It’s clear that someone needs to define two terms: “rock and roll” and “legendary performer.” Rolling Stone reports that Madonna and John Mellencamp will be inducted into the Rock and
For the second time today, we hand it over to the new guy, Chuck Myers…
Yesterday, that Ace Cowboy fella wrote a suspiciously shortsighted post about the top-selling albums and songs on iTunes. It’s not news that the typical American consumer is a moron. The typical American consumer is, and always has been, musically ignorant. If I am ever on a cross-country car ride with the typical American consumer, I am driving my car through the guard rail and into the Mississippi faster than you can say “Jeff Buckley.”
It’s easy to look at our current surroundings and think, “My God, it’s never been quite as bad as it is right now.” Well, I’m here to tell you, it has been this bad, and it’s been even worse. How much worse? Find out after the jump…
Ladies and gentlemen, the debut of our newest contributor, Chuck Myers…
Stagger Lee was a bad motherfucker. Depending on who you believe, he might have killed a cop, murdered a bartender, filled a whore’s husband full of lead, fatally shot a man over a dice game and “taken care” of his wife, killed an acquaintance over a stolen hat, or possibly even taken control of Hell from the devil.
So if Stagger Lee Shelton were truly such a mean goddamn bastard, why are so many songs about him completely lame?
It didn’t used to be this way. Songs about Stagger Lee had teeth. They had fire. They had fear and awe and respect and pain and admiration. Songs about Stagger Lee were bad, in the same way Stagger Lee himself was bad. But somewhere along the line, the song “Stagger Lee” became…well, it just became bad.
People in the first half of the 20th century had the balls to take some chances with the song. In 1947, Memphis Slim recalled sitting on his mother’s knee and hearing the story about Stagger Lee and Billy Lyons. Billy was covered in blood from head to toe, and Stagger Lee told Billy’s wife, “You don’t believe your man is dead? Why don’t you look around the corner and see what a hole he has in his head?” That’s some cold-blooded shit that Memphis Slim was singing about. His Stagger Lee was fierce. Read on for the pussification of Stagger Lee…
Ladies and gentlemen, we give you our newest contributor, Sleepy Floyd… “I wonder what Old Man is going to sound like?” That’s just what this Berlin audience was probably wondering
We turn once again to Uncle Neddy for our end-of-week shenanigans, allowing him to direct you towards some kickass new jazz that isn’t quite jazz: “Technically, probably not one of these tracks is really jazz at all, but what the hell! Here’s a hastily thrown together mix of some newish instrumental music for ya. I highly recommend all these albums, so try and then buy if you’re so inclined.”
01 His Girl — The Budos Band: The Budos Band II
02 Swamped — Bill Frisell/Matt Chamberlain: Floratone
03 Bamako Blues — Bob Brozman Orchestra: Lumière
04 King Rig — Erik Friedlander: Block Ice & Propane
05 Kingda Ka — Groundtruther: Altitude
06 Welcome, Ghosts — Explosions In The Sky: All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
Andrew Bird didn’t play my favorite song on Friday night, but that’s about the only thing he didn’t do. That man is a fucking genius, plain and simple. And since I’m still mesmerized by his act, I asked my partner-in-crime Neddy to fill you all in…
A few years ago, when I was first coming around to the fact that I could discover new music by grabbing free mp3s from these newfangled “web-logs” and the like, one of the very first tunes I downloaded was Lull by Andrew Bird.
For the sake of revisionist history, it may very well have been the first mp3 to make it to a hard drive of mine [thank you Internets, I easily found the place I grabbed it from]. As my encoded catalog was minuscule at the time, I must have listened to that song a few dozen times in the background of doing this or that on the computer, until it was me who was in a lull, totally hypnotized and won over by the song, and by extension, Bird. Now that song is deeply embedded in my subconscious, both because it’s good and because he’s got hooks. That’s the way Andrew Bird’s music is, and that was the ways and means of Friday night’s show at the Beacon Theater.
Bird seduces you with his charm, gives you the proverbial “I love you” gaze into your eyes with wicked songwriting and then lulls you into a hypnotic state with sheer talent. Just like listening to that mp3 over and over, the night had a cyclic nature to it: repetitive, looping riffs and phrases churned underneath each song, while, from tune to tune, a basic structure repeated over and over again.
Number after number, Andrew would start off on the violin, or maybe whistling something, and set up some samples and loops (as would his bassist/guitarist and drummer/keyboardist) and out of that soup of sound, songs would emerge and develop. Although this is not to short change what was going on — it’s more like saying every house that’s built starts with a foundation, every painting starts with a blank canvas or that every pizza starts with a crust. Read on for more…
We spent much of our Thanksgiving week hearing about how the pre- and post-holiday tradition of sandwiching live music around a delicious turkey may finally be dead. But sucks to your assmar, pessimistheorists, New York hosted a veritable shitload of live shows from Wednesday through Sunday, providing venues all over the city for hippies and hipsters alike to catch a wide variety of genres.
Your trusty Hidden Track sherpas caught three of these New York holiday shows, one taking in The Duo and Mocean Worker‘s awesome show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg before Thanksgiving, one catching RAQ at the Highline Ballroom on Saturday. And our main man Danfun headed over to the West Side’s Terminal 5 for The Hold Steady and Art Brut on Wednesday night.
Shane over at our corporate parent, Glide Magazine, reviewed The Hold Steady + Art Brut show in Phoenix two weeks ago, so head over here if you’re looking for words to compliment these fine, fine photos. Otherwise, read on after the jump for Danfun‘s view of the proceedings in New York’s newest big venue.
… a taste for progressive leftfield electronic music? Does it get better then that? Today’s edition of Pullin’ ‘Tubes features The Bad Plus‘s live take on Aphex Twin‘s IDM classic,
Apparently you can go home again — the Neville Brothers will return to the traditional closing spot at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival they held for more than a decade. Strangely, this marks the first time Aaron, Art, Charles and Cyril Neville will perform in their hometown since Hurricane Katrina.
That news may be a few days old, but we thought it interesting due to the non-relationship between the city and the Brothers since Katrina. And Cyril’s made comments about the lack of a viable music scene at times when everyone else wants to fellate the fallen city. “People thought there was a music scene in New Orleans – there wasn’t,” Cyril told the Chicago Sun-Times. “You worked two times a year: Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest. The only musicians I knew who made a living playing music in New Orleans were Kermit Ruffins and Pete Fountain. Everyone else had a day job or had to go on tour.” Now for some non-NOLA news:
Finally, Bob Lefsetz makes some great points about the high ticket prices for the upcoming Winwood/Clapton shows at MSG that went on sale this morning…
Add Langerado to the growing list of festivals remaking themselves so as to benefit from economies of scale. Or something. We don’t know really know what that means.
For better or worse, the big outdoor festival scene continues to diversify from what were typically jamband-dominated affairs to more varied lineups capable of drawing both hippies and hipsters. We’re slowly phasing out free hugs, nitrous tanks and grilled cheese while simultaneously ushering in silent contempt, post-ironic T-shirts and [something hipsters eat].
This one’s a bit more curious, but for the most part the trend continues: Five days after missing the initial artist deadline, Langerado promoters finally confirmed REM, the Beastie Boys and Phil Lesh will headline the 2008 Langerado Festival alongside 311, The Roots, Ani DiFranco, Thievery Corp. and more. Now settled at Big Cypress on March 6th – 9th, Langerado aims to double the size of last year’s crowd at Markham Park in Sunrise, which hosted the festival for the last three years.
Tickets go onsale this Friday at 12pm and include camping as well as late night shows on site. Read on for the full lineup, and look for more artists to be added soon:
