Archive: 2006

The Secret Machines effectively took the spectacle of arena-rock and scaled it down for the size of a club, as their “In The Round” tour blasted through Boston’s Avalon Ballroom.

Was Baltimore worthy to host the first American incarnation of the Virgin Festival this year? Will it be the city-of-choice for next year or will Virgin CEO Richard Branson move the music festival to another American city? Who the hell knows, but despite seriously steep ticket prices, the Baltimore version was highly entertaining.

Video-sharing site YouTube deleted nearly 30,000 files after a Japanese entertainment group complained of copyright infringement.

It’s been exactly 11 years since the death of singer Shannon Hoon effectively put an end to Blind Melon. But now, the group’s surviving members — guitarists Christopher Thorn and Rogers Stevens, bassist Brad Smith and drummer Glen Graham — are back together again under the Blind Melon banner, with a new singer, 25-year-old Amarillo, […]

I’ve never been terribly upset about missing an opening act. That is, until I walked into the Theatre at Madison Square Garden last night for Beck’s set and heard the bad news. Apparently a nice young man named Spank Rock played his now-classic hit “Shake It ‘Til My Dick Turns Racist.” That could’ve been my new anthem, and I missed it. Oh well, best not think too deeply on this one.

But Beck’s 90-minute masterful performance more than made up for my foolish decision to skip the poetic appetizer, and the hipster doofus proved beyond all doubt that he’s worth every penny of the questionably inflated $60 ducat. Not only did he intertwine an impressive and eclectic mix of songs from his old albums with solid tunes off the new one, Beck put on a show in every sense of the word…

Giving new meaning to the “I went to a boxing match and a Wilco show broke out” cliché, frontman Jeff Tweedy took a well-deserved swing at some poor schmuck that jumped on stage during the band’s first encore, Airline to Heaven. I’m sure Woody Guthrie woulda done the exact same thing: Peace, love, doooope. The […]

Starless & Bible Black is guilty of meandering, oft-unfocused compositions; however, the innate ability to craft multi-layered textures which beg to be unraveled forgives most of these transgressions.

Jeff Tweedy has spoken out about an incident during Wilco’s Monday night (Oct. 16) concert in Springfield, Mo., where he punched a male fan who had jumped onto the stage and grabbed the singer from behind. In a post on Wilco’s Web site, the band says it felt unsafe all night long and had already […]

Eclectic U.K. group Jamiroquai will be the subject of a retrospective CD and DVD dubbed "High Times," due Nov. 6 internationally and Nov. 22 via Epic. The 19-track "Singles 1992-2006" sports two new songs, "Runaway" and "Radio," while the separately sold DVD boasts 24 clips ranging from early single "When You Gonna Learn" through to […]

What happens when great jambands break apart or lose a key player? The Everyone Orchestra happens, and that's the exact void they filled on their recent Northeast fall tour.

It was only a matter of time…the Missouri stage incident makes its way to YouTube

Wilkes Community College will resent MerleFest 2007, the 20th annual festival in celebration of themusic of the late Merle Watson and his father Doc Watson, on its campus n Wilkesboro, NC on April 26 – 29, 2007.

It is uniquely fitting that the man who is being called the voice of Generation X uses cultural debris the way a flasher uses a trench coat.

After a musical detour toward acoustic blues and country on its 2005 set "Howl," California trio Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is veering back into electric guitar-driven rock for its fourth album. The-as-yet-untitled set is "maybe 80 or 90% done," principal member Peter Hayes tells Billboard.com, and is due in February or March via RCA. Hayes […]

Metallica will on Dec. 5 release a DVD rounding up all of its music videos, including the entirety of the 1991 VHS "2 of One." Alongside classic videos like "Enter Sandman," "One," "Sad But True" and "Nothing Else Matters," "The Videos 1989-2004" tacks on more recent clips such as "I Disappear," "St. Anger," "Frantic." Also […]

The highly-anticipated third album from The Shins, Wincing the Night Away, is set for release via Sub Pop Records on January 23rd, 2007. The album was recorded in the summer of ’06 at Supernatural Sound in Oregon, and produced by James Mercer, The Shins’ singer/songwriter, and Joe Chiccarelli (Beck, U2). The tracklist for Wincing the Night […]

A small number of Apple Computer's Video iPods shipped in the past month carry a Windows computer virus.

Welcome. This part is always incredibly awkward.

I mean, we don’t even know each other yet but already our roles are clearly defined: As someone that followed the link to this here blog, you obviously need something to read when you’re bored to work-a-day tears, and as the very definition of blogger goes, I want you to look at me, look at me, look at me.

So now that we know why we’re all here, let’s shift a little bit into why you should stay here. What can you expect to find here? What can I do for you? Will stopping here on a daily basis be a net positive to your day? Well, hows about you stop asking so many fuckin’ questions and peruse the introductory FAQ that follows…

White Light White Light starts out like the lovechild of Primal Scream and Kasabian, until the vocals kick in to put that unique Supersystem stamp upon it.

Although Harvey Danger is still in their