Archive: 2007

Blonde Redhead have announced that they will play 23 North American dates this summer and autumn in support of their recent album, ’23’.  The New York-based trio will kick off their jaunt on August 3 at the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago.  They’ll then play several gigs across US, including free performances at Brooklyn’s McCarren Park […]

Kings Of Leon will tour North America this fall with RCA labelmates Black Rebel Motorcycle Club as the opening act. The outing begins Sept. 4 in San Francisco and will run through an Oct. 18 show in Nashville. Several festival shows are sprinkled into the itinerary, including Sept. 2 at Seattle’s Bumbershoot festival and Oct. […]

Scotty B’s got more on his plate than a Vegas buffet patron, so we’ve asked our good friend Some Dude from Hits From The Blog to regale us with a little tale…

Monday provided us with one of those patented unwelcome, sweltering summer days in New York City, where late-afternoon temperatures were still pulsing around the 90-degree mark, making everyone a little bit more irritable and the thought of being outside for more then a few moments unthinkable.

These days are unavoidable in a city where the heat doesn’t seem to dissipate, in a metropolis filled with huge skyscrapers and millions of people constantly on the move. But really, does it matter when you’re off to Central Park SummerStage, one of the most serene places to see a show in Manhattan? You can barely tell you’re in the city that doesn’t sleep when you wander into its tree-lined entrance.

The bill was tailor-made for live music fans on a night like this — part musician, part mad scientist Keller Williams opening for one his musical heroes and a godfather of the jam scene, Bob Weir & his RatDog cronies. It’s not the summer in these parts ’til a member a the Dead rolls through town: what used to be multi-nights for Jerry & Co. at Giants Stadium playing to 80,000 plus was now condensed to one night, to just a few thousand lucky fans, with the ticketless wandering fingers held high outside still able to hear every note.

Read on after the jump for more of Some Dude’s review of RatDog and Keller…

Welcome back to a regular ol’ edition of Grousing The Aisles — we’re back to our normal format after a week off and Ace’s terrific July 4th special. Picking four entries was tough this week, as so many incredible shows have made the rounds on the torrent sites since we last posted GTA. This week we’ll look at some of our favorites, while next week we’ll get a little more under the radar for y’all. We’ve got three tasty shows for your iPod, and a Phish DVD that you need to have.

Apollo Sunshine 06/17/2007 DAUD (FLAC, MP3, STREAM):

It’s been nearly six weeks since we’ve talked about Apollo Sunshine, and I’m starting to get the shakes. The Sunshine dudes are currently in the studio recording an album that could break them into the big time. As nice as it would be to keep Apollo Sunshine a secret, my parents taught me to share. One of the only shows the band played this summer was a plum spot at Bonnaroo, and recently, a kind-hearted taper uploaded AS’s set to the Live Music Archive.

As per usual, Apollo Sunshine opened the set with Better Change Your Mind, which quickly melted into a tasty orgy of noise and melody. They followed it up by playing Magnolia, their most accessible tune. Two classics, 666 and Flip!, kept the momentum goin’. Your Advice, a song I don’t think I’ve heard before, calms things down a bit before Bach and Lord bring back the frenetic energy.

All told, Sunshine played a terrific set and seemed to be augmented by the percussion player banging on the bongos. Here’s hoping the new album brings us plenty of tour dates, because when these guys add a new batch of songs to the mix, you better hide the children. Read on for much more GTA…

As you can probably tell, we pay infinitely more attention to live music than studio work. We aren’t the ones that get all excited for a release date of a new album, but this week’s batch of releases is absolutely mindblowing. The return of both Crowded House and Smashing Pumpkins is just the tip of […]

U.K. indie-darlings Bloc Party, who are currently hitting the European festival scene, including an appearance at last weekend’s Live Earth concert in London, and will soon move on to Australia and Japan, have announced dates for another swing through the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The band’s new North American trek kicks off September 7 at […]

 Toronto’s cosmic cowboys The Sadies, consisting of brothers Dallas and Travis Good, drummer Mike Belitsky and upright bassist Sean Dean, return with their fifth studio album, New Seasons, October 2 on Yep Roc Records. Featuring the brotherly harmonies and dazzling guitar interplay of Dallas and Travis Good, New Seasons is the band’s most confident studio […]

Hot on the heals of his highly anticipated second studio release, Underground Communication, Bassnectar is back in true pioneering form. Since arriving on the music scene a decade ago, San Francisco’s finest has been creatively honing his craft of performing purely passionate music, capable of being enjoyed by just about everyone with ears.

