Things got weird with Man or Astro-Man?, tender with Dengue Fever and wilder with Hanni El Khatib. Birth Defects put the stage on fire, Three Common invited everyone to join them on stage, and Corners’ set was a crowd surfing party… I wanted the festival to last at least a week, I was just getting in the rhythm after these three days! See you next year…
The Romanovs, with their own brand of “pre-classic rock, ‘re-imagined” made for some stand out gems last night. ‘Be Mir Bist Du Schon’ and ‘Honey Don’t’ had the audience on their feet and dancing up a storm. Los Angeles scenester John Mendelssohn’s brilliantly arranged music with the combined talents of guitarist Pete Castle (aka The Ledge) and bassist Kirk Henry brought the house down.
Second day at Echo Park Rising, and still the same problem with an overwhelming choice of bands to see…. I still didn’t have a strategy and I randomly picked a few places, trying to concentrate on the main stage at the end of the day, but having this constant fear of missing out feeling! I think I even attended a FOMO festival in the past, and that should be the appellation for all of them.
Each year, I get the impression that Echo Park Rising is growing by amazing proportions! The free festival now spreads over three days with hundreds, yes hundreds, of bands playing in a dozen of different locations. How do you cover such an event? You don’t, because you can’t… on Friday I did count about 80 musical acts playing at the Echo, Echoplex, inside and outside the Taix restaurant, at Lot 1, Origami Vinyl,… I am not delusional, I can’t cover such an event by myself, so instead of trying to run a marathon I would never be able to finish, I decided to concentrate on a few bands playing on Liberty Street Main stage, at the Echo and the Echoplex, all located in the same area of Sunset boulevard.
METZ is another band playing at the FYF Fest this year. I have seen them several times but I want to catch them again as their shows are always an empowering experience with the ghost of Nirvana floating above their explosive sound. I saw them for the first time in 2012 at the Echo and this was my experience at the time:
On record, Earl Sweatshirt is all dark lyricism and hard vibrating beats, he rhymes his way through life and, not unlike pal Tyler, is like a rhyming diary of problems, including his health. He rescheduled this Best Buy concert from April to this Saturday due to health problems, but who would cash in their ticket when they could see one of the primary rhymers in the country? The man is one of the best, up there with his buddy Chance The Rapper, and this is a must see.
All night-long, her weird howls soared and crashed into intimate whispers of a vulnerable beauty, then rose again into a wall of thunder over wobbling keys and shuffling drums. Even the slower tunes such as ‘Gemini’ or ‘Dunes’ were intense, and she held the audience at the tip of each of her screams, while making strong facial expressions, sweeping the sweat from her eyebrows between songs.
Alabama Shakes were fantastic last night, I could only see Brittany Howard from where I was, and I feel sorry for the rest of her excellent band but that’s all I needed to see. She was a force, a fury, commanding the stage like a rock star, and the public was responding to each of her howls with cheers and claps with cheers and claps in a way I have rarely witnessed at a concert.
Helen Bach called me to announce she was after Henry Rollins for another interview. Alright by me but if ever a guy seemed to have places to say whatever he wanted to say, that man is Rollins. Personally, I appreciated the first interview he did with us but if Helen wants to double down, so be it. I will say one more thing: I tend to be closer to his opinion about Barack Obama in 2015 than I am to my own in 2012. I would love to hear his take on the Nuclear T
The line up is a little slack so that may explain the lack of a sell out, the rule of thumb is if you can’t get even one former member of Swedish House Mafia, you’ve got a problem.
So, to go or not to go? Well, there is only to go, of course. This is an absolute must see, especially after the fear Art wouldn’t sing again and years of rehabbing the pipes, this is a very thrilling thing.
Marchelle had dropped a bit of her murder ballad attitude, but she was still super hot, with her impeccable blonde brushing, black leather fringe jacket and high heels western boots, and her so-called ‘Junkyard country’ turned to be a bit more hopeful and less dark than last time, with gospelic back-up vocals
“Whether a teenager is writing music, identifying with lyrical and musical themes, or dancing wildly at a live show, the cathartic experience provides a channel for expressing and dealing with a wide range of emotions. A shared love of music gives those in the group a common interest and a basis for friendship, which has many potential emotional benefits (Livestrong, 2013).
Savages is one of the numerous bands playing at FYF Fest in 2 weeks. I don’t know if I will have the opportunity to see them, there are about 60 bands to catch in 2 day, but the all-female band left a strong impression on me when I had the chance to catch attend their show at the El Rey, two years ago… These girls were dark, aggressive, and a bit authoritarian? They actually scared me a bit…
The stage was filled with lights, and the stands were filled with smiles!!!! All I did was scream and dance. When we left my legs were killing me, no wonder. Some of the designs on the stage were like doodles, and there were so many lights…it was an amazing balance of creativity and this might be a different point of view, calmness. i thought that some of their songs were calm. When we all started screaming that got them going.
