On the day before Thanksgiving, our Mary Magpie will be joining me for a Conor Oberst solo acoustic concert at Carnegie Hall. Expect screaming, shouting, tears, stomping and yells of “Conor, let’s marry! ” And that’s just from me, I don’t know what Mary will be doing…
Two fun bands rule the new releases, Dos isn’t as good as Uno but it isn’t bad and madness 2012 are not Madness 1986, but they aren’t bad either. The G-Dragon song might end up in my top ten 2012.
Joplin, Mo,bad boy Chris Drew is a Conor badboy showing his range if not his tats, on this mess of an album. It has been three years since “Trouble” and while he has worked hard the drug haze that settles over the band leads to albums like this; where ths songs are heartfelt alt pop songs where he does his best to subvert his talents as they are. Acoustic, whiney, draggy and its hearfelk nature isn’t helping him – Grade: C
The Money Will Roll Right In – Fang – Nirvana killed this years ago but I always thought it was a Mudhoney track. Apparently, it is a Fang song and they ignore the melody in a sea of feedback – Grade: B+
There were clashing guitars dueling with each other, some solo turning into fast or soothing tumults, songs fast recovering from dark synth, other flirting between rock numbers and angst-y ballads
Along with Bryan Adams,Geezer Butler, k.d. Lang, Alanis Morrisette,The Church, and Silverstein, Ozzy Osborne, Jon Robb, Thom Yorke, Michael Franti, Garth Brooks,Chrissie Hynde, Anthony Keidis, Grace Slick, and Prince I offer you a cruelty free thanksgiving holiday
At their heart Madness are as much a Brit comic combo as the Goons, they are personalities playing at being pop stars and so good that they are also pop stars playing at being a knees up mother brown comedy team
I was given the dreaded 1960s overview assignment. This is particularly difficult on me for two reasons. One, I was toasted out of my skull on bad acid for the entire decade and, two, I was only four years old when 1970 rolled around.
It’s as if the band hit pause until he recovered and when he did- they just hit play again. No change in sound or vibe or attitude but time- time moved on and what was once a dynamic unique sound is one of repetition and monotony.
There were no confetti or balloons, no that’s not the type of these Icelanders, but the ever-changing visuals around them were totally fitting their sprawling songs, and their unique sense of space, calm and fury
The post-industrial tune is so dry and sci-fi-out-of-this-fleshy-world music, you feel kind of relieved when you hear human vocals, but the ambiance stays so icy and bleak during about five minutes, that it was difficult for me to decide whether I could understand it
Twilight starts heavy and becomes bloated: it is PMS as a movie, constantly irritated and nibbiling at your insides. And the soundtracks are just the same
The 38 year old superstar proved that OBEs and ignorant ageism notwithstanding, Robbie is still the English superstar to beat and both single and album are at the top of the UK charts.
We Nah Tek Bad Up Raw – Elephant Man And Beenie Man – Two titans of dancehall do it clean, with no backing track, they spit it like they mean it like it is a bent out of shape rap and not a reggae rub-a-dub. The two voices rub against each other and the rhythm is in the voice inflections – Grade: A-
With his shoulder length hair and pale beauty, Owens is never a commanding figure, tall and lanky he is ethereal, like he is clinging to life by a thread and a pizza, but the craziness of the first two Girls album has changed into a studious, more careful sound. And I prefer it.
Overall it was an exciting two hours of fun and spectacle and it’s befitting that Madonna’s photo is next to Elvis “The King” Presley, for she is still the reigning queen of pop
Kid Rock will be performing his new song “Detroit Michigan”, which pays tribute to greats from the motor city. This is where it gets hilarious though.
‘What you resist persists’…Is there a metaphor somewhere? ‘I didn’t know you had it in you’,… yeah definitely, Bjork embodies the fury of mother earth or suffer from it, and it becomes so personal, ‘My Eurasian plate subsumed’, she sings before the Earth’s second orgasm, or whatever it is….
But it is a sad event to be kicked off a tour, no dames, no booze, no merch booth! Three cheers for Brit boys Asking Alexandria. No strangers to the ‘hot mess booze and drugs’ persona have scooped them up!
From a Universe of choices, the Gimbal App (or some variant –that isn’t what is happening now, it is what will happen tomorrow) will track your tastes and your lifestyles into a perfect emersion into the sounds you want to hear and don’t even know you want to hear.
The kid gets a lot of hate from the hardcore community- A LOT. So it really impresses me that he continues on nearly oblivious to the naysayers
‘she wasn’t listening to anyone. Sometimes her friends wouldn’t hear from her for weeks. We were all scared for her but didn’t know what to do’.
A politicians job is to get re-elected. That’s it. That’s all It isn’t even the weilding of power that matters any more, it is just the doing of the job and the job is to be reelected. And that’s slimey but fine even when politicians lead nations into war for the sole purpose of being reelected
No word of a US charge on the charts yet, 2013 would be my bet. But even in 2012 they’ll be a huge market for this sort of heads down no nonsense riffararama. More lues based than metal is Stateside 2012, but they are a thrill ride: you’ll like em.
