It’s funny how a veteran like her admits ‘to make it up as it goes’… doesn’t she have years of experience in the business? It’s true that the business has changed a lot and now artists get paid pennies for millions of streams, so I can understand the decisions of artists of her caliber.
Royal Blood are opening for Foo Fighters at Citifield this summer (and man does it seem far away as I write this, with the snow snowing, and the wind blowing) and despite our hopes and prayers for a wonderful summertime, that is one night that sounds like a nightmare. Royal Blood, is bombastic deep throat modern rock. Dreadful.
Emeli Sande sucked so bad when I saw her at Central Park a coupla years ago, but she has a terrific voice and before she turns into Adele or Amy Winehouse (I know, Amy has a good excuse…). Still, as house disco ballads, this is pretty hot stuff.
Wherever Is Your Heart – Brandi Carlile – A flagwaver for new women country stars with the chops and the skills that seem beyond their male brothers right now. If the album maintains this level of songwriting, it will be a biggie – A-
The cover (above) is a “a 13th Century monastic symbol for the Virgin Mary” according to Stereogum who got the info from a website called God And Religion reconciled (here). That dead Mommies stuff might explain the McCartney angle a little, right? Mother Mary and Only One are not a million miles away conceptually or in tone
Among the many many things I admire about the book is just how unsentimental it is, how to the point, how it doesn’t deal in life in abstraction but rather it deals in life as flesh and blood. There is a stubborn resilience to it. Over and above the fun of reading about people you know is the fun of reading about a world you have no clue about
‘The words to today’s song are taken from Psalm 137. It’s a song of sorrow and rage from the mouth of a refugee whose city has been destroyed. The sorrow portion of the psalm is extremely famous and often quoted – ”How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”
People are like, ‘Beyoncé’s hot. Got a nice fucking ass.’ I’m like, ‘Cool, I like skinny white chicks with big tits.’ Doesn’t really fucking do much for me. Not liking her music is one thing but…
The playing is consistently excellent and the sound, the arrangements, the guitars plus touches, make for an unceasingly pleasant ambient track: the songs and the singing aren’t there, but the music is a pleasure. Hey, they will buy it in the UK and he is always welcome to sell out the Beacon
I love the Brandi Carlile song off the newbie and it may prove to be the best album of next week. But most anticipated? Alyson has mentioned em a coupla times and I really like Gateway Drugs, I mean any band that calls one of its songs “Los Angeles Will Have Its Revenge On Francis Bean” and gets it to stick is sure worth anticipating.
Up Above My Head – Rhiannon Giddens – Her achievement on this is not to iprove on Sister Rosetta Tharpe, neigh on impossible, but to sing it beautiful and to make make some of its heaven Rhiannon’s very own
Gregory Porter is having some 2015, a top 10 album in the UK is great, and the loud and intense approval of your some of the biggest names in pop music, Sam Smith for one, should make this a big gig, but singing a duet with Van Morisson on Van’s next album? That’s BIG. You can catch Gregory yourself, alongside rock nyc friend, bluesman Tomas Doncker, on Sunday afternoon
Who’s Counting – Kat Edmonson – Her Paul Simon song, not a cover but it has the same DNA as some of his bests tuff, it is Simon not circa Graceland, as she claims, but Rhymin’ Simon. Not better, not worse, just other… a moving and intelligent song about how tie passes – A+
They did a mix of old and new numbers as it is always the case in these shows, but they played them with the same overflowing and joyful energy and over-the-top rocking bombast.
Krell showed wearing a very sportive outfit (a white tank and two long shorts), and he seemed much more ready to play tennis than sing his poignant music, but somehow the whole thing seemed to fit his original and lovable persona. If the music often culminated to some insane emotional apotheosis, he constantly cracked jokes between songs and abundantly chatted with the crowd all night long.
On Friday, February 12th, 2012, I witnessed Aretha Franklin honor her recently deceased Goddaughter Whitney Houston at Radio City Music Hall, part pop manifesto, part revival meeting, the queen of soul sublimated her pain in song and worship. It was the best show I’ve seen this century. And D’Angelo at the Apollo was the second best show I’ve seen this century.
If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late – Drake – Remix tape? I prefer it to his last album, though it has no “Hold On, We’re Going Home” or the single that won him a punk from Diddy and a Grammy. Any album with songs as good as “Legend” and “Jungle” needs no caveats at all.
