Oasis Brothers Gallagher Talking
Which means they will be missing the 20th anniversary of “Definitely Maybe” though the last thing I heard was they are reforming for Glastonbury and the fighting brothers in the Kinks might join em as well!
Boy George's "This Is What I Do" Reviewed
There are several good covers, a Yoko Ono here, a Bob Dylan there and a Lana Del Rey everywhere: they all work pretty well albeit not very well, his best solo album by a lot shot but it misses that one sure shot to get him back where he was
Career Peaks For U2… And Others
Like all of us, rock stars go through highs and lows, peaks and valley, just when you have the world you lose it all and just when things can’t go get any worse, everything clicks into place… for awhile. Here are some career peaks!
"Rio 2" Reviewed
Colorful, musical (that’s Bruno Mars, and that’s Will I Am, and that’s Janelle Monae), it is a fun ride and even lovelier in 3D -every time you’ve got a lot of flying going on it will look nice in 3D
10 Songs, Tuesday, April 29th, 2014
when I was young, I mean really young, maybe three years old, I dreamt I was an RAF pilot during the Second world war and shot down over the North Sea. I remember dreaming the plane was on fire and I was spiralling downwards. When I opened my eyes I was above my body looking down at me dead and then I was a child again safe in bed. I hadn’t even heard of WW2 at the time. Make of it what you will – A
Beauty and The Beast, Why Women Love Rockstars
They say that opposites attract but holy hell, its got to be more than that. But go to any rock show and there is a gorgeous girl gushing over the homeliest man with a guitar- its absolutely amazing.
Are People Bashing EDM Just Too Old?
I find EDM obnoxious, boring and I have zero interest at attending an EDM event,… but may be I am old, too old for that repetitive one-note pumping for hours, may be EDM is gonna be mainstream soon, may be it will be the only type of music that the next generations will be listening to, but in this case I am happy I will be dead
Old 97's "Most Messed Up" Reviewed
This is a terrific, smart hard, fun… maybe the best album of the year, certainly a glorious surprise to hear the band still able to crank it up and out. They are gonna have a blast playing it live. A couple of months ago I was planning a “the decline and fall of Rhett Miller” article. He ain’t done yet.
One Song: "B Movie" By Elvis Costello And The Attractions
It’s not just the superb bass lick finger picked all the way through through that makes it sound like a boxer bobbing on the toes of his feet, it is the waving Costello delivery till the knocked out “You can feel” at the end of the song.
Colin Meloy solo, “Carolina Low” Reviewed
Colin Meloy is the man I hate to love. I shouldn’t appreciate his whining bullshit but man oh man do I. Not so much a guilty pleasure but rather a pleasure that I find just as much confusing
Kings Of Leon Going Cheap! Get Your Groupon
While I kinda feel bad for the band, the other half of the equation is that KoL are such dicks they kinda have it coming. Anyway for four more days get tickets heavily discounted to their Bethel Woods gig as they put the group into Groupon.
UK Top Ten Singles, May 3rd, 2014
Heavy duty dance chart, every song except maybe Legend. Like most things, the quality is all over the place though I will say Cash Cash and DJ Cassidy are well well well on top of their game
UK Top 10 Albums, May 3rd, 2014
I’m surprised to see Eels on the UK charts, I didn’t realize he had a following in the UK and kicking myself for forgetting Paolo Nutini tickets were going on sale for his June 12th gig at Webster Hall. I did the same thing with Amy Winehouse years ago and didn’t scalp a ticket… maybe this time?
10 Songs, Monday, May 3rd, 2014
Avant Gardener – Courtney Barnett – Quite a year for chick singer songwriter with, how you say, forth right attitudes. This has been around since last summer and she sounds like Violent Femmes meets Lou Reed -(I know, I know) – B+
Bob Wills Day, Turkey, Texas, April 25th, 2014
Every year during the last weekend of April, the small West Texas community of Turkey, Texas celebrates the legacy of their most famous citizen with Bob Wills Day, as a huge fan of both Bob Wills and general weirdness, I’ve wanted to attend this event for years
Baths, The Space Hamden, CT April 24th, 2014, Reviewed
I’m pretty sure he can sing higher than I can. It was absolutely gorgeous and all of the effects he used, such as harmonizing or reverb, added so much more. I really didn’t know he was going to sing so much, but it was absolutely stunning.
Spotify Asks The Band Vulfpeck To Remove Their Silent Album
Unfortunately, Spotify put its foot down, the little game ended on Friday, and Spotify asked them to remove the album because it was violating its terms of service. Vulfpeck responded to Spotify by posting 3 new tracks of spoken words
One Direction "Where We Are" Tour Setlist 2014 (On Spotify As Well!)
