It is Rod’s fault, he dicked around too much and they kept on dropping dead on him. Let’s hope there is a tour anyway, I mean if they can substitute Stewart with Mick Hucknall, even without Mac and Plonk it should be an improvement.
Live: My good friend (and once upon a time rock nyc scribe) Marie Lynn regarding me going to see the boy band at Metlife in a couple of hours: “Somewhere in New York City, a little girl is crying her heart out because you took her ticket to One Direction
Worth It – Danny Brown And Clams Casino – I love Danny’s voice and it is always great to hear him perform a new song and this one with New Jersey Producer Clams Casino is excellent, a very hot piece of self examination with a techno weird sound effects and a clipped half beat – B+
Given all the way James Taylor’s life might have gone, his brother Alex, sweet baby James pop, died of a drug overdose decades ago, that James could have lived through it all and reached this place better than ever? It is a testament to the possibility that life may redeem you, if you’re lucky… not a bad description of James Taylor’s songs, either.
So a good, strange, long set. Laura is a major talent so maybe next time round everything she has planted here will make more sense to us. Till, then, watch out for the patterns, that’s God or Laura or both.
Listening To Singing – Iris Dement – While I have heard mixed things about this album, dropping on Friday, this first song is absolutely lovely, with a wonderful hook, and a lovely lyric based upon the same named poem by Anna Akhmatova, comparing a woman’s voice to a ladder to heaven. Pretty excellent, actually – A
No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani and Bush’s lead singer Gavin Rossdale called it a marriage and filed for divorce in Los Angeles. They’ve been together for 20 years and married 13 of them, they have three sons Kingston Rossdale, 9, Zuma Rossdale, 6, and Apollo Rossdale, 17 months. Apparently Gwen will be providing spousal support and they will be sharing custody. That’s a real shame.
In 2015, nobody does a night of music like this better than SummerStage, this was a gift to New York City, for those of us who got in, and those of us who listened from just outside Rumsey Playfield, we will still love you tomorrow SummerStage.
It is infuriating to show up at 730pm for a band hitting the stage at 9pm and still see nothing whatsoever. It is disastrous to pay $50 for a ticket for nothing but to be moved, harassed, get your sitelines blocked, have fucked up security hastle you and wander around three floors of absolutely nothing.
Rescue Me – Amy Helm – If you are wondering whether Amy is the real deal, the lead single off her debut album is the essential components of Americana -a hint of country, a hint of jam, a spiritual component, a fine piano, and soulful singing. A very good song – B+
Very little movement whatsoever, the top five are exactly the same as last week, and only “Lean On”‘s minimal movement shows any shake up on the bottom five. It is strange days we live in, the album charts erupt every week and the single charts snooze. Go figure
The Jill Scott album sucks big time, and in real sales? 58K units move so lets all agree, it’s over man. Mean, I am damned if anybody understands how Billboard crush the numbers. Nothing personal but it sure feels like BS to me. For instance, Lamb Of God have 50K equivalence unites but with pure album sales equal 47,000. Meaning… what? That there numbers were only upped by 3K due to streaming? So, metal fans don’t stream. Like I said, difficult to believe.
Cecil The Lion shows just what you can do when you bother to name an animal, so here is an idea for all you animal rights activists: stand outside the slaughterhouses and name every cow before we murder it, and then guilt the rest of us over our indefensible actions. Gwan, try it.
Desire – Dej Loaf – Not only is this very sexy, and very smart, it rhymes hard, the beat is perfect, it is the best woman rap around headlining her new EP it is a self-portrait and a dream of the future. Trill chill, indeed
while I enjoyed the first three songs from the photographers pit (we were given a draconian photo release to sign, and while I could care less, I might have cared if I made a living from it), the heat and the lack of interaction on instrumental dawdles put me to sleep the further away I got from the stage
I Took A Pill In Ibiza (SeeB Remix) – Mike Posner – Why, exactly, did SeeB decide to make this brilliant bummer of a track a sped up, lively jaunt? Was the pill dexatrin? – B
Neil Young took down his albums from streaming last week, and this is absolutely his right and I am not disagreeing with it. But what I will say is this: since Apple Play and Itunes, to the best of my knowledge, use the same audio files, how is his music still available on Itunes?
Drag Me Down – One Direction – I’d like to drag em down, what the hell is this? 1D should know better than to start album # 5 with this ordinary soul rock piece of product when we want is a nice piece of sugary power pop like “Steal My Girl”. I mean, this is not acceptable – C
When I saw Morrissey at Radio City, he included her in the videos he used to open the show. If you want to give Cilla a listen, a sort of Dionne Warwick in a UK 60s scene singer for David-Bacharach type songs, try “You’re My World” and “Anyone Who Had a Heart.” She died yesterday at the age of 72.
