he band has effectively done a certain number of cover songs, and this is not an easy art. If everybody can learn somebody else’s song, not everyone can appropriate it, transform it without torture it, and QOSTA does exactly this: they manage to make the songs their owns by injecting in them their unique sound, while always remaining loyal to the originals.
Obviously, Daft Punk is gonna be the big seller, but Christopher Paul Stelling, the brilliant folk singing who builds his own guitars, is the one I have the highest hopes for, especially after hearing “Brick x Brick” . Elsewhere… the Nationals and Darius Rucker look like keeper to me.
Alkaline Trio are because a) I just watched “The Muppets Movie” and b) I am going to see em on Friday. Tom Petty is a highlight from an iffy setlist, the mess of “A”s #5 – # 9 are all new releases and Johnny Taylor reminds me of a disco band that used to cover it in a Beirut club called “Venus”.
I’ve always loved the Doors myself even if those in the know got muzzled by Morrisson’s over the top coyote blues poetics, Manzarek steadied the sound for a pop world. By the end, by the time of Morrison Hotel and LA Woman, the band were where they needed to be.
This is when it hit me that FOB is truly the greatest band of our generation. They have such stage presence, and I can’t say often enough how insanely phenomenal Patrick’s voice was.
A terrible singalong moment: “I have soul but I’m not a soldier”. They might as well be singing “I’m in tune but I l’m not a tuna”.
I would love to hear the True Believers play live with a proper sound system and I’d also love to see them perform a full set. After forty minutes, the Grapevine Main Street Festival organizers told the band to exit the stage. The True Believers were booted for being too loud.
I kept hearing a combination of Deborah Harry and Ronnie Spector, by virtue of the power in her voice. And that was the key – the power in her voice. It was a close-your-eyes moment as she sang
People had heard about the news and a nice crowd had gathered in front of the club where the Rolling Stones played just a few weeks ago. Err, no they didn’t cover the Stones, but they did cover The Who by the way, and I think it was ‘A Quick One While He’s Away’.
Now I am certainly no fan of these bands, but apparently, it was a real surprise beside the already established fact that Scott Weiland has really been fired from the band. Guitarist Dean DeLeo had this to say: ‘Chester has a one-of-a-kind voice that we’ve admired for a long time. We know Linkin Park will always be his priority, but we thought it would be cool to try something together.
Check it out there is NOTHING on Thursday. After all of my years of doing this its the first time there were no musical guests listed for a day. That is actually a blessing this week considering that Bret Michaels is everywhere
I panned the Lovato album but I’ll giver her the benefit of the doubt on the single, which is power pop dance style. But the surprise is Chris Malenchak’s superb lover’s rock meets dance and whoever wrote that bass line that opens the song should be signed.
20 year old Gabrielle Alpin is a talented enough singer songwriter and she is cuter than Bobby Gillipsie hence the picture but while yet to be release Stateside, an early stream off Youtube suggest the Primal Scream album is an epic rocker in a league with XTRMNTR.
This is a good list, it opens with the Killers best song and continues with Paramore’s best song then two great songs off the excellent new George Strait album, along with a terrific remix by Guetta and four songs, all good stuff though not all released, by four bands I want to play the rock nyc presents gigs.
Kanye West is a perfect irreverent ending to SNL’s season. When he isn’t busy being an outspoken knob or an egotistical maniac with his mug projected on buildings, he’s an artist who actually has the right to be arrogant. Such amazing words flow seamlessly from his inflated ego and big mouth.
Extended acoustic sets typically have a noticeable deficit in the oomph department and this night was not the exception
“Over And Over” off the EP sounds like a 1960s Cilla Black cover, without Cilla Black or the back up band and stripped of everything till it’s just a voice and a guitar lick. If that sounds like your thing you are really in for a treat.
New York (or New Jersey should I say?) has intellectual punk Titus Andronicus making all these references to Albert Camus and Shakespeare. Los Angeles has riotous punk FIDLAR making references to coke, weed, skates and cheap beers… Both bands are young and bring tons of punk energy to their shows but don’t seem to come from the same place… existentialism versus teenage boredom,
You can count on Kayne West to stick to humbleness and lo-fi self-presentation,… nah the rapper who has recently introduced himself as ‘God’, has just decided to project a video of his face singing his new single on 66 different buildings around the globe.
Here’s how it works, kids are put on her library list and from the time that child is born to the time he or she is 5 years old, they receive an age-appropriate book once a month – 60 free books per kid.
Virgin Records is where it all started for Virgin and 40 years later it’s great to see we are still being innovative. This exciting series of events is the perfect way to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Virgin Records and the artists, from Mike Oldfield to Emeli Sandé, who continue to disrupt the status quo
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.
Sometimes I wish I could wake up/And see you lying there like it is 1999’ he sings in the hooky chorus’, 1999 is not that long ago but Simon seems either to have a secret love for everything vintage or retro, or to remember 1999 as something coming from a remote past. Who still uses a toy slide-viewer? Who still uses an old-fashioned camera to take pictures?
Growing up you don’t think of longevity of greatness. None of us thought pop stars like Cyndi Lauper would still be around. I mean not dead but rather still in the news.
The almost 55-year-old has always wanted to feel good and look young, and that’s why he has surrounded himself with a new band of 20 something people, however, and that’s a huge contradiction for me, ‘he dodged questions about the state’s new marriage-equality law’
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?.
A new show is coming London called “Mod” based upon Small Faces and the Mod scene. I doubt it will ever make it to the US because we have no allegiance to that movement but I sure hope it makes it to film
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”.
Dan “Soupy” Campbell walked by me and at that moment, I fangirled. I lost my cool. I was not a journalist at a show, I was a hardcore fan stoked to see my idols grace a stage.
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.
So many indie bands sound alike, but Infantree was showing a real uniqueness which was certainly borrowing from the 70s and way beyond, ‘Fibber’ had a little bit of this Jefferson-Airplane-Grateful-Dead-CSN-hippie generation smoking through the cracks of the song
That being said when you have a borough full of artists and young thought you get a fabulous atmosphere filled with the spirit of adventure and the thought provoking magic that only art can provide.
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
With the announcement of this memorial, a few questions came to my mind…. Who will be there? Will the Westboro Baptist Church dare venture in Hollywoodland? And should I go?
A public memorial for Jeff Hanneman, Slayer’s guitarist, has been planned at the Hollywood Palladium next week, and it’s totally free, but based on the usual first-come first-serve mayhem. I expect chaos and thousands of metal fans trashing the place.
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
Still, it was pretty daring to juxtapose their own songs with these beloved youth rebellious anthems,… it’s like asking for a comparison! And I am saying this because, after this experience, Torches’ music did not entirely sound different from Arcade Fire’
With all technicalities, there is not an ounce of effort. They did literally nothing to make the song original or different, and so it was boring. Then, the guy has an equally boring voice- there’s no flair, no way I could tell the difference between him and anyone else in that “genre”.
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.
Do you think we will have to endure Zooey at 40 doe eyed and well.. quirky. See there is no other descriptive for her shes a one trick pony. This She and Him thing periodically produces something memorable but for the most part its a rather blase white noise best suited to background music at some Starbucks or organic farmers market.
Now look at it this way, I am not against him to look better, his mouth looks kind of scary and I have always wondered how he could even eat with these crooked fangs. But the scariest thing may be that he wants to start a Hollywood career.
