Iman Lababedi

It’s less scary to me than if he wanted to be a dentist in that I couldn’t help with what he’d chosen

You can see my quandary, right? Two unmissable concerts on the same night. I am writing this the day before and posting it the day after, but I am going to call Roulette and hope Laura goes on 9pm or later and see as much of Jack as I can possibly manage. Laura’s new album (released yesterday, so this is the release party) will probably be the best of the year. But Phillips was in the top ten from last year. Every song on this list will blow you away, but “Goodbye To England” is among my favorite songs of all time.

Gone is the hungover amnesia framing device of the first two movies, this time the Wolf Gang , Brad Cooper, Ed Helms and the one who always goes kidnapped are on the way to rehab after Alan (Zach) goes off his meds and the one who always gets kidnapped gets kidnapped

This is manufactured good times but then so is a skateboard, more than any other band around 1D do what they are meant to do: they are a product manufactured by Simon Cowell but with a certain amount of self-confidence and inherent charm.

No doubt, Laura Marling is the one to beat and I wouldn’t be the slightest surprised to discover it is the best album of 2013 after hearing just two songs. But it looks like a modern classic of a week: Polyphonic Spree, Tricky, the Stranglers,. Plus: the Rolling Stone “5 Star” new Fogerty. New? Re-recordings of the classics with stars, sorta B+ listers, like Bob Seger and Foo Fighters. I agree, RS are probably wrong but David Fricke wrote it so who knows.

:The long weekend is over but the songs remain the same! Three by Yacht! Plus new shoutouts: “Burn the motherfucker down”, “who needs breaks when it’s all downhill from here?” “graveling, gravelly groans”. A pretty good weekend music wise!

The UK charts are always a quick study in bands I don’t know. It is here I first heard of Emilie Sande, Olly Murs, and quite a few others. Emmilie De Forest? Folkie. Chris Malinchak EDM. Naught Boy r&B. Hope that helps.

The new Texas is excellent and it is always a pleasure to hear from the band, my old pal Johhny Mcelhone and his wife Sharleen Spiteri have lost nothing much. I notice “Detroit City”, Ramona’s old track, is here. Meanwhile, Daft Punk continue to rule the world with the UKs most populr best selling album of 2013.

Six of these songs are from Saturday/Sunday morning’s DFA’s anniversary gig and all are excellent and all are better live but especially “Dystopia” which I kinda wish I had taped so I could hear it instead of the original. Though the proceedings were being taped so maybe DFA will beat me to it.

The good news is that Alice’s greatest hits filled setlist could’ve come at just about any post- Welcome To My Nightmare period, the bad news is so could the special effects and the good news is that the cheesiness of Cooper’s special effects are part of the charm

I know Jack Phillips pretty well and so have been privy to the arrangements leading up to his performance Tuesday night at Don’t Tell Mamas, and it has been exhaustive. But this is a major concert and Phillips will have a band accompany his performance of songs off Cafe Nights In New York as well as songs from the American Standards songbook. Let’s hope he decides to give us “I Remember You And Paris.

“Don’t sell your soul for the beans of this world,” the last Dancehall master standing advises on “One Life”. He shoulda told that to his contemporary Buju but maybe he did as this is Sizzla’s 70th (as in SEVENTY) album. More of the same, smooth calypso like reggae rhythms and throaty vocals while the Bobo Shanti subscribers preaches. Amazingly enough, this is near perfect reggae – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A-

Begun and ended with songs from the Alkaline Trio, the Lawrence Arms tracks is completely new to me but added to “Crawl” Friday night, it rocked my world. Aaron and Jack both have concerts next week. And in between the deep album cuts which are a gift for writing a weekly album review column.

Vampire Weekend actually have three songs that could appear on this list at any given time, “Unbelievers” is the third. As for The National, I only got it Thursday morning so it is bubbling somewhere in the back of my pleasure zone but hasn’t worked its way all the way there. Holy Ghost! tonight as part of the all night DFA Records celebrations by the by.

