Well, I know we are both salivating at that three song mini set i the middle of the encore. The only song from Call The Doctor is one of the best they’ve got and it is surrounded by their two other best songs ever. Otherwise, I am less of a fan of their other stuff though they scatter the wealth pretty well and altogether, scuse me if I get very very excited now
Sunshine – Kids – On the most consistently excellent album of last week, they close off the show with a gorgeous folk rock ballad full of poise and moment and ruig guitars, like folk music yes, but something else, somethinng both deep and light – A
At the Apollo Theatre, D’Angelo unveiled the sort of show that he can travel with for months, years, decades. A career spanning 150 minutes of funk and soul (neo-soul? Eh?) and the best 20 minutes, “Really Love” followed by “One Mo’ Gin”, you may ever hear.
What have I done to deserve this special attention? No vocal range? When’s the last time you heard Dr. John? Why don’t you say that about him? Slur my words, got no diction. Have you people ever listened to Charley Patton or Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters. Talk about slurred words and no diction
Beck’s ‘come back’ album ‘Morning Phase’ won a Grammy for Best Rock Album Award and another Grammy for Album of the Year. Prince presented the last Grammy — that was so Midnight Vultures — and Beck was in competition with Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, Pharrell and Beyoncé!
Sam Smith got best newcomer and pop album, and Beck got best rock album. No problems there though I am entirely agnostic over Morning Phase. Up close, Beck looks a little on the weird side, right? It’s like he looks like a babyfaced middle aged eagle.
I had avoided writing about it… not because it is a morbid album, it is just the opposite actually, but because it is a very busy and lively thing that may evolve like a living being in front of you, escaping your thoughts and ideas at each listen.
The first three one acters are terrible, “Babel’s In Arm” about the building of the tower of babel one stone at a time, is “Waiting For Godot” as extended silliness, “Soap Opera” has some amusing puns on washing machines (a man falls in love with his) but is just too bizarre and “The Goodness Of Your Heart” puts goodness versus manners in a seriously flawed debate.
Man, that Ellie Goulding song is crappy. I can’t remember the last time an album has inspired so many astoundingly terrible songs and is Ellie’s the very worst? You know it may well be. This list makes me sleepy just reading it.
before we get to Dylan’s EIGHTH # 1 album in the UK (about 20% of all the albums he has ever released), let’s scratch our heads in amazement at the return of a guitarist who performed quite well with Dylan himself, Mark Knopfler. Brothers In Arms has two 80s masterpieces an nothing else much.
Nearing its 30th Anniversary (May 15th), Mark seems to have ironically enough written his epitaph on this hugely successful and really pretty excellent classic rock gussied up as new wave song for guitar slingers everywhere – A
The pacing never lagged, the performance was never less than completely in the moment. This is as great as live music gets, it was entirely living breathing, improvise and yet tight as hell soul music.A party and an art form. dance music as the final frontier of sound and the greatest soul man of his generation returned with all his powers restored
Backstage at last nights D’Angelo concert (my review will be up shortly) I got to chatting with some folks and was told that D’Angelo will be playing a concert in New York immediately following his European jaunt beginning February 11th in Zurich and ending March 7th.
‘I used to do folk dancing and wore traditional Hungarian embroidered clothes’, said the designer. ‘Contemplating and taking it a step further, I was curious to find out what cross-stitched patterns might sound like.’
Johnny Cash recorded some of my songs early on, too, up in about ’62 or ’63, when he was all skin and bones. He traveled long, he traveled hard, but he was a hero of mine. I heard many of his songs growing up. I knew them better than I knew my own. ‘Big River,’ ‘I Walk the Line.’
Two of the most important figures in hip hop history, Puff Daddy and Snoop Dogg, performing at the same concert, in the relatively small confines of the Theatre Of Madison Square Garden, is as close to a lock as you are gonna get in the middle of February. Hold out for “Victory” -Puff’s most irresistible track, with the heartbreaking ending.On Thursday.
Back when “Livin’ La Vida Loca” firsrt dropped, I had a friend whose sister was a Broadway chorus gal and she had been in Les Miz on broadway and she told me Ricky was gay and I told another friend and the other friend cried tears of happiness because he was gay. When Ricky came out it was a real big deal for the gay community and if that isn’t enough, his new song “Adios” is real good. Good enough to make him the Guest of The Week.
