Opinion

rock nyc

Watching Live Music On Television Is Pornography!

Watching a concert on TV is to watching it in person is exactly what watching porn is to having sex. Even the least intimate of venues, even Hydepark at the back of 500,000 people is more intimate than watching it on television,if, for no other reason than you are among other people.

rock nyc

Are Albums Too Long Or Not Long Enough?

The answer is obvious. Shorter albums. Cut out the crap if it is crap. Better quality control. Stop filling space. It is like everybody has become Prince in the 1990s, they won’t stop releasing music. And stop with the remixes. Perhaps the music biz would make more money if they changed the recording music paradigm.

rock nyc

My Best Shows Of 2012

This is this time of the year when we have to decide about the best songs, albums, concerts and make our 2012 best-of list. I haven’t been to as many concerts as the previous years, blame it on my ever-more-demanding job and a bad schedule that forced me to wake up at dawn, but I saw some good ones nevertheless

rock nyc

Frank Ocean: How To Make Friends And Influence Rock Writers

I will take James Brown on The One and no melody or I will take Smokey Robinson and melody to die for, but I don’t get either with Frank Ocean (or the Weeknd or Miguel…). Instead I get an excellent falsetto and a good vocal range and an atmospheric mood music so constantly downcast it is like pall upon the songs

rock nyc

More On Jack White And the Artificial

Art is fake. Rock is fake, the truest artist in the world is outrageously unreal, has nothing whatsoever to do with their own life. Life is too messy, too lonely, too inevitable: if you stare right into life it is so black you would suffer from nyctolopea, you would go blind.

rock nyc

Too Many Musicians Are Still Pro-Guns, What Do They Have To Say Now?

‘Yeah, it’s legal in the United States. It’s part of our Constitution. You know, the right to bear arms is because that’s the last form of defense against tyranny. Not to hunt. It’s to protect yourself from the police…if somebody wants to kill people well you know they don’t need a gun to do it…United States is based on guns.’

rock nyc

Why Won't Paul Anka Play New York City?

I don’t drive but if you don’t drive, the Westbury takes a train and a car to get there and man is it a drag. I’ve only been twice, once to see Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis and once to see Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach. It was worth it at the age of 36, at the age of 56? Not so much.

rock nyc

Winner And Loser Week of December 26th, 2012: Age And Youth

he Monkees, the Stones, and the Who all played excellent sets in the past week or so, and made a mockery of claims that 70 years old was too old to rock. What is with this new ageism? What’s the kick against growing old and still doing what you’ve always done? I mean if you can still do it. do it till you die. Dave Brubeck just died and played right through his 80s, what’s the problem. Here’s to growing old and rocking to the grave.

rock nyc

Conor Oberst Is Not God

Conor is the poster child for bad childhoods and bleak outlooks to a generation that is unable to do their own laundry. At age 32 his genius is more rooted in his ability to grab this demographic and hold them captive.

rock nyc

Winner And Loser Week of November 26th, 2012: Michael Jackson And Justin Bieber

As pretenders come and go one thing remains constant: nobody comes close to MJ. From pop starlet to teen idol to rock star to pariah to early death, there is no trajectory close to it. And as every year another class of pretenders attempt to scale these heights and fail, currently an Usher (who failed himself) protégée, is just mere shadow of the King Of Pop. As the biggest musicians in the world, men and women, from Lady Gaga to Will I Am circle round and round MJ’s career, none can touch him.

rock nyc

Thank You All

Special thanks to: Joseph and Donna McElroy, who I seldom get to see but who are family to me, and my co-editor Helen Bach who I admire greatly and tease mercilessly.

rock nyc

Prepare To Rock A Vegan Thanksgiving!

Along with Bryan Adams,Geezer Butler, k.d. Lang, Alanis Morrisette,The Church, and Silverstein, Ozzy Osborne, Jon Robb, Thom Yorke, Michael Franti, Garth Brooks,Chrissie Hynde, Anthony Keidis, Grace Slick, and Prince I offer you a cruelty free thanksgiving holiday

rock nyc

Bob Dylan And Party Politics (And Claude Levi Strauss)

A politicians job is to get re-elected. That’s it. That’s all It isn’t even the weilding of power that matters any more, it is just the doing of the job and the job is to be reelected. And that’s slimey but fine even when politicians lead nations into war for the sole purpose of being reelected

rock nyc

Madonna's Bad Vibes At MSG

Madonna’s fans are for the most part not 20 somethings, they are 30, 40, and 50 somethings. Pity the poor sucker with a General Admission ticket who got to MSG at 7pm on Monday evening, it would be five hours before she saw her Madge

rock nyc

The Horror Of Political Endorsement And Rock Music

The myth of Bruce was bigger than party politics. The son of a blue collar worker who took his Daddy issues and placed it on the biggest stage of all, who spoke not just for him and his people but for all of us, everyone born to, as Chuck D recently put it, run till its dark

rock nyc

Ronnie Wood: Playing Music Like Taking Drugs

Rockers, Ron Wood, go on stage and between the music and the audiences reaction, are transmitted on to another level, away from the lives of quiet desperation that inflicts most people. The problem, once he gets off the stage, he is Ron Wood again

rock nyc

At 38 Is Robbie Williams Too Old To Play Pop Music?

To add insult to injury, Robbie quotes his own record label, who have made a fortune off the man, complaining to Robbie that he might want to try something a little more suited to his age… Robbie didn’t appreciate the suggestion and they were, of course, supremely wrong

rock nyc

The Joy In Discovery: Bright Eyes

It’s cliche when people say “music changed my life” because it seems so trivial and so obvious, but it truly did. I will never forget the very first time I put in my headphones, played “Poison Oak”. I got chills- real, physical, tangible goosebumps and a shiver up my spine

rock nyc

Uh Oh Argo: Maybe Critics Don't Matter!!!

My bet is millions of people saw that pix of Ben Affleck with a beard and thought, “not with my $14, you don’t”. There is something smug about the entire enterprise. And while movie critics probably got too caught up in the hype, it is difficult to convince people what they know not to be true

News

"I Miss The Man I Never Met", Neil D Thompson

I feel gipped for not being born in that time. To be part of that scene would’ve been insanely cool. Hearing stories about it makes my eyes light up, and a bit green with envy. I’ve heard to much bad about it; the drugs, the violence, and the hatred seems scary and dangerous.

rock nyc

BEST ALBUM TITLES…. EVER! Step Up Captain Beefheart

Lick My Decals Off, Baby – Captain Beefheart – . It doesn’t really make any sense. Why would you want to lick his decals? Which decals? The album label? Is he suggesting you have physical relations with the actual album. How sexy and positive. Yeah, come fuck the actual piece of viunyl while you’re at it. Try doing that on spotify.

rock nyc

Top 10 Morrissey Quotes

Whenever I go past Mcdonalds I get very, very angry. I feel the same way. Either it’s because consumerism makes me gag, or because of how cruel they are. I absolutely despise Mcdonald’s; what they do is entirely unforgivable

rock nyc

Morrissey: Rather sad

Most people, no matter how old they are, like to reference their younger days when they were alive and vital and had fun. But an old guy singing about how nobody loves him because he’s sad doesn’t quite do it for me.

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