Former Bounce drummer Larry Lachman has front row seats. Me? I have last row seats. But we are both seeing Tom Petty at the Beacon Theater. Last Thursday in Evansville was opening night and so i took a study of the setlist. Meh. Lots of Full Moon Fever but so much other stuff is missing, No “Listen To her Heart” for one. And absolutely no “Don’t Do Me Like That”. Still, there i’ll be in the nosebleeds on Thursday evening – ok? alright…
George and son Bubba are down from 7 to 4 songs they wrote themselves here, but if you can get over that this is another superb album. Nothing stretches here, everything is part of the same world as it has been all century, with Tony Brown co-producing and a mix of hardcore troubadour ballads and swinging country hootenannys. It is so effortless it is easy to take for granted, so don’t take the great man for granted – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A
40% of this comes directly from one of the best shows of the year and 20% of another of the best shows. Of the latter, Cheri Dahl’s cover of the 1979 Kinks song was better than the original. It wasn’t that I didn’t KNOW the song, it wasn’t that I didn’t REMEMBER it!
Hayley Williams who, watching it start to slip away three years ago, stopped and regrouped. Headlining Hammerstein (and not for the first time by any stretch), gone is self-puffery and Gwen Stefan self-delusion.
while it would be hard pressed to be lamer than the 1970s movie of “A Little Night Music” starring Liz Taylor, the cast seems equally ridiculous so who knows?.
There are always more five years old and the Wiggles, who started in 1991, and write consistently and consistently catchy nursery rhyme rock songs (always start with the chorus!) are still a hit making machine
The Nas song is a surprise and only one from Vampire weekend and George Strait:?I know there is more in the wings. I am not much of a Satriani fan but that is a very good song and Boz couldn’t sell the Willy de Ville song in concert but he can on record. Flo and Mariah the first two songs of summer
Have seen their readership fall off by a whopping 50%. Now what can that mean? Hypebot think that the likes of the Hype Machine have taken over. The Hype Machine takes the most popular songs on 1500 websites and posts them. Creator Anthony Volodkin said “I couldn’t believe there were people wasting their time writing about music”. The good news is that pretty soon streaming will sink The Hype Machine.
Comparing Paul Simon to Ezra Koenig seems to make the case for devolution. However great Vampire Weekend are, can they compete with Paul Simons first three solo albums? As good as “Ya Hey” is, the song is too busy. They lack simplicity, easy Simon’s “Peace Like A River” is simple and complicated at the same time, Christgau dubbed it : “William Carlos Williams after the repression”.
Ezra being Jewish is as important to “Cousins” as Paul Simon’s Jewishness matters to “Run That Body Down” but it is so central to Modern Vampires it is reverse Antisemitism to ignore it. Certainly, the Jew as blood sucker is a huge “Elders Of Zion” slur and comes back here in almost a gay/faggot trope.
Ryan overstates the case for Vampire Weekend, and he conflates Ezra’s existential crises into a serious philosophy. But fear of dying is nothing of the sort
Four hours of pornography in soft and hardcore versions is what I’ve heard. There are lines, right? Well, apparently not and even if there is, Gainsbourg, her mother and her father’s child, appears to have done a pretty good job of crossing them
When you think of classic rock bands in 2013 you are discussing Nickelback on one hand or Tom Petty on the other but Superchunk and Spider Bag are classic in a different way: they are like that rush of late 1970s early 1980s punk morphing into new wave rock bands.
I’ll give it two out of three. “Rose Tattoo” has a great vocal performance by young Bruce and the second verse is a real keeper. The song is not a classic but this version has all the passion it needs to make it real.
“Take off your shoes, put down your hair, turn on the music and we’ll get somewhere…” now those are words to live by, aren’t they? Presley advises us to dance dance dance meanwhile, in anticipation of the eagerly awaited DFA 12th Anniversary next Saturday, check out Holy Ghost 8 minutes of pure disco rhythms . A huge follow up to their album.