Still, it is”Tell Her No” that knocked me for a loop, it is obscure enough to be a hit all over again in the sort of world where the Czar beat back the White Russians and the Commies and took his people from the brink of destruction to a bright white and light future world where The Romanovs rule the world.
With one of the best albums of the year to his name, Before This World, you might be hoping for hits plus the newbie from Taylor, who sure knows how to shower the people with love and singalongs. But the setlist has been going deeper than usual with lost gems from Gorilla, Walking Man, October Road and That’s Why I’m Here, alongside “How Sweet It Is” and “You’ve Got A Friend”. I know what you’re thinking but you missed the word “gems”. The restroom break will be “Angels Of Fenway” at Forest Hills Stadium on Tuesday.
Young Fathers – Central Park SummerStage – July 25th – They were sweating from the heat and seemed disappointed in the size of the audience, and daylight doesn’t appear to three piece rap and alt’s natural habitat: and they were still magnificent. That version of “Shame”? That was worth it.
passed on a taping of Ice T and Coco which expresses more than words ever can my feelings about reality shows. So that leaves me with Laura Marling, whom it looks like I am gonna miss for the second time because I’m going to the “Beautiful” in concert at SummerStage on Monday, Milky Chance on James Corden and Christopher Cross on Fallon. I’m going with Fallon because, you know, maybe he’ll do a medley of all his hits: “Sailing” and “Arthur’s Theme”.
A better month for songs than I thought when you consider two of the weeks were more or less wash outs. Two absolute revelations, Alice Glass and Dej Loaf, who have nothing in common except extreme originality. I have heard nothing quite like them and I like Dej now the way I liked Nicki Minaj circa “Monster ergo very very much. One more name: Daniel Romanov: he sounds like other people, but in a very good way.
The Most Lamentable Tragedy Of – Titus Andronicus – Whatever doubts you may have about this 29 song rock opera song cycle detailing the ebb and flow of manic depression, if only for its sheer audacity you will hear nothing more important this year. Plus, cmon, what price “Dimed Out”? It dimes out and then some.
Warren Beatty was a better actor and a better director and had more famous skirt but Leo DiCaprio owns the swimsuit model field, apparently getting on the cover of SI includes a date with Leo. Also: Leo is 40 years old, so in theory he could keep on nailing supermodels, this year’s model is the ridiculously attractive 25 year Kelly Rohrbach, for another ten years and still spend half his life a married man (like Warren).
The Hook (All My Love) (Rough Mix) – Led Zeppelin – From the Zep’s last, pussy, album, this is all very Robert Plant’s Americana version of Zep, and very pretty, the brass solo is especially lovely and Jimmy is much more than brute force here, almost, dare we say it, delicate – B+
Another nothing special week crashes to a close, Ella has a great voice and she is fabulous live, she is the go to gal for modern EDM soulfulness -not very significant here, but I guess she is just a gun for hire. That whole scene is as good as its best songs. Whether it is Emile, Sam, Ella, Jesse or anyone else.
Bugzy Malone is new to me but I love rap with an English accent, Tinie Tempeh, Wiley, all those guys and add this one. First rate rapper and quite different to the Drake sample dark stuff that rules here.
Come And Get It – Badfinger – If we can please get past the backstory, this is the best song the Beatles never bothered with, a McCartney smash and also the theme of the Ringo Starr-Peter Sellers piece of weirdness “The Magic Christian”, sooonny – A
Rolling Stone: So, while I haven’t seen his books, I would sure guess that Jann Wenner is in some trouble at Rolling Stone. Sure the Will Dana quitting had to do with a serious editing lapse of judgment, that wasn’t true of David Fricke (has he written anything recently? I don’t think so) and absolutely the downsizing of movie critic Peter Travers from Senior Editor to contributing writer. Apparently this one got nasty with Travers furious at Jann pinching his pocket. Of course, it’s a buyers market in the writing world and apparently somebody has awaken the sleeping skinflint.
It is a real achievement, an artistic highlight of the 2010s. It repays close attention with strange insights. Really, it is the musical “Pale Fire” -an extended mind game but with a steely and real purpose behind it. +@ are playing with you but for a real reason. I mean, I love it. It’s fun.
Two sexual adjectives and a vicious verb, invites you into Samuel’s bitter brittle state of the USA , intro-ing with a song that would have been a hit for Nine Inch Nails 20 years ago, and a body blow to the American dream, and continuing with “The Lion And The Lamb”, an acoustic Neil Young in protest mode and about a gay kid thrown out by his parents but without the whining vocal, “Hurt” you know and it is here to stake Samuel’s claim to experimental hard rocks disappeared high ground, and by the final track, a trip hop meets Marilyn Manson meets Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry (or at least Adrian Sherwood) mash up, Claiborne’s debut stakes its claim to be the most original agitprop of the year if not the decade – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A-
Still, Drake’s response to Meek’s claim that Drake didn’t write his own raps seems a little overdone. Meek really isn’t in Drake’s league so the sneer seems a little stuck on Drake’s face, like his smiling but very very stiffly, not at all amused, you know. Why so glum, kid? You know the first rule of fight club, never punch down, why are you punching down??
