight forward, and swinging and hitting. It seems like a decision was made to rearrange the sound so it was more of a rock and roll fervor than a blues jazz discipline.The price we paid for some gorgeous workouts was a loss of nuance.
I know what you’re thinking: where the hell are Blur? I mean, after a month of non stop blather, w’appen? Don’t fret so, they are at # 11 BUT, just to get that in perspective, Taylor is into her 26th week, and Sheeran his 50th week, meanwhile, this damn band who we’ve had shoved down our throat non stop can’t stay in the top ten two weeks?
If I was a betting man, I’d go with Jess Glynne for song of the summer, but it ain’t over till Lunchmoney Lewis, who you probably remember from The Pinkprint, says it is. His dad is Ian Lewis, of reggae band Inner Circle, but “Nills”, a contender for song of the summer, is a bouncy and joy piano romp that should do him well here as well.
I wrote this Elvis Costello overview back in 1982 for a Creem “New Wave” special. Kinda funnily, I claimed I’d always put Get Happy!! in the center of his career. Which, considering this was some six years into a career still going nearly 40 years later, has proven inaccurate. Though it is still my finest EC moment
Dark Bird Is Home – The Tallest Man On Earth – This guy is as interesting as his name but this song is a lovely folk track with a wonderful trill on the verse. A surprisingly fetching conclusion, God I hope I don’t have to reasses him – A-
Good Enough – Bonnie Raitt – From 1975, you know how some folks just don’t do it for you? O’ve never much liked Bonnie Raitt… no real reason, I quite get why other people do. Including Robert Christgau and Carola Dibble who consider this their song according to his memoir…. which I am reaching the end of – B+
The setlist hits me as better despite a surfeit from the current one. Both “Mysterious Ways” and “Better Than The Real Thing” remain, plus they finally roll out “One” (if missing one night since 2010 can be defined as finally).
I once pitched a Spotify muckety muck on the central importance of upping their paid subscription base and they all but sneered at me. There was nothing more important for Spotify and all they did was fuck around for the past three years. They should have advertised everywhere all the time, if they had 50 million paid subscriptions today, they’d be paying their artists a lot more money
But what can you do with a album with songs as good as “Awaken”, a swirling whirl of surreptitious desire on a beautiful album which takes patience and love to be heard in a world with very little of either? You give it the time it needs, after all Halle Barry is the most successful of all the X Men actors.
It is City Park Foundation’s 30th anniversary of Summerstage, the arts but mostly musical citywide free concert spectacular. They are kicking things with this early opening concert at Summerstage in Central Park on Monday, featuring one of the biggest jam bands around, the Tedeschi Trucks Band. Expect a lotta BB Kings covers… and for free.
The Milk Carton Kids newbie is a drag as far as this philistine can tell, twenty one pilots is good not great, same goes for Joanna Gruesome’s big time sophomore effort. Ceremony? I’m a non believer. Jamie Foxx always sucks. Tanlines, Hot Chip, Total Babes -they could all go either way. That leaves it between the excellent Jim O’Rourke and the bad ass Thee Oh Sees. I’m going with Thee Oh Sees, in difference to my buddy Mike Long’s opinion
Sun Goes – Paul Weller – Yee haw -Weller finds the Western in a modified reggae strut. It is an interesting without being in any way good little number. I like Weller live but on record I can’t wear the guy, call it a cultural derailment; also explaining it as to one reason UK rock doesn’t always travel: he is a creep with a bad haircut and too many crappy songs – C
Will history remember David Letterman? Well, does history remember Johnny Carson, and he was much bigger? Put it this way, working late night television is like being a telivison columnist. Murray Kempton was one of New York’s best and when was the last time you heard his name? Letterman was great and then he wasn’t great and within a coupla years it will be all the two Jimmys and when they retire no one will remember them, indeed, they will remember them even less.
Made Up Mind – Tedeshi Trucks band – I’ve never been covinced when it comes to this band, but when I saw Susan with the Allman’s last year (rememebr: Greg was out sick), they were better than the penultimate gig I caught. But this? Still not convinced – C+
Er, I love U2 live even if I can’t much take em on record but really… to evoke his childhood this way is to provoke nausea in most people. I get it though, it is like Smallville and wee little Bono is the Superboy dreaming of saving the world.
She is too strange, too flighty, she is too bizarre to be fun to watch, opening her arm wide and basking in the spotlight like it was the sun, there is strangeness in her performance that won’t let you give into it. It’s a little similar to the way you can’t quite enjoy Brian Wilson: she isn’t playing with a full deck. You’re not sure if she is on drugs, but if she is on drugs, it is harder than weed.
The great thing about death is it is the reset button in everybody’s brain. King is no longer the elderly man who couldn’t stop touring, he is the vibrant 30 year old electric guitarist changing the blues in the 1950s, and then the breakthrough star in his mid-40s, the hero of the 1960s UK blues movement, and the elder statesman. All those things at once.
When we look at this great moment in pop, I think we will see it as an equivalent to the summer of 1982: the pieces are on the chessboard but the moves haven’t been made yet. The moment in pop, when videos became central to pop and rock, hadn’t quite happened. In January 1983, Michael Jackson would drop “Beat It” and MTV and videos would become the story of music
From roasts to toast, Bieber is rebuilding a career that hasn’t tanked. Did you hear his Jack U song with Diplo and Skrillex, earlier this month, “Where Are U Now”? To my mind, the best the duo have managed and a fine vocal.So, in conclusion, let me quote from the book of Marx: Hey, you big bully. What’s the idea of hitting that little bully?
An oddly complex song, part soap opera, part funk workout, part vocal gymnastic, grown up romantic disasters in the pending file and good to have Lael baring her burdens again.