Since the FYF fest is approaching, let’s revisit a few acts that I have seen before and may see again during this very busy weekend… Dinosaur Jr. is playing at one point and I may catch their set, the set times are not published yet, and if they play at the same time than Jesus and Mary Chain, Thee Of Sees or Metz for example, the choice is gonna be hard to make…
At Hearst Plaza, it is the Familial that comes closest. The reason it worked better for me here than at City Winery was because the environment was conducive for songs about home and family and nature, -whether or not the songs were specifically happy, they were of a place and a way and time, compassionate and sharing.
(I had been a huge Brad Paisley fan since seeing him open for Loretta Lynn at the Town Hall in 1999, that was a couple of months before his debut album was released. I clearly remember going to the Tower Records on West 4th Street to buy it the day it was released. But here I am, ten years later, and things have changed.
Dwight Yoakam gave us quite an arena show on Saturday night, with a long set of honky-tonk and rock songs, putting some rhinestone in country, literally, as his denim vest was decorated with a sparkling music notes on the back and each member of his band was shining in black sparkling vests.
The first thing they mentioned was Billy Zoom’s absence because of his cancer treatment, ‘He’s gonna be good,’ said John Doe with a firm confidence. Jessie Dayton, a regular in the John Doe Band, was filling in for Zoom and the band sounded as authentic as ever. They were selling some ‘Support Billy Zoom’ shirts to help him get on his feet again but the mood of the show was definitively optimistic as they were browsing their large catalogue of punk anthems.
It must be extremely difficult to write for dance while remaining true to yourself, Wainwright does it. The entire evening was a tribute to people working together and how the low brow rock culture and high brow world of a ballet share a common ground in the art of empathy.
The whole show seemed like a repetitive explosion of rainbows, with multicolor lights reverberating in the fog, giving us some kaleidoscopic visions and the tie-dye ambiance of the 70’s, but at the same time there was nothing nostalgic in Tame Impala’s show, it was as modern as it was electronic, and the vocals were so deep in the mix you couldn’t discern them from the rest of the expanding and layered sound
Kenny Chesney has in the past and Jason Aldean might get me be to Madison Square Garden separately, but both together will get me to Metlife, which they’ve come close to selling out so you gotta think mainstream country fans embrace the wacko and the wannabe, and hard. I am not sure Jason is ready for Arena rock but Kenny? Yeah, Kenny is ready for his close up and on a Saturday… ps doubles as a concept act for male strippers everywhere.
Every year, Australia rocks the pier at Santa Monica during their Twilight Concert Series, and this year DMA’s and Ben Browing were representing their country in the most eclectic way.
Half Odd Future and half Fool’s Gold, and really very very strong stuff, this is what I love to listen to when I listen to rap. It is a pretty good time for hip hop overall, the only problem I see is the constant gragging, at a certain point it sounds a little desperate to me.
If the Tao of 1D is indeed the fans, the fans were simply rapturous. The screams are still rinigng in my ears and the sight of young girls and their friends forging friendships that will last a life to songs that, well, probably won’t, is good enough a reason to applaud all concerned.
Ratatat is a band apart in this very crowded music world, they are not purely making electronic music, more rockelectronic, though they were part of Hard festival, among many more purely electronic to EDM acts… But the two guys seemed totally carefree about this, they sure are on their own road and have a sound of their own as they were about to demonstrate it to the crowd which was insanely sweating because the air conditioning system of the studio had just broken off.
Given all the way James Taylor’s life might have gone, his brother Alex, sweet baby James pop, died of a drug overdose decades ago, that James could have lived through it all and reached this place better than ever? It is a testament to the possibility that life may redeem you, if you’re lucky… not a bad description of James Taylor’s songs, either.
So a good, strange, long set. Laura is a major talent so maybe next time round everything she has planted here will make more sense to us. Till, then, watch out for the patterns, that’s God or Laura or both.
In 2015, nobody does a night of music like this better than SummerStage, this was a gift to New York City, for those of us who got in, and those of us who listened from just outside Rumsey Playfield, we will still love you tomorrow SummerStage.
while I enjoyed the first three songs from the photographers pit (we were given a draconian photo release to sign, and while I could care less, I might have cared if I made a living from it), the heat and the lack of interaction on instrumental dawdles put me to sleep the further away I got from the stage
The Jayhawks write giant hooks that intertwine with your memory cells forever. Take some of their most famous anthems that they played yesterday night, songs like ‘Blue’ or ‘Save It For A Rainy Day’, the vocal harmonies are to die for, and the melodies reveal a deep pop sensibility and sound as the love children of Neil Young, The Byrds and Elton John. The Jayhawks’ sound seems much older than the band really is, and this is a good thing in my book… But you have to wonder, how could they have been making this kind of music mid-90s when grunge was all the rage?
