Archive: 2011

HT faves Umphrey’s McGee revealed more details for UMBowl II, which we already knew was set to take place in the band’s hometown of Chicago on April 2, via The Floor. The event will feature four musical quarters, each with a different theme at Park West starting at 7:30PM. While Park West normally holds 1,100 […]

Buddy Guy @ Buddy Guy’s Legends, January 27th

Every January, Chicago blues fans brave the city’s schizophrenic weather and flock to the 700 block of south Wabash. Their destination, Buddy Guy’s Legends to experience none other than blues deity Buddy Guy, at home in the flesh. To many it would not be a new year without Guy’s traditional winter residency; loyalists would even say that Guy’s shows set the tone for the year ahead.

Each year, Guy returns to sweet home Chicago to perform a month’s worth of sold-out shows, 16 to be exact, at his South Loop club, Legends. For 20 years Legends was located at 754 S. Wabash; that was until Guy’s landlords, Columbia College, gave his bar the boot to expand their campus. As a result, Guy bought a new place up the block at 700 S. Wabash, replicated and upgraded his 20 year old masterpiece, and re-opened during the summer of 2010.

January 2011 marked Guy’s first residency at the club’s new address. There were people packed into every nook and cranny for show #13 on January 27th. About three or four rows of tables lined the middle of the room, all of which were dominated by Buddy Guy vets, aka experienced patrons aware of the benefits to unite together and arrive early. For everyone else it was standing room only surrounding the club’s perimeter. Looking around there could not have been a friendlier or more welcoming atmosphere.

READ ON for more on catching Buddy Guy in Chicago…

With the announcement coming this past weekend that LCD Soundsystem would be playing their final show on April 2nd at Madison Square Garden, it seemed appropriate that we select one of their tunes for Cover Wars. All My Friends was released as a single for LCD’s 2007 album Sound of Silver. As you’ll see below, that single included two covers of All My Friends.

The Contestants:

Franz Ferdinand is the first of two artists this week who recorded a cover of All My Friends specifically to be released as a B-Side to the single.

Franz Ferdinand has played it live on a number of occasions:

READ ON for four more covers of All My Friends…

Baltimore’s The Bridge have just released a video for the single Rosie off the sextet’s National Bohemian album and the song smokes. Clocking in at a radio-friendly 3:20, Rosie is a soul-fueled rocker that will stay in your head all day. Take a look, this guys just might have a hit on their hands… The […]

With the football season wrapping up this past weekend, many of us around the HT HQ are eagerly anticipating the return of baseball, which officially gets underway this weekend as pitchers and catchers begin to report to Spring Training. This spring the soundtrack around the ballparks will get a dose of indie-rock as The Baseball […]

On Hardcore Will Never Die But You Will, as was the case on earlier albums and more recently on 2008’s brilliant and often under-appreciated The Hawk Is Howling, Scottish rock outfit Mogwai knows how to set a mood early and occasionally explode from that jumping off point. With a bit more texture in spots a la The Cure-meets-Coldplay which fuels “White Noise” (and later during “Letters To The Metro”) Mogwai settle things down with a decent if not delectable “Mexican Grand Prix” with, dare I say it, vocals?

Wilco have joined Foo Fighters as the headliners for the 10th annual Sasquatch! Music Festival. Foo Fighters was previously announced as the headliner of the festival’s new Friday event. Thanks to the addition of the fourth day, this year’s Memorial Day weekend festival takes place May 27-30 at Gorge Amphitheatre in Quincy, Wash. May 27’s lineup […]

We were sad to see the news that guitarist Gary Moore passed away early Sunday at the Kempinski Hotel in Estepona, Spain. Moore is best known for his work with Thin Lizzy as well as his career as a solo artist. As of now, no cause of death has been determined. Check out Greg Prato’s […]

For every important musical movement of the last 60 years, there has always seemed to be a venue that has played a pivotal role in helping to foster and cultivate it. The folk music boom called Gerde’s Folk City in Greenwich Village home, while psychedelic rock bloomed at the Fillmore in San Francisco. For the […]

Ozomatli @ Irving Plaza – February 3rd, 2011

Jam bands tend to try and be a little bit of everything to everyone. And a lot of the time they just fall flat as pale imitators. Hip-hop acts tend to recognize their “roots.” Sometimes this comes off as phony; just another way to try and gain “street cred.” Last Thursday evening at Irving Plaza, there was a party goin’ on. Sly would have said that at moments, it was worthy of a riot. But what exactly was being played? I’m still not totally sure. But I know one thing: Ozomatli rocked the house making a cold Winter Thursday night feel like a “Saturday Night.” And the audience in attendance could have cared less what type of music was coming from the stage.

[All words and photos by Marc Millman]

According to Wikipedia, in a 2007 NPR interview, band members Jiro Yamaguchi and Ulises Bella described Ozomatli: “You drive down Sunset Boulevard and turn off your stereo and roll down your windows and all the music that comes out of each and every different car, whether it’s salsa, cumbia, merengue, or hip-hop, funk or whatever, it’s that crazy blend that’s going on between that cacophony of sound is Ozomatli, y’know?” And if you dance your way through one of their almost two hour sets, you will see that this is the perfect description. The band has varied in size since its inception in 1995. Thursday night’s shows featured seven members that included the core six found in every incarnation.

Over the course of an 18-song set, the band bounded from rock to soul to funk to reggae to hip-hop to cumbia and back again. One really did feel as though they were making their way down Sunset. And while Asdru Sierra (lead vocals, trumpet), Raul Pacheco (lead vocals, guitar) and Justin Poree (rap vocals, percussion) led the band through their paces, the crowd got a taste of all sorts of genres. But never without a bit of rock to smack your ass while you were busy shakin’ it.

• Marc’s Ozomatli Videos:  Chango, Unknown, Cumbia de los Muertos, I’ll Take You There > After Party, Saturday Night, Ranch and Ozomatli Brings It To The Crowd

READ ON for more of Marc’s thoughts and photos on Ozomatli…