New Dorp, New York – SBTRKT, Ezra Koenig – Jessie Ware and ASAP Ferg join the boys on this strange contender for best nyc song ever, with thumbing single drums and Ezra sounding way way way too cool, much like the Yanks they’ve got a baseball bat that never hits runs, and you think I’m the negative – A
How did he come up with these short poems for short words? Just because of Scrabble apparently, and probably because of his interest for these two-letter words that are really important in the game… I wouldn’t be able to tell, I haven’t played Scrabble for ages.
I like this ‘Play Ball’, which plays as a straightforward guitar attack with a tap footing tempo and singer Brian Johnson’s always furious and more-than-ever-raucous vocals,… the track has even some true bluesy parts!
“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” This is the heart of Kat’s advise on a gorgeous song which makes me feel a little sad because really, everything is so here and gone
The surprise here isn’t that Jamie T is still alive, or that he can write a song, it is that he is better at everything he does. He sounds like a rock start, and he sounds like a mess but one who has the real gift, who might be able to be big time… not in the US, of course, but still this went Top 10 in the Uk.
Ellie? Weren’t they dating and then broke up and then she ended up with Eddie Sheeran and dumped him and he wrote a song about it? or am I thinking about two other people? Ed wrote “Don’t” about Ellie dumping him for a 1D guy… Ps she is currently dating the bassist for McFly.
Billboard are thrilled that this is the first time the top five singles have been held by five women for five consecutive weeks. But surely the statistic means nothing unless compared to the last time five men have held the top five singles places for five consecutive weeks? So why isn’t it being done? Any guesses? This is a form of sexism you know!
Look at it this way: the Voice has 13 million viewers, Blake sold 100,000 copies of his new album. That is pretty abysmal, right? Otherwise we gain less and less insight from the album charts. what does the script moving 25,000 units tell you? Nothing?
Tuesday morning is my favorite time of the week but believe me, there is a lot of music to listen to, and for this song to actually make a lasting impression is a testament to the indie pop wonder of youthful energy and pop moments – A-
This was a retelling of the prodigal son story, the killing of the fatted calf which left Stevie with less stage time (the way it wouldn’t do for musical director Buckingham) and it was just a little uneasy. A good concert yes, how much joy can you get out of Chrissie seeing “falling, falling, falling”? A lot of course. but it didn’t have the spark of a band reinventing itself.
The theater may soon be owned by Live Nation Worldwide, the giant corporation which recently set up Jay Z’s Made in America festival in LA and operates way too many concerts and festivals all around the country. However, Nederland has decided to fight and just got a new partner AEG live with a petition against Live Nation
50 St. Catherine’s Drive isn’t merely a downer, but it is a bummer as well. But extreme sorrow is a great pop music subject and the album has the powers of its conviction. The last song finds Robin back in “Sydney”, “I’m back in Sydney, my brothers are with me, do it or die”.
I’m Not The Only One – Sam Smith, A$AP Rocky – Nicely done mix and match, and compared to the other single he released this week, he rhymes along to the lick very well and with a lot of feeling. Though it could be a little sharper lyrically – B+
The martial beats that open the song are a fake out, this is actually emo rock as Rivers had a huge influence on via Pinkerton, and so I guess it makes perfect sense for this to sound very Pinkertonish in the best manner possible. A great song, his first great song in a long long time – A
It is a nod to Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov’s literary work, but has a story all its own. It’s about the pale fire that pierces darkness & ignites a revolution of the heart, the mind, or the people.
Sounds like early Belle And Sebastian, or maybe Los Campesinos, without the quirky lyrics or the over arrangements, so basically the melodies remain in tact and indelible and the hooks are grabby and the vocals, by Elizabeth Morris, are lovely on this very fine pop-rocker – Twee on dudes – ALBUM OF THE WEEK A-
My old buddy Billy Idol, who I interviewed at Aucoin management (an awesome place filled with Kiss pinball machines and in office fountains) back back back and who is a great guy is the key note speaker on Thursday, October 9th at 6pm. This will be at the CBGB’s HQ
‘I’m tired of men who aren’t professional or even accomplished musicians continually offering to ‘help me out’ (without being asked), as if i did this by accident and i’m gonna flounder without them. or as if the fact that I’m a woman makes me incapable of using technology.”
