Archive: 2009

While his band, Minibar, is on hiatus, Simon Petty has resurfaced, recording under the alias Solomon’s Seal. His solo offering, The Sea, The Sea, is a collection of mostly delicate acoustic tunes that tug at the soul and bring a sense of wonder.

f this were the late 80’s/early 90’s, MTV still mattered an played videos while having a Buzz Bin, then “Skeletons”, the title track off of Tiny Masters of Today new album, would have been a huge hit.

Mew sound so goodlive it kind of pisses me off," Tweets Trent Reznor. So good, that Mew will be joining NIN for a handful of U.S. dates in addition to the UK dates the band is currently on. Mew will also play select headline dates in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle […]

Growing up in South Africa, trumpet player Hugh Masekela used music as an act of defiance against apartheid.  He went into exile in New York City in the 1960s, recorded a number one hit (“Grazing in the Grass”) and watched Jim Crow and segregation crumble in America.  He married the South African singing legend Miriam Makeba and returned to South Africa to play with Paul Simon on the “Graceland” tour.  He watched apartheid crumble, writing music for Nelson Mandela.  In between, he toured the world many times while making music that can be searing, romantic, political and joyful all at once.

Bruce Springsteen has added a string of dates to his upcoming tour of the US, which includes the final live shows at Giants Stadium in New Jersey. Four of the five nights at the stadium have already sold out, with tickets still available for the October 8 date only. The outing launches August 19 in […]

The Dead Weather are set to perform a set at a ‘pop-up’ record store which will open for two days only this week on the Lower East Side in New York City. Third Man Records will be located at 131 Chrystie Street (between Broome and Delancey) and will be open from 10am to 6pm on […]

The Beastie Boys have added a few more shows to their upcoming tour schedule as the band prepares to take its eight studio album out on the road. Kicking off Sept. 19 and 20 in Santa Barbara, CA, the dates follow a number of mid-summer festival appearances, including a July 31 slot at New Jersey’s […]

We’re on day two of the Carrie Brownstein/Monitor Mix Phish experiment in which the Queen blogger and former guitarist/vocalist for Sleater-Kinney tries to see why people flock to see the Vermont-based quartet. In her latest post, Brownstein heads to her local record store to trade some used CDs for Phish CDs. Let’s take a look […]

As was the case last year, NPR Music will broadcast live from George Wein’s Folk Festival 50 – aka Newport Folk Festival – and CareFusion Jazz Festival 55 – aka Newport Jazz Festival – next month. You can check out the festivals via free, live audio webcasts at NPR Music, and live station broadcasts. [Photo […]

You Can’t Always Get What You Want is the closing track on the 1969 Rolling Stones album Let It Bleed. Regular readers may remember we did our first Stones song edition of Cover Wars two months ago when we took a look at covers of Can’t You Hear Me Knocking.

There are some very interesting quotes regarding the drumming on this track included in the book According to the Rolling Stones, you can see the page in question over at Google Books (what an amazing resource).

THE CONTESTANTS:

Aretha Franklin: This cover comes off a 1981 Aretha Franklin album that universally gets bad to lukewarm reviews. The arrangement is very 80’s. Still, it’s worth a couple minutes to hear the Queen Of Soul sing lead on this tune. Source: Love All The Hurt Away

READ ON to hear the rest of this week’s Cover Wars contestants…

Wilco’s a peculiar musical addiction: most of their songs don’t quite bowl you over as much as sneak up on you, and you’re hooked long before you know it. On what, exactly? It’s different for everyone, but is some variation on songs and a core sound that are an uneasily balanced dichotomy: pastoral melodies that give way to apocalyptic sounding guitar squalls; plangent pop and alt-country tunes that find themselves torn open to reveal molten jams and psychedelic cores churning beneath. Jeff Tweedy seems to wear all that on his face: a goofy grin has a way of morphing into a teeth-baring growl, a bemused smile into a terrified caterwaul. His band mates seem like nice enough chaps. They also give no quarter when there’s rocking to be done.

