Posts by Shawn Donohue

[rating=9.00] Jack White famously sang on White Blood Cells “Well you’re in your little room / And you’re working on something good /But if it’s really good / You’re gonna need a bigger room”. This can be applied directly to his career, starting out restrained by his personal set of rules for The White Stripes […]

To celebrate his experimental new album Boarding House Reach Jack White scheduled three club shows, the second of which was the actual release date, Friday night March 23rd at Warsaw in Brooklyn, NY. Having not toured since 2015 White was in glorious triumphant form, reinvigorated he prowled the stage with palpable energy, engaging the crowd […]

[rating=7.00] Hoboken, New Jersey’s Yo La Tengo continues their long indie rock career with their fifteenth studio release There’s A Riot Going On. It is just over an hour of mellow psychedelic movements showcasing a new recording process for the band yet still managing to satisfy old fans with their patchwork, dreamy tracks. Completely self-produced, […]

With Newark, New Jersey still recovering from the latest Bomb Cyclone to hit this winter season Steve Winwood and company took the stage at the gorgeous NJPAC on Thursday night March 8th. The crowd was clearly on the gray-haired side of things and in a venue more apt to host Mozart’s Requiem than a rock […]

[rating=6.00] The first proper solo album from David Byrne in fourteen years finds the former Talking Heads frontman sounding amazing vocally while experimenting with sounds and lyrics; not always hitting the complete musical mark. There is a constant push and pull between the organic and the programmed throughout American Utopia and it is on display with […]

[rating=9.00] On All Nerve, their first album in a decade, The Breeders have put together their strongest complete work since their cultural highpoint, Last Splash. Perhaps not coincidently the lineup from that album, Kim and Kelley Deal, Jim MacPherson and Josephine Wiggs, has reunited for the first time in 25 years resulting in All Nerve. The […]

[rating=8.00] The Boston based Barrence Whitfield and the Savages have continued to put out strong, hard edged, punk infused soul music for over 30+ years and their newest, Soul Flowers of Titan continue their string of successes. The group has found a home on Bloodshot Records using their strengths of gritty retro R&B combined with […]

[rating=7.00] On Titus Andronicus’s last studio release, The Most Lamentable Tragedy, the band went for it all in absolute grandiose fashion with a massive triple album, punk rock opera. In the roll out to the follow-up, A Productive Cough, there were quotes that main man Patrick Stickles was “pulling a reverse Bob Dylan”, abandoning his […]

[rating=9.00] The fifth album from the Oakland based Shannon & the Clams continues their winning 60’s surf pop on acid style but takes on an extra emotional level as the artists grow and deal with tragedy. The four-piece of Shannon Shaw (bass/vocals), Cody Blanchard (guitar/vocals), Nate Mahan (drums) and Will Sprott (keyboards), work through these […]

[rating=6.00] The folk/pop outfit The National Parks has all but dropped the folk from their resume as they offer the positive pop of Places Deluxe to the world. Focusing more on electronic swells and arena-ready hooks, the five-piece based in Provo, Utah (Brady Parks- guitar and lead vocals, Megan Taylor Parks- fiddle and vocals, Sydney […]

[rating=8.00] James Hunter has been a staple on the UK Soul scene since the mid-80’s and even while singing backups/touring the world with Van Morrison in the mid-90’s it seems that he is just now hitting his career heights in the late-2010’s. He has recently had songs featured on NBC’s Superstore and now The James […]

For the second year in a row, The Hold Steady threw a positive jam, multi-day party at Brooklyn Bowl in their adopted hometown. The venue and band is a perfect match as the beer from the neighboring brewery fuels the huge singalongs and light-hearted pogoing. A chilly first of December continued the proceedings; the third […]

Every year at the end of November, Bob Dylan pushes pause on the Never Ending Tour to rest his bones for winter before returning to the stage in early April. Most years Dylan tries to end things in his adopted hometown of NYC around Thanksgiving (perhaps he secretly dresses as a clown to wrangle a […]

[rating=5.00] If the last few albums are any indication. Primus is running out of steam, ideas, and energy. The freak rock outfits’ previous release was their interpretation of The Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory soundtrack which disappointed almost as much as the awful 2005 remake of the film. For this go around Claypool and company use a […]

[rating=8.00] Lee Ranaldo has moved on (even dropping The Dust moniker) from his smoothly polished 2013 release Last Night on Earth to Electric Trim. This release is a quirky mix of Beatles inspired experimental pop that hints at something lurking just at the edges. Opening with an enigma of a track that feels stapled together, […]

[rating=5.00] Prophets of Rage is a supergroup for our current times that is not designed to heal our country but fight the powers that be. They have a clearly defined agenda lyrically, laid out to battle the current establishments policies in front of metal injected hip-hop riffs and beats. In a vacuum the combination of Chuck […]

[rating=9.00] Mike Gordon’s fifth solo album OGOGO is his clearest individual musical statement as an artist yet. Recorded with his own band OGOGO is cohesive, unique and sonically divergent from his main day job, infused with a confidence of an artist stepping into his own. On the oddly titled OGOGO the majority of the songs […]

One of the all-time classic rock and roll albums got a special treatment on Saturday Night September 9th as Pete Townshend and a huge host of friends brought Classic Quadrophenia to the New York Metropolitan Opera House. Aging rockers and young fans alike were dressed to the nines (or maybe broke out ragged concert t-shirts) […]

[rating=8.00] It has been four years since Gogol Bordello’s last album Pura Vida Conspiracy and during that time main Bordello keeper Eugene Hütz bounced between Brazil the Ukraine and New York City. So the title of the newest release Seekers and Finders is appropriate however Hütz describes the record not as a travelogue, but a […]

[rating=6.00] From the small town of Tahlequah, Oklahoma is DocFell & Co. with their dose of Americana/Country, slowly singing tunes direct from their Dust Bowl Heart. Raised on the sounds of Cash, Haggard, Nelson and Jennings the group took less of the outlaw spirit and more direct songwriting that those legends put forth with doses […]