Medium Cool: Talk Show Guests week Of October 27th, 2014
I am crazy about Taylor, but Letterman, the View, the Talk, Ellen… geez, maybe she should come and let a real website interview her. us for instance. These kiss and tells kinda suck
UK Top 10 Albums 11-1-14
Status Quo go acoustic!!!! The greatest UK hard rock band ever, the heads down no nonsense monsters of riff go mellow??? It sounds like Crosby Stills and nash in a very nasty mood for the band lead by legend Francis Rossi for FIFTY TWO YEARS!!!!
UK Top 10 Singles 11-1-14
Pretty good list, Megan better be careful or she will be a one hit wonder before she gets started and she is better than that. And note that three of the top five are among the best of the year and the fourth is in the running.
10 Songs: Monday, October 27th, 2014
electronic dance fun and games and with zooming sound effects like space invaders and a steady as she goes beat, all of which is like a flash back old time disco thriller by Arthur Russell. Purely beautiful till the horns get funky at the end, and then it is a dance blast- A
CMJ Music Marathon Presents Public Access TV At Pianos, Saturday, October 25th, 2014
On the epic case builder “Metropolis” he sings “I don’t want to live till I’m forty, I wanna be young and dead.” That’s big time songwriting right there -that’s what we want.
Target Deliver Taylor Swift's "1989" Two Days Early… So Who Is Leaking Whom?
Since the entire Tay Team have acted like 1989 was a State secret on which US allies the CIA is spying on and we the fans are Edward Snowden, why team Taylor and Target aka the CIA if not indeed the NSA choose to actually mail the State secrets to us is bizarre indeed.
Sneak Peaks: New Album releases week of 10-27-14
Yusuf is a blues cover album, Run The Jewels are simply in the way till we get a new Killer Mike album, Dionne and Jerry Lee are scary, so I guess that leaves the new Lil wayne -who better come up with the goods after years of iffiness despite a great tour earlier this year
10 Songs: Sunday, October 26th, 2014
Between us girls, this is a hot, cool LES rock band who kinda missed it on their debut album mostly because their romantic scruff scene songs were kinda lifeless on record, but how much can you complain about this masterwork? – A
Let's Active: rock nyc Concert Picks Week of October 27th, 2014
Last March Gregg Allman got sick during what should have been the Allman Brothers final stand ever at the Beacon Theatre and so to make it up they included this string of dates during Rocktober. It will also be their last performances ever
Taylor Swift's "1989" Reviewed: The Voice Memo Early Listen
It doesn’t peak as high as Red, “This Love” isn’t as great as “State Of Grace” and “Shake It Off” isn’t as great as “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together Again” but there is no weak spot, it is consistently superb. A major work but how much more?
Eric Clapton To Play Seven Nights In London, Can New York Be Far Behind
Seven days is the sort of figure that sounds like someone is making sure everybody gets one last chance to see him and if he plays at MSG and does, three maybe four nights, you can kinda count him out and more is the pity. What a great guitarist, what an incredible career.
Singles Going Steady: New Singles Released Week of October 20th, 2014
This Is Not A Game – The Chemical Brothers – No it isn’t at all, it is track off the eagerly awaited Huger Games Soundtrack, with a bouncy synth thing zooming along and a pop vocal on top – B+
The A+ List: 10-25-14
It is in the very first couplet, “make my heart come all undone” -it is like he is begging for the sweet sensation of love: make and undone are the two words that come tumbling through and it captures her illsuiveness, his insecurity: the earliest sense of insecurity of love
10 Songs: Saturday, October 25th, 2014
This sounds like the climax to a high drama opera, a German composer, played backwards with the vocals pitched even wilder than ever before and the sound modulating between drone and droner with Bernard Hermann brought back from the dead. An acquired taste? Sure, but superbly different even if you hate it – A
The Tomas Doncker Band At The "Dodge Poetry Festival" Friday, October 24th, 2014, Reviewed
The vibe was magical, it was like watching a preacher converting people to Christianity, Doncker was converting people to the blues and you could see the kids come alive, perk up, smile, like they couldn’t believe how great it was. Like they were being changed.
CMJ's Music Marathon Presents Gerard Way, Webster Hall, Thursday, October 23rd, 2014 Reviewed
Why not make it 75 minutes and throw in some hits? Especially when you are pushing an iffy album which hasn’t helped you even sell out a 1500 SRO? Why not give people what they want to hear? You wrote the suckers, sing em.
Giants And Royals Not Just About Baseball: Fighting Over Lorde
Tenuous musical connection, true but try this from the MBL: “On Friday, two stations in the Bay Area, KFOG and KOIT, removed the song from their playlists for the duration of the World Series.”