 Tegan and Sara have announced their late fall full U.S. theater tour in support of their fifth studio full-length, The Con, in stores July 24th through Vapor/Sire Records.  The 28-date tour will kick off October 29th in Los Angeles, preceded by an appearance at this years Bridge School Benefit October 27th and 28th.  Written by Tegan and Sara, The Con was co-produced by […]

An Ann Arbor-based post-afrobeat band called NOMO pulled through New York City last night, although I had some dinner plans and missed the gig (spoiler: I tried the veal). But NOMO’s show at Joe’s Pub last year blew me away, prompting me to call it the best under-the-radar performance of last year in our Best of 2006 […]

Every now and again, for lack of anything better to say or post, we like to dig through the SugarMegs streaming server and present the best shows you’ve never heard. Sometimes we throw ’em up against a thematic wall, other times we play the alphabet — today it’s the latter, one show from an artist/group representing the […]

Stateside, the Kaiser Chiefs are known for their highly infectious pop punk smash, “I Predict a Riot,” from their first album, Employment. And with the release of Yours Truly, Angry Mob,the Leeds-based quintet of Ricky Wilson (vocals), Simon Nix (bass), Nick Baines (keyboards), Andrew White (guitar) and Nick Hodgson (drums and backing vocals) all have the hopes of winning over American fans.

Easy Tiger is not a disappointment or a bad record, it just fails to take any kind of grip by playing it too safe.  Minus the humorous rocker “Halloween Head,” Adams isn’t looking to raise any eyebrows on Tiger.

Dr. Dog will make available ten unreleased tracks beginning July  2nd on their new website, www.weallbelong.net. Offered for streaming  only, the Philadelphia five-piece will release one song every  Monday.  Each song, free of  fees,  will  be hand  selected  by  the  band  from  a vault of material that has been recorded at various times in the […]

week of 7.8.07

The indie music scene is very much about mislabeled, misguided irony. But more so than just the catchy T-shirts, there’s genuine irony in the fact that indie bands are blowing jambands out of the fucking water when it comes to sheer innovation and reaching out to their audiences. Indie bands have picked up the very qualities that […]

We’re not a filter. We don’t pretend to be the first guys on the scene. We won’t find you the hot new band that’ll probably suck in two weeks time. What we do is relatively simple: We tell you what we like — what we’ve liked for years or what we’ve recently discovered — and if that squares up with […]

Earlier today we wrapped up our not-so-live Live Earth coverage with a round-up of links and videos from around the world wide netweb. But plenty of non-Gore shit went down this weekend, so check out this other linkage as well…

• Click here to stream Flight of the Concords’ World Cafe appearance
• New studio album: Foo Fighters aim to mix Steely Dan with No Means No
• Prince rocked First Avenue on Sunday morning…until the cops came
• Where’s Cactus? He’s sharing the demo of Phish’s Simple on his MySpace
• Funky 16 Corners shares some Old School Hammond
• IckMusic kicks down some Parliament Funkadelic
• Buffalo Tom is back after a nine-year hiatus with a new album
• The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde opens a vegetarian restaurant in Akron
• DeRo enjoyed the Police at Wrigley — well, for the most part
• Nickel Creek has added some more dates to their pre-hiatus tour
• More Guitar Hero controllers are coming out everyday
• Blender looks at 100 Days That Changed Music
• David Gilmour is coming out with a live DVD
• R.E.M. wrapped up their week of gigs in Dublin
• A Black Sabbath bootleg from a forgotten era of the band
• Largehearted Boy is still tracking the best of the Smashing Pumpkins recordings that keep of getting uploaded to the Live Music Archive
• ’60 Variety Show dancers + Unk’s Walk It Out = Unbelievable Video
• Stream a soundboard recording of Friday night’s moe. show on Cape Cod
• Genesis-News talked to Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford backstage at a recent gig

And as usual on Monday mornings, read on after the jump for a full listing of setlists from the weekend — today’s batch includes Arcade Fire, Band of Horses, Brian Wilson, Foo Fighters, Genesis, Gov’t Mule, Prince, Rush and many, many more…

Live Earth played the center of the music world for more than 24 hours this weekend. While we can’t really say if the concerts saved the world — actually, we can say it: they didn’t — we did enjoy much of the music. And since this blog is about music, and not, say, harmful greenhouse gases, that’s cool with us. […]

Bumbershoot, Seattle’s Music & Arts Festival announces the complete lineup for the 2007 Labor Day weekend celebration.  Outstanding talent in music, literary arts, comedy, visual arts,  theater, spectacle, installation, dance, and film will fill the Seattle Center, September 1 – 3. THE SHINS • WU-TANG CLAN • PANIC! AT THE DISCO • FERGIE • SEAN […]