Posts by Shawn Donohue

fter a ten year hiatus The Blacks release this digital EP entitled In Sickness and Health.  Well slap me silly and call me Suzy, would ya’ looky there…the first acoustic little ditty is aptly titled “Ten Years”.

Double Jointer is a breezy piece of jangly, lo-fi, garage rock from Brooklyn’s Golden Triangle.  A sexually split six-piece (3 Gals, 3 Guys) they come at you with fuzzed-up-high-pitched vocals and driving rhythms that tumble into the ear.  Some efforts (“Cinco De Mayo”, “Death To Fame”) aren’t much more then sketches while others (“Neon Noose”) are closer to polished pop.  Double Jointer plays like a group’s first record but that’s not to say there aren’t good songs and bits of potential lurking in the corners. 

The Free Ice Cream Crew has come out with another underground hip-hop scorcher via Kats’s Levitate.  The Brooklyn based MC boasts all over his “tenth album” and the braggadocios flow abounds, yet he manages to remain rooted in common stories like the tale spun on, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and that title tune, “Levitate”.

You can’t hear the vocals?!?  What fucking show do you think this is?!?!” Lou Barlow sarcastically yelled this to an ill informed fan midway through Dinosaur Jr’s ass-kickingly-loud concert at Bowery Ballroom on Saturday night in New York City…and really what the hell was that fan thinking?  This is Dinosaur Jr; beasts of feedback, lords of the distortion!

Sporting silly fur hats The Duchess and The Duke took the stage at Mercury Lounge in New York City Friday night with only their whiskey soaked voices and a pair of acoustic guitars.  While the large noggin adornments may have been needed in the single digit night air, they certainly weren’t necessary in the full house for the early show which the group headed lined.

Detroit Female Punks unite with the formation of Gorevette.  The group is a linking up of Nikki Corvette and Amy Gore from the Gore Gore Girls, bringing together some powerful pop punk chops crafted into a bouncy sing-along worthy effort titled, The Lustfully Yours EP.

This four piece shoegazing crew from Norway is a rocket blast out of the frozen north.  A Thousand Years of Deconstruction contains all the elements for future success, it has punchy fuzzed out punk (“Acid Blues” and “Son of J”), dramatic guitar interplay with dueling vocals (“Exploding Eyes”) even an acoustic come down gets an airing (“Everytime (oxygen)”).  The gravy for these disco fries is the EP’s centerpiece; an exhilarating drawn out escapade of deep space audio adventure called “Mad Mary”.

The Pixies have been back together now for four years touring and reliving their late 80’s heyday.  They haven’t recorded any new material, instead they choose to focus on their most acclaimed work and tonight they played their best album Doolittle in its entirety. 

Bob Dylan shifts and changes his live performances so much it has become an adventure to dissect his tunes from tour to tour.  A constant tinkerer, his arraignments are fluid and give him space as an artist to express himself with those he chooses to place onstage.  The current outing finds him playing with four familiar players that he has toured with over the last few years and one from his not-too-distant past.  Charlie Sexton returned to the lineup on lead guitar and added a chicken fried layer of playing that has jolted Dylan into some powerful sonic structures this time around the world.

The Dead Weather’s cover of The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band has Jack White and Alison Mosshart exchange these gruesome lyrics with giddy glee, but tonight it was the stretched out “fire” in the jamming of this tune that summed up the whole shebang.  Stretched out with raucous yet tight low end, a mean aura of keys and feedback with Rock and Roll showmanship combined to form pure, raw power.