‘I died unknown/Stillborn, one morning/Letters on paper/They remain/At last my work is done/The picture’s gone/But the memory lingers on/Farewell/This one’s for you/I used to dream/Dream awake/Hide in the dark/Fade into gray/I used to pray/But now I scream/Lord help me/No more daydreams’
Our Alyson is trying to get over for at least a day and I don’t know what she plans but if I only had one day I could go, my eyes would be on Off! followed by Bad Religion. Though Rancid? Yelawolf? Blink 182? See what I mean?
5 songs from the excellent Blunderbuss but only 4 off Lazaretto, which suggest he realizes he dogged it proper, 8 White Stripes tracks, rwo from the Raconteurs (the best two as well) and nothing from Dead Weather
Bad Place For A Good Time – Kate Tempest – This is how you rap to a metronome, like dancing between raindrops, and this is what you rap about not just “be like a tree” but more importantly “find something sacred in all of this silence”. That’s the sort of truth we can all use – A
After reading Pitchfork’s ” She crafts slow-burning soul music indebted to singers like Dolly Parton, Dusty Springfield, and Jenny Lewis…” I was gagging to unload on this sucker but the songs are excellent and her voice is beautiful. It is like indie country plus odd instruments and her falsetto
I believe now, even though everyone and their mother can release tracks without a record company backing them, the glut of product, even though it may be fantastic, may be getting overlooked
Watching her finest moments of her filmed career, the woman jumps off the screen in a manner perfect for the hyper reality of the Hollywood dream factory whether throwing a cream pie at Gene Kelly in “Rain.” or kicking up her feet on a long bar in “Molly,” she was the personification of the rounded entertainer
The ‘innocent until proven guilty’ statement just applies in the courtroom, not only we have the right to express an informed opinion outside of it, but we should! Expressing and writing what we think is part of our rights. What are people so afraid of?
‘Of the four phrases, three are virtually identical. The pitches are the same; the rhythms are the same; the chords are pretty much the same, with Petty’s D subbed out for Smith’s C Even the structure of the lyrics is similar — the songs’ titles both arrive on the same notes in the first full bar and are repeated in the last phrase.’
Let’s hand it to rap, two terrific albums to start the new year. Joey Bada$$ , Bed Stuyvesant liviest one co-founder of the rap collective Pro Era, and who would be big time indeed if he widened his interests on debut album B4.DA.$$ . Or narrowed them as Lupe Fiasco did on his superb Tetsuo And Beyond.
At eleven minutes on length you’d think this awesome rock drone push and punish finishing “The End” would slacken somewhere but it never relents and its unyielding, ugly power changes a good album to a great one – A
Wake Shake Bake – Fidlar – The popular pop punk band’s ode to intoxicants like Wavves never realized the limitations of being young and dumb. Like the man said, you’re never too old to enjoy dumb entertainment… so enjoy – B+
Last night was a triumphant repeat of that same chaos, a celebration of youth exuberance and recklessness, also amplified by the two other bands opening for them.
“We’re all about love. We are always love, its just its just its just about music man.If you’ve got fans it means youre doing something right. If we can come over for you its a good look for us.”
Consensus – a phenomenal performance. I have no hesitation in saying that because I know so little, I enjoyed them to no end. And hearing all those hits, which irritated me so many years ago, was a joy – and the musicianship left my head turned completely
Is it me or this sounds a bit cheesy-folksy, a bit campfire song, part old fashioned, part Jack Johnson tune mutated with powerhouse vocals? Not disagreeable but easily forgettable.
I swear, at first glance I thought they’d misposted last weeks charts by mistake but no, the Avicii, which I quite like, is a new track from an old album. Otherwise, everything is where it was only you are there for your sins
Finally, 2015 hits the charts and while I am not crazy about #1, I am crazy about # 2, FOB’s best album ever and if it did this well in the UK, I wonder if it can take over from Meghan in the US? No, I don’t really like the new Belle & Sebastian but I approve of them as a concept.
