After nine years of offshoots, most of them good and two of them, Wild Flag and Corin Tucker Band, better than that the Clash of riot grrrls, and circa Dig Me Out, the greatest rock and roll band in the world, have played everything out till they are back together.
They are playing Dublin the next St. Patrick’s Day, a somewhat stupid idea since March 17th is much bigger in nyc than on the Emerald Isle, but we will still get em for three nights at Irving Plaza.
Day Drinking – Little Big Town – Great terribly bad advice but a swinging little blues rocker counting down to a first rate chorus replete with whistling that actually works – A-
Their name suggests indie dream pop and their home , Hollywood Florida, suggests surf and turf, but their sounds is New Yawk girl group via the Ramones with a huge dollop of feedback, reverb and a misheard chorus via My Bloody Valentine. In other words, they are awesome and a great way to kick off CMJ 2014
She has seldom sounded better than she does on “I Put A Spell On You” and her “You Belong To Me” belongs in the same category as Patsy Cline. Whether singing soul or jazz or Gospel, the voice is a magnificent thing and the arrangements do everything possible to highlight the voice – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A-
You cannot in good measure critique a band on a farewell journey. They’re emotionally charged, tired and seemingly on auto pilot as they work their way tying up the loose strings of their time together. A band of brothers and an army of 6, Black47 have done what they wanted to do- raise awareness, raise a fist and raise a pint, with the convictions of superheroes.
Although the main topic was about ‘free music in a Capitalist society’, he touched a lot of subjects, mentioned ‘the new electronic devices which estrange people from their morals’ and other bad things (mostly money) related to the music industry, but basically he gave a lot of advices to young artists
Everyone knows this, when an album or a single has sold a certain amount of copies, it turns Gold (500,000), Platinum (1,000,000) or Diamond (10,000,000), and this is obviously the goal of most artists. However, Forbes reports that, this year, not a single artist’s album has gone platinum, and the year is almost over! Really? Not even Beyoncé or someone in her league?
She uses Google Glass to play “Video Girl” and then to learn the dance steps, and it twins her up and then quadruples her. The man is a stunning, dramatic figure of grace and it suggest (which is probably the reason for being) a certain gracefulness in the ungraceful Google Glass
It doesn’t actually sound like the LES in the 80s, maybe the 90s, the sound is too professional, the pain is deep but the arrangement has none of the sloppiness or loose barrelled of punk rock: this is a tough minded blues for grown ups. Well worth listening to.
No Ordinary Love – You + Me – Sure, P!nk has a good voice but she needs the song to signify and she doesn’t have it here, a terrible piano based ballad slow as molasses and a self defeating love doodle – D+
Did this break Stateside? it sounds like the Lumineers meets 1D in the best way imaginable, a ridiculously catchy hook laden chorus built for singing along to; stomp your feet and join in. It must have broken here.. but nope, it stiffed – A-
This is an electrified tour de force, a statement on the art of the art of music and an important addition to the myth that is New York City. It has been called a journey through black America but that is to damn it with faint praise. This isn’t about black people, it is about what human people should and do and don’t do for each other.
‘Is that Neil Young?’ asked me a guy entering the studio at the same time ‘Yes! And it’s unbelievable!’ I answered. No it wasn’t unbelievable that Neil was there for his daughter’s first solo art show in Los Angeles, but it was unbelievable that I was there, among all these people. Amber was attending, of course, as was Pegi, her mother, and even Stephen Stills showed up
Their uplifting songs filled with multi harmonies and wide-screen melodies, which can very easily turn into joyous sing-alongs. Their computer crashed after just one song, they also lost some part of their drum set at one point but this didn’t stop them for very long. May be I hadn’t noticed before
“Looking For Johnny” was everything it could possibly be, it respected the story as best it could where no one else seems to bother, an excellent memory of a great guitarist,a legendary musician, a towering New Yorker and an influence for every other rock band playing the 7pm set at Arlene’s grocery.
