The weather: For the first time in over two years, nyc is expecting day after day of sweltering 90 degrees plus steaming liquidy humidity and the world is turning on its air conditioning and awaiting for the inevitable brown outs so Con Edison can up their already the highest in the country (and therefore the world) rates.
Disclosure? Not a huge fan of these guys, when I saw em live I thought they were a little, what’s the word here? pre programmed. And their debut was like a jukebox, sure, and a good one, but not a rebellious one at all. There is something smartly cold about the duo.
If there’s a Mount Rushmore of rock ’n’ roll, Keith’s face is surely on it. He has always represented the soul of rock music — for all of the light and dark shades that implies. To my relief, Keith Richards turned out to be a real man — full of humor, knowledge and wisdom. That’s the real Keith we’ve worked to capture in our film and I’m honored to bring it to a global audience via Netflix.’
Not unlike Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, U2 and the Rolling Stones, Elvis Costello is a white rock and roll superstar who has lost the knack and can only very occasionally write a killer song. Of course, occasionally isn’t never, and since I have a working knowledge of, well, everything he has ever written, I thought I’d try and find some of the better tracks you may have missed. In order of release (more or less). I passed on the opera and I passed on great great covers album called For The Stars.
This painting was done on black canvas and the portrait was done in oil. I am slowly learning to blend the oils into a tri-color sheen that give the skin a more living, colorful feel. I sorta went with a 60’s or 70’s style font that recalled the colors on “Whipped Cream and Other Delights”…but who was looking at the colors on that LP?
Try Me – Dej Loaf – Her first hit, and it is really great: some of that Drake darkness, but from a woman, and a really great drum shuffle powering the song. This isn’t one of her great lyrics (if you head the EP, she can really write), but it is sure good enough) – A-
People have gone overboard with song interpretations and I will start with the worst example of all, Charles Manson. The infamous rockstar wannabe was convinced that the Beatles’ White Album was as prophetic as the Bible, he would often quote ‘The Beatles and the Bible’ and considered the fab four as the ‘four angels’ as in Revelation 9
“AI technology has reached a point where the deployment of [autonomous weapons] is – practically if not legally – feasible within years, not decades, and the stakes are high: autonomous weapons have been described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms.” That’s Stephen Hawking discussing wars without people. The thing is, if no soldiers lives are at stake, the decision to fight a war will be that much easier. Fine, except, the casualties will remain human. It is a reversal of the way wars used to be fought. In the past, armies would meet in the middle of nowhere and kill each other while civilians were safe, with autonomous weapons the opposite is true.
I was listening to DS2 again and maybe I underestimated it, my problem with rap is the aggressive silliness of the sex drugs and money world has grown so old, bad lyrics throw me out of sound I really like: “flip flops I just had some bitches and I made ’em lip lock, I just took a piss and I seen codeine coming out, We got purple Actavis, I thought it was a drought”
Can I call em or what? I claimed the new Fetty Wap wouldn’t follow “Trap Queen” into the charts. Follow it? It blasted through from # 87 to # 7 in one week and I still can’t hear the hook. Where is it? Not the metronome or the handclaps or the “ands”? I guess the vocal, with its elongated syllables may be doing it.
“I like people who dream or talk to themselves interminably; I like them, for they are doubles. They are here and elsewhere.” – Albert Camus
If you knew the dad I knew, you’d know his tender heart. He’d never want to hurt his fans, or family from the start.
If you knew my father,
you would know how hard he fought…
and the way it brought a smile to people light, medium and dark.
Meloy was more than MC and engaged with the crowd in fun hand clapping games and sing back. You’d expect him to be shy but he was that nerdy guy that cracked the class up. The problem is I couldn’t hear a lot of what he was saying but.. I did here the following “hey yeah ok” and ‘chips and salsa’.
I love Grizzly Bear, I think he is an excellent musician and while we just got a coupla soundtrack albums it has been years since the excellent Shields album (three years actually) and we are due to hear more from him and soon. And I believe him.
While her family mourns Bobbi, and we gaze in horror and schadenfreude, it leaves you to wonder about whoever the kid was, how much of a chance did she have with even so every chance in the world to be happy and just it doesn’t happen sometimes. It is insurmountable.
Auld Lang Syne – Performed by Eric Harm, Matt Miller, Carrie-Anne Murphy, Julian Veronesi (vocals) and Patrick Stickles (ostrich guitar and MXR Pitch Transposer) and the ringing in the new year sounds like a death knell
As for U2, they are going through the motions and letting the stage do their work for them and even so, when the song and the sound come together, tonight “I Will Follow”, “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, “Pride In The Name Of Love” and “Elevation”, they absolutely justify Tomas’ deep affection.
Given the choice between giving U2 the benefit of the doubt, and just about anybody else the benefit of the doubt, I would undoubtedly go with anybody else… which doesn’t mean I’m right. For the eight nights at Madison Garden, still in mid-residency, U2 did many things better than they have before but is it enough? Meanwhile, Young Fathers were enough.
