The band was so cool to watch – the keyboardist dressed in a pink suit from head-to-toe (including a fedora) who never stopped moving, the electric guitarist dressed in red with dangerously pointy shoes reminded me of a bullfighter with his choreographed movements (guitar his muleta), the horns, bass and ever present accordion
At Amoeba, she sang her hook-filled tunes with a soft and dreamy voice, strongly contrasting with a loud and almost sludgy punk guitar, and she could be a sort of Best Coast with a harsher side, or a female-version of Weezer with simpler songs.
Ricky Warwick sounds enough like Phil Lynott to tug your memory and not enough to sound a copy, and this band, first a very late Thin Lizzy band and now a foil for Scott Gorham’s lead guitar, made the right choice in changing the band name. without the baggage, or at least without too much of the baggage, you can appreciate it as very good, old time hard rock – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – B+
Sunday lineup included Steve Aoki, The Flaming Lips, Edward Sharpe and Magnetic Zeros, Deap Vally, Sleigh Bells, Cults, the Black and the White, Surfer Blood, Tennis System and I managed to see most of them. However, once on the field, I realized the organizers had made another big mistake beside not checking the weather, it was Oscars weekend!!
Americana-folk putting banjo and mandolin center stage with uplifting choruses? How could anyone resist? Plus I detected some subtle waltz-y pulses on some songs, going in indie wistful territory, as well as a few whipped Cash rhythms for everyone’s joy
The music was explosive to bombastic with a dose of distortion and their big sprawling sound, served by layered vibrating guitars, a Korg organ and Andrew Mills’ deep vocals, had a very muscular foot-tapping side. They were going from dark anthems with steady drumming and ascending repeats to post-punk dance-floor numbers, installing a powerful mood
The second most anticipated concert of the year, right after D’Angelo, is this killer reunion: the all girl masters Sleater Kinney. I followed em through much of their career (I got bored circa The Woods), and saw both Wild flag and the Corin Tucker Backer (the latter at Mercury Lounge where Tucker sold her own tee shirts) and I love the new album and always loved them live. So I am more than excited to catch em on Thursday (they are also playing Friday). Yes, even at Terminal Five.
They stepped back just two years for “Come Unto Me” and leader and lead singer Raul Malo took his band to a place where Latin American rhythms and guitars met rockabilly but only as an ingredient of the song. It had the sax and trumpet like an unconscious echo of the ghost of Tito Puentes
Tony Cadena, Steve Soto, Dan Root, Ian Taylor and Mike Cambra gave a good example of what they call vengeance, if they weren’t that extraordinarily dynamic on stage, the crowd was difficult to contain at some point, and Amoeba security guards were patrolling the rows non-stop
Compared to the years of crap we’ve had to sit through, last years painful rotten and boring Everyday Robots for one, it sounds like Fidlar. Truthfully it is drone rock, maybe more Blur than anything else, but a hooky one, it is like a treadmill of a song going round and round and leaving you grinning at the slay em stadium steadyness of it all.
I mean I truly have this fear of missing out all the time, and everyone has a DVR right? I ended up seeing 14 bands, which is quite a lot for the same afternoon/evening, and I will try to remember about all of them… Thanks god or whatever, I took notes!
Helling and belling across an an arena, AC/DC are the essence of a huge rock band, a towering power swinging on hells belles from the roof. I will be sorry if I miss em. Brian Johnson is a stellar lead singer, he dictates his pace and he is a joy to watch at any time and he isn’t the only leader of the band
The moral equivalency we see in Dostoyevsky’s “Crime And Punishment” where an equality is implied between the murderer Raskolnikov and the prostitute Sonya. Try as it might, “Cabaret” equates the “Kit Cat Club” with the Nazi Party, juxtapositioning of jingoists, Jews, and jollies, is morally idiotic.
The former singer with the silky sensational 1970s band Shalamar, wh continued with an exemplary solo career, it is never not worth your while to pay your respects to the great singer and dancer, one of the original MTV superstars, and a terrific artist, Jody Watley. At BB Kings on Wednesday.
Snoop is laid back West Coast, Diddy is business class East Coast, and together they gave a thrilled to overflowing audience a trip through the 90s with huge stars, I mean Faith AND Lil Kim??? But as music, judged at face, these great songs didn’t translate well enough.
When seven bands are packed to play in a little bit more than 3 hours, you know you won’t be able to see everybody, but there is always this exciting feeling you are attending a sort of mini music festival in the middle of the week.
