It appears that the market for Cake's finely-crafted music is as strong as ever, as the band quite unexpectedly sold out four nights in a row at the Fillmore. Not bad for a band that just released their first album in seven years.
George Clinton and his P-Funk crew have gone through countless changes since their heyday in the 70s and 80s. Along the way, their catalog became the reservoir for rap beats, with Dr. Dre and others liberally sampling their unique grooves. Clinton’s musical and biological family grew, and he now shares the stage with his rapping grandchildren and other young disciples. Key members such as Bootsy Collins parted ways with Clinton and company, and just months ago, the band lost Garry “Diaper Man” Shider.
For only the second time in ten years members of the Disco Biscuits stepped onto the fertile ground of the Pacific Northwest. The sane ones of us here in Portland, Oregon and the Northwest at large have long given up hope of Marc Brownstein and Aron Magner’s titanic livetronica innovators returning to our beautiful corner of the country but for one night at Peter’s Room inside the Roseland Theater we were fortunate to have another chance to dance with their side project Conspirator.
How to describe the music that Swedish-based band Little Dragon creates? The genre-defying sounds pulsing off the stage on this sold-out night in San Francisco defied classification in any simple sense. Using 80's electro-R&B as their core sound, these four Swedes brought the packed, hyped-up crowd at the Independent into their unique world of synth-washed outer space beats and minimalist, mid-tempo pop.
The little record label that can from New Brunswick, NJ sold out the Music Hall of Williamsburg Saturday night showcasing what Don Giovanni does best; allow artists to be themselves and have a good time doing it.
If ska is dead, then consider Less Than Jake Jesus, rising from the grave and rocking so hard that even hipster-laden Lawrence, Kansas was moving. For almost two decades, Less Than Jake has toured fervently delivering its unmistakable ska-pop-punk sound to fans across the globe. Saturday night in Lawrence was no exception.
Fresh out on the road to promote their new album All American Nightmare, Hinder lit a fuse under the crowd in Biloxi right from the beginning with the opening track, “2 Sides Of Me”, followed by “Up All Night”, “Use Me” and one of Austin’s current favorites to sing live, “What Ya Gonna Do”. “It’s one of my favorites on the record,” Austin told me a week later, calling from a freezing cold Providence, Rhode Island. “Its fun to see a lot of people singing that song that is not out yet.”
A sold out show means fan support, great marketing, and most importantly – a great artist. It is obvious that Ryan Bingham and his band, The Dead Horses, already have a high level of both fan and industry attention. Their Academy Award win and Grammy nomination for the feature film soundtrack for Crazy Heart, are proof of that, as was this El Rey sell out.
Say what you will about the prince of darkness, but the man knows how to put on a show, to get and most importantly KEEP the crowd involved. It is an experience. Yes, it may primarily be the same show he did last year but for the approximately two hours that Ozzy is on the stage, you sweat, you wave your hands, you clap, you sing, you hear the f-bomb a million times and you scream.
Starting her brief northeast tour on a snowy winter night in Vermont, Neko Case brought her “country noir” sound in it’s full glory to Higher Ground’s Ballroom. It was a night with a lot of hype, as the last time Case was scheduled to perform on this same stage with her band The New Pornographers back in August, she was a no show.