I saw em at the magical 2012 Jingle Ball and then a year ago at the IZOD Center though I decided to give the Metlife gig this August a miss. If it had been a weekend I might have made it there but it isn’t worth that late at a night.
Television Lite April 28th – May 2nd, 2014
But the truth is peppered in with same old same olds like Keith Urban we have a band that just a short while ago was playing a 200 person venue in Hartford Connecticut (psst we were there). Fabulous news and faith in humanity semi restored (not really). Happy new week!
Sneak Peaks: Upcoming Releases For The Week Of April 28th, 2014
After the dreadful Everyday Robots, I am loath to give props to any 1990s icon without hearing it first but the first single “Longer Than You’ve Been Alive” is so great, I gotta feeling this is Rhett Miller and the rest of Old 97’s return to greatness..
That Was The Week Of April 21st 2014, That Was
I really love the new Peter Stampfel album and I am kicking myself for the opportunity to catch the great man at Mercury Lounge last week. Better Than Expected might not have lived up to its name but that’s mostly because expectations are so high.
Active Viewin': rock nyc's Concert Picks Week Of 4-21-14
The King of the six string guitar Bucky Pizzarelli is bringing two of the top swing guitarists Frank Vignola and Vinny Raniolo along for a full on jazz party at the Cutting Room this Friday. Expect American Standards aplenty as well as deeper stuff like Gypsy swing and three guitar finger picking battles.
10 Songs, Sunday, April 27th, 2014
Fever On The Bayou – Rodney Crowell – What a tinglingly wonderful singalong country swamp song, it rolls off the tongue and snaps like a frog at a flea – A
"Sunny Afternoon" At The Hampstead Theatre, Reviewed
Timewise it starts in 1964 and ends at Madison Square Garden. For the sake of the play, there are chronological discrepancies, but the artistic licence is used for definite dramatic effect, and to bring things to a full circle. The songs which fit into the action as if they were written for the play Smile are not in Kinks-Time chronological order, but work to further the action or the emotional scenes we are witnessing.
Jerry Schoenkopf, Long Time Elliott Smith's Drug Counselor Speaks
‘Elliott was interested in the dark side, but I don’t remember any obsession with death, I don’t know that he had a death wish’, but interestingly, Schultz relegates another part of the conversation to the notes at the end of the book, in tiny print: ‘Schoenkopf told me that, if Elliott had wanted to commit suicide he would have done it by heroin overdose not stabbing!!’
NASA Space Universe, Cerebral Ballzy, OFF! At The Roxy, Wednesday April 23rd 2014
OFF! played a long list of songs, but they are so short!! And, mid-show, a girl had already started to rip the huge setlist off the stage… ‘Ask, don’t take’ said Keith Morris while stepping on the large setlist duct taped on the floor… ‘Don’t be a republican,… or a democrat!’
I'm Not Cool Enough For iPhone 5s
So basically iPhone is just a powerful penis. Apple’s page for the commercial also states: “You have the power to create, shape, and share your life. It’s right there in your hand.” Indeed!
‘BLONDIE 4(0) EVER’-Get your Wallet
Its very hard to believe that Blondie has been around for forty years. Its astonishing actually since no one who was involved in the ‘first wave’ of new wave believes they’re over 20 years old.
Tom Hardy Is Elton John!
In what seems to be something like a vanity project, do you do it at all? Plus, will Elton deal with sobriety robbing him of so much of his creative gifts on Rocketman? And when, in what part of his life exactly, did John resemble Hardy?
The Kooks "Down" EP Reviewed
The Kooks artistic decline continues unabated and it is really a pity because somewhere or the other they have that something that can lead to real rock success stories. . Lay off the birds, Luke, write better songs.
Monty Python's July Reunion In London To Simulcast In Movie Houses Here
Thanks to the wonderful invention of moving pictures, The Last Night of Monty Python is coming to a cinema near you. Get your knotted handkerchiefs out and warm your brains one last time at any one of 450 cinemas across the UK, and 1,500 across the world.
"Hedwig And The Angry Inch" Reviewed
Whether simulating fellatio (time after time and after time), warbling 70s MOR hits, breaking down when the man she loves leaves her, leading her band through rough house rocker songs, or lap dancing with audience members, Harris gives it a lot of stick, but he can’t save a misguided show.
