Well, I know we are both salivating at that three song mini set i the middle of the encore. The only song from Call The Doctor is one of the best they’ve got and it is surrounded by their two other best songs ever. Otherwise, I am less of a fan of their other stuff though they scatter the wealth pretty well and altogether, scuse me if I get very very excited now
Sunshine – Kids – On the most consistently excellent album of last week, they close off the show with a gorgeous folk rock ballad full of poise and moment and ruig guitars, like folk music yes, but something else, somethinng both deep and light – A
At the Apollo Theatre, D’Angelo unveiled the sort of show that he can travel with for months, years, decades. A career spanning 150 minutes of funk and soul (neo-soul? Eh?) and the best 20 minutes, “Really Love” followed by “One Mo’ Gin”, you may ever hear.
How Can I Ease the Pain (Slow Jam) – Lisa Fischer – This should have broken the Stones back up singer, shoulda broken her through to a real stardom, the Kleer singer comes into her own and then leaves – A
Sam Smith got best newcomer and pop album, and Beck got best rock album. No problems there though I am entirely agnostic over Morning Phase. Up close, Beck looks a little on the weird side, right? It’s like he looks like a babyfaced middle aged eagle.
The first three one acters are terrible, “Babel’s In Arm” about the building of the tower of babel one stone at a time, is “Waiting For Godot” as extended silliness, “Soap Opera” has some amusing puns on washing machines (a man falls in love with his) but is just too bizarre and “The Goodness Of Your Heart” puts goodness versus manners in a seriously flawed debate.
Man, that Ellie Goulding song is crappy. I can’t remember the last time an album has inspired so many astoundingly terrible songs and is Ellie’s the very worst? You know it may well be. This list makes me sleepy just reading it.
before we get to Dylan’s EIGHTH # 1 album in the UK (about 20% of all the albums he has ever released), let’s scratch our heads in amazement at the return of a guitarist who performed quite well with Dylan himself, Mark Knopfler. Brothers In Arms has two 80s masterpieces an nothing else much.
Nearing its 30th Anniversary (May 15th), Mark seems to have ironically enough written his epitaph on this hugely successful and really pretty excellent classic rock gussied up as new wave song for guitar slingers everywhere – A
The pacing never lagged, the performance was never less than completely in the moment. This is as great as live music gets, it was entirely living breathing, improvise and yet tight as hell soul music.A party and an art form. dance music as the final frontier of sound and the greatest soul man of his generation returned with all his powers restored
Backstage at last nights D’Angelo concert (my review will be up shortly) I got to chatting with some folks and was told that D’Angelo will be playing a concert in New York immediately following his European jaunt beginning February 11th in Zurich and ending March 7th.
Johnny Cash recorded some of my songs early on, too, up in about ’62 or ’63, when he was all skin and bones. He traveled long, he traveled hard, but he was a hero of mine. I heard many of his songs growing up. I knew them better than I knew my own. ‘Big River,’ ‘I Walk the Line.’
January was so strong it seemed like we were heading for a dream year but two weeks into February and not so much. Maybe, I am not a huge fan but she has a great voice, so MAYBE, Rhiannon Giddens, maybe the new Stabbing Westward offshoot album will kill it (maybe) BUT OTHERWISE??? I loved “Adios” so let’s give it to Ricky Martin… plus two Martin picks on the same day. Why not?
Two of the most important figures in hip hop history, Puff Daddy and Snoop Dogg, performing at the same concert, in the relatively small confines of the Theatre Of Madison Square Garden, is as close to a lock as you are gonna get in the middle of February. Hold out for “Victory” -Puff’s most irresistible track, with the heartbreaking ending.On Thursday.
Back when “Livin’ La Vida Loca” firsrt dropped, I had a friend whose sister was a Broadway chorus gal and she had been in Les Miz on broadway and she told me Ricky was gay and I told another friend and the other friend cried tears of happiness because he was gay. When Ricky came out it was a real big deal for the gay community and if that isn’t enough, his new song “Adios” is real good. Good enough to make him the Guest of The Week.
