rock nyc

Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “It’s Blitz”? Hasn’t stood the test of time. Dead Eyed Peas? Maybe. Franz Ferdinand? Maybe again. Eminen hasn’t sold enough for an album whose reason for being […]

American Saturday Night – Brad Paisley Her Diamonds – Rob Thomas – Fine version on NBC’s Macy’s Firworks last night Living Doll – Cliff Richards Physical Attraction – Madonna Science

Halfway into his first vocal on the jaunty “Sausilito” it is clearly apparent Conor’s voice is shot. He isn’t hoarse, he isn’t out of tune, he simply has no relationship

This the best… Taylor gets her thug on… You can find it on dailymotion.com (they took it off youtube for copyright infringement)

Here’s a syllogism for all you pop pickers. Demand for MTV lead to the demise of the Soviet Union. Demand for Michael Jackson lead to demand for MTV. Therfore demand

Novelist Martin Amis has always had a tiring air of priviledge about him. His father was the great English comic novelist Kingsley Amis and Martin was a public school, intellectual

May I be the last to say too much from “Horizon” and no “Stuck In Moment”??? Breathe No Line on the Horizon Get On Your Boots Magnificent Beautiful Day I

EVERY BEATLE US UK ALBUM REVIEWED AND GRADED

In 2001 I went to see Madonna on the Drowned Tour (her best of the decade, maybe ever) and in 1999 I went to see Janet Jackson on the Velvet

Novelist Vladimer Nabakov once noted that all fiction writing is an act of faith in God: as God gives life a pattern so the novelist gives his story a pattern.

Questions For the Angels – Paul SimonTennessee Jed – Levon HelmGrowing Trade – Levon HelmReal World 09 – Rob ThomasHer Diamonds – Rob ThomasBack when I was a whippersnapper we

This is an hysterical parody taking on the great Z, and besting him…Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nej4xJe4Tdg

I have no idea what I am talking about but I don’t like this at all. On a sunny Sunday afternoon made for Central Park a multi-ethnic hodge podge of

As we mourn the passing of R&B crossover genius Michael Jackson let’s remember a genius English pop Princess Kirsty MacColl who found a better way to leave us. Remember Stiff

PHIL LYNOTT AND THIN LIZZY VISIT THE QUALITY STREET GANG ON THE STREETS OF MANCHESTER

Unbreakable – Michael Jackson Round about here Jackson was morphing into and r&b guy to the exclusion of any halfway decent pop balladeering while Prince continued as the Prince of

Robert Nevin reviews 10ccs “pop masterpiece” “Deceptive Bends” I think most people stopped at “The Things We Do For Love”, and why not? It is a perfect pop song; double

My friend Robert Nevin’s taste in music gives the term eclectic whole new vistas of meaning; he obsesses over the minutia of weirdness, the sound of the strange, the found

The thrill of pop music is the thrill of the new: the instantly disposable built to last surprise of the thing that you put in your ears and it is

Michael Jackson died today at the age of fifty. An American tragedy as awful as that of Elvis Presley ends all too inevitably with the passing of this master of

Conor, my old friend, it’s me, Iman. How could you do this to me? Me, your faithful as a horse drawn carriage , loyal as a Siamese Cat, fan and

Diana Krall: Jazz Superstar, long, blonde, luscious, intimidating, in a black skirt and heels, has turned away from her piano and, there is only one word for it, she is

From today’s New York Times Science section, the earliest known musical instrument dating back 35,000 years to the stone age. Here is the (missing) link http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/science/25flute.html?_r=1&hp

Somewhere during the first act of the “Rock of Ages” at the Minskoff on Broadway I could feel my eyes roll but not rock back in my head. This is

D.O.A. (Death Of Auto- Tune) – Jay-ZWhy did he do this? So he can say Justin Timberlake beat him to the punch on the re-mix of “Can’t Believe It” ?

WHAT WERE ONCE VICES ARE NOW HABITS

Craigslist – Weird “Al” Yankovic The problem with Weird “Al” is that there is never a natural connection between his lyrical and musical parody and this leads to the music

Louba Lababedi comments on her beloved Judy (and Liza). I was introduced to Judy Garland(besides Wizard of Oz) in 1999 through herdaughter Liza! with a Z My Uncle treated me

I haven’t done much album reviewing on this blog and that isn’t solely because I am more likely to buy a couple of songs off an album than the entire

Our intrepret young reporter Marie Lynn went to Nashville and posted this review of the Country Music Festival 2009 As a born-and-bred Brooklyn girl, going to the CMA Country Music

Kris Kristoffesson once said love is the last thing to go but having seen such greats as Mel Torme, Peggy Lee, Ray Charles, Mel Torme, Leonard Cohen and now 77

One of my favorite photographers is Bob Klein, a man who ridiculously shares this gift with friends and family only instead of the wider audience who would appreciate his unique

What constitutes a performer whose life and art is so mingled it is impossible to think of what without the other? What does she mean to us? There was a

Half an hour into her joyful set at the Beacon Theater last night regina Spektor has completely lost her place. She is giggling at first and then laughing and then

In anticipation of McCartney’s concert at Citifield this July, a look back at his recorded works. It is difficult (not to mention irrelevant) to compare McCartney’s long and lustrous solo

My friend Bari Wartell (we saw Conor at “Other Music” together last year) when asked for a couple of lines for my blog came up with this quote from Ralph

Please let me help Juliana Hatfield a little and explain to her what her problem as a musician is: she doesn’t write very good songs. She can write good songs

Poker Face – Lady GagaToo Tough – The Rolling StonesTomorrow – Paul McCartney Off Wing’s loudly maligned “Wild Life” in the early 70s, Wings spoke to McCartney’s very successful attempt

Listening to songs off Mos Def’s pretty good new album “The Ecstatic” I wonder what he learnt playing Chuck Berry in the movie “Cadillac Ranch”.? Berry never rested on his

It’s a good question and the answer is maybe. It is certainly accessible enough, by Bjork’s standards even more than by David Longstreth. I’ve been a fan of Bjork since

ANOTHER KIND OF HERO

Have you ever seen the Britcom “Goodnight Sweetheart”? A man finds a pothole between London in the 1990s and 1942 and, like all great sitcom heroes, uses the opportunity to

I mentioned yesterday I thought the New York Times music pages were the best in the business and not just because my old pal Jon Pareles writes for em; it’s

First Costello was awesome and then he was fair to middling for an hour and a half and then he was awesome again. In front of a hometown audience and

I loved the movie though i can understand why people may have had problems with it. And I think “The Times They Are A changing” was way too obvious for

It is one of gods’ great jokes that on the first song of the first side of his first album Cremshaw fell into his career epitaph. “Will her heart ever

Rock That Body – Black Eyed Peas I Gotta Feeling – Black Eyed Peas From “The Energy Never Dies” -their new album- and it’s true, the energy just keeps pumping.

In the letter from the editor for the Kings Of Leon Rolling Stone cover story, the editor Will Dana brags how writer Austin Scaggs is long time drinking buddies with

Oh Yeah -ChickenfootSoap On A Rope – Chickenfoot“Got money, got fame, fast cars and everything”. Who do they think they are? Kid rock? Whatever, this should solve everybodies metal, not

I wish I could get the picture from my cell on my blog so you could see as much as I saw of the Dirty Projectors and TV On the