Rock With You – Ledesi – Hot and soulful, Ledesi may well be an everywoman making a sound we hear all day long, but she sings to the beat like nobodies business and references Dione warwick so you gotta think she ain’t afriad of comparisons – B+
It could be a typo, it could be a simple mistake, it could be a OTO. It is hard to access what’s going on here. For sure, there is nothing in social media, nothing on their website, nothing on Facebook. But given the amazing self-evident truth that both Crosby and Young are nearing career highs, and given the sheer brilliance of the CNSY 2000 tour, this is really thrilling news but here is the question…
The week belonged to Tomas Doncker’s True Groove All Stars, their two hour concert at The Cutting Room Tuesday night set the standard for all! A perfect compendium of real soul music that never stopped moving. Meanwhile, Lorde act her age if not older, at a simple, unadorned straight ahead gig at the dreaded Roseland that did her nothing but favors.
Much better than the singles collection, elbow is growing on me and growing on me. The band broke through a couple of years but never really made it all the way for me till now. Indeed, qute the opposite. But I went back to some of their earlier material and it may have been my ears letting me down. Whatever, this is definitely a keep.
The lamest UK chart of the year, this is repetitive samey mainstream dance oh and I am really really sick of Pharrel’s song and Pixie Lott is the most iirtating popstar out there. Man, what a bummer
It Takes A Woman – Walter Matthau – Jokey sexism turned on its tail with growly jowly and curt Walter claiming you need a woman to help clean the stables and shoe the horse, that all romantic. “The important things in life come gift wrapped” he tells his prospective fiancee… hard to disagree right? – B+
A leather booted rent boy with a taste for musical theatre and a voice built for hard rock, he has been playing with Queen, off and on, for the past couple of years. Lambert hasn’t proven himself on record, no, actually he has proven he sucks on record, but he should be an excellent Queen frontman.
This year, greased with tragedy and murmurings about how the infrastructure can’t sustain the scene, the cool writers of a new generation are feeling the streets of Austin and we in New York merrily freeze, the SXSW finally appears to be a music scene without a reason to exist anymore.
In 2012 I watched Neil play a heavy duty no nonsense Crazy Horse gig at MSG and my ears are still ringing, so take it from me folks, he didn’t need to do the Carnegie Hall gigs. Listening to him sing “A Man Needs A Maid” in 2014 takes me back to being a teenager and also, its soft strange beauty puts me at ease. It’s like not all memories end up with a bad ending.
Let’s forget about Skrillex since I’m far from convinced even if you are certain, and let’s look a little further and study a whole lotta bands with important follow ups: The War On Drugs, The Pretty Reckless, the very buzzy and brilliant Coathangers (even if I wasn’t thrilled by em on stage), TBS, newcomers Perfect Pussy and let’s rest on The Both because it is the new Aimee Mann album and Ted Leo might not be in HER league but he is still in a league.
Everything ends buddy, and this is the end of the Allman Brothers, the last March Madness ever. I saw em three times in the past six years and, if anything, have steadily improved over the years. And while the reports from the Beacon have been decidedly mixed, nobody is complaining. I’ll be there Friday night.
Blue Collar Jane – The Strypes – we had a word for this when I was a whippersnapper, pub rock. By which we mean rhythm and blues with rock drums by proles, here proles out of Ireland and no wilko Johnson’s legacy isn’t in question. Actually it is enhanced – B+
Now the PR girls have joined forces with #SolidarityWisconsin. Apparently 400 protest singers were arrested last summer at the State capitol -not a bad idea within reason, but in practise not so great. So the leaders of #SolidarityWisconsin are setting up a petition to have charges dropped against them
Peter Stampfel’s full frontal attack on the NSA is funny as hell, “Studies everything you post on twitter, who is drawn to watch you on the shitter…” , is sure ths ong of the week, though close runners up Elbow and Young Money are bringing up the rear nicely. Still, after two stupendous week of new releases, this is the week that fell to earth.
