Any time Aretha Franklin is in town is a must see date for all concerned, and when she is playing Radio City Music Hall as she is on this Friday, there is no reason at all not to go and spent some time for this greatest of singers and excellent on stage performer.
Bonnie Portmore – The Rails – aka Richard and Linda Thompson’s kid Kami and her husband James Walbourne singing an old Irish folk song about saving the forest or something. Their voices mesh very nicely on this oldie which dates back to 1976… so yeah even older than papa – A-
Anyway, I’ve been going to Arena shows for the past coupla months and I can’t help feeling it is time to get back to the rock club and I love Cameo Gallery despite it being in Brooklyn. Trust me folks, live Gross Ghost are gonna kill it here
Jann and filmmaker/cinematographer Yael Shulman. Using guerrilla techniques, the two (plus a production assistant) carried Yael’s camera and tripod, Jann’s guitar, and a change of clothes in New York City subways, starting near the Bronx
A huge improvement, that may be the best concert first four songs Neil has ever played, and what’s better for the audience, he didn’t drop a song, indeed he also played “Birds” and the first set was 12 songs instead of 10 songs.
Loser – Governor’s Ball – What are these guys thinking of? After the disastrous early June Randall’s Island festival last year, with Friday a complete disaster (Best Coast best quote: “This fucking sucks”), and a doubling up on the headliner on Saturday which lead to overcrowding plus a nightmare of mud and ruined shoes, they have the audacity to try it again in 2014
However, worth noting that MTV posted seven reasons Newman is gonna blow up here on January 9th, 2014 and I called him my pick to click here on November 27th, 2013
Janie Jones – The Clash – On the list of greatest songs forever, the Clash looks at 1960s party girl scandal girl and wonders what it has done to do with the 9 to 5 world; political sleight of hand let’s them know – A+
It is one thing to claim that Neil Young was being a dick at a concert when he really wasn’t, it is another thing to claim Speaker of the House John Boehner was being a dick when he really wasn’t
We are dealing with the album we want, 1974’s Gunfight At Carnegie Hall and if there is anything other than irony on “I Ain’t Marching Any More” being followed by “Okie From Muskogee” I can’t hear it. I don’t dislike Och’s version but I don’t really care one way or the other
I believe Jack and his family are back in town and to make things better, his band are back in town with a return engagement at “Don’t Tell Mama’.
Imagine Dragons is very specifically a band I am interested in purely on an anthropological basis: they are as far from a band I like as possible, they are, how you say Styx like in my distaste for them though I do find their use of beats peculiar and effective
Love Child – Diana Ross And the Supremes – A bastards story but also a Motown classic, sends me back to the back of my dad’s Jag on a Sunday afternoon driving back from Blackpool – A+
The stories, the album, is unthreatening and yet steady through its positive force. It attacks nobody but remains true to its vision of a world where opportunities for both girls and boys are blossoming and people are free to be who they are.
I am about as miserable as you’d expect and suffering from a terrible cold, all in all my I would be hard pressed to be much further down. The frigid temperature suits my mood (not to mention my writing abilities the past couple of days).
Gov’s Ball line up was something else last year, from GNR and KoL to, yes folks, the first appearance of Kanye and his Yeezus. Along with the best of many genres (ecept country) including folk, indie and EDM . Alt-J, the xx and Icona Pop, garcy Clarke Jn, Fucked Up and Best Coast… outrageously excellent line up. So, yeah, sight unseen I’d go again.
So maybe it won’t be the best concert I’ll ever see by Aretha, but it will be Mid January (the 17 th) and a Friday and Radio City Music Hall and the Queen Of Soul. Sounds like a must see to me.
So OK, I went 50-50 on Perry and Gaga, I didn’t think PRISM was dead a duck and it isn’t and I didn’t thing Artpop was dead as a duck and it is dead a duck. I don’t see why Gag doesn’t pull out “Gypsy” it has hit single written all over it
It is January 9th and nothing has happened in the world except “Frozen” is the fourth animated soundtrack to reach the top of the Billboard 200. It follows Jack Johnson’s “Curious George” (2006), and Disney’s “Pocahontas” (1995) and “The Lion King” (1994). One of which is actually good.
Wow, this has aged well… actually this has improved, The Steve Stills sample is superb and PE’s target, the corrupt and corrupting world of basketball (Biggie connected it to selling crack some 20 years ago) is a dangerous target… great movie as well – A
Perhaps I was right but the Phish effect didn’t survive a lousy concert last December where all the good will they’d accrued went out the window and I remembered exactly why I’d been born sick of them for decades on end.
The problem with a Superbowl buy is however memorable it is, nobody will remember a week from now. They are much better off spending their money judicially. But, of course, this is about impressing their backers, though why wasting money would embrace anybody is beyond me.
This is parody not satire, placing it in the past loosens it up to be a politically incorrect as hell and while Will always manages to end up a sweetheart, he really isn’t normal at all.
Iz you Down – Kid Ink, Tyga – Kid Ink is pretty good but Tyga remains a major annoyance, the two don’t rap well together and while the beats are good somebody forgot a memorable chorus – C
Wandering around the stage, touching his guitars, he seems to be thinking about his musical history, really from around 1966 – 1972 and playing it at the same time.Last night was the first of a four night stand and rumor has it he will be playing different sets each night. I hope not.
