"A lot of bands say they'll be back next year and they end up in the House of Blues. Not us. We said we'd be back in the Paradise and here we are!" Disconcertingly soon after their last Boston concert date, I find myself in almost the same spot, watching the same band that unexpectedly impressed me so much. Why? partly because The Darkness are so damn likeable (just read that quote), but also simply because: 1. Their shows are...
It might not be the single easiest thing to definitively contend, but Mike Patton has remained one of the best, most consistently interesting and most consistently creative musicians to escape the wave of crotch-grabbing California bands that appeared in the Eighties. Granted, he's had to prove it without a whole lot of help (Faith No More fell apart in 1998) but he has pulled it off; whether playing with The Melvins, Dillinger Escape Plan, Mr. Bungle, Tomahawk or any of...
Above all else, what True North proves definitively is that Bad Religion has made three kinds of record in the duration of their three-decades-and-counting career; they've made really bad albums (see Into The Unknown and No Substance), good albums (see The Dissent Of Man, Recipe For Hate and Suffer) and great albums which not only mark time but stand out as being definitive documents both for the band and for punk rock as a whole community. The number of albums...
Remember the first time you heard Was (Not Was)? It was weird, right? Here was this band who could knock out awesome rhythm tracks – great beats, good guitars and a kind of worldly spice – and it had some totally oddball vocal track on top of it which was (probably) screaming out some unusual one-man vignette about calling your father to tell him you were prison bound and excited about it. Listening came with an awkward sensation; that killer...
Maybe it's because the roots-and-folk musical landscape has just become so over-populated with new and excellent songwriters (like The Lumineers, Grey Kingdom, Daniel Romano and so on), but it's really difficult to get excited about Jimbo Mathus' new album with The Tri-State Coalition. White Buffalo is very much a casualty of timing; had it been released five years ago, the album might have seemed exciting for listeners looking for a sparer, more songwriter-ly antidote to the over-produced and Pro-Tools-ed hordes...
Hey Junky,How's it goin'? Stuff's been slow in my neck o' the woods; one o' my suppliers OD'd on accident, so a buncha my buddies an' me've been flyin' the flags at half mast, if ya know what I mean. I can't stay down fer too long though, 'cause I gotta get back at SWAGgin' fer youse miserable reprobates – an' what I got this week is worth it! Let's start wit' da whale; I gotta new tune from my...
Have you got the blues? Have you got a fire in you just aching to get out and feel like you only need the right tool to channel it, shape it and make it a reality? Innovative luthiers Bohemian Guitars knows exactly how you feel. The music and the fire that bred the blues moved them too and, rather than trying to extinguish it, they're trying to make it burn higher, brighter and longer by throwing cans of oil on...
At this point in history, it's nearly impossible for a female singer to perform meticulously arranged, jazz-informed songs in French without drawing at least a cursory comparison to Edith Piaf, but Jill Barber will generate such comparisons not because it's easy but because her fantastic presence and performances on Chansons are only matched on this sound and style by Piaf; performances like this have simply not been heard since Piaf's passing in 1963. Chansons is a brave release for Barber,...
WAITS/CORBIJN ‘77-‘11, a collector’s edition linen slipcase book limited to 6,600 copies, is scheduled for a May 8th release in US and Europe by renowned German publisher Schirmer-Mosel. The coffee table art book not only features over two hundred pages of Waits’ portraits taken by Corbijn over four decades, but also includes over fifty pages of the first published collection of musings and photographs taken by Waits himself. The linen bound book has introductions...
No small number of fans will scream heresy when I say this but, as good a songwriter as he is, Neil Young really can't sing worth a damn. His shortcoming as a singer has always been the biggest reason why he has tread on the fringe while artists like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen have enjoyed significant mainstream success. The hindrance that Young's shortcoming has been on his career has been significant – but listening to Justin Rutledge's new album...