While casually charming us to death here at rock nyc central, the MTV reality star proceeded to advise she had signed for another season of “Ridiculousness” and would be spending the summer on the Lil Wayne tour. All of which is well and good but to go home schooled at fifteen and manage to network yourself into a career by nineteen. And be lovely and not and all a diva. A winner in my book.

I am seriously looking forward to seeing Neville live. I think I’ve seen him before doing a couple of songs with Linda Ronstadt but otherwise this is the first time ever and I really love his voice. But this is really all about Petty and the return of the rock and roll star knocking the Beacon on its collective keister.

If it was just Kelly I would go with Aaron if only because I already have a ticket for Aaron. But The-Dream is the closest thing we have to Babyface in 2013 and I really really want to check him out

I will have conducted my interview with Chanel West Coast by the time you read this, but as of now, I just have the videos of these two songs. She raps pretty I’ve seen a video of Chanel straight up rapping over beats and she was excellent. On the other hand, the last two tracks are songs my Mom, who died in 2010, used to sing to me . Florrie Ford is British Dancehall, I don’t know whpo the other guy is.

Despite the terrible movie name, this Star Trek does no more and no less than it sets out to, keep the franchises alive while letting us giggle over the Muppet Babies

Christgau gave the Vamps an A+, so you gotta think, right? But congratulate them for me if you don’t mind. And George is in at # 2 and he deserves it. Husband and wife team for the last two and you might notice that some acts have worst grades this week than least. That’s how it goes in 2013

So 20 years after daft Punk changed the face of dance they get their first # 1? How? By goign back to 1979 and riding a Niles Rodgers lick for six minutes and more power to them. That’s how we do it and it makes as much sense to me as the sound of the click on a Moroder song

With the exception of the Mabel Mercer and Bobby Short duet which makes Paul Simon swinged not stoned in 1968, the two big surprises are the brackets, Jay-Z’s excellent rap on an average The-Dream track and the Weeknd full on soul in French Montana’s average rap track.

The Heartbreakers are such a great band that I might very well be wrong , hearing these old pros jam together could well be a revelation, it could well be a Southern Crazy Horse. Or it could be a tremendous bore.

Two upcoming concerts are must sees in my books. Michael Buble at the Prudential on September 28th and Tony Bennett at Radio City at Radio City on October 11th.

Personally, I’m disappointed in the Daft Punk album. Both Casablancas and Williams have written superior songs than these, Williams obviously, but the Julian track is as good as a lesser number on his solo album. As for the Doors, still in mourning. B.o>B. is pretty good, minor stuff but it does the job And finally, who though Darius Rucker would beat out Keith Urban?

Obviously, Daft Punk is gonna be the big seller, but Christopher Paul Stelling, the brilliant folk singing who builds his own guitars, is the one I have the highest hopes for, especially after hearing “Brick x Brick” . Elsewhere… the Nationals and Darius Rucker look like keeper to me.

Alkaline Trio are because a) I just watched “The Muppets Movie” and b) I am going to see em on Friday. Tom Petty is a highlight from an iffy setlist, the mess of “A”s #5 – # 9 are all new releases and Johnny Taylor reminds me of a disco band that used to cover it in a Beirut club called “Venus”.

A terrible singalong moment: “I have soul but I’m not a soldier”. They might as well be singing “I’m in tune but I l’m not a tuna”.

I panned the Lovato album but I’ll giver her the benefit of the doubt on the single, which is power pop dance style. But the surprise is Chris Malenchak’s superb lover’s rock meets dance and whoever wrote that bass line that opens the song should be signed.

20 year old Gabrielle Alpin is a talented enough singer songwriter and she is cuter than Bobby Gillipsie hence the picture but while yet to be release Stateside, an early stream off Youtube suggest the Primal Scream album is an epic rocker in a league with XTRMNTR.

This is a good list, it opens with the Killers best song and continues with Paramore’s best song then two great songs off the excellent new George Strait album, along with a terrific remix by Guetta and four songs, all good stuff though not all released, by four bands I want to play the rock nyc presents gigs.