May 29, 2008

“If you don’t have a ticket, you ain’t getting in tonight,” proclaimed the burly bouncer at the door of the sold out Bowery Ballroom last Saturday night.

Starting the evening off was the white-faced-but-naked-to-the-waist, duo of the Awesome New Republic. With their indie cover versions of Thriller and Eye of the Tiger, they held the crowd’s attention as they waited for the New Deal to appear. Finally with the lights going low Darren Shearer appeared on the stage and announced, “Thanks everyone for coming out tonight, you always make this place feel like home” and you knew something was about to go down.

For the first time since December ’06, Darren, Jamie Shields, and Dan Kurtz put aside their other projects and returned to the Bowery stage with their original livetronica sound. With quick hand gestures, subtle eye movements, and an uncanny ability to improv, The New Deal weaved the jams through a handful of songs and teases during their two sets. The crowd responded with yells of encouragement, fist pumping, and grinding to the beat, while shaking the dance floor and bar below.

READ ON for more of Jeremy’s review and photos from the Bowery Ballroom…

It looks like Trey Anastasio can’t wait until the Newport Folk Festival to get back on stage for his own gig for the first time in 17 months. Big Red

What was it about the Summer of 1993 that led a number of alternative bands to deliver the best single of their careers? Perhaps it was the musical climate of the times when you had MTV broadcasting both 120 Minutes and Alternative Nation, or the fact that nearly every major market had a rock radio station that propelled alt acts into the mainstream. Whatever the reason, that summer rocked.

R.E.M., The Replacements and The Cure opened the doors for crossover hits, but the Grunge movement led every major label A&R rep to try to find the next Pearl Jam. Fifteen years later alternative has turned into indie, and many of the bands that were big in ’93 are still drawing fans by playing the songs that broke them big that summer. This week’s B List takes a look at my favorite songs from the Summer of ’93. READ ON for 10 fantastic tunes from the likes of Primus, Cracker, the Juliana Hatfield 3, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and many more…

I’m going to leave it up to the snarky hipster blogs to pass judgment on Sonic Youth for releasing their new “greatest hits” album – Hits For Squares – exclusively

We thought just about every jam band besides Phish and Widespread Panic allowed fans to upload shows to the Live Music Archive, but that’s not the case. Another longtime holdout

While we’d probably like to forget we ever wasted what’s most likely added up to days watching stuff like the Numa Numa guy or the Leave Britney Alone dude (we