It is incredible that anybody has written so much gorgeous, smart, decent, moral, exciting, rock and roll over this length of time. Nobody else comes close. Not Dylan, Bruce… maybe James Brown. MAYBE Van Morrison. But that’s it.
Nightmare Seeker (The Little Red House) – Lamb Of God – This close the album just about exactly where it begun except you are there, love the drums, they have a 50s rock and roll, roll em up to them, and the rest of the song sounds a whole lot like the first one… though that goes without saying, right? – B
So, about this lion deal. Here are a coupla thoughts. I agree with the vegans that an omnivore has some nerve taking the moral umbrage when it comes to mass murderer the dentist -the lion may look worse but many many many many more animals are slaughtered to feed us. However, that notwithstanding, surely any animal rights activism is better than none if you care so much about animals? Who do the morally outraged vegans think they are helping? I mean, besides their smug love of self, of course?
Rescue Me – Amy Helm – Rock royalty, Amy is Levon Helm’s daughter, and opening for Dr. John at SummerStage on Saturday AND, a new album just released, plus this is a fine and soulful piece of country rock aka Americana – B+
The world doesn’t need much from the brothers, it doesn’t even much care if Liam pays for his daughter’s upbringing, but the world needs the band to reform Oasis and for Liam to stop being so damn sad.
The Heart Is A Bomb – Samuel Claiborne – With Bill Laswell producing , the beats are a drummy pulse like a trip hopnightmare and Samuel has a gritty spoken word edge to it, like he is escaping from New York or something… then there is the guitar solo of course – B+
The weather: For the first time in over two years, nyc is expecting day after day of sweltering 90 degrees plus steaming liquidy humidity and the world is turning on its air conditioning and awaiting for the inevitable brown outs so Con Edison can up their already the highest in the country (and therefore the world) rates.
Disclosure? Not a huge fan of these guys, when I saw em live I thought they were a little, what’s the word here? pre programmed. And their debut was like a jukebox, sure, and a good one, but not a rebellious one at all. There is something smartly cold about the duo.
Not unlike Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, U2 and the Rolling Stones, Elvis Costello is a white rock and roll superstar who has lost the knack and can only very occasionally write a killer song. Of course, occasionally isn’t never, and since I have a working knowledge of, well, everything he has ever written, I thought I’d try and find some of the better tracks you may have missed. In order of release (more or less). I passed on the opera and I passed on great great covers album called For The Stars.
Try Me – Dej Loaf – Her first hit, and it is really great: some of that Drake darkness, but from a woman, and a really great drum shuffle powering the song. This isn’t one of her great lyrics (if you head the EP, she can really write), but it is sure good enough) – A-
“AI technology has reached a point where the deployment of [autonomous weapons] is – practically if not legally – feasible within years, not decades, and the stakes are high: autonomous weapons have been described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms.” That’s Stephen Hawking discussing wars without people. The thing is, if no soldiers lives are at stake, the decision to fight a war will be that much easier. Fine, except, the casualties will remain human. It is a reversal of the way wars used to be fought. In the past, armies would meet in the middle of nowhere and kill each other while civilians were safe, with autonomous weapons the opposite is true.
I was listening to DS2 again and maybe I underestimated it, my problem with rap is the aggressive silliness of the sex drugs and money world has grown so old, bad lyrics throw me out of sound I really like: “flip flops I just had some bitches and I made ’em lip lock, I just took a piss and I seen codeine coming out, We got purple Actavis, I thought it was a drought”
Can I call em or what? I claimed the new Fetty Wap wouldn’t follow “Trap Queen” into the charts. Follow it? It blasted through from # 87 to # 7 in one week and I still can’t hear the hook. Where is it? Not the metronome or the handclaps or the “ands”? I guess the vocal, with its elongated syllables may be doing it.
“I like people who dream or talk to themselves interminably; I like them, for they are doubles. They are here and elsewhere.” – Albert Camus
I love Grizzly Bear, I think he is an excellent musician and while we just got a coupla soundtrack albums it has been years since the excellent Shields album (three years actually) and we are due to hear more from him and soon. And I believe him.
While her family mourns Bobbi, and we gaze in horror and schadenfreude, it leaves you to wonder about whoever the kid was, how much of a chance did she have with even so every chance in the world to be happy and just it doesn’t happen sometimes. It is insurmountable.
