Neil Young – Carnegie Hall – January 6th, 2014 – Once in a lifetime concert, as Neil Young fuses his greatest moment in the sun with a set of of his folk rock masterpieces from the early 1970s. It was one of those shows where anybody who was there will never forget it and anybody who waa there should be grateful.
Nothing so far has rung the clarion call for a new year. Still, new Warner Bros find TheChain Gang Of 1974 might be making some new friends for the third place WB. Persnally, I’m hoping Angel Haze has legs…
Adventures In Bluesland – Phil Gammage – A New Wave stalwart continues his career trajectory through Americana to an East Coasts rock and blues sound uniquely his own. Add to that one of the best rock and roll singing voices you’ll hear and a mean harp, Gammage’s album stands as an organic response to synthetic emotions.
After Grand Theft Auto got through with the Hawaiian native, he’d move to L.A. and signed to WB. Nice work if you can get it, and the opening track of his first major label album, he gives them what they want: modern AOR with a mid tempo alt indie and a catchy hook, “leave your record on” he is more than willing to repeat till you get the point – B+
Walk Right Back – The Everly Brothers – Love them close harmonies, you can hear what Lennon and McCartney were listening to, and the background lick is very good -it moves right along, the lyric is sticky but the chorus, really the last four lines of the verse, is elastoplast.
at the end of the set during “Money To Burn”, James would pull out a wad of cash and put it on fire. Well, this night a woman jumps on stage from the audience and tries to snatch the money out of James hands and James jumps on her and hey fight and fall into Tomas who can’t believe his eyes and wonders if they’re gonna spend the night in jail.
Both A Great Big World and Young The Giant are happy to be here, one of these bands got that sort of break everybody dreams of, and the other one did nothing of the sort, but both of them are on the charts and are suddenly like really real bands.
OK, where the hell is “Trumpets”? He played it at Jingle ball and it has been on the UK charts for a couple of months now, but while Jason is back with the admittedly good “Talk Dirty”, “Trumpets” is a killer hook on horns come to life.
Where have All the Flowers Gone – Pete Seeger – A circular story of dead young men and mourning young girls, and where all the flowers anyway? They’re on the young men’s graves. And in this a capella song, the yearning for a lesson to be learnt has an edge of threat to it – A+
With The Beatles was innocence peppered with wiseness. It was the thrill of young life coupled with the insecurites of love, it was the face of the future and in the long haired charming boys from the UK, all the lines of defense, all the bewildered post-WW II spoils of combat disappeared for the children of the greatest generation
It might not be fair to lay the blame for the hell that is 21st century rebellion at his feet, but he personifies it so perfectly. He is such a cheerful shill for organized crime known as the music business, it offends me to look at me. Grohl is the rock and roll star as Amway salesman.
“I’ve been in some situations where people have treated me like a fascinating toy. You know, it’s just like an interesting kind of fun thing to have a play with. It’s very weird for me. I feel like a tiny baby. But it’s all relative: when you’re my age in particular, every year feels like a massive change. The difference between 15 and 17 is colossal for everyone.”
Choir Of Echoes – Peggy Sue – The difference between this English new folk bands third album and their last one, is the steady build of sound, like a choir of indie children, seems to go further. But the problem is that it can feel all of a piece which makes it hard to concentrate on particular songs; they become particular tracks – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – B+
This is all sort of boring and sort of pretty and I don’t think I’d recognize it again but I like and I guess admire it in some way. Mogwai do what they do, I ignore what I ignore. What do you choose?
Spinmedia owns and manages over 40 websites including, obviously, Spin, Brooklynvegan, Pop Matters, Stereogum, I’ll stick em all up at the end. But it begs the answer to a question, how can they not be making money? I mean, surely if you’re looking for men in their twenties they can put em together like that, right?
Kevin Hart, small of stature but wide of mouth, only hits my funny bone intermittently but with Ice Cube adding his deadpan snarl, intermittent is enough to save this cop buddy funny movie “Ride Along”.