February was a come down afre a terrific January, the difference between the two wasn’t quantity (even though the first two weeks of January were dead so really, January had a lot more good songs, but quality. I’m not certain where to put D’Angelo in the great scheme of things but even if “really Love” was released 2014, for me it is a February song. So not a great February…
Usually I am looking up and down the list for half an hour before catching the name of a must see artist but next week Kate Pierson is sitting in with the Seth Myers show for four nights, in celebration of her new album, the absolutely terrific Guitar And Microphones and therefore goes straight to the head of the class. The picture is of rock nyc friend and B-52s fanatic Michael Malone and her royal Kateness.
The Seventh Moon – The Black Ryder – This sounds like when you can’t rise yourself from a deep sleep, you try and shake youself awake but it is too deep and everythng from the outside world sounds like it is comng from a great distance, sort of muffled and othewere – B+
There is something a little icy about them, as live bands go SK play it a little too cool, a little too close to their chest, if the music is releasing something it is hard to see quite what it is.They don’t talk to us much, the set is ridiculously short, and the band aren’t that forthcoming
The band was so cool to watch – the keyboardist dressed in a pink suit from head-to-toe (including a fedora) who never stopped moving, the electric guitarist dressed in red with dangerously pointy shoes reminded me of a bullfighter with his choreographed movements (guitar his muleta), the horns, bass and ever present accordion
Ryan explained that the format decided what should be excluded from the final audio file and that tests, determining which sounds were more important than others, were designed ‘by and for western-European men, and using the music they liked’. European men? What a surprise!
This time it is Brian Wilson’s turn, played by the brilliant Paul Dano. I like this guy so this upcoming movie can’t be a total mess right? ‘Love & Mercy’, directed by Bill Pohlad (‘The Tree of Life’) from a script by Oren Moverman and Michael Alan Lerner, will be released on June 5th in a theater near you. The movie, which narrates the career of the Beach Boys and their rise to the top of the world of rock & roll, has a new trailer
“I’ve been on that podium too and if someone got up on my stage I’d knock them out. I don’t care who it is I would’ve knocked them out … That’s my stage. I earned the right to be on the stage at that moment. That was Beck’s moment.”
What is truly disappointing, is Bjork of all people knows how to prove the limitations of streaming by using it, she could have if she wanted it, make the album itself secondary to the overall experience.
Nice week, the Rhiannon cover is aces (the lone holdover!) and Scout, Juliana (finally on Spotify!) , Nate proves that whatever Jack brings to fun. he doesn’t bring the big anthemic stuff, he brings the rock and roll…. All the way through Deacon, and all great stuff. Even ATE, another of those bands we love to hate, managed a goodie!!!
West has a good line, “if you leave Mickey you’re gonna end up with Goofy” and the other guy? “My crib done got bigger, my women got badder”. Plus, Sean’s beats are a little stale, plus plus if he is the closest thing to Michael since Janet, I am Malcolm X- C-
Madonna fell off the stage last night in London so in our ongoing efforts to be entirely irrelevant in the world of music journalism, here is the list of winners, available only everywhere and some priceless moments… especially Madonna falling off stage.
I painted it a couple days after his death. It was later used in a flyer and poster for a “Tribute to Lou Reed” night at Fingerprints Records that Rockford and several local Long Beach musicians played songs from his catalog in a tribute, held coincidentally, on the anniversary of JFK’s assassination
Best Coast have made the move from the Beach Boys to the Dream Syndicate while remaining true to themselves. It is a real goodie with a sterling guitar break and a haunting, sadly sad (does anybody do sad quite as well nowadays?) vocal
Butler wrote the song after reading about the repatriation of the body of anti Apartheid hero Moses Kotane from Russia to South Africa. Kotane was a great influence on Nelson Mendela and he was also a communist, which first confused Butler
A bit of a snoozer though better the Weeknd than Ellie, and how sick am I of Bruno and Mark -every time i hear it I want to bitch slap em both… do we really have to hear these fakers for the rest of our lives? The jerks Plus what’s with this damn weather?
Well, Imagine Dragons had one job on earth and when you have one job and you do it, well, more power to you. Personally, with the exception of a song here and there I find them fairly abysmal but to add rock to EDM beats actually hit # 1… good for you.