A modern soul practitioner who understands how to put together a modern disco album with an overwhelmingly powerful blue eyed soul voice on top. It might not do more than provide pop licks and digs, but who will do it better in 2014? – A
Half-Life exists in a place similar to Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy, it is where spoken word and experimentation meets the discipline of song writing and recording. Co-written with Doncker, these tracks play with genre’s to exercise Marla in pursuit of a vision one half self involved and one half global
Wrecking Ball was a fair to middling album that acted a little too big for its britches with its all its got debts no answer man can pay repeated over and over again for an hour of heavy handed rock and folk.
Perseverance pays off for Ellie, who is playing MSG at some point this summer and was pretty good the only time I’ve seen her to date -opening for Katy Perry! The rest of this list is up to nothing much but it could be worse.
I’ve got few problems with this chart, I mean it is what it is, right? Nice to see the excellent “Timber” at the top of the charts and while there are a coupla dogs here, mostly it isn’t that bad. Not the worst way to jump start 20140
Harvest Moon – Neil Young – An answer song to not “Harvest” but “Heart Of Gold” where the heart is found and has been lived with for many a long year – A-
It seems as though for once and perhaps the only time, music can’t seem to help. I go back to Aretha Franklin and I wish I had a copy of that February 17th, 2012 concert at Radio City where Aretha mourned her Goddaughter Whitney Houston.
Her mother is performance artist Marla Mase and the Tomas Doncker Band plays back up and if that wasn’t reason enough to check her out Wednesday night at the Cutting Room, then how about this? This is the release party for her excellent Burden To Bear debut album.
Yes folks, money attracts money and rock stars have money and the GOP will tax em less so that leaves rock stars between wanting to look like Bob Dylan but be taxed like General Electric.
Billy Joel sucked in the New Year but the Icons Of Funk made up for it in the middle of a blizzard where Bernie Worrell gave a keyboard performance we will never forget.Still on Worrell, Tomas Doncker woke me to Worrell’s superb Elevation (The Upper Air) album, released in November.
This is so slow that Stephen Malkmus, who I haven’t much cared for since Wowee Zowee and whose Pavement reunion a couple of years ago was a huge disappointment, is my pick of the week. I’ve streamed it and apparently moving to Berlin hasn’t changed a damn thing.
Bridge Over Troubled Water – Aretha Franklin – I saw Franklin perform this the day after Whitney Houston died, February 17th, 2012 at Radio City Music Hall and it was superior to this take but not by much. Both are Gospel, but the pain that night is something only real grieving can match – A
All their Cadence material is a must but more than that, so many songs: “Cathy’s Clown”, “Till I Kissed You”, “Wake Up Little Suzy”… on and on, they are the lexicon of rock love songs.
Martin trusts us enough not to make us choke on the moral, he assumes we realize that people’s lives have been destroyed by this repulsive monster and his cohorts greed, just as Wall Street is destroying the US. But he glamorizes what he despises and in the end it is just, well, a decadent bore.
I know you think it should be Neil Young but my feeling is John Newman is gonna be brilliant on Thursday at Bowery Ballroom. Completely sold out of course, but that’s because everybody is ready for the new soul rebel who has fronted a couple of Rudimental’s best song and whose own album is about to release Stateside.
The extended guitar intro is excellent, the groove points directly backwards to Young Americans even as it seems to jumpstart itself into a world of cocain addiction, fascist dream and insanity, and, hey, I am happy to hear it twice – A
“Nothing is until it is and then after it is then it is” is how Pee wee Ellis, the saxophonist with the James Brown Revue once put it and at BB King’s the Icons Of Funk, JB Horn trumpeter Fred Wesley, Meter Guitarist Leo Nocentelli and Parliament-P-Punk keyboard player Bernie Worrell put the question of when what is is to the test
. Last year, the Summerstage preview consisted of Shuggie Otis, who went on to enjoy a first rate year, Joshua Nelson who was all over the Mahalia Jackson tribute and DJ Kool Herc, and, as I am sure we all remember, 2013 was the 40th anniversary of the birth of hip hop; the theme of 2013. So now it is 2014 and the theme? Glad you asked because my bet is the theme will be the 75th Anniversary of Blue Notes records.
I was expecting something way out there, but for all her poetics and rage against the terrible childhood: this is mainstream hip hop and a little better with a good rapper and singer and a sometimes excellent lyricist.
My bet: everything else notwithstanding, I bet they’ll settle their difference and tour. … two miserable old men doing it for the money, perhaps. But it is a lot of money and if they perform “Harry Rag” I will personally flip out.
On March 31st (a Monday) Black Sabbath are performing at Barclay Center and I must admit, the years have mellowed me. Not only did I appreciate “Is God Dead?”, I also loved oldies like “Ironman” -possibly heavy metals most heavily metal song of them all.
John Newman I am very ecited to be seeing on Thursday (and the album is dropping Stateside this month), and Bernie Worrell was new to me but not the rest of the world. But new to everybody is Angel Haze’s excellent new album, a pop triumph that might actually break pop.
I Don’t Eat Animals – Melanie Safka – This is the “Brand New Key” chick all grown up, and with the same strange voice somewhere between nursery rhyme and razorblade; no wonder Moz loves her – B
New Year’s Eve At The Gates Of Hell – Ray Wylie Hubbard – Back in the day, young Steve Crawford bonded over this instantaneous classic as Ray wonders what he did to deserve this before noting that God outsources to the devil -Amen, I say – A
He may well be a great storyteller but he isn’t a great stylist and his metaphors are banal and obvious and therefore he isn’t a great novelist and this is so far from being a great novel as to be, indeed, a very ordinary one.