One More – Ne-Yo And T.I. – This is better than average by both of them, Ne-Yo ha his usual buttery voice but the song is a beauty and T.I, underplays it nicely (it is obviously Ne-Yo’s song), the lyric sucks but it’s a goodie – B+
I laughed and laughed hard, sometimes. Sometimes I didn’t laugh at all. This is one man’s life and I’m happy, or maybe, sorry for him. He has everything,we are the schmucks who are paying to hear him deny his great good fortune (and genius) brings him happiness.
I am sorry to let you know this, but Beyonce is a very greedy woman: when you are a pop star sitting on hundreds of millions, you leave the kids alone… how much can someone make on Etsy? Really nothing compared to the money owned by the queen B!
What was pussy like in the Sixties?’ Really? You have the chance to collaborate with a legend, to approach him and this is your trite question Kanye? Too bad that Kanye was not capable to give Macca’s answer, and that he proceeded with an acapella version of ‘Only One’
Yep, this is the song of the winter. With a slice of Pulp Fiction and a dash of “The Munsters” and, here, for the piece de resistance, boy of Zummer buddy Wiz Khalifa adding a verse of chronic, the one track that will put the band back at the top of the heap
The last time I saw Billy Idol on stage was 2001 at the Bottom Line. How long ago was 2001? You couldn’t not only not buy a tix for the show online, you also couldn’t buy a ticket to the show with a credit card. Solo acoustic (just Billy and Steve) and he was pretty superb
It sure seems to me as a little late to be pushing the product, plus, except for “Whiskey And Pills” none of it is all that hot. So yeah, serious problem for me. But the hits just keep on coming and just think of this, how many hits does this damn guy have? I lost interest at eight. So, yeah I’m psyched and here is the spotify list…
Napalm Death, Young Ejecta (I loved that song from earlier this year), the Lone Bellow, Papa Roach, Gov’t Mule??? Ne-Yo is closer but is albums are so inconsistent… I’m gonna go with I’m gonna go with Supergrass leader Gaz Coombes second solo album, I’ve heard none of it but that’s why I’m anticipating.
That’s weird, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Myers in reruns the same week? Why would that be? Surely they should keep new Myers if Fallon is off. So not much but at least there is Ellen Degeneres with Kanye West and Sam Smith on the same show! I would love Smith on a West track, maybe this can’t be the start.
It isn’t Joni’s fault this became a huge fucking cliche, it is everybody else’s faults. Including “moody quirky” Alva, and Jenny Lewis back up I’m ready for my close up Mr. DeMille Natalie Prass. Sure, a cliche and a half. Still, the voices are pretty amazing – B+
I caught them, all sitting at a long table, greeting fans and dogs, but I didn’t stay long as I also wanted to catch them the same night at Sonos Studios. It was just a Q&A with Colin Meloy following by a listening party of the album, and by ‘just’ I meant that there was no performance alas…
The riddle of Hendrix is not a riddle, all great musicians have a hole somewhere. We have glimpses of his youth, of what he left behind, and what he was doing, his nonchalent coolness to everyone, but we don’t have the image of what he was. Perhaps there is no way to find Jimi, where his love lives in, outside the music.
That whole idea [actors making music] for me is a sickening thing, it’s always just made me sick’… Err, hello Johnny, aren’t you constantly making or playing music with all your musician best friends? Friends like Marilyn Manson, Patti Smith, Ryan Adams, and so many others?
So does this mean when he said was scared for his life it was less that Swift would have him killed and more her fans would kill him? Well, that sounds much more likely. Swifties might certainly loath Diplp enough, and they didn’t even have to sit through his New year’s Eve show with Skrillex.
It’s about how men see women as commodities, as though they don’t need them to complete them, they need something else, the Groupies, always dating upwards, staying on their grind, leave or live with it and finally, it is about that lonely piano note always there, always a plink, always sad, always waiting to be left alone
Just the thought of that Foo Fighter breaking down in tears while telling how excited Cobain was for Dave’s first solo projects gives me a bad bad feeling. Oh, well, I guess the rich and famous are different than us, they exploit differentl.