I’ve been listening to the album and I must admit to being very impressed, it is incidental music but with a beautiful haunting quality, we know Greenwood knows this stuff but Yorke and everybody else involved should be pretty damn pleased with it.
‘I’m rooting for Greece. I mean, broadly, who the hell isn’t rooting for Greece? Even if you’re super right wing, or super German, or super capitalist you probably don’t want Greece tumbling out of the Euro and defaulting on its debts.
So right now I’m working on a video game for ‘Only One.’ The idea is, it’s my mother going through the gates of heaven and you have to bring her to the highest gates of heaven by holding her to the light. We’ve been working on it for like six months.’
Personally, I think if Jesse really wanted to stir stuff up she’d join the GOP but chance would be a fine thing and since I don’t know Jesse’s music and i do know Patti’s music, plus, I wouldn’t mind having nature heal me, this might be worth the price of admission
When Nate moves away from fun. he sounds like fun. without Jack. If that sounds like a slam, it isn’t. This is a big sound pop extravaganza of the first order. A great song, and an important one for Nate – A-
“I’m a not so regular person in a not so regular world, and I’m just making the most of it and embracing myself,” explains Makonnen (born Makonnen Sheran), who signed to Drake’s OVO imprint in Sept. 2014. The success of the gold-certified “Tuesday” has been explosive: it topped the Billboard
Banks is performing at Irving Plaza on May 11th, the first time in years (I’ve been keeping an eye out since “212” and haven’t heard of any gigs). There is a Live Nation Mobile presale today at 10am for the gig and this is a must see.
Ricky Warwick sounds enough like Phil Lynott to tug your memory and not enough to sound a copy, and this band, first a very late Thin Lizzy band and now a foil for Scott Gorham’s lead guitar, made the right choice in changing the band name. without the baggage, or at least without too much of the baggage, you can appreciate it as very good, old time hard rock – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – B+
Sunday lineup included Steve Aoki, The Flaming Lips, Edward Sharpe and Magnetic Zeros, Deap Vally, Sleigh Bells, Cults, the Black and the White, Surfer Blood, Tennis System and I managed to see most of them. However, once on the field, I realized the organizers had made another big mistake beside not checking the weather, it was Oscars weekend!!
I just wonder what subjects he will pick, it’s difficult to be optimistic about another ISIS beheading. Take any headlines on the Guardian website today, ‘South Sudan gunmen kidnap at least 89 boys from village near Malakal’, ’14-year-old Palestinian jailed for stone-throwing maintains innocence’ ‘Jewish magazine in Germany to be delivered in plain envelopes’ … ouch!
I think, and I believe I can prove this, that standing for three hours to hear Willie take a catnap is one of the seven rings of hell. It is puishment for all the wrong you’ve ever done. The only way I’d go is if he sang a medley of “To All The Girls I Love Before” and “On The Road Again”.
I thought let’s pass on the Knopfler track but then noticed which song it was and Knopfler channelling the Chieftains might be excellent but even if it isn’t, surely a Bobby Womack duet alone is worth the price of admission, plus Mavis Staples, Gregory Porter, Georgie Fame, Taj Mahal… these are good singers, these are guys we can imagine giving Van a little bit of competition.
ReeRee plays up to the competition, the only time I’ve seen her put on a good show was opening for young Eminem, where she was forced to raise her game through the roof and here is an idea if they wanna play Stadium, why not invite McCartney? Imagine that for a second, Paulie can do an hour in the middle and blow the youngsters minds.
Gotta Serve Somebody – Pop Staples – Staples covered it on his blues album Father, Father, and this live take off the posthumous new album, ends the proceedings with a stunning take on the Dylan classic, a graceful take – A
Short Movie – Laura Marling – I don’t see how a band helps, it doesn’t really flesh out the sound in any meaningful way at all… it is about the song, and the song is better than I first gave it credit (“they know that I love you, they’ll never know why” -quite) – A-
I have as many problems with the duo acceptance of the Oscar speech as I did about Marlon brando’s much braver refussal to accept an Oscar to condemn the US treatment of Native Americans. So if they give awards for acceptance speeches good for them, if they give it for songs , “Glory” stinks.
