He plays old tunes with respect but he draws more from the original. In his hands the old becomes new again. Suddenly a song you heard a few times and have forgotten comes back to you as new and more amazing than the last time you heard
We had to react to either a heartfelt love song, or a vulgar sex ballad. It was a song of our choice, to reflect our musical tastes. Upon first hearing of the assignment, I went straight to “I Want To Know Your Plans” by Say Anything. I felt as though it was too obviously a love song, so I went with something a bit more thought provoking and realistic- Bright Eyes’ “Lua”.
Their songs have this curious and surprising construction, as they are animated by sudden catchy outbursts separated by quiet moments isolating Sean Solomon’s youthful and whining vocals. With them, the violin became the most punk instrument
don’t know how you can have a song, or a playlist, represent your life. The song that meant the most? That reflects your very being? A state of mind or (hopefully) transition. A farewell and Amen, or a celebration?
On Memorial Day Weekend, September 1st and 2nd, at Fairmont Park (incidentally, the same time as Rock The Bells is at PNC) the show will come on and the line up is on the impressive side. What catches my eye is D’Angelo, and I am hoping this is a prelude to an nyc gig around that time. I haven’t seen the top soul man in over ten years and unless he has lost his skills, it is enough to make me wonder whether it is
If there was a lot of shoegazing in this dreamy indie pop experience, there was also a lot of foot-tapping, and that would seem totally contradictory at first view but somehow they managed to do it with grace. The build-up in the music, filled with nervous beats
Really if Simple Plan is going to teach us about human rights, they really have to get creative with their approach and it better be good. I don’t think I’ve seen a more idiotic protest than Lady Gaga’s ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ bullshit. Yeah, its easy to take someone who dresses in cow seriously..
Splattered with his lyrics of “Let Love Rule”, cute huh? Yeah I’m sure they will look great and guess what!? These shoes are part of Toms “Vegan” shoe line. AWESOME! I love the attention that veganism is getting- even if it is from Toms brand. It’s nice that its actually becoming a smidgen less fringe.
The five guys threw about everything in their electronica-techno-rock-en-Espanol, and this is without talking about their exhilarating presence on stage, full of sexy dance moves,… well they have to live up to their moniker! Yeah, these Mexican guys are not really into traditional mariachi, fuck no!
Tim McGraw will be partnering with Chase bank to give a way a mortgage free home to a military family containing a ‘wounded vet’ at each stop on his upcoming tour. 25 free houses just for getting injured.
That’s the bad news, the good news is that when Toyota or Chrystler picks up the single, Best Coast will bang right back up.
Richland Woman’s Blues – Mississippi John Hurt – Recorded in 1928, a strummed guitar, a finger picked guitar and an easy going vocal as Hurt channels his inner woman. Grade: A+
At 62 years old, Johansen is slim, athletic, craggily and handsome. A pleasure to watch as always. I mean always.
I’ve seen him many times but not in a decade, and he has never not given a professional but yielding performance.
I understand that Mr. Worldwide is quite lucky with the ladies but I personally just like watching him bust a move. Those of you lucky enough to have caught him on the Today show last Friday got to see the awkward shyness he has that is so contradictory to his audio swagger.
Their music was a classic example of melodic-heavy-guitar-foot-tapping pop-rock songs, modeled after the masters, as I could hear influences from the Foo Fighters to Weezer. If the music was upbeat, it was also built around a few classic-rock solo guitars, and big sing-along hooks
Yo, Iman! Check it out, your boy Rufus on the Ellen show!! That should be killer, or not and hey since its a holiday you can actually kick back and watch it! Other than that we got the Kaiser Cheifs (who are awesome) Evanescence (who totally suck) and Lee Brice (who the hell is that?).
So far they have given away 40,000 bands at their shows, but most of their money go into this shit??? Is he serious? How is that possible? How much a lighting wristband could cost??? Martin’s statement has to be greatly exaggerated, they have to make millions of dollars during this tour, could the wristbands cost that much?
Did you see when Gotye was on Saturday Night Live how the guys did a parody of the painting from the video for “Somebody That I Used To Know”? Now THAT was freakin hilarious. I loved how it showed true fanaticism. Sorta creepy but in a cool way.
I haven’t seen Radiohead on stage since (gasp!) the Kid A tour… where they sucked. Prior to that, I saw them every time they hit town. So this Friday at Prudential Center is a homecoming for a band I love to hate…. and who I’ve been warming to over the years.
So Emilie finally makes it to the top. I’m not much of a fan myself but at least it’s not Adele… who is at # 3. Pretty insane, right? I agree with the Washington Post critic who compared Adele with Beth Ditton (Ditto won)
The Wanted are playing the Stones to One Direction’s the Beatles, except leather jacket does not a tough band make. And The Wanted sound more like Train.
Damned for all eternity as the coke fiend who beat on Fannie Mae, with a resume everything else gets overlooked. Like, for imstance, he discovered Fannie Mae. And like this piece of boogie was the harbinger to a sea change in popular music – Grade: A+
They look like Ivy League folk boys, like Mumford And Sons, but, on stage at least, they give into the music all the time and have a thunderous sound, more than capable of intricating violin and mandolin into a song, more than happy to throw out everything but drums and handclaps.
Slash is a limited rock guitarist with that said he is a ROCK guitar God for few have his skill at writing the perfect hook and groove. Myles Kennedy’s voice wails as much as Slash rips each song tearing your rock soul and ears to shreds.