Gender bending sexual confusion reached a height on this proto-type for the Smiths and huge huge huge influence on generations of pop singers still to come, there is a sweet twist to its emotional destituteness thoroughly original and completely fascinating – A
So we suck, though if we had gone with “Get Lucky” over “Blurred Lines” we’d have done a lot better. Included are all the results from 2013… Next…
LL Cool J was bad last year and worst this year. The “Mama Said Knock You Out” in Tux and smile sprouted poorly written platitudes about music bringing people together. Really, I mean, really?? It was skin crawlingly insincere bullshit of immense proportions, I wonder how all these overfed over glorified nitwit pop stars can listen to this crap without throwing up
On record, Li’l Mo is so soulful you wish she’d cover Curtis Mayfield, everything she sings touches you deep and keeps you coming back, on stage she leads her band with a sure hand through set pieces of sound (the following set she would have a 12 girl chorus joining her!) and the audience never felt short footed.
The weather is killing live music and the release schedule is killing the album releases… except last year I had 8 albums on my best of list, and this year it will be at least 11. I don’t like David Crosby enough to be impressed that he is my pick of the week.
On the phone a coupla days ago I asked Marie what she was listening to and in response she sent me her most played list off her Ipod. “When I want to play music where I know I’m gonna love every song, I play this”, she explained. “These are the songs I never get tired of.”
Here is a name that might not ring a bell, Jimmy Napes. But he co-wrote Disclosure’s “Latch” and he co-wrote Clean Bandit’s “Rather Be” -a house meets classical ((yes, that is strings at the start) dance song. A wonderful track!
Wow, this really sucks. Sophie Ellis-Bextor is the best of a bad bunch. And why is Blunt back in the charts? I guess Bastille got another hit from the deluxe version of the new album. Gary still hasn’t released the newbie in the US… for good reason is my bet.
Runaway Dreamer – Sophie Ellis-Bextor – The album drags me but this is a clever pop rock MORer which snapped the UK to attention, not least because Sophis is a popular model, but also because the song is as catchy as this kinda stuff can kind – A
I didn’t bother even trying for a tix to the Kraftwerk retrospective at MOMA last year, and stories of tix changing hands for $5K a pop but in reading on Brooklynvegan about their performance April 1ST and 2 nd at United Palace and then getting the BV password (COMPUTERS HAR HAR) the decision was made and a hundred bucks later I am planning my first sighting of the Kings of (OK) Komputers
Why did McGrath not tell this story? Why have I stumbled into an episode of “the Dick Van Dyke Show” ? Nothing in “Beautiful” works. Nothing at all. It is terrible and except for her daughter being the producer of this atrocity, I see no reason why Carole King would be associated with it.
I think where mxdwn and I seem to differ is in what constitutes an impressive list of musical guests. When your biggest names are Built to Spill and Craig Finn, you might excuse me for not jumping up and down and clapping my hands. Still, I loved Bob Dylan In The 80s so who knows.
With January’s best album under his belt, the Phil Gammage Trio are playing a record release part on Wednesday January 29th at No Malice Palace on 197 East 3rd Street in the village on Wednesday, January 29. Expect harp, bass and blues and Phil’s beautiful baritone.
Laura Jane Grace came through!We were waiting for her and Against Me! to take alternative rock howling into transgender politics and that’s exactly she did with a rock and roll smackdown of the first order Transgender Dysphoria Blues
A Weill-Mann classic, and the big boom drums spur it like an undercurrent of feeling and Ronnie sounds so deep into the feelings which are pretty awesome as well: this one is a real dream of love because it doesn’t even really exist, it is like a day dream of what it will be like – A+
While her only real competition Lady Gaga explodes in angst and betrayal on the business side, Perry does it on the personal side, and while neither album has proven itself a slam dunk in the pop charts (which is precisely what they needed) certainly Katy should sell out this tour.