After Steve Marriott left the Small Faces in 1969, he formed Humble Pie with guitarist Peter Frampton and scored a #4 U.K. hit with “Natural Born Bugie.” Frampton had left by 1972’s Smokin’ album, which went to #6 on the U.S. charts. “30 Days in the Hole,” a plaint about drug related jail time, has elements of gospel and blues, with a hard rock sound similar to Free/Bad Company. Sadly, Marriott’s career with sidetracked with chemical dependency issues and he passed away at the age of 44, from a fire he most likely caused by accident.
Journalists who attended the New York screening on Saturday, could listen to ‘Spooks’, an instrumental, showing up in the credits at the end of the movie, and being described as a number with ‘surf-rock guitar’ which ‘makes it a good fit for the 1970-set ‘Inherent Vice’, which includes a surf-rock saxophonist
BAD LANDS are the thoughts you had last night while you were drinking & the words you let slip out that aren’t forgotten. Mowgli + Rocky, charming villains.
Kat on a long distance journey through time, and space, and absolutely lovely and oddly moving, and what a great way to end an album… love the horns. Her point? why count when nothing is promised. Written on tour in Europe, influenced by Paul Simon’s Graceland, Kat said the song mean”we don’t know why we are here” – A
Saxophone Stomp – Rosko – Dubstep maestro, uses a beat pattern and a dubstep bass to interrupt for some form of mainstream dubstep, the only function of which will have you blasted on the dancefloor like a dog picking up frequencies no one else can hear – B
From our panel participation and various Austin visits, we teamed with our Rock Star publicist (Karen Sundell) and had a brainstorm to create an annual Miles experience. We got so much love from SXSW and the music community, wanting more Miles, that we decided to roll-out an event that would honor Miles, while supporting the next generation of musicians
I have checked many of the accounts which launched the racist harassment on twitter, and most of them have been suspended… excellent Twitter police! Now a lot of people are expecting Pattinson to make a move to defend her woman, but FKA Twigs seems to be doing just all right by herself
You know how you can tell Thom isn’t fucking around? He didn’t price it at $5.99. The album, Yorke, found another way to make money and another way to play the game. He knew what he had and he did what he needed to do to make the money he was worth.
They beat em high, they beat em low, but everywhere the Orioles go they beat Detroit like banging a goddam drum in the first round of the ALCS. It only took 20 years, but Buck Showalter has his revenge not just on the Yanks, who didn’t even make the playoffs, but everybody else as well. Not sure if it should be in the Sports column any more, but Jeter was pretty excellent on Fallon last Thursday.
It took George Ezra 14 weeks to get to # 1 but don’t sneer too hard guys, he is only 21 years old! As opposed to Jamie T, who is 28 years old and who took five years between albums… otherwise known as career hari-kari except the new album is excellent and in the UK should put him back on top… but not of Ezra
The thing to keep in mind about Trainor is that not only is she not a one hit wonder, she already has three more potential hits on her new EP and a handful of excellent tracks on her debut album from three years ago, Only 17. I mean, you haven’t even heard “Out The Window” have you?
I was never a fan, it sounded like the usual indie mish mash of Kurt Vile, Cold War Kids, the National, brought to a boil, and I am old enough for this to feel like weak gruel. Plus I didn’t like their name. But this is an excellent song and any way, two of these guys play with the Violators so the Kurt Vile connect makes sense – B+
The song and verse goes freedom requires endless vigilance but if that’s the case, why bother? What sort of freedom is that? Freedom is the freedom to dress weird and be sexy, take Mollie and dance all night to heavily processed beats. That’s it. That’s what makes life worth living when you’ve just hit 21 and that’s what Bassnectar offer.
I was with them. I was with this girl holding tight a poster given away inside the club and commemorating the night, I was with this guy who had brought his whole vinyl collection to the show I was with this guy in a wheelchair holding a hand made Wu-Tang Clan necklace moving closer to the stage as the show was progressing.
What does it says about you when your face can be used in cartoons and comics, when your mug has reached this level of familiarity that everyone instantaneously recognizes who you are once sketched by more than three dozen of different artists?