This entire week belonged to Tay, Lena Durham said she wanted a Taylor Swift song at her wedding. Impressed? LENA IS DATING JACK ANTONOFF!! The Diet Pepsi commercial was so awesomely cute I still haven’t recovered and the song on it was fabulous; the new song (not single mind) “Out Of The Woods” is great EDM. Plus? 7 more days till 1989.
Sure “Ghosts” is Ok but not over an album, meanwhile I am kinda shocked to find U2 in the charts. I guess not as many people have Itunes as I thought (80 million streams of the album by the way). ANything else? Nope, go back to whatever you were doing.
This may well be the best singles charts I’ve seen since I started seriously monitoring the charts; Trainor followed by Taylor we have been used to for the past month, but than a good 1D and then a GREAT Ed Sheeran, the best on his current album, and it doesn’t really end, the Paloma and Jeremih I can live without but they aren’t that bad, and the Vamps S&G cover is awesome.
Off their final (or is that last?) album The Woods, this acoustic pop song makes you wonder why they weren’t more popular with the album reaching # 80 on the Billboard 200, their best placing ever. So, of course, they broke up. This is a really quite wonderful singalong acoustic folk good feel – A
On song after song, Destiny and drummer Mark Smollin find the joy in creation, in song, in raising your voices and if polemic doesn’t swing, songs like “Hooray For The Salvation Army Band” and the sublime “Patriotic Class warfare” swing from the rafters.
The trailer is officially out and you will recognize members of Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Black Market Baby, the Faith, the Slickee Boys, Void, Government Issue, Marginal Man, Dag Nasty, 9353, Gray Matter, Beefeater, Scream, Rites of Spring, Fugazi, Shudder to Think, Nation of Ulysses, Jawbo
As of October 15th, there have been 17 cases of Ebola reported outside of Africa, whereas 8,376 suspected cases and 4,024 deaths had been reported in West Africa… now imagine if someone white had tweeted the same thing?
“I Tried” is a big time blues rocker which sounds like the way cali blues should, a deep bass and a very strong guitarist with a straight ahead beat, the song is about as good as rock gets in 2014, there is nowhere else for it to go
it doesn’t matter how well written the ideas are if you can’t hear them and the magic at the heart of “The Real Thing” is lost. It isn’t there any more. I know what I love in the play because I’ve read it and I’ve seen it, but I wouldn’t have known it from this bad production
So why go again for “A Benefit Concert Holiday Cheer For FUV Conor Oberst And Friends” at the Beacon Theater on December 8th? I mean, over and above Conor having proven his abilities with a carol? I just have a lotta time for Conor
The eagerly awaited Yusef Komunyakaa – Tomas Doncker Band collaboration Big Apple Blues will be released on Tuesday, and the afternoon gig at NJPAC on Friday is the one to keep your eye on for sure. But Komunyakaa has any number of other performances coming up
I am gonna go with Scott Walker and Sunn O))) as most anticipated (the best will be Doncker) despite assuming it will be an almost impentrable wall of sound and edges and rumbling bass by the most eccentric former boy band leader of all times and the harshest strangest sounding ambient metal band
Never Been In Love – Elliphant – Missed her opening for Charli XCX and based on this modified reggae beat, my loss. the best song on a terrific EDM via, where else, Stockholm; it is a very hooked rimmed beat and sweetly dub special – A-
The band took the stage with ‘Karmacoma’, a funky trip hop groove and a background of war news mixed with images of O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson trials, always blending the trivial of our trash culture with the substantial, and if it was not their most familiar song, it immediately gave the tone of the show
“The Bottle,” a look at the personal destruction caused by alcoholism, became one of his most famous songs; a sad irony for a man who would later experience significant substance abuse issues that derailed his career.
