If ever a classic rock album was not suited for a deluxe reissue, it's The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street. The textbook definition of a whole being (far) greater than the sum of its parts, the album works in strange mysterious ways, and the various packages can only go so far to reveal exactly how that process worked.
A line from "Young Forever," one of Jay-Z’s biggest recent hits, nicely summed up Saturday at Bonnaroo 2010 – "Just a picture perfect day that lasts a whole lifetime." Just
Friday at Bonnaroo 2010 was one of those special days when you felt the collective electricity of bands and audience surge through your body as soon as your feet hit the ground on site. Just up the road waited a top-shelf open bar of music with enough spirits to create a limitless array of personalized audio-visual cocktails, and no two people concoct the same blend.
Mixing up laid back southern charm (“Clinic Cynic”) jazzy instrumentals (“St. Louis”), compositions from old friends (Jerry Joseph’s “North”) and plenty of dynamic song-writing, there’s no arguing the oxymoron that Widespead Panic is the best studio band in the jam scene.
Gregg Allman took the stage on a Friday night to such a round of applause it would have humbled a hardened man. His congregation loves him deeply and it shows in the way they follow him around from town to town, state to sate, just to hear him sing songs that he has sung hundreds of times. It was in the air, this electricity that causes the hair on the back of your neck to stand up straight, as Gregg and his band took over that stage and held this crowd till the last note of “Statesboro Blues”.
The '59 Sound, Gaslight Anthem's 2008 release, got a lot of comparisons to Springsteen. That was fair enough as there is no doubt that the band's sound was influenced by the godfather of their home state's rock and roll scene. However, what seemed to get lost in those comparisons, was that weren't simply Springsteen imitators even as his mark on them was clearly heard.
Raised on the raspy hill-country blues of Mississippi, Cedric Burnside and Lightnin’ Malcolm have played with many of the greats, and it shows.
When one of the biggest names in televised comedy goes on tour, it’s a rare opportunity to deliver the best material, with no censorship, night after night. Likewise, Conan O’Brien gave the packed Mohegan Sun Arena much more than an hour of stand-up. All of his old friends from late night helped out onstage: Andy Richter, the house band, even Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, via video.
The Plimsouls were virtually alone as an authentic rock and roll band within the lemming-like procession of New Wavers that followed the punk explosion of 1979. In this Halloween 1981 recording from the Whiskey A Go Go in Los Angeles, this group's savvy fusion of influences is absolutely galvanizing.
As the spirit descended upon the South African band, BLK JKS (pronounced “Black Jacks”), again in the time following their 2009 full length release, After Robots, it brought forth messages of celebration and conveyed new adventures to be translated musically. The answer to that interpretation has come in the form of their latest release, a five song EP titled “ZOL!,” which will debut on Secretly Canadian just days before the start of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The collection of songs is deeply rooted in vast African culture and combines psychedelic guitar riffs with complex drum patterns and echoing vocals.