“I’m just a rhythm guitar player in this band, but Taylor makes me sing once in a while.” So says Dave Grohl, goof off guitarist with Foo Fighters’ drummer Taylor Hawkins and his side project, Chevy Meta. Saturday Chevy Neta were performing at Conejo Valley Days in Thousand Oaks in Cali when Grohl and Foo lead guitarist Chris Shiflett for a 19 song all covers set.
I realize Azealia dates from 2014, which goes against the grain of the entire best songs of the last week or so concept, but it was a real revelation on Monday at Irving Plaza, and though the recorded version undersells the hook, it is pretty good. “Jules” is so good, I wondered if I had undersold the album, but, actually, this was the only killer, its “No Baby I”, “There’s happiness and then there’s this, whatever this may be” is good but it’s not “you’ve got them tears, they fall like pearls, blame it on gravity, blame it on being a girl”.
No Baby I – Old 97’s – This is my fave Rhett song, and there are a lot of songs ready to undertake the task. It musical terms, it is absolute perfection, a typical Rhett break up song is more because of one of the greatest images ever, blaming tears on gravity – A+
Million – Tink – An Aaliyah for another age, if Tink has her say and this nod to the one in a million suggest she will, but Tink doesn’t quite have the personality for it. Talented, no doubt, and this hits me as a major slice of r&b but she lacks star power. So far – B
How can I hate such a sweet remembrance of Paul Walker? If they couldn’t get Sam Smith, surely Charlie Puth is the next best thing and it is a sweetly sad melody and Wiz brings a certain tenderness to his rap. But I don’t believe it, it’s like Sam Smith for morons, a by committee heart tugger about a man who died an extremely stupid death. It is too manipulatively, I can’t buy in.
Say what you will, and I don’t much like the album myself, still as # 1’s go, Mumford And Sons 231,000 units sold is impressive in a field that has been averaging around the 75K range for a first week top of the charts. Yeah, I’m impressed but bemused. I have zero doubt, if it was their first album nobody would’ve noticed much.
I say it here and I’ve said it often, when it comes to big musical stars you lose nothing when you tell the truth. If you didn’t write that Surfer Blood’s Python was a bummer, what could I say about 1000 Palms, for you to trust me that it is a goodie. I’ve seen McCartney a couple of times since this show, but this one was the masterpiece
Who knows what anybody is really really like? So take these snapshot deep character studies as semi-fictional impressionistic cliches but with some truth thrown in here and there for taste. Much like TMZ, it is gossip by other means… But there is enough info out on these folks where it isn’t SCIENCE FICTION.
Three Dog Night Joy To The World – These guys had 21 hit songs in succession including this one, which sounds a little forced in 2015, a little unsteady in its attack (yes attack), as it sneers or smiles. Written by Hoyt Axton – B
The acting is very very sharp, Alicia Vikander is tremendous, she reminds me of Jeff Bridges in “Starman”, there is something both the same and other. The four are all hidden agendas and playfulness that isn’t really playful at all. And in this remote supersonic prison cum laboratory the most deadly thing is not always who it appears to be.
Banks energy was astounding, it was hot and you could see her sweating and hard, but she never stopped, never gave it up. Her flow was flawless as well, the songs are great any way but she pounced on them and spit them out with both power and feeling, she rapped them in saliva and style, her tone, her spacing, and her dancing, it was a straight joy to watch her.
1000 Palms – Surfer Blood – I actively disliked their last album but this is more like it, indie mood pop with hooks aplenty and sweet sounds all over the place. The giveaway is the yelp on “Island” but all of this gets through and how. A major reboot for a band who really impressed me the only time I saw em live. ALBUM OF THE WEEK – B+
With the field to themselves, they should have advertised Spotify everywhere till it became part of the landscape, till the commercial was being spoofed on SNL, and they should have gone after paid subscribers day and night, instead they sat back and waited and while they were waiting, Apple woke up.
Concrete And Clay – Unit 4 + 2 – they can thank the late great UK DJ Kenny Everett for this hit, a gay pixie (closeted at the time, of course, though how we didn’t see it I have no idea), Bob Crewe produced the same song by a different band, but this is the one – A
We want a high spirit very musical romp, not this downcasted miserable look at lives wasted. It is, in fact, a big time bummer. As star vehicles go, why are we watching “The Threepenny Opera”. Sure, it is better than every musical since “Passion” but it is still a downer experience. Did they really drag all these octogenarians out of their beds to tell them this?
California never became a reality because while Lou, Nico, Cale, these people were seeped in the anti-Disneyland on the verge of bankruptcy New York mean streets, at least New York was not dreaming and in the end better the filthiest of realities to the sweetest of dreams, right
Hirami – Rose Windows – Americana, a little dozy but not as bad as their group picture might have you believe.. In has the dreamy tiredness of tasteful Americana, too tasteful, so middleclass and so make of it what you choose – B-
In an act somewhere between hubris and stupidity, ingenue singer Natalie Prass cancelled her Bowery Ballroom gig an hour before she was meant to go on stage, leaving management to send a manager to unceremoniously give us the boot with “we don’t know why she is sick but you have to get out of here now”. Her explanation on Facebook (she had a sore throat) was fulsome but too late. Amateurs.
Creeque Alley – The Mamas And The Papas – I was complaining about the lack of great songs, really it is all texture, so here is a mediocre band, great harmonies, and big at the time but in no way major. This song is a piece of mythological sound from the history of Cali – A
If Trance has won the battle for the singles charts, the album charts are very volatile, it is a world where the cult band can make its presence felt… if only for a week. Blur at # 2 and Mumford at # 1, the revenge of rock? Yeah, but not really, because who knows how long it will last\. Meanwhile, Sheeran and Swift are still hanging on. Sheeran? one month short of a year in the top ten
