Posts by Bob Lange

[rating=6.00] The first I heard of Shonen Knife was “Cycling Is Fun,” their contribution to 1989’s Flipside Vinyl Fanzine Vol. 3.  The cutesy twee pop leanings of that song were … well, cute.  But nothing about it made me think it was any more than just punkster kitsch for those who were so punk they […]

[rating=6.00] Sometimes, the best music is not always the most perfect.  Sometimes the sheer act of overcoming adversity is far bigger than a perfect mix.  Sure, the Dark Sides and Sgt. Peppers of the world have their place, but so do some things that overcome odds just to rear their heads and scream to be […]

[rating=7.00] There is no question that bluegrass was a significant part of the Grateful Dead’s DNA, so doing bluegrass covers of a couple of songs that frequented the Dead’s repertoire makes great sense. However, the initial mistake that I made was to listen to Town Mountain’s versions side by side with the Dead versions. Where […]

Researching the Blues is not, for better or worse, Neurotica, but in the most important ways, it is very connected to the spirit of what made its predecessor great even if it never quite digs deeper than the veneer of a generation raised on sugary cereal and Saturday morning cartoons.  It moves around its many 60s and 70s influences in a way that is peculiar and wonderful and thoroughly Redd Kross.

Girl in a Coma is band that has shown tremendous growth since their debut five years ago.  While Both Before I’m Gone was a solid though not exceptional debut, it was the vast expansion of their sound on Trio BC and the significant dose of some good ol’ crazy on last year’s Exits and All the Rest, not to mention the ability to really make their mark on covers evidenced on 2010’s Adventures in Coverland, that makes them an incredibly exciting band.  Their ability to take their broader sound and really go off on Exits is what made this show so promising.

Don’t Know How to Party and Question the Answers were probably the high point of ska’s third wave.  They mixed the fun and soul (something oddly missing with most third wave bands) with a hardcore edge and a dose of serious honesty.  In a decade of ponderous self-consciousness the Bosstones were refreshing.  However, if you want a rehash of “The Impression That I Get,” pick up a copy of one of the older albums.  The Bosstones have grown.

We pushed as far as we possibly could within the realms of reality."  That’s a pretty bold claim from Lou Reed regarding his collaboration with Metallica, a collaboration most view as bizarre, but Reed seems to think is quite natural.  Unfortunately, those are only words and not a true reflection of what the two disparate rock forces achieve throughout most of their album, Lulu. 

Some documentaries are for casual fans, others are for more serious fans and others are almost for musicians themselves. This one falls into the latter two categories. There is a bit of narrative that takes him from childhood to the London of 1967 and a bit more that surrounds his death, but the focus is more on his music, his legacy and the many wild guesses as to what he would have done had he lived.

While the stream of new vinyl continues to find space in the better record stores, a lot of stuff, both mainstream and underground, is once again easy to find (though I seem to have missed the boat on the last Dead Weather album at my local shop).  However, there is also quite a bit of very nice vinyl that may not find its way to every shop.

If you thought that Raising Sand, Plant’s dabbling in country, with modern bluegrass great Krauss, was an unlikely musical success story, Band of Joy will be every bit as much of a pleasant surprise.

After waning over the last couple of albums during Bruce Dickinson’s first stint, two ill-conceived releases with Blaze Bayley and a lackluster return for Dickinson on Brave New World, Iron Maiden stormed back to life with their last two albums and an outstanding tour documentary. Perhaps no other band in their third decade could raise such high hopes for a release, particularly after a four year layoff from the studio.

Thirty years from the release of their 1979 self-titled debut, the Specials are still excited to play and exciting to watch. They’re all in their 50s (some of them in their late 50s) and yet nothing about them (or their three decade old songs) seems old. They’re so tight that it’s hard to imagine that this unit was apart nearly ten times as long as they were together. The crowd, young and old alike, responds appropriately with sing-alongs and non-stop dancing, just as it likely was back in 1979. The sound and video quality is flawless and far exceeds the expectations set by most live films. The highly professional production does all that can possibly be done to capture the essence of this live performance.

Despite the encroachment of corporate sponsors (which in this case is not really as bad as it sounds) and the shift away from its old “punk rock summer camp” ethos that dominated my first run of attendance (1997-2002), the last three years have still been a lot of fun and I’ve seen far more good performances than bad.  Warped Tour 2010 was no different.

When I last saw Thrice in 2002, they were touring for The Illusion of Safety, a young band with promise that was, at that point, unfulfilled.  They played with heart and daring, but not all of their ideas worked.  Over the course of the next eight years, perhaps no band has grown so much as Thrice though. 

The '59 Sound, Gaslight Anthem's 2008 release, got a lot of comparisons to Springsteen. That was fair enough as there is no doubt that the band's sound was influenced by the godfather of their home state's rock and roll scene. However, what seemed to get lost in those comparisons, was that weren't simply Springsteen imitators even as his mark on them was clearly heard.

After last year's What It Takes to Move Forward, Empire! Empire! certainly seems like they are the very pinnacle of emo creativity and execution, breathing new life into a genre currently choking on its co-opted mainstream success. With the genre's elder statesmen like Sunny Day Real Estate and Promise Ring defunct (aside from the occasional Sunny Day reunion), Empire! Empire! may, in fact, be the genre's best active band. This EP couples them with relative newcomers, Football, Etc, perhaps a daunting task for the latter band.

Thee Silver Mount Zion is an amazing band that pushes the possibilities of music to the point that they are hard to define. While post-rock seems to be the most common pigeonhole, even that term's undefined, forward-focused nature seems woefully inadequate. Frankly, before this show, I could appreciate SMZ's albums more that I could enjoy them. Are they one of today's best bands? Yes. Do I play them often? No.

Seeing PiL in 2010, featuring Lydon, longtime members Lu Edmonds and Bruce Smith (who both date back to 1987’s Happy?) and relative newcomer, bassist/keyboardist Scott Firth, and touring the US for the first time in over a decade, offered no such surprises. As always Lydon has surrounded himself with a top-notch band and, though he’s clearly older,

Though the Buzzcocks have released more recent material, two albums in the last decade even, this tour was for their first two releases from way back in 1978 which were re-issued by Mute Records earlier this year and played in their entirety. That certainly sets up the potential for a show that’s more about the past than the present, but the band’s performance said otherwise.

Back in 2002, I randomly purchased a little blue 7″ from Springman Records. “Mileage,” the title track, renewed what was, at the time, my waning interest in music. It’s mellow, ambling rhythm and layers of guitar built slowly, steadily and crazily into the frenzy of a tribal right of passage