How To Cover CMJ's Music Marathon
I’ve been winging it and trying to make up for that by writing full reviews of the bands I do see as opposed to a paragraph in a larger post. The hope is to maybe not see as much as other people but really watch what I do see.
rock nyc Top 10 Songs w-o 10/20/14
Sleater-Kinney is growing on me with every spin, it is exactly what you think, angular, atonal, guitar shards and it works like a memory reflexive. Meanwhile Taylor Swift’s least song off the upcoming album ain’t bad at all, I mean not at all, and the Game reminds us why he is the best rapper this side of Cam’ron.
10 Songs: Friday, October 24th, 2014
Lips Are Moving – Meghan Trainor – If Meghan is descending to schtick it is very good schtick with a funny hooks “I know you lie you’re lips are moving” and meghan throws everything she has at it including a rap – A-
CMJ Music Marathon Presents The Liza Colby Sound, Rockwood Stage 1, Thursday, October 23rd, 2014, Reviewed
What we got was fine, and any set that has Liza Colby singing her bluesy heart out and constantly rocking songs all with her shirt half undone certainly can’t be all bad. But it wasn’t what the Liza Colby Sound are capable of.
CMJ Music Marathon Presents Be Forest At Cake Shop, Wednesday, October 22nd, 2014, Reviewed
On stage at Cake Shop yesterday, Be Forest are quietly intense building up walls of strings and a terrific heavy handed drum while playing songs off their current release Earth Beat
CMJ Music Marathon Presents Mainland At The Marlin Room, Tuesday, October 21st, 2014, Reviewed
This isn’t faint praise, it is feint praise, it is like whining that your gal Giselle Bunchen doesn’t have bigger boobs… This was a good set with a band stretching, and that’s fine, I just hope they snap back the better for it.
US Top 10 Albums: 11-1-14
Jessie kinda blew right? But the two of interest I haven’t heard till now. Mo excuse. The Bob Seger one is so bad it makes you think Helen went easy on him and in a bad year for hip hop, the Game comes through yet again with another powerful collection chockablock with gangsta and guestars
US Top 10 Singles: 11-1-14
Women rule, OK? Ok. But why must Ed lose his Top 10 virginity with such a lousy song? The UK has the awesome “Thinking Out Loud” and what we get??? meanwhile, Meghan’s third album out in Janury plus we get to see her at Jingle Ball!
10 Songs: Wednesday, October 23rd, 2014
Hypnotic – Zella Day – Not bad at all mainstream pop ballad old school style, very catchy track for mainstream Hot 100s – B+
CMJ's Music Marathon Presents Chelsea Jade, The Studio At Webster Hall, Tuesday, October 21th, 2014, Reviewed
She’s won a ton of awards in New Zealand, opened for Lorde and cat Power, and isn’t precious at all. Yeah and on stage she seems both artistically extreme and musically valid at the same time. Very approachable? So approach her.
Kelly Clarkson Sings Sam Smith
Recorded at Symphony Park on October 18th, 2014, Kelly gets every ounce of the song and shares it right back with her audience, as if their voices are raised together in a hopefulness not actual written in at all. This isn’t actually Clarkson’s gift, she is another torch singer stomping the country side of love, but here with a song that doesn’t belong to her, Clarkson invites us all in.
Fillmore East: Iconic Rock Theatre To Get Landmark Plaque
My boss for the past 27 years, Larry Schneiderman, was a regular at the Fillmore East, as was my good friend Jahn Xavier,and though it was a little before I became a new yorker, Bill Graham’s House is a legend that is now an Apple bank.
Sleater-Kinney's "Bury Our Friends" Reviewed
After nine years of offshoots, most of them good and two of them, Wild Flag and Corin Tucker Band, better than that the Clash of riot grrrls, and circa Dig Me Out, the greatest rock and roll band in the world, have played everything out till they are back together.
Dropkick Murphys To Play St. Patrick's day In Dublin 2014
They are playing Dublin the next St. Patrick’s Day, a somewhat stupid idea since March 17th is much bigger in nyc than on the Emerald Isle, but we will still get em for three nights at Irving Plaza.
10 Songs: Wednesday, August 22nd, 2014
Day Drinking – Little Big Town – Great terribly bad advice but a swinging little blues rocker counting down to a first rate chorus replete with whistling that actually works – A-
CMJ Music Marathon Presents Beach Day, Cake Shop, October 21st, 2014, reviewed
Their name suggests indie dream pop and their home , Hollywood Florida, suggests surf and turf, but their sounds is New Yawk girl group via the Ramones with a huge dollop of feedback, reverb and a misheard chorus via My Bloody Valentine. In other words, they are awesome and a great way to kick off CMJ 2014
Be Here Now: First Take On New Album Releases 10-21-14
She has seldom sounded better than she does on “I Put A Spell On You” and her “You Belong To Me” belongs in the same category as Patsy Cline. Whether singing soul or jazz or Gospel, the voice is a magnificent thing and the arrangements do everything possible to highlight the voice – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A-
FKA twigs #throughglass Darkly
She uses Google Glass to play “Video Girl” and then to learn the dance steps, and it twins her up and then quadruples her. The man is a stunning, dramatic figure of grace and it suggest (which is probably the reason for being) a certain gracefulness in the ungraceful Google Glass
The Rebel Factory's "Trigger me" Reviewed
It doesn’t actually sound like the LES in the 80s, maybe the 90s, the sound is too professional, the pain is deep but the arrangement has none of the sloppiness or loose barrelled of punk rock: this is a tough minded blues for grown ups. Well worth listening to.