Early on I knew we were in trouble when a stand out from Memphis, Willy Deville’s excellent “Mixed Up Shook Up Girl” stalled on him. The band are being held back, everything felt it was being held back, and the lovely calypso bottom failed to hold
I quite like it in someways, except when it infects albums that might be worth a longer look, but for the most part this high speed clip and dip works real well.
Congratulations to two of my fave albums of the last week, Lady Antebellum’s Golden is pretty darn chilling and Rod SStewart has his highest chart placement of original material since -ta dah- BLONdES HAVE MORE FUN!!! And Time is a much better album than the 1979 doggo el doggo.
Selena’s most generic song is also her most popular, it is a well oiled dance machine frothingaway with no readon and no purpose except this very moment of cheer pleasure. It should be huge for her!
Sarah has a beautiful voice, always had, she has zero taste in material though and that hasn’t changed, meanwhite Hayley is this year’s model and Demi is better than you thought she would be. We’re hoping to get Tomas for the next rock nyc live show.
I performed my civic duty today and voted for the Summerstage App. Not only does it save the city and by the city I mean YOU money, it also connects the city with the most skilled of our entrepreneurs and gives a lucky person the opportunity to have their app used by many people
God was guilty of nothing, God was innocent because he didn’t know what it was to be human. This lead directly to God becoming part human and Jesus. The God of the New Testament was Guilty of knowledge. The moment he became human God became guilty of the sin of knowledge. He knew how we felt.
I think it hasn’t mattered less since the birth of jazz in the 1910s. The roaring ‘20s through the 1950s jazz was integrally the sound of the States and the sound of America, eaten up by rock and roll in the late 50s and rolled over by MTV.
What a meeting of generations, what an imagine for us all. It makes you hope there is a life after death just Winston O’Boogie can listen in!
It should have been cut by around half an hour but it doesn’t really flag much and in the scenes with the kid Downey does the difficult, he maintains his credibility in what could have been awfully treacly bit of business.
Yeah, new songs hit the rock nyc charts! Pusha T and #Beautiful are now on spotify, the Doors rarities is a blast especially this rollicking take. But the day belongs to Nas who provides a Reggae enthused r&b single where he ain’t there.
It might not be illegal, or even immoral but taking the etymology of a song off a press release and not stating it… It is certainly pathetic. Oh and Pitchfork hire Vampire Weekend to play at their Festivals and then assign their Senior Editor to review them. You can’t trust these guys. I bet they cheated on their SATS.
After swearing I was gonna pass on the Tom Petty Beacon Theater residency and even writing an entire post about how I would not be shelling out a fortune to a bandit with a website for brokered tickets in a post here, I changed my mind and went the bucks
It is obvious, of course, particularly since I shouted out Vampire Weekend by mistake last week: George Strait is the man to beat. Last time round he was writing with his son and there was more original material than usual with a mighty fine album. Let’s hope this one is as good. Otherwise a new Eve (!) , Demi Lovato. the Fall and a quarter of Abba.
The Pistol Annies song sounds like just straight up Loretta Lynn style slapdown , but the break gooes all wonky. Everything off the upcoming Doncker is really awesome. And both Del Lords and Deerhunter are the best on their respective albums.
Sins appeared as the MC in a production of “Cabaret” last year but the only thing left from that spooked performance is the self-confident delivery and the smarts to actually sing some of the music, really letting us hear what he is talking about.
Listening to the mix today, it sounds like in-jokes and variants in the same place and and… “what I was seeing wasn’t what was happening at all but for awhile our paths did seem to climb.”
Everything else i stuff and nonsense, even the story of leaving his Grandpa in poverty begs the question, why is his Grandfather not calling out Bieber’s parents because you know damn well both of them are cashing in.
Alison Moyet, the 1980s pop singer from Yaz, is the template from which Adele is drawn, and not Amy Winehouse, is a jazzier and more 1950s influenced singer. That’s one reason Amy was such a good match with Tony Bennett and Adele certainly wouldn’t be. The new Moyet album is tough meat, indeed.