I am reading an early draft of rock nyc Steve Crawford’s excellent upcoming album “1000 Essential Songs From The 1970s”. Read it with Spotify by your side and Steve’s insights are even more fun. It is sooooo good and I can’t wait for him to publish it. Meanwhile here is 10 songs culled solely from Rock Songs released in 1970
The tree is an Allantus tree, an invasive species from China and according to court papers, it has ‘compromised the basement wall and interior … (causing) irreparable damage to the structural integrity of the building’. The Tomeis tried to reach out to Sean in order to address the problem before suing him, but it looks like he was not very responsible.
An unescapable world for Dylan and a heaven in the heavens for the sun. Dylan gives the song the deepness of age, the weariness it bears itself. The music, more than anywhere else here sounds like classicist (indeed, all the songs here sound like they are arranged for a full orchestra – Grade: A
Because Direct Current’s taste is so different than mine (yes, I know, but one thing at a time) their list of new releases works as a litmus taste, I scan the list and check and check and check and more than three quarters of the time I check out. So let’s move merrily along: The Wombats, Laura Marling, Nellie McKay, Estelle, Juliana Hatfield Three, Martin Sexton, Texax… maybe I am being a little difficult but those are the ones that catchy my eyes on this list.
it says here he did the Original (incidental?) music? Good, this is what he killed off LCD Soundsystem for? Well, done Jimmy. Oh, and I dislike Haim on principle as wella s not much caring for the album OR the live show.
Australian Daevid Allen formed Gong in France after failing to get a visa to return to the UK where he played guitar with the legendary Soft Boys in 1967. Through the years and numerous incarnations, and many types of Gongs, coming and goings including a fifteen year break, Gong have been a cutting edge experimental progressive rock band who give the term a good name.
Chinatown – Girlpool – Post fame and fortune for the new Haim, here they come up with a pretty, understated pop move, two part harmony, pretty and smart. It sounds like a modern day Roches – B+
Vicious in 1976 was more than the face of punk on a street level although he was that (Rotten the star, Vicious the man on the street), he was the face of face, the face of the UK, of England Dreaming: when you think about the limits of punk UK, you get to the image of Sid Vicious.
The Black Keys have sued companies in the past for using their songs in advertising without their consent, so the fact that they chose an animal cause for their first consenting ad, is a very good point for them…Take that Jack White!
It is immoral to punish people for having unnatural desires, to molest children or for sheep, cannibalism, whatever. That is their right as free people to want things that are terrible and terrifying. They have every single right to think it. But the second they do it they should be jailed or worse.
Vinyl: you had to share your live in space with albums: music became a roommate, in order to own music the only way to own music, was to co-exist with music, physically involve yourself with music.
The Guardian reviewer gave the show 5 stars: “The tight line-up – female trio 3rdeyegirl, a keyboardist and dynamic backing singer Liv Warfield — makes for a lean, hard show with thrilling new funk-rock arrangements.”
The Dylan album is a very good but he also got lucky, this is one of the weakest weeks you’ll find not surrounding Christmas. The Girlpool single is a revelation. If you haven’t heard the new AWOLNATION single, you only have yourself to blame.
For No One – Houndstooth – A big song that doesn’t feel as big as it should, alternative folk rock on acid welding its words and considered by npr for one to be a major breakthrough for the Rough Trade bad. – B
Jumping between the drum set and the mic, he proved at the first song he was a born-entertainer, agile and lovely, with husky vocals and quite a range. R&B, electronic, rap, funk, rock, his songs sounded like a myriad of things at the same time, starting as gentle R&B tunes, but soon transcending the genre, with hip hop and funky guitars, experimental electro beats, becoming a fluid and lively mosaic
I was born about a baseball throw (if you are hyped on steroids, goofballs and PCP) away from the wonderful land that we call Hawthorne, California, home of the Wilson and Jardine Families. If you grew up in Southern California, in that era, you were probably weaned on surf music
OMG OMG OMG, she ran to “Spark The Fire” launching into “Rich Girl” and “What You Waiting For?” from 2004’s Love. Angel. Music. Baby. and “Sweet Escape”, all the while strutting white girl style with her pet Asians.