I am reading an early draft of rock nyc Steve Crawford’s excellent upcoming album “1000 Essential Songs From The 1970s”. Read it with Spotify by your side and Steve’s insights are even more fun. It is sooooo good and I can’t wait for him to publish it. Meanwhile here is 10 songs culled solely from Rock Songs released in 1970
An unescapable world for Dylan and a heaven in the heavens for the sun. Dylan gives the song the deepness of age, the weariness it bears itself. The music, more than anywhere else here sounds like classicist (indeed, all the songs here sound like they are arranged for a full orchestra – Grade: A
Because Direct Current’s taste is so different than mine (yes, I know, but one thing at a time) their list of new releases works as a litmus taste, I scan the list and check and check and check and more than three quarters of the time I check out. So let’s move merrily along: The Wombats, Laura Marling, Nellie McKay, Estelle, Juliana Hatfield Three, Martin Sexton, Texax… maybe I am being a little difficult but those are the ones that catchy my eyes on this list.
it says here he did the Original (incidental?) music? Good, this is what he killed off LCD Soundsystem for? Well, done Jimmy. Oh, and I dislike Haim on principle as wella s not much caring for the album OR the live show.
Australian Daevid Allen formed Gong in France after failing to get a visa to return to the UK where he played guitar with the legendary Soft Boys in 1967. Through the years and numerous incarnations, and many types of Gongs, coming and goings including a fifteen year break, Gong have been a cutting edge experimental progressive rock band who give the term a good name.
Chinatown – Girlpool – Post fame and fortune for the new Haim, here they come up with a pretty, understated pop move, two part harmony, pretty and smart. It sounds like a modern day Roches – B+
Bitch I’m Madonna – Madonna – Except when she is getting onstage three hours late, I have nothing against Madonna. But, if I work in the 21st century teaches of anything,it teaches us that talent is finite. This is nothing very much, and Nicki Minaj adds nothing at all. A nursery rhyme less bad and more old, she throws everything at the track abc none of it sticks – C
Vicious in 1976 was more than the face of punk on a street level although he was that (Rotten the star, Vicious the man on the street), he was the face of face, the face of the UK, of England Dreaming: when you think about the limits of punk UK, you get to the image of Sid Vicious.
It is immoral to punish people for having unnatural desires, to molest children or for sheep, cannibalism, whatever. That is their right as free people to want things that are terrible and terrifying. They have every single right to think it. But the second they do it they should be jailed or worse.
Vinyl: you had to share your live in space with albums: music became a roommate, in order to own music the only way to own music, was to co-exist with music, physically involve yourself with music.
The Guardian reviewer gave the show 5 stars: “The tight line-up – female trio 3rdeyegirl, a keyboardist and dynamic backing singer Liv Warfield — makes for a lean, hard show with thrilling new funk-rock arrangements.”
The Dylan album is a very good but he also got lucky, this is one of the weakest weeks you’ll find not surrounding Christmas. The Girlpool single is a revelation. If you haven’t heard the new AWOLNATION single, you only have yourself to blame.
For No One – Houndstooth – A big song that doesn’t feel as big as it should, alternative folk rock on acid welding its words and considered by npr for one to be a major breakthrough for the Rough Trade bad. – B
“I gave up wasting mental energy on people who didn’t have my back,” frontwoman Sadie Dupuis said “Listening to our old records, I get the sense that I was putting myself in horrible situations just to write sad songs. The music isn’t coming from a dark place, and without slipping into self-empowerment jargon, it feels stronger.”
I am so tired of saying Bruno Mars is overrated but he is so damn overrated. I wouldn’t say that if Little Richard or James Brown never existed but they do (one does, the other did) exist and so dumbass bruno feels like watered down spineless mimickry. Nothing personal, mind.
Congrats to Tay for her 10th non consecutive week at the top though her actual amount of units sold is pretty bad, 71K. It shows yet again the sorry state of the pop world though it was a weak week (this week, February 2nd is even worse). Also, note Trainor got downgraded by me, there is just too much B+ stuff here. The EP was much better. PS: what happened to D’Angelo? That didn’t last long though the SNL “Really Love” might pop him back in
Vistas – Kids – In a very weak week, Kids stand out as masterful indie rock, a deep, sweet sound like Bon Iver without the vocals and if they were raised as caddies in Fort Lauderdale somewhere – B+
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The line up is pretty stellar as always (though not putting California X and Nude Beach the same night is the definition of fucking with us), especially Worriers who are a terrific band, Black Wine and Shellshag… Nuclear Santa Claust … but really when it comes to Don Giovanni you just can’t go wrong
That’s Right (You’re Not From Texas)” is a full blown, full band rip roaring triumph of jingoism. Better than Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” because Randy is all sneer and you have to look deep to see Lyle’s wink (it’s in the “the next time someone laughs at you” line).
