Posts by Shawn Donohue

The Brooklyn three piece Grooms sophomore release, Prom, is an entanglement of twists, off kilter timings and hot pop injections.

The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art played host to a crowd of elder fans and families who gathered for a pleasant weekend artistic experiences in the Berkshires. The title of the festival itself, “Solid Sound”, hinted at a range of music and noise and that was certainly delivered upon, even going the extra mile to showcase natures wet splashing of spastic downpours.  The first night was almost a complete washout with massive delays in host and headliner Wilco’s set as the gathering waited for Mother Nature to lend a hand. 

The Arctic Monkeys fourth proper release is unlike any of their past work which keeps things fresh and adds to their growing catalog of enchanting songs.  This time around the group focuses their talents on 60’s pop, crafting ditties that can jangle a tambourine or trip out a touch in front of Alex Turner’s ear catching lyrics.

Steve Earle is all over the place lately as actor, writer, activist, and maintaining his first love, music.  The tunes get their proper due on this fantastic new release, I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive.  The title is taken from Hank Williams final single; Earle has a strong affinity for Williams (titling his first novel the same thing) and as someone who never shy’s away from his idols (see the album Townes) there is history seeping from these tracks, a lot of personality too. 

Delayed by drummer Mike Andrepont’s uptown gig, The Rough Seven didn’t get started until well into Sunday morning, but no matter as the garage gospel band brought all that was holy into the night’s darkest hours.  These 7 had the exuberant crowd eating out of its hands from the get go with sing-a-long favorites “Sugar Daddy” and “Give Up Your Dreams” echoing out into the nearby Mississippi.

Thurston Moore took a lot less time between solo albums (4 years instead of 12) and brought in a high profile producer to help things along this time around.  Instead of mining his art/noise rock tendencies Demolished Thoughts plays totally acoustic without a crashing crescendo or drum fill anywhere to be found.

Warren Haynes picked the friendliest confines he could think of to kick start his Man in Motion Tour, New York Cities Beacon Theater.  He may have played this venue more then any other artist over recent years and was clearly in a good mood as he showed off his new six piece band complete with Saxophone and backup singer. 

The Dirtbombs have always loved their covers and with 2001’s excellent soul and R&B rethinking, Ultraglide In Black the group showed their prowess in this realm.  2011 is apparently now the time to tackle songs from the Detroit Techno scene of the 1980’s.   While there was a direct line drawn between The Dirtbombs retro garage shake and the soul of their cities 60’s and 70’s this techno connection is a bit more tedious causing the efforts here to vary in quality. 

It is always exciting when a band steps out of the recording studio to showcase some new tunes live and Alberta Cross did just that on Wednesday night in the middle of Manhattan.

There is a Southern California underwater dreaminess to By The Hedge so it may be surprising that Minks are a Boston band, but cold winters are far from the brain on the groups debut LP