During the whole show they seemed to send lasers in the sky with a supersonic intensity, Tunde Adembimpe’s magnetic presence, David Sitek’s guitar drone and a funk-punk restless sound.
‘Although people’s music choices fluctuates over time, we’ve discovered a person’s empathy levels and thinking style predicts what kind of music they like…. In fact, their cognitive style – whether they’re strong on empathy or strong on systems – can be a better predictor of what music they like than their personality.’
It wasn’t a bad week, not great but some good stuff there, however, oddly, there weren’t many standout songsl a lot of fair stuff very little great stuff. “Shame” made an appreance because it killed live, but the heart of the week for new tracks was 50 Cents. Alice Glass and the Yogi and Skrilelx song. Otherwise, OK but yeah, most of em wouldn’t have made it on a great week.
Young Fathers know from money problems, “G” Hastings was raised in the Drylaw housing estate (part of paradise postponed), and the sound is both very dark and very heavy: to really mix metaphors, it isn’t like Marijuana, it is like a hammer in a knife fight.
More or less, sure, who cares about the (sadly and aptly named) Gin Blossoms without Doug Hopkins, and the band never should have screwed him over so badly, but how are you gonna hear the songs otherwise? Also, Marshall Crenshaw had nothing but good things to say about Jesse Venezuela, with whom he had a smash hit with”Til I Hear It From You”. So forgive, forget, and enjoy an old miserable experience at BB Kings on Tuesday
Summer Girls – LFO – “I’d take her if I had one wish…” A huge hit and a great song plus “Billy Shakespeare wrote a whole bunch of sonnets… ” I saw em live round this time (Jingle Ball) and thought they were fun and five years ago Rich died of cancer at the age of 36. And this song was LFO’s moment – A
Heather Salines, who slept with her daughter’s 15 year old boyfriend, must be out of her mind. 15, well it depends on the boy, but 15 is young (Heather: “When I looked at him, he did not act like a 15-year-old. He acted like a grown man.”) and your teen daughters boyfriend? That is very disturbing. You are destroying a central relationship.
Philadelphia native Hemming celebrated the release of her self-titled debut album at Hotel Cafe on Friday night, and she
Earlier this year I was watching Jimmy Fallon religiously and then one evening it suddenly dawned on me: he wasn’t very funny and he couldn’t interview, the dumbass games he was forcing poor, innocent celebrities to play were terrible, he had zero quality control, and the Roots suck. And he is still probably the best. Coco creeped me with all that Tonight stuff and everybody else is worse. So, yeah, Ashley Monroe, Tom Cruise AND Buddy Guy… Pick of the week.
‘I understand that the Plaintiff seeks the public release of death-scene photos of Kurt that show his entire lifeless body, as well as the damage done by the shotgun blast to his head’, reads her legal declaration. ‘I have never seen these graphic and disturbing images, nor do I ever want to. I cannot believe that there exists any genuine public interest which might be served by the public release of these images. Certainly, public disclosure would reopen all my old wounds, and cause me and my family permanent – indeed, endless, and needless – pain and suffering, and would be a gross violation of our privacy interests.’
What do Dave Grohl, Nick Oliveri of Queens of the Stone Age, Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio, Corey Taylor of Slipknot, Reed Mullin of Corrosion of Conformity have in common? I mean despite them being bloated monsters of metal plod, so stop that. Think positive…
Stillbirth – Alice Glass – If this is hype, include me in. Her backstory is awesome -ran away from home at 14 years of age and joined a punk commune/band, and that’s just the beginning, and this her first solo single is a glass crashing, brain tingling, weird out electronic masterwork that lives up to every positive word you’ve heard and then some – A
Stepping Out – The Fall – One of Mark’s greatest moments, a scarily explicit hit job on truth and lies and media and what it means to be in a rock band but one of our greatest and lick to die for, never been a band like these guys plus he was a sweetheart when I interviewed him: that’s all – A
Apparently people don’t get out much in LA -not one but two riots occurred as fans tried to get into a free Future concert. Future?? “Reports said some 700 fans lined up outside the club, which has a capacity of 500, with the hopes of nabbing a wristband for free admittance into the show. Scores of fans spilled out into the street and blocked traffic, prompting L.A. sheriff’s to shut down a portion of the Sunset Strip at around 3 p.m. They moved it to the House Of Blues, and that was also cancelled. Wait a second… DS2 Future???
Lennon and Ono put silence to even better use than all of the above on their best experimental album, Unfinished Music No. 2: Life With the Lions. The track before was the heartbeat of their baby in the last five minutes before Ono miscarried John Lennon Ono II at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in London. What followed was two minutes of silence
The electronic duo is also a romantic duo, and their complicity was real live, her sensual lament, closer to sadness than simple melancholia, was haunting his desolated compositions, which were part electronic, part symphonic, sometimes even grand, with very emotional synthetic strings, an omnipresent bass-like sound and an occasional horn, sax or trumpet that he was playing with real instruments, recording loops and making them fade away with some computer manipulation.