The attitude was sure bold, confident, tough, rising to the expectation of their moniker, with the aesthetic of a garage band really wanting to turn professional and even glam – just check out these matching black outfits – with cool foot-stomping tempos, a bluesy Stones-inspired background in mind for several songs
Everything kicks off tonight in Denver, with each night’s setlist featuring songs culled from across the band’s seven albums – including their most recent, 2012’s I Am Gemini – in addition to drawing heavily from The Ugly Organ. A cellist will also accompany the band throughout the tour to perform on all songs from that album’s era.
Set up by a jazz fuel obtuse and angular version of Roberta Flack’s “Feel Like Making Love”, the primary soul man of his generation followed the song with “Really Love” and “One Mo Gin”. This was a double up so great you may have to go back to Van Morrison following “Gloria” with “Caravan” in 1974 to find a better one.”
Well, I know we are both salivating at that three song mini set i the middle of the encore. The only song from Call The Doctor is one of the best they’ve got and it is surrounded by their two other best songs ever. Otherwise, I am less of a fan of their other stuff though they scatter the wealth pretty well and altogether, scuse me if I get very very excited now
Minnow is one of the most highly anticipated independent bands of 2015, and it’s gonna be again a hard one to pigeonhole, but one thing is sure, they were all about moody atmospheres mixing a curious nostalgia with a dramatic and wrapping sound.
The pacing never lagged, the performance was never less than completely in the moment. This is as great as live music gets, it was entirely living breathing, improvise and yet tight as hell soul music.A party and an art form. dance music as the final frontier of sound and the greatest soul man of his generation returned with all his powers restored
Backstage at last nights D’Angelo concert (my review will be up shortly) I got to chatting with some folks and was told that D’Angelo will be playing a concert in New York immediately following his European jaunt beginning February 11th in Zurich and ending March 7th.
Two of the most important figures in hip hop history, Puff Daddy and Snoop Dogg, performing at the same concert, in the relatively small confines of the Theatre Of Madison Square Garden, is as close to a lock as you are gonna get in the middle of February. Hold out for “Victory” -Puff’s most irresistible track, with the heartbreaking ending.On Thursday.
The Guardian reviewer gave the show 5 stars: “The tight line-up – female trio 3rdeyegirl, a keyboardist and dynamic backing singer Liv Warfield — makes for a lean, hard show with thrilling new funk-rock arrangements.”
Jumping between the drum set and the mic, he proved at the first song he was a born-entertainer, agile and lovely, with husky vocals and quite a range. R&B, electronic, rap, funk, rock, his songs sounded like a myriad of things at the same time, starting as gentle R&B tunes, but soon transcending the genre, with hip hop and funky guitars, experimental electro beats, becoming a fluid and lively mosaic
The line up is pretty stellar as always (though not putting California X and Nude Beach the same night is the definition of fucking with us), especially Worriers who are a terrific band, Black Wine and Shellshag… Nuclear Santa Claust … but really when it comes to Don Giovanni you just can’t go wrong
ere at Rock NYC we have covered the valley sisters since their humble beginning, I saw them at a tiny street fair (the Hudson Block Party) then at the Twilight Concert Series in Santa Monica in May and July 2012, Iman saw them opening for Mumford and Sons at Barclay Center early 2013, but I really heard about them for the first time early 2012, when Ryan Adams joined them on stage at the Echoplex… yes, the tiny Echoplex and now they are playing the Staples Center with Swift, just three years later
I thought these indie rockers from Cincinatti were great at the time and I thought they were greater when I thought back on it. Essentially, they are a midwestern Shellshag who didn’t make it through the long run as a couple have lived to explain the pitfalls and disasters of romantic love and this night played em down to the ground.
The difference between great spectacle and great art is one thrills the eyes and the other thrills the mind and while Katy Perry did neither during the half time Super Bowl show on Sunday night, still, she wasn’t a complete putz either.
Written eight years ago, Black Messiah would’ve been everything people say it is if the rest of the album was as great as “Really Love” and with D’Angelo’s gorgeous falsetto and a Spanish groove r&b love song of the first order at his disposal, the r&b man got all of it. A superb first vision of the post-Black Messiah star, apparently the Sly Stone comparisons are gonna have to wait some
White keeps on claiming a luddite’s worship of the analog but really he just swaps one set of tools for another. He is a complete 21st century weirdo. A creeped out. cold as ice, asshole. How can’t you love a show like that?