It doesn’t sound like that, most of the versions were kinda lame and except for Reed (and not except for Harrison who probably had a cold that night) the versions are nothing to really care about. In other words: you had to be there.
It is two years since I liked didn’t love Arcade Fire at MSG but while I realize my taste is certainly in the minority, I preferred Reflektor to The Suburbs and prefer dance to indie rock any dance so I am possibly more excited than you are over this.
Two big returns, Karen Anne and Beck, and a great live album from the Stones, but the week belonged to Against Me! whose grand return was even better than I hoped it would be. “Unconditional Love” is a great song. Jon Pardi is my token country beer and pick up trucks guy.
Walking Back To Happiness – Helen Shapiro – A huge hit in the early 60s, the hook, the “hoop hah oh yeah” is the closest the UK ever got to trouncing US girl groups, an infectious blast – A+
I found myself working more closely with Donna and I adored her. She was both no nonsense and caring at the same time, plus she was well organized and could execute any plan Joseph came up with on a dime. And she would have to. It is like Joseph had all these dreams and Donna made them come true.
Donna is remembered by her mother, Lillian McCray, as a take charge person and Mr. McElroy called her “fierce” and “passionate”, and a very spiritual and loving person. The accolades from friends are numerous and dramatically documented in social media, where her marriage and passing has been played out like a masterful form of performance art.
The selling point is Karen Anne who is excellent as the girl having her heart broken, all dark roots and white complexion and Vespas. In real life, Karen Anne is a straightforward pretty English Rose but on film she is like the English Rose all English roses take their orders
After the Barclay gig I claimed it was gonna be a short MSG run if this is what he plans to present and apparently that was a one off for the uber-fans because at Tampa it was again the soprt of set dreams are made of
Passenger have been around for about a year in one way or another (I caught up with them months and months ago while working on the UK Charts) and “Timber” is a very good Pitbull song but as always, the US single charts are notoriously slow in moving and this hasn’t moved much all year.
Impressed by Bruce? In 2002 The Rising hit the # 1 spot with over half a million units shifted, in 2014? Less than 100,000. And that’s with giving away a free DVD with each CD sold. A depressing state of affairs in the music business, no doubt.
Me And Liza – Rufus Wainwright – “Famous till the day that we die….” After tributing her Mama, Rufus, on this Out Of The Game outtake, sings a pure pop Rufus style kiss to the legend; the song is a standard MOR sound which I kinda hope he grows out of – B+
This piece of additional info harbors plenty of ill wind: Albarn describes the album as “my most soul-searching and autobiographical yet, explores nature versus technology.” Really? Nature versus technology? Yeah, Damon, where do the children play?
It does the job smartly enough and ties up its loose ends in a pretty little bow just in time for the second movie in the newly minted series; though a lousy $17M box office in its first week makes you think Pine will be stuck with Star Trek awhile longer.
He is off to plan two, re-record his hits and select covers with a symphony orchestra and while I personally would pay cash money to hear “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” with a symphony orchestra, maybe even “Faith”, but surely not this lot. Does he really need to re-record “John And Elvis Is Dead”?
On the plus side is that nobody will be ragging em with comparisons and… well “The Sound Of Music” wasn’t simply miscast it was nearly impossible to cast; a true classic so indelibly in the pop consciousness that the entire thing felt like artistic vandalism.
Rockstar – A Great Big World – Written before they hit it big, this is a very good song about tempting to daydream about a future yet to be realized, a self-portrait waiting to come true and the meaning of success if there is one: “Take a ticket and get on the line..” Which they did – B+
From the martial beats to open the album to the agit-prop declaiming “Osama Bin Laden As Crucified Christ” (“You’re gonna hang”), the lead singing changing her gender to a woman hasn’t changed Against Me! that much. A mixed blessing but on the best songs, a definite blessing. The re-recording “Fuckmylife666” sounds great – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – B+