With one of the best albums of the year to his name, Before This World, you might be hoping for hits plus the newbie from Taylor, who sure knows how to shower the people with love and singalongs. But the setlist has been going deeper than usual with lost gems from Gorilla, Walking Man, October Road and That’s Why I’m Here, alongside “How Sweet It Is” and “You’ve Got A Friend”. I know what you’re thinking but you missed the word “gems”. The restroom break will be “Angels Of Fenway” at Forest Hills Stadium on Tuesday.
Little Richard’s influence is certainly there during ‘It Shook Me Up’ or ‘Everybody’s Talking ‘Bout The All-American’ for example, with some excited pounding keys, a droning bass and McPherson’s bright howl, but there is much more than influences, he sees his brand of rockabilly as a new punk form, it’s aggressive and fast, he jumps all over the place as he jumps all over decades of music history and this new-old sound becomes truly his.
And she reminded us that she wrote, released, and produced her album ‘because I am an independent artist’ she announced, with a don’t-mess-with-Texas attitude, although she is a Nashville girl! And in a few seconds, she gave us the essence of any good western country song, which is always about heartbreaks, taking too many pills, and cheating… ‘all the good things in life!’ she added.
He may be a New York transplant, but his great sensibility fits very well with Los Angeles landscapes. With songs such as ‘Encino’, ‘Miracle Mile’, his work is obviously imbued with the city of angels, that he described in an interview as ‘a garden surrounded by mountains on one side and ocean on the other’… ‘a mind-numbing, flat suburban wasteland where the weather never changes and time stands still’.
The question for a die hard fan like me is.. is this the English Beat? Dave Wakeling the only original member and there is still the UK Beat with Ranking Roger, we’re the children of this sad divorce. Wakeling gets custody of us Americans…or do we get custody of him?
Meloy was more than MC and engaged with the crowd in fun hand clapping games and sing back. You’d expect him to be shy but he was that nerdy guy that cracked the class up. The problem is I couldn’t hear a lot of what he was saying but.. I did here the following “hey yeah ok” and ‘chips and salsa’.
As for U2, they are going through the motions and letting the stage do their work for them and even so, when the song and the sound come together, tonight “I Will Follow”, “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, “Pride In The Name Of Love” and “Elevation”, they absolutely justify Tomas’ deep affection.
During the whole show they seemed to send lasers in the sky with a supersonic intensity, Tunde Adembimpe’s magnetic presence, David Sitek’s guitar drone and a funk-punk restless sound.
Young Fathers know from money problems, “G” Hastings was raised in the Drylaw housing estate (part of paradise postponed), and the sound is both very dark and very heavy: to really mix metaphors, it isn’t like Marijuana, it is like a hammer in a knife fight.
More or less, sure, who cares about the (sadly and aptly named) Gin Blossoms without Doug Hopkins, and the band never should have screwed him over so badly, but how are you gonna hear the songs otherwise? Also, Marshall Crenshaw had nothing but good things to say about Jesse Venezuela, with whom he had a smash hit with”Til I Hear It From You”. So forgive, forget, and enjoy an old miserable experience at BB Kings on Tuesday
Philadelphia native Hemming celebrated the release of her self-titled debut album at Hotel Cafe on Friday night, and she
The electronic duo is also a romantic duo, and their complicity was real live, her sensual lament, closer to sadness than simple melancholia, was haunting his desolated compositions, which were part electronic, part symphonic, sometimes even grand, with very emotional synthetic strings, an omnipresent bass-like sound and an occasional horn, sax or trumpet that he was playing with real instruments, recording loops and making them fade away with some computer manipulation.
Still, they put on a lively show with a lot of leg kicking by frontman and vocalist Chris Barron, who sure looked in excellent shape despite his gray hair and beard, looking like a more acrobatic version of Michael Stipe, thin and athletic, even making a cartwheel on stage!
Owl certainly has a very hard rock sound sometimes anchored in metal, sometimes soaring some real poppiness, but what does it mean when you consider all the categories and nuances that exist among these genres? But may be Owl doesn’t want to belong to a specific genre, as their music seemed to push boundaries inside its own vision.
July is Sonny Boy Thorn residency at the Satellite and Los Angelinos should check them out for free before
The set combined a fair number of songs from the new album, Song s of Innocence, with a nice mix of hits and obscurities. Among the latter were the first live version of “October” in about 25 years, played on the small stage with only Edge on keyboards.
Ben Ratliff in the New York Times claimed “Bono delivered speeches, interior dialogues and eventually pitches for his anti-poverty and AIDS prevention organizations, ONE and (RED). But the concert was an achievement, integrated and sure-footed”
The most anticipated concert of the year, even if, like me, you haven’t enjoyed much of anything they’ve recorded since 2000, even if that, seeing them in the relatively small confines of MSG is an honor. The last time I saw them at this venue,October 2001, the encore. “One” was accompanied by “a backdrop that scrolled the names of all the victims of the Sept 11 attacks, including lists of NYPD and NYFD casualties” (as Ben Walden put it). I’m going on Sunday and I can’t wait.
