Analog Man is like getting a letter from an old high school pal. He's the guy that you used to party hard with and, deep down, he's still the same clown he's always been – but he has also settled down now, and so has more than one facet to his personality that he can exercise when the time is right. The familiarity is a great comfort, even as his new life sounds like, well, like kind of a bore....
DIIV is a solo project turned full-time endeavor, fronted by former Beach Fossils guitarist Zachary Cole Smith. When he sauntered on stage at Lee's Palace during North By Northeast Music Conference, this young man looked like a homeless, youthful Kurt Cobain draped in an extra large sweatshirt with Malibu stamped in yellow across the front. He looked like you could take a nap on him. His pants were baggy and too short (a possible homage to Stone Roses attire) and...
Red Hot Chili Peppers announced today they would unveil 18 previously unreleased sides from the I'm With You sessions. Each of the songs will be available worldwide both digitally and on vinyl, with two sides per seven-inch. The first pair of sides – "Strange Man" on the A-side and "Long Progression" on the B-side – will be released on August 14, 2012. The second pair of sides – "Magpies" and "Victorian Machinery" – will be released on September 11, 2012....
By 1986 – sixteen years after he had dissolved his artistic partnership with Art Garfunkel – it looked like the bloom had completely come off the concept of Paul Simon as a solo artist for the record-buying public. The singer's record sales had begun to decline around 1975's Still Crazy After All These Years in spite of it topping the charts and the singer started looking for something new to help rejuvenate his career. He had tried the “reunion tour”...
Imagine an eighteen-year-old and a thirty-three-year-old got in a ring to fight. Well, we’re about to do it in a digital style for two people who have put out albums in June 2012. Ladyhawke’s (Phillipa Margaret "Pip" Brown) second album Anxiety which came out June 4th is going up against Justin Bieber’s Believe (due out on June 19th). Welcome to the Dirty Digital Pit. Before we get to the albums, lets stand the fighters next to each other. Pip: Female,...
After a decade in the music arena, Metric has taken a sort of existential moment to breathe and reflect upon themselves, society and what’s to become of it all. Our undeniable technological advances are scarily amazing, but still strip us of genuine connection and emotion. It’s a transition that any person born before 1990 can relate to; and really that every generation can recognize in some way. When frontwoman Emily Haines wrote an open letter to fans via Metric’s website...
In the spirit of full disclosure, I used to hate Paul McCartney with a seething contempt reserved only for the likes of Steely Dan – a band who, in the ensuing years between such flannel-clad stubbornness and today, have muscled their way to the very front of the class at the music university of which my brain serves as dean.I'll never be able to forget how I once felt about McCartney and his music but, in 2012, Ram sounds an...
Magic Hour, the latest from Scissor Sisters, is no Night Work but that's just fine. The NYC-based dance-pop group reached the culmination of condensing forty years of club-going culture into one band’s discography on their last full-length. The undertaking was of such deadly seriousness to mastermind Jake Shears that they had scrapped the initial attempt at a third LP and allowed four years to go by since they had reached well beyond the gaze of private eyes with “I Don’t...
"There is nothing quite like a Dinosaur Jr. album. The best ones are always recognizable from the first notes. And even though J tries to trip us up by smearing “Don’t Pretend You Didn’t Know” with keyboards, it’s clear from the moment he starts his vocals that this is the one and only Dinosaur Jr., long reigning kings of Amherst, Massachusetts (and anywhere else they choose to hang their toques). I Bet on Sky is the third Dinosaur Jr. album...
A little background is required for reviewing Sebadoh’s debut album. It was 1988 and Lou Barlow, having been bounced out from under the oppressive regime that was quickly becoming J Mascis’ Dinosaur Jr. by the guitarist himself, went back to the absolute basics of his songwriting; once again making lo-fi basement tapes and refining his craft. He reconnected with Western Mass. scenester Eric Gaffney and the duo began passing a 4-track tape recorder back and forth – eventually cobbling together...