Round are way, all hell has broken out after the world at large decided I was wrong to claim David Fricke was a company stooge. Of course, that wasn’t the first time I claimed Fricke was in Wenner’s pocket… this is the first time I claimed Fricke was a company stooge… in April 2011… I think it stands up nicely
Year Of The Hare – Fucked Up – The Who of hardcore are still at it and this is a great song fucked up by an interminable intro and much too much jamming. Still, it is their song I guess and this is to hardcore what “Baba O’Reily” is to hard rock, only less so – A-
‘You’ve got more attention on that Saturday night set from Kanye than maybe anything else. Who knows what will happen? He could walk out there and have 100,000 people bottle him on stage or he could walk out there and show the world that nothing else matters except for that moment. And I’m sure that is what he will do.’
despite a somewhat minor live show earlier this week at LPR, I will be surprised if there is a better album that WOlf Alice’s My Love Is Cool. But I’ve heard it plenty so for anticipated nah. Richard Thompson, maybe, not sure, Desaparecidos? The single was pretty good. Kacey Musgraves, yeah yeah, gravy and biscuits, got it. I am going with young indie poppers signed to Sony, Bully, whose all three songs off their debut album Feels Like are great, especially “Too Tough”.
Welcome back Morrissey. After claiming his opening act had given him the flu and then saying he had cancer, he cancelled his American tour, advised his record company they had no contract with him thereby causing them to pull all digital copies, getting married to a man, and calling omnivores the equivalent of child molesters, missing Morrissey on Saturday at Madison Square Garden is not an option. Morrissey not showing? That’s a possibility.
There were many good songs, I would say 20 our of 32 were fine but while it is good enough for a good evening, it isn’t enough for a great evening., and I just think, right person, wrong song.
I bet in some ways the Yankees wish A-Rod had crashed and burned this year, instead of just getting his 3,000 hit with a home run in a winning effort last night. I am so not a moralist on this stuff, I don’t see why he shouldn’t get paid his millions, if only for coming back from a horrendous couple of years and still being able to play the game at a ridiculously high standard.
All his songs were a rare beauty, seductive and meandrous, taking some sophisticated and surprising detours, embracing a sort of lost Americana with big skies in the desert and a romantic flair going almost south-of-the-border, without embracing any obvious genre.
The five emotions Joy (Amy Poehler), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) guide an eleven year old girl through a whirlwind of change as her parents move her from Minnesota to San Francisco. The resulting move leads Sadness and Joy on a journey back from Riley’s deep subconscious and leaves Anger, Fear and Disgust in control.
(Yeah, as I get ready for tonight’s Radio City Music Hall Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga gig, I hope and pray it is a substantial improvement on this one at New Jersey’s Prudential Center in April 2011. One thing I know for sure, we won’t be waiting till 1015pm for her to hit the stage
Jekyl And Hyde – Five Finger Death Punch – The only time I saw em live, I liked em not loved them, but this is as great as hardcore gets, with a progressive hint to the lead guitar and an addictive hook. A pleasant surprise – A-
This isn’t the dog days of summer but it feels like it, ever since David Letterman sang the night we called it a day, it has felt much like, well, the day we called it a night. Bereft of life here lies the summer of 2015, with nothing to do but stay hot and bad tempered. Meanwhile, let’s go with Ray Wylie Hubbard who knows a thing or two about hell and heat.
It was a professional without being charming performance, their rapport with the audience on a musical level was fine, and the sound grew more powerful while remaining just about constant, but they don’t really talk to the audience; there is no sense of the moment in time.
I have never been a fan but Madonna used to set the trends, to re-invent fashion and influence culture, she was a leader. Now look at this video, the bad pink hair extensions, the bad twerking, the bad use of the obliged female rapper, she just look like a follower.
Wolf Alice were pretty good at Le Poisson Rouge last night, they are at a very exciting place in their career right now with the debut album dropping on Tuesday. But their connection with the audience left something wanting, That shouldn’t be a problem for Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga tonight at Radio City Music Hall.
Wow, it now costs more to see an IMAX movie than 1D -they aren’t big enough for Stadiums any more. What happens next? The fifth album will tell the story but days when people were paying $500 to see them at Jones Beach appear to be over. I am glad I saw them at their height.
It takes ruthlessness to own a successful magazine, and that is an absolute truth, it takes layoffs, it takes cutting expenses, but there are places where she just don’t do it. Among them is the face of Rolling Stone rock criticism who has been with you for decades. C’mon, for a coupla grand? For a coupla grand you leave one of your top writers without a weekly paycheck? I don’t get it. It makes no sense, even if you have no moral compass whatsoever, the public relations black eye is too big. It isn’t worth the hit.