I don’t really think I have ever cried watching a preview film trailer before. Yeah, cried. Like that drizzle sort of tear thingy chicks do, I totally just did it just on this couple minutes of splicey footage. I wasn’t crying over how really rough Mick is looking these days…
Beck’s styles are as diverse as Baskin-Robbins’ flavors and nevertheless all of them are totally his, you cannot miss a Beck song when you hear one, they all have his kid-in-a-candy-store’s magic touch, who can effortless sample, rearrange, and fool around with sounds
Not only is the content of the song trite and cliché, Chris’ voice is incredibly whiny and it’s really distracting. Maybe it’s the tinny quality of an iPhone’s sound, but Chris’voice sounds super thin and flat. He’s got no soul
Simon admits he was ‘absolutely unprepared’ for what was about to follow, first his journey to South Africa under the terrible Apartheid regime, with struggles and shooting in the streets, secondly, the criticisms after the release of ‘Graceland’ and the protests during the world tour.
The cool bassline and quick guitars keep things interesting and make the song unique. It’s great to see MCS grow up, and this song shows that they’re back and better than ever before.
This is the perfect start of summer concert to get you dancing and thinking happy thoughts. There is something about ska that just makes it impossible to be angry- no matter what the situation or the lyrics, its so happy and jaunty you just let it go. They should pump ska music in to prisons or something
– Beth Ditto is probably the best disco singer of her generation, and if that’s enough, this is enough. But I am less keen on her songs, anonymous disco material, less synthetic than I am used to but not quite memorable enough. Exceptions to this rule abound and “Move In The Right Direction” -well, no need to wait for the remix there – Grade: B+
If I Was A Bell- Emily Loesser – Yup, Jean Simmons was lipsynching on the movie version of “Guys And Dolls”… as she should have bee. Emily Loesser,Fran’s kid, did a stellar job, especially on this sexual awakakening masterpiece – Grade: A
“Driving Toward Daylight” is a return to his Blues Rock/Blues roots and it rocks. His song writing either sucks and he steals liberally from the great signature blues hooks of the past, but doesn’t everyone.
Beck recorded them last year at Jack White’s studio in Nashville while he was there to record his forthcoming album says Rolling Stone,… so there is an upcoming album, and already recorded? And he didn’t play any of it at the El Rey on Tuesday? Beck will always be a mystery to me.
Recorded at Bearded Lady Records in Flint, MI the duo belt out “The Best I Ever Had” while pressed up against a record bin. Stripped down to drum and acoustic guitar they take on a rock tune and pretty much kill it. I don’t mean in a good way either.
It is Kayne West’s directorial debut, and it reflects what he stands for: the grandiose, the over-the-top and the ridiculous (I am especially saying this because of Kim Kardashian, who seems to be obsessively decorating his left side these days).
The difference here is that its wonderful. Im not going to say its ‘amazing’ or ‘awesome’ but it is very pleasing to the ear and harsh contradiction to the frat boy Blink 182 alter ego. Live they are goose bump inspiring recorded they just make good sound,
Most of her songs were about love or sex and this one time she tried to venture a little deeper she basically fell off a cliff. What was she ainging about anyway?
Unknown bands taking on cover tunes and making some waves. Its a very cool idea if you do it well. Set it Off does it very well. This video actually inspired me to go hear more of their work. Had they not done this cover and not been posted up on a slow news day I may never have given them the time of day..
The album will be out on May 29, but it is not the first time that Scissor Sisters have shown their great sense of humor as a certain Dave Grohl pretended to sue the band for $75 million in 2010
The House That Heaven Built – Japandriods – Hand clapping, footstamping, yelping hook, a raw rocker vocalist and a tune worthy of Superchunk – Grade: A
At 41, he is not the young adventurous musician coming up with all this weird palette of incredible original sounds, but he still can play them very well, doing in succession ‘Where It’s At’ and ‘Hotwax’.
he starts softly making his guitar sound like a sarod slowly gliding seamlessly in to Duane Allman’s classic “Martha” and then it slips sweetly into sotto voce of his wife Susan Tedeschi
The slow thrust beat on this one was a fantastic pull up song. That is- you have your windows down and the ‘tape deck’ full blast so when you pull up to any destination you sound cool. Now its all ghetto crap, 1982 not many13 yr old girls with spiked hair and a nose ring around suburbia, let alone driving a car.
you don’t have to look very hard to download any album for free, it is just a reality of the internet. And what about Spotify which basically robs the artists, paying them ridiculous amounts for letting people stream albums?
I applaud Stern for pulling the plug- he didn’t wimp out cuz the kid was a pint sized thug. I am really tired of society using the ‘awwww’ factor. Screw that the kid should be rapping on his own stoop and not on television for all to judge.
Screeching like a banshee with her black hair flaying and three keyboards and a a sound loop around her, one guy on keyboards and guitar, another chick on keyboards, a drummer and Terra Lopez herself fiddling with nobs before moving her hands mid-air like a refuge from a Lew Grossman novel where the sun never sets though it damn well should.
the LA Times is pointing out that Lisa Marie sold much of her stake (85%) in Elvis Presley Enterprises in 2005 to the company CKX, so the decision would not be entirely hers. But what would stop a company to make more money off Presley’s corpse?
Words of affection so personal, a whispered conversation between the two: “listen to your Daddy’s song, making love is wrong…” The song is adrift in time, it is like a hug between a father and child, “We believe that we can’t be wrong” is such a proiose for a happy, endless childhood. It makes me miss something that never happened to me.
If you have not seen this band live find a date and go. This is one group of musicians whose talent just keeps going strong. We saw them last year and I was shocked at how true and powerful their energy is. C’mon aren’t they supposed to be a bunch of geezers? Far from it