Still, it is very satisfying to watch an ex-Beatle standing at the apex of pop music in 2015. You can’t go much higher than this and he handles himself with a sort of restrained dignity that makes all pleasures seem more in keeping for all of us. Age becomes McCartney
Telegram Sam – T Rex – Live at the BBC in 1971, a perfect blueprint of a sound not perfected: nascent glam meets bubblegum on the cusp of art pop – A+
The claim can be countrypolitan in reverse only it isn’t really country, it is closer to the sort of reverence for great songs Dylan showed on Good As I’ve Been To You, then folk, here the Great American Songbook –with more than its fair share of obscurities, rearranged for Dylan’s band and Dylan’s voice. Why? Because he wanted to sing them – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A
I thought these indie rockers from Cincinatti were great at the time and I thought they were greater when I thought back on it. Essentially, they are a midwestern Shellshag who didn’t make it through the long run as a couple have lived to explain the pitfalls and disasters of romantic love and this night played em down to the ground.
As a lyricist Pete wetnz is a child of his emo rock urges, the strange drawn out song titles that turn and move in ways you don’t expect. Except it never quite manages to pay off well enough. Except this on does, a masterpiece of lost love which uses Judy Jetson’s mobility as a future history of a disappeared love.
So you can imagine my surprise when a press release went out yesterday—without my knowledge—about the band’s future. This is new to me. It’s not in my nature to fuel negativity about the legacy of the band on something as trashy as the Internet world.”
Marathon – Doomtree – Good last track, it has that fare thee well feel to it, a trebly introduction, dream world, something in a dream world and yet away from everything, “i’m tearing down all these outmoded ideas about how it’s going” they claim… – B+
This song echoes down modern hip hop, it is almost as important as RZA’s backing tracks on Enter and when you listen to M.I.A., those clipped off beats were born here. Plus “beep, who’s got the keys to the jeep’ is iconic – A+
The difference between great spectacle and great art is one thrills the eyes and the other thrills the mind and while Katy Perry did neither during the half time Super Bowl show on Sunday night, still, she wasn’t a complete putz either.
John Mayer is guest hosting the Late Late Show and I have high as the sky hopes for him myself, not only will be guest post-Super Bowl, currently sweetheart, young Katy Perry but also el weirdo del weirdo Bob weir(d), Ed Sheeran, Only three days(Sean Hayes is doing the first day) but enough to give him the Talk Show Guest Of The Week Award. Some have died for less.
Now is the winter of our discontent and thanks to the overreaction of Bill De Blasio and Andrew Cuomo the entire world was brought to a tremendous standstill and there is nothing we could do again. For the first time ever the subway system was stopped, and for no reason but the preening egotism of a handful of halfwits.
Sure I love that Meghan is in at # 1 and all is right on earth, good will to all doo wop songs but while I’ve only heard a coupla tracks off the Madchester stalwarts, still reeling from the death of their drummer a coupla years ago, this is as good as Brit rock gets and while I doubt it will do much Stateside, it sure should.”Come Home Baby” is knockout.
They have a nice line of patter on Karen Harding: the Whitney Houston of House, and while that might well be oversell, this is a goodie, the beats thump and Karen has a powerful and beautiful voice. This should break US, no reason not to , except for its purity as form, which might not matter, right?
o say they don’t make songs like this first recording by the fantastic early punk all girl band the slits is not to say they really should do. It makes you miss Ari Upp all the more and reading Viv Albertine’s autobiography, it is amazing how hard they had to fight with men in the industry to get heard the way she wanted to be heard. Not John Peel, the engineers – A
We wrote so damn much about this travesty it was ridiculous, we wrote and warned before, during and after the disgraceful “Hope For Haiti” concert that this was no way to run a charity. They could have gone to “Save The Children” or “Christian Children’s Fund” or even “UNICEF” and had professionals handle the situation but did they? That was a rhetorical question.