Off season they do their own thing—still employing flags, rifles and sabers—but their routines are less about formation than about themes, emotion, concepts and visual spectacle. Over recent decades, the teams have evolved into something strange and wonderful
The Sweetest Punch – Bill Frisell, Elvis Costello – Bill Frisell’s excellent title track, companion piece, to Painted From Memory loses nothing in this glorious horn swept arrangement… the clarinet replaces the voice – A
Elliott speaks about listening to Elvis Costello records and feeling like ‘a freak among other freaks’, about be given the ‘Folk music tag’ (which really bothered him) and about calling the addicts in his songs ‘the dependents’
“Every time I get a transaction, I get a text on my phone, and I’ve been hitting them back. The feedback and the connection I have with these people help me understand the psychology of the person paying $1,000 for some songs that, realistically, you could download for free.”
“She is very strategic with her friends and enemies And I know lots of secrets. I can’t divulge, but I know a lot of stuff about her. And I’m scared. I’m scared for my life.”
I love Dr. John and I worship the ground Armstrong walked on, so what’s not to like, right? How about starting with this: I wasn’t crazy about Ske –Dat- De -Dat The Spirit Of Satch when it was released. “He came to me in this dream and said, ‘Do my stuff — your way,'” said the 73-year-old pianist
I absolutely plan to go and see Manic Street Preachers play their best album (but very closely followed by Everything Must Go), still how are they gonna perform it with their lead singer dead 20 years? Is The Holy bible the holy bible without Jesus?
I don’t ask for much: money, girls, tickets to D’Angelo, more money, a very long life with lots of money, but otherwise I leave you to your own devises and I don’t pray on your ass every day. But pleaaaaase, let the next round of leaks be from Sony Music
If “We Can Be Together” sounded like a good trip (man, that Grace Slick can sing, how did you lose her cool?) it wasn’t, it was based on Black Panther’s war cry, “Up against the, motherfucker”) and from there it blows blues hot (try a terrific “Wooden Ships” and folk cool. Add on top two of the best songs, the title track and “Somebody To Love” and you have a career peak.
Belly Of The Beast – Joey Bada$$ and Chronixx – Talk about strange bedfellows, Chronixx is old school Rastafarian and Bada$$ is a 20 year old new rap wunderkind, this track meets in the New York meets Kingstown world of extreme poverty and is a brilliant one of the best songs of the year deals – A
The name on the tip of your tongue is Ryan Adams though it sounds more the Cardinals to me, and as much as I like Ryan, I prefer Laura. It is like Dylan covering Donovan.
‘If I was literally responsible for something I would take credit or accept the responsibility, if I did a crime I would take the punishment, but I’m not going to accept any blame for things that I make
Modest Mouse’s song is a bright ballad with melancholic vocals tip toeing (just like this coyote) through gentle plucked guitars and full orchestration, brushed by harmonies soaring in cycles. The video couldn’t be more simple and this cute coyote seems so lost and adventurous at the same time,
“It was a real privilege to make this album. I’ve wanted to do something like this for a long time but was never brave enough to approach 30-piece complicated arrangements and refine them down for a 5-piece band. That’s the key to all these performances.”
The only newbie is “Sugar” and the reason is simple, because the video is a masterpiece and it pushed it all the way into the charts by brute force. It is really a pity the same thing won’t happen for Sleater-Kinney as they find a city to live in.
I said Taylor was making a mistake when she brushed Meghan off with a text at Jingle Ball, I said Z-100 were making a mistake when they only gave her four minutes, I said Title was the best album of the week, last Jan 13th, I said the major rock critics (in lockstep: again) were being thickies when they dismissed it as mediocre. And I said it would be at # 1 this week. And I was right.