Courtney Love was not the only one sending cease or desist letters this week, Deadmau5 has done the exact same thing! He is targeting ‘Deadmouse: the Musical’, which is described as a ‘comedy about a mouse who aspires to be a house DJ but is discriminated against for being a mouse’
the rest of the album isn’t as good but this song is a terrific track by the St. Etienne leader, otherwise in the battle for singer songwriter supremacy 2015 style, Patrick has pulled ahead of Jason Isbell, Isbell’s new song didn’t even make it in my best of list, let alone the top ten.
We are all misfits and Jonathan is our leader.
‘Zipper Down’ – well, check out this sexy and hilarious art cover! – is gonna be the first studio album of the band since their 2008 ‘Heart On’, and they have shared the first single entitled ‘Complexity’.
Hold My Hand – Jess Glynne – This must hit the US charts, it is gyramandered from a Clean Bandit (Jack Patterson is one of the writers) like beat, disco Moroder, Kanye piano discretions, and all comes together with a full force vocal as smart as it is addictive. Even the hook is a work of addition through addition. I really think it should be the song of the summer… A
My album of the week, Hudson Mohawke’s Lantern remains my favorite album of the week with Rustie’s 2014 Green Lantern, which I unfortunately missed entirely last year, also getting time. James Taylor and Wolf Alice are taking up the rest of my life.
Looks to me as though we have the song of the summer with “Cheerleader” -it has been in the UK charts for a coupla weeks now and it has just broken the top ten here, which means if it has legs, and it sure might have, this is gonna be on the charts all summer. While wiz is still at number, it is very vulnerable to a coup d’état and sooner rather than later
Can you imagine the anti-Vietnam demonstrations without music? can you imagine a war against the mass theft from the American public (all that blowback to the banks in 2009) with a soundtrack? Do you think you can argue wealth distribution to “Blank Space” or “Holy Grail” or “Believe”? Who would they influence and who would they be speaking t?
Just to gain some perspective on all this: 40% of the albums on this list have been on this list all year, and I mean that almost literally, maybe Meghan fell off for a week here and there but that is it. Everything else (where’s Willie?) kasts a week to three tops and disappears. Muse moved 79,000 units. That is anemic.
Folks, before we all get a little upset, let me do some ‘splainin’..This painting is not paying homage to Chuck Manson by any means. I was just trying to beat some get-rich-quick dude on a CD or LP cover….imagining if some lost tapes were unearthed between Dennis Wilson and the Manson, a what-if, if you will, of album art.
He announced his bid for the presidency with Neil Young’s ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’. What. a. joke. Except it is not one! How could a climate-change-denier pro-war billionaire think a second he could be associated with Young, the most liberal hippie of all our rock stars, who has constantly written anti-war, anti-establishment, pro-earth and pro-peace songs?
Of all the disappointments is any sadder than Adam Lambert, who came out of American Idol as first runner up in 2009 and was the epitome of out gay cool chic and sexiness. And then he couldn’t figure out what to do with it. His role as Freddie Mercury stand in with Queen was the epitome of what a waste, and three years after the disastrous Trespassing album, the one meant to save him from a bad debut album, here is the inferior The Original High. Who wants to be George Michaels in 2015?
Something More Free – Jason Isbell – Here is where Isbell begins to wear thin, this is exactly the sort of polemic he has been known to bypass and the sort of tropes you expect from Springsteen. The most average thing he has put his name to in three years feels like second guessing to these ears and for once he earns his Americana moniker by being steadfastly disinteresting and stodgy in his mainstream countryisms. Let’s hope there is better further in, though there is a saving grace: Amanda’s lovely violin playing, all underlying emphasis – B
With their blend of retro and modern punk, they managed to open for Sleater-Kinney during their last tour, which is probably not an easy task to accomplish. An all-girl band opening for an all girl-band, just imagine the competition! But Pins doesn’t even want to look or sound like the cool trio from Olympia, they want to have fun, delivering harmonies over pop melodies, speeding up at time without going overboard, bringing head banging with a real noise punk inspiration, while letting the power chords have the best part.
Sure, Gorrillaz have performed here (I saw em, not as impressed as the rest of the world), and solo (I saw him, nowhere near as impressed as the rest of the world) but Blur have always been a great live band, the proof is in the performance, and if he cared about cracking the States he might tour the States, but Blur don’t care at all, so they leave the middle of America to wallow in their own bad taste.
But it is ‘Vitamins’, another song from the upcoming album, that Perry heard first, and the song triggered a very emotional reaction in her: ‘My body flushed as if I had shot Niacin into my veins, I held back the tears, kept composed and said to myself, ‘Holy fucking shit you just found Jimmy Hoffa!’’