You Never Know – Wilco w/ Feist and Ed Droste

Wilco (The Album) is Wilco’s latest, and like most Wilco albums grows on you insistently. There’s nothing on it to match 2004’s A Ghost Is Born (to these ears, the band’s masterpiece, indulgences and all), although the gems, such as the gorgeous One Wing and the stormy, head-splitting Bull Black Nova, have definitely revealed themselves. Wilco mined heavily from the new record on a laid back, groovy, immensely satisfying two-plus hours at the home of the Cyclones in Brooklyn: a show that took some time to get going – sluggish band and sluggish crowd alike – but once it hit its stride, made for that classic Wilco balance of mess and finesse.

I maintain – and it’s hardly a unique opinion – that hiring Nels Cline is the best decision Tweedy’s ever made. Cline plays guitar as if it’s an extension of a seizure, his arms and torso shaking as he peels off fuzzy, sheety sounds and hot-toned blasts of guitar noise, dismantling Wilco delicacies like Handshake Drugs and Impossible Germany and forcing them into oblivion, with the rest of the band by now well aware of when to follow him down the rabbit hole. At Keyspan, keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen, especially, was as animated as I’ve ever seen him, tucking all sorts of filigree in behind Cline’s machinations. Tweedy himself was playful and mischievous, spinning his microphone chord, stalking around the stage and making warm banter with a crowd that awoke sometime around that “Germany” and from that point kept up its end, too.

READ ON for more of Chad’s thoughts on Wilco at Keyspan Park…

Rodriguez – Inner City Blues

Last week we shared the news that the Pixies’ plans to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their epic album Doolittle with some European tour dates. This week in Pixies-related news comes word the band’s bass player, Kim Deal, has announced plans to hit the road with her other band – The Breeders – this August. […]

Los Angeles’ The Airborne Toxic Event announces two new dates added to their world tour today: Tuesday September 22nd in Salt Lake City, UT at In The Venue and Wednesday September 23rd in Denver, CO at the Ogden Theatre.  The band will be co-headlining with Arctic Monkeys. The band will bring the music from their […]

Southampton, UK newcomers Band of Skulls will hit the road this summer for their first national US tour. The band begins thetour on July 23 in Portland, OR and will make stops at the Capitol Hill Block Party in Seattle, WA on July 24, Spaceland in Los Angeles, CA on July 28th and Lollapalooza in […]

MGMT are set to headline the opening night of Treasure Island Music Festival in San Francisco, CA on Saturday October 17, 2009.  Now in it’s 3rd year, Treasure Island Music Festival has become the most anticipated boutique festival tour on the West Coast.  Also on the bill for this date are MSTRKRFT, Girl Talk, Passion […]

Critically acclaimed singer-songwriter Mat Kearney announces a fall headlining tour in support of his new album, City of Black & White, which was released on Aware/Columbia Records on May 19 and debuted at #13 on the Billboard Top 200 Chart. FALL HEADLINE DATES: Sep 21             Columbus, OH                         Newport Music Hall Sep 22             Towson, MD                            Recher […]

The New York Philharmonic will give the New York premiere of Time Turns Elastic – a work for vocals, electric guitar, and orchestra composed by Trey Anastasio, lead singer  and guitarist of Phish, and his longtime collaborator, Don Hart – at Carnegie Hall, Saturday, September 12, 2009, at 8:00 p.m.  An Evening with Trey Anastasio […]

Given the otherworldly atmosphere of The Church’s recordings, it’s an intriguing prospect to anticipate the Australian quartet in concert and find out how they replicate the density of their music in the spirit of the moment.

The Treasure Island Music Festival will return for a third year of genre-defying fun in the San Francisco Bay on October 17 and 18. This year’s lineup is chock full of buzz bands from the past (Husker Du’s Bob Mould, Yo La Tengo, Flaming Lips); present (Dan Deacon, MGMT, Grizzly Bear) and future (Sleepy Sun, […]