10 Songs, Saturday, April 26th, 2014
The great WW2 English songwriters Art Noel and Don Pelos (they did “Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major”) find a way too make the conceit on this singalong stick in your throat along with the childlike rhymes because whenever you’re singing “nursie nursie imma getting worsie” maybe you’re not thinking high concept but you are thinking danger. Where there is a nursie there is an injury – A
Damon Albarn's "Everyday Robots" Reviewed
Damon ties nostalgia to luddite wisdom to romantic disillussionment and comes to the conclusion that modern technology is turning us into robots of sorts. We suffer from a form of emotional malaise. we are forgetting how to feel. The problem with that is it isn’t true. This is a bad album of torturous songs
Morrissey Responds To Gail Shea Regarding The Canadian Seal Slaughter
In Western culture, there is no acceptance of the Canadian seal slaughter, and simply because someone bears the badge of Minister does not insulate them from being a disreputable thug. Murder is not debatable
CT's Fauxchella Music Festival May 3rd, 2014!
Most importantly, the all ages stage will have: Pissed Jeans, Chalk Talk, The Guru, Heavy Breath, Two Humans, The DustBusters, and a few others. The rest of the stages are 21+, which is a bummer, but those playing on the 3 other stages include Kung Fu, McLovins, MC Paul Barman, Ceschi, Snooty Garland, Violent Mae, and The Backyard Committee.
The Mark Oliver Everett Interview… But Not With Us
I noticed specifically in the tour we did last year that I did not feel that anymore. I felt like such a rock star some nights that it was scaring me. I was probably able to convey it earlier, but I never really felt it until recently. I’m still totally awkward in life.’
Dan Witz's Amazing Human Mosh Pits
You can look at all these fantastic renditions on his website, and I thought that the next painting was more realistic than the previous one! You can almost smell the sweat and heat coming out of these mountains of human flesh. It reminds me some of Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch’s work
Paul Weller DIsses Record day
There are simple rules to this world and one is that every time an idea because an organization, the idea dies and the organization fulfils its reason for being. RSD sucks, because it isn’t what it might once have been, a free spirited get together of likeminded folks, it is a big business collectors degeneracy
Pharrel Williams And The Second Law Of Thermondyamics
Everything cools down to room temperature and therefore we are all gonna freeze to death when that happens to the sun. And the axiom is actually true of rock stars. Take a look at Pharrell Williams.
Frozen Rules Record Sales
I realize I am not the target audience for this stuff but there is no excuse for the tuneless “Let It Go” -a huge lumbering behemoth of belch. As for “Do you Want to Build A Snowman”, “For the First time In Forever”, there are reasons why kids love em, they don’t have to be able to sing in tune to sing em because THEY HAVE NO TUNE.
rock nyc Top 10 Songs Week Of April 21st, 2014
Rodney Crowell makes an appearance with a hat in the ring country song of the year, as do the bluegrass Seldom Scene, the Stampfel album is a real treasure and Bruce releases a fair EP. I guess Bruce got the memo: keep your name out there.
10 Songs, Friday, April 25th, 2014
From The Underworld – The Herd – The first time I can remember seeing a stripper was either Rita Hayworth in “Gilda” or some women dancing along to this excellent full wall of sound symphonic pop song from the mid 1960s. Waiting for the horns – A
Gail Shea Smacks Morrissey With a Seal Hunt Bat
She said that Morrissey’s words “reveal a total ignorance of the Canadian seal hunt.” The statement continued: Anyone who takes a careful look at the seal hunt will see that it is humane, sustainable, and well-regulated
Drinking Flowers, Babies On Acid At The Echoplex, Monday April 21st 2014
Immediately, the tone of the evening was given, a very psychedelic ambiance with a lot of fuzziness, yes, dark and dense layers of fuzz wrapped around reverb and drone, filled up the place
fun. "Point and Light" Reviewed
“Benson Hedges” is gorgeous. It’s way better than the one on the album and I could barely contain myself when I heard it. I instantly fangirled and wanted to dance around. It’s so well done and stunning and the harmonies are a hundred times better like this.
Corners, Mystic Braves At The Echoplex, Monday April 21st 2014
The Mystic Braves’ music is not even close to punk, but whatever, people were showing their appreciation while having fun! The quintet effectively plays this awesome 60s-drenched surf-guitar music which sound like a trip to the south of the border revisited by the Doors
Rodney Crowell's "Tarpaper Sky" Reviewed
. While it doesn’t fit together as a theme or even as a presentiment of country, it does as a collection of strong songs from the same pen; a vision of a sound that will always have an audience.
The Lily Allen Interview… But Not With US
This would make a fun on going column, right? Helen Bach wrote one about Chrissie Hynde yesterday Some big time rock star gives a big interview but not to rock nyc? The list is almost endless
Arcade Fire Show The True Face Of EDM
What Arcade Fire did was prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. They showed how, indeed, Daft Punk could be and are and would be and might be anybody. It is the opposite of anybody can be a star, the new punk ethos appears to be nobody at all can be a star.