Wolf Alice are slightly missing the name you think they’d have by now in New York, you know, the selling out MHOW, nearly selling out Bowery ballroom and finally playing Rough Trade on the Sunday tour, instead they haven’t sold out Le Poisson Rouge for Thursday nights gig, so here is the opportunity for a quick spin up close before the rest of new York catches.
Yeah, I blew off the Met recital -it was freezing? But now I have just one thought in my mind, Bennett and Gaga at Radio City on Friday. Will it be good? I loathed the album but I can’t help feeling that this will be a really great show, it will be a magic evening of American Standards by a pro and a protégée. Meanwhile, Active Child’s new album is very good: sort of ambient indie pop and he is performing at MHOW (sold out but it should be easy enough to buy one)
Lantern – Hudson Mohawke – The third best Scottish DJ, after Rustie and the one that is dating Taylor Swift, this is a surprisingly excellent collection of electronic sounds, which seems to balance between mainstream EDM and the stronger stuff. The title track is a doozy and wait around for Anthony’s appearance and Miguel adding a pop opprtunity late – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A-
If ‘Morning Phase’ was dreamy folk, ‘Dreams’ has vigorous beats installing a hot and funky dance floor from the beginning, which let you hear a bit of new influences, MGMT, Foster the People, Tame Impala, and old influences, Nil Rodgers or even Bowie’s 80’s dance period.
Crazy Weather – Kevin Jenkins – If Kevin’s sophomore album is all quiet fury, this closer is loud anger, a ransacked guitar based quasi-Hendrix blues soul out, it sounds like everything is going out of control – B+
Dreams – Beck – This is OK when you concentrate on it, it isn’t Midnight Vultures but the beat is sure steady enough, and it is lively, But it irritates as background and then you realize he needs to find the middle ground he wasn’t had – B
‘Someone decided to kill this movie, and they didn’t have a statistician look at it, or the guy would have said, You need WAAAAAY more 2’s and 3’s. There should be a BULGE at the weighted average of 3.9. A total of 4 people out of 3,600 gave the average vote. That screams fraud so loudly that I had to write this post.’
Taylor has a large catalog, from covers like “You’ve Got A friend” and “How Sweet It Is (To be Loved By You)” to original songs like the lullaby “Sweet Baby James” and anthem “Shower The People”, all fine stuff, though over an album he could get a bit much, but his last three albums are something more, they honor the aging, they honor this time of life.
Paul Weller is playing the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto today, Monday, June 15th and Yahoo will be live streaming the full concert. Watch LIVE at 9pm EST / 6pm PST exclusively on yahoo.com/live. The stream will be available to view for 24 hrs.
If Belle And Sebastian were just about what you assumed they would be, then Graham Parker and the Rumor were better than they had any right to be and the Sonics, in Texas, were better than both.
– Rendezvous – The db’s – Have you ever dreamt about a song? I dreamt about this ode to Elvis Presley last night, in a wild one where a young Peter Holsapple was married to a close friend of mine, and we were at a clothing store and he was trying on suits… Perhaps I should get a life – A
I have this theory about the entertainment business, things should be exactly what they are. The proof is “Jurassic World”, the spliced up dinosaur meets the 21st century reboot, which has taken in $204.kM, beaten out only the The first Avengers. Congratulations to all and please lend me a million of it.
Anyway, the independent theater hasn’t denied it, it has even tweeted the following a few days ago: ‘Regarding Soaked in Bleach. the engagement was cancelled, Join us for one of the many great #indiefilms we regularly present in #Hollywood’.
Not to be a reactionary, but this week has been the least reactionary chart of all time. The only new song here is the less than earth shattering “Shut Up And Dance” and everything else is mediocre jockeying for position. This is like a very warm Sunday afternoon -time for a snooze.
Nobody is surprised at the first two, what I’m surprised at is the Brand New Heavies leaders great EDM band Leftfield having a new album I don’t know and I am surprised how it is the best sounding album around and I completely missed it. Their first in 16 years and it is mindblowing. Don’t let this happen to you.
And we as humans have an urge to fit in in order to make sense of this world. And really, atheism has just replaced ‘Christianity as another doctrine of how you can fit in. The song is a very complex song because it’s not only about religion or non-religion, it’s also about our own self-worth. It’s interesting to me because I’m not a religious person, but I also don’t blindly accept atheism as a doctrine. I don’t think that’s healthy, either.’
In a spirited and energetic 90 minutes with Graham dancing and jiving, and giving the spotlight to Martin for a sliver of a solo and Schwartz for a coupla bars before stealing it back again, a cranked up Hammond Organ by Bob Andrews all over the damn place, and a standard of song selection that has you spoiling for a favorite