Crazy Little Thing called Love – Queen – I am no Queen fan, indeed, i always found them as disreputably shallow purveyors of glam, a somewhat shallow musical idiom at the best of times; but this straight forward little rocker stands out as the closet they ever got to a standard and it hasn’t aged a day – A+
Yes, folks, I know you don’t hobnob with the rich and famous close personal friends with Elton John ,Rufus Wainwright but I certainly do. Indeed, I am so close to Rufus that sometimes he gets me on the blower and asks if he can borrow a tenner till he gets paid
I kept a diary for around ten years at the turn of the century and I graded every single day and charted my moods and grading songs and albums (I once graded deaths but decided against continuing with that particular idea) and maybe it is a guy thing, like “Gregory’s Girl” said, the way guys are obsessed with numbers, and not just numbers but lists
“Kenny G”, the most successful saxophonist of all time, begins his UK tour at the Manchester Bridgewater Hall on Sunday April 20, followed Birmingham Symphony Hall (April 21) and Hammersmith Eventim Apollo (April 22).
Between the four of them the only direction this is leading is all the way down to zero. And while pop punk is an OK direction for One Direction I guess, it is still a little irrelevant right? As for Madonna, It has been well over a decade since Madonna met William Orbit and actually created
Poor Alyson couldn’t get a ticket, and the Apollo was an almost instantaneous sell out and I kind of get it; Lykke is a real songwriter who digs down deep. I mentioned Robyn facetiously earlier but really. they are both songwriter’s songwriters: there is an expertise here that’s all but undeniable
Fantastic Planet Of Love – Marshall Crenshaw – This is the most Crenshaw-y song he has ever written, the sink of “just this morning I felt like troubles plaything” is lost and the joy just overwhelms you -he steps back to the problems of life and then takes us out of. One of the greatest songs ever – A+
Biting down or being bored, the real life exemplifier of her generation considers “Royalty” a question of consumerism and sex a matter of biting lips. And at Roseland, in a fine 70 minute dash through the album plus an excellent cover of Son Lux’s “Easy”, she began to feel comfortable with the craziness
Lily’s cheekiness will be unimpaired but a quick comparison between streams of “Air Balloon” (half a mil) and “Fuck You” (14 mill) suggests Lily better have something better in the works and that might well be “Hard Out Here” whose nasty video and general bellyaching didn’t hurt its 11 million streams
The truth is the Internet isn’t this thing you can hate, hating the Internet is like the mail because it brings you bills to pay. The Internet is a FORM OF DISTRIBUTION. You may well hate what is being distributed but that does not entail hating the Internet.
Half of this list are new this week, proof, as is Rick Ross, whose sales are down by 25% from his last album, that the album charts are a bewildering wonderland of medium cool bands here today and gone tody and all the real action is on the singles chart.
How many times can I express my loathing for “Let It Go”, the standard formusical numbers is so low really ever since “Wicked” made the point and kept to it, that anything that rises from key to key to a full scale scream can be considered a power ballad, we have been heading for this place where everybody has given up on song for spectacle. An abominable, apocalyptic piece of crap.
Mushroom Gods – Scraps – More spacey than acidic, it might be a relation to Lorde only the world of sound has less attiude and more roominess. I got a call in the midle of tnight and I feel that spacey disjointed tiredness thing going and and this is the sound my head is making – B+
The audience let its hair down and Doncker had them snapping their fingers and stomping their feet throughout the show. A master master of ceremonies, Tomas directed the full stage with a sure handedness that soon transcended to rock star cockiness. True Groove has arrived.
In these songs, Dahl exemplifies a musical intensity, a meeting of soulfulness and electricity, “Green Tourmaline” is built around a crystalline guitar break that brings life to her metaphor for love, it is so strong it draws you up and gives you pause, it makes you think
The band grab the riff and repeat repeat repeat and the riff is like a melodic lick and then towards the end at the coda, one of the guitars peels itself off for a rock and roll, but not metal, not Hendrix, but rock guitar solo
Money grubbing luddite McGuinness is retiring from managing U2 to manage a company that manages U2 and Madonna. That warm fuzzy feeling is nausea at this bizarre two step by the too smart for his own good plank. Why not just say I’ve sold U2 to Live Nation and will manage them from there?