“I gave up wasting mental energy on people who didn’t have my back,” frontwoman Sadie Dupuis said “Listening to our old records, I get the sense that I was putting myself in horrible situations just to write sad songs. The music isn’t coming from a dark place, and without slipping into self-empowerment jargon, it feels stronger.”
I am so tired of saying Bruno Mars is overrated but he is so damn overrated. I wouldn’t say that if Little Richard or James Brown never existed but they do (one does, the other did) exist and so dumbass bruno feels like watered down spineless mimickry. Nothing personal, mind.
Congrats to Tay for her 10th non consecutive week at the top though her actual amount of units sold is pretty bad, 71K. It shows yet again the sorry state of the pop world though it was a weak week (this week, February 2nd is even worse). Also, note Trainor got downgraded by me, there is just too much B+ stuff here. The EP was much better. PS: what happened to D’Angelo? That didn’t last long though the SNL “Really Love” might pop him back in
Vistas – Kids – In a very weak week, Kids stand out as masterful indie rock, a deep, sweet sound like Bon Iver without the vocals and if they were raised as caddies in Fort Lauderdale somewhere – B+
saw this book from the 1800s and it was velvet-covered with brass and everything. I looked at all these people’s photos and they look so real and their outfits were incredible and they weren’t smiling and people, you know the paparazzi, always come up to me, ‘Why you not smiling?’ and I think, not smiling makes me smile
Saturday Night Live is almost as old as I am! This is kind of crazy to even think about it, but on February 15th, the famous TV show will celebrate its 40th Anniversary with a crazy musical lineup: Paul McCartney, Kanye West – are these two becoming siamese twins these days? – Justin Timberlake, Paul Simon and Taylor Swift….
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The line up is pretty stellar as always (though not putting California X and Nude Beach the same night is the definition of fucking with us), especially Worriers who are a terrific band, Black Wine and Shellshag… Nuclear Santa Claust … but really when it comes to Don Giovanni you just can’t go wrong
That’s Right (You’re Not From Texas)” is a full blown, full band rip roaring triumph of jingoism. Better than Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” because Randy is all sneer and you have to look deep to see Lyle’s wink (it’s in the “the next time someone laughs at you” line).
Still, it is very satisfying to watch an ex-Beatle standing at the apex of pop music in 2015. You can’t go much higher than this and he handles himself with a sort of restrained dignity that makes all pleasures seem more in keeping for all of us. Age becomes McCartney
Telegram Sam – T Rex – Live at the BBC in 1971, a perfect blueprint of a sound not perfected: nascent glam meets bubblegum on the cusp of art pop – A+
The claim can be countrypolitan in reverse only it isn’t really country, it is closer to the sort of reverence for great songs Dylan showed on Good As I’ve Been To You, then folk, here the Great American Songbook –with more than its fair share of obscurities, rearranged for Dylan’s band and Dylan’s voice. Why? Because he wanted to sing them – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A
ut wait a minute, is it possible that our genes have memory? ‘Genetic memory, simply put, is complex abilities and actual sophisticated knowledge inherited along with other more typical and commonly accepted physical and behavioral characteristics,’ writes Treffert. It is what Carl Jung called the ‘collective unconscious.’
I thought these indie rockers from Cincinatti were great at the time and I thought they were greater when I thought back on it. Essentially, they are a midwestern Shellshag who didn’t make it through the long run as a couple have lived to explain the pitfalls and disasters of romantic love and this night played em down to the ground.
As a lyricist Pete wetnz is a child of his emo rock urges, the strange drawn out song titles that turn and move in ways you don’t expect. Except it never quite manages to pay off well enough. Except this on does, a masterpiece of lost love which uses Judy Jetson’s mobility as a future history of a disappeared love.
So you can imagine my surprise when a press release went out yesterday—without my knowledge—about the band’s future. This is new to me. It’s not in my nature to fuel negativity about the legacy of the band on something as trashy as the Internet world.”