The entire show is so good natured it feels like he could say anything and get away with it although he doesn’t and there is a lack of aggressiveness about Oliver, he seems to have neither US textual rage nor UK subtextual rage. He doesn’t seethe underneath it al
D’Angelo’s first post- Black Messiah concert, and at the legendary Apollo, is the event of the winter season. Pound for pound, the greatest r&b singer of his generation, D’Angelo ended fourteen years of self-imposed silence with the difficult, universally acclaimed (almost, I was less keen) Black Messiah and here we get to see it live on stage
the other songs were running as quickly as life goes fast, and it may have been this sense of urgency that made Kazerouni to start four bands, three other ones (Crown Plaza, GNTLMN/Others, and Nectarine) in parallel with So Many Wizards,… talk about prolific!
This is part of the Rosanne cash Perspective series and it is his country swing out The Time Jumpers, who re fine, but they aren’t what I want plus, inanely I might add, it is a late night show. Who wants a late night at Carnegie Hall? Will I go? Even after the Alan Jackson snoozer (here)?
Perhaps it’s the aging punk in me but there is something so overwhelmingly pseud about these guys that I just can’t take em at any price whatsoever. Or maybe it’s Geddy Lee’s voice. Or those terrible histrionic guitar solos… I guess “Tom Sawyer” isn’t completely terrible, right?
It is great entertainment and the sheer wealth of glittering pop rock is a thrill in itself. The setlist is a joy and Billy ain’t a welcher, he is willing to give the hits supreme versions and though they are more or less the same as every supreme version he has performed of them, he really does nail em down
Our Alyson is trying to get over for at least a day and I don’t know what she plans but if I only had one day I could go, my eyes would be on Off! followed by Bad Religion. Though Rancid? Yelawolf? Blink 182? See what I mean?
5 songs from the excellent Blunderbuss but only 4 off Lazaretto, which suggest he realizes he dogged it proper, 8 White Stripes tracks, rwo from the Raconteurs (the best two as well) and nothing from Dead Weather
Last night was a triumphant repeat of that same chaos, a celebration of youth exuberance and recklessness, also amplified by the two other bands opening for them.
Consensus – a phenomenal performance. I have no hesitation in saying that because I know so little, I enjoyed them to no end. And hearing all those hits, which irritated me so many years ago, was a joy – and the musicianship left my head turned completely
I laughed and laughed hard, sometimes. Sometimes I didn’t laugh at all. This is one man’s life and I’m happy, or maybe, sorry for him. He has everything,we are the schmucks who are paying to hear him deny his great good fortune (and genius) brings him happiness.
I caught them, all sitting at a long table, greeting fans and dogs, but I didn’t stay long as I also wanted to catch them the same night at Sonos Studios. It was just a Q&A with Colin Meloy following by a listening party of the album, and by ‘just’ I meant that there was no performance alas…
I love Dr. John and I worship the ground Armstrong walked on, so what’s not to like, right? How about starting with this: I wasn’t crazy about Ske –Dat- De -Dat The Spirit Of Satch when it was released. “He came to me in this dream and said, ‘Do my stuff — your way,'” said the 73-year-old pianist
I absolutely plan to go and see Manic Street Preachers play their best album (but very closely followed by Everything Must Go), still how are they gonna perform it with their lead singer dead 20 years? Is The Holy bible the holy bible without Jesus?
Lisa Ramey has unbelievable pipes, she doesn’t sound like the UK soul singers working the EDM side of pop soul all over the UK, she sounds old fashioned, and funky and the horns are blasting like a mutated Maceo. The title track is masterful and “Teacher” sounds like the Small Faces with a female Steve Marriott soundalike.
As soon as they started, the store filled with lush Brian-Wilson-inspired psychedelic soundscapes, injected with a few Harrison-like warm layered guitar riffs, and even a Doors-Manzarek organ solo on a song or two
With synthesizers and strings, with sounds that are not like anything else and lyrics that touch the heart like Post happened yesterday, there is an clarity to her compassion, a stirring “in my heart is in my breast like love” goes one lyric and it is a gorgeous sentiment. “I did it all for love” Bjork claims
I love looking at Walker play guitar and I love Chuck’s shlubby intensity, he is really great. terrific emotional voice which can take any position Walker wants him to, and on stage they are such equals, they’re like Mates Of State of something, or the Civil Wars maybe. Like an Alt Rock Civil Wars.