‘Moonlight’ sounds like a perfect October soundtrack, a bit scary like the month of the dead, with Hanni hurling at the moonlight, and haunting the night over a loop-heavy tune. It’s also super catchy and soon you’ll get addicted to this slick circle drumming
I’ve reviewed every Jingle Ball right here since 2009 and been to every one for, wow, for decades… names? Justin biebers first, Green Day, J Lo, Gaga and Perry and Ke$ha, Taylor twice, One Direction, Michael Buble… Celine Dion
March 21-27, 2015, Los Angeles to Seattle and return. BE ONE OF THE FIRST 12 PEOPLE TO SIGN UP AND TAKE $100 PER PERSON OFF THE PRICES LISTED. OR SIGN UP FOR BOTH THE GOLDEN STATE XPRESS AND DAVE ALVIN’S WEST OF THE WEST AND TAKE $250 OFF EACH TRIP
My bet is they will be back in 2016 as well and end it all in London around two years from now, Pete and Roger make 50 million a piece and live happily ever after. I also really hope they get Wilko Johnson, if he is still kicking, one of the great disappointments in the Daltry-Johnson tour didn’t make it to New York. The film I saw was superior to the Who last year.
Left My Heart In Brooklyn – Meghann Wright – The ending of this song, a litany of places in Brooklyn where she left her heart, is just one reason to be really psyched to check her out at CMJ next week – B+
What do you expect from the deadest of dead genre’s, Contemporary Mainstream Rock And Roll? Or a radio station that went from where rock live to where rock died?
‘We want to have left great, conceptual, beautiful, glimmering records in the world. We’re thinking super long term, like dead-term.’ I don’t think they had these deep thoughts in mind when they were playing in Amoeba, they certainly seemed to have a good time. ‘This is a love song’
Shane dreams of meeting Brendan and Brendan, who once called himself “a drinker with a writing problem” and claiming “I only drink on two occasions—when I’m thirsty and when I’m not”, and asking his philosophie but finding philosophy lost in streams of whiskey. Shane, a notorious drunk himself, joins Brendan and together they extol the one thing that gets them through.
given the circumstances, what interests me is time and place rather than specific bands. You catch enough, you’ll stumble onto pay dirt and any way, I wanna cover cover as much as I can as fast as I can. So I’ve been analyzing the schedule of concerts and I now have a headache
‘Interscope are calling me to help write Madonna’s record. They need something edgy. They need songwriting. She can’t just have her Avicii, her producers or whatever, come up with a new techno jam for her to gyrate to and pretend that she’s 20 years old. They actually need songs.’
We posted the track listing a couple of days ago and will do it again at the bottom here, but the first time round it was just a bizarre setlist, a mix of hits, obscurities and remixes plus three new songs. Now I see it as different periods in the ongoing story of…
“Let It Go” does something, even if it does it accidentally, that needs to be applauded: it makes am anthem for preteen girls. The self-expression of “Let It Go” speaks to a certain need for release from the strictures already jailing young girls, even at that age. It may well be the most important song of the year despite itself.
Bad Things – Meiko – This is the sound of modern torch and the only real problem is it isn’t soft enough, it whispers loudly, and the pulsebeat should be turned down a notch – B
At this point there is everybody in the Universe and there is kittens appearing every time Taylor Swift takes a sip of Diet Coke and there is NOTHING IN BETWEEN.
They looked (and partially) sounded like Mumford and Sons, as the music had this uplifting-optimistic folk-revival quality but they also had some dance moves as worked out as Justin Timberlake’s
All pretense at being country, which barely survived the Red tour, is absolutely over, and all pretense of being a singer songwriter with a humongous cult are dropped and Taylor emerges as the modern pop star after finishing school. She is a Jane Austin heroine with a Yamaha DX7.
Should it be a hit? I hope it is, I love it, I love her. It just misses it by that much, it is not ordinary but it is ordinary for what she does, for what Meghan is capable of. Really, this is an album track and should have remained deep on her upcoming (soon, please please) album
‘This lawsuit is a wholehearted effort by Kesha to regain control of her music career and her personal freedom after suffering for 10 years as a victim of mental manipulation, emotional abuse and sexual assault at the hands of Dr. Luke,’
Hooo, this is pretty brutal stuff, one crap album after another and whatever you might wanna say about Ariana Grande, Jesse J, all those pop girls, they grab you at first even if they don’t maintain beyond the one night of love. Bromances, bad r&b, worse American Standards and Stevie Bloody Nicks ain’t gonna make it with any one any how