Listen to “Billie Jean” for a song that seemed everywhere and nowhere, the song is so deep in the closet we still don’t know for certain what closet it is hiding in. Nothing Pharrell does, very little Timberlake, Usher, any of the pretenders do, can get beyond emotional checkers
Peter is signed to New Brunswick’s finest (who seem to expanded with every passing day) Better Than Expected the debut album from the Peter Stamfel And The Brooklyn And Lower East Side Banjo Squadron, will be released by Don Giovanni records on April 22nd and the record release party will be two days later
Better Off (feat Vince Gill) – Sara Evans – This isn’t much of a song and where the hell is Vince Gill because if he is singing he must be way low in the mix. Still, at least it’s country – B
As a long time Elbow sneerer please allow me to eat my words as this superbly melancholic and astune album of love’s labors losts will undoubtedly repay close listening with a crying jag. Imagine the National meets Radiohead, now subtract the whimsy – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A-
This “I Don’t Want Nobody” is a steady groove with skronking in the song break and Chance yelping and sweating through the track; it is the second time Chance has recorded the classic but this latest version is the better of the two; Chance is in tremendous form here on a recording made late last week.
There hasn’t been an album as good as Yeezus since then and most hip hop albums, a Danny Brown and Earl Sweatshirt here and there is the exception and not the rule, are a mix of the dark hued children of Wu tracks and vicious Lil Wayne brag and drag
Matt Rad is all over this slice of modern pop dross misstep from a woman who should have returned to her roots and instead went to the pop charts. The only area of interest is yet another chorus that seems to have been made from the sweat off Bono’s brow and a mood infused with the loss of Corey – C-
Only Dierks Bentley, Brad Paisley and Jamie Johnson can compare with Blake Shleton -the country star who married Miranda Lambert and became a judge on “The Vouce” and then, last year, released his best album to date Based On A True Story.
Does New York have a problem with Governor’s or what? I can’t remember a good one. Pataki, any one? Hugh Carey? Nelson Rockefeller. Like the man said, can no one play this game any more? Well, de Blasio needs to up his game through the roof. and stop handing Cuomo opportunities to make Bill look like a reactionary half wit. Of course, maybe Bill is a reactionary half wit…
Not much going on this week, unless the thought of a new Elbow album excites you in unusual ways, it sure doesn’t me. Or Metronomy, who should be fired if only for the crap band name, or a Young Money compilation except if our friend the lovely and popular Chanel West Coast is on it.
Why are the singles charts in the UK so much better than their album charts? Jess Glynne is back with a Chicago House DJ Route 94 (geddit) and is excellent, which gives her two great songs on these charts neither of which have hit the US yet. But they will!
Yeah, we all knew it would enter the charts at # 1, that isn’t the question. The question is, how will it sustain the position through the year. Meanwhile… what makes the UK charts the UK charts is that Mike “Tubular Bells” Oldfield is still having hits with crappy albums.
We’re A Winner – The True Groove All Stars – You think it is the harp that makes it and it is, until Tomas Doncker growls and until Jenkins goes falsetto on your ass and then it isn’t any more but suddenly it dawns on you this is Tomas’s “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out” and everyone here is a winner – A
I could have done without the montage of Sherman’s pre-8 years old childhood to Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy” (which probably cost them more bucks than all the voice talent in the movie combined) but the end result was a movie that honors at least some of the spirit of Ward and will make for a late Sunday afternoon HBO treat for years to come.
Each band committed itself to a unique set of ideas, and it didn’t matter what other bands were doing or what the audience might expect. Screaming Females are that same kind of wide-open punk rock, from before it condensed into a style and every band had to be taken on its own terms
He is probably the best at what he does, crossover cabaret. I’ve seen him on stage a couple of times and was quite impressed though not by singing but by his demeanor. The man is a lot of fun and he is a good mainstream pop starer charmer with a wide smile and just enough humility in his step. But he isn’t worth a hundred bucks.
The last time the True Groove All Stars performed was a more than memorable gig at the Blue Note last year, but this one promises to be even better. Not only does Marla Mase have an excellent new album just released but latest True Groove signee James Chance will be there. Shout for “I Don’t Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing”. On Tuesday at the Cutting room
Let Her Dance – The Bobby Fuller Four – It is to Bobby Fuller’s credit that Marshall Crenshaw’s cover doesn’t run the band out of town on a pole -indeed, as great as Crenshaw’s cover was, Fuller had all the highlights on this power pop early rock and roll triumph from the beginning – A+
Black is an old pro who knows how to work a crowd, but the lasting impression is that he has focused so much on being an entertainer that it has cost him significant unrealized potential as an artist.