Mcafee who came up with this list of the celebrities most likely to give you a virus, and no, John Mayer isn’t at the top of the list Jimmy Kimmel is, and Bruce is close by and if there is amoral to this post because, cmon, we are always looking for morals somewhere or the other, it is… ah screw it here’s the list.
it’s a quiet week and that’s one reason I would’ve made Johnny Marr my most anticipated but I can’t because it is already on Spotify. Still, it is a damn good album, beter than the new Weezer. What I’ve heard of the new Jackson Browne is aces if fairly typical. But no… not really. So what? How about Jason Aldean? Nope. Flying Lotus? EDM grabs me at first but wears off. I am going with Ali campbell, the UB40 leader.
I still wrote it was missing something, it was missing the incomparable Christine McVie (read my review here). Well, on Monday at Madison Square garden it won’t be missing Ms. McVie and it should be superb. For godssake, the second song of the evening will be “You Make Loving Fun”.
Say Anything, Dum Dum Girls, Bleached, Shannon And The Clams, and Best Coast… just another week on the carson Daley Show where the former MTV wunderkind continues to present the same thing as everyone else and then a little more. It was carson who aired that terrific Screaming Females segment a couple of months ago. The ringer here is the terrific 50s inspired doo woppy meets garage Shannon And The Clams.
The Days – Avicii – Robbie Williams takesover on lead vocals this time, the track is a colorful little folk pop number, nothing much but catchier as hell and it builds and it builds. Should be huge –at least in the UK – B+
Fly Panda is and will be the biggest, baddest, illest pop group you’ve ever seen. We are bigger than life; we are far beyond your regular or average group. This group breathes life into your boring pop music. We are Fly Panda.
Of course, there is the metaphorical parallel between women and meat, and the video has been very criticized by advocacy groups (such as RAINN, Rape, Abuse, Incest, National Network, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center according to the Independent and TMZ) which are saying that the video is glorifying violence against women and even rape… really?
If it is nostalgia, it is big shot big time nostalgia, it is nostalgia the way McCartney is nostalgia, but it is more life a masterclass: I think it must be like watching Maria Callas or Louis Armstrong. Who wants to give Armstrong a hard time for playing “Sleepy Time Down South”? To what end?
Though I am not really sure if any of these were great fits for the King. That mix of oedipal vulnerable and blue collar visceral is so specific it is hard to imagine him in anything not tailor made for his gifts.
He is the child of Sidney Poiter and shares an unbrokable dignity… when the role demands. Consider this the anti-Flight, his role as The equalizer demands it on this follow up to Denzel’s Oscar winning “Training Day”, both directed by Anton Fuqua.
Under The Tide – Chvrches – Electronic pop group follow up their big break through with more is less of the same, the rhythm shudders a lot, and where’s the chick singer? – C+
It Comes Back To You – Christopher Owens – A lilting guitar strum piece of good advice from Dr. Owens about how romance works, like he is the lowest of low key Bono’s – A-
“East coast punk rock has always been a huge influence in our music. My first band was called The Thunder Boys named after our gloomy Rock N Roll hero Johnny Thunders. We’re pretty excited to continue the legacy of a venue that housed the Ramones first gig and bands like Television, Blondie, and Richard Hell”
I owe everything to Sam and the ideas he has revealed in this new edition. My life completely changed once I was introduced to him. He taught me how to think about art and eventually how to attack it, making me a living example that his approach is almost fool-proof…’
“Face Drop” is just plain fabulous, rap meets Electronica, I may mean EDM. . “Face Drop” would be great by any reckoning but when Winter Rae nails the hook, the song goes into whole other worlds. Actually I am kinda mad at myself for not writing about em last year.
It might actually be catchier than I am giving it credit for. I’ve really sorta grown tired of the band and I don’t like waiting four years for crap albums, but this one could have been worse; extended childhoods could be their own rewards.
Malkmus sings slightly out of tune and the song winds and wheels along, from one traffic light to the open road and he wonders about a future but it feels stream of conscious, his mind whether skateboarding or travelling, or wondering about paying his dues, and the song ravels like the road behind ever forward to a dream dream dream, which, today, is just completely over.