In the 1970s, the local charts weren’t as homogenized as they are now, what about this top ten shouts British to you? There is something so worldwide about these songs, they could be anywhere. Spain? US? Australia? It is completely homoginized, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer but the charts remain a consistent shade of off white. Everything is exactly the same everywhere.
But Taylor Swift has now apologized to Minaj, tweeting ‘I thought I was being called out. I missed the point, I misunderstood, then misspoke. I’m sorry, Nicki.’ Sorry for what? Wasn’t Minaj the attacker in the story?
Avicii and Calvin Harris are the old face of new dance, but boy are they old faces. This MOR beats stuff has grown beyond tedious and if this was 1989, these two would be the first at the guillotine as privileged pampered arbittors of manufactured crap.
Trickn Every Car I get – Trae Tha Truth – At first listen I coulda sworn Rose was on here somewhere, it sounds like a “Bugatti” cop. But Rick isn’t here and “Bugatti” is one of his best anyway, so I’d be happy to hear it again – B+
He got fired for a private conversation made public by thieves. For God’s sake, “I am a racist up to a point” is the truest thing a white man has said about black America in decades. Get a goddam grip, innocent black women are getting jailed for failing to indicate they are changing lanes and ending up dead (musta done it herself, apparently -there is a lot of it going around) and you wonder if white America is ‘racist up to a point”? Let me ask you this: if Hulk Hogan thought it, and there was a machine that could read his mind, would he be fired as well? The guy isn’t running for President, he is a wrestler for God’s sake. If Hulk Hogan hates black people, it is nobodies business as long as he doesn’t make racist comments in public and he does nothing whatsoever about it.
#And See That’s The Thing – Djf Loaf – On the flawless side of things, this rapper, hook singer from Detroit is completely great on her five track EP debut. Dej’s Tae The Truth track was apparently no fluke, though she works closer to the same side of the street as Drake… with a difference: when she raps, she raps so close to the melody she seems to glide over it as opposed to solely play off the rhythm. She is also a great lyricist (though Big Sean sullies one song, Future comes off better). This is something of a masterpiece – ALBUM (well, EP) OF THE WEEK – A
“The way I rationalize it, to have the address you’ll have to listen to the album to the very end. Second, to even consider coming to my house you have to be a kind of a superfan. And thirdly, it’s in such a weird part of New York that if they actually get there, they deserve a cup of coffee.”
Sandra Bland died in a jail cell and why? because of changing lanes without using her indicator. According to Reuters: “Bland was pulled over on July 10 near Prairie View, Texas, northwest of Houston, for failing to signal a lane change. After the incident escalated into an altercation between her and the trooper, Bland was taken into custody and charged with assaulting an officer. She was found hanging in her jail cell on July 13 with a plastic trash bag around her neck.” There is something so dulling about this, it is like “here we go again”.
Everybody Loves To Cha Cha Cha – Sam Cooke – A classic dance song, Sam takes his sweetie out but can’t get her on to the floor till he teaches her the moves that are sweeping everything before it. Sam at his popstar best – A
‘When the ‘other’ girls drop a video that breaks records and impacts culture they get that nomination,’ tweeted Minaj. ‘If your video celebrates women with very slim bodies, you will be nominated for vid of the year.’
It is such a disappointing, dreary song three times in and I want to do something else with my life. It singlehandedly justifies Patrick Stickles entire existent. A long term romance goes kaput and personally, I don’t blame her.
I will add a personal note to this article. Willy played a big role when I was courting my future wife even though she never knew. When we first started dating, I had “Le Chat Bleu” in my cassette player. I would listen to this, sort of like a good luck charm: “This Must be the Night” “That World Outside” and especially “Just to Walk that Little Girl Home”
On we go,and though we are only on the fourth song, it sure feels like there is a lot of throat clearing going on. I guess if you’re going deep into the consciousness of a manic depressive you might as well keep into on the down low
Owl certainly has a very hard rock sound sometimes anchored in metal, sometimes soaring some real poppiness, but what does it mean when you consider all the categories and nuances that exist among these genres? But may be Owl doesn’t want to belong to a specific genre, as their music seemed to push boundaries inside its own vision.
Like I Never Left – Future – Diddy, Drake, Pharrell, Pusha, Ludacris sounding really drugged out of their minds and saying nothing of any interest to anybody FOREVER… well: for 25 minutes but it feels like forever – F
So to some extent this is a non story, nobody write their own stuff any more, everybody is rhymin’ and stealin’ in 2015. Meanwhile, not for nothing but from Madonna to Nicki, does no one have any quality control on whom Drake diddles?