Last Call: Final Tracks Week Of October 13th, 2014
No Ordinary Love – You + Me – Sure, P!nk has a good voice but she needs the song to signify and she doesn’t have it here, a terrible piano based ballad slow as molasses and a self defeating love doodle – D+
10 Songs: Tuesday, October 21st, 2014
Did this break Stateside? it sounds like the Lumineers meets 1D in the best way imaginable, a ridiculously catchy hook laden chorus built for singing along to; stomp your feet and join in. It must have broken here.. but nope, it stiffed – A-
Tomas Doncker Band And Yusef Komunyakaa's "Big Apple Blues" Reviewed
This is an electrified tour de force, a statement on the art of the art of music and an important addition to the myth that is New York City. It has been called a journey through black America but that is to damn it with faint praise. This isn’t about black people, it is about what human people should and do and don’t do for each other.
Some Thoughts On Danny Garcia's "Looking For Johnny"
“Looking For Johnny” was everything it could possibly be, it respected the story as best it could where no one else seems to bother, an excellent memory of a great guitarist,a legendary musician, a towering New Yorker and an influence for every other rock band playing the 7pm set at Arlene’s grocery.
That Was The Week That Was: October 13th, 2014
This entire week belonged to Tay, Lena Durham said she wanted a Taylor Swift song at her wedding. Impressed? LENA IS DATING JACK ANTONOFF!! The Diet Pepsi commercial was so awesomely cute I still haven’t recovered and the song on it was fabulous; the new song (not single mind) “Out Of The Woods” is great EDM. Plus? 7 more days till 1989.
UK Top 10 Albums 10-25-14
Sure “Ghosts” is Ok but not over an album, meanwhile I am kinda shocked to find U2 in the charts. I guess not as many people have Itunes as I thought (80 million streams of the album by the way). ANything else? Nope, go back to whatever you were doing.
UK Top 10 Singles 10-25-14
This may well be the best singles charts I’ve seen since I started seriously monitoring the charts; Trainor followed by Taylor we have been used to for the past month, but than a good 1D and then a GREAT Ed Sheeran, the best on his current album, and it doesn’t really end, the Paloma and Jeremih I can live without but they aren’t that bad, and the Vamps S&G cover is awesome.
10 Songs: Monday, October 20th, 2014
Off their final (or is that last?) album The Woods, this acoustic pop song makes you wonder why they weren’t more popular with the album reaching # 80 on the Billboard 200, their best placing ever. So, of course, they broke up. This is a really quite wonderful singalong acoustic folk good feel – A
Dick Destiny's "Loud Folk Live" Reviewed
On song after song, Destiny and drummer Mark Smollin find the joy in creation, in song, in raising your voices and if polemic doesn’t swing, songs like “Hooray For The Salvation Army Band” and the sublime “Patriotic Class warfare” swing from the rafters.
Rockford's "I Tried" Reviewed
“I Tried” is a big time blues rocker which sounds like the way cali blues should, a deep bass and a very strong guitarist with a straight ahead beat, the song is about as good as rock gets in 2014, there is nowhere else for it to go
Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing"At Roundabout Theatre, Friday, October 17th, 2014, Reviewed
it doesn’t matter how well written the ideas are if you can’t hear them and the magic at the heart of “The Real Thing” is lost. It isn’t there any more. I know what I love in the play because I’ve read it and I’ve seen it, but I wouldn’t have known it from this bad production
Must See? Conor Oberst At the Beacon This December
So why go again for “A Benefit Concert Holiday Cheer For FUV Conor Oberst And Friends” at the Beacon Theater on December 8th? I mean, over and above Conor having proven his abilities with a carol? I just have a lotta time for Conor
Let's Active: rock nyc Concert Picks For The Week Of October 20th, 2014
The eagerly awaited Yusef Komunyakaa – Tomas Doncker Band collaboration Big Apple Blues will be released on Tuesday, and the afternoon gig at NJPAC on Friday is the one to keep your eye on for sure. But Komunyakaa has any number of other performances coming up
Sneak Peak: Upcoming Album Releases Week Of October 20th, 2014
I am gonna go with Scott Walker and Sunn O))) as most anticipated (the best will be Doncker) despite assuming it will be an almost impentrable wall of sound and edges and rumbling bass by the most eccentric former boy band leader of all times and the harshest strangest sounding ambient metal band