Oh my, the attack of the EDM pop song, what Black Eyed Peas have created takes over the UK singles with 80% of this chart DJs fronted by pop singers. Van Buuren, Harris and Guetta have owned the UK charts for two years now
more like “A prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.” You can’t believe your buddy can be so good. This is Doncker’s greatest vocal performance, a harsh whisper of roaring sexuality and aggression. He will be performing it at Summer Stages “Diablo Love”.
we remembered “Moulin Rouge”, we saw the coming attractions and we thought Baz Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby” was gonna be this big gauzy hyper-musical version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s roaring Twenties novel. In 3D no less. Well, we were had
I would not be a rock critic without the Sex Pistols, I would not be alive without Elvis Costello. Some albums shake you to your foundations, they change you in some fundamental way the way a death in the family or a love affair gone wrong can change you
OK, it’s a slow day and I am really really late so how about some gossip right? What else is Sundays for. Off gigwise, contact, you know, the usual suspects…
As a complete non-believer in the Dixie Chicks, this solo album by their lead singer is a vocal tour to force from a whisper to a screami though settled in mid-tempo. Hitting its stride by the very first song, the Eddie Vedder cover “Without You” and reaching its apotheosis on Jeff Buckley’s “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over”, the latter the cover song of the year. And if the rest of this fine alt rock album is as good, all of it is pretty damn good – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A
rock nyc’s first foray into concert presentations is a small gig at 54 Crosby Street Storefront, starring the wonderful rock and roller, the finely voiced, passionate in every single thing she does Cheri Dahl. Needless to add, I love Cheri’s music or I wouldn’t have recommend her to start with. If you wanna be a part of this evening buy a ticket now! http://rocknyc-forswinginglovers.eventbrite.com/#
All of these are 2013 releases, 8 of them from Tuesday, and what they prove, more or less, is how average albums can include killer tracks if you have the patience to find them. And it also proves you can’t go wrong if you stick Badu on your track. Erykah is performing at Governor’s Ball and she is an essentially viewing!
“To The Last “sounds like pop by a soulful robot with a vocoder distorting the sounds, “Klavierwerk” is hyperventilating ambience and the strobes make you worry you’re gonna have a seizure any moment. It is lively and enliving music but it is a bore to watch.
While I didn’t like High Flying Bird all that much, many people did, and I did love Noel’s first three albums tons and to be honest I envy him the ability to do nothing
Justin Timberlake and David Bowie released surprised albums simultaneously just about two months ago. Timberlake is at # 3 in the charts. Bowie? # 98. Absolutely, Bowie’s album was not as listener friendly but that notwithstanding, he did no publicity for it at all. No concerts, no interviews, an occasional quote and that’s it. A couple of videos and the story was over. We don’t, we never have, lived in a world where you could success without self-promotion and audience manipulation. Has anybody ever made more money out of claiming to be bi-sexual? Apparently, Bowie doesn’t have to play the game any longer, he just has to play the price.
It seems to me that Maines s the album to beat this week, I tremendous tour de force vocally and emotionally. Meanwhile, the Lonely Island is one of their smartest parodies, Lady Antebellum are now two for wo on the newbie, Rod’s best on his terrific new album and Mariah might have the song of the summer.
All the Bustas are due toe electric Soul gig, and the Petty next thursdy night at the Beacon, but meeting Debbie Harry Thursday night? Now there is a woman for all ages and please excuse me while I sing along one more time: “KEEP THE BEER”!!
Wandering around the reception,which overflowed from Marc Jacobs very lovely Lower West Side Bleeker Street corner Bookmarc onto the cobblestones surrounding it, it was something of a thrill to see so many of the photographers who filled the publications from the Soho News to the East Village Eye to New York Rocker
” Songwriting’s never been a natural art for me; it’s always been a bit of a struggle. I just thought it had got up and left me.” Which makes it especially a pleasure to hear Stewart sing a remembrance of himself past like “this scruffy beat up working class teenage troubadour
This isn’t just star power, it is a circus of fun and providing the opening salvos will be wordspot and the Illest, young but old school rappers of the first order; Lauriana Mae, Jazz and R&B vocalist and roots rocker Alexandra & The Starlight Band.
