rock nyc

Why would ANYONE auction the priceless tangibles of a punk rock icons life? Money. Its a great idea the guy will make a mint but the thought of Joey being a commodity really clocked me in the gut.

Your Painted Smile – Bryan Ferry – I was really surprised to discover Ferry’s 1996 masterpiece Mamouna is not available on digital. Indeed, a chunk of his best albums are not around on digital. I saw Ferry in concert pushing this album and I have never seen him better and I have seen him a great deal. This is a glamorous thing of haunted beauty (and it is digitalized on the More Than This hits album) – Grade: A

Fitz and the Tantrums are back with a new track off their upcoming record ‘More Than Just a Dream’, and honestly I didn’t expect this tamed sound from this R&B-bluesy band so wild on stage

Its the week of love…unless you’re looking for music on television. My theory that Tuesday was the best night for bands on late night got shot out of this water this week

Lovesick Blues – Chris Stamey – Eleven slices of Stamey stamped power pop, from the at the very least difficult dB. Three of them, including the title track with a near perfect strings drenched coda and one with Andy Partridge arranging the strings, are as good as it gets when it comes to still Big Star still influenced pop music. And the rest? A little boring – Grade: B

I know you probably think the Courteeners are the sort of English rock band who pun on an obscure English car, and you are right of course, but they are probable the best band from Manchester around right this minute and Manchester being Manchester, that actually means something. I’ve streamed the album and on First listen Anna is the real thing, at least till the two thirds mark.

The week belongs to Grime King Dizzee Rascal, and I gotta tell you, “Bassline Junkie” is absolutely great. It is about as funky and as bass heavy and as flat out funny as you thought it might be if you really thought about it. The video is fun as well. Hmm, Fall Out Boy and Tinie Tempah are here as well…

Apple Scruffs – George Harrison – Imagine this, Harrison was THE WEAK LINK IN THE BEATLES. A wonderful ode to the Beatle super fans, who waited outside the Apple HQ, day after day, year after year. The harp just rules this track – Grade: A+

Jesse Lacey is a lyrical god, it’s angsty and brilliant musically. It’s a gorgeous album that tells a beautiful story. “Jude Law and a Semester Abroad” is one of those songs that as soon as the chorus hits, you feel the urge to scream it at the top of your lungs

In the latest rock band to play the suspense -surprise axis, the popular in the 2000s emo band Fall Out Boy reformed after a four year hiatus. released a, frankly, lousy single and sold out a huge US tour, just about instantaneously

MBV have one of the great songs of the year here, as does Gary Wilson and Scott Krokoff (Krokoff late 2012) and while I don’t much care for what Fall Out Boys I never really did and I don’t hear much rust on em. Absolutepunk loved them in L.A. a coupla days ago.

Actually, I have tix for Lulu at BB Kings and Maroon 5 at MSG, so I plan to stay with Lulu till around 915 and then dash like hell to MSG and miss the first half hour or so of Maroon 5. M5 are awesome live and Lulu is a legend and I just have to see the Shout-er whose personal life alone reads like a who-whos of 70s rock. Being married to Maurice Gibb is one thing, dating David Bowie something else entirely. And managing both in one life time… Any way, Saturday night. M5 is sold out so if you don’t have a tix choose Lulu.

The Right Chemistry – Goldenboy – Alyson Camus faves bury the vocals so low they are like shoegaze meets lo-fi so-cal and a bridge that goes from brown to blue and a pretty good back up singer adding ooohs and ahhhs. All it needs is a synth and darker lighting! – Grade: A-

The picture, which was taken by Linder Sterling at a private party in 1992, shows both men acting quite friendly at the time but things have really changed and, according to a Morrissey fan site, ‘Bowie has ordered EMI UK not to run the proposal artwork’,

In the sense, is it too obviously political? ‘The Left is Right’… Can you be more direct than this? Desaparecidos sure doesn’t use any nuances for these new ones and I wonder whether art is really efficient when the meaning jumps at your face so vividly, when there is no mystery left… but, I know, that’s the point of Desaparecido, I should go listen to Bright Eyes for the cryptic meanings.

“Don’t” is what popular rock and roll used to be, easy to sing along, a contracted guitar break, and a feel good (and self referring) message, “don’t ever quit or you’ll never know”.

Inspired by exciting yet technically challenged groups like the Buzzcocks, Undertones, and The Damned, the Adverts were non-musicians ready for stardom. In 1977, the group released their first single on Stiff Records, “One Chord Wonders”

Manslaughter cuz your fan fell off the stage smacked his head and died… years ago.

Video Star is a sign of a future arriving where technology is dirt cheap and everybody is a star if they have the ability and creativity of Miriam and Rosie. The future is here.

News arrived Thursday that a German company is planning a biopic based on the time Iggy Pop and David Bowie (and one assumes Brian Eno!) spent living and recording in West Berlin in the mid-70s, which brought the world such masterpieces as Low and Lust For Life. Two albums which seem to exist in opposite universes from each other and ourselves

Wide Lovely Eyes – Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds – We’ve been waiting for Push The Sky Away for year and upon year and to be honest, gaving streamed it maybe twice, I would dub it midseason Cave. Not bad, sure, but a little dowdy maybe. Except for this full bloodied piano ballad which is so beautiful it kinda stops your breathe. Prettiest song I’ve heard since Regina’s “How” – Grade: A

Go here right this second and get a ticket to Atoms For Peace 11pm show March 14th, 2013. They went on sale at 1030am so HURRY!

Yesterday, on BBC radio, the song “Retrograde” debuted. And it’s fantastic. It’s rich with the thick, subtly shifting chords that Blake is known for, but it’s easier to listen to than anything he’s done before. It’s not dumbed down, it’s just honest-to-goodness pop. Dark, complex pop

Marr has spent an awful lot of time being a bridesmaid. Shame on him. He should have fronted up a solo group long ago. But we’re going to let that slide now because he has finally gone and done it.

Ah but there is transcendence at the end, there is a luminescent light at the end of this dark alley, and you have no idea how far a nipple in your mouth can bring you

Gloria’s life includes a bus crash and infertility and a truck load of ‘oh I’m a Latin woman in ‘the biz’ type crap- oh and her husband is in on it too. There should be a Broadway board of directors who just rubber stamp “GTFO” on ideas like this.

Make It With You – Bread – David Gates could sure write a terrific melody and this mainstream beauty of wimp rock stands as a seduction so sweet, he means both make it thru life and make out, it remains a memory of a kindre gentler world – Grade: A+

I saw GNR around 8 years ago at Hammerstein Ballroom and take it from me pop pickers, Axl is the real deal. Plus, I might well be in the minority here but I thought Chinese Democracy was a great, great album.

Not only his new take on the song will be done ‘by putting together a collection of sounds from unexpected places’, but we will ‘hear layer upon layer of unique sounds coming together from different musicians’.

Plus the musicians will be performing on a specially constructed circular stage, encircling