An astounding proporsition: while it is true Rihanna won’t be 24 years olf forever, and while it is true that Rihanna’s haircut was terrible on SNL last week. Even so. She might well be the most beautiful woman on earth right now this minute
M5 have spent 9 weeks at the top now but what is more interesting is how M5. K. BM, NY and FR all seem to be drinking from the same well, using the same producers , the same writers. And while they don’t sound the same on all levels, the production and the drums are very similar
The Hot 100 seems mostly centered on electro pop and its variants but he album charts have no center at all. Two guys hitting 70, English folk, Christian rock, two up and coming rappers, a country fella, an R&B guy and the Queen of Pop. Wild, eh?
YOUNGBLOOD – 3OH3 – “My First Kiss” boys are back with a winner, the electropop duo are burning up fun. territory with a vengeance but they are more youthful, less serious and more fun. Catchy, and should hit – Grade: A-
It’s an excuse to write about the Great Rock and Roll band of all time. What’s not to like? Up to “Mixed Emotions. I know the lot, after that I needed to look up whwere they were from. Is it worth mentioning it gets worse as it goes on? OK, another pointless exercise..
Love Johnny, sorry Mose. I feel like I’m a double agent but honestly- this song is fantastic. The new official solo album is not out until February so this will need to hold us over until then, but I’m sure there will be more leaks and streams. Hot damn.
While citizens across our great nation were celebrating our Bicentennial, Jeffry Hyman, John Cummings, Douglas Colvin, and Thomas Erdelyi entered a recording studio in New York and created a new genre of rock ‘n’ roll that would remain viable for decades. The Ramones started the revolution.
‘More recently, digital developments have made songs even less substantial-seeming than they were when they came on vinyl or CD. Access to music has changed the perception of it. Songs have lost their cachet; they compete with so much other noise now that they can become more exaggerated in an attempt to capture attention”
“Lady Gaga and Sarah Jessica Parker have been turned into cartoons for new Disney fashion short, ‘Electric Holiday’, which will be shown in New York department store Barney’s from November 14.”
He changed U2’s Fanclub into a cash machine, making presales available to fanclub members,w hich is OK business as usual, but also making the live from their 360 degree tour available only thru the Fanclub. It is easy to do the math her
fter Pink Floyd’s ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’, the Oklahoma band has decided to rerecord King Crimson’s ‘In the Court of the Crimson King’… yeah nothing scares them, you would have thought the Pink Floyd’s album was already untouchable, but now they undertake another risky task
Last year Duncan released an 80s covers album and this year there was a remix album, both of which were pretty good. Sorta taking out the synth and adding acoustic guitars and then this year throwing a drum machine back i
Frost is part of this lessening of hostility and getting a Beatle to speak to the network is some coup. Unless nobody knows about it, of course.
How has Bruce affected your life, your plans, your world? If he has in any way other than giving you a bit of entertainment, well…
“Well, it’s a very expensive show to put on, just four shows – because normally you do a hundred shows and you’d have the same expenses.”
The Hives are the opening act. And the Hives are an excellent fun type rock band live on stage… just real straight forward but huge amounts of fun and a pretty good fit for Pink’s smartass modern pop group.
Madonna’s fans are for the most part not 20 somethings, they are 30, 40, and 50 somethings. Pity the poor sucker with a General Admission ticket who got to MSG at 7pm on Monday evening, it would be five hours before she saw her Madge
Fuck Time – Green day – Rock band mistakes desire for deliverance but goes nowhere with the concept, a pit because it’s a smart concept. Plus Billie Joe doesn’t say “fuck” very well at all. Let’s hope # 2 improves on this, though if memory serves the first song off # 1 was a dog as well – Grade: B-
Posters of Rihanna’s battered face are appearing throughout Stockholm to ‘promote’ Chris Brown’s November 19th concert in the city. Yes, the same pictures of the pop princess’ bruised face that you have seen before, and it does not look very good for Brown
G-Dragon is a widely eccentric man, who looks like a tween in a gay bar looking for some rough stuff. He dresses flamboyantly has an eccentric persona that makes mincemeat of my earlier claim of regimental. But is he fun? On “Crayon” he is
Their first new material in 14 years, and the first track “Tommy” will be up on the bands website in just a few weeks. Chris says: “It’s taken a long time to get ourselves back to the writing table, …”
Who leaked these stories? Who leaked the pix of Taylor Swift Swift reading to Ethel Kennedy? Anyone? Yep, after three years at the very top of the food chain, Swift has turned her life, her deepest feelings, hell, her virginity into a press release.
Embry may be making music very distant from the exuberance of his last band, but in this electronica era his music sounds humble and genuine, with no superfluous arrangements, just as cozy as a warm wood cabin during a cold fall evening
The myth of Bruce was bigger than party politics. The son of a blue collar worker who took his Daddy issues and placed it on the biggest stage of all, who spoke not just for him and his people but for all of us, everyone born to, as Chuck D recently put it, run till its dark
“Lights” hit the US Charts and Ellie was dating, ta dag Skrillex of all people. Then came a sold out gig at T6 last July and finally an excellent single, “Anything Can Help” which didn’t break here and an album, Halycon
I passed on the Paul McCartney featuring “Concert For Heroes” celebrating and raising money for victims of 9-11 in 10-01 at MSG. Why? I could have afforded it if I had to, so why pass? Because I don’t like benefit concerts, I don’t like having a civics lesson added to my lunch pail.
